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 OUT-DOOR PAPERS. 
 
 I vol. i6mo. Price, $ ISO- 
 
 MALBONE : AN OLDPORT ROMANCE. 
 
 I vol. i6mo. Price, $1.50. 
 
 ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT. 
 
 I vol. i6mo. Price, $1.50. 
 
 ATLANTIC ESSAYS. 
 
 I vol. 161110. Price, $2.00. 
 
 •»• For sale by Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt 
 of price by the Publishers, 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston. 
 
OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 THOMAS WENTWOETH HIGGINSON. 
 
 WITH TEN HELIOTYPE ILLUSTEATI0N8, 
 From Views taken in Newport, R. /., expressly for this work. 
 
 J 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 Latb Ticxnor & Fields and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
 
 1873. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year ISTS, 
 
 BY JAMES R. OSGOOD * CO., 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 U.Niv-ERsiTY Press: Welch, Biceudw, & Co., 
 Cambridge. 
 
OOJ^TENTS. 
 
 — • — 
 
 Page 
 
 Oldport in Winter 11 
 
 Oldport Wharves 35 
 
 The Haunted Window 59 
 
 A Dkift-wood Fire 88 
 
 An Artist's Creation 114 
 
 In A Wherry 142 
 
 Madam Delia's Expectations 162 
 
 Sunshine and Petrarch 198 
 
 A Shadow 216 
 
 Footpaths 241 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Old Stone Mill frontispiece. 
 
 Old Houses by the Bay Page 35 
 
 Blue Rocks 39 
 
 Wreck at Brenton's Cove 88 
 
 Jewish Cemetekv 114 
 
 Hakbos 142 
 
 State House 1^^ 
 
 Bathing Beach 1^8 
 
 Fort Greene 216 
 
 Cliffs, from "Forty Footsteps" .... 241 
 
OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
Oldport Days. 
 
 OLDPOET IN" WINTER.. 
 
 OUR August life rushes by, in Oldport, as if 
 we were all shot from the mouth of a can- 
 non, and were endeavoring to exchange visiting- 
 cards on the way. But in September, when the 
 great hotels are closed, and the bronze dogs that 
 guarded the portals of the Ocean House are col- 
 lected sadly in the music pavilion, nose to nose ; 
 when the last four-in-hand has departed, and a 
 man may drive a solitary horse on the avenue 
 without a pang, — then we know that " the sea- 
 son" is over. -Winter is yet several months away, 
 — months of the most delicious autumn weather 
 that the American climate holds. Rut to the 
 human bird of passage all that is not summer is 
 winter ; and those who seek Oldport most eagerly 
 
12 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 for two months are often those who regard it as 
 uninhabitable for the otlier ten. 
 
 The Persian poet Saadi says that in a certain 
 region of Armenia, wliere he travelled, people 
 never died the natural death. But once a year 
 they met on a certain plain, and occupied them- 
 selves with recreation, in the midst of which indi- 
 viduals of every rank and age would suddenly 
 stop, make a reverence to the west, and, setting 
 out at full speed toward that part of the desert, be 
 seen no more. It is quite in this fashion that 
 guests disappear from Oldport wlien the season 
 ends. They also are apt to go toward the west, 
 but by steamboat. It is pathetic, on occasion of 
 each annual bereavement, to observe the wonted 
 looks and language of despair among those wlio 
 linger behind ; and it needs some fortitude to 
 think of spending the winter near such a "Wharf 
 of Sighs. 
 
 But we console ourselves. Each season brings 
 its own attractions. In summer one may relish 
 what is new in Oldport, as the liveries, the in- 
 comes, the mannei-s. There is often a delicious 
 freshness about these exhibitions ; it is a pleasure 
 
OLDPORT IN WINTER. 13 
 
 to see some opulent citizen in his first kid gloves. 
 His new-born splendor stands in sucli brilliant 
 relief against the confirmed respectability of the 
 " Old Stone ]\Iill," the only thing on the Atlantic 
 shore which has had time to forget its birthday ! 
 But in winter the Old Mill gives the tone to the 
 society around it ; we then bethink ourselves of 
 the crown upon our Trinity Church steeple, and 
 resolve that the courtesies of a bygone age shall 
 yet linger here. Is there any other place in 
 America where gentlemen still take off their hats 
 to one another on the public promenade ? The 
 liat is here what it still is in Southern Europe, — 
 the lineal successor of the sword as the mark of 
 a gentleman. It is noticed that, in going from 
 Oldport to New York or Boston, one is liable to 
 be betrayed by an over-flourish of the hat, as is 
 an Arkansas man by a display of the bowie-knife. 
 Winter also imparts to these spacious estates a 
 dignity that is sometimes wanting in summer. 
 I like to stroll over them during this epoch of de- 
 sertion, just as once, when I happened to hold the 
 keys of a church, it seemed pleasant to sit, on a 
 week-day, among its empty pews. The silent 
 
14 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 walls appeared to hold the pure essence of the 
 prayers of a generation, ■while the routine and the 
 ennui had vanished all away. One may here do the 
 same with fashion as there with devotion, extractins? 
 its finer flavors, if such there be, unalloyed by vul- 
 garity or sin. In the winter I can fancy these fine 
 houses tenanted by a true nobility ; all the sons 
 are brave, and all the daughters virtuous. Tliese 
 balconies have heard the sighs of passion without 
 selfishness ; those cedarn alleys have admitted only 
 vows that were never broken. If the occupant of 
 the house be unknown, even by name, so much the 
 better. And fi'om homes more familiar, what 
 lovely childish faces seem still to gaze from the 
 doorways, — what graceful Absences (to borrow a 
 certain poet's phrase) are haunting those windows ! 
 There is a sense of winter quiet that makes a 
 stranger soon feel at home in Oldport, while the 
 prospective stir of next summer precludes all feel- 
 ing of stagnation. Commonly, in quiet places, one 
 suffers from the knowledge that everybody would 
 prefer to be unquiet ; but nobody has any such 
 longing here. Doubtless there are aged persons 
 who deplore the good old times when the Oldport 
 
OLDPORT IN WINTER. 15 
 
 mail-bags were larger than those arriving at New 
 York. But if it were so now, what memories 
 would there be to talk about ? If you wish for 
 " Syrian peace, immortal leisure," — a place where 
 no grown person ever walks rapidly along the 
 street, and where few care enough for rain to 
 open an umbrella or walk faster, — come here. 
 
 My abode is on a broad, sunny street, with a 
 few great elms overhead, and with large old houses 
 and grass-banks opposite. There is so little snow 
 that the outlook in the depth of winter is often 
 merely that of a paler and leafless summer, and a 
 soft, springlike sky almost always spreads above. 
 Past the window streams an endless sunny pano- 
 rama (for the house fronts the chief thoroughfare 
 between country and town), — relics of summer 
 equipages in faded grandeur ; great, fragrant hay- 
 carts ; vast moving mounds of golden straw ; 
 loads of crimson onions ; heaps of pale green 
 cabbages ; piles of gray tree-prunings, looking as 
 if the patrician trees were sending their super- 
 fluous wealth of branches to enrich the impov- 
 erished orchards of the Poor Farm ; wagons of 
 sea-weed just from the beach, with bright, moist 
 
16 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 hues, and dripping with sea-water and sea-mem- 
 ories, each Aveed an argosy, bearing its own wild 
 histories. At tliis season, the very houses move, 
 and roll slowly by, looking round for more lucra- 
 tive quarters next season. Never have I seen real 
 estate made so transportable as in Oldport. The 
 purchaser, after finishing and furnishing to his 
 fancy, puts his name on the door, and on the fence 
 a large white placard inscribed " For sale." Then 
 his household arrangements are complete, and he 
 can sit down to enjoy himself. 
 
 By a side-glance from our window, one may 
 look down an ancient street, which in some early 
 epoch of the world's freshness received the name 
 of Spring Street. A certain lively lady, addicted 
 to daring Scriptural interpretations, thinks that 
 there is some mistake in the current versions of 
 Genesis, and that it was Spring Street which 
 was created in the beginning, and the heavens 
 and earth at some subsequent period. There are 
 houses in Spring Street, and there is a confec- 
 tioner's shop; but it is not often that a sound 
 comes across its rugged pavements, save perchance 
 (in summer) the drone of an ancient hand-organ, 
 
OLDPORT IN WINTER. 17 
 
 such as might have been devised by Adam to con- 
 sole his Eve when Paradise was lost. Yet of late 
 the desecrating hammer and the ear-piercing saw 
 have entered that haunt of ancient peace. May it 
 be long ere any such invasion reaches those strange 
 little wharves in the lower town, full of small, black, 
 gambrel-roofed houses, witli projecting eaves that 
 might almost serve for piazzas. It is possible for 
 an nnpainted wooden building to assume, in this 
 climate, a more time-woru aspect than that of any 
 stone ; and on these wharves everything is so old, 
 and yet so stunted, you might fancy that the 
 houses had been sent down there to play during 
 their childhood, and that nobody had ever remem- 
 bered to fetch them back. 
 
 The ancient aspect of things around us, joined 
 with the softening influences of the Gulf Stream, 
 imparts an air of chronic languor to the special 
 types of society which here prevail in winter, — 
 as, for instance, people of leisure, trades-people 
 living on their summer's gains, and, finally, fisher- 
 men. Those who pursue this last laborious call- 
 ing are always lazy to the eye, for they are on 
 shore only in lazy moments. They work by night 
 
18 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 or at early dawn, and by day they perhaps lie 
 about on the rocks, or sit upon one heel beside a 
 fish-house door. I knew a missionary who resigned 
 his post at the Isles of Shoals because it was im- 
 possible to keep the Sunday worshippers from ly- 
 ing at full length on the seats. Our boatmen have 
 the same habit, and there is a certain dreaminess 
 about them, in whatever posture. Indeed, they 
 remind one quite closely of the German boatman 
 in Uhland, who carried his reveries so far as to 
 accept three fees from one passenger. 
 
 But the truth is, that in Oldport we all incline to 
 the attitude of repose. Now and then a man comes 
 here, from farther east, with the Xew England fever 
 in his blood, and with a pestilent desire to do some- 
 thing. You hear of him, presently, proposing that 
 the Town Hall should be repainted. Opposition 
 would require too much effort, and the thing is 
 done. But the Gulf Stream soon takes its revenge 
 on the intruder, and gradually repaints him also, 
 with its own soft and mellow tints. In a few 
 years he would no more bestir himself to fight for 
 a change than to fight against it. 
 
 It makes us smile a little, therefore, to observe 
 
OLDPORT IN WINTER. 19 
 
 that universal delusion among the summer visitors, 
 that we spend all winter in active preparations for 
 next season. Xot so ; we all devote it solely to 
 meditations on the season past. I observe that 
 nobody in Oldport ever believes in any coming 
 summer. Perhaps the tide is turned, we think, 
 and people will go somewhere else. You do not 
 find us altering our houses in December, or build- 
 ing out new piazzas even in March. We wait till 
 the people have actually come to occupy them. 
 The preparation for visitors is made after the 
 visitors have arrived. This may not be the way 
 in which things are done in what are called 
 " smart business places." But it is our way in 
 Oldport. 
 
 It is another delusion to suppose that we are 
 bored by this long epoch of inactivity. Not at 
 all ; we enjoy it. If you enter a shop in winter, 
 you will find everybody rejoiced to see you — as a 
 friend ; but if it turns out that you have come as 
 a customer, people will look a little disappointed. 
 It is rather inconsiderate of you to make such 
 demands out of season. Winter is not exactly 
 the time for that sort of thing. It seems rather to 
 
20 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 violate the conditions of the truce. Could you 
 not postpone the affair till next July ? Every 
 country has its customs ; I observe that in some 
 places, New York for instance, the shopkeepers 
 seem rather to enjoy a " field-day " when the sun 
 and the customers are out. In Oldport, on the 
 contrary, men's spirits droop at such times, and 
 they go through their business sadly. They force 
 themselves to it during the summer, perhaps, — 
 for one must make some sacrifices, — but in win- 
 ter it is inappropriate as strawberries and cream. 
 
 The same spirit of repose pervades the streets. 
 Nobody ever looks in a hurry, or as if an hour's 
 delay would affect the thing in hand. The near- 
 est approach to a mob is when some stranger, 
 thinking himself late for the train (as if the thing 
 were possible), is tempted to run a few steps along 
 the sidewalk. On such an occasion I have seen 
 doors open, and heads thrust out. But ordinarily 
 even the physicians drive slowly, as if they 
 wished to disguise tlieir profession, or to soothe 
 the nerves of some patient who may be gazing 
 from a window. 
 
 Yet they are not to be censured, since Death, 
 
OLDPORT IX WINTER. 21 
 
 their antagonist, here drives slowly too. The 
 number of the aged among us is surprising, and 
 explains some phenomena otherwise strange. You 
 will notice, for instance, that there are no posts 
 before the houses in Oldport to which hoi-ses may- 
 be tied. Fashionable visitors might infer that 
 every horse is supposed to be attended by a groom. 
 Yet the tradition is, that there were once as many 
 posts here as elsewhere, but that they were re- 
 moved to get rid of the multitude of old men 
 who leaned all day against them. It obstructed 
 the passing. And these aged citizens, while per- 
 mitted to linger at their posts, were gossiping 
 about men still older, in earthly or heavenly habi- 
 tations, and the sensation of longevity went on 
 accumulating indefinitely in their talk. Their 
 very disputes had a flavor of antiquity, and in- 
 volved the reputation of female relatives to the 
 third or fourth generation. An old fisherman tes- 
 tified in our Police Court, the other day, in nar- 
 rating the progress of a street quarrel: "Then I 
 called him ' Polly Carter,' — that 's his grand- 
 mother ; and he called me ' Susy Picynolds,' — 
 that 's my aunt that 's dead and gone." 
 
22 OLDrOUT DAYS. 
 
 In towns like this, from which the young men 
 mostly migrate, the work of life devolves upon 
 the venerable and the very young. When I first 
 came to Oldport, it appeared to me that every in- 
 stitution was conducted by a boy and his grand- 
 fatlier. Tliis seemed the case, for instance, with 
 the bank that consented to assume the slender 
 responsibility of my deposits. It was further to 
 be observed, that, if the elder oflicial was absent 
 for a day, tlie boy carried on the proceedings un- 
 aided ; while if the boy also wished to amuse him- 
 self elsewhere, a worthy neighbor from across the 
 way came in to fill the places of both. Seeing this, 
 I retained my small hold upon the concern with 
 fresh tenacity ; for who knew but some day, when 
 the directors also had gone on a picnic, the senior 
 depositor might take his turn at the helm ? It 
 may savor of self-confidence, but it has always 
 seemed to me, that, with one day's control of a 
 bank, even in tliese degenerate times, something 
 might be done which would quite astonish tlie 
 stockholders. 
 
 Longer acquaintance has, however, revealed the 
 fact, that these Oldport institutions stand out as 
 
OLDPORT IN WINTER. 23 
 
 models of strict discipline beside their suhurban 
 comi5eers. A friend of mine declares that he 
 went lately into a country bank, near by, and 
 found no one on duty. Being of opinion that 
 there should always be some one behind tlie coun- 
 ter of a bank, he went there himself "Wishing 
 to be informed as to the resources of liis establish- 
 ment, he explored desks and vaults, found a good 
 deal of paper of different kinds, and some rich 
 veins of copper, but no cashier. Going to the 
 door again in some anxiety, he encountered a cas- 
 ual school-boy, who kindly told him that he did 
 not know wliere the financial officer might be at 
 the precise moment of inquiry, but that half an 
 liour before he was on the wharf, fishiny;. 
 
 Death comes to the aged at last, however, even 
 in Oldport. We have lately lost, for instance, 
 that patient old postman, serenest among our hu- 
 man antiquities, wliose deliberate tread might 
 have imparted a tone of repose to Broadway, could 
 any imagination have transferred him thither. 
 Througli him the correspondence of other days 
 came softened of all immediate solicitude. Ere 
 it reached you, friends had died or recovered, 
 
24 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 debtors had repented, creditors grown Icind, or 
 your children had paid your debts. Perils had 
 passed, hopes were chastened, and the most eager 
 expectant took calmly the missive from that tran- 
 quillizing hand. JNIeeting his friends and clients 
 with a step so slow that it did not even stop 
 rapidly, he, like Tennyson's Mariana, slowly 
 
 " From his bosom drew 
 Old letters." 
 
 But a summons came at last, not to be postponed 
 even by him. One day he delivered his mail as 
 usual, with no undue precipitation ; on the next, 
 tlie blameless soul was himself taken and for- 
 warded on some celestial route. 
 
 Irreparable woidd have seemed his loss, did 
 there not still linger among us certain types of 
 human antiquity that might seem to disprove the 
 fabled youth of America. One veteran I daily 
 meet, of uncertain age, perhaps, but with at least 
 that air of brevet antiquity which long years of 
 unruffled indolence can give. He looks as if he 
 had spent at least half a lifetime on the sunny 
 slope of some beach, and the other half in leaning 
 upon his elbows at the window of some sailor 
 
OLDPORT IN WINTER. 25 
 
 boarding-house. He is hale and broad, with a 
 head sunk between two strong shoulders; his 
 beard falls like snow upon his breast, longer and 
 longer each year, \vhile his slumberous thoughts 
 seem to move slowly enough to watch it as it 
 groM's. I always fancy that these meditations 
 have drifted far astern of the times, but are fol- 
 lowing after, in patient hopelessness, as a dog 
 swims behind a boat. What knows he of the Pres- 
 ident's ^lessage ? He has just overtaken some 
 remarkable catch of mackerel in the year thirty- 
 eight. His hands lie buried fathom-deep in his 
 pockets, as if part of his brain lay there to be 
 rummaged ; and he sucks at his old pipe as if his 
 head, like other venerable hulks, must be smoked 
 out at intervals. His walk is that of a sloth, 
 one foot dragging heavily behind the other, I 
 meet him as I go to the post-office, and on return- 
 ing, twenty minutes later, I pass him again, a 
 little farther advanced. All the children accost 
 him, and I have seen him stop — no great retarda- 
 tion indeed — to fondle in his arms a puppy or 
 a kitten. Yet he is liable to excitement, in his 
 way ; for once, in some high debate, wherein he 
 2 
 
26 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 assisted as listener, when one old man on a wharf 
 was doubting the assertion of another old man 
 about a certain equinoctial gale, I saw my friend 
 draw his right hand slowly and painfully from his 
 pocket, and let it fall hy his side. It Mas really 
 one of the most emphatic gesticulations I ever saw, 
 and tended obviously to quell the rising discord. 
 It was as if the herald at a tournament had 
 dropped his truncheon, and the fray must end. 
 
 Women's faces are apt to take from old age a 
 finer touch than those of men, and poverty does 
 not interfere with this, where there is no actual 
 exposure to the elements. From the windoAvs of 
 these old houses there often look forth delicate, 
 faded countenances, to which belongs an air of 
 unmistakable refinement. Xowhere in America, 
 I fancy, does one see such counterparts of the re- 
 duced gentlewoman of England, — as described, 
 for instance, in " Cranford," — quiet maiden ladies 
 of seventy, Avith perhaps a tradition of beauty and 
 bellehood, and still Avearing always a bit of blue 
 ribbon on their once golden curls, — this head- 
 dress being still carefully arranged, each day, by 
 some handmaiden of sixty, so long a house-mate 
 
OLDPOHT IN WINTER. 27 
 
 as to seem a sister, though some faint suggestion 
 of wages and subordination may be still preserved. 
 Among these ladies, as in " Cranford," there is a 
 dignified reticence in respect to money-matters, 
 and a courteous blindness to the small economies 
 practised by each other. It is not held good- 
 breeding, when they meet in a shop of a morning, 
 for one to seem to notice what another buys. 
 
 These ancient ladies have coats of arms upon 
 their walls, hereditary damasks among their scanty 
 wardrobes, store of domestic traditions in their 
 brains, and a whole Court Guide of high-sounding 
 names at their fingers' ends. They can tell you 
 of the supposed sister of an English queen, who 
 married an American officer and dwelt in Oldport ; 
 of the Scotch Lady Janet, who eloped with her 
 tutor, and here lived in poverty, paying her wash- 
 erwoman with costly lace from her trunks ; of the 
 Oldport dame who escaped from France at the 
 opening of the Eevolution, was captured by pi- 
 rates on her voyage to America, then retaken by a 
 privateer and carried into Boston, where she took 
 refuge in John Hancock's house. They can describe 
 to you the Malbone Gardens, and, as the night 
 
28 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 wanes and the embers fade, can give the tale of the 
 Phantom of Eough Point. Gliding farther and 
 farther into the past, they revert to the brilliant 
 historic period of Oldport, the successive English 
 and French occupations during our Eevolution, 
 and show you gallant inscriptions in honor of their 
 grandmothers, written on the window-panes by the 
 diamond rings of the foreign officers. 
 
 The newer strata of Oldport society are formed 
 chiefly by importation, and have the one advan- 
 tage of a variety of origin AA'hich puts provincial- 
 ism out of the question. The mild winter climate 
 and the supposed cheapness of living draw scat- 
 tered families from the various Atlantic cities ; 
 and, coming from such different sources, these vis- 
 itors leave some exclusiveness behind. The boast 
 of heraldry, the pomp of power, are doubtless good 
 things to have in one's house, but are cumbrous to 
 travel with. Meeting here on central ground, par- 
 tial aristocracies tend to neutralize each other. 
 A Boston family comes, bristling with genealogies, 
 and making the most of its little all of two centu- 
 ries. Another arrives from Philadelphia, equally 
 fortified in local heraldries unknown in Boston. 
 
OLDPOET IN WINTER. 29 
 
 A third from New York brings a briefer pedigi-ee, 
 but more gilded. Their claims are incompatible ; 
 but there is no common standard, and so neither 
 can have precedence. Since no human memory- 
 can retain the great-grandmothers of three cities, 
 we are practically as M'ell off as if we had no 
 great-grandmothers at all. 
 
 But in Oldport, as elsewhere, tlie spice of con- 
 versation is apt to be in inverse ratio to family- 
 tree and income-tax, and one can hear better 
 repartees among the boat-builders' shops on Long 
 "Wharf than among those who have made the 
 grand tour. All the world over, one is occasionally 
 reminded of the French officer's verdict on the 
 garrison town wliere he was quartered, that the 
 good society was no better than the good society 
 anywhere else, but the bad society was capital. I 
 like, for instance, to watch the shoals of fishermen 
 tliat throng our streets in the early spring, inap- 
 propriate as porpoises on land, or as Scott's pirates 
 in peaceful Kirkwall, — unwieldy, bearded crea- 
 tures in oil-skin suits, — men who have never 
 before seen a basket-wagon or a liveried groom, 
 and whose first comments on the daintinesses of 
 
30 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 fashion are far more racy than anything which 
 fashion can say for itself 
 
 The life of our own fishermen and pilots remains 
 active, in its way, all Avinter ; and coasting vessels 
 come and go in the open harbor every day. The 
 only schooner that is not so employed is, to my 
 eye, more attractive than any of them ; it is our 
 sole winter guest, this year, of all the graceful 
 flotilla of yachts that helped to make our summer 
 moonlights so charming. While Europe seems in 
 such ecstasy over the ocean yacht-race, there lies 
 at anchor, stripped and dismantled, a vessel which 
 was excluded from the match,' it is said, simply 
 because neither of the three competitors would 
 have had a chance against her. I like to look 
 across the harbor at the graceful proportions of 
 this uncroM'ned victor in the race she never ran ; 
 and to my eye her laurels are the most attractive. 
 She seems a fit emblem of the genius that waits, 
 while talent merely wins. " Let me know," said 
 that fine, but unappreciated thinker, Brownlee 
 Brown, — " let me know what chances a man has 
 passed in contempt ; not what he has made, but 
 what he has refused to make, reserving himself for 
 hiirher ends." 
 
OLDPOHT IN WINTKR. 31 
 
 All out-door \voi'k in winter has a cheerful look, 
 from the triumph of caloric it implies ; but I know 
 none in which man seems to revert more to the 
 lower modes of being than in searching for sea- 
 clams. One may sometimes observe a dozen men 
 employed in this way, on one of our beaches, 
 while the cold wind blows keenly off shore, and 
 the spray drifts back like snow over the green and 
 sluggish surge. The men pace in and out with the 
 wave, going steadily to and fro like a pendulum, 
 ankle-deep in the chilly brine, their steps quick- 
 ened by hope or slackening with despair. Where 
 the maidens and children sport and shout in sum- 
 mer, there in winter these heavy figures succeed. 
 To them the lovely crest of the emerald billow is 
 but a chariot for clams, and is valueless if it comes 
 in empty. Really, the position of the clam is the 
 more dignified, since he moves only with the wave, 
 and the immortal being in fish-boots wades for 
 him. 
 
 The harbor and the beach are thus occupied in 
 winter ; but one may walk for many a mile along 
 the cliffs, and see nothing human but a few gar- 
 deners, spreading green and white sea-weed as 
 
32 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 manure upon the lawns. The mercury rarely drops 
 to zero here, and there is little snow ; but a new- 
 fallen drift has just the same virgin beauty as 
 farther inland, and when one suddenly comes in 
 view of the sea beyond it, there is a sensation of 
 summer softness. The water is not then deep 
 blue, but pale, with opaline reflections. Vessels 
 in the far horizon have the same delicate tint, as 
 if woven of the same liquid material. A single 
 wave lifts itself languidly above a reef, — a white- 
 breasted loon floats near the shore, — the sea 
 breaks in long, indolent curves, — the distant 
 islands swim in a vague mirage. Along the cliffs 
 hang great organ-pipes of ice, distilling showers 
 of drops that glitter in the noonday sun, while the 
 barer rocks send up a perpetual steam, giving to 
 the eye a sense of \\'armth, and suggesting the 
 comforts of fire. Beneath, the low tide reveals 
 long stretches of golden-brown sea-weed, caressed 
 by the lapping wave. 
 
 High winds bring a different scene. Sometimes 
 I fancy that in winter, with less visible life upon 
 the surface of the water, and less of unseen 
 animal life below it, there is yet more that seems 
 
OLDPORT IN" WINTER. 33 
 
 like vital force in the individual particles of waves. 
 Each separate drop appears more charged with 
 desperate and determined life. The lines of surf 
 run into each other more brokenly, and with less 
 steady roll. The low sun, too, lends a weird and 
 jagged shadow to gallop in before the crest of each 
 advancing wave, and sometimes there is a second 
 crest on the shoulders of the first, as if there were 
 more than could be contained in a single curve. 
 Greens and purples are called forth to replace the 
 prevailing blue. Far out at sea great, separate 
 mounds of water rear themselves, as if to overlook 
 the tossing plain. Sometimes these move onward 
 and subside with their green hue still unbroken, 
 and again they curve into detached hillocks of 
 foam, white, multitudinous, side by side, not ridged, 
 but moving on like a mob of white horses, neck 
 overarching neck, breast crowded against breast. 
 
 Across those tumultuous waves I like to watch, 
 after sunset, the revolving light ; there is some- 
 thing about it so delicate and human. It seems to 
 bud or bubble out of the low, dark horizon ; a 
 moment, and it is not, and then another moment, 
 and it is. With one throb the tremulous licfht is 
 
 2* c 
 
34 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 born ; with another throb it has reached its full 
 size, and looks at you, coy and defiant ; and almost 
 in that instant it is utterly gone. You cannot 
 conceive yourself to be watching something which 
 merely turns on an axis ; but it seems suddenly to 
 expand, a ilower of light, or to close, as if soft 
 petals of darkness clasped it in. During its mo- 
 ments of absence, the eye cannot quite keep the 
 memory of its precise position, and' it often ap- 
 pears a hair-breadth to the right or left of tlie 
 expected spot. This enhances the elfish and fan- 
 tastic look, and so the pretty game goes on, with 
 flickering surprises, every night and all night long. 
 But the illusion of the seasons is just as coquettish ; 
 and when next summer comes to us, with its 
 blossoms and its joys, it will dawn as softly out 
 of the darkness and as softly give place to winter 
 once more. 
 
*'l^' 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 
 
 TTIYERY one who comes to a wharf feels an 
 -^ impulse to follow it clown, and look from 
 the end. There is a fascination about it. It is 
 the point of contact between land and sea. A 
 bridge evades the water, and unites land with 
 land, as if there were no obstacle. But a wharf 
 seeks the water, and grasps it with a solid hand. 
 It is the sign of a lasting friendship ; once ex- 
 tended, there it remains ; the water embraces it, 
 takes it into its tumultuous bosom at high tide, 
 leaves it in peace at ebb, rushes back to it eagerly 
 again, plays with it in sunshine, surges round it in 
 storm, almost crushing the massive thing. But 
 the pledge once given is never withdrawn. Build- 
 ings may rise and fall, but a solid wharf is almost 
 indestructible. Even if it seems destroyed, its 
 materials are all there. This shore might be 
 swept away, these piers be submerged or dashed 
 
36 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 asunder, still every brick and stone would remain. 
 Half the wharves of Oldport were ruined in the 
 great storm of 1815. Yet not one of them has 
 stirred from the place where it lay ; its founda- 
 tions have only spread more widely and firmly ; 
 they are a part of the very pavement of the har- 
 bor, submarine mountain ranges, on one of which 
 yonder schooner now lies aground. Thus the wild 
 ocean only punished itself, and has been embar- 
 rassed for half a century, like many another mad 
 profligate, by the ^vrecks of what it ruined. 
 
 Yet the surges are wont to deal very tenderly 
 with these wharves. In summer the sea decks 
 them with floating weeds, and studs them with an 
 armor of shells. In the winter it surrounds them 
 with a smoother mail of ice, and the detached 
 piles stand white and gleaming, like the out-door 
 palace of a Eussian queen. How softly and 
 eagerly this coming tide swirls round them ! All 
 day the fishes haunt their shadows ; all night the 
 phosphorescent water glimmers by them, and 
 washes with long, refluent waves along their sides, 
 decking their blackness with a spray of stars. 
 
 Water seems the natural outlet and discharge 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 37 
 
 for every landscape, and when we have followed 
 down this artificial promontory, a wharf, and have 
 seen the waves on three sides of us, we have taken 
 the first step toward circumnavigating the globe. 
 This is our last terra Jirma. One step farther, and 
 there is no possible foothold but a deck, which tilts 
 and totters beneath our feet. A wharf, therefore, is 
 properly neutral ground for all. It is a silent hos- 
 pitality, understood by all nations. It is in some 
 sort a thing of universal ownership. Having once 
 built it, you must grant its use to every one ; it is 
 no trespass to land upon any man's wharf. 
 
 The sea, like other beautiful savage creatures, 
 derives most of its charm from its reserves of un- 
 tamed power. When a wild animal is subdued to 
 abjectness, all its interest is gone. The ocean is 
 never thus humiliated. So slight an advance of 
 its waves would overwhelm us, if only the re- 
 straining power once should fail, and the water 
 keep on rising ! Even here, in these safe haunts 
 of commerce, we deal with the same salt tide 
 which I myself have seen ascend above these 
 piers, and which within half a century drowned a 
 whole family in their home upon our Long Wharf 
 
38 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 It is still the same ungoverned ocean "vvliicli, twice 
 ill every twenty-four hours, reasserts its right of 
 way, and stops only where it will. At Monckton, 
 on the Bay of Fundy, the wharves are built forty 
 feet high, and at ebb-tide you may look down on 
 the schooners lying aground upon the mud below. 
 In six hours they will be floating at your side. 
 But the motions of the tide are as resistless 
 whether its rise be six feet or forty; as in the 
 lazy stretching of the caged lion's paw you can 
 see all the terrors of his spring. 
 
 Our principal wharf, the oldest in the town, has 
 lately been doubled in size, and quite transformed 
 in shape, by an importation of broad acres from 
 the country. It is now what is called " made 
 land," — a manufacture which has grown so easy 
 that I daily expect to see some enterprising con- 
 tractor set up endwise a bar of railroad iron, and 
 construct a new planet at its summit, which sliall 
 presently go spinning off into space and be called 
 an asteroid. There are some people whom it 
 would be pleasant to colonize in that way; but 
 meanwhile the unchanged southern side of the pier 
 seems j)leasanter, with its boat-builders' shops. 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 39 
 
 all facing sunward, — a clieerful haunt upon a 
 winter's day. On the early maps this wharf ap- 
 pears as " Queen-Hitlie," a name more graceful 
 than its present cognomen. " Hithe " or " Hythe " 
 signifies a small harbor, and is the final syllable 
 of many English names, as of Lambeth. Hythe 
 is also one of those Cinque-Ports of which the 
 Duke of Wellington was warden. This wharf was 
 
 O 
 
 probably still familiarly called Queen-Hithe in 
 1781, when Washington and Rochambeau walked 
 its length bareheaded between the ranks of French 
 soldiers ; and it doubtless bore that name when 
 Dean Berkele}'- arrived in 1729, and the Eev. Mr. 
 Honyman and all his flock closed hastily their 
 prayer-books, and hastened to the landing to 
 receive their guest. But it had lost this name ere 
 the days, yet remembered by aged men, when the 
 Long Wharf became a market. Beeves were then 
 driven thither and tethered, while each hungry 
 applicant marked with a piece of chalk upon the 
 creature's side the desired cut; when a sufficient 
 portion had been thus secured, the sentence of 
 death was issued. Fancy the chalk a live coal, or 
 the beast endowed with human consciousness, and 
 
40 OLDrORT DAYS. 
 
 no Indian or Inquisitorial tortures could have been 
 more fearful. 
 
 It is like visiting the houses at Pompeii, to 
 enter the strange little black warehouses which 
 cover some of our smaller wharves. They are so 
 old and so small it seems as if some race of pyg- 
 mies nnist have built them. Thougli they are 
 two or three stories high, with steep gambrel-roofs, 
 and heavily timbered, their rooms are yet so low 
 that a man six feet high can hardly stand upright 
 beneath the great cross-beams. There is a row of 
 these structures, for instance, described on a map 
 of 1762 as "the old buildings on Lopez' Wharf," 
 and to these another century has probably brought 
 very little change. Lopez was a Portuguese Jew, 
 who came to this place, witli several hundred 
 others, after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. He is 
 said to have owned eighty square-rigged vessels in 
 this port, from which not one such craft now sails. 
 His little counting-room is in the second story of 
 the building ; its M'all-timbers are of oak, and are 
 still sound ; the few remaining planks are grained 
 to resemble rosewood and mahogany ; the fragments 
 of wall-paper are of English make. In the cross- 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 41 
 
 beam, just above your head, are the pigeon-holes 
 once devoted to difterent vessels, whose names are 
 still recorded above them on faded paper, — " Ship 
 Cleopatra," " Brig Juno," and the like. ]Many of 
 these vessels measured less than two hundred tons, 
 and it seems as if their owner had built his ships 
 to match the size of his counting-room. 
 
 A sterner tradition clings around an old build- 
 ing on a remoter wharf; for men have but lately 
 died who had seen slaves pass within its doors for 
 confinement. The wharf in those days appertained 
 to a distillery, an establishment then constantly 
 connected with the slave-trade, rum being sent to 
 Africa, and human beings brought back. Occa- 
 sionally a cargo was landed here, instead of being 
 sent to the West Indies or to South Carolina, and 
 this building was fitted up for their temporary 
 quarters. It is but some twenty-five feet square, 
 and must be less than thirty feet in height, yet it 
 is divided into three stories, of which the lowest 
 was used for other purposes, and the two upper 
 were reserved for slaves. There are still to be 
 seen the barred partitions and latticed door, mak- 
 ing half the second floor into a sort of cage, while 
 
42 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 the agent's room appears to have occupied the 
 other half. A similar latticed door — just such as 
 I have seen in Southern slave-pens — secures the 
 foot of the upper stairway. The whole small attic 
 constitutes a single room, with a couple of windows, 
 and two additional breathing-holes, two feet square, 
 opening on the yard. It makes one sick to think 
 of the poor creatures who may once have griped 
 those bars with their hands, or have glared with 
 eager eyes between them ; and it makes me recall 
 with delight the day when I once wrenched away 
 the stocks and chains from the floor of a pen like 
 this, on the St. ]\Iary's Eiver in Florida. It is al- 
 most forty years since this distillery became a mill, 
 and sixty since the slave-trade was abolished. The 
 date "1803 " is scrawled upon the door of the cage, 
 — the very year when the port of Charleston was 
 reopened for slaves, just before the traffic ceased. 
 A few years more, and such horrors will seem as 
 remote a memory in South Carolina, thank God ! 
 as in Ehode Island. 
 
 Other wharves are occupied by mast-yards, places 
 that seem like play-rooms for grown men, crammed 
 fuller than any old garret with those odds and ends 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 43 
 
 in wliieli the youtlit'ul soul delights. Tliere are 
 planks and spars and timber, broken rudders, rusty 
 anchors, coils of rope, bales of sail-cloth, heaps of 
 blocks, piles of chain-cable, great iron tar-kettles 
 like antique helmets, strange machines for steam- 
 ing planks, inexplicable little chimneys, engines 
 that seem like dwarf-locomotives, windlasses that 
 apparently turn nothing, and incipient canals that 
 lead nowhere. For in these yards there seems no 
 particular difference between land and water ; the 
 tide comes and goes anywhere, and nobody minds 
 it ; boats are drawn up among burdocks and am- 
 brosia, and the platform on which you stand sud- 
 denly proves to be something afloat. Vessels are 
 hauled upon the ways, each side of the wharf, their 
 poor ribs pitiably unclothed, ready for a cumbrous 
 mantua-making of oak and iron. On one side, 
 within a floating " boom, lies a fleet of masts and 
 unhewn logs, tethered uneasily, like a herd of cap- 
 tive sea-monsters, rocking in the ripples. A vast 
 shed, that has doubtless looked ready to fall for 
 these dozen years, spreads over half tlie entrance 
 to the wharf, and is filled with spars, knee-timber, 
 and planks of fragrant wood ; its uprights are 
 
44 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 festooned with all manner of great hawsers and 
 smaller ropes, and its dim loft is piled with empty 
 casks and idle sails. The sun always seems to 
 shine in a ship-yard ; there are apt to be more 
 loungers than laborers, and this gives a pleasant 
 air of repose ; the neighboring water softens all 
 harsher sounds, the foot treads upon an elastic 
 carpet of embedded chips, and pleasant resinous 
 odors are in the air. 
 
 Then there are wharves quite abandoned by 
 commerce, and given over to small tenements, 
 filled with families so abundant that they might 
 dispel the fears of those alarmists who suspect 
 that children are ceasing to be born. Shrill voices 
 resound there — American or Irish, as the case 
 may be — through the summer noontides ; and 
 the domestic clothes-line forever stretches across 
 the paths where imported slaves once trod, or 
 rich merchandise lay piled. Some of these 
 abodes are nestled in the corners of houses once 
 stately, with large windows and carven doorways. 
 Others occupy separate buildings, almost always of 
 black, unpainted ^\ood, sometimes with the long, 
 slojiing roof of Massachusetts, oftcner with the 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 45 
 
 quaint " garabrel " of Pihode Island. From the 
 busiest point of our main street, I can show you a 
 single cottage, with low gables, projecting eaves, 
 and sheltering sweetbrier, that seems as if it must 
 have strayed hither, a century or two ago, out of 
 some English lane. 
 
 Some of the more secluded wharves appear 
 wholly deserted by men and women, and are ten- 
 anted alone by rats and boys, — two amphibious 
 races ; eitlier can swim anywhere, or scramble and 
 penetrate everywhere. The boys launch some 
 abandoned skiff, and, with an oar for a sail and 
 another for a rudder, pass from wharf to wharf ; 
 nor would it be surprising if the bright-eyed rats 
 were to take similar passage on a shingle. Yet, 
 after all, the human juveniles are the more saga- 
 cious brood. It is strange that people should go 
 to Europe, and seek the society of potentates less 
 imposing, when home can endow them with the 
 occasional privilege of a nod from an American 
 boy. In these sequestered haunts, I frequently 
 meet some urchin three feet high who carries 
 with him an air of consummate worldly expe- 
 rience that completely overpowers me, and I seem 
 
46 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 to shrink to the dimensions of Tom Tlnimb. Be- 
 fore his calm and terrible glance all disguises fail. 
 You may put on a bold and careless air, and affect 
 to overlook him as you pass ; but it is like assum- 
 ing to ignore the existence of the Pope of Eome, 
 or of the London Times. He knows better. Grown 
 men are never very formidable ; they are shy and 
 shamefaced themselves, usually preoccupied, and 
 not very observing. If they see a man loitering 
 about, without visible aim, they class him as a 
 mild imbecile, and let him go ; but boys are 
 nature's detectives, and one does not so easily 
 evade their scrutinizing eyes. I know full well 
 that, while I study their ways, they are noting 
 mine through a clearer lens, and are probably tak- 
 ing my measure far better than I take theirs. One 
 instinctively shrinks from making a sketch or 
 memorandum w^hile they are by ; and if caught in 
 the act, one fondly hopes to pass for some harmless 
 speculator in real estate, whose pencillings may 
 be only a matter of habit, like those casual sums 
 in compound interest which are usually to be found 
 scrawled on the margins of the daily papers in 
 Boston reading-rooms. 
 
OLDrORT WHARVES. 47 
 
 Our wharves are almost all connected liy intri- 
 cate by-ways among the buildings ; and one almost 
 wishes to be a pirate or a smuggler, for the pleasure 
 of eluding the officers of justice through such se- 
 ductive paths. It is, perhaps, to counteract this 
 perilous fascination that our new police-office has 
 been established on a wharf You will see its 
 brick tower rising not ungracefully, as you enter 
 the inner harbor ; it looks the better for being al- 
 most windowless, though beauty was not the aim 
 of the omission. A curious stranger is said to 
 have asked one of our city fathers the reason of 
 this peculiarity. " No use in windows," said the 
 experienced official sadly ; " the boys would only 
 break 'em." It seems very unjust to assert that 
 there is ilo subordination in our American society ; 
 the citizens sliow deference to the police, and the 
 police to the boys. 
 
 The ancient aspect of these wharves extends 
 itself sometimes to the vessels which lie moored 
 beside tliem. At yonder pier, for instance, has 
 lain for thirteen years a decaying bark, whicli was 
 suspected of being engaged in the slave-trade. 
 She was run ashore and abandoned on Block 
 
48 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 Island, in the winter of 1854, and was afterwards 
 brought in here. Her purchaser was offered eight 
 thousand dollars for his bargain, but refused it ; 
 and here the vessel has remained, paying annual 
 wharf dues and charges, till she is worthless. She 
 lies chained at the wharf, and the tide rises and 
 falls witliin lier, thus furnishing a convenient 
 bathing-house for the children, who also find a 
 perpetual gymnasium in the broken shrouds that 
 dangle from her masts. Turner, when he painted 
 his " slave-ship," could have asked no better model. 
 There is no name upon the stern, and it exhibits 
 merely a carved eagle, with the wings clipped and 
 the head knocked off. Only the lower masts re- 
 main, which are of a dismal black, as are the tops 
 and mizzen cross-trees. Within the bulwarks, on 
 each side, stand rows of bUick blocks, to which 
 the shrouds were once attached ; these blocks are 
 called by sailors " dead-eyes," and each stands in 
 weird mockery, with its three ominous holes, like 
 so many human skulls before some palace in Da- 
 homey. Other blocks like these swing more omi- 
 nously yet at the ends of the shrouds, that still 
 hang suspended, waving and creaking and jostling 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 49 
 
 ill the wind. Each year tlie ropes decay, and soon 
 the repulsive pendants will be gone. Not so with 
 the iron belaying-pins, a few of which still stand 
 around the mast, so rusted into the iron fife-rail 
 that even the persevering industry of the children 
 cannot "svrench them out. It seems as if some 
 guilty stain must cling to their sides, and hold 
 them in. By one of those fitnesses which fortune 
 often adjusts, but which seem incredible in art, 
 the wharf is now used on one side for the storage 
 of slate, and the hulk is approached through an 
 avenue of gravestones. I never find myself in 
 that neighborhood but my steps instinctively seek 
 that condemned vessel, whether by day, when she 
 makes a dark foreground for the white yaclits and 
 the summer waves, or by night, when the storm 
 breaks over her desolate deck. 
 
 If we follow northward from " Queen-Hithe " 
 along the shore, we pass into a region w^here the 
 ancient wharves of commerce, ruined in 1815, 
 have never been rebuilt ; and only slender path- 
 ways for pleasure voyagers now stretcli above the 
 submerged foundations. Once the court end of 
 the town, then its commercial centre, it is now 
 
 3 D 
 
50 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 divided between the tenemerxts of fishermen and 
 the summer homes of city households. Still the 
 great old houses remain, with mahogany stairways, 
 carved wainscoting, and painted tiles ; the sea has 
 encroached upon their gardens, and only boats like 
 mine approach where English dukes and French 
 courtiers once landed. At . the head of yonder 
 private wharf, in that spacious and still cheerful 
 abode, dwelt the beautiful Robinson sisterhood, — 
 the three Quaker belles of Eevolutionary days, 
 the memory of whose loves might lend romance 
 to this neighborhood forever. One of these 
 maidens was asked in marriage by a captain in 
 the English army, and was banished by her family 
 to the Narragansett shore, under a flag of truce, to 
 avoid him ; her lover w^as afterward killed by a 
 cannon-ball, in liis tent, and she died unwedded. 
 Another was souglit by two aspirants, who came 
 in the same sliip to woo her, the one from Phila- 
 delphia, the other from New York. She refused 
 them both, and they sailed soutliward together ; 
 but, the wind. proving adverse, they returned, and 
 one lingered till he won her hand. Still another 
 lover was forced into a vessel by his friends, to 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 51 
 
 tear him from the enchanted neighborhood ; while 
 sailing past the house, he suddenly threw himself 
 into the water, — it must have been about where 
 the end of the wharf now rests, — that he might 
 be rescued, and carried, a passive Leander, into 
 yonder door. The house was first the head-quar- 
 ters of the English commander, then of the French ; 
 and the sentinels of De Noailles once trod where 
 now croquet-balls form the heaviest ordnance. 
 Peaceful and untitled guests now throng in sum- 
 mer where St. Vincents and North umberlands 
 once rustled and glittered ; and there is nothing to 
 recall those brilliant days except the painted tiles 
 on the chimney, where there is a choice society of 
 coquettes and beaux, priests and conjurers, beggars 
 and dancers, and every wig and hoop dates back 
 to the days of Queen Anne. 
 
 Sometimes when I stand upon this pier by night, 
 and look across the calm black water, so still, per- 
 haps, that the starry reflections seem to drop 
 through it in prolonged javelins of light instead 
 of resting on the surface, and the opposite light- 
 house spreads its cloth of gold across the bay, — 
 I can imagine that I discern the French and Eng- 
 
52 OLDPOllT DAYS. 
 
 lisli vessels just weighing anchor; I see De 
 Lauziin and De Noailles embarking, and catch 
 the last sheen upon their lace, the last glitter of 
 tlieir swords. It vanishes, and I see only the 
 lighthouse gleam, and the dark masts of a sunken 
 ship across the neighboring island. Those motion- 
 less spars have, after all, a nearer interest, and, as 
 I saw them sink, I will tell their tale. 
 
 That vessel came in here one day last August, 
 a stately, full-sailed bark ; nor was it known, till 
 she had anchored, that she was a mass of im- 
 prisoned fire below. She was the " Trajan," from 
 Rockland, bound to J^ew Orleans with a cargo of 
 lime, which took fire in a gale of wind, being wet 
 with sea-water as the vessel rolled. The captain 
 and crew retreated to the deck, and made the 
 hatches fast, leaving even their clothing and pro- 
 visions below. They remained on deck, after 
 reaching this harbor, till the planks grew too hot 
 beneatli their feet, and the water came boiling 
 from the pumps. Then the vessel was towed into 
 a depth of five fathoms, to be scuttled and sunk. 
 I watched her go down. Early impressions from 
 " Peter Parley " had portrayed the sinking of a 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 53 
 
 vessel as a frightful plunge, endangering all around, 
 like a maelstrom. The actual process was merely 
 a subsidence so calm and gentle that a child might 
 have stood upon the deck till it sank beneath him, 
 and then might have floated away. Instead of a 
 convulsion, it was something stately and very pa- 
 thetic to the imagination. The bark remained al- 
 most level, the bows a little higher than the stern ; 
 and her breath appeared to be surrendered in a 
 series of pulsations, as if every gasp of the lungs 
 admitted more of the suffocating wave. After each 
 long heave, she went visibly a few inches deeper, 
 and then paused. The face of the benign Em- 
 peror, her namesake, was on the stern ; first sank 
 the carven beard, then the rather mutilated nose, 
 then the white and staring eyes, that gazed blank- 
 ly over the engulfing waves. The figure-head was 
 Trajan again, at full length, with the costume of an 
 Indian hunter, and the face of a Roman sage ; this 
 image lingered longer, and then vanished, like 
 Victor Hugo's Gilliatt, by cruel gradations. Mean- 
 while the gilded name upon the taffrail had slowly 
 disappeared also ; but even when the ripples began 
 to meet across her deck, still her descent was 
 
54 OLDPORT DxVYS. 
 
 calm. As the water gained, the hidden fire was 
 extingiiishxed, and the smoke, at first densely rising, 
 grew rapidly less. Yet when it had stopped alto- 
 gether, and all but the top of the cabin had dis- 
 appeared, there came a new ebullition of steam, 
 like a hot spring, throwing itself several feet in 
 ail', and then ceasing. 
 
 As the vessel went down, several beams and 
 planks came springing endwise up the hatchway, 
 like liberated men. But nothing had a stranger 
 look to me than some great black casks which had 
 been left on deck. These, as the water floated 
 them, seemed to stir and wake, and to become 
 gifted with life, and then got into motion and wal- 
 lowed heavily about, like hippopotami or any un- 
 wieldy and bewildered beasts. At last the most 
 enterprising of them slid somehow to the bulwark, 
 and, after several clumsy efforts, shouldered itself 
 over ; then others bounced out, eagerly following, 
 as sheep leap a wall, and then they all went iDob- 
 bing away, over the dancing waves. For the wind 
 blew fresh meanwhile, and there were some twenty 
 sail-boats lying-to with reefed sails by the wreck, 
 like so many sea-birds ; and when the loose stuft' 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 55 
 
 began to be washed from the deck, they all took 
 wing at once, to save whatever could be picked up, 
 — since at such times, as at a conflagration on land, 
 every little thing seems to assume a value, — and 
 at last one young fellow steered boldly up to 
 the sinking ship itself, sprang upon the vanishing 
 taffrail for one instant, as if resolved to be the last 
 on board, and then pushed off again. I never 
 saw anything seem so extinguislied out of the 
 universe as that great vessel, which had towered 
 so colossal above my little boat ; it was impossible 
 to imagine that she was all there yet, beneath the 
 foaming and indifferent weaves. No effort has yet 
 been made fo raise her ; and a dead eagle seems to 
 have more in common with the living bird than 
 has now this submerged and decaying hulk with 
 the white and winged creature that came sailing 
 into ■ our harbor on that summer day. 
 
 It shows what conversational resources are 
 always at hand in a seaport town, that the boat- 
 man with whom I first happened to visit this 
 burning vessel had been thrice at sea on ships 
 similarly destroyed, and could give all the particu- 
 lars of their fate. I know no class of uneducated 
 
66 ^ OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 men A\hose talk is so apt to be worth hearing as 
 tliat of" sailors. Even apart from their personal 
 adventures and their glimpses at foreign lands, 
 they have made observations of nature which are 
 far more careful and minute than those of farmers, 
 because the very lives of sailors are always at risk. 
 Their voyages have also made them sociable and 
 fond of talk, while the pursuits of most men 
 tend to make them silent ; and their constant 
 changes of scene, though not touching them very 
 deeply, have really given a certain enlargement to 
 their minds. A quiet demeanor in a seaport town 
 proves nothing ; the most inconspicuous man may 
 have the most thrilling career to look back upon. 
 AVith what a superb familiarity do these men treat 
 this habitable globe ! Cape Horn and the Cape 
 of Good Hope are in their phrase but the West 
 Cape and the East Cape, merely two familiar 
 portals of their wonted home. With what undis- 
 guised contempt they speak of the enthusiasm 
 displayed over the ocean yacht-race ! That any 
 man should boast of crossing the Atlantic in a 
 schooner of two hundred tons, in presence of 
 those who have more than once reached the In- 
 
OLDPORT WHARVES. 57 
 
 diaii Ocean in a fishing-smack of fifty, and have 
 beaten in the homeward race tlie ships in whose 
 company they sailed ! It is not many years since 
 there was here a fishing-skipper, whose surname 
 M'as " Daredevil," and who sailed from this port to 
 all parts of the world, on sealing voyages, in a 
 sloop so small that she was popularly said to go 
 under water when she got outside the lights, and 
 never to reappear until she reached her port. 
 
 And not only those who sail on long voyages, 
 but even our local pilots and fishermen, still lead 
 an adventurous and untamed life, less softened 
 tlian any other by the appliances of modern days. 
 In their undecked boats they hover day and night 
 along these stormy coasts, and at any hour the 
 beating of the long-roll upon the beach may call 
 their full manhood into action. Cowardice is 
 sifted and crushed out from among them by a 
 pressure so constant ; and they are withal truthful 
 and steady in their ways, with few vices and many 
 virtues. They are born poor, and remain poor, for 
 their work is hard, with more blanks than prizes ; 
 but their life is a life for a man, and though it 
 makes them prematurely old, yet their old age 
 
58 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 comes peacefully and well. In almost all pursuits 
 the advance of years brings something forlorn. 
 It is not merely that the body decays, but that 
 men grow isolated and are pushed aside; there is 
 no common interest between age and youtli. The 
 old farmer leads a lonely existence, and ceases to 
 meet his compeers except on Sunday ; nobody 
 consults him ; his experience has been monot- 
 onous, and his age is apt to grow unsocial. The 
 old mechanic finds his tools and his methods su- 
 perseded by those of younger men. But the 
 superannuated fisherman graduates into an oracle ; 
 the longer he lives, the greater the dignity of his 
 experience ; he remembers the great storm, the 
 great tide, the great catch, the great shipwreck; 
 and on all emergencies his counsel has weight. 
 He still busies himself about the boats too, and 
 still sails on sunny days to show the youngsters 
 the best fishing-ground. When too infirm for 
 even this, he can at least sun himself beside the 
 landing, and, dreaming over inexhaustible memo- 
 ries, watch the bark of his own life go down. 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 
 
 IT was always a mystery to me where Severance 
 got precisely liis combination of qualities. His 
 father was simply what is called a handsome 
 man, with stately figure and curly black hair, not 
 without a certain dignity of manner, but witli a 
 face so shallow that it did not even seem to ripple, 
 and with a voice so prosy that, when he spoke of 
 the sky, you wished there were no such thing. 
 His mother was a fair, little, pallid creature, — 
 wash-blond, as tliey say of lace, — patient, meek, 
 and .always fatigued and fatiguing. But Sever- 
 ance, as I first knew him, was the soul of activity. 
 He had dark eyes, that had a great deal of light 
 in them, without corresponding depth; his hair 
 was dark, straight, and very soft ; his mouth ex- 
 pressed sweetness, without much strength; he 
 talked well ; and though lie was apt to have a 
 wandering look, as if his thoughts were laying a 
 
60 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 submarine cable to another continent, yet the 
 young girls were always glad to have the sem- 
 blance of conversation with him in this. To me 
 he was in tlie last degree lovable. He had just 
 enough of that subtile quality called genius, per- 
 haps, to spoil first his companions, and then him- 
 self. His words had weight with you, though you 
 might know yourself wiser ; and if you went to 
 give him the most reasonable advice, you were 
 suddenly seized w^ith a slight paralysis of the 
 tongue. Thus it was, at any rate, with me. We 
 were cemented therefore by the firmest ties, — a 
 nominal seniority on my part, and a substantial 
 supremacy on his. 
 
 We lodged one summer at an old house in 
 that odd suburb of Oldport called "The Point." 
 It is a sort of Artists' Quarter of the town, fre- 
 quented by a class of summer visitors more ad- 
 dicted to sailiniT and sketchin<j than to driving 
 
 o o o 
 
 and bowing, — persons who do not object to sim- 
 ple fare, and can live, as one of them said, on 
 potatoes and Point. Here Severance and I made 
 our summer home, basking in the delicious sun- 
 shine of the lovely bay. The bare outlines 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 61 
 
 around Oldport sometimes dismay the stranger, 
 but soon fascinate. Nowhere does one feel bare- 
 ness so little, because there is no sharpness of 
 perspective ; everything shimmers in the moist 
 atmosphere ; the islands are all glamour and mi- 
 rage ; and the undulating hills of tlie liorizon 
 seem each like the soft, arched back of some pet 
 animal, and you long to caress tliem with your 
 liand. At last your thoughts begin to swim 
 also, and pass into vague fancies, which you also 
 love to caress Severance and I were constantly 
 afloat, body and mind. He was a perfect sailor, 
 and had that dreaminess in his nature which 
 matches with nothing but the ripple of the waves. 
 Still, I could not hide from myself that he was a 
 changed man since that voyage in search of health 
 from which he had just returned. His mother 
 talked in her humdrum way about heart disease ; 
 and liis father, taking up the strain, bored us about 
 organic lesions, till we almost wished he had a 
 lesion himself. Severance ridiculed all this ; but 
 he grew more and more moody, and his eyes 
 seemed to be laying more submarine cables than 
 ever. 
 
62 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 When we were not on the water, we both liked 
 to mouse about the queer streets and quaint old 
 houses of that region, and to chat with the 
 fishermen and their grandmothers. There was 
 one house, however, which was very attractive to 
 me, — perhaps because nobody lived in it, and 
 which, for that or some other reason, he never 
 would approach. It was a great square building of 
 rough gray stone, looking like those sombre houses 
 which every one remembers in Montreal, but 
 which are rare in " the States." It had been built 
 many years before by some millionnaire from New 
 Orleans, and was left unfinished, nobody knew 
 why, till the garden was a wilderness of bloom, 
 and the windows of ivy. Oldport is the only 
 place in New England where either ivy or tra- 
 ditions will grow ; there were, to be sure, no 
 legends about this house that I could hear of, for 
 the ghosts in those parts were feeble-minded and 
 retrospective by reason of age,. and perhaps scorned 
 a mansion where nobody had ever lived ; but the 
 ivy clustered round the projecting windows as 
 densely as if it had the sins of a dozen generations 
 to hide. 
 
THR HAUNTED WINDOW. G3 
 
 The house stood just above wliat were com- 
 luonly called (from their slaty color) the Blue 
 Eocks ; it seemed the topmost pebble left by some 
 tide that had receded, — wliich perhaps it M'as. 
 Xurses and children thronged daily to these rocks, 
 during the visitors' season, and the fishermen 
 found there a favorite lounging-place ; but nobody 
 scaled the wall of the house save myself, and I 
 went there very often. The gate was sometimes 
 opened by Paul, the silent Bavarian gardener, who 
 was master of the keys ; and there were also 
 certain great cats .that were always sunning them- 
 selves on the steps, and seemed to have grown old 
 and gray in waiting for mice that had never come. 
 They looked as if they knew the past and the 
 future. If the owl is the bird of Minerva, the 
 cat should be her beast ; they have the same 
 sleepy air of unfathomable wisdom. There was 
 such a quiet and potent spell about the place that 
 one could almost fancy these constant animals to 
 be the transformed bodies of human visitors who 
 had stayed too long. "Who knew what tales might 
 be told by these tall, slender birches, clustering so 
 closely by the sombre walls ? — birches which 
 
64 OLDPOirr days. 
 
 were but wliispering shrubs when the first gray 
 stones were laid, and whicli now reared above the 
 ea\'es tlieir white stems and dark bouuhs, still 
 whispering and waiting till a few more years 
 should show them, across tlie roof, the topmost 
 blossoms of other birches on the other side. 
 
 Before the great western doorway spread the 
 outer harbor, whither the coasting vessels came to 
 drop anchor at any approach of storm. These 
 silent visitors, which arrived at dusk and went at 
 dawn, and from wliich no boat landed, seemed lit- 
 ting guests before the portals of tlie silent house. 
 I was never tired of watching them from the 
 piazza; but Severance always stayed outside the 
 wall. It was a whim of his, he said ; and once 
 only I got out of him something about the resem- 
 blance of the house to some Portuguese mansion, 
 — at Madeira, perhaps, or at Eio Janeiro, but he 
 did not say, — with which he had no pleasant as- 
 sociations. Yet he afterwards seemed to wish to 
 deny this remark, or to confuse my impressions of 
 it, which naturally fixed it the better in my mind. 
 
 I remember well the morning when lie was at 
 last coaxed into approaching the house. It was 
 
THK ILVUNTED WINDOW. G5 
 
 late in September, and a day of perfect calm. As 
 Ave looked from the broad piazza, there was a 
 glassy smoothness over all tlie bay, and the hills 
 were coated with a film, or rather a mere varnisli, 
 inconceivably thin, of haze more delicate than any 
 other climate in America can show. Over the 
 water there were white gulls flying, lazy and low ; 
 schools of young mackerel displayed their white 
 sides above the surface ; and it seemed as if even 
 a butterfly might be seen for miles over that calm 
 expanse. The bay was covered with mackerel- 
 boats, and one man sculled indolently across the 
 foreground a scarlet skiff. It was so still that 
 every white sail-boat rested where its sail was first 
 spread ; and though the tide was at half-ebb, the 
 anchored boats swung idly different Avays from 
 their moorings. Yet there was a continuous rip- 
 ple in the broad sail of some almost motionless 
 schooner, and there was a constant melodious 
 plash along the shore. From the mouth of the 
 bay came up slowly the premonitory line of bluer 
 water, and we knew that a breeze was near. 
 
 Severance seemed to rise in spirits as we ap- 
 proached the house, and I noticed no sign of 
 
66 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 shrinking, except an occasional lowering of tlie 
 voice. Seeing this, I ventured to joke him a little 
 on his previous reluctance, and he replied in the 
 same strain. I seated myself at the corner, and 
 began sketching old Fort Louis, while he strolled 
 along the piazza, looking in at the large, vacant 
 windows. As lie approached the fartlier end, I 
 suddenly heard him give a little cry of anlazement 
 or dismay, and, looking up, saw him leaning against 
 the wall, witli pale face and hands clenched, 
 
 A minute sometimes appears a long while ; and 
 though I sprang to him instantly, yet I remember 
 that it seemed as if, during that instant, the whole 
 face of things had changed. The breeze had come, 
 the bay was rippled, the sail-boats careened to the 
 wind, fishes and birds were gone, and a dark gray 
 cloud had come between us and the sun. Such 
 sudden changes are not, however, uncommon after 
 an interval of calm ; and my only conscious 
 thought at the time was of wonder at the strange 
 aspect of my companion. 
 
 " What was that ? " asked Severance in a be- 
 wildered tone. 
 
 I looked about n>e, equally puzzled. 
 
THE IIAUXTED WINDOW. G7 
 
 " Not there," he said. " In the window." 
 
 I looked in at the window, saw nothing, and 
 said so. There was the great empty drawing- 
 room, across which one could see the opposite 
 window, and through this the eastern piazza and 
 the. garden beyond. Nothing more was there. 
 With some persuasion. Severance was induced to 
 look in. He admitted that he saw nothing pecu- 
 liar ; but he refused all explanation, and we went 
 home. 
 
 '•' Never let me go to that house again," he said 
 abruptly, as we entered our own door. 
 
 I pointed out to him the absurdity of thus yield- 
 ing to a nervous delusion, which was already in 
 part conquered, and he finally promised to revisit 
 the scene with me the next day. To clear all pos- 
 sible misgivings from my own mind, I got the key 
 of the house from Paul, explored it thoroughly, and 
 was satisfied that no improper visitor had recently 
 entered the drawing-room at least, as the windows 
 were strongly bolted on the inside, and a large 
 cobweb, heavy with dust, liung across the doorway. 
 This did no great credit to Paul's stewardship, but 
 was, perhaps, a slight relief to me. Nor could I 
 
68 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 see a trace of anything nncanny outside the house. 
 When Severance went with me, next day, the 
 coast was equally clear, and I was glad to have 
 cured him so easily. 
 
 Unfortunately, it did not last. A few days 
 after, there was a brilliant sunset, after a storm, 
 with goi^eous yellow light slanting everywhere, 
 and the sun looking at us between bars of dark 
 purple cloud, edged with gold where they touched 
 the pale blue sky ; all this fading at last into a 
 great whirl of gray to the northward, with a cold 
 purple ground. At the height of the show, I 
 climbed the wall to my favorite piazza, and was 
 surprised to find Severance already there. 
 
 He sat facing the sunset, but with his head 
 sunk between his hands. At my approach, he 
 looked up, and rose to his feet. " Do not deceive 
 me any more," he said, almost savagely, and pointed 
 to the window. 
 
 I looked in, and must confess that, for a mo- 
 ment, I too was startled. There was a perceptible 
 moment of time during which it seemed as if no 
 possible philosophy could explain what appeared 
 in sight. Not that any object showed itself with- 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW, 69 
 
 in the great drawing-room^ but I distinctly saw — 
 across the apartment, and through the opposite 
 window — the dark figure of a man about liiy 
 own size, Avho leaned against the long window, 
 and gazed intently on me. Above him spread the 
 yellow sunset light, around him the birch-boughs 
 hung and the ivy-tendrils swayed, while behind 
 him there appeared a glimmering water-surface, 
 across which slowly drifted the tall masts of a 
 schooner. It looked strangely like a view I had 
 seen of some foreign harbor, — Amalfi, perhaps, 
 — with a vine-clad balcony and a single human 
 figure in the foreground. So real and startling 
 was the sight that at first it was not easy to re- 
 solve the whole scene into its component parts. 
 Yet it was simply such a confused mixture of real 
 and reflected images as one often sees from the 
 window of a railway carriage, where the mirrored 
 interior seems to glide beside the train, with the 
 natural landscape for a background. In this case, 
 also, the frame and foliage of the picture were 
 real, and all else was reflected ; the sunlit bay be- 
 hind us was reproduced as in a camera, and the 
 dark figure was but the full-length image of 
 myself. 
 
70 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 It was easy to explain all this to Severance, but 
 he shook his head. " So cool a philosopher as 
 yourself," he said, " should remember that this 
 image is not always visible. At our last visit, we 
 looked for it in vain. Wlien we first saw it, it 
 appeared and disappeared within ten minutes. 
 On your mechanical theory it should be other- 
 wise." 
 
 This staggered me for a moment. Tlien the 
 ready solution occurred, that the reflection de- 
 pended on the strength and direction of the light ; 
 and I proved to him that, in our case, it had ap- 
 peared and disappeared with the sunshine. He 
 was silenced, but evidently not convinced ; yet 
 time and common-sense, it seemed, would take 
 care of that. 
 
 Soon after all this, I was called out of town for 
 a week or two. If Severance would go wdth me, 
 it would doubtless complete the cure, I thought ; 
 but this he obstinately declined. After my de- 
 parture, my sister w'rote, he seemed absolutely to 
 haunt the empty house by the Blue Eocks. He 
 undoubtedly went here to sketch, she thought. 
 The house was in charge of a real-estate agent, — 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 71 
 
 a retired landscape-painter, whose pictures did not 
 sell so profitably as their originals ; and her the- 
 ory was, that this agent hoped to make our friend 
 buy the place, and so allured him there under pre- 
 tence of sketching. ]\Ioreover, she surmised, he 
 was studying some effect of shadow, because, un- 
 like most men, he appeared in decent spirits only 
 on cloudy days. It is always so easy to fit a man 
 out with a set of ready-made motives ! But I 
 drew my own conclusions, and was not surprised 
 to hear, soon after, that Severance was seriously 
 ill. 
 
 This brought me back at once, — sailing down 
 from Providence in an open boat, I remember, one 
 lovely moonlight night. Next day I saw Sev- 
 erance, who declared that he had suffered from 
 nothing worse than a prolonged sick-headache. I 
 soon got out of him all that had happened. He 
 had seen the figure in the window every sunny 
 day, he said. Of course he had, if he chose to 
 look for it, and I could only smile, though it 
 perhaps seemed unkind. But I stojjped smiling 
 when he went on to tell that, not satisfied with 
 these observations, he had visited the house by 
 
72 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 moonlight also, and had then seen, as he averred, 
 a second figure standing beside the first. 
 
 Of course, there was no defence against such a 
 theory as this, except simply to laugh it down ; 
 but it made me very anxious, for it showed that he 
 was growing thoroughly morbid. " Either it was 
 pure fancy," I said, " or it was Paul the gardener." 
 
 But here he was prepared for me. It seemed 
 that, on seeing the two figures. Severance had at 
 once left the piazza, and, with an instinct of com- 
 mon-sense that was surprising, had crossed the 
 garden, scaled the wall, and looked in at the win- 
 dow of Paul's little cottage, where the man and 
 his wife were quietly seated at supper, probably 
 after a late fishing-trip. " There was another rea- 
 son," he said ; but here he stopped, and would 
 give no description of the second figure, which he 
 had, however, seen twice again, always by moon- 
 light. He consented to let me accompany him the 
 following night. 
 
 We accordingly went. It was a calm, clear 
 night, and the moon lay brightly on the bay. Tlie 
 distant shores looked low and filmy ; a naVal 
 vessel was in the harbor, and there was a ball on 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 73 
 
 board, with music and fire-works ; some fishermen 
 were singing in their boats, late as was the hour. 
 Severance was absorbed in his own gloomy rever- 
 ies ; and when we had crossed the wall, the world 
 seemed left outside, and the glamour of the place 
 began to creep over me also. I seemed to see my 
 companion relapsing into some phantom realm, 
 beyond power of withdrawal. I talked, sang, whis- 
 tled ; but it was all a rather hollow effort, and 
 soon ceased. The great house looked gloomy and 
 impenetrable, the moonlight appeared sick and 
 sad, the birch-boughs rustled in a dreary way. 
 "We went up the steps in no jubilant mood. 
 
 I crossed the piazza at once, looked in at the 
 farthest window, and saw there my own image, 
 though far more faintly than in the sunlight. 
 Severance then joined me, and liis reflected shape 
 stood by mine. Something of the first ghostly 
 impression was renewed, 1 must confess, by this 
 meeting of the two shadows ; there was something 
 rather awful in the way the bodiless things nodded 
 and gesticulated at each other in silence. Still, 
 there was nothing more than this, as Severance 
 was compelled to own ; and I was trying to turn 
 
74 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 the whole affair into ridicule, whea suddenly, 
 without sound or warning, I saw — as distinctly 
 as I perceive the words I now write — yet another 
 figure stand at the window, gaze steadfastly at us 
 for a moment, and then disappear. It was, as I 
 fancied, that of a woman, but was totally enveloped 
 in a very full cloak, reaching to the ground, with 
 a peculiarly cut hood, that stood erect and seemed 
 half as long as the body of the garment. I had a 
 vague recollection of having seen some such cos- 
 tume in a picture. 
 
 Of course, I daslied round the corner of the 
 house, threaded the birch-trees, and stood on the 
 eastern piazza. No one was there Without 
 losing an instant, I ran to the garden wall and 
 climbed it, as Severance had done, to look into 
 Paul's cottage. That worthy was just getting into 
 bed, in a state of complicated deshahille, his black- 
 bearded head wrapped in an old scarlet hand- 
 kerchief that made him look like a retired pirate 
 in reduced circumstances. He being accounted 
 for, I vainly traversed the shrubberies, returned to 
 the western piazza, watched awhile uselessly, and 
 went home with Severance, a good deal puzzled. 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 75 
 
 By daylight the whole thing seemed different. 
 That I had seen the figure there was no doubt. It 
 was not a reflected image, for we had no compan- 
 ion. It was, then, human. After all, thought I, it 
 is a commonplace thing enougli, this mastxuerading 
 in a cloak and hood. Some one has oljserved 
 Severance's nocturnal visits, and is amusing him- 
 self at his expense. The peculiarity was, that the 
 thing was so well done, and the figure had such an 
 air of dignity, that somehow it was not so easy to 
 make light of it in talking with him. 
 
 I went into his room,* next day. His sick- 
 headache, or whatever it was, had come on again, 
 and he was lying on his bed. Rutherford's strange 
 old book on the Second Sight lay open before him. 
 " Look there," he said ; and I read the motto of a 
 chapter : — 
 
 " In sunliglit one, 
 In shadow none, 
 In moonlight two, 
 In thnndcr two, 
 Then comes Death." 
 
 I threw the book indignantly from me, and 
 began to invent doggerel, parodying this precious 
 incantation. But Severance did not seem to enjoy 
 
76 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 the joke, and it grows tiresome to enact one's own 
 farce and do one's own applauding. 
 
 For several days after lie was laid up in earnest ; 
 but instead of getting any mental rest from this, 
 he lay poring over that preposterous book, and it 
 really seemed as if his brain were a little disturbed. 
 Meanwhile I watched the great house, day and 
 night, sought for footsteps, and, by some odd 
 fancy, took frequent observations on the gardener 
 and his wife. Failing to get any clew, I waited 
 one day for Paul's absence, and made a call upon 
 the wife, under pretence of hunting up a missing 
 handkerchief, — for she had been my laundress. 
 I found the handsome, swarthy creature, with her 
 six bronzed children around her, training up the 
 Madeira vine that made a bower of the whole side 
 of her little, black, gambrel-roofed cottage. On 
 learning my errand, she became full of sympathy, 
 and was soon emptying her bureau-drawers in 
 pursuit of the lost handkerchief As she opened 
 the lowest drawer, I saw within it something 
 which sent all the blood to my face for a moment. 
 It was a black cloth cloak, with a stiff hood two 
 feet long, of precisely the pattern worn by the 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 77 
 
 unaccountable visitant at the window. I turned 
 almost fiercely upon her ; but she looked so inno- 
 cent as she stood there, caressing and dusting with 
 her fingers what was evidently a pet garment, that 
 it was really impossible to denounce her. 
 
 " Is that a Bavarian cloak ? " said I, trying to 
 be cool and judicial. 
 
 Here broke in the eldest boy, named John, aged 
 ten, a native American, and a sailor already, whom 
 I liad twice fished up from a capsized punt. 
 " Mother ain't a Bavarian," quoth the young salt. 
 " Father 's a Bavarian ; mother 's a Portegee. 
 Portegees wear them hoods." 
 
 " I am a Portuguese, sir, from Fayal," said the 
 woman, prolonging with sweet intonation the soft 
 name of her birthplace. " This is my capote" she 
 added, taking up with pride the uncouth costume, 
 while the children gathered round, as if its vast 
 folds came rarely into sight. 
 
 " It has not been unfolded for a year," she said. 
 As she spoke, she dropped it with a cry, and a 
 little mouse sprang from the skirts, and whisked 
 away into some corner. We found that the little 
 animal had made its abode in the heavy woollen, 
 
78 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 of which three or four thicknesses had been eaten 
 through, and then matted together into the softest 
 of nests. This contained, moreover, a small fam- 
 ily of mouselets, who certainly had not taken part 
 in any midnight masquerade. The secret seemed 
 more remote than ever, for I knew that there was 
 no other Portuguese family in the town, and there 
 was no confounding this peculiar local costume 
 with any other. 
 
 Eeturning to Severance's chamber, I said noth- 
 ing of all this. He was, by an odd coincidence, 
 looking over a portfolio of Fayal sketches made 
 by himself during his late voyage. Among them 
 were a dozen studies of just such cetjjotes as I had 
 seen, — some in profile, completely screening the 
 wearer, others disclosing M-omen's faces, old or 
 young. He seemed to wish to put them away, 
 however, when I came in. IJeally, the plot seemed 
 to thicken ; and it was a little provoking to under- 
 stand it no better, when all the materials seemed 
 close to one's hands. 
 
 A day or two later, I was summoned to Boston. 
 Eeturning thence by the stage-coach, we drove 
 from Tiverton, the whole length of the island, un- 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 79 
 
 cler one of tliose wild and wonderful skies which 
 give, better tlian anytliing in nature, the effect of 
 a field of battle. The heavens were filled with 
 ten thousand separate masses of cloud, varying in 
 shade from palest gray to iron-black, borne rapidly 
 to and fro by upper and lower currents of oppos- 
 ing wind. They seemed to be charging, retreat- 
 ing, breaking, recorabining, with puffs of what 
 seemed smoke, and a few wan sunbeams some- 
 times striking through for fire. Wherever the eye 
 turned, there appeared some flying fragment not 
 seen before ; and yet in an hour this noiseless 
 Antietam grew still, and a settled leaden film 
 overspread the sky, yielding only to some level 
 lines of light where the sun went down. Perhaps 
 our driver was looking toward the sky more than 
 to his own affairs, for, just as all this ended 
 a wheel gave out, and we had to stop in Ports- 
 moutli for repairs. By the time we were again 
 in motion, the changing wind had brought up 
 a final thunder-storm, which broke upon us ere 
 we reached our homes. It was rather an uncom- 
 mon thing, so late in the season ; for the light- 
 ning, like other brilliant visitors, usually appears 
 
80 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 in Oldport during only a month or two of every 
 year. 
 
 The coach set me down at my own door, so 
 soaked that I might have floated in. I peeped 
 into Severance's room, however, on the way to 
 my own. Strange to say, no one was there ; yet 
 some one had evidently been lying on the bed, 
 and on the pillow lay the old book on the Second 
 Sight, open at the very page which had so be- 
 witched him and vexed me. I glanced at it me- 
 chanically, and when I came to the meaningless 
 jumble, " In thunder two," a flash flooded tlie 
 chamber, and a sudden fear struck into my mind. 
 Who knew what insane experiment might have 
 come into that boy's head ? 
 
 With sudden impulse, I went down stairs, and 
 found the whole house empty, until a stupid old 
 woman, coming in from the wood-house with her 
 apron full of turnips, told me that Severance had 
 been missing since nightfall, after being for a 
 week in bed, dangerously ill, and sometimes slight- 
 ly delirious. The family had become alarmed, 
 and were out with lanterns, in search of him. 
 
 It was safe to say that none of them had more 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 81 
 
 reason to be alarmed than I. It was something, 
 liowever, to know where to seek him. Meeting 
 two neighboring fishermen, I took them with me. 
 As we approached the well-known wall, the blast 
 blew out our lights, and we could scarcely speak. 
 The lightning had grown less frequent, yet sheets 
 of flame seemed occasionally to break over the 
 dark, square sides of the house, and to send a 
 flickering flame along the ridge-pole and eaves, 
 like a surf of light. A surf of water broke also 
 behind us on the Blue Eocks, sounding as if it 
 pursued our very footsteps ; and one of the men 
 whispered hoarsely to me, that a Nantucket brig 
 liad parted her cable, and was drifting in shore. 
 
 As we entered the garden, lights gleamed in the 
 shrubbery. To my surprise, it was Paul and his 
 wife, with their two oldest children, — these last 
 being quite delighted with the stir, and showing 
 so much illumination, in the lee of the house, that 
 it was quite a Feast of Lanterns. They seemed a 
 little surprised at meeting us, too ; but we might 
 as well have talked from Point Judith to Beaver 
 Tail as to have attempted conversation there. I 
 walked round the building ; but a flash of light- 
 
 4* F 
 
82 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 niug showed nothing on the western piazza save a 
 birch-tree, which lay across, blown down by the 
 storm. I therefore Avent inside, with Paul's house- 
 hold, leaving the fishermen without. 
 
 Never shall I forget that search. As we went 
 from empty room to room, the thunder seemed 
 rolling on the very roof, and the sharp flashes of 
 lightning appeared to put out our lamps and then 
 kindle them again. We traversed the upper re- 
 gions, mounting by a ladder to the attic ; then 
 descended into the cellar and the wine-vault. The 
 thorough bareness of the house, the fact that no 
 bright-eyed mice peeped at us from their holes, no 
 uncouth insects glided on the walls, no flies buzzed 
 in the unwonted lamplight, scarcely a spider slid 
 down his damp and trailing web, — all this seemed 
 to enhance the mystery. The vacancy was more 
 dreary than desertion: it was something old which 
 had never been young. We found ourselves 
 speaking in whispers ; the children kept close to 
 their parents ; we seemed to be chasing some 
 awful Silence from room to room ; and the last 
 apartment, the great draAving-room, we really 
 seemed loath to enter. The less the rest of the 
 
THE H.\U^'TED WINDOW. 83 
 
 house had to show, the more, it seemed, must be 
 concentrated there. Even as we entered, a blast 
 of air from a broken pane extinguished our last 
 light, and it seemed to take many minutes to re- 
 kindle it. 
 
 As it shone once more, a brilliant lightning- 
 flash also swept through the window, and flick- 
 ered and flickered, as if it would never have done. 
 The eldest child suddenly screamed, and pointed 
 with her finger, first to one great window and then 
 to its opposite. My eyes instinctively followed 
 the successive directions ; and the double glance 
 gave me all I came to seek, and more than all. 
 Outside the western window lay Severance, his 
 white face against the pane, his eyes gazing across 
 and past us, — struck down doubtless by the fallen 
 tree, which lay across the piazza, and hid him from 
 external view. Opposite him, and seen through 
 the eastern window, stood, statue-like, the hooded 
 figure, but with the great capote thrown back, 
 showing a sad, eager, girlish face, with dark eyes, 
 and a good deal of black hair, — one of those faces 
 of peasant beauty such as America never shows, 
 — faces M'here ignorance is almost raised into re- 
 
84 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 finement by its childlike look. Contrasted with 
 Severance's wild gaze, the countenance wore an 
 expression of pitying forgiveness, almost of calm ; 
 yet it told of wasting sorrow and the wreck of a 
 life. Gleaming lustrous beneath the lightning, it 
 had a more mystic look when the long flash had 
 ceased, and the single lantern burned beneath it, 
 like an altar-lamp before a shrine. 
 
 " It is Aunt Emilia," exclaimed the little girl ; 
 and as she spoke, the father, turning angrily upon 
 her, dashed the light to the ground, and groped 
 his way out without a word of answer. I A\as 
 too much alarmed about Severance to care for 
 aught else, and quickly made my way to the A\'est- 
 ern piazza, M-here I found him stunned by the 
 fallen tree, — injured, I feared, internally, — still 
 conscious, but unable to speak. 
 
 With the aid of my two companions I got him 
 home, and he was ill for several weeks before he 
 died. During his illness he told me all he had 
 to tell; and though Paul and his family disap- 
 peared next day, — perhaps going on board the 
 Nantucket brig, which had narrowly escaped ship- 
 wreck, — I afterwards learned all the remaining 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW, 85 
 
 facts from the only neighbor in whom they had 
 placed confidence. Severance, while convalescing 
 at a country-house in Fayal, had fallen passionately 
 in love with a young peasant-girl, who had broken 
 off' her intended marriage for love of him, and had 
 sunk into a half-imbecile melancholy when de- 
 serted. She had afterwards come to this country, 
 and joined her sister, Paul's wife. Paul had re- 
 ceived her reluctantly, and only on condition that 
 her existence should be concealed. This was the 
 easier, as it was one of her whims to go out only by 
 night, when she had haunted the great house, 
 wliich, she said, reminded her of her own island, 
 so that she liked to wear thither the ccqjote which 
 had been the pride of her heart at home. On the 
 few occasions when she had caught a glimpse of 
 Severance, he had seemed to her, no doubt, as 
 much a phantom as she seemed to him. On tlie 
 night of the storm, they had both sought their 
 favorite haunt, unconscious of each other, and 
 the friends of each had followed in alarm. 
 
 I got traces of the family afterwards at Nan- 
 tucket, and later at Narragansett, and had reason to 
 think that Paid was employed, one summer, by a 
 
86 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 farmer on Conaniciit; but I -was always just too 
 late for them ; and the money whicli Severance left, 
 as his only reparation for poor Emilia, never was 
 paid. The affair was hushed up, and very few, 
 even among the neighbors, knew the tragedy that 
 had passed by them with the storm. 
 
 After Severance died, I had that temporary feel- 
 ing of weakened life which remains after tlie first 
 friend or the first love passes, and the heart seems 
 to lose its sense of infinity. His father came, and 
 prosed, and measured the windows of the empty 
 house, and calculated angles of reflection, and 
 poured even death and despair into his crucible of 
 commonplace ; the mother whined in lier feebler 
 way at liome ; while the only brother, a talkative 
 medical student, tried to pooh-pooh it all, and sent 
 me a letter demonstrating that Emilia was never 
 in America, and that the whole was an liallucina- 
 tion. I cared nothing for his theory; it all seemed 
 like a dream to me, and, as all the actors but my- 
 self are gone, it seems so still. The great house is 
 yet unoccupied, and likely to remain so ; and he 
 who looks througli its western window may still 
 be startled by the weird image of himself. As I 
 
THE HAUNTED WINDOW. 87 
 
 lingered round it, to-day, beneath the winter sun- 
 light, the snow drifted pitilessly past its ivied 
 windows, and so hushed my footsteps that I scarce 
 knew which was the phantom, myself or my re- 
 flection, and wondered if the medical student 
 would not argue me out of existence next. 
 
 This is the end of my story. If I sought for a 
 moral, it would be hard to attach one to a thing 
 so slight. It could only be this, that shadow and 
 substance are always ready to link themselves, in 
 unexpected ways, against the diseased imagination ; 
 and that remorse can make the most transparent 
 crystal into a mirror for its sin. 
 
A DEIFT-WOOD FIEE. 
 
 " This ae iiighte, this ae nighte, 
 Every nighte and alle, 
 Fire and salt and candle-lighte, 
 And Christe receive thy saule." 
 
 A Lykc- Wake Dirge. 
 
 rriHE October days grow mpidly shorter, and 
 brighten with more concentrated lidit. It is 
 but half past five, yet the sun dips redly behind 
 Conanicut, the sunset-gun booms from our neigh- 
 bor's yacht, the flag glides down from his mainmast, 
 and the slender pennant, running swiftly up the 
 opposite halyards, dances and flickers like a flame, 
 and at last perches, with dainty hesitation, at the 
 mast-head. A tint of salmon-color, burnished into 
 long undulations of lustre, overspreads the shal- 
 lower waves ; but a sober gray begins to steal in 
 beneath the sunset rays, and will soon claim even 
 the brilliant foreground for its own. Pile a few 
 more fragments of drift-wood upon the fire in the 
 
^=** 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 89 
 
 great chimney, little maiden, and then couch 
 yourself before it, that I may have your glowing 
 cliildhood as a foreground for those heaped relics 
 of shipwreck and despair. You seem, in your 
 scarlet boating-dress, Annie, like some bright 
 tropic bird, alit for a moment beside that other 
 bird of the tropics, flame. 
 
 Thoreau thought that his temperament dated 
 from an earlier period than the agricultural, 
 because he preferred woodcraft to gardening ; and 
 it is also pleasant to revert to the period when men 
 had invented neither saws nor axes, but simply 
 picked up their fuel in forests or on ocean-shores. 
 Fire is a thing which comes so near us, and combines 
 itself so closely with our life, that we enjoy it best 
 when we work for it in some way, so that our fuel 
 shall warm us twice, as the country people say, — 
 once in the getting, and again in the burning. 
 Yet no work seems to have more of the flavor of 
 play in it than that of collecting drift-wood on 
 some convenient beach, or than this boat-service 
 of ours, Annie, when we go wandering from island 
 to island in the harbor, and glide over sea-weed 
 groves and the habitations of crabs, — or to the 
 
90 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 flowery and ruined bastions of Eose Island, — or 
 to those caves at Coaster's Harbor where we played 
 Victor Hugo, and were eaten up in fancy by a 
 cuttle-fish. Then we voyaged, you remember, to 
 that further cave, in the solid rock, just above low- 
 water-mark, a cell unapproachable by land, and 
 high enough for you to stand erect. There you 
 wished to play Constance in Marmion, and to be 
 walled up alive, if convenient ; but as it proved 
 impracticable on that day, you helped me to secure 
 some bits of drift-wood instead. Longer voyages 
 brought waifs from remoter islands, — whose very 
 names tell, perchance, the changing story of 
 mariners long since wrecked, — isles baptized 
 Patience and Prudence, Hope and Desjjair. And 
 other relics bear witness of more distant beaches, 
 and of those wrecks which still lie, sentinels of 
 ruin, along Brentou's Point and Castle Hill. 
 
 To collect drift-wood is like botanizing, and one 
 soon learns to recognize the prevailing species, 
 and to look with pleased eagerness for new. It is 
 a tragic botany indeed, where, as in enchanted 
 gardens, every specimen has a voice, and, as you take 
 each from the ground, you expect from it a cry 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 91 
 
 like the mandrake's. And from what a garden it 
 comes I As one walks round Brenton's Point after 
 an autumnal storm, it seems as if tlie passionate 
 heaving of the waves had brought wJiolly new tints 
 to the surface, hues unseen even in dreams before, 
 greens and purples impossible in serener days. 
 These match the prevailing green and purple of 
 the slate-cliffs ; and Nature in truth carries such 
 fine fitnesses yet further. For, as we tread the deli- 
 cate seaside turf, which makes the farthest point 
 seem merely the land's last bequest of emerald to 
 the ocean, we suddenly come upon curved lines of 
 lustrous purple amid the grass, rows on rows of 
 bright muscle-shells, regularly traced as if a child 
 had played there, — the graceful high- water-mark 
 of the ten-ible storm. 
 
 It is the crowning fascination of the sea, the 
 consummation of such might in such infantine 
 delicacy. You may notice it again in the summer, 
 when our bay is thronged for miles on miles witli 
 inch-long jelly-fishes, — lovely creatures, in shape 
 like disembodied gooseberries, and shot through 
 and through in the sunlight with all manner of 
 blue and golden glisten ings, and bearing tiny rows 
 
92 OLDPOUT DAYS. 
 
 of fringing oars that tremble like a baby's eyelids. 
 There is less of gross substance in them than in any 
 other created thing, — mere water and outline, 
 destined to perish at a touch, but seemingly never 
 touching, for they float secure, finding no conceiv- 
 able cradle so soft as this awful sea. They are 
 like melodies amid Beethoven's Symphonies, or 
 like the songs that wander through Shakespeare, 
 and that seem things too fragile to risk near 
 Cleopatra's passion and Hamlet's woe. Thus 
 tender is the touch of ocean ; and look, how around 
 this piece of oaken timber, twisted and torn and 
 furrowed, — its iron bolts snapped across as if 
 bitten,. — there is yet twined a gay garland of 
 ribbon-w^eed, bearing on its trailinfj stem a cluster 
 of bright shells, like a mermaid's chatelaine. 
 
 Thus adorned, we place it on the blaze. As 
 night gathers without, the gale rises. It is a 
 season of uneasy winds, and of strange, rainless 
 storms, which perplex the fishermen, and indicate 
 rough weather out at sea. As the house trembles 
 and the windows rattle, we turn towards the fire 
 with a feeling of safety. Representing the fiercest 
 of all dangers, it yet expresses security and comfort. 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 93 
 
 Should a gale tear the roof from over our heads and 
 show the black sky alone above us, we should not 
 feel utterly homeless while this fire burned, — at 
 least I can recall such a feeling of protection when 
 once left suddenly roofless by night in one of the 
 wild gorges of ^Mount Katahdiu. There is a 
 positive demonstrative force in an open fire, which 
 makes it your fit ally in a storm. Settled and 
 obdurate cold may well be encountered by the 
 quiet heat of an invisible furnace. But this liowl- 
 ing wind might depress one's spirits, were it not 
 met by a force as palpable, — the warm blast 
 within answering to the cold blast without. The 
 wide chimney then becomes the scene of contest : 
 wind meets wind, sparks encounter rain-drops, they 
 fight in the air like the visioned soldiers of Attila ; 
 sometimes a daring drop penetrates, and dies, 
 hissing, on the hearth ; and sometimes a troop of 
 sparks may make a sortie from the chimney-top. 
 I know not how else we can meet the elements by 
 a defiance so magnificent as that from this open 
 hearth ; and in burning drift-wood, especially, we 
 turn against the enemy liis own ammunition. For 
 on these fragments three elements have already 
 
94 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 done their work. "Water racked and strained the 
 hapless ships, air liunted them, and they were 
 thrown at last npon earth, the sternest of all. 
 Now fire takes the shattered remnants, and makes 
 them a means of comfort and defence. 
 
 It has been pointed out by botanists, as one of 
 Nature's most graceful retributions, that, in the 
 building of the ship, the apparent balance of vege- 
 table forces is reversed, and the herb becomes 
 master of the tree, when the delicate, blue-eyed 
 flax, taking the stately pine under its protection, 
 stretches over it in cordage, or spreads in sails. 
 But more graceful still is this further contest be- 
 tween the great natural elements, Avhen this most 
 fantastic and vanishing thing, this delicate and 
 dancing flame, subdues all these huge vassals to 
 its will, and, after earth and air and water have 
 done their utmost, comes in to complete the task, 
 and to be crowned as monarch. " The sea drinks 
 the air," said Anacreou, " and the sun the sea." 
 My fire is the child of the sun. 
 
 I come back from every evening stroll to this 
 gleaming blaze ; it is a domastic lamp, and shines 
 
 for me everywhere. To my imagination it burns 
 
A PRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 95 
 
 as a central flame among these dark houses, and 
 lights up the Avhole of this little fishing hamlet, 
 humble suburb of the fashionable watering-place. 
 I fancy that others too perceive the light, and that 
 certain huge visitors are attracted, even when the 
 storm keeps neighbors and friends at home. For 
 the slightest presage of foul weather is sure to bring 
 to yonder anchorage a dozen silent vessels, that 
 glide up the harbor for refuge, and are heard but 
 once, when tlie chain-cable rattles as it runs out, 
 and the iron hand of the anchor grasps the rock. 
 It always seems to me that these unwieldy crea- 
 tures are gathered, not about the neighboring light- 
 house only, but around our ingle-side. Welcome, 
 ye great winged strangers, whose very names are 
 unknown ! This hearth is comprehensive in its 
 hospitalities ; it will accept from you either its fuel 
 or its guests ; your mariners may warm themselves 
 beside it, or your scattered timbers may warm me. 
 Strange instincts might be supposed to tlirill and 
 shudder in the ribs of ships that sail toward the 
 beacon of a drift-wood fire. Morituri salutant. 
 A single shock, and all tliat magnificent fabric 
 may become mere fuel to prolong the flame. 
 
06 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 Here, beside the roaring ocean, this blaze repre- 
 sents the only receptacle more vast than ocean. 
 We say, " unstable as water." But there is noth- 
 ing unstable about the flickering flame ; it is per- 
 sistent and desperate, relentless in following its 
 ends. It is the most tremendous physical force 
 that man can use. " If drugs fail," said Hippoc- 
 rates, " use the knife ; should the knife fail, use fire." 
 Conquered countries were anciently given over to 
 fire and sword : the latter could only kill, but the 
 other could annihilate. See how thoroughly it does 
 its work, even when domesticated : it takes up 
 everything upon the hearth and leaves all clean. 
 The Greek proverb says, that " the sea drinks up 
 all the sins of the world." Save fire only, the 
 sea is the most capacious of all things. But 
 its task is left incomplete : it only hides its 
 records, while fire destroys them. In the ISTorse 
 Edda, when the gods try their games, they find 
 themselves able to out-drink the ocean, but not 
 to eat like the flame. Logi, or fire, licks up food 
 and trencher and all. This chimney is more vora- 
 cious than the sea. Give time enough, and all 
 which yonder depths contain might pass through 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 97 
 
 this insatiable throat, leaving only a few ashes and 
 the memory of a flickering shade, — pulvis et 
 mnhra. We recognize this when we have any- 
 thing to conceal Deep crimes are buried in earth, 
 deeper are sunk in water, but the deepest of all 
 are confided by trembling men to the profounder 
 secrecy of flame. If every old chimney could nar- 
 rate the fearful deeds whose last records it has 
 cancelled, what sighs of undying passion would 
 breathe from its dark summit, — what groans of 
 guilt I Those lurid sparks that whirl over yonder 
 house-top, tossed aloft as if fire itself could not 
 contain them, may be the last embers of some 
 
 written scroll, one rescued word of which might 
 
 o 
 
 suffice for the ruin of a household, and the crush- 
 ing of many hearts. 
 
 But this domestic hearth of ours holds only, 
 besides its drift-wood, the peaceful records of the 
 day, — its shreds and fragments and fallen leaves. 
 As the ancients poured wine upon their flames, so I 
 pour rose-leaves in libation ; and each morning con- 
 tributes the faded petals of yesterday's wreaths. 
 All our roses of this season have passed up this 
 chimney in the blaze. Their 'delicate veins were 
 
98 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 filled with all the summer's fire, and they returned 
 to fire once more, — ashes to ashes, flame to flame. 
 For holding, with Bettina, that every flower which 
 is broken becomes immortal in the sacrifice, I 
 deem it more fitting that their earthly part should 
 die by a concentration of that burning element 
 which would at any rate be in some form their 
 ending; so they have their altar on this bright 
 hearth. 
 
 Let us pile up the fire anew with drift-wood, 
 Annie. We can choose at random ; for our logs 
 came from no single forest. It is considered an 
 important branch of skill in the country to know 
 the varieties of firewood, and to choose among 
 them well. But to-night we ha^'e the whole 
 Atlantic shore for our wood-pile, and the Gulf 
 Stream for a teamster. Every foreign tree of 
 rarest name may, for aught we know, send its 
 treasures to our hearth. Logwood and satinwood 
 may mingle with cedar and maple ; the old cellar- 
 floors of this once princely town are of mahogany, 
 and why not our fire ? I have a very indistinct 
 impression what teak is ; but if it means some- 
 thing black and impenetrable and nearly in- 
 
A DIUFT-WOOD FIRE. 99 
 
 destructible, then there is a piece of it, Annie, 
 on the hearth at this moment. 
 
 It must be owned, indeed, that timbers soaked 
 long enough in salt-water seem almost to lose 
 their capacity of being burnt. Perhaps it was for 
 this reason that, in the ancient " lyke-wakes " of 
 the North of England, a pinch of salt was placed 
 upon the dead body, as a safeguard against purga- 
 torial flames. Yet salt melts ice, and so represents 
 heat, one would think ; and one can fancy that 
 these fragments should be doubly inflammable, by 
 their saline quality, and by the unmerciful rubbing 
 whicli the waves have given them. I have noticed 
 what warmth this churning process communicates 
 to the clotted foam that lies in tremulous masses 
 among the rocks, holding all the blue of ocean in 
 its bubbles. After one's hands are chilled with 
 the water, one can warm them in the foam. These 
 drift-wood fragments are but the larger foam of 
 shipwrecks. 
 
 What strange comrades this flame brings to- 
 gether ! As foreign sailors from remotest seas may 
 sit and chat side by side, before some boarding- 
 house fire in this seaport town, so these shapeless 
 
100 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 sticks, perhaps gathered from far wider wander- 
 ings, now nestle together against the backlog, and 
 converse in strange dialects as they burn. It is 
 written in the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma, 
 that, " as two planks, floating on the surface of the 
 mighty receptacle of tlie waters, meet, and having 
 met are separated forever, so do beings in this life 
 come together and presently are parted." Per- 
 chance this chimney reunites the planks, at the 
 last moment, as death must reunite friends. 
 
 And with what wondrous voices these strayed 
 wanderers talk to one another on the hearth ! They 
 bewitch us by the mere fascination of tlieir lan- 
 guage. Such a delicacy of intonation, yet such a 
 volume of sound. The murmur of the surf is not 
 so soft or so solemn. There are the merest hints 
 and traceries of tones, — phantom voices, more re- 
 mote from noise than anything which is noise ; 
 and yet there is an undertone of roar, as from a 
 thousand cities, the cities whence these wild voy- 
 agers came. "Watch the decreasing sounds of a 
 fire as it dies, — for it seems cruel to leave it, as 
 we do, to die alone. I watched beside this hearth 
 last night. As the fire sank down, the little voices 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 101 
 
 crrew stiller and more still, and at last there came 
 only irregular beats, at varying intervals, as if 
 from a heart tliat acted spasmodically, or as if it 
 were measuring off by ticks the little remnant of 
 time. Then it said, " Hush !" two or three times, 
 and there came something so like a sob that it 
 seemed human ; and then all was still. 
 
 If these dying voices are so sweet and subtile, 
 what legends must be held untold by yonder frag- 
 ments that lie unconsumed ! Photography has 
 familiarized us with the thought that every visible 
 act, since the beginning of the world, has stamped 
 itself upon surrounding surfaces, even if we have 
 not yet skill to discern and hold the image. And 
 especially, in looking on a liquid expanse, such as 
 the ocean in calm, one is haunted with these fan- 
 cies. I gaze into its depths, and wonder if no 
 stray reflection has been imprisoned there, still ac- 
 cessible to human eyes, of some scene of passion 
 or despair it has witnessed ; as some maiden visitor 
 at Holyrood Palace, looking in the ancient metallic 
 mirror, might start at the thought that perchance 
 some lineament of Mary Stuart may suddenly look 
 out, in desolate and forgotten beauty, mingled with 
 
102 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 her own. And if the mere waters of the ocean, sa- 
 tiate and wearied with tragedy as they must be, still 
 keep for our fancy such records, how much more 
 might we attribute a human consciousness to these 
 shattered fragments, each seared by its own special 
 grief. 
 
 Yet while they are silent, I like to trace back for 
 these component parts of my fire such brief histories 
 as I share. This block, for instance, came from the 
 large schooner which now lies at the end of Castle 
 Hill Beach, bearing still aloft its broken masts and 
 shattered rigging, and with its keel yet stanch, 
 except that the stern-post is gone, — so that each 
 tide sweeps in its green harvest of glossy kelp, and 
 tlien tosses it in the hold like hay, desolately 
 tenanting the place Avliich once sheltered men. 
 The floating weed, so graceful in its own place, 
 looks but dreary when thus confined. On that fear- 
 fully cold ]\Ionday of last winter (January 8, 1866) 
 when the mercury stood at -10°, even in this mild- 
 est corner of New England, — this vessel was 
 caught helplessly amid the ice that drifted out of 
 the west passage of Narragausett Bay, before the 
 fierce north-wind. They tried to beat into the 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 103 
 
 eastern entrance, but the scliooner seemed in sink- 
 ing condition, the sails and helm were clogged with 
 ice, and every rope, as an eye-witness told me, was 
 as large as a man's body with frozen sleet. Twice 
 they tacked across, making no progress ; and then, 
 to save their lives, ran the vessel on the rocks and 
 got ashore. After they had left her, a higher wave 
 swept her oft*, and drifted her into a little cove, 
 where she has ever since remained. 
 
 There were twelve wrecks along this shore last 
 winter, — more than during any season for a 
 quarter of a century. I remember when the first 
 of these lay in great fragments on Gra\es Point, a 
 schooner having been stranded on Cormorant 
 Rocks outside, and there broken in pieces by the 
 surf. She had been split lengthwise, and one great 
 side was leaning up against the sloping rock, bows 
 on, like some wild sea-creature never before beheld 
 of men, and come there but to die. So strong was 
 this impression that when I afterwards saw men at 
 work upon the wreck, tearing out the iron bolts and 
 chains, it seemed like torturing the last moments 
 of a living thing. At my next visit there was no 
 person in sight ; another companion fragment had 
 
104 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 floated ashore, and the two lay peacefully beside 
 the sailors' graves (which give the name to the 
 point), as if they found comfort there. A little 
 farther on there was a brig ashore and deserted. 
 A fog came in from the sea ; and, as I sat by the 
 graves, some unseen passing vessel struck eight 
 bells for noon. For a moment I fancied that it 
 came from the empty brig, — a ghostly call, to sum- 
 mon phantom sailors. 
 
 That smouldering brand, which has alternately 
 gleamed and darkened for so many minutes, 
 I brought from Price's Neck last winter, when 
 the Brenton's Eeef Light-ship went ashore. Yon- 
 der the oddly shaped vessel rides at anchor now, 
 two miles from land, bearing her lanterns aloft 
 at fore and main top. She parted her moor- 
 ings by night, in the fearful storm of October 
 19, 1865 ; and I well remember, that, as I 
 walked through the streets that wild evening, it 
 seemed dangerous to be out of doors, and I tried 
 to imagine wliat was going on at sea, while at that 
 very moment the light-ship was driving on toward 
 me in the darkness. It was thus that it hap- 
 pened : — 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 105 
 
 There had been a lieavy gale from the southeast, 
 which, after a few hours of lull, suddenly changed 
 in the afternoon to the southwest, which is, on this 
 coast, the prevailing direction. Beginning about 
 three o'ch)ck, this new wind had risen almost to a 
 hurricane by six, and held with equal fury till mid- 
 night, after which it greatly diminished, though, 
 when I visited the wreck next morning, it was hard 
 to walk against the blast. The light-ship went adrift 
 at eight in the evening ; the men let go another 
 anchor, with forty fathoms of cable ; this parted 
 also, but the cable dragged, as she drifted in, 
 keeping the vessel's head to the wind, which was 
 greatly to her advantage. The great waves took 
 her over five lines of reef, on each of wliich her 
 keel grazed or held for a time. She came ashore 
 on Price's Neck at last, about eleven. 
 
 It was utterly dark ; the sea broke high over 
 the ship, even over her lanterns, and the crew 
 could only guess that they were near tlie land by 
 the sound of the surf. The captain was not on 
 board, and the mate was in command, though his 
 leg had been broken while holding the tiller. 
 They could not hear each other's voices, and could 
 
 5* 
 
106 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 scarcely cling to the deck. There seemed every 
 chance that the ship would go to pieces before 
 daylight. At last one of the crew, named William 
 Martin, a Scotchman, thinking, as he afterwards 
 told me, of his wife and three children, and of the 
 others on board wlio had families. — and that 
 something must be done, and he might as well do 
 it as anybody, — got a rope bound around his 
 waist, and sprang overboard. I asked the mate 
 next day whether he ordered Martin to do this, 
 and he said, " No, he volunteered it. I would not 
 have ordered him, for I would not have done it 
 myself." What made the thing most remarkable 
 was, that the man actually could not swim, and 
 did not know how far off the shore was, but 
 trusted to the waves to take him thither, — per- 
 haps two hundred yards. His trust was repaid. 
 Struggling in the mighty surf, he sometimes felt 
 the rocks beneath his feet, sometimes bruised 
 his hands against them. At any rate he got on 
 shore alive, and, securing his rope, made his way 
 over the moors to the town, and summoned his 
 captain, who was asleep in his own house. They 
 returned at once to the spot, found the line still 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 107 
 
 fast, and the rest of tlie crew, four in number, 
 lowered the -whaleboat, and were pulled to shore 
 by tlie rope, landing safely before daybreak. 
 
 When I saw the vessel next morning, she lay in 
 a little cove, stern on, not wholly out of water, — 
 steady and upright as in a dry-dock, with no sign 
 of serious injury, except that the rudder was gone. 
 She did not seem like a wreck ; the men were the 
 wrecks. As they lay among the rocks, bare or 
 tattered, scarcely able to move, waiting for low 
 tide to go on board the vessel, it was like a 
 scene after a battle. They appeared too inert, 
 poor fellows, to do anything but yearn toward the 
 sun. When they changed j)osition for shelter, 
 from time to time, they crept along the rocks, 
 instead of walking. They were like the little 
 floating sprays of sea-weed, when you take 
 them from the water and they become a mere 
 mass of pulp in your hand. Martin shared 
 in the general exhaustion, and no wonder ; but 
 he told his story very simply, and showed 
 me where he had landed. The feat seemed 
 to me then, and has always seemed, almost in- 
 credible; even for an expert swimmer. He thus 
 
108 OLDPOIIT DAYS. 
 
 summed up the motives for his action : " I thought 
 that God was first, and I was next, and if I 
 did the best I could, no man could do more 
 than that ; so I jumped overboard." It is pleas- 
 ant to add, that, though a poor man, he utterly 
 declined one of those small donations of money 
 by which we Anglo-Saxons are wont clumsily to 
 express our personal enthusiasms ; and I think I 
 appreciated his whole action the more for its com- 
 ing just at the close of a war during which so 
 many had readily accepted their award of praise 
 or pay for acts of less intrinsic daring than his. 
 
 Stir the fire, Annie, with yonder broken frag- 
 ment of a flag-staff; its truck is still remaining, 
 though the flag is gone, and every nation might 
 claim it. As you stir, the burning brands evince 
 a remembrance of their sea-tost life, the sparks 
 drift away like foam-flakes, the flames wave and 
 flap like sails, and the wail of the chimney sings 
 a second shipwreck. As the tiny scintillations 
 gleam and scatter and vanish in the soot of the 
 chimney- wall, instead of " There goes the parson, 
 and there goes the clerk," it must be the captain 
 and the crew we watch. A drift-wood fire should 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. 100 
 
 always have children to tend it ; for there is some- 
 thing childlike about it, unlike the steadier glow 
 of walnut logs. It has a coaxing, infantine way 
 of playing with the oddly shaped bits of wood we 
 give it, and of deserting one to caress with flicker- 
 ing impulse another ; and at night, when it needs 
 to be extinguished, it is as hard to put to rest as a 
 nursery of children, for some bright little head is 
 constantly springing up anew, from its pillow of 
 ashes. And, in turn, what endless delight chil- 
 dren find in the manipulation of a fire ! 
 
 What a variety of playthings, too, in this fuel 
 of ours ; such inexplicable pieces, treenails and 
 tholepins, trucks and sheaves, the lid of a locker, 
 and a broken handspike. These larger fragments 
 are from spars and planks and knees. Some were 
 dropped overboard in this quiet harbor ; others 
 may have floated from Fayal or Hispaniola, Mo- 
 zambique or Zanzibar. This eagle figure-head, 
 chipped and battered, but still possessing highly 
 aquiline features and a single eye, may have 
 tangled its curved beak in the vast weed-beds of 
 the Sargasso Sea, or dipped it in the Sea of ]\Iilk. 
 Tell us your story, heroic but dilapidated 
 
110 OLDPORT DAYS, 
 
 bird ! and perhaps song or legend may find in it 
 themes that shall be immortal. 
 
 The eagle is silent, and I suspect, Annie, tliat 
 lie is but a plain, home-bred fowl after all. But 
 what shall we say to this piece of plank, hung 
 with barnacles that look large enough for the 
 fabled barnacle-goose to emerge from ? Observe 
 this fragment a little. Another piece is secured 
 to it, not neatly, as with proper tools, but clumsily, 
 with many nails of different sizes, driven unevenly 
 and witli their heads battered awry. Wedged 
 clumsily in between these pieces, and secured by 
 a supplementary nail, is a bit of broken rope. 
 Let us touch that rope tenderly ; for who knows 
 what despairing hands may last have clutched it 
 when this rude raft was made ? It may, indeed, 
 have been the handiwork of children, on the Pe- 
 nobscot or the St. Mjiry's Eiver. But its condition 
 betokens voyages yet longer; and it may just as 
 well have come from the stranded " Golden Rule " 
 on Pioncador Reef, — that picturesque shipwreck 
 where (as a rescued woman told me) the eyes of 
 the people in their despair seemed full of sublime 
 resignation, so that there was no confusion or out- 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. Ill 
 
 cry, and even gamblers and harlots looked death 
 in the face as nobly, for all that could be seen, as 
 the saintly and the pure. Or who knows but it 
 floated round Cape Horn, from that other wreck, 
 on the Pacific shore, of the " Central America," 
 where the rough miners found that there was room 
 in the boats only for their wives and their gold ; 
 and where, pushing the women off, with a few 
 men to row them, the doomed husbands gave a 
 cheer of courage as the ship went down. 
 
 Here again is a piece of pine wood, cut in 
 notches as for a tally, and with every seventh 
 notch the longest ; these notches having been cut 
 deeply at the beginning, and feebly afterwards, 
 stopping abruptly before the end was reached. 
 Wiio could have carved it ? Not a school-boy 
 awaiting vacation, or a soldier expecting his dis- 
 charge ; for then each tally would have been cut 
 off, instead of added. iSTor could it be the squad 
 of two soldiers who garrison Kose Island ; for 
 their tour of duty lasts but a week. There are 
 small barnacles and sea-weed too, which give the 
 mysterious stick a sort of brevet antiquity. It 
 has been long adrift, and these little barnacles, 
 
112 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 opening and closing daily their minute valves, 
 have kept meanwhile their own register, and with 
 their busy fringed fingers have gathered from the 
 whole Atlantic that small share of its edible treas- 
 ures which sufficed for them. Plainly this waif 
 has had its experiences. It was Robinson Cru- 
 soe's, Annie, depend upon it. We will save it 
 from the flames, and wlien we establish our ma- 
 rine museum, nothing save a veritable piece of the 
 North Pole shall be held so valuable as tliis 
 undoubted relic from Juan Fernandez. 
 
 But the niglit deepens, and its reveries must 
 end. "With the winter will pass away the winter- 
 storms, and summer will bring its own more insid- 
 ious perils. Tlien the drowsy old seaport will 
 blaze into splendor, through saloon and avenue, 
 amidst which many a bright career will end sud- 
 denly and leave no sign. The ocean tries feebly 
 to emulate the profounder tragedies of the shore. 
 In the crowded halls of gay hotels, I see wrecks 
 drifting hopelessly, dismasted and rudderless, to 
 be stranded on hearts harder and more cruel than 
 Brenton's Reef, yet hid in smiles falser than its 
 fleecy foam. What is a mere forsaken ship, com- 
 
A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE/ 113 
 
 pared with stately houses from which those whom 
 I first knew in their youth and beauty have since 
 fled into midnight and despair ? 
 
 But one last gleam upon our hearth lights up 
 your innocent eyes, little Annie, and dispels the 
 gathering shade. The flame dies down again, and 
 you draw closer to my side. The pure moon looks 
 in at the southern window, replacing the ruddier 
 glow ; while tlie fading embers lisp and prattle to 
 one another, like drowsy children, more and more 
 faintly, till they fall asleep. 
 
AN AETIST'S CREATION. 
 
 TT~rHEN I reached Keumure's house, one Au- 
 ^ ' gust evening, it was rather a disappoint- 
 ment to find that he and his charming Laura had 
 absented themselves for twenty-four hours. I had 
 not seen them together since their marriage ; my 
 admiration for his varied genius and her unvarying 
 grace was at its height, and I was really annoyed at 
 the delay. My fair cousin, with her usual exact 
 housekeeping, had prepared everything for her 
 guest, and then bequeathed me, as she wrote, to 
 Janet and baby Marian. It Avas a pleasant ar- 
 rangement, for between baby Marian and me there 
 existed a species of passion, I might almost say 
 of betrothal, ever since that little three-year-old 
 sunbeam had blessed my mother's house by linger- 
 ing awhile in it, six months before. Still I went 
 to bed disappointed, though the delightful windows 
 of the chamber looked out upon the glimmering 
 
v.^*- 
 
AN arttist's creation. 115 
 
 bay, and tlie swinging lanterns at the yard-arms 
 of the frigates shone like some softer constellation 
 beneath the brilliant sky. The house was so close 
 upon the water that the cool waves seemed to 
 plash deliciously against its very basement ; and it 
 was a comfort to think that, if there were no ade- 
 quate human greetings that night, there would be 
 plenty in the morning, since Marian would inevi- 
 tably be pulling my eyelids apart before sunrise. 
 It was scarcely dawn when I was roused by 
 a little arm round my neck, and waked to think I 
 had one of Eaphael's cherubs by my side. Fin- 
 gers of waxen softness were ruthlessly at work 
 upon my eyes, and the little form that met my 
 touch felt lithe and elastic, like a Tcitten's limbs. 
 There was just light enough to see the child, 
 perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue 
 dressing-gown trailing over the white night-dress, 
 while her black and long-fringed eyes shone 
 through the dimness of morning. She yielded 
 gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the 
 silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, 
 cliildish shoulders. Yet sleep still half held me, 
 and when ray cherub appeared to hold it a cheru- 
 
116 OLDPOBT DATS. 
 
 bic pxaddce to b^in the daj with a demand for 
 Ihrety aneedole, I was iain drowsilv to suggest 
 that gbe mi^A fiist teQ some stories to her doll 
 With the siumj readiness that w^s a part of her 
 n^nre, she stia^htwaj tamed to that yonng lady, 
 — plain Susan HaBiday, with both cheeks patched, 
 and eyes of different colors, — and soon discoursed 
 both her and me into repose. 
 
 When I waked again, it was to find the child 
 conrerni^ with the morning star, which still 
 diODe tinon^ the window, scarcely so lacent as 
 her eye8,aiid bidding it go home to its mother, the 
 son. An&thet lapse into dreams, and then a more 
 rhid awakening, and she had my ear at last, and 
 won sbory after story, requiting them with legends 
 of her own yonth, ** almost a year ago," — how she 
 was periloasly lost, for instance, in the small front 
 yard, with a little playmate, early in the afternoon, 
 and how they came and peeped into the window, 
 and though aQ the world had forgotten them. 
 Then the sweet Toice, distinct in its articnlaticMi 
 as Laora's, went strayii^ off into wilder fancies, — a 
 chaos of antobiograpfay and conjectore, like the 
 kttas o( a war eorrespoadenl Yon would have 
 
AX ARTISTS CKEATIOX. 117 
 
 thought her little life had j-ielded more pangs and 
 feare than might have sufficed for the diseoverr of 
 the Xorth Pole ; but breakfast-time drevr near at 
 lasU and Janet's honest voice \ras heard outside 
 the door. I rather envied the good Sootoh\roman 
 the pleasant task of polishing the smooth cheeks 
 and combing the dishevelled silk; but when, a 
 little later, the small maiden was riding down 
 stairs' in my arms, I en\ied no one. 
 
 At sight of the bread and milk, my chenib was 
 transformed into a hungry human child, chiefly 
 anxious to reach the lx>ttom of her porringer. I 
 was with her a great deal that day. She gaw no 
 manner of trouble : it was like having the charge 
 of a floating butterfly, endowed with warm arms 
 to clasp, and a silvery voice to prattle. I sent 
 Janet out to sail, with the other sen-ants, by way 
 of frolic, and Marian's perfect t<?mperament \\-as 
 shov^^l in the way she watched the departing. 
 
 ^ There they go," she said, as she stood and 
 danced at the window. * Xow they are out of 
 sight." 
 
 " 'Wliat ! " I s;ud, " are you pleased to ha\-e your 
 friends i^» ? '* 
 
118 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 " Yes," she answered ; " but I shall be pleased-er 
 to see them come back." 
 
 Life to her was no alternation between joy and 
 grief, but only between joy and delight. 
 
 Twilight brought us to an improvised concert. 
 Climbing the piano -stool, she went over the notes 
 with her little taper fingers, touching the keys in 
 a light, knowing way, that proved her a musician's 
 child. Then I must play for her, and let the' dance 
 begin. This was a wondrous performance on her 
 part, and consisted at first in hopping up and down 
 on one spot, with no change of motion but in her 
 hands. She resembled a minute and irrepressible 
 Shaker, or a live and beautiful marionnette. Then 
 she placed Janet in the middle of the floor, and 
 perrormed the dance round her, after the manner 
 of Vivien and IMerlin. Then came her supper, 
 which, like its predecessors, was a solid and ab- 
 sorbing meal ; then one more fairy story, to mag- 
 netize her off, and she danced and sang herself up 
 stairs. And if she first came to me in the morn- 
 ing with a halo round her head, she seemed still to 
 retain it when I at last watched her kneeling in 
 the little bed — perfectly motionless, with her 
 
AN artist's creation. 119 
 
 hands placed together, and her long lashes sweep- 
 ing her cheeks — to repeat two verses of a hymn 
 which Janet had taught her. My nerves quivered 
 a little when I saw that Susan Halliday had also 
 been duly prepared for the night, and had ])een 
 put in the same attitude, so far as her jointless 
 anatomy permitted. This being ended, the doll 
 and her mistress reposed together, and only an oc- 
 casional toss of the vigorous limbs, or a stifled 
 baby murnmr, would thenceforth prove, through 
 the darkened hours, that the one figure had in it 
 more of life than the other. 
 
 On the next morning Kenmure and Laura came 
 back to us, and I walked down to receive them at 
 the boat. I had forgotten how striking was their 
 appearance, as they stood together. His broad, 
 strong, Saxon look, his manly bearing and clear 
 blue eyes, enhanced the fascination of her darker 
 beauty. 
 
 America is full of the short-lived bloom and 
 freshness of girlhood ; but it is a rare thing in 
 one's life to see a beauty that really controls with 
 a permanent charm. One must remember such 
 personal loveliness, as one recalls some particular 
 
120 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 moonlight or sunset, with a special and concentrat- 
 ed joy, which the multiplicity of fainter impressions 
 cannot disturb. "WTien in those days we used to 
 read, in Petrarch's one hundred and twenty -third 
 sonnet, that he had once beheld on earth angelic 
 manners and cel&stial charms, whose very remem- 
 brance was a delight and an affliction, since it made 
 aU else appear but dream and shadow, we could 
 easily fancy that nature had certain permanent at- 
 tributes which accompanied the name of Laura. 
 
 Our Laura had that rich brunette beauty before 
 which the mere snow and roses of the blonde must 
 always seem wan and unimpassioned. In the 
 superb suffusions of her cheek there seemed to flow 
 a tide of passions and powers that might have 
 been tumultuous in a meaner woman, but over 
 which, in her, the clear and brilliant eyes and the 
 sweet, proud mouth presided in unbroken calm. 
 These superb tints imphed resources only, not a 
 struggle. With tliis torrent from the tropics in her 
 veins, she was the most equable person I ever saw, 
 and had a supreme and delicate good-sense, which, 
 if not supplying the place of genius, at least com- 
 prehended its work. Not intellectually gifted her- 
 
AN artist's creation. 121 
 
 self, perhaps, she seemed the cause of gifts in 
 others, and furnished the atmosphere in which all 
 showed their best. "With the steady and thought- 
 ful enthusiasm of her Puritan ancestors, she com- 
 bined that charm which is so rare among their de- 
 scendants, — a grace which fascinated the humblest, 
 while it would have been just the same in the so- 
 ciety of kings. Her person had the equipoise 
 and symmetry of her mind. "SVhile it had its 
 separate points of beauty, each a source of distinct 
 and peculiar pleasure, — as, the outline of her 
 temples, the white line that parted her night- 
 black hair, the bend of her wrists, the moulding of 
 her finger-tips, — yet these details were lost in 
 the overwhelming sweetness of her presence, and 
 the serene atmosphere that she diffused ever all 
 human life. 
 
 A few days passed rapidly by us. "We walked 
 and rode and boated and read. Little ^larian 
 came and went, a living sunbeam, a self-sufficing 
 thing. It was soon obvious that she was far less 
 demonstrative toward her parents than toward 
 me ; while her mother, gracious to her as to all, 
 yet rarely caressed her, and Kenmure, though hab- 
 6 
 
122 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 itually kind, was inclined to ignore her existence, 
 and could scarcely tolerate that she should for one 
 instant preoccupy his wife. For Laura he lived, 
 and she must live for him. He had a studio, which 
 I rarely entered and ^larian never, though Laura 
 was almost constantly there ; and afterthe tirst cor- 
 diality was past, I observed that their daily expedi- 
 tions were always arranged for only two. The 
 weather was beautiful, and they led the wildest 
 outdoor life, cruising all day or all night among 
 the islands, regardless of hours, and almost of 
 health. No matter : Kenmure liked it, and 
 what he liked she loved. When at home, they 
 were chiefly in the studio, he painting, modelling, 
 poetizing perhaps, and she inseparably united with 
 him in all. It was very beautiful, this unworldly 
 and passionate love, and I could have borne to be 
 omitted in their daily plans, — since little Marian 
 was left to me, — save that it seemed so strange to 
 omit her also. Besides, there grew to be some- 
 thing a little oppressive in this peculiar atmos- 
 phere ; it was like living in a greenhouse. 
 
 Yet they always spoke in the simplest way of 
 this absorbing passion, as of something about which 
 
AN artist's creation, 123 
 
 no reticence was needed ; it was too sacred not to 
 be mentioned ; it would be wrong not to utter 
 freely to all the world what was doubtless the best 
 thing the world possessed. Thus Kenmure made 
 Laura his model in all his art ; not to coin her into 
 wealth or fame, — he would have scorned it ; he 
 would have valued fame and wealth only as in- 
 struments for proclaiming her. Looking simply at 
 these two lovers, then, it was plain that no human 
 union could be more noble or stainless. Yet so 
 far as others were concerned, it sometimes seemed 
 to me a kind of duplex selfishness, so profound 
 and so undisguised as to make one shudder. " Is 
 it," I asked myself at such moments, " a great 
 consecration, or a great crime ? " But something 
 must be allowed, perhaps, for my own private dis- 
 satisfactions in jNIarian's behalf. 
 
 I had easily persuaded Janet to let me have a 
 peep ever}'- night at my darling, as she slept ; and 
 once I was surprised to find Laura sitting by the 
 small white bed. Graceful and beautiful as she 
 always was, she never before had'seemed to me so 
 lovely, for she never had seemed quite like a 
 mother. But I could not demand a sweeter look 
 
124 OLDPOPvI DAYS. 
 
 of tenderness than that with which she now gazed 
 upon her child. 
 
 Little ^Marian lay with one brown, plump hand 
 visible from its full white sleeve, while the other 
 nestled half hid beneath the sheet, grasping a pair 
 of blue morocco shoes, the last acquisition of her 
 favorite doll. Drooping from beneath the pillow 
 hung a handful of scarlet poppies, which the child 
 had wished to place under her head, in the very- 
 superfluous project of putting herself to sleep there- 
 by. Her soft brown hair was scattered on the 
 sheet, her black lashes lay motionless upon the 
 olive cheeks. Laura wished to move her, that I 
 might see her the better. 
 
 "You will wake her," exclaimed I, in alarm. 
 
 " Wake this little dormouse ? " Laura lightly an- 
 swered. " Impossible." 
 
 And, twining her arms about her, the young 
 mother lifted the child from the bed, three or four 
 times in succession, while the healthy little crea- 
 ture remained utterly undisturbed, breathing the 
 same quiet breath. I watched Laura with amaze- 
 ment ; she seemed transformed. 
 
 She gayly returned my eager look, and then, 
 
AN artist's creation. 125 
 
 seeming suddenly to penetrate its meaning, cast 
 down her eyes, while the color mounted into her 
 cheeks. " You tliought," she said, almost sternly, 
 " that I did not love my child." 
 
 " No," I said half untruthfully. 
 
 " I can hardly wonder," she continued, more sad- 
 ly, " for it is only what I have said to myself a 
 thousand times. Sometimes I think that I have 
 lived in a dream, and one that few share with me. 
 I have questioned others, and -never yet found a 
 woman who did not admit tliat her child was more 
 to her, in her secret soul, than her husband. AVhat 
 can they mean ? Such a thought is foreign to my 
 very nature." 
 
 " Why separate the two ? " I asked. 
 
 " I must separate them in thought," she answered, 
 witli the air of one driven to bay by her own self- 
 reproaching. " I had, like other young girls, my 
 dream of love and marriage. Unlike all tlie rest, I 
 believe, I found my visions fulfilled. The reality 
 was more than tlie imagination ; and I thought it 
 would be so with my love for my cliild. The 
 first cry of that baby told the difference to my 
 ear. I knew it all from that moment ; the bliss 
 
126 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 M'hich had been mine as a wife would never be 
 mine as a mother. If I had not known what it 
 was to adore my husband, I miglit have been con- 
 tent with my love for Marian. But look at that 
 exquisite creature as she lies there asleep, and 
 then tliink that I, her mother, should desert her 
 if she were dying, for aught I know, at one word 
 from him ! " 
 
 "Your feeling does not seem natural," I said, 
 hardly knowing what to answer. 
 
 " What good does it serve to know that ? " she 
 said, defiantly. " I say it to myself every day. 
 Once when she was ill, and was given back to me 
 in all the precious helplessness of babyhood, there 
 was such a strange sweetness in it, I thought the 
 charm might remain ; but it vanished when she 
 could run about once more. And she is such a 
 healthy, self-reliant little thing," added Laura, 
 glancing toward the bed with a momentary look 
 of motherly pride that seemed strangely out of 
 place amid these self-denunciations. " I wish her 
 to be so," she added. " The best service I can do 
 for her is to teach her to stand alone. And at 
 some day," continued the beautiful woman, her 
 
AN artist's creation. 127 
 
 whole face lighting up with happiness, " she may 
 love as I have loved." 
 
 " And your husband," I said, after a pause, — 
 " does your feeling represent his ? " 
 
 " My husband," she said, " lives for his genius, as 
 he should. You that know him, why do you ask ? " 
 
 " And his heart ? " I said, half frightened at ray 
 own temerity. 
 
 " Heart ? " she answered. " He loves me." 
 
 Her color mounted higher yet ; she had a look 
 of pride, almost of hauglitiness. AU else seemed 
 forgotten ; she had turned away from the child's 
 little bed, as if it had no existence. It flashed 
 upon me that something of the poison of her arti- 
 ficial atmosphere was reaching her already. 
 
 Kennmre's step was heard in the hall, and, with 
 fire in her eyes, she hastened to meet him. I 
 found myself actually breathing more freely after 
 the departure of that enchanting woman, in danger 
 of perishing inwardly, I said to myself, in an air too 
 lavishly perfumed. Bending over Marian, I won- 
 dered if it were indeed possible that a perfectly 
 healthy life had sprung from that union too in- 
 tense and too absorbed. Yet I had often noticed 
 
128 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 that the chikl seemed to wear the temperaments 
 of both lier parents as a kind of phiyful disguise, 
 and to peep at you, now out of the one, now 
 from the other, showino- that she had her own 
 individual life behind. 
 
 As if by some infantine instinct, the darling 
 turned in her sleep, and came unconsciously nearer 
 me. With a half-feeling of self-reproach, I drew 
 around my neck, inch by inch, the little arms that 
 tightened with a delicious thrill ; and so I half re- 
 clined there till I myself dozed, and the watchful 
 Janet, looking in, warned me away. Crossing the 
 entry to my own chamber, I heard Kenmure and 
 Laura down stairs, but I knew that I sliould be 
 superfluous, and felt that I was sleepy. 
 
 I had now, indeed, become always superfluous 
 when they were together, though never when they 
 were apart. Even they must be separated some- 
 times, and then each sought me, in order to dis- 
 course about the other. Kenmure showed me 
 every sketch he had ever made of Laura. There 
 she was, through all the range of her beauty, — 
 there she was in clay, in cameo, in pencil, in water- 
 color, in oils. He showed me also his poems. 
 
AN artist's creation. 129 
 
 and, at last, a longer one, for which pencil and 
 graver had alike been laid aside. All these he 
 kept in a great cabinet she had brouglit with her 
 to their housekeeping ; and it seemed to me that 
 he also treasured every flower she had dropped, 
 every slender glove she had worn, every ribbon 
 from her hair. I could not wonder, seeing his 
 passion as it was. Who would not thrill at the 
 touch of some such slight memorial of Mary of 
 Scotland, or of Heloise ? and what was all the re- 
 gal beauty of the past to him ? He found every 
 room adorned when she w%as in it, empty when 
 she had gone, — save that the trace of her was 
 still left on everything, and all appeared but 
 as a garment she had worn. It seemed that 
 even her great mirror must retain, film over film, 
 each reflection of her least movement, the turning 
 of her head, the ungloving of her hand. Strange ! 
 that, with all this intoxicating presence, she yet 
 led a life so free from self, so simple, so absorbed, 
 that all trace of consciousness was excluded, and 
 she was as free from vanity as her own child. 
 
 As we were once thus employed in the studio, 
 I asked Keumure, abruptly, if he never shrank 
 
130 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 fi-om the publicity he was thus giving Laura. 
 " Madame lioeainier was not quite pleased," I said, 
 " that Cauova liad modelled her Inist, even from 
 imagination. Po you never shrink from permit- 
 ting irreverent eyes to hiok on Laura's beauty ? 
 Think of men as you know them. Would you 
 give each of them her miniature, perhaps to go 
 with them into scenes of riot and shame ? " 
 
 " Would to Heaven I could I " said he, passion- 
 ately. " "NMiat else could save them, if that did 
 not ? God lets his sun shine on the evil and on 
 the good, but the evil need it most" 
 
 There was a pause ; and then I ventured to ask 
 him a question that had been many times upon 
 my lips unspoken. 
 
 "Does it never occur to you." I said, "that 
 Laura cannot live on earth forever ?" 
 
 "You cannot disturb me about that," he an- 
 swered, not sadly, but with a set, stern look, as if 
 fencing for the hundredth time against an antago- 
 nist who was foredoomed to be his master in the 
 end. " Laura will outlive me ; she must outlive 
 me. I am so sure of it that, every time I come 
 near her, I pray that I may not be paralyzed, and 
 
AN artist's creation. 131 
 
 (lie outside her arms. Yet, in any event, what can 
 I do Lilt what I am doing, — devote my whole 
 soul to the perpetuation of her beauty ? It is my 
 only dream, — to re-create her through art. What 
 else is worth doing ? It is for this I have tried — 
 through sculpture, through painting, through verse 
 — to depict her as she is. Thus far I have failed. 
 Why have I failed ? Is it because I have not 
 lived a life sufficiently absorbed in her ? or is it 
 that there is no permitted way by which, after 
 God has reclaimed her, the tradition of her perfect 
 loveliness may be retained on earth ? " 
 
 The blinds of the piazza doorway opened, the 
 sweet sea-air came in, the low and level rays of 
 yellow sunset entered as softly as if the breeze 
 were their chariot; and softer and stiller and 
 sweeter than light or air, little Marian stood on 
 the threshold. She had been in the fields with 
 Janet, who had woven for her breeze-blown hair a 
 wreath of the wild gerardia blossoms, whose pur- 
 ple beauty had reminded the good Scotchwoman 
 of her own native heather. In her arms the child 
 bore, like a little gleaner, a great sheaf of graceful 
 golden-rod, as large as her grasp could bear. In 
 
132 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 all the artist's visions he liad seen nothinfj so 
 aerial, so lovely ; in all his passionate portraitures 
 of his idol, he had delineated nothing so like to 
 lier. Marian's cheeks mantled with rich and wine- 
 like tints, her hair took a halo from the sunbeams, 
 her lips parted over the little, milk-white teetli ; 
 she looked at us with her mother's eyes. I turned 
 to Kenmure to see if he could resist the influence. 
 
 He scarcely gave her a glance. " Go, Marian," 
 he said, not impatiently, — for he was too thor- 
 oughly courteous ever to be ungracious, even to a 
 child, — but with a steady indifference that cut 
 me with more pain than if he had struck her. 
 
 The sun dropped behind the horizon, the halo 
 faded from the shining hair and ev'ery ray of light 
 from the childish face. There came in its place 
 that deep, wondering sadness which is more touch- 
 ing than any maturer sorrow, — just as a child's 
 illness melts our hearts more than that of man 
 or woman, it seems so premature and so plaintive. 
 She turned away ; it was the very first time I had 
 ever seen the little face drawn down, or the tears 
 gathering in the eyes. By some kind providence, 
 the mother, coming in flushed and beautiful with 
 
AX artist's creation. 133 
 
 walking, met ]\Iarian on the piazza, and caught the 
 little thing in her arms with unwonted tenderness. 
 It was enough for the elastic child. After one mo- 
 ment of such bliss she could go to Janet, go any- 
 where ; and when the same graceful presence came 
 in to us in the studio, we also could ask no more. 
 "VVe had music and moonlight, and were happy. 
 The atmosphere seemed more human, less unreal. 
 Going up stairs at last, I looked in at the nur- 
 sery, and found my pet rather flushed, and I fan- 
 cied that she stirred uneasily. It passed, what- 
 ever it was ; for next morning she came in to 
 wake me, looking, as usual, as if a new heaven and 
 earth had been coined purposely for her since she 
 went to sleep. "We had our usual long and impor- 
 tant discourse, — this time tending to protracted 
 narrative, of the Mother-Goose description, — un- 
 til, if it had been possible for any human being to 
 be late for breakfast in that house, we should have 
 been the offenders. But she ultimately M^ent 
 down stairs on my shoulder, and, as Kenmure and 
 Laura were already out rowing, the baby put me in 
 her own place, sat in her mother's chair, and r^^led 
 me witli a rod of iron. How wonderful was the 
 
134 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 instinct by which this little creature, who so sel- 
 dom heard one word of parental severity or pa- 
 rental fondness, knew so thoroughly the language of 
 both ! Had I been the most depraved of children, 
 or the most angelic, I could not have been more 
 sternly excluded from the sugar-bowl, or more 
 overwhelmed with compensating kisses. 
 
 Later on that day, while little Marian was tak- 
 ing the very profoundest nap that ever a baby was 
 blessed with, (she had a pretty way of dropping 
 asleep in unexpected corners of the house, like a 
 kitten,) I somehow strayed into a confidential talk 
 with Janet about her mistress. I was rather 
 troubled to find that all her loyalty was for Lau- 
 ra, with nothing left for Kenraure, whom, indeed, 
 she seemed to regard as a sort of objectionable al- 
 tar, on which her darlings were being sacrificed. 
 "When she came to particulars, certain stray fears 
 of my own were confirmed. It seemed that 
 Laura's constitution was not fit, Janet averred, to 
 bear these irregular hours, early and late ; and she 
 plaintively dwelt on the untasted oatmeal in the 
 morning, the insufficient luncheon, the precarious 
 dinner, the excessive walking and boating, the 
 
AX artist's CREATION". 135 
 
 evening damps. There was coming to be a look 
 about Laura such as her mother had, who died at 
 thirty. As for Marian, — but here the compkiint 
 suddenly stopped ; it would have required far 
 stronger provocation to extract from the faithful 
 soul one word that might seem to reflect on Mari- 
 an's mother. 
 
 Another year, and her forebodings had come 
 true. It is needless to dwell on the interval. 
 Since then I have sometimes felt a resi^ret almost 
 insatiable in the thought that I should have been 
 absent while all that gracious loveliness was 
 fading and dissolving like a cloud ; and yet at 
 ofher times it has appeared a relief to think that 
 Laura w-ould ever remain to me in the fulness of 
 her beauty, not a tint faded, not a lineament 
 changed. With all my efforts, I arrived only in 
 time to accompany Kenraure home at night, after 
 the funeral service. We paused at the door of the 
 empty house, — how empty! I hesitated, but 
 Kenmure motioned to me to follow him in. 
 
 We passed through the hall and went up stairs. 
 Janet met us at the head of the stairway, and 
 asked me if I. would go in to look at little Marian, 
 
136 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 Avho was sleeping. I begged Kenmure to go also 
 but he refused, almost savagely, and went on with 
 heavy step into Laura's deserted room. 
 
 Almost the moment I entered the child's cham- 
 ber, she waked up suddenly, looked at me, and 
 said, " I know you, you are ray friend." She never 
 would call me her cousin, I was always her friend. 
 Then she sat up in bed, with her eyes wide open, 
 and said, as if stating a problem which had been 
 put by for my solution, " I should like to see my 
 mother." 
 
 How our hearts are rent by the unquestioning 
 faith of children, when they come to test the love 
 that has so often worked what seemed to chem 
 miracles, — and ask of it miracles indeed ! I 
 tried to explain to her the continued existence of 
 her mother, and she listened to it as if her eyes 
 drank in all that I could say, and more. But the 
 apparent distance between earth and heaven baf- 
 fled her baby mind, as it so often and so sadly 
 baffles the thoughts of us elders. I wondered 
 what precise change seemed to her to have taken 
 place. This all-fascinating Laura, whom she 
 adored, and who had yet never been to her what 
 
AN artist's creation. 137 
 
 other women are to their darlings, — did heaven 
 seem to put her farther off, or bring her more near ? 
 I could never know. The healthy child had no 
 morbid questionings ; and as she had come into the 
 world to be a sunbeam, she must not fail of that 
 mission. She was kicking about the bed, by this 
 time, in her nightgown, and holding her pink lit- 
 tle toes in all sorts of difficult attitudes, when she 
 suddenly said, looking me full in the face: " If 
 my mother was so high up that she had her feet 
 upon a star, do you think that I could see her ? " 
 
 This astronomical apotheosis startled me for a 
 moment, but I said unhesitatingly, " Yes," feeling 
 sure that the lustrous eyes that looked in mine 
 could certainly see as far as Dante's, when Bea- 
 trice was transferred from his side to the highest 
 realm of Paradise. I put my head beside hers 
 upon the pillow, and stayed till I thought she was 
 asleep. 
 
 I then followed Kenmure into Laura's chamber. 
 It was dusk, but the after-sunset glow still bathed 
 the room with imperfect light, and he lay upon the 
 bed, his hands clenched over his eyes. 
 
 There was a deep bow-window where Laura 
 
138 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 used to sit and watch us, sometimes, when we put 
 off in the boat. Her seolian harp was in the case- 
 ment, breaking its heart in music. A delicate 
 handkerchief was lodged between the cushions of 
 the window-seat, — the very handkerchief she used 
 to wave, in summer days long gone. The white 
 boats went sailing beneatli the evening light, chil- 
 dren shouted and splashed in the water, a song came 
 from a yacht, a ' steam-whistle shrilled from the 
 receding steamer ; but she for whom alone those 
 little signs of life had been dear and precious would 
 henceforth be as invisible to our eyes as if time 
 and space had never held her ; and the young moon 
 and the evening star seemed but empty things un- 
 less they could pilot us to some world where the 
 splendor of her loveliness could match their own. 
 Twilight faded, evening darkened, and still Ken- 
 mure lay motionless, until his strong form grew in 
 my moody fancy to be like some carving of INIi- 
 chel Angelo's, more than like a living man. And 
 when he at last startled me by speaking, it was 
 with a voice so far off and so strange, it might 
 almost have come wandering down from the cen- 
 tury when Michel Angelo lived. 
 
AX artist's creation. 139 
 
 "You are right," he said "I have been living 
 in a Iruitless dream. It has all vanished. The 
 absurdity of speaking of creative art ! With all 
 my life-long devotion, I have created nothing. I 
 have kept no memorial of her presence, nothing to 
 perpetuate the most beautiful of lives." 
 
 Before I could answer, tlie door came softly 
 open, and there stood in the doorway a small white 
 figure, holding aloft a lighted taper of pure alabas- 
 ter. It was ^Marian in her little night-dress, with 
 the loose blue wrapper trailing behind her, let go 
 in the effort to hold carefully the doll, Susan Hal- 
 liday, robed also for the night. 
 
 " May I come in ? " said the child. 
 
 Kenmure was motionless at first ; then, looking 
 over his shoulder, said merely, " What ? " 
 
 " Janet said," continued Marian, in her clear 
 and methodical way, " that my mother was up in 
 heaven, and would help God hear my prayers at 
 any rate ; but if I pleased, I could come and say 
 them by you." 
 
 A shudder passed over Kenmure ; then he turned 
 away, and put his hands over his eyes. She waited 
 for no answer, but, putting down the candlestick. 
 
140 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 in her wonted careful manner, upon a chair, she 
 began to climb upon the bed, lifting laboriously 
 one little rosy foot, then another, still dragging 
 after her, with great effort, the doll. Nestling at 
 her father's breast, I saw her kneel. 
 
 " Once my mother put her arm round me, when 
 I said my prayers." She made this remark, under 
 her breath, less as a suggestion, it seemed, than as 
 the simple statement of a fact. 
 
 Instantly I saw Kenmure's arm move; and grasp 
 her with that strong and gentle touch of his which 
 I had so often noticed in the studio, — a toucli 
 that seemed quiet as the approach of fate, and 
 equally resistless. I knew him well enough to 
 understand that iron adoption. 
 
 He drew her toward him, her soft hair was on 
 his breast, she looked fearlessly into his eyes, and I 
 could hear the little prayer proceeding, yet in so 
 low a whisper that I could not catch one word. 
 She was infinitely solemn at such times, the dar- 
 ling ; and there was always something in her low, 
 clear tone, tlirough all her prayings and philoso- 
 phizings, wliich was strangely like her mother's 
 voice. Sometimes she paused, as if to ask a 
 
AN artist's creation. 141 
 
 question, and at every answer I could see lier 
 father's arm tighten. 
 
 The moments passed, the voices grew lower yet, 
 the candle flickered and went out, the doll slid 
 to the ground. ]\Iarian had drifted away upon 
 a vaster ocean than that whose music lulled her 
 from without, — upon that sea whose waves are 
 dreams. The night was wearing on, the lights 
 gleamed from the anchored vessels, tlie water 
 rippled serenely against the low sea-wall, the 
 breeze blew gently in. IMarian's baby breathing 
 grew deeper and more tranquil ; and as all the 
 sorrows of the weary earth might be imagined 
 to exhale themselves in spring tlirough the 
 breath of violets, so I prayed that it might be 
 with Kenmure's burdened heart, through hers. 
 By degrees the strong man's deeper respirations 
 mingled witli those of the child, and their two 
 separate beings seemed merged and solved into 
 identity, as they slumbered, breast to breast, be- 
 neath the golden and quiet stars. I passed by 
 without awaking them, and I knew that the artist 
 had attained his dream. 
 
IN A WHEERY. 
 
 "TTTE have a phrase in Oldport, " AVhat New- 
 ^ ^ Yorkers call poverty : to be reduced to a 
 pony phaeton." In consequence of a November 
 gale, I am reduced to a similar state of destitution, 
 from a sail-boat to a wherry ; and, like others of 
 the deserving poor, I have found many compensa- 
 tions in my humbler condition. Which is the 
 more enjoyable, rowing or sailing ? If you sail 
 before the wind, there is the glorious vigor of the 
 breeze that fills your sails ; you get all of it you 
 have room for, and a ship of the line could do no 
 more ; indeed, your very nearness to the water 
 increases the excitement, since the water swirls 
 and boils up, as it unites in your wake, and seems 
 to clutch at the low stern of your sail-boat, and 
 to menace the hand that guides the helm. Or 
 if you beat to windward, it is as if your boat 
 climbed a liquid liill, but did it with bounding and 
 
Mtm,- 
 
IX A WHERRY. 143 
 
 dancing, like a child ; there is the plash of the 
 lighter ripples against the bow, and tlie thud of 
 the heavier waves, while the same blue water is 
 now transformed to a cool jet of white foam over 
 your face, and now to a dark whirlpool in your lee. 
 Sailing gives a sense of prompt command, since 
 by a single movement of the tiller you effect so 
 great a change of direction or transform motion 
 into rest ; there is, therefore, a certain magic in it : 
 but, on the other hand, there is in rowing a more 
 direct appeal to your physical powers ; you do not 
 evade or cajole the elements by a cunning device 
 of keel and canvas, you meet them man-fashion 
 and subdue them. The motion of the oars is like 
 the strong motion of a bird's wings ; to sail a boat 
 is to ride upon an eagle, but to row is to be an 
 eagle. I prefer rowing, — at least till I can afford 
 another sail-boat. 
 
 "What is a good day for rowing ? Almost any 
 day that is good for living. Living is not quite 
 agreeable in the midst of a tornado or an equinoc- 
 tial storm, neither is rowing. There are days 
 when rowing is as toilsome and exhausting a pro- 
 cess as is Bunyan's idea of virtue ; while there are 
 
144 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 other days, like the present, when it seems a 
 mere Oriental passiveness and the forsaking of 
 works, — just an excuse to Nature for being out 
 among her busy things. For even at this stillest 
 of liours there is far less repose in Nature than we 
 imagine. What created thing can seem more 
 patient than yonder kingfisher on the sea-wall ? 
 Yet, as we glide near him, we shall see that no 
 creature can be more full of concentrated life ; all 
 his nervous system seems on edge, every instant 
 he is rising or lowering on his feet, the tail vibrates, 
 the neck protrudes or shrinks again, the 'feathers 
 ruffle, the crest dilates ; he talks to himself with 
 an impatient chirr, then presently hovers and dives 
 for a fish, then flies back disappointed. We sa}'- 
 " free as birds," but their lives are given over to 
 arduous labors. And so, wlien our condition seems 
 most dreamy, our observing faculties are sometimes 
 desperately on the alert, and we find afterwards, 
 to our surprise, that we have missed nothing. The 
 best observer in the end is not he wlio works at 
 the microscope or telescope most unceasingly, but 
 he whose whole nature becomes sensitive and re- 
 ceptive, drinking in everything, like a sponge that 
 
IN A WHERRY. 145 
 
 saturates itself with all floating vapors and odors, 
 though it seems inert and unsuspicious until you 
 press it and it tells the tale. 
 
 Most men do their work out of doors and their 
 dreaming at home ; and those whose work is done 
 at home need something like a wherry in which 
 to dream out of doors. On a squally day, with 
 the wind northwest, it is a dream of action, and 
 to round yonder point against an ebbing tide 
 makes you feel as if you were Grant before Eich- 
 mond ; when you put about, you gallop like Sheri- 
 dan, and the winds and waves become a cavalry 
 escort. On otlier days all elements are hushed 
 into a dream of peace, and you look out upon 
 those once stormy distances as Landseer's sheep 
 look into the mouth of the empty cannon on a 
 dismantled fort. These are the days for revery, 
 and your thoughts fly forth, gliding without fric- 
 tion over this smooth expanse ; or, rather, they are 
 like yonder pair of white butterflies that will flut- 
 ter for an hour just above the glassy surface, 
 traversing miles of distance before they alight 
 again. 
 
 By a happy trait of our midsummer, these 
 
 7 J 
 
146 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 various pliases of wind and water may often be 
 included in a single day. On three mornings out 
 of four the wind blows northwest down our bay, 
 then dies to a calm before noon. After an hour 
 or two of perfect stillness, you see the line of blue 
 ripple coming up from the ocean till it conquers 
 all the paler water, and the southwest breeze 
 sets in. This middle zone of calm is like the 
 noonday of the Eomans, when they feared to 
 speak, lest the great god Pan should be awakened. 
 While it lasts, a thin, aerial veil drops over the 
 distant hills of Conanicut, then draws nearer and 
 nearer till it seems to touch your boat, the very 
 nearest section of space being filled with a faint 
 disembodied blueness, like that which fills on 
 winter days, in colder regions, the hollows of 
 the snow. vSky and sea show but gradations of the 
 same color, and afford but modifications of tlie 
 same element. In this quietness, yonder schooner 
 seems not so much to lie at anchor in the water 
 as to anchor the water, so that both cease to move ; 
 and though faint ripples may come and go else- 
 where on the surface, the vessel rests in this liquid 
 island of absolute calm. For there certainlv is else- 
 
IX A WHERRY. 147 
 
 ■where a sort of motionless movement, as Keats 
 speaks of " a little noiseless noise among the leaves," 
 or as the supimer clouds form and disappear with- 
 out, apparent wind and without prejudice to the 
 stillness. A man may lie in the profoundest 
 trance and still be breathing, and the very pulsa- 
 tions of the life of nature, in these calm hours, are 
 to be read in these changing tints and shadows 
 and ripples, and in the mirage-bewildered outlines 
 of the islands in the bay. It is this incessant shift- 
 ing of relations, this perpetual substitution of 
 fantastic for real values, this inability to trust 
 your own eye or ear unless the mind makes its 
 own corrections, — that gives such an inexhausti- 
 ble attraction to life beside the ocean. The sea- 
 change comes to you without your waiting to be 
 drowned. You must recognize the working of 
 your own imagination and allow for it. "When, 
 for instance, the sea-fog settles down around us at 
 nightfall, it sometimes grows denser and denser till 
 it apparently becomes more solid than the pave- 
 ments of the town, or than the great globe 
 itself; and when the fog- whistles go wailing on 
 through all the darkened hours, they seem to be 
 
148 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 signalling not ,so much for a lost ship as for a lost 
 island. 
 
 How unlike are those weird and gloomy nights 
 to this sunny noon, Avhen I rest my oars in this 
 sheltered bay, where a small lagoon makes in he- 
 hind Coaster's Harbor Island, and the very last 
 breath and murmur of the ocean are left outside ! 
 The coming tide steals to the shore in waves so 
 light they are a mere shade upon the surface till 
 they break, and ten die speechless for one that has a 
 voice. And even those rare voices are the very 
 most confidential and silvery whispers in which 
 Nature ever spoke to man ; the faintest summer 
 insect seems resolute and assured beside them ; 
 and yet it needs but an indefinite multiplication 
 of these sounds to make up the thunder of the surf. 
 It is so still that I can let the wherry drift idly 
 along the shore, and can watch the life beneath 
 the water. The small fry cluster and evade be- 
 tween me and the brink ; the half-translucent 
 sin-imp glides gracefully undisturbed, or glances 
 away like a flash if you but touch the surface; 
 the crabs Avaddle or burrow, the smaller species 
 mimicking unconsciously the hue of the soft green 
 
IN A WIIERllY. 149 
 
 sea-weed, and the larger looking like motionless 
 stones, covered with barnacles and decked with 
 fringing weeds. I am acquainted with no better 
 Darwinian than the crab ; and however clumsy he 
 may be when taken from his own element, he lias 
 a free and floating motion which is almost grace- 
 ful in his own yielding and buoyant home. It is 
 so with all wild creatures, but especially with 
 those of water and air. A gull is not reckoned an 
 especially graceful bird, but yonder I see one, 
 snowy white, that has come to fish in this safe 
 lagoon, and it dips and rises on its errands as 
 lightly as a butterfly or a swallow. Beneath that 
 neighboring causeway the water-rats run over tlie 
 stones, lithe and eager and alert, the body carried 
 low, the head raised now and then like a hound's, 
 the tail curving gracefully and aiding the poise ; 
 now they are running to the water as if to drink, 
 now racing for dear life along the edge, now fairly 
 swimming, then devoting an interval to reflection, 
 like squirrels, then again searching over a pile of 
 sea-weed and selecting some especial tuft, which 
 is carried, with long, sinuous leaps, to the unseen 
 nest. Indeed, man himself is graceful in his un- 
 
150 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 conscious and direct employments : the poise of a 
 fisherman, for instance, the play of his arm, the 
 cast of his line or net, — these take the eye as do 
 the stealthy movements of the hunter, the fine 
 attitudes of the wood-chopper, the grasp of the 
 sailor on the helm. A haystack and a boat are 
 always picturesque objects, and so are the men 
 who are at work to build or use tliem. So is yon- 
 der stake-net, glistening in the noonday light,' — 
 the innumerable meslies drooping in soft arches 
 from the high stakes, and the line of floats stretch- 
 ing shoreward, like tiny stepping-stones ; two or 
 three row-boats are gathered round it, with fisher- 
 men in red or blue shirts, while one white sail- 
 boat hovers near. And I have looked down on 
 our beach in spring, at sunset, and watched tliem 
 drawing nets for the young liening, when the 
 rough men looked as graceful as the nets they 
 drew, and the horseman who directed miglit have 
 been Redgauntlet on the Solway Sands. 
 
 I suppose it is from this look of natural fitness 
 tliat a windmill is always such an appropriate ob- 
 ject by the sea-shore. It is simply a four-masted 
 schooner, stranded on a hill-top, and adapting itself 
 
IN A WHKUUY. 151 
 
 to a new sphere of duty. It can have needed 
 but a slight stretch of invention in some seaman to 
 combine these lofty vans, and throw over them a 
 few remodelled sails. The principle of their mo- 
 tion is that by which a vessel beats to windward ; 
 the miller spreads or reefs his sails, like a sailor, 
 — reducing them in a high wind to a mere "pigeon- 
 wing " as it is called, two or three feet in length, 
 or in some cases even scudding under bare poles. 
 The whole structure vibrates and creaks under 
 rapid motion, like a mast ; and the angry vans, 
 disappointed of progress, are ready to grind to 
 powder all that comes within their grasp, as they 
 revolve hopelessly in this sea of air. 
 
 When the sun grows hot, I like to take refuge 
 in a sheltered nook beside Goat Island Light- 
 house, where the wharf shades me, and the reso- 
 nant plash of waters multiplies itself among the 
 dark piles, increasing the delicious sense of cool- 
 ness. While the noonday bells ring twelve, I 
 take my rest. Eound the corner of the pier the 
 fishing-boats come gliding in, generally with a boy 
 asleep forward, and a weary man at the helm ; one 
 can almost fancy that the boat itself looks weary, 
 
152 OLDPORT DAYS, 
 
 having been out since the early summer sunrise. 
 In contrast to this expression of labor ended, the 
 white pleasure-boats seem but to be taking a care- 
 less stroll by v;ater ; while a skiff full of girls drifts 
 idly along the shore, amid laughter and screaming 
 and much aimless splash. More resolute and 
 business-like, the boys row their boat far up the 
 bay ; then I see a sudden gleam of white bodies, 
 and then the boat is empty, and the surrounding 
 water is sprinkled with black and bobbing heajls. 
 The steamboats look busier yet, as they go puffing 
 by at short intervals, and send long waves up to 
 my retreat ; and then some schooner sails in, full 
 of life, with a white ripple round her bows, till she 
 suddenly rounds to, drops anchor, and is still. 
 Opposite me, on the landward side of the bay, tlie 
 green banks slope to the water ; on yonder cool 
 piazza there is a young mother who swings her 
 baby in tlie hammock, or a white-robed figure 
 pacing beneath the trailing vines. Peace and 
 lotus-eating on shore ; on the water, even in the 
 stillest noon, there are life and sparkle and con- 
 tinual change. 
 
 One of tliose fishermen whose boats have just 
 
IN A WHEKKY. 153 
 
 glided to their moorings is to me a far more in- 
 teresting person than any of his mates, though he 
 is perhaps the only one among them with whom I 
 have never yet exchanged a word. There is good 
 reason for it ; he has been deaf and dumb since 
 boyhood. He is reported to be the boldest sailor 
 among all these daring men ; he is the last to re- 
 treat before the coming storm ; the first after the 
 storm to venture through the white and whirling 
 channels, between dangerous ledges, to which 
 others give a wider berth. I do not wonder at 
 this, for think how much of the awe and terror of 
 the tempest must vanish if the ears he closed ! 
 The ominous undertone of the waves on the beach 
 and the muttering thunder pass harndess by him. 
 How infinitely strange it must be to have the sight 
 of danger, but not the sound ! Fancy such a dep- 
 rivation in war, for instance, where it is the 
 sounds, after all, that haunt tlie memory the long- 
 est ; the rifle's crack, the irregular shots of skir- 
 mishers, the long roll of alarm, the roar of great 
 guns. This man would have missed them all. 
 Were a broadside from an enemy's gimboat to be 
 discharged above liis head, he would not hear it; 
 
 7* 
 
154 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 he would only recognize, by some jarring of his 
 other senses, the fierce concussion of the air. 
 
 How much deeper seems his solitude than that 
 of any other " lone fisher on the lonely sea " ! Yet 
 all such things are comparative ; and while the 
 others contrast that wave-tossed isolation with 
 the cheeriness of home, his home is silent too. He 
 has a wife and children ; they all speak, but he 
 hears not their prattle or their complaints. He 
 summons them with his fingers, as he summons 
 the fislies, and tliey are equally dumb to him. Has 
 he a special sympathy with those submerged and 
 voiceless things ? Dunfish, in the old newspapers, 
 were often called " dumb'd fish " ; and they per- 
 chance come to him as to one of their kindred. 
 They may have learned, like other innocent things, 
 to accept this defect of utterance, and even imitate 
 it. I knew a deaf-and-dumb woman whose chil- 
 dren spoke and heard ; but while yet too young for 
 words, they had learned that their mother was not 
 to be reached in that way; they never cried or 
 complained before her, and Avhen most e.xcited 
 would only whisper. Her baby ten months old, 
 if disturbed in the night, would creep to her and 
 
IX A WIIEIJKY. 155 
 
 touch her lips, to awaken her, but would make no 
 noise. 
 
 One might fancy that all men who have an ago- 
 nizing sorrow or a fearful secret would he drawn by 
 irresistible attraction into the society of the deaf 
 and dumb. "What awful jiassions might not be 
 whispered, what terror safely spoken, in the 
 charmed circle round yonder silent boat, — a circle 
 whose centre is a human life which has not all the 
 susceptibilities of life, a confessional where even 
 the priest cannot hear ! Would it not relieve sor- 
 row to express itself, even if unheeded ? What 
 more could one ask than a dumb confidant ? and if 
 deaf also, so much the safer. To be sure, he w'ould 
 give you neither absolution nor guidance ; he could 
 render nothijig in return, save a look or a clasp 
 of the hand ; nor can the most gifted or eloquent 
 friendship do much more. Ah ! but suddenly the 
 thought occurs, suppose that the defect of hearing, 
 as of tongue, were liable to be loosed by an over- 
 mastering emotion, and that by startling him with 
 your hoarded confidence you were to break the 
 spell ! The hint is too perilous ; let us row away. 
 
 A few strokes take us to the half-submeroed 
 
156 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 wreck of a lime-schooner that was cut to the 
 water's edge, by a collision in a gale, twelve months 
 ago. The water kindled the lime, the cable was 
 cut, the vessel drifted ashore and sunk, still blaz- 
 ing, at this little beach. When I saw lier, at sun- 
 set, the masts had been cut away, and the flames 
 held possession on board. Fire was working away 
 in the cabin, like a live thing, and sometimes 
 glared out of the hatchway ; anon it clambered 
 along the gunwale, like a school-boy playing, and 
 the waves chased it as in play ; just a flicker of 
 flame, then a wave would reach up to overtake it ; 
 then the flames would be, or seem to be, where 
 the water had been ; and finally, as the vessel lay 
 careened, the waves took undisturbed possession 
 of the lower gunwale, and the flames of the upper 
 So it burned that day and night ; part red with 
 fire, part black with soaking ; and now twelve 
 months have made all its visible parts look dry 
 and white, till it is hard to believe that either 
 fire or water lias ever touched it. It lies over on 
 its bare knees, and a single knee, torn from the 
 others, rests imploringly on the shore, as if 
 that had worked its way to land, and perished 
 
IX A WHEKUy. 157 
 
 ill act of thanksgiving At low tide, one half the 
 frame is lifted high in air, like a dead tree in the 
 forest. 
 
 Perhaps all other elements are tenderer in their 
 dealings with what is intrusted to them tlian is 
 the air. Fire, at least, destroys what it lias rained; 
 earth is warm and loving, and it moreover con- 
 ceals ; water is at least caressing, — it laps the great- 
 er part of this wreck with protecting waves, covers 
 M'ith sea-weeds all tliat it can reach, and protects 
 with incrusting shells. Even beyond its grasp it 
 tosses soft pendants of moss that twine like vine- 
 tendrils, or sway in the wind. It mellows harsh 
 colors into beauty, and Euskin grows eloquent 
 over the wave- washed tint of some tarry, weather- 
 beaten boat. But air is pitiless : it dries and stiffens 
 all outline, and bleaches all color away, so that you 
 can hardly tell whether these ribs belonged to a 
 ship or an elephant ; and yet there is a certain cold 
 purity in the shapes it leaves, and the birds it 
 sends to perch upon these timbers are a more 
 graceful company than lobsters or fishes. After 
 all, there is something sublime in that sepulture 
 of the Parsees, who erect near every village a 
 
158 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 clokJrma, or Tower of Silence, upon whose summit 
 they may bury tlieir dead in air. 
 
 Thus widely ma}- one's thoughts wander from a 
 summer boat. But the season for rowing is a long 
 one, and far outlasts in Oldport the stay of our 
 annual guests. Sometimes in autumnal morning? 
 I glide forth over water so still, it seems as if satu- 
 rated by the Indian-summer with its own indefina- 
 ble calm. The distant islands lift themselves on 
 white pedestals of mirage ; the cloud-shadows rest 
 softly on Conanicut ; and ^^Jlat seems a similar 
 shadow on the nearer slopes of Fort Adams is in 
 truth but a mounted battery, drilling, which soon 
 moves and slides across the hazy hill like a cloud. 
 I hear across nearly a mile of water the faint, sharp 
 orders and the sonorous blare of the trumpet that 
 follows each command ; the horsemen gallop and 
 wheel ; suddenly the band within the fort strikes 
 up for guard-mounting, and I have but to shut my 
 eyes to be carried back to warlike days that passed 
 by, — was it centuries ago ? Meantime, I float 
 gradually towards Brenton's Cove ; the lawns that 
 reach to the water's edge were never so gorgeously 
 green in any summer, and the departure of the 
 
IN A WHEKRY. 159 
 
 transient guests gives to these lovely places an air 
 of cool seclusion ; when fashion quits them, the 
 imagination is ready to move in. An agreeable 
 sense of universal ownership comes over the win- 
 ter-staying mind in Oldport. I like to keep up 
 this little semblance of habitation on the part of 
 our human birds of passage ; it is very pleasant to 
 me, and perhaps even pleasanter to them, that they 
 should call these emerald slopes their own for a 
 month or two ; but when they lock the doors in 
 autumn, the ideal key reverts into my hands, and 
 it is evident that they have only been " tenants by 
 the courtesy," in the fine legal phrase. Provided 
 they stay here long enough to attend to their lawns 
 and pay their taxes, I am better satisfied than if 
 these estates were left to me the whole year 
 round. 
 
 The tide takes the boat nearer to the fort ; the 
 horsemen ride more conspicuously, with swords 
 and trappings that glisten in the sunlight, while 
 the white fetlocks of the horses twinkle in unison 
 as they move. One troop-horse without a rider 
 wheels and gallops with the rest, and seems to 
 revel in the free motion. Here also the tide 
 
160 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 reaches or seems to reach the very edge of the 
 turf ; and when the light battery gallops this way, 
 it is as if it were charging on my floating fortress. 
 Upon the other side is a scene of peace ; and a 
 fisherman sings in his boat as he examines the 
 floats of his stake-net, hand over hand. A white 
 gull hovers close above him, and a dark one above 
 the horsemen, fit emblems of peace and war. The 
 slightest sounds, the rattle of an oar, the striking 
 of a hoof against a stone, are borne over the water 
 to an amazing distance, as if the calm bay, amid 
 its seeming quiet, were watchful of the slightest 
 noise. But look ! in a moment the surface is rip- 
 pled, the sky is clouded, a swift change comes over 
 the fitful mood of the season ; the water looks colder 
 and deeper, the greensward assumes a chilly dark- 
 ness, the troopers gallop away to their stables, and 
 the fisherman rows home. That indefinable ex- 
 pression which separates autumn from summer 
 creeps almost in an instant over all. Soon, even 
 upon this Isle of Peace, it will be winter. 
 
 Each season, as winter returns, I try in vain to 
 comprehend this wonderful shifting of expres- 
 sion that touches even a thing so essentially un- 
 
IN A WHERRY, 161 
 
 changing as the sea. How delicious to all the 
 senses is the summer foam above yonder rock ; iu 
 winter the foam is the same, the sparkle as radi- 
 ant, the hue of the water scarcely altered ; and yet 
 the effect is, by comparison, cold, heavy, and leaden. 
 It is like that mysterious variation which chiefly 
 makes the difference between one human face and 
 another ; we call it by vague names, and cannot 
 tell in what it lies ; we only know that when ex- 
 pression changes, all is gone. No warmth of color, 
 no perfection of outline can supersede those subtile 
 influences which make one face so winning that all 
 human affection gravitates to its spell, and another 
 so cold or repellent that it dwells forever in loneli- 
 ness, and no passionate heart draws near. I can 
 fancy the ocean beating in vague despair against 
 its shores in winter, and moaning, " I am as beau- 
 tiful, as restless, as untamable as ever : why are my 
 cliffs left desolate ? why am I not loved as I was 
 loved in summer ? " 
 
MADA^r DELIA'S EXPECTATIONS. 
 
 "A /TAD AM DELIA Scat at the door of her 
 -^ -^ show-tent, which, as slie discovered too 
 late, had been pitched on the wrong side of the 
 Parade. It was " Election day " in Oldport, and 
 there must have been a thousand people in the 
 public square ; there were really more than the 
 four policemen on duty could properly attend to, 
 so that half of them had leisure to step into ^lad- 
 am Delia's tent, and see little Gerty and the rat- 
 tlesnakes. It was past the appointed hour ; but 
 the exhibition had never yet been known to open 
 for less than ten spectators, and even the addition 
 of the policemen only made eight. So the mistress 
 of the show sat in resolute e.xpectation, a little de- 
 fiant of the human race. It was her thirteenth 
 annual tour, and she knew mankind. 
 
 Surely there were people enough ; surely they 
 had money enough ; surely they were easily pleased. 
 
jiADAM Delia's expectations. 163 
 
 They gathered in crowds to hear crazy ]\Irs. Green 
 denouncing the city government for sending her 
 to the poorhouse in a wagon instead of a carriage. 
 They thronged to inspect the load of hay that was 
 drawn by the two horses whose harness had been 
 cut to pieces, and then repaired by Denison's Eu- 
 reka Cement. They all bought whips with that 
 unfailing readiness which marks a rural crowd; 
 they bought packages of lead-pencils with a dollar 
 so skilfully distributed through every six parcels 
 that the oldest purchaser had never found more 
 than ten cents in his. They let the man who 
 cured neuralgia rub his magic curative on their 
 foreheads, and allowed the man who cleaned 
 watch-chains to dip theirs in the purifying powder. 
 They twirled the magic arrow, which never by any 
 chance rested at the corner compartments where 
 the gold watches and the heavy bracelets were 
 piled, but perpetually recurred to the side stations, 
 and indicated only a beggarly prize of india-rubber 
 sleeve-buttons. They bought ten cents' worth of 
 jewelry, obtaining a mingled treasure of two breast- 
 pins, a plain gold ring, an enamelled ring, and " a 
 piece of California gold." But still no added prizes 
 
164 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 in the human lottery fell to the show-tent of 
 Madam Delia. 
 
 As time went on and the day grew warmer, 
 the crowd grew visibly less enterprising, and busi- 
 ness flagged. The man with the lifting-machine 
 pulled at the handles himself, a gratuitous exhibi- 
 tion before a circle of boys now penniless. The 
 man with the metallic polish dipped and redipped 
 his own watch-chain. The men at the booths sat 
 down to lunch upon the least presentable of their 
 own pies. The proprietor of the magic arrow, who 
 had already two large breastpins on his dirty shirt, 
 selected from his own board another to grace his 
 coat-collar, as if thereby to summon back the wan- 
 ing fortunes of the day. But Madam Delia still 
 sat at her post, undaunted. Slie kept her eye on 
 two sauntering militia-men in uniform, but they 
 only read her sign and seated themselves on the 
 curbstone, to smoke. Then a stout black soldier 
 came in sight ; but he turned and sat down at a 
 table to eat oysters, served by a vast and smiling 
 matron of his own race. But even this, though 
 perhaps the most wholly cheerful exhibition that 
 the day yielded, had no charms for Madam Delia. 
 
MADAM Delia's expectations. 165 
 
 Her own dinner was ordered at the tavern after 
 the morning show ; and where is the human being 
 who does not resent the spectacle of another human 
 being who dines earlier than himself ? 
 
 It grew warmer, so warm that the canvas walls 
 of the tent seemed to grasp a certain armful of 
 heat and keep it inexorably in ; so warm that the 
 out-of-door man was dozing as he leaned against 
 the tent-stake, and only recovered himself at the 
 sound of Madam Delia's penetrating voice, and 
 again began to summon people in, though there 
 was nobody within hearing. It was so warm that 
 Mv. De Marsan, born Bangs, the w^edded husband 
 of Madam Delia, dozed as he walked up and down 
 the sidewalk, and had hardly voice enough to tes- 
 tify, as an unconcerned spectator, to the value of 
 the show. Only the unwearied zeal of the show- 
 woman defied alike thermometer and neglect. 
 She kept her eye on everything, — on Old Bill as 
 he fed the monkeys within, on Monsieur Comstock 
 as he hung tlie trapeze for the performance, on the 
 little girls as they tried to peddle their songs, on 
 the sleepy out-of-door man, and on the people wlio 
 did not draw near. If she could, she would have 
 
166 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 played all the parts , in her own small company, 
 and would have put tlie inexhaustible nervous en- 
 ergies of her own Xew England nature (she was 
 born at Meddibemps, State of Maine) into all. 
 Apart from this potent stimulus, not a soul in the 
 establishment, save little Gerty, possessed any en- 
 ergy w^hatever. Old Bill had unfortunately never 
 learned total abstinence from the wild animals 
 among which he had passed his life ; jSIousieur 
 Comstock's brains had cliiefly run into his arms 
 and legs ; and Mr. De Marsan, the nominal head 
 of the establishment, was a peaceful Pennsylva- 
 nian, who was wont to move as slowly as if he 
 were one of those processions that take a certain 
 number of hours to pass a given point. This 
 Madam Delia understood and expected ; he was 
 an innocent who was to be fed, clothed, and di- 
 rected ; but his languor was no excuse for the 
 manifest feebleness of the out-of-door man. 
 
 " That man don't know how to talk no more 'n 
 nothin' at all," said Madam Delia reproachfully, to 
 the large policeman who stood by her. " He never 
 speaks up bold to nobod}'. ^Miy don't he tell 'em 
 what 's inside the tent ? - 1 don't want him to say 
 
MADAM DELIA'S EXPECTATIONS. 167 
 
 no more 'ii the trutli, but he might tell that. Tell 
 'em about Gerty, you nincum ! Tell 'em about 
 the snakes. Tell 'era what Com.stock is. 'T ain't 
 the real original Comstock " (this to the policeman), 
 "it 's only another that used to perform with hira 
 in Comstock Brothers. This one can't swaller, so 
 we leave out the knives." 
 
 " Where 's t' other ? " said the sententious police- 
 man, whose ears were always open for suspicious 
 disappearances. 
 
 " Did n't you hear ? " cried the incredulous lady. 
 " Scattered I Gone ! Went off one day with a box 
 of snakes and two monkeys. Come, now, you 
 must have heard We had a sight of trouble pay- 
 in' detectives." 
 
 " What for a looking fellow was he ? " said the 
 policeman. 
 
 " Dark complected," was the reply. " Black 
 mustache. He understood his business, I tell you 
 now. Swallered five or six knives to onst, and 
 give good satisfaction to any audience. It was 
 him that brought us Gerty and Anne, — that's 
 the other little girl. I did n't know as they was 
 his children, and didn't know as they was, but 
 
168 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 one clay he said he got 'em from an old woman in 
 New York, and that was all he knew." 
 
 " They 're smart," said the man, whom Gerty 
 had just coaxed into paying three cents instead of 
 two for Number Six of the " Singer's Journal," — 
 a dingy little sheet, containing a song about a fat 
 policeman, which she had brought to his notice. 
 
 " You 'd better believe it," said ]\Iadam Delia, 
 proudly. " At least Gerty is ; Anrie ain't. I tell 
 'em, Gerty knows enough for both. Anne don't 
 know nothiu', and what she does know she don't 
 know sartin. All she can do is just to hang on : 
 she's the strongest and she does the heavy busi- 
 ness on the trapeze and parallel bars." 
 
 " Is Gerty good on that ? " said the public guar- 
 dian. 
 
 " I tell you" said the head of the establishment. 
 — " Go and dress, children ! Five minutes ! " 
 
 All this time Madam Delia had been taking oc- 
 casional fees from the tardy audience, had been 
 making change, detecting counterfeit currency, and 
 discerning at a glance the impostures of one deceit- 
 ful boy who claimed to have gone out on a check 
 and lost it. At last Stephen Blake and his little 
 
MADAM Delia's expectations. 169 
 
 sister entered, and the house was regarded as full. 
 These two revellers had drained deep the cup of 
 " Election-day " excitement. They had twirled all 
 the arrows, bought all the jewelry, inspected all 
 the colored eggs, blown at all the spirometers, and 
 tasted all the egg-pop which the festal day re- 
 quired. These delights exhausted, they looked 
 round for other worlds to conquer, saw Madam 
 Delia at her tent-door, and were conquered by her. 
 She did, indeed, look energetic and comely as 
 she sat at the receipt of custom, her smooth black 
 hair relieved by gold ear-rings, her cotton velvet 
 sack by a white collar, and her dark gingham dress 
 by a cheap breastpin and by linen cuffs not very 
 much soiled. The black leather bag at her side had 
 a well-to-do look ; but all else in the establislmient 
 looked a little poverty-stricken. The tent was 
 made of very worn and soiled canvas, and was but 
 some twenty-five feet square. There were no 
 seats, and the spectators sat on the grass. There 
 was a very small stage raised some six feet ; this 
 was covered with some strips of old carpet, and 
 surrounded by a few old and tattered curtains. 
 Through their holes you could easily see the lithe 
 
 8 
 
170 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 brown shoulders of the little girls as they put on 
 their professional suits ; and, on the other side, 
 Monsieur Comstock, scarcely hidden by the dra- 
 pery, leaned against a cross-bar, and rested his chin 
 upon his tattooed arms as he counted the specta- 
 tors. Among these, Mr, De Marsan, pacing slowly, 
 distributed copies of this programme : — 
 
 THIRTEENTH ANNUAL TOUR. 
 
 MADAM DELIA S 
 Museum and Variety Combination will exhibit. 
 
 PROCLAMATION TO THE PUBLIC — The Propne- 
 -^ tors would say that they have abandoned the old and 
 2)layed-out lyractice of decoratmg the outer ivalls of all jmnci- 
 pal streets with flaming Posters and Handbills, and have 
 adopted the congenial, and they trust successful, plan of adver- 
 tising with Programmes, giving a full and accurate description 
 as now organized, which ivill be distributed in Hotels, Saloons, 
 Factories, Workshops, and all jyi'ivate du'ellings, by their Spe- 
 cial Agents, three days before the exhibition takes place. 
 
 Madam Delia with her 
 
 PET SNAKES. 
 
 Miss Gerty, 
 
 THE CHILD WONDER, 
 
 DANSEUSE AND CONTORTIONIST, 
 
 will appear in her wonderful feats at each performance. 
 
MADAM Delia's expp:ctations. 171 
 
 MOXS. COMSTOCK, 
 
 THE champion SWORD-SWALLOWER, 
 
 ivill also exhibit his wonderful power of swallowing Five 
 Swords, measuring from 14 to 22 inches in length. 
 It is not so much the beauty of tins feat 
 that makes it so remark- 
 able, as its seeming 
 impossibility. 
 
 Master Bobby, 
 THE BANJO SOLOIST AND BURLESQUE. 
 
 COMIC ACROBAT, 
 By Miss Gerty and Mons. Comstock. 
 
 Madam Delia, 
 
 THE WONDERFUL AND ORIGINAL SNAKE-TAMER, 
 
 with her Pets, measuring 12 feet in length and weighing 50 lbs. 
 A pet Rattlesnake, 15 years of age, captured 
 on the Prairies of Illinois, — 
 oldest on exhibition. 
 
 In connection with this Exhibition there are 
 
 ANT-EATERS, AFRICAN MONKEYS, &C. 
 
 Cosmoramic Stereoscopic Scenes 
 
 in the United States and other Countries, including a view of 
 
 the Funeral Procession of President Taylor, 
 
 which is alone worth the price 
 
 of admission. 
 
 Exhibition every half-hour, during day and evening. 
 Secure your seats early ! 
 
 ADMISSION 20 CENTS. 
 
 1^" Particular care u-ill be taken and nothing shall occur 
 to offend tlie most fastidious. 
 
172 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 Steplien and his little sister strolled about the 
 tent meanwhile. The final preparations went 
 slowly on. The few spectators teased the ant- 
 eater in one corner, or the first violin in another. 
 One or two young farmers' boys were a little up- 
 roarious with egg-pop, and danced awkward break- 
 downs at the end of the tent. Then a cracked 
 bell sounded and the curtain rose, showing hardly 
 more of the stage than was plainly visible before. 
 
 Little G-erty, aged ten, came in first, all rumpled 
 gauze and tarnished spangles, to sing. In a poor 
 little voice, feebler and shriller than the chattering 
 of the monkeys, she sang a song about the " Grecian 
 Bend," and enacted the same, walking round and 
 round the stage whirling her tawdry finery. Then 
 Anne, aged twelve, came in as a boy and joined 
 her. Both the girls had rather pretty features, 
 blue eyes, and tightly curling hair ; both had 
 pleasing faces ; but Anne was solid and phlegmatic, 
 while Gerty was keen and flexible as a weasel, and 
 almost as thin. Presently Anne went out and re- 
 appeared as " Master Bobby " of the bills, making 
 love to Gerty in that capacity, through song and 
 dance. Then Gerty was transformed by the addi- 
 
MADAM delta's EXPECTATIONS. 173 
 
 tion of a single scarf into a " Highland Maid," and 
 danced a fling ; this quite gracefully, to the music 
 of two violins. Exeunt the children and enter 
 " Madam Delia and her pets." 
 
 The show-woman had laid aside her velvet sack 
 and appeared with bare neck and arms. Over her 
 shoulders hung a rattlesnake fifteen feet long, while 
 a smaller specimen curled from each hand. The 
 reptiles put tlieir cold, triangular faces against 
 hers, they touched her lips, they squirmed around 
 her ; she tied their tails together in elastic knots 
 that soon undid ; they reared their heads above her 
 black locks till she looked like a stage Medusa, 
 then laid themselves lovingly on her shoulder, and 
 hissed at the audience. Then she lay down on the 
 stage and pillowed her head on the writhing mass. 
 She opened her black bag and took out a tiny 
 brown snake which she placidly transferred to her 
 bosom ; then turned to a barrel into which she 
 plunged her arm and drew out a black, hissing coil 
 of mingled heads and tails. Her keen, good- 
 natured face looked cheerfully at the audience 
 through it all, and took away the feeling of disgust, 
 and something of the excitement of fear. 
 
174 OLDPOllT DAYS. 
 
 The lady and the pets retiring, Gerty's hour of 
 glory came. She hated singing and only half en- 
 joyed character dancing, but in posturing she was 
 in her glory. Dressed in soiled tights that showed 
 every movement of her little body, she threw her- 
 self upon the stage with a hand-spring, then kissed 
 her hand to the audience, and followed this by a 
 back-somerset. Then she touched her head by a 
 slow effort to her heels ; then turned away, put 
 her palms to the ground, raised her heels gradually 
 in the air, and in tliis inverted position kissed first 
 one hand, tlien the other, to the spectators. Then 
 she crossed the stage in a series of somersets, then 
 rolled back like a wheel ; then held a hoop in her 
 two hands and put her whole slender body through 
 it, limb after limb. Then appeared Monsieur 
 Comstock. He threw a hand-spring and gave her 
 his feet to stand upon ; she grasped them with her 
 hands and inverted herself, her feet pointing sky- 
 ward. Then he resumed the ordinary attitude of 
 rational beings and she lay on her back across 
 his uplifted palms, which supported her neck and 
 feet ; then she curled herself backward around his 
 waist, almost touching head and heels. Indeed, 
 
MADAM Delia's expectations. 175 
 
 whatever the snakes had done to Madam Delia, 
 Gerty seemed possessed with a wish to do to ]\Ion- 
 sieur Comstock, all but the kissing. Then that 
 eminent foreigner vanished, and tlie odors of his 
 pipe came faintly through the tattered curtain, 
 while Anne entered to help Gerty in the higher 
 branches. 
 
 A double trapeze — just two horizontal bars sus- 
 pended at different heights by ropes and straps 
 — had been swung from the tent-roof Gerty 
 ascended to the upper bar, hung from it by her 
 hand, then by her knees, then by her feet, then sat 
 upon it, leaned slowly backward, suddenly dropped, 
 and as some children in the audience shrieked in 
 terror, she caught by her feet in the side-ropes and 
 came up smiling. It was a part of the play. Then 
 another trapeze was hung, and was set swinging 
 toward the first, and Gerty flung herself in tri- 
 umph, with varied somersets, from one to the 
 other, while Anne rattled the banjo below and 
 sang, 
 
 " I fly through the air with the greatest of ease, 
 A daring young man on the flying trapeze." 
 
 Then the child stopped to rest, while all hands 
 
176 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 were clapped and only the imreverberating turf 
 kept the feet from echoing also. People flocked in 
 from outside, and Madam Delia was kept busy at 
 the door. Then Gerty came down to the lower 
 bar, while Anne ascended the upper, and hung to 
 it solidly by her knees. Thus suspended, she put 
 out her hands to Gerty, who put her feet into 
 them, and hung head-downward. There was a 
 shuddering pause, while the two children clung 
 thus dizzily, but the audience had seen enough of 
 peril to lose all fear. 
 
 " Those straps are safe ? " asked Stephen of Mr. 
 De Marsan. 
 
 " Law bless you, yes," replied that pleasant func- 
 tionary. " Comstock 's been on 'em." 
 
 Precisely as he spoke one of the straps gave 
 downward a little, and then rested firm ; it was not 
 a half-inch, but it jarred the performers. 
 
 " Gerty, I 'm slipping," cried Anne. " We shall 
 fall ! " 
 
 " No, we sha' n't, silly," said the other, quickly. 
 " Hold on. Comstock, swing me the rope." 
 
 Stephen Blake sprang to the stage and swung 
 her the rope by which they had climbed to the 
 
MADAM Delia's expectations. 177 
 
 upper bar. It fell short and Gerty missed it. Anne 
 screamed, and slipped visibly. 
 
 " You can't hold," said Gerty. " Let go my feet. 
 Let me drop." 
 
 " You '11 be killed," called Anne, slipping still 
 more. 
 
 " Drop me, I say ! " shouted the resolute Gerty, 
 while the whole audience rose in excitement. In- 
 stantly the hands of the elder girl opened and 
 down fell Gerty, lieadforemost, full twelve feet, 
 striking lieavily on her shoulder, while Anne, re- 
 lieved of the weight, recovered easily her position 
 and slipped down into Stephen's arms. She threw 
 herself down beside the little comrade whose pres- 
 ence of mind had saved at least one of them. 
 
 " Gerty, are you killed ? " she said. 
 
 " I want Delia," gasped the child. 
 
 IMadam Delia was at her side already, having 
 rushed from the door, where a surging host of boys 
 had already swept in gratis. Gerty writhed in 
 pain. Stephen felt her collar-bone and found it 
 bent like a horseshoe ; and she fainted before she 
 could be taken from the stage. 
 
 When restored, she was quite exhausted, and 
 
ITS OLDPORT PAYS. 
 
 lay for days perfectly subdued aud gentle, sleep- 
 ing most of the time. During these days she had 
 many visitors, and ^Ir. Pe IMai-sau had ample op- 
 portunity for the simple enjoyments of his life, 
 tobacco and conversation. Stephen Blake and his 
 sister came often, and while she brought her small 
 treasures to amuse Gerty, he freely pumped the 
 proprietor. ^ladam Delia liad been in the snake 
 business, it appeared, since early youth, thirteen 
 years ago. She had been in De Mai^san's employ 
 for eight years before her marriage, and his equal 
 and lawful partner for five years since. At first 
 they had travelled as side-show to a circus, but 
 that was not so good. 
 
 " The way is, you see," said Mr. De ^Marsan, " to 
 take a place like Providence, that 's a good show- 
 town, right along, and pitch your tent and live 
 there. Keep-still pays, they say. You 'd have to 
 hire a piece of ground anywhere, for five or six 
 dollars a day, and it don't cost much more by the 
 Meek. You can board for four or five dollars a 
 week, but if you board by the day it 's a dollar 
 and a half." To which words of practical wisdom 
 Stephen listened with pleased interest. It was 
 
JLA.DAM Delia's expectations. IVO 
 
 not so very many years since he had been young 
 enough to wish to run away with a circus ; and 
 by encouraging these simple confidences, he brought 
 round the conversation to the children. 
 
 But here he was met by a sheer absence of all 
 information as to their antecedents. The orijjinal 
 and deceitful Comstock had brought them and left 
 them two years before. Madam Delia had re- 
 ceived flattering offers to take her snakes and 
 Gerty into circuses and large museums, but she 
 had refused for the child's own sake. Did Gerty 
 like it ? Yes, she would like to be posturing all 
 day ; she could do anything she saw done ; she 
 " never needed to be taught nothin'," as Mr. De 
 Marsan asserted with vigorous accumulation of 
 negatives. He thought her father or mother must 
 have been in the business, she took to it so easily ; 
 but she was just as smart at school in the winter, 
 and at everything else. "NVas the life good for 
 her ? Yes, why not ? Rough company and bad 
 language ? They could hear worse talk every day 
 in the street. " Sometimes a feller would come in 
 with too much liquor aboard," the showman ad- 
 mitted, " and would begin to talk his nonsense ; 
 
180 OLDPOllT DAYS. 
 
 but Comstock would n't ask nothin' better than to 
 pitch such a feller out, especially if he should 
 sarce the little gals. They were good little gals, 
 and Delia set store by 'em." 
 
 When Stephen and his sister went back that 
 night to their kind hostesses. Miss Martha and 
 Miss Amy, the soft hearts of those dear old ladies 
 were melted in an instant by the story of Gerty's 
 courage and self-sacrifice. They had lived peace- 
 fully all their lives in that motherly old house by 
 the bay-side, where successive generations had 
 lived before them. The painted tiles around the 
 open fire looked as if their fops and fine ladies 
 had stepped out of the Spectator and the Tatler ; 
 the great maliogany chairs looked as hospitable as 
 when the French otficers were quartered in the 
 house during the Revolution, and its Quaker owner. 
 Miss Martha's grand-uncle, had carried out a seat 
 that the weary sentinel might sit down. De- 
 scended from one of those families of Quaker 
 beauties whom De Lauzun celebrated, they bore 
 the memory of those romantic lives, as something 
 very sacred, in hearts which perhaps held as 
 genuine romances of their own. Miss Martha's 
 
MADAM delta's EXPECTATIONS. 181 
 
 sweet face was softened by advancing deafness 
 and by that gentle, appealing look which comes 
 when mind and memory grow a little dimmer, 
 though the loving nature knows no change. " Sis- 
 ter Amy says," she meekly confessed, " that I am 
 losing my memory. But I do not care very much. 
 There are so few things worth remembering !" 
 
 They kept house together in sweet accord, and 
 were indeed trained in the neat Quaker ways so 
 thoroughly, that they always worked by the same 
 methods. In opinion and emotion they were al- 
 most duplicates. Yet the world holds no absolute 
 and perfect correspondence, and it is useless to 
 affect to conceal — what was apparent to any in- 
 timate guest — that there was one domestic ques- 
 tion on which perfect sympathy was wanting. 
 During their whole lives they had never been 
 able to take precisely the same view of the best 
 method of grinding Indian meal. Miss Martha 
 preferred to have it from a wind-mill ; while 
 Miss Amy was too conscientious* to deny that 
 she thought it better when prepared by a Ava- 
 ter-mill. She said firmly, though gently, that 
 it seemed to her " less gritty." 
 
182 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 Living their whole lives in this scarcely broken 
 harmony by the margin of the bay, they had long 
 built together one castle in the air. They had 
 talked of it for many an hour by their evening iire, 
 and they had looked from their chamber windows 
 toward the Eed Light upon Eose Island to see if 
 it were coming true. This vision was, that they 
 were to awake some morning after an autumnal 
 storm, and to find an unknown vessel ashore be- 
 hind the house, without name or crew or passen- 
 gers ; only there was to be one sleeping child, with 
 aristocratic features and a few yards of exquisite 
 embroidery. Years had passed, and their lives 
 were waning, without a glimpse of "that precious 
 waif of gentle blood. Once in an October night 
 Miss Martha had been awakened by a crash, and 
 looking out had seen that their pier had been 
 carried away, and that a dark vessel lay stranded 
 with her bowsprit in the kitchen window. But 
 daylight revealed the schooner Polly Lawton, with 
 a cargo of coal, and the dream remained unful- 
 filled. They had never revealed it, except to each 
 other. 
 
 Moved by a natural sympathy, Miss IMartha 
 
MADAM DEUAS EXPECTATIONS. 183 
 
 went with Stephen to see the injured child. Ger- 
 ty lay asleep on a rather dingy little mattress, 
 with Mr. Couistock's overcoat rolled beneath her 
 head. A day's illness will commonly make even 
 the coarsest child look refined and interesting ; 
 and Gerty's physical organization was anything 
 but coarse. Her pretty hair curled softly round 
 her head ; her delicate profile was relieved against 
 the rough, dark pillow ; and the tips of her little 
 pink ears could not have been improved by art, 
 though they might have been by soap and water. 
 Warm tears came into Miss Martha's eyes, which 
 were quickly followed from corresponding foun- 
 tains in Madam Delia's. 
 
 " Thy own child ? " said or rather signalled Miss 
 Martha, forming the letters softly with her lips. 
 Stephen had his own reasons for leaving her to ask 
 this question in all ignorance. 
 
 "No, ma'am," said the show-woman. "Not 
 much. Adopted." 
 
 " Does thee know her parents ? " This was 
 similarly signalled. 
 
 " No," said ]\Iadani Delia, rather coldly. 
 
 " Does thee suppose that they were — " And 
 
1S4 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 liere Miss Martha stopped, and the color came as 
 suddenly and warmly to her cheeks as if Monsieur 
 Comstock had otiered to marry her, and to settle 
 upon her the snakes as exclusive property. Mad- 
 am Delia diWned the question ; she had so often 
 found herself trying to guess the social position of 
 Gerty's parents. 
 
 " I don't know as I know," said she, slowly, 
 "whether you ought to know anythin' about it. 
 But I '11 teU you what I know. That child's folks," 
 she added, mysteriously, " lived on Quality HilL" 
 
 " Lived where ? " said Miss Martha, breathless. 
 
 " Upper crust," said the other, defining her sym- 
 bol still further. " Xo middlins to 'em. Genteel 
 as anybody. Just look here I " 
 
 Madam Delia unclasped her leather bag, brought 
 forth from it a mass of checks and tickets, some 
 bird-seed, a small whip, a dog-collar, and a dingy 
 morocco box. This held a piece of an old-fash- 
 ioned enamelled ring, and a fragment of embrai- 
 dered muslin marked "A." 
 
 " She 'd lived with me six months before she 
 brought 'em," said the show-woman, whispering. 
 
 The bit of handkerchief was enough. Was it a 
 
MADAM DELIA'S EXPECTATIONS, 185 
 
 dream ? thought tlie dear old lady. What the 
 ocean had refused, was this sprite who had lived 
 between earth and air to fulfil ? Miss Martha 
 bent softly over the bedside, resting her clean 
 glove on the only dirty mattress it had ever 
 touched, and quietly kissed the child. Then she 
 looked up with a radiant face of perfect resolution. 
 
 " Mrs. De Marsan," said she, with dignity that 
 was almost solenmity, " I wish to adopt this child. 
 No one can doubt thy kindness of heart, but thee 
 must see that thee is in no condition to give her 
 suitable care and Christian nurture." 
 
 " That 's a fact," interposed Madam Delia with a 
 pang. 
 
 " Then thee will give her to me ? " asked Miss 
 Martha, firmly. 
 
 Madam Delia threw her apron over her face, 
 and choked and sobbed beneath it for several min- 
 utes. Then reappearing, " It 's what I 've always 
 expected," said she. Then, with a tinge of sus- 
 picion, " Would you have taken her without the 
 ring and handkerchief ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I should," said tlie other, gently. 
 " But that seems to make it a clearer call." 
 
186 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 " Fair enough," said Madam Delia, submitting. 
 "I ain't denyin' of it." Then she reflected and 
 recommenced. "There never was such a smart 
 performin' child as that since the world began. She 
 can do just any thin', and just as easy ! Time and 
 again I might have hired her out to a circus, and 
 she glad of the chance, mind you ; but no, I would 
 keep her safe to home. Then when she showed 
 me the ring and the other things, all my expecta- 
 tions altered very sudden ; I knowed we could n't 
 keep her, and I began to mistrust that she would 
 somehow find her folks. I guess my rathers was 
 that she should, considerin' ; but I did wish it had 
 been Anne, for she ain't got nothin' better in her 
 than just to live genteel." 
 
 " But Anne seems a nice child, too," said Miss 
 Martha, consolingly. 
 
 " Well, that 's just what she is," replied Madam 
 Delia, with some contempt. " But what is she for 
 a contortionist ? Ask Comstock what she 's got in 
 her ! And how to run the show without Gerty, 
 that 's what beats me. Why, folks begin to com- 
 plain already that we advertise swallerin', and yet 
 don't swaller. But never you mind, ma'am, you 
 
MADAM DELIA'S EXPECTATIONS. 187 
 
 shall have Gerty. You shall have her," she added, 
 with a gulp, " if I have to sell out ! Go ahead ! " 
 And again the apron went over her face. 
 
 At this point, Gerty Avaked up with a little 
 murmur, looked up at Miss Martha's kind face, 
 and smiled a sweet, childish smile. Half asleep 
 .still, she put out one thin, muscular little hand, 
 and went to sleep as the old lady took it in hers. 
 A kiss awaked her. 
 
 " What has thee been dreaming about, my little 
 girl ? " said jNIiss Martha. 
 
 "Angels and things, I guess," said the cliild, 
 somewhat roused, 
 
 " Will thee go home W' ith me and live ? " said 
 the lady. 
 
 " Yes 'm," replied Gerty, and went to sleep 
 again. 
 
 Two days later she was well enough to ride to 
 Miss Martha's in a carriage, escorted by Madam 
 Delia and by Anne, "that dull, uninteresting 
 child," as Miss Amy had reluctantly described her, 
 " so different from this graceful Adelaide." This 
 romantic name was a rapid assumption of the soft- 
 hearted Miss Amy's, but, once suggested, it was as 
 
188 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 thoroughly fixed as if a dozen baptismal fonts had 
 written it in water. 
 
 Madam Delia was sustained, up to the time of 
 Gerty's going, by a sense of self-sacrifice. But 
 this emotion, like other strong stimulants, has its 
 reactions. That remorse for a crime committed in 
 vain, which Dr. Johnson thought the acutest of 
 human emotions, is hardly more depressing than 
 to discover that we have got beyond our depth in 
 virtue, and are in water where we really cannot 
 quite swim, — and this was the good woman's 
 position. During her whole wandering though 
 blameless life, — in her girlish days, when she 
 charmed snakes at Meddibemps, or through her 
 brief time of service as plain Car'line Prouty at 
 the Biddeford mills, or when she ran away from 
 her step-mother and took refuge among the Indians 
 at Orono, or later, since she had joined her fate 
 with that of De Marsan, — she had never been so 
 severely tried. 
 
 "That child was so smart," she said, beneath 
 the evening canvas, to her sympathetic spouse, 
 " I always expected when we got old we 'd kinder 
 retire on a farm or suthin', and let her and her 
 
MADAM Delia's expectations. 189 
 
 husband — say Comstock, if he was young enough 
 — run the business. And even after she showed 
 us the ring and things, I thought likely she 'd just 
 come into her property somewheres and take care 
 of us. I don't know as I ever thought she 'd leave 
 us, either way, and there slie 's gone." 
 
 "She won't forget us," said the peaceful pro- 
 prietor. 
 
 " No," said the wife, " but it 's lonesome. If it 
 had only been Anne ! I shall miss Gerty the 
 worst kind. And it '11 kill the show ! " 
 
 And to tell the truth, the show languished. 
 Nothing but the happy acquisition of a Chinese 
 giant nearly eight feet high, with slanting eyes 
 and a long pigtaU, — a man who did penance in 
 his height for the undue brevity of his undersized 
 nation, — would have saved the " museum." 
 
 Meantime the neat proprieties of orderly life 
 found but a poor disciple in Gerty. Her warm heart 
 opened to the dear old ladies ; but she found noth- 
 ing familiar in this phantom of herself, this well- 
 dressed little girl who, after a rapid convalescence, 
 was introduced at school and "meeting" under the 
 name of Adelaide. The school studies did not 
 
190 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 dismay her, but she played the jew's-harp at recess, 
 and danced the clog-dance in india-rubbers, to the 
 dismay of the little Misses Grundy, her compan- 
 ions. In the calisthenic exercises she threw bean- 
 bags with an untamed vigor that soon ripped the 
 stitche.«! of the bags, and sowed those vegetables 
 in every crack of the school-room floor. There 
 was a ladder in the garden, and it was some com- 
 fort to ascend it hand over hand upon the under 
 side, or to hang by her toes from the upper rung, 
 to the terror of her schoolmates. But she be- 
 came ashamed of the hardness of her palms, and 
 she grew in general weary of her life. Her clothes 
 pinched her, so did her new boots ; Madam Delia 
 had gone to Providence with the show, and Gerty 
 had not so much as seen the new Chinese giant. 
 
 Of all days Sunday was the most objectionable, 
 when she had to sit still in Friends' Meeting and 
 think how pleasant it would be to hang by the knees, 
 head downward, from the parapet of the gallery. 
 She liked better the Seamen's Bethel, near by, 
 where there was an aroma of tar and tarpaulin 
 that suggested the odors of the show-tent, and 
 where, when the Methodist exhorter gave out the 
 
MAUAM Delia's expectations. 191 
 
 hymn, "Howl, howl, ye winds of night," the choir 
 rendered it with such vigor that it was like being 
 at sea in a northeaster. But each week made her 
 new life harder, until, having cried herself asleep 
 one Saturday evening, she rose early the next 
 morning for her orisons, which, I regret to say, 
 were as follows : — 
 
 " I must get out of this," quoth Gerty, " I must 
 cut and run. I '11 make it all right for the old 
 ladies, for I '11 send 'em Anne. She '11 like it here 
 first rate." 
 
 She hunted up such remnants of her original 
 ■wardrobe as had been thought worth washing and 
 preserving, and having put them on, together with 
 a hat whose trimmings had been vehemently 
 burned by IMiss Martha, she set out to seek her 
 fortune. Of all her new possessions, she took 
 only a pair of boots, and those she carried in her 
 band as she crept softly down stairs. 
 
 " Save us ! " exclaimed Biddy, who had been to 
 a Mission Mass of incredible length, and was 
 already sweeping the doorsteps. "Christmas!" 
 she added, as a still more pious ejaculation, when 
 the child said, " Good by, Biddy, I'm off now." 
 
192 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 " Where to, thin ? " exclaimed Biddy. 
 
 " To Providence," said Gerty. " But don't you 
 teU." 
 
 " But ye can't go the morn's mornin'," said 
 Biddy. " It 's Sunday and there 's no cars." 
 
 " There 's legs," replied the child, briefly, as she 
 closed the door. 
 
 " It 's much as iver," said the stumpy Hiber- 
 nian, to herself, as she watched the twinkling 
 retreat of those slim, but vigorous little mem- 
 bers. 
 
 They had been Gerty's support too long, in body 
 and estate, for her to shrink from trusting them in 
 a walk of a dozen or a score of miles. But tlie 
 locomotion of Stephen's horse was quicker, and 
 she did not get seriously tired before being over- 
 taken, and — not without difficulty and some hot 
 tears — coaxed back. Fortunately, Madam Delia 
 came down from Providence that evening, on a 
 very unexpected visit, and at the confidential hour 
 of bedtime the child's heart was opened and made 
 a revelation. 
 
 " Won't you be mad, if I tell you something ? " 
 she said to JNIadam Delia, abruptly. 
 
MADAM Delia's expectations. 193 
 
 " No," said the show-woman, with surjDrise. 
 
 " Won't you let Comstock box my ears ? " 
 
 " I '11 box his if lie does," was the iudicrnant an- 
 swer. The gravest contest that had ever arisen in 
 the museimi was when Monsieur Comstock, teased 
 beyond endurance, had thus taken the law into his 
 own hands. 
 
 " Well," said Gerty, after a pause, " I ain't a 
 great lady, no more 'n nothin'. Them things I 
 brought to you was Anne's." 
 
 " Anne's things ? " gasped Madam Delia, — " the 
 ring and the piece of a handkerchief." 
 
 " Yes, 'm," said Gerty, " and I 've got the rest." 
 And exploring her little trunk, she produced from 
 a slit in the lining the other half of the ring, with 
 the name " Anne Deering." 
 
 " You naughty, naughty girl ! " said Madam De- 
 lia. " How did you get 'em away from Anne ? " 
 
 " Coaxed her," said the child. 
 
 " Well, how did you make her hush up about 
 it?" 
 
 " Told her I 'd kill her if she said a single word," 
 said Gerty, undauntedly. " I showed her Pa De 
 Marsan's old dirk-knife and told her I 'd stick it 
 
194 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 into her if she did n't hush. She was just such 
 a 'fraid-cat slie believed me. She might have 
 known I did n't mean nothin'. Now slie can have 
 'em and be a lady. She was always talkin' about 
 bein' a lady, and that put it into my head." 
 
 " What did she want to be a lady for ? " asked 
 Madam Delia, indignantly. 
 
 " Said she wanted to have a parlor and dress 
 tight. I don't want to be one of her old ladies. I 
 want to stay M'ith you, Delia, and learn the clog- 
 dance." And she threw her arms round the show- 
 woman's neck and cried herself to sleep. 
 
 Never did the energetic proprietress of a Museum 
 and Variety Combination feel a greater exultation 
 than did Madam Delia that night. The child's 
 offence was all forgotten in the delight of the dis- 
 covery to which it led. If there had been expec- 
 tations of social glories to accrue to the house of 
 De ]\Iarsan through Gerty's social promotion, they 
 melted away ; and the more substantial delight of 
 still having some one to love and to be proud of, — 
 some object of tenderness warmer than snakes and 
 within nearer reach than a Chinese giant, — this 
 came in its stead. The show, too, was in a man- 
 
MADAM DELIA'S EXPECTATIONS. 195 
 
 ner on its feet again. De Marsan said that he 
 would rather have Gerty than a hundred-dollar 
 bill. Madam Delia looked forward and saw her- 
 self sinking into the vale of years without a sigh, 
 — reaching a period when a serpent fifteen feet 
 long would cease to charm, or she to charm it, — 
 and still having a source of pride and prosperity 
 in this triumphant girl. 
 
 The tent was in its glory on the day of Gerty's 
 return ; to be sure, nothing in particular had been 
 washed except the face of Old Bill, but that alone 
 was a marvel compared with which all " Election 
 Day " was feeble, and when you add a paper collar, 
 words can say no more. Monsieur Comstock also 
 had that " ten times barbered " look which Sliake- 
 speare ascribes to Mark Antony, and which has 
 belonged to that hero's successor in the histrionic 
 profession ever since. His chin was unnaturally 
 smooth, his mustache obtrusively perfumed, and 
 nothing but the unchanged dirtiness of his hands 
 still linked him, like Antseus, with the earth. De 
 Marsan had intended some personal preparation, 
 but had been, as usual, in no hurry, and the ap- 
 pointed moment found him, as usual, in his shirt- 
 
19G OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 sleeves. Madam Delia, however, wore a new 
 breastpin and gave Gerty another. And the great 
 new attraction, the Chinese giant, had put on a 
 black broadcloth coat across his bony shoulders, 
 in her honor, and made a vigorous effort to sit 
 up straight, and appear at his ease when off duty. 
 He habitually stooped a good deal in private life, 
 as if there were no object in being eight feet 
 high, except before spectators. 
 
 Anne, the placid and imperturbable, was pro- 
 moted to take the place that Gerty had rejected, in 
 the gentle home of the good sisters. The secret 
 of her birth, whatever it was, never came to light, 
 but she took kindly, as Madam Delia had pre- 
 dicted, to "living genteel," and grew up into a 
 ■well-behaved mediocrity, unregretful of the show- 
 tent. Yet probably no one reared M'ithin the smell 
 of sawdust ever quite outgrew all taste for " the 
 profession," and Anne, even when promoted to 
 good society, never missed seeing a performance 
 when her wandering friends came by. If I told 
 you under what name Gerty became a star in the 
 low-comedy line, after her marriage, you would all 
 recognize it ; and if you had seen her in " Queen 
 
MADAM DELIA'S EXPECTATION. 197 
 
 Pippin " or the " Shooting-Star " pantomime, you 
 would wish to see her again. Her first child was 
 named after Madam Delia, and proved to be a 
 placid little thing, demure enough to have been 
 born in a Quaker family, and exhibiting no con- 
 tortions or gymnastics but those common to its 
 years. And you may be sure that the retired 
 show-woman found in the duties of brevet-grand- 
 mother a glory that quite surpassed her expecta- 
 tions. 
 
SUNSHIKE AKD PETEARCH. 
 
 "XTEAE my summer home there is a little cove 
 or landing by the bay, where nothing larger 
 than a boat can ever anchor. I sit above it now, 
 upon the steep bank, knee-deep in buttercups, and 
 amid grass so lush and green that it seems to rip- 
 ple and flow instead of waving. Below lies a tiny 
 beach, strewn with a few bits of drift-wood and 
 some purple shells, and so sheltered by projecting 
 walls that its wavelets plash but lightly. A little 
 farther out the sea breaks more roughly over sub- 
 merged rocks, and the waves lift themselves, before 
 breaking, in an indescribable way, as if each gave 
 a glimpse through a translucent window, beyond 
 which all ocean's depths might be clearly seen, could 
 one but hit the proper angle of vision. On the right 
 side of my retreat a high wall limits the view, 
 while close upon the left the crumbling parapet of 
 Fort Greene stands out into the foreground, its 
 verdant scarp so relieved against the blue water 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 199 
 
 that each inward-bound schooner seems to sail into 
 a cave of grass. In the middle distance is a white 
 lighthouse, and beyond lie the round tower of ojd 
 Fort Louis and the soft low hills of Conanicut. 
 
 Behind me an oriole chirrups in triumph amid 
 the birch-trees which wave around the house of 
 the haunted window ; before me a kingfisher 
 pauses and waits, and a darting blackbird shows 
 the scarlet on his wings. Sloops and schooners con- 
 stantly come and go, careening in the wind, their 
 white sails taking, if remote enough, a vague blue 
 mantle from the delicate air. Sail-boats glide in 
 the distance, — each a mere white wing of canvas, 
 — or coming nearer, and glancing suddenly into 
 the cove, are put as suddenly on the other tack, 
 and almost in an instant seem far away. There is 
 to-day such a live sparkle on the water, such a 
 luminous freshness on the grass, that it seems, as 
 is so often the case in early June, as if all history 
 were a dream, and the whole earth were but the 
 creation of a summer's day. 
 
 If Petrarch still knows and feeLs the consum- 
 mate beauty of these earthly things, it may seem 
 to Mm some repayment for the sorrows of a life- 
 
200 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 time that one reader, after all this lapse of years, 
 should choose his somiets to match this grass, 
 these blossoms, ami the soft lapse of these blue 
 waves. Yet any longer or more continuous poem 
 would be out of place to-day. I fancy that this 
 narrow cove prescribes the proper limits of a son- 
 net ; and when I count the lines of ripple within 
 yonder projecting wall, there proves to be room 
 for just fourteen. Xature meets our whims with 
 such little fitnesses. The words which build these 
 delicate structures of Petrarch's are as soft and 
 fine and close-textured as the sands upon this tiny 
 beach, and their monotone, if such it be, is the 
 monotone of the neighboring ocean. Is it not 
 possible, by bringing such a book into the open 
 air, to separate it from the grimness of commen- 
 tators, and bring it back to life and light and Italy ? 
 The beautiful earth is the same as when this 
 poetry and passion were new ; there is the same 
 sunlight, the same blue water and green grass ; 
 yonder pleasure-boat might bear, for aught we 
 know, the friends and lovei^ of five centuries ago ; 
 Petrarch and Laura might be there, with Boccaccio 
 and Fiammetta as comrades, and with Chaucer £is 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 201 
 
 their stranger guest. It bears, at any rate, if I 
 know its voyagers, eyes as lustrous, voices as 
 sweet. With the world thus young, beauty eter- 
 nal, fancy free, why should these delicious Italian 
 pages exist but to be tortured into grammatical 
 examples ? Is tliere no reward to be imagined for 
 a delightful book that can match Browning's fan- 
 tastic burial of a tedious one ? "When it has suf- 
 ficiently basked in sunshine, and been cooled in 
 pure salt air, wlien it has bathed in heaped clover, 
 and been scented, page by page, with melilot, 
 cannot its beauty once more blossom, and its 
 buried loves revive ? 
 
 Emboldened by such influences, at least let me 
 translate a sonnet, and see if anything is left after 
 the sweet Italian syllables are gone. Before this 
 continent was discovered, before English literature 
 existed, when Chaucer was a child, these words 
 were written. Yet tliey are to-day as fresh and 
 perfect as these laburnum-blossoms that droop 
 above my head. And as the variable and uncer- 
 tain air comes freighted with clover-scent from 
 yonder field, so floats tlirough these long centuries 
 a breath of fragrance, the memory of Laura. 
 
 9» 
 
202 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 SONNET 129. 
 
 " Lieti fiori efelici." 
 
 joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers ! 
 'Mid which my queen her gracious footstep sets ; 
 plain, that keep'st her words for amulets 
 And hold'st her memory in thy leafy bowers ! 
 
 trees, with earliest green of spring-time hours. 
 And spring-time's pale and tender violets ! 
 grove, so dark the proud sun only lets 
 His blithe rays gild the outskirts of your towers ! 
 
 pleasant country-side ! purest stream. 
 That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear. 
 And of their living light can catch the beam ! 
 
 1 envy you her haunts so close and dear. 
 There is no rock so senseless but I deem 
 
 It burns with passion that to mine is near. 
 
 Goethe compared translators to carriers, who 
 convey good wine to market, though it gets unac- 
 countably watered by the way. The more one 
 praises a poem, the more absurd becomes one's 
 position, perhaps, in trying to translate it. If it 
 is so admirable — is the natural inquiry, — why not 
 let it alone ? It is a doubtful blessing to the 
 human race, that the instinct of translation still 
 prevails, stronger than reason ; and after one has 
 once yielded to it, then each untranslated favorite 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 203 
 
 is like the trees rouud a backwoodsman's clearing, 
 each of which stands, a silent defiance, until he 
 has cut it down. Let us try the axe again. This 
 is to Laura singing. 
 
 SONNET 134. 
 
 " Quando Amnr i begli occhi a terra inchina." 
 
 When Love doth those sweet eyes to earth incline, 
 And weaves those wandering notes into a sigh 
 Soft as his touch, and leads a minstrelsy 
 Clear-voiced and pure, angelic and divine, 
 
 He makes sweet havoc in this heart of mine, 
 And to my thoughts brings transformation high, 
 So that I say, " My time has come to die. 
 If fate so blest a death for me design. " 
 
 But to my soul thus steeped in joy the sound 
 Brings such a wish to keep that present heaven, 
 It holds my spirit back to earth as well. 
 
 And thus I live : and thus is loosed and wound 
 The thread of life which unto me was given 
 By this sole Siren who with us doth dwell. 
 
 As I look across the bay, there is seen resting 
 over all the hills, and even upon every distant sail, 
 an enchanted veil of palest blue, that seems 
 woven out of the very souls of happy days, — a 
 bridal veil, with which the sunshine weds this 
 
204 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 soft landscape in summer. Such and so inde- 
 scribable is the atmospheric film that hangs over 
 these poems of Petrarch's ; there is a delicate haze 
 about the words, that vanishes when you touch 
 them, and reappears as you recede. How it clings, 
 for instance, around tliis sonnet ! 
 
 SONNET 191. 
 
 " Aura che quelle chrome." 
 
 Sweet air, that circlest round those radiant tresses, 
 And floatest, mingled with them, fold on fold, 
 Deliciously, and scatterest that fine gold, 
 Then twinest it again, my heart's dear jesses, 
 
 Thou lingerest on those eyes, whose beauty presses 
 Stings in my heart that all its life exhaust, 
 Till I go wandering round my treasure lost. 
 Like .some scared creature whom the night distresses, 
 
 I seem to find her now, and now perceive 
 How far away she is ; now rise, now fall ; 
 Now what I wish, now what is true, believe. 
 
 happy air ! since joys enrich thee all. 
 Rest thee ; and thou, stream too bright to grieve ! 
 Why can I not float with thee at thy call ? 
 
 The airiest and most fugitive among Petrarcli's 
 love-poems, so far as I know, — showing least 
 of that air of earnestness which he has contrived 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 205 
 
 to impart to almost all, — is this little ode or 
 madrigal. It is interesting to see, from this, that 
 he could be almost conventional and courtly in 
 moments when he held Laura farthest aloof; 
 and when it is compared with the depths of sol- 
 emn emotion in his later sonnets, it seems like the 
 soft glistening of young birch-leaves against a 
 background of pines. 
 
 CANZONE XXIII. 
 
 "Nova angeletta sovra I' ale accorta." 
 
 A new-born angel, with her wings extended, 
 Came floating from the skies to this foir shore, 
 Where, fate-controlled, I wandered with my sorrows. 
 She saw me there, alone and unbefriended. 
 She wove a silken net, and threw it o'er 
 The turf, whose greenness all the pathway borrows. 
 Then was I captured ; nor could fears arise, 
 Such sweet seduction glimmered from her eyes. 
 
 Turn from these light compliments to the pure 
 and reverential tenderness of a sonnet like this : — 
 
 SONNET 223. 
 
 " Qual donna attende a gloriosa fama." 
 
 Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame 
 Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy ? 
 
206 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy 
 Whom all the world doth as my lady name ! 
 
 How honor grows, and pnre devotion's flame, 
 How truth is joined with gi-aceful dignity, 
 There thou mayst learn, and what the path may he 
 To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim ; 
 
 There learn soft speech, beyond all poet's skill, 
 And softer silence, and those holy ways 
 Unutterable, iintold by human heart. 
 
 But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill. 
 This none can copy ! since its lovely rays 
 Are given by God's pure grace, and not by art. 
 
 The following, on the other hand, seems to me 
 one of the Shakespearian sonnets ; the successive 
 phrases set sail, one by one, like a yacht squadron ; 
 each spreads its graceful wings and glides away. 
 It is hard to handle this white canvas without 
 soiling. Macgregor, in the only version of this 
 sonnet which I have seen, abandons all attempt at 
 rhyme ; but to follow the strict order of the original 
 in this respect is a part of the pleasant problem 
 which one cannot bear to forego. And there 
 seems a kind of deity who presides over this 
 union of languages, and who sometimes silently 
 lays the words in order, after all one's own poor 
 attempts have failed. 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 207 
 
 SONNET 128. 
 " passi sparsi ; o pensier vaghi e pronti." 
 
 wandering steps ! vague and busy dreams ! 
 changeless memory ! fierce desire ! 
 passion strong ! heart weak with its own fire ; 
 eyes of mine ! not eyes, but living streams ; 
 
 laurel boughs ! whose lovely garland seems 
 The sole reward that glory's deeds require ; 
 haunted life ! delusion sweet and dire, 
 That all my days from slothful rest redeems ; 
 
 beauteous face ! where Love has treasured well 
 His whip and spur, the sluggish heart to move 
 At his least will ; nor can it find relief. 
 
 souls of love and passion ! if ye dwell 
 Yet on this earth, and ye, great Shades of Love ! 
 Linger, and see my passion and my grief. 
 
 Yonder flies a kingfisher, and pauses, fluttering 
 like a butterfly in the air, then dives toward a 
 fish, and, failing, perches on the projecting wall. 
 Doves from neighboring dove-cotes alight on the 
 parapet of the fort, fearless of the quiet cattle 
 who find there a breezy pasture. These doves, in 
 taking flight, do not rise from the ground at once, 
 but, edging themselves closer to the brink, with a 
 caution almost ludicrous in such airy things, trust 
 themselves upon the breeze with a shy little hop. 
 
1^18 OLDrOUT DAYS. 
 
 and at the next moment are securely on the wing. 
 How the abundant sunlight inundates every- 
 thing ! The great clumps of grass and clover are 
 imbedded in it to the roots ; it flows in among 
 their stalks, like water ; the lilac-bushes bask in 
 it eagerly ; the topmost leaves of the birches are 
 burnished. A vessel sails by with plash and roar, 
 and all the white spray along her side is sparkling 
 with sunlight. Yet there is sorrow in the world, 
 and it reached Petrarch even before Laura died, — 
 when it reached her. This exquisite sonnet shows 
 it : — 
 
 SONNET 123. 
 " I' vidi in terra angclici costumi." 
 
 I once belield ou earth celestial graces. 
 And heavenly beauties scarce to mortals known, 
 Wliose memory lends nor joy nor grief alone, 
 But all things else bewilders and effaces. 
 
 I saw how tears had left their weary traces 
 Within those eyes that once like sunbeams shone, 
 I heard those lips breathe low and plaintive moan, 
 Whose spell might once have taught the hills their places. 
 
 Love, wisdom, courage, tenderness, and truth, 
 Made in their mourning strains more high and dear 
 Than ever wove sweet sounds for mortal ear ; 
 
 And heaven seemed listening in such saddest ruth 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 209 
 
 The very leaves upon the boughs to soothe, 
 Such passionate sweetness filled the atmosphere. 
 
 Tlie.se sonnet.s are in Petrarch's earlier manner ; 
 but the death of Laura brought a change. Look 
 at yonder schooner coming down the bay, straight 
 toward us ; she is hauled close to the wind, her 
 jib is white in the sunliglit, her larger sails are 
 touched with the same snowy lustre, and all the 
 swelling canvas is rounded into such lines of 
 beauty as scarcely anything else in the world — 
 hardly even the perfect outlines of the human fonn 
 — can give. Xow she comes up into the wind, and 
 goes about with a strong flapping of the sails, smit- 
 ing on the ear at a half-mile's distance ; then she 
 glides off on the other tack, showing the shadowed 
 side of her sails, until she reaches the distant zone 
 of haze. So change the sonnets after Laura's death, 
 growing shadowy as they recede, until the very 
 last seems to merge itself in the blue distance. 
 
 SONNET 251. 
 
 " Gli occhi di ch' io parlai." 
 
 Those eyes, 'neath which my passionate rapture rose, 
 The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile 
 Could my own soul from its own self beguile, 
 
 N 
 
210 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 And in a separate Avoild of dreams enclose, 
 
 The hair's bright tresses, full of golden glows, 
 And the soft lightning of the angelic smile 
 That changed tliis eartli to some celestial isle,' 
 Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows. 
 
 And yet I live ! Jlyself I grieve and scorn. 
 Left dark without the light I loved in vain. 
 Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn ; 
 
 Dead is the source of all my amorous strain,' 
 Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn. 
 And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain. 
 
 " And yet I live ! " "What a pause is implied 
 before these words ! the drawing of a long breath, 
 immeasurably long ; like tliat vast interval of 
 heart-beats that precedes Shakespeare's " Since 
 Cleopatra died." I can think of no other passage 
 in literature that has in it the same wide spaces 
 of emotion. 
 
 The following sonnet seems to me the most 
 
 stately and concentrated in the whole volume. It 
 
 is the sublimity of a despair not to be relieved by 
 
 utterance. 
 
 SONNET 253. 
 
 " Soleasi nel mio cor." 
 
 She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine, 
 A noble lady in a humble home, 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 211 
 
 And now her time for heavenly bliss has come, 
 'T is I am mortal proved, and she divine. 
 
 The soul that all its blessings must resign, 
 And love whose light no more on earth finds room 
 Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom, 
 Yet none their sorrows can in Avords enshrine ; 
 
 They weep within my heart ; and ears are deaf 
 Save mine alone, and 1 am crushed with care. 
 And naught remains to me save mournful breath. 
 
 Assuredly but dust and shade we are, 
 Assuredly desire is blind and brief, 
 Assuredl}- its hope but ends in death. 
 
 In a later strain lie rises to that dream "which is 
 more than earth's realities. 
 
 SONNET 261. 
 "Levommi il rnio pensicro." 
 
 Dreams bore my fancy to that region where 
 She dwells wliom here I seek, but cannot see. 
 '3rid those who in the loftiest heaven be 
 I looked on her, less haughty and more fair. 
 
 Slie touched my hand, she said, " Within this sphere, 
 If hope deceive not, thou shalt dwell with me : 
 I filled thy life with war's wild agony ; 
 Mine own day closed ere evening could appear. 
 
 Ikly bliss no human brain can understand ; 
 I wait for thee alone, and that fair veil 
 Of beauty thou dost love shall wear again." 
 
212 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 "WTiT was she silent then, why dropped my hand 
 Ere those delicious tones could quite avail 
 To bid my mortal soul in heaven remain ? 
 
 It ^^ndicates the emphatic reality and per- 
 sonality of Petrarch's love, after all, that when 
 from these heights of vision he surveys and re- 
 surveys his life's long dream, it becomes to him 
 more and more definite, as well as more poetic, 
 and is farther and farther from a merely vague 
 sentimentalism. In his later sonnets, Laura grows 
 more distinctly indiA-idual to us ; her traits show 
 themselves as more characteristic, her tempera- 
 ment more intelligible, her precise influence upon 
 Petrarch clearer. What delicate accuracy of de- 
 lineation is seen, for instance, in this sonnet ! 
 
 SOXXET 314. 
 "Doiei durt=» e placide repvlst." 
 
 Gentle severity, repulses mild, 
 Full of chaste love and pity sorrowing ; 
 Graceful rebukes, that had the power to bring 
 Back to itself a heart by dreams beguiled ; 
 
 A soft-toned voice, whose accents Tindefiled 
 Held sweet restraints, all duty honoring ; 
 The bloom of virtue ; puritj-'s clear spring 
 To cleanse away base thoughts and passions wild ; 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 213 
 
 Divinest eyes to make a lover's bliss, 
 Whether to hriJle in the waj'ward mind 
 Lest its wild wanderings should the pathway miss. 
 
 Or else its griefs to soothe, its wounds to bind ; 
 This sweet completeness of thy life it is 
 That saved my soul ; no other peace I find. 
 
 In the following sonnet visions multiply upon 
 visions. "Would that one could transfer into 
 English the delicious way in which the sweet 
 Italian rhymes recur and surround and seem to 
 embrace each other, and are woven and unwoven 
 and interwoven, like the heavenly hosts that 
 gathered around Laura. 
 
 SONNET 302. 
 
 "Gli angeli eletti." 
 
 The holy angels and the spirits blest. 
 Celestial bands, upon that day serene 
 When first my love went by in heavenly mien. 
 Came thronging, wondeiing at the gracious guest. 
 
 " What light is here, in what new beauty drest ?" 
 They said among themselves ; "for none has seen 
 Within this age come wandering such a queen 
 From darkened earth into immortal rest." 
 
 And she, contented witli her new-found bliss. 
 Ranks with the purest in that upper sphere. 
 Yet ever and anon looks back on this. 
 
214 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 To watch for me, as if for me she stayed. 
 So strive my thoughts, lest that high path I miss. 
 I hear her call, and must not be delayed. 
 
 These odes and sonnets are all but parts of 
 one symphony, leading us through a passion 
 strengthened by years and only purified l)y death, 
 until at last the graceful lay becomes an anthem 
 and a Nunc dimittis. In the closing sonnets Pe- 
 trarch withdraws from the world, and they seem 
 like voices from a cloister, growing more and more 
 solemn till the door is closed. This is one of the 
 
 last : — 
 
 SONNET 309. 
 
 "Dicemi spesso il iniofidato spcrjUo." 
 
 ' Oft by my faithful mirror I am told. 
 
 And by my mind outworn and altered brow. 
 
 My earthly powers impaired and weakened now, — 
 
 "Deceive thyself no more, for thou art old !" 
 
 Who strives with Nature's laws is over-bold. 
 And Time to his commandments bids us bow. 
 Like iire that waves have quenclied, I calmly vow 
 In life's long dream no more my sense to fold. 
 
 And while I think, our swift existence flies, 
 And none can live again earth's brief career, — 
 Then in my deepest heart the voice replies 
 
 Of one who now has left this mortal sphere. 
 But walked alone through earthly destinies. 
 And of all women is to fame most dear. 
 
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH. 215 
 
 How true is this concluding line ! Who can won- 
 der that women prize beauty, and are intoxicated 
 by their own fascinations, when these fragile gifts 
 are yet strong enough to outlast all the memories 
 of statesmanship and war ? Xext to the immor- 
 tality of genius is that which genius may confer 
 upon the object of its love. Laura, while she 
 lived, was simply one of a hundred or a thousand 
 beautiful and gracious Italian women; she had 
 her loves and aversions, joys and griefs ; she 
 cared dutifully for her household, and embroidered 
 the veil which Petrarch loved ; her memory ap- 
 peared as fleeting and unsubstantial as that woven 
 tissue. After five centuries we find that no armor 
 of that iron age was so enduring. The kings 
 whom she honored, the popes whom she revered 
 are dust, and their memory is dust, but literature 
 is still fragrant with her name. An impression 
 which has endured so long is ineffaceable ; it is an 
 earthly immortality. 
 
 " Time is the chariot of all ages to carry men 
 away, and beauty cannot bribe this charioteer." 
 Thus wrote Petrarch in his Latin essays ; but his 
 love had wealth that proved resistless and for 
 Laura the chariot stayed. 
 
A SHADOW. 
 
 ~Y SHALL always remember oue winter evening, a 
 little before Christmas-time, when I took a long, 
 solitary walk in tlie outskirts of the town. The 
 cold sunset had left a trail of orange light along 
 the horizon, the dry snow tinkled beneath my feet, 
 and the early stars had a keen, clear lustre that 
 matched well with the sharp sound and the frosty 
 sensation. For some time I had walked toward 
 tlie gleam of a distant window, and as I ap- 
 proached, the light showed more and more clearly 
 through the white curtains of a little cottage by 
 the road. I stopped, on reaching it, to enjoy tlie 
 suggestion of domestic cheerfulness in contrast 
 with the dark outside. I could not see the in- 
 mates, nor they me ; but something of human 
 sympathy came from thdt steadfast ray. 
 
 As I looked, a film of shade kept appearing 
 and disappearing with rhythmic regularity in a 
 
A SHADOW. 217 
 
 corner of the window, as if some one might be 
 sitting in a low rocking-chair close by. Presently 
 the motion ceased, and suddenly across the curtain 
 came the shadow of a woman. She raised in her 
 arms the shadow of a baby, and kissed it ; then 
 both disappeared, and I walked on. 
 
 What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow 
 of a mother's love, so traced as to endure for- 
 ever ? In this picture of mine, the group actu- 
 ally moved upon the canvas. The curtains that 
 hid it revealed it. The ecstasy of human love 
 passed in brief, intangible panorama before rae. It 
 was something seen, yet unseen ; airy, yet solid ; a 
 type, yet a reality ; fugitive, yet destined to last 
 in my memory while I live. It said more to me 
 than would any Madonna of Raphael's, for his 
 mother never kisses her child. I believe I have 
 never passed over that road since then, never seen 
 the house, never heard the names of its occupants. 
 Their character, their history, tlieir fate, are all un- 
 known. But these two will always stand for me 
 as disembodied types of humanity, — the ^Mother 
 and the Child ; they seem nearer to me than my 
 immediate neighbors, yet they are as ideal and 
 
 10 
 
218 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 impersonal as the goddesses of Greece or as Plato's 
 archetypal man. 
 
 I know not the parentage of that child, whether 
 black or white, native or foreign, rich or poor. It 
 makes no difference. The presence of a baby 
 equalizes all social conditions. On the floor of 
 some Southern hut, scarcely so comfortable as a 
 dog-kennel, I have seen a dusky woman look down 
 upon her infant with such an expression of delight 
 as painter never drew. No social culture can make 
 a mother's face more than a mother's, as no wealth 
 can make a nursery more than a place wliere chil- 
 dren dwell. Lavish thousands of dollars on your 
 baby-clothes, and after all the child is prettiest 
 when every garment is laid aside. That becoming 
 nakedness, at least, may adorn the chubby darling 
 of the 2'>oorest home. 
 
 I know not what triumph or despair may have 
 come and gone through that wayside house since 
 then, what jubilant guests may have entered, what 
 lifeless form passed out. What anguish or what 
 sin may have come between that woman and that 
 child ; through what worlds they now wander, and 
 whether separate or in each other's arms, — this is 
 
A SILU)OW. 219 
 
 all unknown. Fancy can picture other joys to 
 ■which the first happiness was but the prelude, 
 and, on the other hand, how easy to imagine some 
 special heritage of human woe and call it theirs ! 
 
 " I thouglit of times when Pain might be thy guest, 
 Lord of tliy house and liospitality ; 
 And Grief, uneasy lover, might not rest 
 
 Save when he sat within the touch of thee." 
 
 Xay, the foretaste of that changed fortune may 
 have been present, even in the kiss. Who knows 
 what absorbing emotion, besides love's immediate 
 impulse, may have been uttered in that shadowy 
 embrace ? There may have been some contrition 
 for ill-temper or neglect, or some triumph over 
 ruinous temptation, or some pledge of immortal 
 patience, or some heart-breaking prophecy of be- 
 reavement. It may have been simply an act of 
 habitual tenderness, or it may have been the wild 
 reaction toward a neglected duty; the renewed 
 self-consecration of the saint, or the joy of the 
 sinner that repenteth. No matter. She kissed 
 the baby. The feeling of its soft flesh, the busy 
 struggle of its little arms between her hands, the 
 impatient pressure of its little feet against her 
 
220 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 knees, — these were the same, whatever the mood 
 or circumstance beside. They did something to 
 equalize joy and sorrow, honor and shame. Ma- 
 ternal love is love, whether a woman be a wife or 
 only a mother. Only a mother ! 
 
 The happiness beneath that roof may, perhaps, 
 have never reached so high a point as at that pre- 
 cise moment of my passing. In the coarsest house- 
 hold, the mother of a young child is placed on a 
 sort of pedestal of care and tenderness, at least for 
 a time. She resumes something of the sacredness 
 and dignitv of the maiden. Coleridge ranks as 
 the purest of human emotions that of a husbaod 
 towards a wife who has a baby at her breast, — "a 
 feeling how free from sensual desire, yet how dif- 
 ferent from friendsliip ! " And to the true mother 
 however cultivated, or however ignorant, this period 
 of early parentage is happier than all else, in spite 
 of its exhausting cares. In that delightful book, 
 the " Letters " of Mrs. Richard Trench (mother of 
 the well-known English writer), the most agreeable 
 passage is perhaps that in which, after looking 
 back upon a life spent in the most brilliant so- 
 ciety of Europe, she gives the palm of happiness 
 
A SILU)OW. 221 
 
 to the time when she was a young mother. She 
 writes to her god-daughter : " I believe it is the 
 happiest time of any woman's life, who has affec- 
 tionate feelings, and is blessed with healthy and 
 well-disposed children. I know at least that 
 neither the gayeties and boundless hopes of early 
 life, nor the more grave pursuits and deeper affec- 
 tions of later years, are by any means comparable 
 in my recollection with the serene, yet lively 
 pleasure of seeing my children playing on the 
 grass, enjoying their little temperate supper, or 
 repeating ' with holy look ' their simple prayers, 
 and undressing for bed, growing prettier for every 
 part of their dress they took off, and at last lying 
 down, all freshness and love, in complete happi- 
 ness, and an amiable contest for mamma's last 
 kiss." 
 
 That kiss welcomed the child into a world where 
 joy predominates. The vast multitude of human 
 beings enjoy existence and wish to live. They all 
 have their earthly life under their own control. 
 Some religions sanction suicide ; the Christian 
 Scriptures nowhere explicitly forbid it; and yet 
 it is a rare thing. Many persons sigh for death 
 
222 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 when it seems far off, but tlie desire vauislies 
 wlien tlie boat upsets, or the locomotive runs off 
 the track, or the measles set in. A wise physician 
 once said to me : " I observe that every one wishes 
 to go to heaven, but I observe that most people 
 are willing to take a great deal of very disagree- 
 able medicine first." The lives that one least 
 envies — as of the Digger Indian or the outcast 
 boy in the city — are yet sweet to the living. 
 " They have only a pleasure like that of the 
 brutes," we say with scorn. But what a racy and 
 substantial pleasure is that ! The flashing speed of 
 the swallow in the air, the cool play of the min- 
 now in tlie water, the dance of twin butterflies 
 round a thistle-blossom, the thundering gallop of 
 the buffalo across the prairie, nay, the clumsy walk 
 of the grizzly bear ; it were doubtless enough to 
 reward existence, could we liave joy like such as 
 these, and ask no more. This is the hearty physi- 
 cal basis of animated life, and as step by step the 
 savage creeps up to the possession of intellectual 
 manhood, each advance brings. with it new sorrow 
 and new joy, with the joy always in excess. 
 
 There are many who will utterly disavow this 
 
A SHADOW. 223 
 
 creed that life is desirable in itself. A fair woman 
 in a ball-room, exquisitely dressed, and possessed 
 of all that wealth could give, once declared to me 
 her belief — and I tliink honestly — that no per- 
 son over thirty was consciously happy, or would 
 wish to live, but for the fear of death. There could 
 not even be pleasure in contemplating one's chil- 
 dren, slie asserted, since they were living in such a 
 world of sorrow. Asking the opinion, within half 
 an hour, of another woman as fair and as favored 
 by fortune, I found directly the opposite verdict. 
 " For my part I can truly say," she answered, " that 
 I enjoy every moment I live." The varieties of 
 temperament and of physical condition will al- 
 ways afford us these extremes ; but the truth lies 
 between them, and most persons will endure many 
 sorrows and still find life sweet. 
 
 And the mother's kiss welcomes the child into 
 a world where good predominates as well as joy. 
 Wliat recreants must we be, in an age that has 
 abolished slavery in America and popularized the 
 governments of all Europe, if we doubt that the 
 tendency of man is upward ! How mucli that 
 the world calls selfishness is only generosity with 
 
224 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 narrow walls, — a too exclusive solicitude to inain- 
 taiu a wife in luxury or make one's children rich ! 
 In an audience of rough people a generous senti- 
 ment always brings down the house. In the 
 tumult of war both sides applaud an heroic deed. 
 A courageous woman, who had traversed alone, on 
 benevolent errands, the worst parts of Xew York 
 told me that she never felt afraid except in the 
 solitudes of the country ; wherever there was a 
 crowd, she found a protector. A policeman of 
 great experience once spoke to me with admiration 
 of the fidelity of professional thieves to each other, 
 and the risks they would run for the women whom 
 they loved ; when " Bristol Bill " was arrested, he 
 said, there was found upon the burglar a set of 
 false keys, not quite finished, by which he would 
 certainly, within twenty-four hours, have had his 
 mistress out of jail. Parent-Duchatelet found al- 
 ways the remains of modesty among the fallen 
 women of Paris hospitals ; and Mayhew, amid the 
 London outcasts, says that he thinks better of 
 human nature everyday. Even among politicians, 
 whom it is our American fashion to revile as the 
 chief of sinners, there is less of evil than of good. 
 
A SHADOW. 225 
 
 In "Wilberforce's " Memoirs " there is an account 
 of his having once asked Mr. Pitt whether his long 
 experience as Prime Minister had made him think 
 well or ill of his fellow-men. ^Ir. Pitt answered, 
 " Well " ; and his successor, Lord Melbourne, being 
 asked the same question, answered, after a little 
 reflection, " My opinion is the same as that of Mr. 
 Pitt." 
 
 Let us have faith. It was a part of the vigor 
 of the old Hebrew tradition to rejoice when a man- 
 child was born into the world ; and the maturer 
 strength of nobler ages should rejoice over a 
 woman-child as well. Nothing human is wholly 
 sad, until it is effete and dying out. AMiere there 
 is life there is promise. " Vitality is always hope- 
 ful," was the verdict of the most refined and clear- 
 sighted woman who has yet explored the rough 
 mining villages of the Eocky Mountains. There 
 is apt to be a certain coarse virtue in rude health ; 
 as the Germanic races were purest when least civ- 
 ilized, and our American Indians did not unlearn 
 chastity till they began to decay. But even where 
 vigor and vice are found together, they still may 
 hold a promise for the next generation. Out of 
 10» 
 
226 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 the strong cometh forth sweetness. Parisian wick- 
 edness is not so discouraging merely because it is 
 wicked, as from a suspicion that it is draining 
 the life-blood of the nation. A mob of miners or 
 of New York bullies may be uncomfortable neigh- 
 bors, and may make a man of refinement hesitate 
 whether to stop his ears or to feel for his revolver ; 
 but they hold more promise for the coming gener- 
 ations than the line which ends in Madame Bovary 
 or the Yicomte de Camors. 
 
 But behind that cottage curtain, at any rate, a 
 new and prophetic life had begun. I cannot fore- 
 tell that child's future, but I know something of 
 its past. The boy may grow up into a criminal, 
 the woman into an outcast, yet the baby was 
 beloved. It came " not in utter nakedness." It 
 found itself heir of the two prime essentials of 
 existence, — life and love. Its first possession was 
 a woman's kiss ; and in that heritage the most 
 important need of its career was guaranteed. "An 
 ounce of mother," says the Spanish proverb, " is 
 worth a pound of clergy." Jean Paul says that in 
 life every successive influence affects us less and 
 less, so that the circumnavigator of the globe is 
 
A SHADOW, 227 
 
 less influenced by all the nations he has seen than 
 by his nurse. Well may the child imbibe that 
 i-everence for motherhood which is the first need 
 of man. Where woman is most a slave, she is at 
 least sacred to her son. The Turkish Sultan must 
 prostrate himself at the door of his mother's apart- 
 ments, and were he known to have insulted her, 
 it would make his throne tremble. Among the 
 savage African Touaricks, if two parents disagree, 
 it is to the mother that the child's obedience 
 belongs. Over the greater part of the earth's 
 surface, the foremost figures in all temples are the 
 Mother and Child. Christian and Buddhist 
 nations, numbering together two thirds of the 
 world's population, unite in this worship. Into 
 the secrets of the ritual that baby in the window 
 had already received initiation. 
 
 And how much spiritual influence may in turn 
 have gone forth from that little one ! The coarsest 
 father gains a new impulse to labor from the mo- 
 ment of his baby's birth ; he scarcely sees it when 
 awake, and yet it is with him all the time. Every 
 stroke he strikes is for his child. New social aims, 
 new moral motives, come vaguely up to him. The 
 
228 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 London costermonger told May hew that he thought 
 every man would like his son or daughter to have a 
 better start in the world than his own. After all, 
 there is no tonic like the affections. Philosophers 
 express wonder that the divine laws should give to 
 some young girl, almost a child, the custody of an 
 immortal soul. But what instruction the baby 
 brings to the mother ! She learns patience, self- 
 control, endurance ; her very arm grows strong, so 
 that she can hold the dear burden longer than the 
 father can. She learns to understand character, 
 too, by dealing with it. "'In training my first 
 children," said a wise mother to me, " I thought 
 that all were born just the same, and that I was 
 wholly responsible for what they should become. 
 I learned by degrees that each had a temperament 
 of its own, which I must study before I could 
 teach it." And thus, as the little ones grow older, 
 their dawning instincts guide those of the parents ; 
 their questions suggest new answers, and to have 
 loved them is a liberal education. 
 
 For the height of heights is love. The philoso- 
 pher dries into a skeleton like that he investigates, 
 unless love teaches him. He is blind among his 
 
A SHADOW. 229 
 
 microscopes, unless he sees in the humblest human 
 soul a revelation that dwarfs all the world beside. 
 While he grows gray in ignorance among his 
 crucibles, every girlish mother is being illuminated 
 by every kiss of her child. That house is so far 
 sacred, which holds within its walls this new-born 
 heir of eternity. But to dwell on these high 
 mysteries would take us into depths beyond the 
 present needs of mother or of infant, and it is 
 better that the greater part of the baby-life should 
 be that of an animated toy. 
 
 Perhaps it is well for all of us that we should 
 live mostly on the surfaces of things and should 
 play with life, to avoid taking it too hard. In a 
 nursery the youngest child is a little more than a 
 doll, and the doll is a little less than a child. 
 What spell does fancy weave on earth like that 
 which the one of these small beings performs for 
 the other ? This battered and tattered doll, this 
 shapeless, featureless, possibly legless creature, 
 whose mission it is to be dragged by one arm, or 
 stood upon its head in the bathing-tub, until it 
 finally reverts to tlie rag-bag whence it came, — 
 what an affluence of breathing; life is thrown around 
 
230 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 it by one touch of dawning imagination I Its 
 little mistress will find all joy unavailing without 
 its sympathetic presence, will confide every emo- 
 tion to its pen-and-ink ears, and will weep passion- 
 ate tears if its extremely soiled person is pricked 
 when its clothes are mended. What psychologist, 
 what student of the human heart, has ever applied 
 his subtile analysis to the emotions of a child 
 toward her doll ? 
 
 I read lately the charming autobiography of a 
 little gill of eight years, written literally from her 
 own dictation. Since " Pet Marjorie " I have seen 
 no such actual self-revelation on the part of a 
 child. In the course of her narration she describes, 
 with great precision and correctness, the travels of 
 tlie family through Europe in the preceding year, 
 assigning usually the place of importance to her 
 doll, who appears simply as " My Baby." Nothing 
 can be more grave, more accurate, more serious 
 than the whole history, but notliing in it seems 
 quite so real and alive as the doll. "When we 
 got to Nice, I was sick. The next morning the 
 doctor came, and he said I had something that Avas 
 very much like scarlet fever. Then I had Annie 
 
A SHADOW. 231 
 
 take care of baby, and keep her away, for I was 
 afraid she would get the fever. She used to cry 
 to come to me, but I knew it would n't be good 
 for her." 
 
 What firm judgment is here, what tenderness 
 without weakness, what discreet motherhood ! 
 When Christmas came, it appears that baby hung 
 up her stocking with the rest. Her devoted parent 
 had bought for her a slate with a real pencil. 
 Others provided thimble and scissors and bodkin 
 and a spool of thread, and a travelling-shawl with 
 a strap, and a cap with tarletan ruffles. " I found 
 baby with the cap on, early in the morning, and 
 she was so pleased she almost jumped out of my 
 arms." Thus in the midst of visits to the Coliseuna 
 and St. Peter's, the drama of early affection goes 
 always on. " I used to take her to hear the band, 
 in tlie carriage, and she went everywhere I did." 
 
 But the love of all dolls, as of other pets, must 
 end with a tragedy, and here it comes. "The 
 next place we went to was Lucerne. There was a 
 lovely lake there, but I had a very sad time. One 
 day I thought I 'd take baby down to breakfast, 
 and, as I was going up stairs, my foot slipped and 
 
232 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 baby broke her head. And 0, I felt so bad ! and 
 I cried out, and I ran up stairs to Annie, and 
 mamma came, and 0, we were all so sorry ! And 
 mamma said she thoudit I could cjet another 
 head, but I said, ' It won't be tlie same baby.' 
 And mamma said, maybe we could make it 
 seem so." 
 
 At this crisis the elder brother and sister de- 
 parted for Mount Righi. "They were going to 
 stay all niglit, and mamma and I stayed at home 
 to take care of each other. I felt very bad about 
 baby and about their going, too. After they went, 
 mamma and I thought we would go to the little 
 town and see what we could find.". After many 
 difficulties, a waxen head was discovered. '•' Mam- 
 ma bought it, and we took it liome and put it on 
 baby ; but I said it was n't like my real baby, 
 only it was better than having no child at all ! " 
 
 This crushing bereavement, this reluctant ac- 
 ceptance of a child by adoption, to fill the vacant 
 heart, — how real and formidable is all this re- 
 hearsal of the tragedies of maturer years ! I knew 
 an instance in which the last impulse of ebbing 
 life was such a gush of imaginary motherhood. 
 
A SHADOW. 233 
 
 A dear friend of mine, whose sweet charities 
 prolong into a tliird generation the unbounded 
 benevolence of old Isaac Hopper, used to go at 
 Christmas-time with dolls and other gifts to tlie 
 poor children on Eandall's Island. Passing the 
 bed of a little girl whom the physician pronounced 
 to be unconscious and dying, the kind visitor 
 insisted on putting a doll into her arms. Instantly 
 the eyes of the little invalid opened, and she 
 pressed the gift eagerly to her heart, murmuring 
 over it and caressing it. The matron afterwards 
 wrote that the child died within two hours, wear- 
 ing a happy face, and still clinging to her new- 
 found treasure. 
 
 And beginning with this transfer of all human 
 associations to a doll, the child's life interfuses 
 itself readily among all the affairs of the elders. 
 In its presence, formality vanishes the most 
 oppressive ceremonial is a little relieved when 
 children enter. Their inlluence is pervasive and 
 irresistible, like that of water, which adapts itself 
 to any landscape, — always takes its place, welcome 
 or unwelcome, — keeps its own level and seems 
 always to have its natural and proper margin. 
 
234 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 Out of doors how children mingle with nature, and 
 seem to begin just where birds and butterflies 
 leave off! Leigh Hunt, with his delicate percep- 
 tions, paints this well : " The voices of children 
 seem as natural to the early morning as the voice 
 of the birds. The suddenness, the lightness, the 
 loudness, the sweet confusion, the sparkling gayety, 
 seem alike in both. The sudden little jangle is 
 now here and now there ; and now a single voice 
 calls to another, and the boy is off like the bird." 
 So Heine, with deeper thoughtfulness, noticed the 
 " intimacy with the trees " of the little wood- 
 gatherer in the Hartz Mountains ; soon the child 
 whistled like a linnet, and the other birds all 
 answered him ; then he disappeared in the thicket 
 with his bare feet and his bundle of brushwood. 
 " Children," thought Heine, " are younger than we, 
 and can still remember the time when they were 
 trees or birds, and can therefore understand and 
 speak their language ; but we are grown old, and 
 have too many cares, and too much jurisprudence 
 and bad poetry in our heads." 
 
 But why go to literature for a recognition of 
 what one may see by opening one's eyes ? Before 
 
A SHADOW. 235 
 
 my window tliere is a pool, two rods square, that 
 is haunted all winter by children, — clearing away 
 the snow of many a storm, if need be, and mining 
 downward till they strike the ice. I look this 
 morning from the window, and the pond is bare. 
 In a moment I happen to look again, and it is 
 covered with a swarm of boys ; a great migrating 
 flock has settled upon it, as if swooping down 
 from parts unknown to scream and sport them- 
 selves here. The air is full of their voices ; they 
 have all tugged on their skates instantaneously, as 
 it were by magic. Now they are in a confused 
 cluster, now they sweep round and round in a 
 circle, now it is broken into fragments and as 
 quickly formed again ; games are improvised and 
 abandoned ; there seems to be no plan or leader, 
 but all do as they please, and yet somehow act in 
 concert, and all chatter all the time. Now they 
 have alighted, every one, upon the bank of snow 
 that edges the pond, each scraping a little hollow 
 in which to perch. Now every perch is vacant 
 again, for they are all in motion ; each moment 
 increases the jangle of shrill voices, — since a 
 boy's outdoor whisper to his nearest crony is as if 
 
236 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 he was hailing a ship in the offing, — and what 
 they are all saying can no more be made out than 
 if tliey were a flock of gulls or blackbirds. I look 
 away from the window once more, and when I 
 glance out again there is not a boy in sight. They 
 have whirled away like snowbirds, and the little 
 pool sleeps motionless beneath the cheerful wintry 
 sun. Who but must see how gradually the joyous 
 life of the animal rises through childhood into 
 man, — since the soaring gnats, the glancing 
 fishes, the sliding seals are all represented in 
 this mob of half-grown boyhood just released 
 from school. 
 
 If I were to choose among all gifts and qualities 
 that which, on the whole, makes life pleasantest, 
 I should select the love of children. No circum- 
 stance can render this world wliolly a solitude to 
 one who has that possession. It is a freemasonry. 
 Wherever one goes, there are the little brethren 
 and sisters of the mystic tie. No diversity of race 
 or tongue makes much difference. A smile speaks 
 the universal language. " If I value myself on 
 anything," said the lonely Hawthorne, " it is on 
 having a smile that children love." They are 
 
A SHADOW. 237 
 
 such prompt little beings ; they require so little 
 prelude ; hearts are won in two minutes, at that 
 frank period, and so long as you are true to them 
 they will be true to you. They need no argu- 
 ment, no bribery. They have a hearty appetite 
 for gifts, no doubt, but it is not for these that 
 they love the giver. Take the wealth • of the 
 world and lavish it with counterfeited affection : 
 I will win all the children's hearts away from 
 you by empty-handed love. The gorgeous toys 
 will dazzle them for an hour ; then their instincts 
 M'ill revert to their natural friends. In visiting a 
 house where there are children I do not like to 
 take them presents : it is better to forego the 
 pleasure of the giving than to divide the welcome 
 between yourself and the gift. Let that follow 
 after you are gone. 
 
 It is an exaggerated compliment to women when 
 we ascribe to them alone this natural sympathy 
 with childhood. It is an individual, not a sexual 
 trait, and is stronger in many men than in many 
 women. It is nowhere better exliibited in litera- 
 ture than where the happy Wilhelm Meister takes 
 his boy by the hand, to lead him " into the free 
 
238 OLDPORT DAYS, 
 
 and lordly world." Such love is not universal 
 among the other sex, though men, in that humility 
 which so adorns their natures, keep up the pleasing 
 fiction that it is. As a general rule any little girl 
 feels some glimmerings of emotion towards any- 
 thing that can pass for a doll, but it does not follow 
 that, when grown older,. she will feel as ready an 
 instinct toward every child. Try it. Point out to 
 a woman some bundle of blue-and-white or white- 
 and-scarlet in some one's arms at the next street 
 corner. Ask her, " Do you love that baby ? " 
 Not one woman in three will say promptly, " Yes." 
 The others will hesitate, will bid you wait till they 
 are nearer, till they can personally inspect the 
 little thing and take an inventory of its traits ; it 
 may be dirty, too ; it may be diseased. Ah ! but 
 this is not to love children, and you might as well 
 be a man. To love children is to love childhood, 
 instinctively, at whatever distance, the first im- 
 pulse being one of attraction, though it may be 
 checked by later discoveries. Unless your heart 
 commands at least as long a range as your eye, it 
 is not worth much. The dearest saint in my cal- 
 endar never entered a railway car that she did not 
 
A SHADOW. 239 
 
 look round for a baby, which, when discovered, 
 must always be won at once into her arras. If it 
 was dirty, she would have been glad to bathe it ; 
 if ill, to heal it. It would not have seemed to her 
 anything worthy the name of love, to seek only 
 those who were wholesome and clean. Like the 
 young girl in Holmes's most touching poem, she 
 would have claimed as her own the outcast child 
 whom nurses and physicians had abandoned. 
 
 " ' Take her, dread Angel ! Break in love 
 This bruised reed and make it thine ! ' 
 No voice descended from above, 
 
 But Avis answered, ' She is mine ! ' " 
 
 When I think of the self-devotion which the 
 human heart can contain — of those saintly souls 
 that are in love with sorrow, and that yearn to 
 shelter all weakness and all grief — it inspires an 
 unspeakable confidence that there must also be an 
 instinct of parentage beyond this human race, a 
 heart of hearts, cor cordium. As we all crave 
 something to protect, so we long to feel ourselves 
 protected. We are all infants before the Infinite ; 
 and as I turned from that cottage window to the 
 resplendent sky, it was easy to fancy that mute 
 
240 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 embrace, that shadowy symbol of affection, expand- 
 ing from the narrow lattice till it touched the 
 stars, gathering every created soul into the arms 
 of Immortal Love. 
 
FOOTPATHS. 
 
 A LL round the shores of the island where I 
 -^^ dwell there runs a winding path. It is prob- 
 ably as old as the settlement of the country, and 
 has been kept open with pertinacious fidelity by 
 the fishermen whose right of way it represents. 
 In some places, as between Fort Adams and Castle 
 Hill, it exists in its primitive form, an irregular 
 track above rough cliffs, whence you look down 
 upon the entrance to the harbor and watch the 
 white-sailed schooners that glide beneath. Else- 
 where the high-road has usurped its place, and 
 you have the privilege of the path without its 
 charm. Along our eastern cliffs it runs for some 
 miles in the rear of beautiful estates, whose owners 
 have seized on it, and graded it, and gravelled it, 
 and made stiles for it, and done for it everything 
 that landscape-gardening could do, wliile leaving 
 it a footpath still. You walk there with croquet 
 11 r 
 
242 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 and roses on the one side, and M'ith floating loons 
 and wild ducks on the other. In remoter places the 
 path grows wilder, and has ramifications striking 
 boldly across the peninsula through rough moor- 
 land and among great ledges of rock, where you 
 may ramble for hours, out of sight of all but some 
 sportsman with his gun, or some truant-boy with 
 dripping water-lilies. There is always a charm to 
 me in the inexplicable windings of these wayward 
 tracks ; yet I like the path best where it is nearest 
 the ocean. There, while looking upon blue sea and 
 snowy sails and floating gulls, you may yet hear 
 on the landward side the melodious and plaintive 
 drawl of the meadow-lark, most patient of summer 
 visitors, and, indeed, lingering on this island al- 
 most the whole j^ear round. 
 
 But who cares whither a footpath leads ? The 
 charm is in the path itself, its promise of some- 
 thing that the high-road cannot yield. Away from 
 habitations, you know that the fisherman, the geolo- 
 gist, the botanist may have been there, or that the 
 cows have been driven home and that somewhere 
 there are bars and a milk-pail. Even in the midst 
 of houses, the path suggests school-children with 
 
'footpaths. 243 
 
 their luncheon-baskets, or workmen seeking eagerly 
 the noonday interval or the twilight rest. A foot- 
 path cannot be quite spoiled, so long as it remains 
 such ; you can make a road a mere avenue for fast 
 horses or showy women, but this humbler track 
 keeps its simplicity, and if a queen comes walking 
 through it, she comes but as a village maid. On 
 Sunday, when it is not etiquette for our fashion- 
 ables to drive, but only to walk along the cliffs, 
 they seem to wear a more innocent and wholesome 
 aspect in that novel .position ; I have seen a fine 
 lady pause under such circumstances and pick a 
 wild-flower ; she knew how to do it. A footpath 
 has its own character, while that of the high-road 
 is imposed upon it by those who dwell beside it 
 or pass over it ; indeed, roads become picturesque 
 only when they are called lanes and make believe 
 that they are but paths. 
 
 The very irregularity of a footpath makes half 
 its charm. So much of loitering and indolence 
 and impulse have gone to its formation, that all 
 which is stiff and military has been left out. I 
 observed that the very dikes of the Southern rice 
 plantations did not succeed in being rectilinear. 
 
244 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 though the general effect was that of Tennyson's 
 " flowery squares." Even the country road, which 
 is but an enlarged footpath, is never quite straight, 
 as Thoreau long since observed, noting it with his 
 surveyor's eye. I read in his unpublished diary : 
 " The law that plants the rushes in waving lines 
 along the edge of a pond, and that curves the pond 
 shore itself, incessantly beats against the straight 
 fences and highways of men, and makes them con- 
 form to the line of beauty at last." It is this un- 
 intentional adaptation that makes a footpath so 
 indestructible. Instead of striking across the nat- 
 ural lines, it conforms to them, nestles into the 
 hollow, skirts the precipice, avoids the morass. An 
 unconscious landscape-gardener, it seeks the most 
 convenient course, never doubting that grace will 
 follow. Mitchell, at his " Edgewood " farm, wish- 
 ing to decide on the most picturesque avenue to 
 his front door, ordered a heavy load of stone to be 
 hauled across the field, and bade the driver seek 
 the easiest grades, at whatever cost of curvature. 
 Tlie avenue followed the path so made. 
 
 When a footpath falls thus unobtrusively into 
 its place, all natural forces seem to sympathize 
 
FOOTPATHS. 245 
 
 with it, and help it to fulfil its destiny. Once 
 make a well-defined track through a wood, and 
 presently the overflowing brooks seak it for a chan- 
 nel, the obstructed winds draw through it, the fox 
 and woodchuck travel by it, the catbird and robin 
 build near it, the bee and swallow make a high- 
 road of its convenient thoroughfare. In winter the 
 first snows mark it with a white line ; as you wan- 
 der through you hear the blue-jay's cry, and see 
 the hurrying flight of the sparrow ; the graceful 
 outlines of the leafless bushes are revealed, and the 
 clinging bird's-nests, "leaves that do not fall," give 
 happy memories of summer homes. Thus Xature 
 meets man half-way. The paths of the wild forest 
 and of the rural neighborhood are not at all the 
 same thing ; indeed, a " spotted trail," marked only 
 by the woodman's axe-marks on the trees, is not a 
 footpath. Thoreau, wlio is sometimes foolishly 
 accused of having sought to be a mere savage, un- 
 derstood this distinction well. " A man changes 
 by his presence," he says in his unpublished diary, 
 " the very nature of the trees. The poet's is not a 
 logger's path, but a woodman's, — the logger and 
 pioneer have preceded him, and banished decaying 
 
246 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 wood and the spongy mosses which feed on it, and 
 built hearths and humanized nature for him. For 
 a permanent residence, there can be no comparison 
 between this and the wilderness. Our woods are 
 sylvan, and their inhabitants woodsmen and rus- 
 tics ; that is, a sdvarjgia and its inhabitants sal- 
 vages." What Thoreau loved, like all men of 
 healthy minds, was the occasional experience of 
 untamed wildness. " I love to see occasionally," 
 he adds, " a man from whom the usnca (lichen) 
 hangs as gracefully as from a spruce." 
 
 Footpaths bring us nearer both to nature and 
 to man. No high-road, not even a lane, conducts 
 to the deeper recesses of the wood, where you hear 
 the wood-thrush. There are a thousand concealed 
 fitnesses in nature, rhymed correspondences of bird 
 and blossom, for which you must seek through 
 hidden paths ; as when you come upon some 
 black brook so palisaded with cardinal-flowers 
 as to seem " a stream of sunsets " ; or trace its 
 shadowy course till it spreads into some forest- 
 pool, above which that rare and patrician in- 
 sect, the Agrion dragon-fly, flits and hovers per- 
 petually, as if the darkness and the cool . had 
 
FOOTPATHS. 247 
 
 taken wings. The dark brown pellucid water 
 sleeps between banks of softest moss ; white stars 
 of twin-flowers creep close to the brink, delicate 
 sprays of dewberry trail over it, and the emerald 
 tips of drooping leaves forever tantalize the still 
 surface. Above these the slender, dark-blue insect 
 waves his dusky wings, like a liberated ripple of 
 the brook, and takes the few stray sunbeams on 
 ^ his lustrous form. Whence came the correspond- 
 ence between this beautiful shy creature and the 
 moist, dark nooks, shot through with stray and 
 transitory sunlight, where it dwells ? The anal- 
 ogy is as unmistakable as that between the scorch- 
 ing heats of summer and the shrill cry of the 
 cicada. They suggest questions that no savant 
 can answer, mysteries that wait, like Goethe's 
 secret of morphology, till a sufficient poet can 
 be born. And we, meanwhile, stand helpless in 
 their presence, as one waits beside the telegrapliic 
 wire, while it hums and vibrates, charged with 
 all fascinating secrets, above the heads of a 
 wondering world. 
 
 It is by the presence of pathways on the earth 
 that we know it to be the habitation of man ; in 
 
248 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 the barest desert, they open to us a common 
 humanity. It is the absence of these that rend- 
 ers us so lonely on the ocean, and makes us glad 
 to watch even the track of our own vessel. But 
 on the mountain-top, how eagerly we trace out the 
 " road that brings places together," as Schiller says. 
 It is the first thing we look for ; till we have found 
 it, each scattered village has an isolated and churl- 
 ish look, but the glimpse of a furlong of road puts 
 them all in friendly relations. The narrower the 
 path, the more domestic and familiar it seems. 
 The railroad may represent the capitalist or the 
 government; the high-road indicates wliat the 
 surveyor or the county commissioners thought 
 best ; but the footpath shows what the people 
 needed. Its associations are with beauty and 
 humble life, — the boy with his dog, the little 
 girl with her fagots, the pedler with his pack; 
 cheery companions they are or ought to be. 
 
 " Jog on, jog on the footpath way, 
 And merrily hent the stile-a : 
 A merry heart goes all the day, 
 Your sad one tires in a mile-a." 
 
 The footpath takes you across the farms and 
 
FOOTPATHS. 249 
 
 behind the houses ; you are admitted to the family- 
 secrets and form a personal acquaintance. Even 
 if you take the wrong path, it only leads you 
 " across-lots " to some man ploughing, or some old 
 woman picking berries, — perhaps a very spicy 
 acquaintance, whom the road would never have 
 brought to light. If you are led astray in the 
 woods, that only teaches you to observe landmarks 
 more closely, or to leave straws and stakes for 
 tokens, like a gypsy's patteran, to show the ways 
 already traversed. There is a healthy vigor in 
 the mind of the boy who would like of all things 
 to be lost in the woods, to build a fire out of doors, 
 and sleep under a tree or in a haystack. Civiliza- 
 tion is tiresome and enfeebling, unless we occa- 
 sionally give it the relish of a little outlawry, and 
 approach, in imagination at least, the zest of a 
 gypsy life. The records of pedestrian journeys, 
 the Wanderjahre and memoirs of good-for-noth- 
 ings, and all the delightful German forest litera- 
 ture, — these belong to the footpath side of our 
 nature. The passage I best remember in all 
 Bayard Taylor's travels is the ecstasy of his 
 Thiiringian forester, who said : " I recall the time 
 11* 
 
250 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 when just a sunny morning made me so happy 
 that I did not know what to do with myself. One 
 day in spring, as I went through the woods and 
 saw the shadows of the young leaves upon the 
 moss, and smelt the buds of the firs and larches, 
 and thought to myself, ' All thy life is to be spent 
 in the splendid forest,' I actually threw myself 
 down and rolled in the grass like a dog, over and 
 over, crazy with joy." 
 
 It is the charm of pedestrian journeys that they 
 convert the grandest avenues to footpaths. Through 
 them alone we gain intimate knowledge of the 
 people, and of nature, and indeed of ourselves. 
 It is easy to hurry too fast for our best reflections, 
 which, as the old monk said of perfection, must 
 be sought not by flying, but by walking, "Pcrfec- 
 tionis via non j^'^'/'volanda scd pe?'«m&M/«7i<fa." 
 The thoughts tliat the railway affords us are dusty 
 thoughts ; we ask the news, read tlie journals, 
 question our neighbor, and wish to know what is 
 going on because we are a part of it. It is only 
 in the footpath that our minds, like our bodies, 
 move slowly, and we traverse thought, like space, 
 with a patient thoroughness. Rousseau said that 
 
FOOTPATHS. 251 
 
 he had never experienced so mucli, lived so truly, 
 and been so wholly himself, as during his travels 
 on foot. 
 
 What can Hawthorne mean by saying in his 
 English diary that "an American would never 
 understand the passage in Bunyan about Christian 
 and Hopeful going astray along a by-path into tbe 
 grounds of Giant Despair, from there being no 
 stiles and by-paths in our country " ? So much 
 of the charm of American pedestrianism lies in 
 the by-patlis ! For instance, the wliole interior of 
 Cape Ann, beyond Gloucester, is a continuous 
 woodland, with granite ledges everywhere cropping 
 out, around which the liigh-road winds, following 
 the curving and indented line of the sea, and dot- 
 ted here and there with fishing hamlets. This 
 whole interior is traversed by a network of foot- 
 paths, rarely passable for a wagon, and not always 
 for a horse, but enabling the pedestrian to go 
 from any one of these villages to any other, in 
 a line almost direct, and always under an agree- 
 able shade. By the longest of these hidden ways, 
 one may go from Pigeon Cove to Gloucester, ten 
 miles, without seeing a public road. In the little 
 
252 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 inn at the former village there used to hang an 
 old map of this whole forest region, giving a 
 chart of some of these paths, which were said 
 to date back to the first settlement of the 
 country. One of them, for instance, was called 
 on the map " Old Eoad from Sandy Bay to Squam 
 Meeting-house through the Woods " ; but the road 
 is now scarcely even a bridle-path, and the most 
 faithful worshipper could not seek Scpiam Meet- 
 ing-house in the family chaise. Those woods 
 have been lately devastated ; but when I first 
 knew that region, it was as good as any Ger- 
 man forest. Often we stepped almost from the 
 edge of the sea into some gap in the woods ; there 
 seemed hardly more than a rabbit-track, yet pres- 
 ently we met some wayfarer who had crossed the 
 Cape by it. A piny dell gave some vista of the 
 broad sea we were leaving, and an opening in the 
 woods displayed another blue sea-line before ; the 
 encountering breezes interchanged odor of berry- 
 bush and scent of brine ; penetrating farther 
 among oaks and chestnuts, we come uj^on some 
 little cottage, quaint and sheltered as any Spenser 
 drew; it was built on no liigh-road, and turned 
 
FOOTPATHS. 253 
 
 its vine-clad gable away from even the footpath. 
 Then the ground rose and we were surprised by a 
 breeze from a new quarter ; perhaps we climbed 
 trees to look for landmarks, and saw only, still 
 farther in the woods, some great cliff of gmnite 
 or the derrick of an unseen quarry. Three miles 
 inland, as I remember, we found the hearthstones 
 of a vanished settlement ; then we passed a swamp 
 with cardinal-flowers ; then a cathedral of noble 
 pines, topped with crow's-nests. If we had not 
 gone astray by this time, we presently emerged on 
 Dogtown Common, an elevated table-land, over- 
 spread with great boulders as with houses, and 
 encircled with a girdle of green woods and an 
 outer girdle of blue sea. I know of nothing more 
 wild than that gray waste of boulders ; it is a 
 natural Salisbury Plain, of which icebergs and 
 ocean-currents were the Druidic builders ; in 
 that multitude of couchant monsters there seems 
 a sense of suspended life ; you feel as if they must 
 speak and answer to each other in the silent nights, 
 but by day only the wandering sea-birds seek 
 them, on their way across the Cape, and the 
 sweet-bay and green fern imbed them in a softer 
 
254 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 and deeper setting as the years go by. This is 
 the " height of ground " of that wild footpath ; 
 but as you recede farther from the outer ocean 
 and approach Gloucester, you come among still 
 wilder ledges, unsafe without a guide, and you 
 find in one place a cluster of deserted houses, 
 too difficult of access to remove even their ma- 
 terials, so that they are left to moulder alone. 
 I used to wander in those woods, summer after 
 summer, till I had made my own chart of their 
 devious tracks, and now when I close my eyes 
 in this Oldport midsummer, the soft Italian air 
 takes on something of a Scandinavian vigor ; for 
 the incessant roll of carriages I hear the tinkle 
 of the quarryman's hammer and the veery's song ; 
 and I long for those perfumed and breezy pastures, 
 and for those promontories of granite where the 
 fresh water is nectar and the salt sea has a regal 
 blue. 
 
 I recall another footpath near Worcester, IMassa- 
 chusetts ; it leads up from the low meadows into 
 the wildest region of all that vicinity, Tatesset 
 Hill. Leaving behind you the open pastures where 
 the cattle lie beneath the chestnut-trees or drink 
 
FOOTPATHS. 255 
 
 from the shallow brook, you pass among the 
 l)irches and maples, where the woodsman's shanty 
 stands in the clearing, and the raspberry-fields are 
 merry with children's voices. The familiar birds 
 and butterflies linger below with them, and in the 
 upper and more sacred depths the wood-thrush 
 chants his litany and the brown mountain butter- 
 flies hover among the scented vines. Higher yet 
 rises the " Rattlesnake Ledge," spreading over one 
 side of the summit a black avalanche of broken 
 rock, now overgrown with reindeer-moss and filled 
 with tufts of the smaller wild geranium. Just 
 below this ledge, — amid a dark, dense track 
 of second-growth forest, masked here and there 
 with grape-vines, studded with rare orchises, 
 and pierced by a brook that vanishes suddenly 
 where the ground sinks away and lets the blue 
 distance in, — there is a little monument to which 
 the footpath leads, and which always seemed 
 to me as wild a memorial of forgotten supersti- 
 tion as the traveller can find amid the forests of 
 Japan. 
 
 It was erected by a man called Solomon Pearson 
 (not to give liis name too closely), a quiet, thought- 
 
256 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 fill farmer, long-bearded, low-voiced, and with that 
 aspect of refinement whicli an ideal life brings 
 forth even in quite uninstructed men. At the 
 height of the " Second Advent " excitement this 
 man resolved to build for himself upon these re- 
 mote rocks a house which should escape the wratli 
 to come, and should endure even amid a burning 
 and transformed earth. Thinking, as he had once 
 said to me, that, " if the First Dispensation had 
 been strong enough to endure, there would have 
 been no need of a Second," he resolved to build 
 for his part something which should possess per- 
 manence at least. And there still remains on 
 that high hillside the small beginning that he 
 made. 
 
 There are four low stone walls, three feet thick, 
 built solidly together without cement, and M'ithout 
 the trace of tools. The end-walls are nine feet 
 high (the sides being lower) and are firmly united 
 by a strong iron ridge-pole, perhaps fifteen feet 
 long, which is imbedded at each end in the stone. 
 Other masses of iron lie around unused, in sheets, 
 bars, and coils, brought with slow labor by the 
 builder from far below. The whole buildins: was 
 
FOOTPATHS. 257 
 
 designed to be made of stone and iron. It is now 
 covered with creeping vines and the debris of the 
 hillside ; but though its construction had been 
 long discontinued when I saw it, the interior was 
 still kept scrupulously clean through the care 
 of this modern Solomon, who often visited his 
 shrine. 
 
 An arch in the terminal wall admits the visitor 
 to the small roofless temple, and he sees before 
 him, imbedded in the centre of the floor, a large 
 smooth block of white marble, where the deed of 
 this spot of land was to be recorded, in the hope 
 to preserve it even after the globe should have 
 been burned and renewed. But not a stroke of 
 this inscription was ever cut, and now the young 
 chestnut bouglis droop into the uncovered interior, 
 and shy forest-birds sing fearlessly among them, 
 having learned that this house belongs to God, not 
 man. As if to reassure them, and perhaps in allu- 
 sion to his own vegetarian habits, the architect has 
 spread some rough plaster at the liead of the apart- 
 ment and marked on it in bold characters, " Thou 
 shalt not kill." Two slabs outside, a little way 
 from the walls, bear these inscriptions, " Peace on 
 
 Q 
 
258 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 Earth," " Good-Will to Men." When I visited it, 
 the path was rough and so obstructed with bushes 
 that it was hard to comprehend how it had afforded 
 passage for these various materials ; it seemed more 
 as if some strange architectural boulder had drifted 
 from some Eunic period and been stranded there. 
 It was as apt a confessional as any of Wordsworth's 
 nooks among the Trossachs ; and when one thinks 
 how many men are wearing out their souls in try- 
 ing to conform to the traditional mythologies of 
 others, it seems nobler in this man to have reared 
 upon that lonely hill the unfinished menjorial of 
 his own. 
 
 I recall another path which leads from the Lower 
 Saranac Lake, near " Martin's," to what the guides 
 call, or used to call, " The Philosopher's Camp " at 
 Amperzand. On this oddly named lake, in the 
 Adirondack region, a tract of land was bouglit by 
 Professor Agassiz and his friends, who made there 
 a summer camping-ground, and with one comrade 
 I once sought the spot. I remember with what 
 joy we left the boat, — so delightful at first, so 
 fatiguing at last ; for I cannot, with Mr. Murray, 
 call it a merit in the Adirondacks that you never 
 
FOOTPATHS. 259 
 
 have to walk, — and stepped away into the free 
 forest. We passed tangled swamps, so dense with 
 upturned trees and trailing mosses that they 
 seemed to give no opening for any living thing to 
 pass, unless it might be the soft and silent owl 
 that turned its head almost to dislocation in 
 watching' us, ere it flitted vaguely away. Farther 
 on, the deep, cool forest was luxurious with plumy 
 ferns ; we trod on moss-covered roots, finding the 
 emerald steps so soft we scarcely knew that we 
 were ascending ; every breath was aromatic ; there 
 seemed infinite healing in every fragrant drop that 
 fell upon our necks from the cedar boughs. We 
 had what I think the pleasantest guide for a day- 
 light tramp, — one who has never before passed 
 over that particular route, and can only pilot you 
 on general principles till he gladly, at last, allows 
 you to pilot him. Wlien we once got the lead, 
 we took him jubilantly on, and beginning to look 
 for "The Philosopher's Camp," found ourselves 
 confronted by a large cedar-tree on the margin 
 of a wooded lake. This was plainly the end 
 of the path. Was the camp then afloat ? Our 
 escort was in that state of hopeless ignorance of 
 
260 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 •which only lost guides are capable. We scanned 
 the green horizon and the level water, without 
 glimpse of human abode. It seemed an enchant- 
 ed lake, and we looked about the tree-trunk for 
 some fairy horn, that we might blow it. That 
 failing, we tried three rifle-shots, and out from 
 the shadow of an island, on the instant, there 
 glided a boat, which bore no lady of the lake, 
 but a red-shirted woodsman. The artist whom 
 we sought was on that very island, it seemed, 
 sketching patiently while his guides were driving 
 the deer. 
 
 This artist was he whose "Procession of the 
 Pines " had identified his fame with that delight- 
 ful forest region. He it was who had laid out 
 with artistic taste ""The Philosopher's Camp," 
 and who was that season still awaiting philoso- 
 phers as well as deer. He had been there for a 
 month, alone with the guides, and declared that 
 Nature was pressing upon him to an extent that 
 almost drove him wild. His eyes had a certain 
 remote and questioning look that belongs to im- 
 aginative men who dwell alone. It seemed an 
 impertinence to ask him to come out of his 
 
FOOTPATHS. 261 
 
 dream and offer us dinner ; but his instincts of 
 hospitality failed not, and the red-shirted guide 
 was sent to the camp, which was, it seemed, on 
 the other side of the lake, to prepare our meal, 
 while we bathed. I am thus particular in speak- 
 ing of the dinner, not only because such is the 
 custom of travellers, but also because it was the 
 occasion of an interlude which I shall never for- 
 get. As we were undressing for our bath upon 
 the lonely island, where the soft, pale water almost 
 lapped our feet, and the deep, wooded hills made 
 a great amphitheatre for the lake, our host be- 
 thought himself of something neglected in his 
 instructions. 
 
 " Ben ! " vociferated he to the guide, now rapidly 
 receding. Ben paused on Kis oars. 
 
 " Eemember to bo-o-oil the venison, Ben ! " 
 shouted the pensive artist, while all the slumber- 
 ing echoes arose to applaud this culinary confi- 
 dence. 
 
 "And, Ben!" he added, imploringly, "don't 
 forget the dumplings ! " Upon this, the loons, all 
 down the lake, who had hitherto been silent, took 
 up the strain with vehemence, hurling their wild 
 
262 OLDPOET DAYS. 
 
 laughter at the presumptuous mortal who thus 
 dared to invade their solitudes with details as 
 trivial as Mr. Pickwick's tomato-sauce. They re- 
 peated it over and over to each other, till ten 
 square miles of loons must have lieard the news, 
 and all laughed together ; never was there such 
 an audience ; they could not get over it, and 
 two hours after, when we had rowed over to the 
 camp and dinner had been served, this irreverent 
 and invisible chorus kept bursting out, at all 
 points of the compass, with scattered chuckles 
 of delight over this extraordinary bill of fare. 
 Justice compels me to add that the dumplings 
 were made of Indian-meal, upon a recipe devised 
 by our artist; the guests preferred the venison, 
 but the host showed a fidelity to his invention 
 that proved him to be indeed a dweller in an 
 ideal world. 
 
 Another path that comes back to memory is 
 the bare trail that we followed over the prairies of 
 Nebraska, in 1856, when the Missouri River was 
 held by roving bands from the Slave States, and 
 Freedom had to seek an overland route into 
 Kansas. All day and aU night we rode between 
 
FOOTPATHS. 263 
 
 distant prairie-fires, pillars of evening light and 
 of morning cloud, while sometimes the low grass 
 would burn to the very edge of the trail, so that 
 we had to hold our breath as we galloped through. 
 Parties of armed Missourians were sometimes seen 
 over the prairie swells, so that we had to mount 
 guard at nightfall; Free-State emigrants, fleeing 
 from persecution, continually met us ; and we 
 sometimes saw parties of wandering Sioux, or 
 passed their great irregular huts and houses of 
 worship. I remember one desolate prairie summit 
 on which an Indian boy sat motionless on horse- 
 back ; his bare red legs clung closely to the white 
 sides of his horse ; a gorgeous sunset was unrolled 
 behind him, and he might have seemed the last 
 of his race, just departing for the hunting-grounds 
 of the blest. More often the horizon showed no 
 human outline, and the sun set cloudless, and 
 elongated into pear-shaped outlines, as behind 
 ocean-waves. But I remember best the excite- 
 ment that filled our breasts when we approached 
 spots where the contest for a free soil had already 
 been sealed with blood. In those days, as one 
 went to Pennsylvania to study coal formations, 
 
264 OLDPORT DAYS. 
 
 or to Lake Superior for copper, so one went to 
 Kansas for men. " Every footpath on this planet," 
 said a rare thinker, " may lead to the door of a 
 hero," and that trail into Kansas ended rightly at 
 the tent-door of John Brown. 
 
 And later, who that knew them can forget the 
 picket-paths that were worn throughout the Sea 
 Islands of South Carolina, — paths that wound 
 along the shores of creeks or through the depths 
 of woods, where the great wild roses tossed their 
 airy festoons above your head, and the brilliant 
 lizards glanced across your track, and your horse's 
 ears suddenly pointed forward and his pace grew 
 uneasy as he snuffed the presence of something 
 you could not see. At night you had often to ride 
 from picket to picket in dense darkness, trusting 
 to the horse to find his way, or sometimes dis- 
 mounting to feel with your hands for the track, 
 while the great Southern fire-flies offered their 
 floating lanterns for guidance, and the hoarse 
 " Chuck- will's- widow " croaked ominously from 
 the trees, and the great guns of the siege of 
 Charleston throbbed more faintly than the drum- 
 ming of a partridge, far away. Those islands 
 
FOOTPATHS. 265 
 
 are everywhere so intersected by dikes and ledges 
 and winding creeks as to form a natural military 
 region, like La Vendee ; and yet two plantations 
 that are twenty miles asunder by the road will 
 sometimes be united by a footpath which a negro 
 can traverse in two hours. These tracks are lim- 
 ited in distance by the island formation, but they 
 assume a greater importance as you penetrate the 
 mainland ; they then join great States instead of 
 mere plantations, and if you ask whither one 
 of them leads, you are told " To Alabama," or " To 
 Tennessee." 
 
 Time would fail to tell of that wandering path 
 which leads to the Mine Mountain near Brattle- 
 borough, where you climb the high peak at last, 
 and perhaps see the showers come up the Connect- 
 icut till they patter on the leaves beneath you, 
 and then, swerving, pass up the black ravine and 
 leave you unwet. Or of those among the "White 
 Mountains, gorgeous with great red lilies which 
 presently seem to take flight in a cloud of butter- 
 flies that match their tints, — paths where the 
 balsamic air caresses you in light breezes, and 
 masses of alder-berries rise above the waving 
 
 12 
 
266 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 ferns. Or of tlie paths that lead beside many a 
 little New England stream, w^hose bank is lost 
 to sight in a smooth green slope of grape-vine : 
 the lower shoots rest upon the quiet water, but 
 the upper masses are crowned by a white wreatli 
 of alder-blooms ; beside them grow great masses 
 of wild-roses, and the simultaneous blossoms and 
 berries of the gaudy nightshade. Or of those 
 winding tracks that lead here and there among 
 the flat stones of peaceful old graveyards, so 
 entwined with grass and flowers that every 
 spray of sweetbrier seems to tell more of life 
 than all the accumulated epitaphs can tell of 
 death. 
 
 And when the paths that one has personally 
 traversed are exhausted, memory holds almost as 
 clearly those which the poets have trodden for us, 
 — those innumerable by-ways of Shakespeare, 
 each more real than any high-road in England ; or 
 Chaucer's 
 
 " Little path I found 
 Of mintes full and fennell greene "; 
 
 or Spenser's 
 
 " Pathes and alleies wide 
 With footing wonie " ; 
 
FOOTPATHS. 267 
 
 or the path of Browning's " Pippa " 
 
 " Down the hillside, \ip the glen, 
 Love me as I love ! " 
 
 or the weary tracks by which " Little Nell " wan- 
 dered ; or the haunted way in Sydney Dobell's 
 ballad, 
 
 " Ilavelstone, Ravelstone, 
 The merry path that leads 
 Down the golden morning hills, 
 And through the silver meads "; 
 
 or the few American paths that genius has yet 
 idealized ; that where Hawthorne's " David Swan " 
 slept, or that which Thoreau found upon the banks 
 of Walden Pond, or where Whittier parted with 
 his childhood's playmate on Ramoth HilL It is 
 not heights, or depths, or spaces that make the 
 world worth living in ; for the fairest landscape 
 needs still to be garlanded by the imagination, — 
 to become classic with noble deeds and romantic 
 with dreams. 
 
 Go where we please in nature, we receive in 
 proportion as we give. Ivo, the old Bishop of 
 Chartres, wrote, that "neither the secret depth 
 of woods nor the tops of mountains make man 
 
268 OLDPOKT DAYS. 
 
 blessed, if lie has not with him solitude of mind, 
 the sabbath of the heart, and tranquillity of con- 
 science." There are many roads, but one termina- 
 tion ; and Plato says, in his " Eepublic," that the 
 point where all paths meet is the soul's true rest- 
 ing-place and the journey's end. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 H 46 '78 ^^ 
 
 Cambridge : Electrotj-ped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 

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