V>.-^ l^ow^•l»Vl 
 
 , mm\l 
 
Country Living 
 
 AND 
 
 Country Thinking 
 
 GA.il HAMILTON 
 
 V 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS 
 
 I 862 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 2-2, 4 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 university press: 
 
 Welch, Biqelow, and Company, 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
REFACE. 
 
 KNOW that I can bear censure ; I 
 tliink I could endure neglect : but 
 there is one thing which I will never 
 E^l forgive, and that is, any encroach- 
 ment upon my personality. Whatever an au- 
 thor puts between the two covers of his book is 
 public property ; whatever of himself he does 
 not put there is his private property, as much 
 as if he had never written a word. I do not 
 say, that any information which may be gath- 
 ered, or any conjecture which may be hazarded, 
 concerning the man or the woman who stands 
 behind the mask of the author, may not be a 
 lawful theme of conversation, if people are in- 
 terested enough to make it so ; but the ap- 
 pearance of any such information or conjecture 
 in any public print, whether in the form of 
 book-notice or news-item, I consider an unpar- 
 donable impertinence. 
 
 As this seems to me a matter of serious im- 
 portance in the minor moralities, and one in 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 which this people is verily guilty, I desire to be 
 clearly understood. If any person writes a book 
 or an article, and prefixes his name, he, in a 
 manner, makes an unconditional surrender of 
 himself The public has perhaps the shadow 
 of a right to ascertain and announce his birth- 
 place, his residence, his wife, the color of his 
 eyes, the length of his beard, the precocity of 
 his childhood, the college at which he was grad-; 
 uated, the hotel in which he is spending the 
 summer months, and similar items — startling, 
 if true — which are so dear to the public. But 
 if he withholds himself, and writes under the sig- 
 nature of Apsby Jones, you, my dear Public, 
 have no right or title to him. That is an indi- 
 cation that he wishes to remain unknown. You 
 should respect his reticence. Though you may 
 have heard from your brother-in-law or your 
 grandmother that Apsby Jones is a Mr. Jona- 
 than Jenkins of Kettleville, refrain scrupulously 
 from printing that report ; for, in the first place, 
 you have probably been misinformed, — Jona- 
 than Jenkins is not the man at all, and is made 
 to feel extremely uncomfortable ; and, in the 
 second place, if he were the man, it would be 
 shamefully impolite in you to rend away the veil 
 in which he chose to drape himself You may 
 criticise his book to the top of your bent, but 
 don't meddle with him. No matter if he was 
 your schoolmate, no matter if he descended from 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 a French refugee, no matter if he made a speech 
 at your picnic ; you be quiet about it, — at least 
 till he is dead. Doubtless he was very glad to 
 have his book published, but doubtless he has 
 insurmountable objections to being published 
 himself 
 
 This is a preface, Public, and you will read- 
 ily see that I cannot talk as freely as I should 
 like, because it will never do to put you in an 
 ill-humor at the beginning ; but you must know, 
 yourself, that you are very much given to ille- 
 gal gossip. You have a cacoctJics printendi. The 
 moment you get hold, by fair means or foul, of 
 the outermost fibre of the shred of the husk of 
 the semblance of a fact, you go straightway and 
 put it in the newspapers. You are not so much 
 to blame. Your fathers did it before you, and 
 I don't suppose you were ever told that it was 
 ill-bred ; but it is. Please not do it again. 
 Be very sure to know whether the name on the 
 title-page is a pen-name or a baptismal name. 
 If it is the former, confine your remarks to 
 the book and its relations ; if it is the lat- 
 ter — you cannot do better than follow the 
 same course. 
 
 I most eagerly desire, O Public, your good 
 opinion, and especially your friendly feeling. I 
 shall count it one of the greatest happinesses 
 of my life if I succeed in pleasing you, and one 
 of the fjreatest misfortunes if I do not. But 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 if you commit this sin against me, I will never 
 forgive you ! Or, since that may be unscrip- 
 tural, I will forgive you just enough to save 
 my own soul, but not enough to be of any use 
 to you. 
 
 G. H. 
 
c 
 
 ONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Moving 3 
 
 The Bank 21 
 
 My Garden 38 
 
 Men and Women 80 
 
 My Birds 206 
 
 Tommy *. . . . 230 
 
 Boston and Home Again 246 
 
 Brown-Bread Cakes 277 
 
 A Complaint of Friends 285 
 
 Dog-Days 311 
 
 Summer Gone 317 
 
 Winter 335 
 
 My Flower-Bed 351 
 
 Lights among the Shadows of our Civil War . 366 
 
 M5| 
 
Country Living 
 
 AND 
 
 Country Thinking 
 
Moving. 
 
 n^AN is like an onion. He exists in 
 [ concentric layers. He is born a bulb, 
 I and grows by external accretions. 
 5^?-^^ The number and character of his 
 involutions certify to his culture and courtesy. 
 Those of the boor are few and coarse. Those 
 of the 2;entleman are numerous and fine. But 
 strip off the scales from all, and you come to the 
 same germ. The core of humanity is barbarism. 
 Every man is a latent savage. 
 
 You may be startled and shocked ; but I am 
 stating fiict, not theory. I announce not an in- 
 vention, but a discovery. You look around you, 
 and because you do not see tomahawks and tat- 
 tooing you doubt my assertion. But your obser- 
 A^ation is superficial. You have not penetrated 
 into the secret place where souls abide. You 
 are staring only at the outside layer of your 
 neighbors : just peel them, and see what you 
 will find. 
 
4 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 I speak from the highest possible authority, — 
 my own experience. Representing the gentler 
 half of humanity, of respectable birth, tolerable 
 parts, and good education, as tender-hearted as 
 most women, not unfamiliar with the best society, 
 mincrlino- to some extent, with those who under- 
 stand and practise the minor moralities, you would 
 at once infer from my circumstances that I was a 
 very fair specimen of the better class of Americans, 
 — and so I am. For one that stands higher than 
 I in the moral, social, and intellectual scale, you 
 will undoubtedly find ten that stand lower. Yet 
 through all these layers gleam the fiery eyes of 
 my savage. I thought I was a Christian. I have 
 endeavored to do my duty to my day and genera- 
 tion ; but of a sudden Christianity and civilization 
 leave me in the lurch, and the " old Adam " 
 within me turns out to be just such a fierce Saxon 
 pirate as hurtled down against the white shores 
 of Britain fifteen hundred years ago. 
 
 For we have been moving. 
 
 People who live in cities and move regularly 
 every year from one good, finished, right-side-up 
 house to another, will think I give a very small 
 reason for a very broad fact ; but they do not 
 know what they are talking about. They have 
 fallen into a way of looking upon a house only as 
 an exaggerated trunk, into which they pack them- 
 selves annually with as much nonchalance as if 
 it were only their preparation for a summer trip 
 
MOVING. 5 
 
 to the sea-shore. They don't strike root any- 
 where. They don't have to tear up anytliing. 
 A man comes with cart and horses. There is a 
 stir in the one honse, — they are gone ; — there is 
 a stir in the other honse, — they are settled ; and 
 everything is wound up and set going to run an- 
 other year. We do these things differently in the 
 country. We don't build a house by way of ex- 
 periment, and live in it a few years, then tear it 
 down and build another. We live in a house till 
 it cracks, and then we plaster it over ; then it 
 totters, and we prop it up ; then it rocks, and we 
 rope it down ; then it sprawls, and we clamp it ; 
 then it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning, 
 — but keep living in it all the time. To know what 
 moving really means, you must move from just such 
 a rickety-rackety old farm-house, where you have 
 cluno; and o;rown like a funo-us ever since there was 
 anything to grow ; — where your life and luggage 
 have crept into all the crevices and corners, and 
 every wall is festooned with associations thicker 
 than the cobwebs, though the cobwebs are pretty 
 thick ; — where the furniture and the pictui'es and 
 the knick-knacks are so become a part and parcel 
 of the house, so grown with it and into it, that 
 you do not know they are chiefly rubbish till you 
 begin to move them, and they fall to pieces, and 
 don't know it then, but persist in packing them 
 up and carrying them away for the sake of auld 
 lang syne, till, set up again in your new abode, 
 
6 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 you suddenly find that their sacredness is gone, 
 their dignity has degraded into dinginess, and the 
 faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only com- 
 fortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sit- 
 ting-room, has suddenly turned into " an object," 
 when lang syne goes by the board, and the heir- 
 loom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to 
 move from this tumble-down old house, strewn 
 thick with the debris of many generations, into a 
 tumble-up, peaky, perky, plasteiy, shingly, stary 
 new one, that is not half finished, and never will 
 be, and good enough for it, and you will perhaps 
 comprehend how it is that I find a great crack 
 in my life. On the further side are prosperity, 
 science, literature, philosophy, religion, society, all 
 the refinements, and amenities, and benevolences, 
 and purities of life, — in short, all the arts of 
 peace, and civilization, and Christianity, — and on 
 
 this side • movino;. You will also understand 
 
 why that one word comprises, to my thinking, all 
 the discomforts short of absolute physical torture 
 that can be condensed into the human lot. Con- 
 densed, did I say ? If it were a condensed agony, 
 I could endure it. One great, stunning, over- 
 powering blow is undoubtedly terrible, but you 
 rally all your fortitude to meet and resist it, and 
 when it is over, it is over, and the recuperative 
 forces go to work ; but a trouble that worries and 
 bafiles and pricks and rasps you, that penetrates 
 into all the ramifications of your life, that fills 
 
MOVING. 7 
 
 you with profound disgust, and fires you with 
 irrepressihle fury, and makes of you an Ishmaelite 
 indeed, with your hand against every mail, and 
 every man's hand against you, — ah ! that is the 
 cxperimentum crucis. 
 
 Such is mo\ang, in the country, — not an act, 
 but a process, — not a vohtion, but a fermentation. 
 
 We will say that the first of September is the 
 time appointed for the transit. The day ap- 
 proaches. It is the twenty-ninth of August. I 
 prepare to take hold of the matter in earnest. I 
 am nipped in the bud by learning that the woman 
 who was to help about the carpets cannot come, 
 because her baby is taken with the croup. I 
 have not a doubt of it. I never knew a baby 
 yet that did not go and have the croup, or the 
 colic, or the cholera infantum, just when it was 
 imperatively necessary that it should not have 
 them. But there is no help for it. I shudder, 
 and bravely gird myself for the work. I tug at 
 the heavy, bulky, unwieldy carpets, and am cov- 
 ered with dust and abomination. I think carpets 
 are the most untidy, unwholesome nuisances in 
 the whole world. It is impossible to be clean 
 with them under your feet. You may sweep your 
 carpet twenty times, and raise a dust on the 
 twenty-first. I am sure I heard long ago of some 
 new fashion that was to be introduced, — some 
 Italian style, tiles, or mosaic-work, or something 
 of the sort. I should welcome anything that 
 
8 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Avould dispense with these vile rags. I sigh over 
 the good old sanded floors that our grandmothers 
 rejoiced in, — and so, apotlieosizing the past and 
 anathematizing the present, I pull away, and the 
 tacks tear my fingers, and the hammer slips and 
 lets me back with a jerk, and the dust fills my 
 hair and nose and eyes and mouth and lungs, and 
 my hands grow red and coarse and fagged and 
 sore and begrimed, and I pull and choke and 
 cough and strangle and pull. 
 
 So the carpets all come up, and the curtains 
 all come down. The bureaus march out of the 
 chamber-windows and dance on a tight-rope down 
 into the yard below. The chairs are set at " heads 
 and points." The clothes are packed into the 
 trunks. The flour and meal and sugar, all the 
 wholesale edibles, are carted down to the new 
 house and stored. The forks are wa-apped up, 
 and we eat with our fingers, and have nothing 
 to eat at that. Then we are informed that the 
 new house will not be ready short of two weeks 
 at least. Unavoidable delays. The plasterers 
 were hindered ; the painters misunderstood orders ; 
 the paperers have defalcated, and the universe 
 generally comes to a pause. It is no matter in 
 what faith I was nurtured, I am now a believer 
 in total depravity. Contractors have no con- 
 science ; masons are not men of their word ; car- 
 penters are tricky ; all manner of cunning work- 
 men are bruised reeds. But there is nothing to 
 
MOVING. 9 
 
 do but submit and make the best of it, — a hor- 
 rible kind of mechanism. We go forthwith into a 
 chrysahs state for two weeks. Tlie only sign of 
 life is an occasional lurch towards the new house, 
 just sufficient to keep up the circulation. One 
 day I dreamily carry down a basket of wine- 
 glasses. At another time I listlessly stuff all my 
 slippers into a huge pitcher, and take up the line 
 of march. Again a bucket is filled with tea-cups, 
 or I shoulder the fire-shovel. The two weeks 
 drag themselves away, and the cry is still, " Un- 
 fihished ! " To prevent petrifying into a fossil 
 remain, or relapsing into primitive barbarism, or 
 degenerating into a dormouse, I rouse my energies 
 and determine to put my own shoulder to the 
 wheel and see if something cannot be accom- 
 plished. I rise early in the morning and walk 
 to Dan, to hire a painter who is possessed of 
 " gumption," •' faculty." Arrived in Dan, I am 
 told he is in Beersheba. Nothing daunted, I take 
 a short cut across the fields to Beersheba, bearding 
 manifold dangers from rickety stone- walls, strong 
 enough to keep women in, but not strong enough 
 to keep bears, bulls, and other wild beasts out, — 
 toppling enough to play the mischief with dra- 
 peries, but not toppling enough to topple over 
 when urgently pressed to do so. But I secure 
 my man, and remember no more my sorrow of 
 bulls and stones for joy at my success. From 
 Beersheba I proceed to Padan-aram to buy seven 
 1* 
 
10 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 pounds of flour, thence to Galilee of the Gentiles 
 for a pound of cheese, thence to the land of Uz 
 for a smoked halibut, thence to the ends of the 
 earth for a lemon to make life tolerable, — and 
 the days hobble on. 
 
 " The flying gold of the ruined woodlands drives 
 through the air," the signal is given, and there 
 is no longer quiet on the Potomac. The unnat- 
 ural calm gives way to an unearthly din. Once 
 more I bring myself to bear on the furniture and 
 the trumpery, and there is a small household 
 wliirlpool. All that went before " pales its in- 
 effectual fires." Now comes the strain upon my 
 temper, and my temper bends, and quivers, and 
 creaks, and cracks. Ithuriel touches me with his 
 spear ; all the integuments of my conventional, 
 artificial, and acquired gentleness peel off, and I 
 stand revealed a savage. Everything around me 
 sloughs off its usual habitude and becomes savage. 
 Looking-glasses are shivered by the dozen. A bit 
 is nicked out of the best China sugar-bowl. A 
 pin gets under the matting that is wrapped around 
 the centre-table, and jags horrible hieroglyphics 
 over the whole polished surface. The bookcase, 
 that we are trying to move, tilts, and trembles, 
 and goes over, and the old house through all her 
 frame gives signs of woe. A crash detonate on 
 the stairs brings me up fi'oni the depths of the 
 closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing 
 Halicarnassus disappear a moment ago with my 
 
MOVING. 11 
 
 lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I 
 rush rampant to the upper landing in time to see 
 him couchant on the lower. " I have broken my 
 leg," roars Halicarnassus, as if I cared for his leg. 
 A fractured leg is easily mended ; but who shall 
 restore me the nose of my nymph, marred into 
 irremediable deformity and dishonor ! 
 
 Occasionally a gleam of sunshine shoots athwart 
 the darkness to keep me back from rash deeds. 
 Behind the sideboard I find a little cross of dark, 
 bright hair, and gold and pearls, that I lost two 
 years ago and would not be comforted. O happy 
 days woven in with the dark, bright hair ! O 
 golden, pearly days, come back to me again ! 
 " Never mind your gewgaws," interposes real life ; 
 " what is to be done with the things in this 
 drawer ? " Lying atop of a heap of old papers 
 in the front-yard waiting the match that is to 
 glorify them into flame, I find a letter that mys- 
 teriously disappeared long since, and caused me 
 infinite alarm lest indelicate eyes might see it, and 
 indelicate hands make ignoble use of its honest 
 and honorable meaning. I learn also sundry new 
 and interesting facts in mechanics. I become 
 acquainted for the first time with the modus ope- 
 randi of "roller-cloths." I never understood be- 
 fore how the roller got inside the towel. It was 
 one of those gentle domestic mysteries that repel 
 even while they invite investigation. I shall not 
 give the result of my discovery to the public. If 
 
12 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 you wisli very much to find out, you can move, as 
 I did. 
 
 But the rifts of sunshine disappear. The clouds 
 draAv together and close in. The savage walks 
 abroad once more, and I go to bed tired of life. 
 
 I have scarcely fallen asleep, when I am reluc- 
 tantly, by short and difficult stages, awakened. 
 A rumbling, grating, strident noise first confuses, 
 then startles me. Is it robbers ? Is it an earth- 
 quake ? Is it the coming of fate ? I lie rigid, 
 bathed in a cold perspiration. I hear the tread of 
 banditti on the moaning stairs. I see the flutter 
 of ghostly robes by the uncurtained windows. A 
 chill, uncanny air rushes in and grips at my damp 
 hair. I am nerved by the extremity of my terror. 
 I will die of anything but fright. I jerk off the 
 bedclothes, convulse into an upright posture, and 
 glare into the darkness. Nothing. I rise softly, 
 creep cautiously and swiftly over the floor, that 
 ahvays creaked, but now thunders at every footfall. 
 A light gleams through the open door of the op- 
 posite room whence the sound issues. A famihar 
 voice utters an exclamation which I recognize. It 
 is Halicai-nassus, the unprincipled scoundrel, who 
 is uncording a bed, dragging remorselessly through 
 innumerable holes the long rope whose doleful wail 
 came near giving me an epilepsy. My savage 
 lets loose the dogs of war. Halicarnassus would 
 fain defend himself by declaring that it is morning. 
 I indignantly deny it. He produces his watch. 
 
MOVING. 13 
 
 A fig for his watch ! I stake my consciousness 
 against twenty watches, and go to bed again ; but 
 Sleep, angry goddess, once repulsed, retui'ns no 
 more. The dawn comes up the sky, and confirms 
 the scorned watch. The golden daggers of the 
 morning prick in under my eyelids, and Hali- 
 carnassus introduces hhnself upon the scene once 
 more, to announce, that, if I don't wish to be 
 corded up myself, I must abdicate that bed. The 
 threat does not terrify me. Indeed, nothing at the 
 moment seems more inviting than to be corded up 
 and let alone ; but duty still binds me to life, and, 
 assuring Halicarnassus that the just law will do 
 that service for him, if he does not mend his ways, 
 I slowly emerge again- into the world, — the 
 dreary, chaotic world, — the world that is never 
 at rest. 
 
 And there is hurrying to and fro, and a clang 
 of many voices, and the clatter of much crockery, 
 and a liftino- and balancino; and batterino; against 
 walls, and curving around corners, and sundry 
 contusions, and a great waste of expletives, and a 
 loading of wagons, and a driving of patient oxen 
 back and forth with me generally on the top of the 
 load, steadying a basket of eggs with one foot, 
 keeping a tin can of something from upsetting 
 with the other, and both arms stretched around a 
 very big and very square picture-frame that knocks 
 against my nose or my chin every time the cart 
 goes over a stone or drops into a rut, and the wind 
 
14 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 threatening to blow my hat off, and blowing it off, 
 and my "back-hair" tumbling down, — and the 
 old house is at last despoiled. The rooms stand 
 bare and brown and desolate. The sun, a hand- 
 breadth above the horizon, pours in through the 
 unblinking windows. The last load is gone. The 
 last man has departed. I am left alone to lock up 
 tlie house and walk over the liill to the new home. 
 Then, for the first time, I remember that I am 
 leaving. As I pass through the door of my own 
 room, not regretfully, I turn. I look up and down 
 and through and through the place where I sliall 
 never rest again, and I rejoice that it is so. As I 
 stand there, with the red, solid sunshine lying on 
 the floor, lying on the walls, unfamiliar in its new 
 profusion, the silence becomes audible. In the 
 still October evenino; there is an effort in the air. 
 The dumb house is striving to find a voice. I feel 
 the struiisle of its insensate frame. The old tim- 
 bers quiver with the unusual strain. The strong, 
 blind, vegetable energy agonizes to find expression, 
 and, wrestling like a pinioned giant, the soul of 
 matter throws off the weight of its superincumbent 
 inertia. Slowly, gently, most sorrowfully through 
 the o'olden air cleaves a voice that is somewhat a 
 wail, yet not untuned by love. Inarticulate at 
 first, I catch only the low mournfulness ; but it 
 clears, it concentrates, it murmurs into cadence, it 
 syllables into intelligence, and thus the old house 
 speaks : — 
 
MOVING. 15 
 
 " Child, my child, forward to depart, stay for 
 one moment your eager feet. Put off from your 
 brow the crown which the sunset has woven, and 
 linger yet a little longer in the shadow which en- 
 shrouds me forever. I remember, in this parting 
 hour, the day of days which the tremulous years 
 bore in their bosom, — a da^' crimson with the 
 woodbine's happy flush, and glowing with the 
 maple's gold. On that day a tender, tiny life 
 came down, and stately Silence fled before the 
 pelting of baby-laughter. Faint memories of far- 
 off olden time were softly stirred. Blindly thrilled 
 through all my frame a vague, dim sense of swell- 
 in o; buds and sin gins-birds and summer-oales, — 
 of the purple beauty of violets, the smells of fra- 
 grant earth, and the sweetness of summer dews 
 and darks. Many a harvest-moon since then has 
 filled her yellow horn, and queenly Junes crowned 
 with roses have paled before the sternness of De- 
 cembers. But Decembers and Junes alike bore 
 royal gifts to you, — gifts to the busy brain and 
 the awakening heart. In dell and copse and 
 meadow and gay green-wood you drank great 
 draughts of life. Yet, even as I watched, your 
 eyes grew wistful. Your lips framed questions for 
 which the Springs found no reply, and the sacred 
 mystery of living brought its sweet, uncertain pain. 
 Then you went away, and a shadow fell. A gleam 
 passed out of the sunshine and a note from the 
 robin's song. The knights that pranced on the 
 
16 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 household hearth grew faint and still, and died for 
 want of young eyes to mark their splendor. But 
 when your feet, ever and anon, turned homeward, 
 they used a firmer step, and I knew, that, though 
 the path might be rough, you trod it bravely. I 
 saw that you had learned how doing is a nobler 
 thing than dreaming, yet kept the holy fire burn- 
 ing in the holy place. But now you go, and there 
 will be no return. The stars are faded from the 
 sky. The leaves writhe on the greensward. The 
 breezes wail a dirge. The summer rain is pallid 
 like winter snow. And — O bitterest cup of all ! 
 — the golden memories of the past have vanished 
 from your heart. I totter down to the grave, 
 while you go on from strength to strength. The 
 Junes that gave you life brought death to me, 
 and you sorrow not. O child of my tender care, 
 look not so coldly on my pain ! Breathe one 
 sigh of regret, drop one tear of pity, before we 
 part ! " 
 
 The mournful murmur ceased. I am not ada- 
 mant. My savage crouched out of sight among 
 the underbrush. I think something stirred in the 
 back of my eyes. There was even a suspicion of 
 dampness in front. I thrust my hand in my 
 pocket to have my handkerchief ready in case of a 
 catastrophe. It was an unfortunate proceeding. 
 My pocket was crammed full. I had to push my 
 fingers in between all manner of rubbish, to get at 
 the required article, and when I got hold of it, I 
 
MOVING. 17 
 
 had to pull with all my might to get it out, and 
 when it did come, out Avith it came a tin box of 
 mustard-seed, a round wooden box of tooth-pow- 
 der, a ball of twine, a paper of picture-books, and 
 a pair of gloves. Of course, the covers of both 
 the boxes came off. The seed scattered over the 
 floor. The tooth-powder puffed a white cloud into 
 my face. The ball of twine unrolled and trundled 
 to the other side of the room. I gathered up what 
 I could, but, by the time order was restored and 
 my handkerchief ready for use, I had no use for 
 it. The stirring in the back of my eyes had 
 stopped. The dewiness had disappeared. My 
 savage sprang out from the underbrush and bran- 
 dished his tomahawk. And to the old house I 
 made answer as a Bushman of Caffraria might, or 
 a Sioux of the Prae-Pilm-imic Age : — 
 
 " Old House, hush up ! Why do you talk 
 stuff? ' Golden memories ' indeed! To hear you, 
 one might suppose you were an ivied castle on the 
 Rhine, and I a fair-haired princess, cradled in the 
 depths of regal luxury, feeding on the blossoms of 
 a thousand generations, and heroic from inborn 
 royalty. ' Tender care ' ! Did you not wake me 
 in the middle of the night, last summer, by trick- 
 ling down water on my face from a passing 
 shower? and did I not have to get up at that 
 unearthly hour to move the bed, and step splash 
 into a puddle, and come very near being floated 
 away ? Did not the water drip, drip, drip upon 
 
18 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 my w^'iting-desk, and soak the leather, and swell 
 the wood, and stam the ribbon, and spoil the paper 
 inside, and all because you were treacherous at 
 the roof and let it ? Have you not made a perfect 
 rattery of yourself, yawning at every possible chink 
 and crumbling at the underpinning, and keeping 
 me awake night after night by the tramp of a 
 whole brigade of the Grand Army that slaughtered 
 Bishop Hatto ? Whenever a breeze comes along 
 stout enough to make an aspen-leaf tremble, don't 
 you immediately go into hysterics, and rock, and 
 creak, and groan, as if you were the shell of an 
 earthquake ? Don't you shrivel at every window 
 to let in the northeasters and all the snow-storms 
 that walk abroad ? Whenever a needle, or a pen- 
 cil, or a penny drops, don't you open somewhere 
 and take it in ? ' Golden memories ' ! Leaden 
 memories ! Wooden memories ! Mudden mem- 
 ories ! " 
 
 My savage gave a war-whoop. I turned scorn- 
 fully. I swept down the staircase. I banged the 
 front-door. I locked it with an accent, and 
 marched up the hill. A soft sighing breathed past 
 me. I knew it was the old house mourning for 
 her departing child. The sun had disappeared, 
 but the western sky was jubilant in purple and 
 gold. The cool evening calmed me. The echoes 
 of the war-whoop vibrated almost tenderly along 
 the hushed hill-side. I paused on the summit of 
 the hill and looked back. Down in the valley 
 
MOVING. 19 
 
 stood the sorrowful house, tasting the first Lltter- 
 ness of perpetual desolation. The maples and the 
 oaks and the beech-trees hung out their flaming 
 banners. The pond lay dark in the shadow of 
 the circling hills. The years called to me, — the 
 happy, sun-ripe years that I had left tangled in 
 the apple-blossoms, and moaning among the pines, 
 and tinkling in the brook, and floating in the cups 
 of the water-lilies. They looked up at me from 
 the orchai'd, dark and cool. They thrilled across 
 from the hill-tops, glowing still with the glowing- 
 sky. I heard their voice by the lilac-bush. They 
 smiled at me under the peach-trees, and where 
 the blackberries had ripened against the southern 
 wall. I felt them once more in the clover-smells 
 and the new-mown hay. They swayed again in 
 the silken tassels of the crisp, rustling corn. They 
 hummed with the bees in the garden-borders. 
 They sang with the robins in the cherry-trees, 
 and their tone was tender and passing sweet. 
 They besought me not to cast away their memory, 
 for despite of the black-browed troop whose vile 
 and sombre robes had mingled in with their silver 
 garments. They prayed me to forget, but not all. 
 They minded me of the sweet counsel we had 
 taken together, when summer came over the hills, 
 and walked by the water-courses. They bade me 
 remember the good tidings of great joy which they 
 had brought me when my eyes were dim with 
 unavailing tears. My lips trembled to their call. 
 
20 
 
 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 The war-whoop chanted itself into a vesper. A 
 happy calm lifted from my heart and quivered 
 out over the valley, and a comfort set- 
 tled on the sad old house, as I 
 stretched forth my hands, and 
 from my inmost soul 
 breathed down a 
 Benedicite ! 
 
The Bank. 
 
 E had much ado to get it, but it was 
 lovely when it was done. The glory 
 of it belongs to me. Halicarnassus, I 
 |2<^ I'egret to say, to many amiable quali- 
 ties does not add executive and comprehensive en- 
 ergy. He occasionally develops very satisfactorily 
 in some one direction, but I have yet to see him 
 become complete master of any situation. He 
 does one thing, but he leaves twenty undone. So 
 it was in keeping with his character to hibernate 
 on the top of a gravel-heap. When I suggested, 
 in the fall, that the gravel-heap be immediately 
 graded and turfed, he replied that there were too 
 many things Avhich must be done before winter set 
 in. When winter had set in, and the things were 
 all done, and I repeated my suggestion, there was 
 no turf to be had, — nothing but snow and ice. 
 When the spring sun came and drank up the 
 snow, and the turf sprouted and thickened and 
 matted, and I spoke of the bank, everybody, ac- 
 cording to Halicarnassus, was absorbed in plough- 
 
22 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ing and planting, and could not be lured away 
 to do our work. " Besides," he added, " it is 
 very well as it is. Gravel has more character 
 than grass. Gravel suggests strength. Grass is 
 but a smooth commonplace. Gravel is geological 
 and antiquitous. It carries one back to the drift 
 formation and a wilderness of waters. Grass is 
 a modern arrangement. Gravel is the naked in- 
 nocence of Earth. Grass is the recourse of sin- 
 born Shame." I let him go on, putting a curb 
 to my lips. If there is anything that tries my 
 temper, it is to have Halicarnassus philosophize. 
 When he confines himself to facts and syllogisms, 
 he is comparatively harmless ; but the moment he 
 strikes out into moral reflection he becomes a nui- 
 sance. He does not often do it, I allow. A cer- 
 tain blind instinct teaches him to cling to the earth, 
 and not attempt waxen wings. So I only smiled. 
 If I had refuted him, he would have gone on till 
 this time. I knew better. His theory was impro- 
 vised on the spot to suit his facts, and the facts 
 were culpable indifference and negligence, which 
 no theory could convert into cardinal virtues. I 
 was silent, and recalled to mind my experience 
 in the fall, and the story in the Young Reader. 
 When the farmer announced his intention to reap 
 his field himself, the mother-bird concluded it 
 was time to take her nurslings and go. I deter- 
 mined to see what my own efforts might do to- 
 wards a bank, and, without consulting Halicar- 
 
THE BANK. 23 
 
 nassus, I walked ten miles one morning, and se- 
 cured a man. A man is an indispensable thing 
 in the country. He was represented to me as an 
 excellent gardener, if he could be kept sober. He 
 thought he could make the bank in a week, and 
 lie promised me faithfully that he would not be 
 drunk once in all the time. Nor was he. You 
 may be sure I plied him with strong coffee and 
 highly-spiced meats, and he did his work in the 
 most beautiful manner. Exultation and admira- 
 tion filled my heart as I saw the gravel begin to 
 haul, the loam topple over upon it, the turf trundle 
 down upon a wheelbarrow and square itself upon 
 the loam, and a shapely terrace rise slowly from 
 the chaos of debris. Halicarnassus enjoyed it too. 
 He enjoys things if he is not forced to originate 
 them. It is the first step which costs him. He 
 would live in a palace with great delight, if he 
 woke one mornino; and found himself in it ; but he 
 would live in a cave many years before he could 
 bring himself to plan and construct even a log- 
 cabin. So he stood by me, and we marked the 
 unsightly gravel-heap transfigured into a sightly 
 bank, and watched the lowering clouds, and hoped 
 it would not rain. Prematiare rain would wash 
 away the loose turf and loam, and many hopes, 
 and several dollars, and it was already getting late 
 in the season. If it only would keep off just long 
 enough to get the slope finished so that the 
 whole should not be carried away and the work 
 
24 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 have to be done quite over again ! It looked as 
 if it would " pour " every minute. We watched 
 the menacing sky, and the gardener wielded his 
 knife and line and fingers and wheelbarrow, and 
 the slope was finished, and it did not rain, and we 
 breathed again. The next day wore away, and 
 the next, and the next, and the corners were 
 rounded, and the top met the slope in grassy em- 
 brace, and it did not rain. How pretty the bank 
 looked ; how like the smooth skin veiling and 
 adorning the hideous skeleton was the verdant 
 velvet that soothed away the rough gravel. Then 
 we were ready for the rain. Indeed, we desired 
 rain to cherish the tender little rootlets of the 
 transplanted grass. We longed for rain to keep 
 the turf from cracking and crumbling away. But 
 it did not rain. The green turned gray in patches. 
 The gray struggled for a while, gave up the ghost, 
 and dust reigned in its stead. O, if it would only 
 rain ! We talked of warm showers, and the pat- 
 tering of drops through the cool night, and the 
 new life that would spring under our feet in the 
 morning. But it did not rain. Then we talked 
 of watering-pots, and available light buckets, and 
 we put our shoulders to the wheel, and our hands 
 to the pump, and gave the thirsty and dead and 
 dying grass a thorough drenching. And it did 
 not rain. The evening and the morning came, 
 and it was the third and fourth and fifth day, till 
 we ceased to count, but poured our morning and 
 
THE BANK. 25 
 
 evening libations "svitli a silent, sad persistence, 
 and there was no rain. 
 
 Halicarnassus was very aggravating. He pre- 
 tended great solicitude for the bank. I think he 
 would have been sorry to see it relapse into chaos. 
 But did he go to work with all his might to pre- 
 vent it ? Not he. He made every one think he 
 did. He talked, and — that was all. He did not 
 do a penny's-worth of good. He grew tired of 
 pumping and carrying water after the second day. 
 He knew that my interest was too deeply enlisted 
 to permit me to slacken my exertions. He knew 
 that, if he did not work, I would,. and he accord- 
 ingly shirked. " That bank must be watered, or 
 it will die ! " he would exclaim, with a great show 
 of efficiency. " Yes," I would answer, " let us 
 go and water it at once." " Very well. But I 
 have my cows to feed just now. Do you begin, 
 and I will presently join you." And that would 
 be the last of him. When it was all over, and I 
 resting on the sofa, he would lounge in and pro- 
 fess great astonishment. " I came to help you, 
 but you had finished," he would say. Generally 
 my sole reply was a steady glance, before which 
 he quailed and retreated, though striving to hide 
 his real feelings under a laugh. Sometimes, by 
 skilful diplomacy, I succeeded in forcing him to 
 draw half a dozen buckets of water, but it was a 
 great deal harder to work him than it was the 
 pump, though that creaked and wheezed and 
 
 2 
 
26 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 spouted out a stream not much bigger than a 
 knitting-needle, and 1 presently gave him over 
 as incorrigible. The chief hand he had in the 
 matter was to exacerbate me by talking before 
 friends about our efforts to save the bank, and by 
 calling out, as he passed to and fro, " You are 
 putting on more water there than you need," or, 
 " You are leaving this corner quite dry," or, 
 " Here, bring your watering-pot this way." It 
 was bad enough not to have him take hold and 
 help me, but it was infuriating to have him come 
 and order me about. The only satisfaction left 
 was to do the opposite thing to that which he 
 directed. I do not think he minded it at all. He 
 certainly did not issue fewer orders. His only 
 object was to keep up appearances. 
 
 As I waA'ed my watering-pot hither and thitlier, 
 it seemed to me less strange that the old heathen 
 nations should have believed in two Deities, — one 
 of good and the other of evil, — Odin, the All- 
 Father, and Surtur, the black one ; I had to bring 
 the faith" of eighteen centuries to bear on the point, 
 and even then I was not so patient as I should 
 have been. It might easily seem as if a good 
 being were trying to send rain, tliat grass might 
 grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of 
 man. It did try very hard to rain. Every sign 
 was favorable. The clouds were black and big. 
 In their bulgino; bosoms yovi could almost see the 
 tender grass-blades, and the young peas, and the 
 
THE BANK. 27 
 
 waving of the asparagus tops, that their scattered 
 treasures were going to bring forth. A night 
 comes and goes leaving the earth thirsty and dew- 
 less. That is a sign of rain. Innumerable worms 
 bore up to the surface and throw out little mounds 
 of soil. The fire runs up the outside of the tea- 
 kettle. Everything happens hut rain, and lo ! 
 there it comes ! I felt a drop on my chin — I 
 think ; and certainly there another fell on my 
 nose. No, the clouds roll off, the worms creep 
 back again, the fire stays in the stove, the sun 
 comes out. The evilly-disposed one is victorious, 
 and there is no rain. 
 
 Is there not some malicious sprite who stirs up 
 the Avind every night and morning when I want 
 to water the bank ? It is Avork enough at best to 
 draAV the Avater and carry it thirty yards and put 
 it on, but in addition the Avind rises. If I stand 
 opposite, it whisks my dress into the Avater. If 
 I face it, it whisks the water against my dress. 
 In either case I am drenched, and then the dust 
 comes, and I am muddy. Just noAv a puff wrapped 
 my skirt directly and tightly around the spout 
 from Avhose fifty orifices the water was pouring, 
 and in a moment I Avas dripping. Have we not 
 a Surtm" among us ? 
 
 If we could stand off someAvhere, and look at 
 creation as a whole, — that is, if Ave could occupy 
 the stand-point of the Supreme Being, or even, 
 perhaps, of the archangels, we should undoubtedly 
 
28 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 say no without hesitation. We should see a grand- 
 eur in the conception of the universe, a skill in 
 execution, a perfect adaptation of all means to the 
 wisest end, such as could spring only from One 
 Being, and he the perfection of wisdom and of 
 power. We should see everything ministering 
 to a common purpose, circling around a common 
 centre. Innumerable worlds sweep down the sky 
 in their appointed paths, and there is no accident. 
 The music of the spheres has not a jar of discord. 
 Within each world, doubtless, the same harmony 
 prevails. The microcosm is but the macrocosm 
 in miniature. Minuteness, as unerringly as vast- 
 ness, points to one God. Nothing is done in vain. 
 Nothincr does what it was not made to do. What 
 seems destruction is construction. What seems 
 decay is growth. Disturbance is re-arrangement. 
 Death is but the unfolding of a higher life. 
 
 But it certainly seems to me that, judging sim- 
 ply from what we see, we should, to say the least, 
 be a very long while in arriving at this truth. 
 We learn from Revelation that there is but one 
 God, and then we take things as they are, and 
 group them around that central truth, and make 
 them " fadge." Revelation laying down the theo- 
 rem, we press creation into the proof; but the 
 unassisted human mind has always found great 
 difficulty in obtaining the unity of God as the 
 solution of the problem of creation. Without 
 Revelation, that sublime and simple truth seems 
 
THE BANK. 29 
 
 but blindly written on the sky and the rocks, — 
 seems, I say, — not that it is so written, but our 
 unenlightened eyes would scarcely see more dis- 
 tinctly than did those Christ-anointed eyes of old, 
 to whom men were but as trees walking. We 
 should naturally suppose that, if the universe were 
 the thought of one mind, and the work of one 
 hand, and that mind infinite in wisdom, and that 
 hand infinite in power, there would be everywhere 
 harmony, order, symmetry, finish. There would 
 be no clashing, no incompleteness, no incompati- 
 bility, but, as a matter of fact, there are all these. 
 And the theory which we should naturally form 
 would, I should think, be, that there are at least 
 two Deities, one indeed stronger than the other, 
 but not stroncr enouo;li to hold the other in com- 
 plete subjection, — not Omnipotent, not therefore 
 God. High and low, there seem to be indications 
 of two powers at work, — one a benevolent, and 
 one a malevolent one. In the sky, the planets 
 and the stars come from the kindly and wise hand 
 of the former. Grave and steadfast, they move 
 on their mighty paths with mathematical accuracy 
 and royal majesty. But of a sudden, from some 
 unexpected quarter, a herd of comets is let loose 
 among them, and the tricksy, capricious sprites go 
 bobbing in here, there, and everywhere, doubling, 
 turning, and pirouetting around the stately mon- 
 archs of the sky ; irreverent and elfish ; now hit- 
 ting Herschel a box on the ear, now giving Mer- 
 
30 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 cuiy a flap with their tails, and away again before 
 those dignified veterans have recovered from their 
 surprise enough to look about them ; now getting 
 entangled with the satellites of Jupiter, and now 
 whirling off on the double-quick through illimit- 
 able space ; now rushing head-foremost straight 
 into the sun, and now careening over, and right 
 about face again ; dashing in helter-skelter among 
 the sober old planets, threatening to hurtle against 
 our own little earth, and turn everything topsy- 
 turvy ; curvetting and prancing among the startled 
 worlds ; reined in just enough to feel the bit, but 
 not by any means enough to give a sense of secu- 
 rity to the well-behaved citizens of the Stellar 
 Republic. 
 
 And how came the world that lay between Mars 
 and Jupiter to be broken into inch pieces, each 
 one setting up an orbit, and dashing around on its 
 own account? And who gave a wrong twirl to 
 the moons of Uranus, and sent them spinning furi- 
 ously backward instead of forward ? And whence 
 came the torch that set fire to the star in Cassio- 
 peia ? And what is become of the lost Pleiad ? 
 And did not the new star that Tycho Brahe found 
 the peasants staring at, run a career that looked 
 very much as if some emulous and jealous poAver 
 had tried his bungling hand at world-making, and 
 succeeded so far as to set it going, but could nei- 
 ther guide nor stop it, and so it flamed and flared, 
 and staggered, and burned out ? And is not some 
 
THE BANK. 31 
 
 force continually trying to make tlie moon fall 
 into the earth, and the earth fall into the sun, 
 and things in general crash together and come 
 to grief? 
 
 We descend from the splendid, shining heavens 
 to our own homely, dingy, brown little world, and 
 find ourselves plunged at once into a strong and 
 rapid current going one way, with a strong and 
 rapid current in the midst of it going the other, 
 which of course does not make smooth sailing. 
 Everything seems to be conducted on the princi- 
 ple, " If you cannot do as you would, do as you 
 can." It is all defect and compensation. It is as 
 if the powerful and benevolent Being had intended 
 to make everything on a perfect scale, and that 
 the malevolent and less powerful, but still mighty 
 Being, had struck in and marred it all, and then 
 the first Being had made up the deficiency with 
 marvellous skill and kindness, but not so as quite 
 to conceal the deficiency. There is the ostrich that 
 set out to be a bird, but had its wings nipped in the 
 bud, and is only partially compensated for the loss 
 by a most extraordinary pair of legs. There is the 
 kangaroo, with his fore legs too short to signify, and 
 his hind legs as much too long, and who is conse- 
 quently unable to walk, but manages to get on in 
 the world jt^gr saltum, — by extensive leaps. 
 
 Worse than this is the horrible rapacity, voracity, 
 and violence that crops out everywhere. The 
 whole animal kingdom seems to be impelled by 
 
32 ' COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 two main motives, — to eat and not to be eaten. 
 The cat lies in wait for the mouse, and the dog 
 falls foul of the cat. The spider catches the fly, 
 and the chicken snaps up the spider, and the hawk 
 swoops away with the chicken. The alligator 
 lays its eggs, and the vulture goes and devours 
 them. The ant-lion decimates a whole colony of 
 ants. The ocean is a scene of constant guerilla 
 warfare. The big fishes eat the little ones, the 
 little ones eat the less, and they all eat each other. 
 The whale gulps down at one mouthful more in- 
 dividuals than there are men, women, and chil- 
 dren in Massachusetts. 
 
 Everything that is beautiful is veined with some- 
 thing that is not.. The country smiles with vine- 
 yards and orchards, and an earthquake comes and 
 swallows them up, or a volcano bursts, and blasts 
 and buries them forever. It is a fair land of 
 orange and pomegranate, of gorgeous flowers, bril- 
 liant birds, and magnificent beasts, but spiders as 
 big as sparrows, and centipedes whose touch is 
 death. The grand and solemn sea, invaluable for 
 communication, essential to life, soft under the 
 serene sky, sweet with the breath of the spice 
 islands nestling in its bosom, is treacherous and 
 hostile even in its friendship, nursing and nour- 
 ishing in its hidden depths the whale which shall 
 smite your boat to fragments, and the cuttle-fish 
 that shall drag it down, and the shark that shall 
 swallow you when you get there. 
 
THE BANK. 33 
 
 Now it certainly seems to me that, without Rev- 
 elation, these things would be absolutely incompre- 
 hensible, and that the most probable hypothesis 
 would be that which so many pagan creeds set 
 forth, — that there is a Good One and an Evil 
 One, — an hypothesis which is indeed a shadow, 
 perhaps I ought rather to say, a rough likeness, of 
 the facts. It is the God and the Devil of Chris- 
 tianity, dimly revealed by creation, and distorted 
 by man's disturbed medium. We must believe, 
 because Paul affirms it, that God has revealed him- 
 self clearly enough to make us without excuse for 
 not glorifying him as God ; but, if not from our 
 .original constitution, then from our original sin, 
 we did, and do, stand very much in need of this 
 direct verbal revelation to show us that his unity 
 is not trenched upon by the signs of duality that 
 appear in his works, that the good is supreme, and 
 the evil under subjection. With that fact laid 
 down in the Bible, and a general explanation of 
 the apparently antagonistic fact, we can adjust the 
 shreds of facts that come under our observation, 
 and establish harmony. Given this vertebral 
 truth, our little branch truths join on, and there 
 is a plan and a Planner. But without this I fear 
 we should stumble grievously, as most unassisted 
 minds have stumbled. Standing in the very thick 
 of creation, it is difficult for us to take in its great 
 wholeness. Mrs. Browning tells us that, if Mount 
 Athos had been 
 
 2* c 
 
34 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 " carved, as Persian Xerxes schemed, 
 To some colossal statue of a man, 
 The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear, 
 Had guessed as little of any human form 
 Up there, as would a flock of browsing goats. 
 They 'd have, in fact, to travel ten miles off 
 Or ere the giant image broke on them 
 Full human profile." 
 
 So it seems to me that we must have some dis- 
 tant stand-point, furnished by God in the natural 
 course of his providence, or by a verbal revelation, 
 before we can read in the record of His works His 
 absolute omnipotence and unity. Even with rev- 
 elation, we cannot always reconcile discrepancies. 
 Our fragment of knowledge does not enable us to 
 construct a system free from doubt. The exist- 
 ence of evil is still an unsolved problem. The 
 ultimatum of reason and science is an " if." We 
 fall back on faith, and the reassurance of Divine 
 Love is, " What thou knowest not now, thou shalt 
 know hereafter." 
 
 Trusting in that Divine love, we take in all the 
 baflflings and buffetings of life, yet feel in our in- 
 most hearts, and shout with exultant voices : — 
 
 The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Halle- 
 lujah. He giveth and keepeth back. He holds 
 the deep in the hollow of his hand, and giving 
 does not impoverish him, neither does withholding 
 enrich him. He could give us little sprinklings 
 or great rains if he chose. When he does not, 
 there must be some reason for it. Perhaps one 
 object is to show us that we ought to turn our 
 
THE BANK. 35 
 
 attention to modes of artificial irrigation. We are 
 very ignorant and careless about that, we almost 
 entirely " let time and chance determine." God 
 gives us plenty of water in the course of the year, 
 but it belongs to us to distribute it properly. That 
 is the way God does give us things generally, — 
 not the whole, but the basis. We must work its 
 completion. There is plenty of iron, but we must 
 dig for it, — plenty of salt, but we must separate it 
 from the brine, — plenty of bread, but it does not 
 grow in loaves. I wish people who have inventive 
 genius would bestir themselves. I haven't; but 
 I should like a little rain now and then. 
 
 I dare say another reason is to try our patience, 
 and also make it stronger. We have not all of us 
 a bank, but a good many of us have peas, and 
 beans, and lettuce, and morning-glory, and asters, 
 and young apple-trees, in which we feel a tender 
 interest. Can we see them dying of thirst, rolling 
 their tender leaves in parched distress, and yet be 
 quite calm and sweet-tempered, — remember that 
 the Lord has plenty of rain, and yet not be impa- 
 tient or fret because he does not choose to bestow 
 it? If there is any Achan in the camp whose 
 discontent keeps blessings from us, let him make 
 confession and repent. Let us all be content and 
 glad without rain, if so be the Lord will give us 
 here a little and there a little. 
 
 Meanwhile there are many things to be grateful 
 for. Once in a Avhile a heavy dew comes through 
 
S6 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 the drought, and the earth smiles in the early 
 morning. Dew is beautiful in poetry, but more 
 beautiful .on banks when there is no rain. How 
 grateful should we be if our wells do not give out, 
 for then not only the grass, but we should suf- 
 fer, — grateful, too, if our neighbors' wells do not 
 fail, for then they would come to ours, and bank 
 and gardens would go thirsty. For men and wo- 
 men and little children must be served, even if 
 banks go by tlie board. Then, too, it is so pleas- 
 ant to take care of erass. It is so strong and 
 helpful and thankful. Flowers have a languish 
 ing, drooping air, as if they would about as soon 
 die as live, if it 's all the same to you ; but the 
 grass is sturdy. It makes a desperate struggle for 
 existence. It pulls and tugs away at its little 
 thread of life with a forty-horse power. When 
 it is faint, and almost despairing, give it three 
 drops of water, and it starts up again, and is at it, 
 good as new. Every morning it winks and blinks 
 up at you cheerily, as much as to say, " Here I 
 am.' Reckon on me. If I was born to be hay, 
 I 'm determined not to die grass. Just you do 
 your part, and you may be sure I will do mine ! " 
 Dear old grass, I knew you would, though you 
 did look very crisp and bunchy and desperate. 
 I kept faith in you, and you kept faith with me ; 
 holding your own till the windows of heaven were 
 opened, and then softening and strengthening into 
 beauty and vigor and velvet verdancy. Now 
 
THE BANK. 
 
 37 
 
 your deft blades cleave the air. Your clover- 
 heads breathe fragrance from their white and 
 purple loveliness. Your saucy buttercups 
 flash back his rays to the summer 
 sun, and through your fairy 
 forests I hear the 
 hum of many 
 a bee. 
 
My Garden. 
 
 CAN speak of it calmly now; but 
 there have been moments when the 
 lightest mention of those words would 
 sway my soul to its profoundest depths. 
 I am a woman. You may have inferred this 
 before ; but I now desire to state it distinctly, 
 because I like to do as I would be done by, when 
 I can just as well as not. It rasps a person of my 
 temperament exceedingly to be deceived. When 
 any one tells a story, we wish to know at the 
 outset whether the story-teller is a man or a wo- 
 man. The two sexes awaken two entirely distinct 
 sets of feelings, and you would no more use the 
 one for the other than you would put on your tiny 
 teacups at breakfast, or lay the carving-knife by 
 the butter-plate. Consequently it is very exasper- 
 ating to sit, open-eyed and expectant, watching the 
 removal of the successive swathings which hide 
 from you the dusky glories of an old-time prin- 
 cess, and, when the unrolling is over, to find it 
 is nothing, after all, but a great lubberly boy. 
 
31 Y GARDEN. 39 
 
 Equally trying is it to feel your interest clusterino- 
 round a narrator's manhood, all your individuality 
 merging in his, till, of a sudden, by the merest 
 chance, you catch the swell of crinoline, and there 
 you are. Away with such clumsiness ! Let us 
 have everybody christened before we begin. 
 
 I do, therefore, with Spartan firmness, depose 
 and say that I am a woman. I am aware that I 
 place myself at signal disadvantage by the avowal. 
 I fly in the face of hereditary prejudice. I am 
 thrust at once beyond the pale of masculine svm- 
 pathy. Men will neither credit my success nor 
 lament my failure, because they will consider me 
 poaching on their manor. If I chronicle a big 
 beet, they will bring forward one twice as large. 
 If I mourn a deceased squash, they will mutter, 
 " Woman's farming ! " Shunning Scylla, I shall 
 perforce fall into Charybdis. ( Vide Classical 
 Dictionary. I have lent mine, but I know one 
 was a rock and the other a whirlpool, though I 
 cannot state, with any definiteness, which was 
 which.) I may be as humble and deprecating as 
 I choose, but it will not avail me. A very agony 
 of self-abasement will be no armor against the 
 poisoned shafts which assumed superiority will 
 hurl against me. Yet I press the arrow to my 
 bleeding heart, and calmly reiterate, I am a wo- 
 man. 
 
 The full magnanimity of which reiteration can 
 be perceived only when I inform you that I could 
 
40 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 easily deceive you, if I chose. There is about 
 my serious style a vigor of thought, a comprehen- 
 siveness of view, a closeness of logic, and a terse- 
 ness of diction, commonly supposed to pertain only 
 to the stronger sex. Not wantino- in a certain fan- 
 ciful sprightliness which is the peculiar grace of 
 woman, it possesses also, in large measure, that 
 concentrativeness which is deemed the peculiar 
 strength of man. Where an ordinary woman 
 will leave the beaten track, wandering in a thou- 
 sand little by-ways of her own, — flowery and 
 beautiful, it is true, and leading her airy feet to 
 " sunny spots of greenery " and the gleam of 
 golden apples, but keeping her not less surely 
 from the goal, — I march straight on, turning 
 neither to the right hand nor to the left, beguiled 
 into no side-issues, discussing no collateral ques- 
 tion, but with keen eye and strong hand aiming 
 right at the heart of mv theme. Judge thus of 
 the stern severity of my virtue. There is no 
 heroism in denying ourselves the pleasures which 
 we cannot compass. It is not self-sacrifice, but 
 self-cherishing, that turns the dyspeptic alderman 
 away from turtle-soup and the pdte de foie gras 
 to mush and milk. The hungry newsboy, regal- 
 ing his nostrils with the scents that come up from 
 a subterranean kitchen, does not always know 
 whether or not he is honest, till the cook turns 
 away for a moment, and a steaming joint is within 
 reach of his yearning fingers. It is no credit to 
 
MY GARDEN. 41 
 
 a weak-minded woman not to be strong-minded and 
 write poetry. She could not if she tried ; but to 
 feed on locusts and. wild honey that the soul may 
 be in better condition to fight the truth's battles, — 
 to go with empty stomach for a clear conscience' 
 sake, — to sacrifice intellectual tastes to womanly 
 duties, when the two conflict, — 
 
 " That 's the true pathos aud sublime, 
 Of human life." 
 
 You will, therefore, no longer withhold your ap- 
 preciative admiration, when, in full possession of 
 what theologians call the power of contrary choice, 
 I make the unmistakable assertion that I am a 
 woman. 
 
 Hope told a flattering tale when, excited and 
 happy, but not sated with the gayeties of a sojourn 
 among urban and urbane friends, I set out on my 
 triumphal march from the city of my visit to the 
 estate of my adoption. Triumphal indeed ! My 
 pathway was strewed with roses. Feathery as- 
 paragus and the crispness of tender lettuce waved 
 dewy greetings from every railroad-side ; green 
 peas crested the racing waves of Long Island 
 Sound, and unnumbered carrots of gold sprang 
 up in the wake of the ploughing steamer ; till 
 I was wellnigh drunk with the new wine of my 
 own purple vintage. But I was not ungenerous. 
 In the height of my innocent exultation, I re- 
 membered the dwellers in cities who do all their 
 gardening at stalls, and in my heart I determined, 
 
42 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 when the season should be fully blown, to hivite 
 as many as my house could hold to share with me 
 the delight of plucking strawberries from their 
 stems and drinkino- in foaming health from the 
 balmy-breathed cows. Moreover, in the exuber- 
 ance of my joy, I determined to go still further, 
 and despatch to those doomed ones who cannot 
 purchase even a furlough from burning pavements 
 baskets of fragrance and sweetness. I pleased my- 
 self with pretty conceits. To one who toils early 
 and late in an official Sahara, that the home-atmos- 
 phere may always be redolent of perfume, I would 
 send a bunch of long-stemmed white and crimson 
 rose-buds, in the midst of which he should find a 
 dainty note whispering, " Dear Fritz : drink this 
 pure glass of my overflowing June to the health 
 of weans and wife, not forgetting your unforgetful 
 friend." To a pale-browed, sad-eyed woman, who 
 flits from velvet carpets and broidered flounces to 
 the bedside of an invalid mother whom her slender 
 fingers and unslender and most godlike devotion 
 can scarcely keep this side the pearly gates, I 
 would heap a basket of summer-hued peaches 
 smiling up from cool, green leaves into their 
 straitened home, and with eyes, perchance, tear- 
 dimmed, she should read, " My good Maria, the 
 peaches are to go to your lips, the bloom to your 
 cheeks, and the gardener to your heart." Ah 
 me ! How much grace and gladness may bud 
 and blossom in one little garden ! Only three 
 
MY GARDEN. 43 
 
 acres of land, but what a crop of sunny surprises, 
 unexpected tenderness, grateful joys, hopes, loves, 
 and restful memories ! — what wells of happiness, 
 what sparkles of mirth, what sweeps of summer in 
 the heart, what glimpses of the Upper Country ! 
 
 Halicarnassus was there before me (in the gar- 
 den, I mean, not in the spot last alluded to). It 
 has been the one misfortune of my life that Hali- 
 carnassus got the start of me at the outset. With 
 a fair field and no favor I should have been quite 
 adequate to him. As it was, he was born and 
 began, and there was no resource left to me but 
 to be born and follow, which I did as fast as pos- 
 sible ; but that one false move could never be 
 redeemed. I know there are shallow thinkers 
 who love to prate of the supremacy of mind over 
 matter, — who assert that circumstances are plastic 
 as clay in the hands of the man who knows how 
 to mould them. They clench their fists, and in- 
 flate their lungs, and quote Napoleon's proud 
 boast, — " Circumstances ! I make circumstances ! " 
 Vain babblers ! Whither did this Napoleonic idea 
 lead ? To a barren rock in a waste of waters. 
 Do we need St. Helena and Sir Hudson Lowe 
 to refute it ? Control circumstances ! I should 
 like to know if the most important circumstance 
 that can happen to a man is not to be born ? and 
 if that is under his control, or in any way affected 
 by his whims and wishes ? Would not Louis 
 XVI. have been the son of a goldsmith, if he 
 
44 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 could have had his way ? Would Burns have 
 been born a slaving, starving peasant, if he had 
 been consulted beforehand ? Would not the chil- 
 dren of vice be the children of virtue, if they 
 could have had their choice ? and would not the 
 whole tenor of their lives have been changed there- 
 by ? Would a good many of us have been born 
 at all, if we could have helped it? Control cir- 
 cumstances, forsooth ! when a mother's sudden 
 terror brings an idiot child into the world, — when 
 the restive eye of his great-grandfather, whom he 
 never saw, looks at you from your two-year-old, 
 and the spirit of that roving ancestor makes the 
 boy also a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth ! 
 No, no. We may coax circumstances a little, 
 and shove them about, and make the best of them, 
 but there they are. We may try to get out of 
 their way ; but they will trip us up, not once, 
 but many times. We may affect to tread them 
 under foot in the daylight, but in the night-time 
 they will turn again and rend us. All we can 
 do is first to accept them as facts, and then reason 
 from them as premises. We cannot control them, 
 but we can control our own use of them. We 
 can make them a savor of life unto life, or of 
 death unto death. 
 
 Application. — If mind could have been su- 
 preme over matter, Halicarnassus should, in the 
 first place, have taken the world at second-hand 
 from me, and, in the second place, he should not 
 
MY GARDEN. 45 
 
 have stood smiling on the front-door steps when 
 the coach set me down there. As it was, I made 
 the best of the one case by following in his foot- 
 steps, — not meekly, not acquiescently, but pro- 
 testing, yet following, — and of the other, by smil- 
 ing responsive and asking pleasantly, — 
 
 " Are the things planted yet ? " 
 
 " No," said Halicarnassus. 
 
 This was better than I had dared to hope. 
 When I saw him standing there so complacent 
 and serene, I felt certain that a storm was brewing, 
 or rather had brewed, and burst over my garden, 
 and blighted its fair prospects. I was confident 
 that he had gone and planted every square inch of 
 the soil with some hideous absurdity, which would 
 spring up a hundred-fold in perpetual reminders 
 of the one misfortune to which I have alluded. 
 
 So his ready answer gave me relief, and yet 
 I could not divest myself of a vague fear, a sense 
 of coming thunder. In spite of my endeavors, 
 that calm, clear face would lift itself to my view as 
 a mere " weather- breeder " ; but I ate my supper, 
 unpacked my trunks, took out my papers of pre- 
 cious seeds, and, sitting in the flooding sunlight 
 under the little western porch, I poured them into 
 my lap, and bade Halicarnassus come to me. He 
 came, I am sorry to say, with a pipe in his mouth. 
 
 " Do you wish to see my jewels ? " I asked, 
 looking as much like Cornelia as a little woman 
 somewhat inclined to dumpiness can. 
 
46 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Halicarnassus nodded assent. 
 
 " There," said I, unrolling a paper, " that is 
 Lychnidea acuminata. Sometimes it flowers in 
 white masses, pure as a baby's soul. Sometimes 
 it glows in purple, pink, and crimson, intense, but 
 unconsuming, hke Horeb's burning bush. The 
 old Greeks knew it well, and they baptized its 
 prismatic loveliness with their sunny symbolism, 
 and called it the Flame-Flower. These very 
 seeds may have sprung centuries ago from the 
 hearts of heroes who sleep at Marathon ; and 
 when their tender petals quiver in the sunlight of 
 my garden, I shall see the gleam of Attic armor 
 and the flash of royal souls. Like heroes, too, 
 it is both beautiful and bold. It does not demand 
 careful cultivation, — no hot-house tenderness — " 
 
 " I should rathe^ think not," interrupted Hali- 
 carnassus. " Pat Curran has his front-yard full 
 of it." 
 
 I collapsed at once, and asked, humbly, — 
 
 " Where did he get it ? " 
 
 " Got it anywhere. It grows wild almost. It 's 
 nothing but phlox. My opinion is, that the old 
 Greeks knew no more about it than that brindled 
 cow." 
 
 Nothino; further occurrino; to me to be said on 
 the subject, I waived it, and took up another par- 
 cel, on M'hich I spelled out, with some difficulty, 
 " Delphinium exaltatuyn. Its name indicates its 
 nature." 
 
MY GARDEN. 47 
 
 " It 's an exalted dolphin, then, I suppose," said 
 Halicarnassus. 
 
 " Yes ! " I said, dexterously catching up an 
 argiimentum ad hominem, "it is an exalted dolphin, 
 — an apotheosized dolphin, — a dolphin made glo- 
 rious. For, as the dolphin catches the sunbeams 
 and sends them back with a thousand added splen- 
 dors, so this flower opens its quivering bosom and 
 gathers from the vast laboratory of the sky the 
 purple of a monarch's robe, and the ocean's deep, 
 calm blue. In its gracious cup you shall see — " 
 
 " A fiddlestick ! " jerked out Halicarnassus, 
 profanely. " What are you raving about such 
 a precious bundle of weeds for ? There is n't 
 a shoemaker's apprentice in the village that has 
 n't his seven-by-nine garden overrun with them. 
 You mio;ht have done better than bring cart-loads 
 of phlox and larkspur a thousand miles. Why 
 did n't you import a few hollyhocks, or a sun- 
 flower or two, and perhaps a dainty slip of cab- 
 bage? A pumpkin-vine, now, would climb over 
 the front-door deliciously, and a row of burdocks 
 would make a highly entertaining border." 
 
 The reader will bear me witness that I had met 
 my first rebuff with humility. It was probably 
 this very humility that emboldened him to a 
 second attack. I determined to change my tac- 
 tics, and give battle. 
 
 " Halicarnassus," said I, severely, " you are a 
 hypocrite. You set up for a Democrat — " 
 
48 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 " Not I," interrupted he ; "I voted for Harrison 
 in '40, and for Fremont in ^bQ., and — " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " interrupted I, in turn ; " I mean 
 a Democrat etymological, not a Democrat political. 
 You stand by the Declaration of Independence, 
 and believe in liberty, equality, and fraternity, and 
 that all men are of one blood ; and here you are, 
 ridiculing these innocent flowers, because their 
 brilliant beauty is not shut up in a conservatory, 
 to exhale its fragrance on a fastidious few, but 
 blooms on all alike, gladdening the home of exile 
 and lightening the burden of labor." 
 
 Halicarnassus saw that I had made a point 
 against him, and preserved a discreet silence. 
 
 " But you are wrong," I went on, " even if you 
 are right. You may laugh to scorn my floral 
 treasures, because they seem to you common and 
 unclean, but your laughter is premature. It is no 
 ordinary seed that you see before you. It sprang 
 from no profane soil. It came from the — the — 
 some kind of an office at Washington, sir ! It 
 was given me by one whose name stands high on 
 the scroll of fame, — a statesman whose views are 
 as broad as his judgment is sound, — an orator 
 who holds all hearts in his hand, — a man who is 
 always found on the side of the feeble truth against 
 the strong falsehood, — whose sympathy for all 
 that is good, whose hostility to all that is bad, and 
 whose boldness in every righteous cause, make 
 him alike the terror and abhorrence of the op- 
 
MY GARDEN. 49 
 
 pressor, and the hope and joy and staff of the 
 oppressed." 
 
 " What is his name ? " said HaHcarnassus, 
 phlegmatically. 
 
 " And for your miserable pumpkin-vine," I went 
 on, " behold this morning-glory, that shall open its 
 barbaric splendor to the sun and mount heaven- 
 ward on the sparkling chariots of the dew. I 
 took this from the white hand of a young girl in 
 whose heart poetry and purity have met, grace 
 and virtue have kissed each other, — whose feet 
 have danced over lilies and roses, who has " known 
 no sterner duty than to give caresses," and whose 
 gentle, spontaneous, and ever-active loveliness con- 
 tinually remind me that of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
 "Courted yet?" asked HaHcarnassus, with a 
 show of interest. 
 
 I transfixed him with a look, and continued, — 
 
 " This Maurandia, a climber, it may be com- 
 mon or it may be a king's ransom. I only know 
 that it is rosy-hued, and that I shall look at life 
 through its pleasant medivim. Some fantastic 
 trellis, brown and benevolent, shall knot support- 
 ing arms around it, and day by day it shall twine 
 daintily up toward my southern window, and whis- 
 per softly of the sweet-voiced, tender-eyed woman 
 from whose fairy bower it came in rosy wrappings. 
 And this Nemophila^ ' blue as my brother's eyes,' 
 — the brave young brother whose heroism and 
 
 3 D 
 
50 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 manhood have outstripped his years, and who 
 looks forth from the dark leafiness of far Austraha 
 lovingly and longingly over the blue waters, as 
 if, floating above them, he might catch the flutter 
 of white garments and the smile on a sister's 
 lip — " 
 
 " What are you going to do with 'em ? " put in 
 Halicarnassus again. 
 
 I hesitated a moment, undecided whether to be 
 amiable or bellicose under the provocation, but 
 concluded that my ends would stand a better 
 chance of being gained by adopting the former 
 course, and so answered seriously, as if I had not 
 been switched off the track, but was going on 
 with perfect continuity, — 
 
 " To-morrow I shall take observations. Then, 
 where the situation seems most favorable, I shall 
 lay out a garden. I shall plant these seeds in it, 
 except the vines and such things, which I wish to 
 put near the house to hide as much as possible its 
 garish white. Then, with everv little tender shoot 
 that appears above the ground, there will blossom 
 also a pleasant memory, or a sunny hope, or an 
 admiring thrill." 
 
 " What do you expect will be the market-value 
 of that crop ? " 
 
 " Wealth which an empire could not purchase," 
 I answered, with enthusiasm. " But I shall not 
 confine my attention to flowers. I shall make the 
 useful go with the beautiful. I shall plant vege- 
 
MY GARDEN. 51 
 
 tables, — lettuce, and asparagus, and — so forth. 
 Our table shall be garnished with the products of 
 our own soil, and our own works shall praise us." 
 
 There Avas a pause of several minutes, during 
 which I fondled the seeds, and Halicarnassus en- 
 veloped himself in clouds of smoke. Presently 
 there was a cessation of puffs, a rift in the cloud 
 showed that the oracle was opening his mouth, 
 and directly thereafter he delivered himself of the 
 encouraging remark, — 
 
 " If we don't have any vegetables till we raise 
 'em, we shall be carnivorous for some time to 
 come." 
 
 It was said with that provoking indifference 
 more trying to a sensitive mind than downright 
 insult. You know it is based on some hidden 
 obstacle, palpable to your enemy, though hidden 
 from you, — and that he is calm because he knows 
 that the nature of things will work against you, 
 so that he need not interfere. If I had been less 
 interested, I would have revenged myself on him 
 by remaining silent ; but I was very much inter- 
 ested, so I strangled my pride and said, — 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Land is too old for such things. Soil is n't 
 mellow enough." 
 
 I had always supposed that the greater part of 
 the main-land of our continent was of equal an- 
 tiquity, and dated back alike to the alluvial period ; 
 but I suppose our little three acres must have been 
 
52 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 injected tlirougli the intervening strata by some 
 physical convulsion, from the drift, or the tertiary 
 formation, perhaps even from the primitive granite. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " I ventured to 
 inquire. " I don't suppose the land will grow any 
 younger by keeping." 
 
 " Plant it with corn and potatoes for at least 
 two years before there can be anything like a gar- 
 den." 
 
 And Halicarnassus put up his pipe and betook 
 himself to the house, — and I was glad of it, the 
 abominable bore ! — to sit there and listen to my 
 glowing schemes, knowing all the while that they 
 were soap-bubbles. " Corn and potatoes," indeed ! 
 I did n't believe a word of it. Halicarnassus al- 
 ways had an insane passion for corn and potatoes. 
 Land represented to him so many bushels of the 
 one or the other. Now coi'n and potatoes are very 
 well in their way, but, like every other innocent 
 indulgence, carried too far, become a vice ; and I 
 more than suspected he had planned the strategy 
 simply to gratify his own weakness. Corn and 
 potatoes, indeed ! 
 
 But wdien Halicarnassus entered the lists against 
 me, he found an opponent worthy of his steel. 
 A few more such victories would be his ruin. A 
 grand scheme fired and filled my mind during the 
 silent watches of the night, and sent me forth in 
 the morning, jubilant with high resolve. Alexan- 
 der might weep that he had no more worlds to 
 
MY GARDEN. 53 
 
 conquer ; but I would create new. Archimedes 
 miglit desiderate a place to stand on, before he 
 could bring his lever into play ; I would move the 
 world, self'poise L If Halicarnassus fancied that 
 I was cut up, dispersed, and annihilated by one 
 disaster, he should weep tears of blood to see me 
 rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of my dead 
 hopes, to a newer and more glorious life. Here, 
 having exhausted my classics, I took a long sweep 
 down to modern times, and vowed in my heart 
 never to give u.p the ship. 
 
 Halicarnassus saw that a fell purpose was work- 
 ing in my mind, but a certain high tragedy in my 
 aspect warned him to silence ; so he only dogged 
 me around the corners of the house, eyed me 
 askance from the wood-shed, and peeped through 
 the crevices of the demented little barn. But his 
 vigilance bore no fruit. I but walked moodily 
 " with folded arms and fixed eyes," or struck out 
 new paths at random, so long as there were any 
 vestiges of his creation extant. His time and 
 patience being at length exhausted, he went into 
 the field to immolate himself with ever new devo- 
 tion on the shrine of corn and potatoes. Then 
 my scheme came to a head at once. In my walk- 
 ing, I had observed a box about three feet long, 
 two broad, and one foot deep, which Halicar- 
 nassus, with his usual disregard of the proprieties 
 of life, had used to block up a gateway that was 
 waiting for a gate. It was just what I wanted. 
 
54 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 I straightway knocked out the few nails that kept 
 it in place, and, like another Samson, bore it away 
 on my shoulders. It was not an easy thing to 
 manage, as any one may find by trying, — nor 
 would I advise young ladies, as a general thing, to 
 adopt that fonn of exercise, — but the end, not 
 the means, was my object, and by skilful diplo- 
 macy I got it up the back-stairs and through 
 my window, out upon the roof of the porch di- 
 ^ rectly below. I then took the ash-pail and the 
 fire-shovel, and went into the field, carefully keep- 
 ing the lee-side of Halicarnassus. " Good, rich 
 loam" I had observed all the gardening books to 
 recommend ; but wherein the virtue or the rich- 
 ness of loam consisted I did not feel competent 
 to decide, and I scorned to ask. There seemed 
 to be two kinds : one black, damp, and dismal ; 
 the other fine, yellow, and good-natured. A little 
 reflection decided me to take the latter. Gold 
 constituted riches, and this was yellov/ like gold. 
 Moreover, it seemed to have more life in it. 
 Night and darkness belonged to the other, while 
 the very heart of sunshine and summer seemed to 
 be imprisoned in this golden dust. So I plied my 
 shovel and filled my pail again and again, bearing 
 it aloft with joyful labor, eager to be through 
 before Halicarnassus should reappear ; but he got 
 on the trail just as I was whisking up-stairs for the 
 last time, and shouted, astonished, — 
 " What are you doing ? " 
 
MY GARDEN. 55 
 
 " Nothing," I answered, with that well-known 
 accent which says, " Everything ! and I mean 
 to keep doing it." 
 
 I have observed, that, in managing parents, 
 husbands, lovers, brothers, and indeed all classes 
 of inferiors, nothing is so efficacious as to let them 
 know at the outset that you are going to have your 
 own way. They may fret a little at first, and in- 
 terpose a few puny obstacles, but it will be only a 
 temporary obstruction ; whereas, if you parley and 
 hesitate and suggest, they will but gather courage 
 and strength for a formidable resistance. It is the 
 first step that costs. Halicarnassus understood at 
 once from my one small shot that I v.:as in a mood 
 to be let alone, and he let me alone accordingly. 
 
 I remembered he had said that the soil was not 
 mellow enough, and I determined that my soil 
 should be mellow, to which end I took it up by 
 handfuls and squeezed it through my fingers, com- 
 pletely pulverizing it. It was not disagreeable 
 work. Things in their right places are very sel- 
 dom disagreeeble. A spider on your dress is a 
 horror, but a spider out-doors is rather interesting. 
 Besides, the loam had a fine, soft feel that was 
 absolutely pleasant ; but a hideous black and yel- 
 low reptile with horns and hoofs, that winked up 
 at me from it, was decidedly unpleasant and out 
 of place, and I at once concluded that the soil 
 ■was sufficiently mellow for my purposes, and 
 smoothed it off directly. Then, with delighted 
 
56 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 fingers, in sweeping circles, and fantastic whirls, 
 and exact triangles, I planted my seeds in gener- 
 ous profusion, determined, that, if my wilderness 
 did not blossom, it should not be from niggardli- 
 ness of seed. But even then my box was frill 
 before my basket was emptied, and I was very 
 reluctantly compelled to bring down from the 
 garret another box, which had been the property 
 of my great-grandfather. My great-grandfather 
 was, I regret to say, a barber. I would rather 
 never have had any. If there is anything in the 
 world besides worth that I reverence, it is an- 
 cestry. My whole life long have I been in seai'ch 
 of a pedigree, and though I run well at the be- 
 ginning, I invariably stop short at the third re- 
 move by running my head into a barber's shop. 
 If he had only been a farmer, now, I should not 
 have minded. There is something dignified and 
 antique in land, and no one need trouble himself 
 to ascertain whether " farmer " stood for a close- 
 fisted, narrow-souled clodhopper, or the smiling, 
 benevolent master of broad acres. Farmer means 
 both these, I could have chosen the meaning I 
 liked, and it is not probable that any troublesome 
 facts would have floated down the years to inter- 
 cept any theory I might have launched. I would 
 rather he had been a shoemaker ; it would have 
 been so easy to transform him, after his lamented 
 decease, into a shoe-manufacturer, — and shoe- 
 manufacturers, we all know, are highly respectable 
 
MY GARDEN. 57 
 
 people, often become great men, and get sent to 
 Congress. An apothecary might have fio-ured 
 as an M. D. A green-grocer might have been 
 subhmated into a merchant. A dancing-master 
 ■would flourish on the family records as a professor 
 of the Terpsichorean art. A taker of daguerro- 
 type portraits would never be recognized in " my 
 great-grandfather tJie artist.'' But a barber is un- 
 mitigated and immitigable. It cannot be shaded 
 off, nor toned down, nor brushed up. Besides, yv^s 
 greatness ever allied to barberity ? Shakespeare's 
 father was a wool-driver, Tillotson's a clothier, 
 Barrow's a linen-draper, Defoe's a butcher, Mil- 
 ton's a scrivener, Richardson's a joiner, Burns's 
 a farmer ; but did any one ever hear of a barber's 
 having remarkable children ? I must say, with 
 all deference to my great-grandfather, that I do 
 wish he would have been considerate enouo;h of 
 his descendants' feehnoi;s to have been born in the 
 old days when barbers and doctors were one, or 
 else have chosen some other occupation than bar- 
 bering. Barber he did, however ; in this very box 
 he kept his wigs, and, painful as it was to have 
 continually before my eyes this perpetual reminder 
 of plebeian great-grand-paternity, I consented to 
 it rather than lose my seeds. Then I folded my 
 hands in sweet, though calm satisfaction. I had 
 proved myself equal to the emergency, and that 
 always diffuses a glow of genial complacency 
 through the soul. I had outwitted Halicarnassus. 
 3* 
 
58 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Exultation number two. He had designed to 
 cheat me out of my garden by a story about land, 
 and here was my garden ready to burst fortli into 
 blossom under my eyes. He said little, but I 
 knew he felt deeply. I caught him one day look- 
 ing out at my window with corroding envy in 
 every lineament. " You might have got some 
 dust out of the road ; it would have been nearer." 
 That was all he said. Even that little I did not 
 fully understand. 
 
 I watched, and waited, and watered, in silent 
 expectancy, for several days, but nothing came up, 
 and I began to be anxious. Suddenly I thought 
 of my vegetable-seeds, and determined to try 
 those. Of course a hanging kitchen-garden was 
 not to be thought of, and as Halicarnassus was 
 fortunately absent for a few days, I prospected on 
 the farm. A sunny little corner on a southern 
 slope smiled up at me, and seemed to offer itself 
 as a deliohtful situation for the diminutive garden 
 which mine must be. The soil, too, seemed as 
 fine and mellow as could be desired. I at once 
 captured an Englishman from a neighboring plan- 
 tation, hurried him into my corner, and bade him 
 dig me and hoe me and plant me a garden as soon 
 as possible. He looked blankly at me for a mo- 
 ment, and I looked blankly at him, wondering 
 what lion he saw in the way. 
 
 " Them is planted with potatoes now," he 
 gasped, at length. 
 
3IY GARDEN. 59 
 
 " jSTo matter," I returned, with sudden relief to 
 find that nothing but potatoes interfered. " I 
 want it to be unplanted, and planted with vegeta- 
 bles, — lettuce and — asparagus — and such." 
 
 He stood hesitating. 
 
 " Will the master like it ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Diplomacy, " he will be delighted." 
 
 " No matter whether he likes it or not," codi- 
 ciled Conscience. " You do it." 
 
 "I — don't exactly like — to — take the respon- 
 sibility," wavered this modern Faint-Heart. 
 
 " I don't want you to take the responsibility," I 
 ejaculated, with volcanic vehemence. " I '11 take 
 the responsibility. You take the hoe ! " 
 
 These duty-people do infuriate me. They are 
 so afraid to do anything that is n't laid out in a 
 right-angled triangle. Every path must be graded 
 and turfed before they dare set their scrupulous 
 feet in it. I like conscience, but, like corn and 
 potatoes, carried too far, it becomes a vice. I 
 think I could commit a murder with less hesitation 
 than some people buy a ninepenny calico. And to 
 see that man stand here, balancing probabilities 
 over a piece of ground no bigger than a bed-quilt, 
 as if a nation's fate were at stake, was enough to 
 ruffle a calmer temper than mine. My impetuosity 
 impressed him, however, and he began to lay about 
 him vigorously with hoe and rake and lines, and, 
 in an incredibly short space of time, had a bit of 
 square flatness laid out with wonderful precision. 
 
60 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Meanwhile I liacl ransacked my vegetable-bag, 
 and, though lettuce and asparagus were not there, 
 plenty of beets and parsnips and squashes, etc. 
 were. I let him take his choice. He took the 
 first two. The rest were left on my hands. But 
 I had gone too far to recede. They burned in my 
 pocket for a few days, and I saw that I must get 
 them into the ground somewhere. I could not 
 sleep with them in the room. They were wander- 
 ing shades, craving at my hands a burial, and I 
 determined to put them where Banquo's ghost 
 would not go, — down. Down accordingly they 
 went, but not symmetrically nor simultaneously. 
 I faced Halicarnassus on the subject of the beet- 
 bed, and though I cannot say that either of us 
 gained a brilliant victory, yet I can say that I 
 kept possession of the ground ; still, I did not care 
 to risk a second encounter. So I kept my seeds 
 about me continually, and dropped them surrep- 
 titiously as occasion offered. Conseqviently, my 
 garden, taken as a whole, was located where the 
 Penobscot Indian was born, — "all along shore." 
 The squashes were scattered among the corn. 
 The beans were tucked under the brushwood, 
 in the fond hope that they would climb up it. 
 Two tomato-plants were lodged in the potato-field, 
 under the protection of some broken apple-branches 
 dragged thither for the purpose. The cucumbers 
 went down on the sheltered side of a wood-pile. 
 The peas took their chances of life under the sink- 
 
MY GARDEN. 61 
 
 nose. The sweet-corn was marked off from the 
 rest by a broomstick, — and all took root alike 
 in my heart. 
 
 May I ask jo\i now, O friend, who, I would 
 fain believe, have followed me thus far with no 
 hostile eyes, to glide in tranced forgetfulness 
 through the white blooms of May and the roses 
 of June, into the warm breath of July afternoons 
 and the languid pulse of August, perhaps even 
 into the mild haze of September and the " flying 
 gold " of brown October ? In narrating to you 
 the fruition of my hopes, I shall endeavor to pre- 
 serve that calm equanimity which is the birthright 
 of royal, minds. I shall endeavor not to be un- 
 duly elated by success nor unduly depressed by 
 failure, but to state in simple language the result 
 of my experiments, both for an encouragement and 
 a warning. I shall give the history of the several 
 ventures separately, as nearly as I can recollect 
 in the order in which they grew, beginning with 
 the humbler ministers to our appetites, and soar- 
 ing gradually into the region of the poetical and 
 the beautiful. 
 
 Beets. — The beets came up, little red- veined 
 leaves, struggling for breath among a tangle of 
 Roman wormwood and garlic ; and though they 
 exibited great tenacity of life, they also exibited 
 great irregularity of purpose. In one spot there 
 would be nothing, in an adjacent sj^ot a whorl of 
 
62 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 beets, big and little, crowding and jostling and 
 elbowing each other, like school-boys round the 
 red-hot stove on a winter's morning. I knew they 
 had been planted in a right line, and I don't even 
 now comprehend why they should not come up in 
 a right line. I weeded them, and though freedom 
 from foreign growth discovered an intention of 
 straightness, the most casual observer could not 
 but see that skewiness had usurped its place. I 
 repaired to my friend the gardener. He said they 
 must be thinned out and transplanted. It Avent to 
 my heart to pull up the dear things, but I did it, 
 and set them down again tenderly in the vacant 
 spots. It was evening. The next morning I went 
 to them. Flatness has a new meaning to me since 
 that morning. You can hardly conceive that any- 
 thing could look so utterly forlorn, disconsolate, 
 disheartened, and collapsed. In fact, they exhib- 
 ited a degree of depression so entirely beyond what 
 the circumstances demanded, that I was enraged. 
 If they had shown any symptoms of trying to live, 
 I could have sighed and forgiven them ; but, on 
 the contrary, they had flopped and died without a 
 struggle, and I pulled them up without a pang, 
 comforting myself with the remaining ones, which 
 throve on their companions' graves, and waxed fat 
 and full and crimson-hearted, in their soft, brown 
 beds. So delighted was I with their luxuriant 
 rotundity, that I made an internal resolve that 
 henceforth I would always plant beets. True, I 
 
MY GARDEN. 63 
 
 cannot abide beets. Their fi'agranee and their fla- 
 vor are ahke nauseating ; but they come up, and a 
 beet that will come up is better than a cedar of 
 Lebanon that won't. In all the vegetable kingdom 
 I know of no quality better than this, growth, — 
 nor any quality that will atone for its absence. 
 
 Parsnips. — They ran the race with an inde- 
 scribable vehemence that fairly threw the beets 
 into the shade. They trod so delicately at first 
 that I was quite unprepared for such enthusiasm. 
 Lacking the red veining, I could not distinguish 
 them from the weeds with any certainty, and 
 was forced to let both grow together till the har- 
 vest. So both grew together, a perfect jungle. 
 But the parsnips got ahead, and rushed up glo- 
 riously, magnificently, bacchanalianly, — as the 
 winds come when forests are rended, — as the 
 waves come when navies are stranded. I am, 
 indeed, troubled with a suspicion that their vital- 
 ity has all run to leaves, and that, when I go 
 down into the depths of the earth for the parsnips, 
 I shall find only bread of emptiness. It is a pleas- 
 ing reflection that parsnips cannot be eaten till 
 the second year. I am told that they must lie 
 in the ground during the winter. Consequently 
 it cannot be decided whether there are any or 
 not till next spring. I shall in the mean time 
 assume and assert, without hesitation or qualifica- 
 tion, that there are as many tubers below the 
 
64 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 surface as there are leaves above it. I shall 
 thereby enjoy a pleasant consciousness, and the 
 respect of all, for the winter ; and if disappoint- 
 ment awaits nie in the spring, time will have 
 blunted its keenness for me, and other people 
 will have forgotten the whole subject. You may 
 be sure I shall not remind them of it. 
 
 Cucumbers. — The cucumbers came up so far, 
 and stuck. It must have been innate depravity, 
 for there was no shadow of reason why they 
 should not keep on as they began. They did 
 not. They stopped growing in the prime of life. 
 Only three cucumbers developed, and they hid 
 under the vines so that I did not see them till 
 they were become ripe, yellow, soft, and worth- 
 less. They are an unwholesome fruit at best, 
 and I bore their loss with great fortitude. 
 
 Tomatoes. — Both dead. I had been instructed 
 to protect them from the frost by night and from 
 the sun by day. I intended to do so ultimately, 
 but I did not suppose there was any emergency. 
 A fi'ost came the first night and killed them, 
 and a hot sun the next day burned up all there 
 was left. When they were both thoroughly 
 dead, I took great pains to cover them every 
 night and noon. No symptoms of revival ap- 
 pearing to reward my efforts, I left them to 
 shift for themselves. I did not think there was 
 
MY GARDEN. 65 
 
 any need of their dying in the first place ; and 
 if they would be so absurd as to die without 
 provocation, I did not see the necessity of going 
 into a decline about it. Besides, I never did 
 value plants or animals that have to be nursed, 
 and petted, and coaxed to live. If things want 
 to die, I think they 'd better die. Pi'ovoked 
 by my indiiference, one of the tomatoes flared 
 up, and took a new start, — put foi'th leaves, shot 
 out vines, and covered himself with fruit and 
 glory. The chickens picked out the heart of all 
 the tomatoes as soon as they ripened, which was 
 of no consequence, however, as they had wasted 
 so much time in the beginning that the autumn 
 frosts came upon them unawares, and there 
 w^ould n't have been fruit enough ripe to be of 
 any account, if no chicken had ever broken a 
 shell. 
 
 Squashes. — They appeared above-ground, 
 large-lobed and vioorous. Large and vigorous 
 appeared the bugs, all gleaming in green and 
 gold, like the wolf on the fold, and stopped up 
 all the stomata and ate up all the parenchyma, 
 till my squash-leaves looked as if they had grown 
 for the sole purpose of illustrating net-veined or- 
 ganizations. In consternation I sought again my 
 neighbor the Englishman. He assured me he 
 had 'em on his, too, — lots of 'em. This rec- 
 onciled me to mine. Bugs are not inherently 
 
66 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 desirable, but a universal bug does not indicate 
 special want of skill in any one. So I was com- 
 forted. But the Englishman said they must be 
 killed. He had killed his. Then I said I would 
 kill mine, too. How should it be done ? O, 
 put a shingle near the vine at night, and they 
 would crawl upon it to keep dry, and go out 
 early in the morning and kill 'em. But how to 
 kill them ? Why, take 'em right between your 
 thumb and finger and crush 'em ! 
 
 As soon as I could recover breath, I informed 
 him confidentially, that, if the world were one 
 great squash, I would n't undertake to save it in 
 that way. He smiled a little, but I think he was 
 not overmuch pleased. I asked him why I could 
 n't take a bucket of water and dip the shingle in 
 it and drown them. He said, well, I could try it. 
 I did try it, — first wrapping my hand in a cloth 
 to prevent contact with any stray bug. To my 
 amazement, the moment they touched the water 
 they all spread unseen wings and flew away, safe 
 and sound. I should not have been much more 
 surprised to see Halicarnassus soaring over the 
 ridge-pole. I had not the slightest idea that they 
 could fly. Of course I gave up the design of 
 drowning them. I called a council of war. One 
 said I must put a newspaper over them and fasten 
 it down at the edges ; then they could n't get in. 
 I timidly suggested that the squashes could n't get 
 out. Yes, they could, he said, — they 'd grow right 
 
MY GARDEN. 67 
 
 through the paper. Another said I must surround 
 them with round boxes with the bottoms broken 
 out; for, though they could fly, they could n't steer, 
 and when they flew up they just dropped down 
 anywhere, and as there was on the whole a good 
 deal more land on the outside of the boxes than on 
 the inside, the chances were in favor of their drop- 
 ping on the outside. Another said that ashes must 
 be sprinkled on them. A fourth said lime was an 
 infallible remedy. I began with the paper, which 
 I secured with no little difticulty ; for the wind — 
 the same Avind, strange to say — kept blowing the 
 dirt at me and the paper away from me ; but I 
 consoled myself by remembering the numberless 
 rows of squash-pies that should crown my labors, 
 and May took heart from Thanksgiving. The 
 next day I peeped under the paper, and the bugs 
 were a solid phalanx. I reported at head-quar- 
 ters, and they asked me if I killed the bugs before 
 I put the paper down. I said no, I supposed it 
 would stifle them, — in fact, I did not think any- 
 thing about it, but if I had thought anything, 
 that was what I thought. I was not pleased to 
 find I had been cultivatino; the bug-s and furnish- 
 ing them with free lodofings. I went home, and 
 tried all the remedies in succession. I could 
 hardly decide which agreed best with the structure 
 and habits of the bugs, but they throve on all. 
 Then I tried them all at once and all o'er with a 
 mighty uproar. Presently the bugs went away. 
 
68 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 I am not sure that they would not have gone just 
 as soon, if I had let them alone. After they were 
 gone, the vmes scrambled out and put forth some 
 beautiful, deep-golden blossoms. When they fell 
 off, that was the end of them. Not a squash, — 
 not one, — not a single squash, — not even a 
 pumpkin. They were all false blossoms. 
 
 Apples. — The trees swelled into masses of 
 pink and white fragrance. Nothing could ex- 
 ceed their fluttering loveliness or their luxuriant 
 promise. A few days of fairy beauty, and showers 
 of soft petals floated noiselessly down, covering the 
 earth with delicate snow ; but I knew, that, though 
 the first blush of beauty was gone, a mighty work 
 was going on in a million little laboratories, and 
 that the real glory was yet to come. I was sur- 
 prised to observe, one day, that the trees seemed 
 to be turning red. I remarked to Halicarnassus 
 that that was one of Nature's processes which I 
 did not I'emember to have seen noticed in any 
 botanical treatise. I thought such a change did 
 not occur till autumn. Halicarnassus curved the 
 thumb and forefinger of his rio-lit hand into an 
 arch, the ends of which rested on the wrist of 
 his left coat-sleeve. He then lifted the forefinger 
 high and brought it forward. Then he lifted the 
 thumb and brought it up behind the forefinger, 
 and so made them travel up to his elbow. It 
 seemed to require considerable exertion in the 
 
MY GARDEN. 69 
 
 thumb and forefinger, and I watched the progress 
 Avith interest. Then I asked him what he meant 
 by It. 
 
 " That 's the way they walk," he replied. 
 
 " Who walk ? " 
 
 '' The little fellows that have squatted on our 
 Irees." 
 
 " "What little fellows do you mean ? " 
 
 " The canker-worms ? " 
 
 " How many are there ? " 
 
 " About twenty-five decillions, I should think, 
 as near as I can count." 
 
 " Why ! what are they for ? What good do 
 they do ? " 
 
 " O, no end. Keep the children from eating 
 green apples and getting sick." 
 
 " How do they do that ? " 
 
 " Eat 'em themselves." 
 
 A frightful idea dawned upon me. I believe I 
 turned a kind of ghastly blue. 
 
 " Haliearnassus, do you mean to tell me that 
 the canker-woi-ms are eating up our apples, and 
 that we shan't have any ? " 
 
 " It looks like that exceedingly." 
 
 That was months ago, and it looks a great deal 
 more like it now. I watched those trees with 
 sadness at my heart. Millions of brown, ugly, 
 villanous worms gnawed, gnawed, gnawed, at the 
 poor little tender leaves and buds, — held them 
 in foul embrace, — polluted their sweetness with 
 
70 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 hateful breath. I could almost feel the shudder 
 of the trees in that sHmy clasp, — could almost 
 hear the shrieking and moaning of the young fruit 
 that saw its hope of happy life thus slowly con- 
 suming ; but I was powerless to save. For weeks 
 that loathsome army preyed upon the unhappy, 
 helpless trees, and then spun loathsomely to the 
 ground, and buried itself in the reluctant, shud- 
 dering soil. A few dismal little apples escaped 
 the common fate ; but when they rounded into 
 greenness and a suspicion of pulp, a boring worm 
 came and bored them, and they too died. No 
 apple-pies at Thanksgiving. No apple-roasting in 
 winter evenings. No pan-pie with hot brown 
 bread on Sunday mornings. 
 
 Cherries. — They rivalled the apple-blooms in 
 snowy profusion, and the branches were covered 
 with tiny balls. The sun mounted warm and high 
 in the heavens, and they blushed under his ardent 
 gaze. I felt an increasing conviction that here 
 there wovdd be no disappointment ; but it soon 
 became palpable that another class of depredators 
 had marked our trees for their own. Little brown 
 toes could occasionally be seen peeping from the 
 foliage, and little bare feet left their print on the 
 garden-soil. Humanity had evidently deposited 
 its larva in the vicinity. There was a school- 
 house not very far away, and the children used 
 to draw water from an old well in a distant part 
 
MY GARDEN. 71 
 
 of the garden. It was surprising to see how 
 thirsty they all became as the cherries ripened. 
 It was as if the village had simultaneously agreed 
 to breakfast on salt fish. Their wooden bucket 
 might have been the urn of the Danai'des, judging 
 from the time it took to fill it. The boys were as 
 fleet of foot as young zebras, and presented upon 
 discovery no apology or justification but their 
 heels, — which was a wise stroke in them. A 
 troop of rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed little snips in 
 white pantalets, caught in the act, reasoned with 
 in a semicircle, and cajoled with candy, were as 
 sweet as distilled honey, and promised with all , 
 their innocent hearts and hands not to do so any 
 more. 
 
 Then the cherries were allowed to hane; on the 
 trees and ripen. It took them a great while. If 
 they had been as big as hogsheads, I should think 
 the sun might have got through them sooner than 
 he did. They looked ripe long before they were 
 so ; and, as they were very plenty, the trees pre- 
 sented a beautiful appearance. I bought a stack of 
 fantastic little baskets from a travelling Indian tribe, 
 at a fabulous price, for the sake of fulfilling my 
 long-cherished design of sending fruit to my city 
 friends. After long waiting, Halicarnassus came 
 in one morning with a tin pail full, and said that 
 they were ripe at last, for they were turning purple 
 and falling off; and he was going to have them 
 gathered at once. He had brought in the first- 
 
72 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 fruits for breakfast. I put them in the best pre- 
 serve-dish, twined it with myrtle, and set it in 
 the centre of the table. It looked charming, — 
 so ruddy and rural and Arcadian. I wished we 
 could breakfast out-doors ; but the summer was 
 one of unusual severity, and it was hardly prudent 
 thus to brave its rigor. We had cup-custards at 
 the close of our breakfast that morning, — very 
 vulgar, but very delicious. We reached the 
 cherries at the same moment, and swallowed the 
 first one simultaneously. The effect was instan- 
 taneous and electric. Halicarnassus puckered his 
 face into a perfect wheel, with his mouth for the 
 hub. I don't know how I looked, but I felt badly 
 enough. 
 
 " It was unfortunate that we had custards this 
 morning," I remarked. " They are so sweet that 
 the cherries seem sour by contrast. AVe shall 
 soon get the sweet taste out of our mouths, how- 
 ever." 
 
 " That 's so ! " said Halicarnassus, who will be 
 coarse. 
 
 We tried another. He exhibited a similar pan- 
 tomime, with improvements. My feelings were 
 also the same, intensified. 
 
 " I am not in luck to-day," I said, attempting 
 to smile. " I got hold of a sour cherry this 
 time." 
 
 " I got hold of a bitter one," said Halicarnassus. 
 
 " Mine was a little bitter, too," I added. 
 
MY GARDEN. 73 
 
 " Mine was a little sour, too," said Halicar- 
 nassus. 
 
 " We shall have to try again," said I. 
 
 AVe did try again. 
 
 " Mine Avas a good deal of both this time," said 
 Halicarnassus. " But we will give them a fair 
 trial." 
 
 " Yes," said I, sepidchrally. 
 
 We sat there sacrificing ourselves to abstract 
 right for five minutes. Then I leaned back in 
 my chair, and looked at Halicarnassus. He 
 rested his right elbow on the table, and looked 
 at me. 
 
 " Well," said he at last, "how are cherries 
 and things ? " 
 
 " Halicarnassus," said I, solemnly, " it is my 
 firm conviction that farming is not a lucrative 
 occupation. You have no certain assurance of 
 return, either for labor or capital invested. Look 
 at it. The bugs eat up the squashes. The 
 Avorms eat up the apples. The cucumbers won't 
 grow at all. The peas have got lost. The cher- 
 ries are bitter as wormwood and sour as you in 
 your worst moods. Everything that is good for 
 anything won't grow, and everything that grows 
 isn't good for anything." 
 
 " My Indian corn, though," began Halicarnas- 
 sus ; but I snapped him up before he was fairly 
 under Avay. I had no idea of travelling in that 
 direction. 
 
 4 
 
74 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 " What am I to do with all those baskets that 
 I bought, I should like to know ? " I asked, 
 sharply. 
 
 " What did you buy them for ? " he asked in 
 return. 
 
 " To send cherries to the Hudsons and the 
 Mavericks and Fred Ashley," I replied promptly. 
 
 " Why don't you send 'em, then ? There 's 
 plenty of them, — more than we shall want." 
 
 " Because," I answered, " I have not exhausted 
 the pleasures of friendship. Nor do I perceive 
 the benefit that would accrue from turning life- 
 long friends into life-long enemies." 
 
 "I '11 tell you what we can do," said Halicar- 
 nassus. " We can give a party and treat them to 
 cherries. They '11- have to eat 'em out of polite- 
 ness." 
 
 " Halicarnassus," said I, " we should be mobbed. 
 We should fall victims to the fury of a disap- 
 pointed and enraged populace." 
 
 " At any rate," said he, " we can offer them to 
 chance visitors." 
 
 The suggestion seemed to me a good one, — at 
 any rate, the only one that held out any prospect 
 of relief. Thereafter, whenever friends called sin- 
 gly or in squads, — if the squads were not large 
 enough to be formidable, — we invariably set cher- 
 ries before them, and with generous hospitality 
 pressed them to partake. The varying phases of 
 emotion which they exhibited were painful to me 
 
MY GARDEN. 75 
 
 at first, but I at length came to taKe a morbid 
 pleasure in noting them. It was a study for a 
 sculptor. By long practice I learned to detect 
 the shadow of each coming change, where a cas- 
 ual observer would see only a serene expanse of 
 placid politeness. I knew just where the radi- 
 ance, awakened by the luscious, swelling, crim- 
 son globes, faded into doubt, settled into certainty, 
 glared into perplexity, fired into rage. I saw 
 the grimace, suppressed as soon as begun, but 
 not less patent to my preternaturally keen eyes. 
 No one deceived me by being suddenly seized 
 with admiration of a view. I knew it was only 
 to relieve his nerves by making faces behind the 
 window-curtains. 
 
 I grew to take a fiendish delight in watching 
 the conflict, and the fierce desperation which 
 marked its violence. On the one side were the 
 forces of fusion, a relvictant stomach, an unwill- 
 ing oesophagus, a loathing palate ; on the other, 
 the stern, unconquerable will. A natural philos- 
 opher would have gathered new proofs of the un- 
 limited capacity of the human race to adapt itself 
 to circumstances, from the debris that strewed 
 our premises after each fresh departure. Cher- 
 ries were chucked under the sofa, into the table- 
 drawers, behind the books, under the lamp-mats, 
 into the vases, in any and every place where a 
 dexterous hand could dispose of them without 
 detection. Yet their number seemed to suffer 
 
76 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 no abateirient. Like Tityus's liver, they were 
 constantly renewed, though constantly consumed. 
 The small boys seemed to be suffering from a fit 
 of conscience. In vain we closed the blinds and 
 shut ourselves up in the house to give them a fair 
 field. Not a cherry was taken. In vain we went 
 ostentatiously to church all day on Sunday. Not 
 a twig was touched. Finally I dropped all the 
 curtains on that side of the house, and avoided 
 that part of the garden in my walks. The cher- 
 ries may be hanging there to this day, for aught 
 I know. 
 
 But why do I thus linger over the sad recital ? 
 " Ah uno disce omnes.'''' (A quotation from Vir- 
 gil : means, " All of a piece.") There may have 
 been, there probably was, an abundance of sweet- 
 corn, but the broomstick that had marked the spot 
 was lost, and I could in no wise recall either spot 
 or stick. Nor did I ever see or hear of the peas, 
 — or the beans. If our chickens could be brought 
 to the witness-box, they might throw light on the 
 subject. As it is, I drop a natural tear, and pass 
 on to 
 
 The Flower- Garden. — It appeared very 
 much behind time, — chiefly Roman wormwood. 
 I was grateful even for that. Then two rows 
 of fonr-o'-clocks became visible to the naked eye. 
 They are cryptogamous, it seems. Botanists have 
 hitherto classed them amono; the Phsenosamia. 
 
3IY GARDEN. 77 
 
 A sweet-pea and a china-aster dawdled up just 
 in time to get frost-bitten. " SJt prceterea nihiU^ 
 (Virgil: means, "That's all.") I am sure it 
 was no fault of mine. I tended my seeds with 
 assiduous care. My devotion was unwearied. 
 I was a very slave to their caprices. I planted 
 them just beneath the surface in the first place, 
 so that they might have an easy passage. In 
 two or three days they all seemed to be lying 
 round loose on the top, and I planted them an 
 inch deep. Then I did n't see them at all for so 
 long that I took them up again, and planted them 
 half-way between. It was of no use. You can- 
 not suit people or plants that are determined not 
 to be suited. 
 
 Yet, sad as my story is, I cannot regret that I 
 came into the country and attempted a garden. 
 It has been fruitful in lessons, if in nothing else. 
 I have seen how every evil has its compensating 
 good. When I am tempted to repine that my 
 squashes did not grow, I reflect, that, if they had 
 grown, they would probably have all turned into 
 pumpkins, or if they had stayed squashes, they 
 Avould have been stolen. When it seems a myste- 
 rious Providence that kept all my young hopes 
 underground, I reflect how fine an illustration I 
 should otherwise have lost of what Kossuth calls 
 the solidarity of the human race, — what Paul 
 alludes to, when he says, if one member suffer, 
 all the members suffer with it. I recall with 
 
78 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 grateful tears the sympathy of my neighbors on the 
 right hand and on the left, — expressed not only 
 by words, but by deeds. In my mind's eye, 
 Horatio, I see again the baskets of apples, and 
 pears, and tomatoes, and strawberries, — squashes 
 too heavy to lift, — and corn sweet as the dews of 
 Hymettus, that bore daily witness of human broth- 
 erhood. I remember, too, the victory which I 
 gained over my own depraved nature. I saw my 
 neighbor prosper in everything he undertook. Ni- 
 hil tetigit quod non crevit. Fertility found in his 
 soil its congenial home, and spanned it with rain- 
 bow hues. Every day I walked by his garden and 
 saw it putting on its strength, its beautiful gar- 
 ments. I had not even the small satisfaction of 
 reflecting that, amid all his splendid success, his life 
 was cold and cheerless, while mine, amid all its 
 failures, was full of warmth, — a reflection which, 
 I have often observed, seems to go a great way 
 towards making a person contented with his lot, — 
 for he had a lovely wife, promising children, and 
 the whole village for his friends. Yet, notwith- 
 standing all these obstacles, I learned to look over 
 his garden-wall with sincere joy. 
 
 There is one provocation, however, which I 
 cannot yet bear with equanimity, and which I do 
 not believe I shall ever meet without at least a 
 spasm of wrath, even if my Christian character 
 shall ever become strong enough to preclude abso- 
 lute tetanus ; and I do hereby beseech all persons 
 
MY GARDEN. 
 
 79 
 
 who would not be guilty of the sin of Jeroboam 
 who made Israel to sin, who do not wish to have 
 on their hands the burden of my ruined tem- 
 per, to let me go quietly down into the valley of 
 humiliation and oblivion, and not pester 
 me, as they have hitherto done from 
 all parts of the North- American 
 continent, with the infuriating 
 question, " How did you 
 get on with your 
 sard en ? " 
 
Men and Women. 
 
 \ HAVE read tliat a stranger, passing 
 , through certain portions of New Hamp- 
 shire, was deeply impressed with the 
 ^'-^^ rocky nature of the soil and scenery, 
 and inquired of a laborer whom he met, " What 
 in the world can you raise in a country like this ? " 
 " We raise men, sir ! " was the prompt reply. I 
 am free to confess that this sounds to me very 
 much like a made-up story ; but it will answer 
 my purpose just as well, which is simply to in- 
 troduce the fact, that, not having found in agricul- 
 tural pursuits that eminent satisfaction which I had 
 pictured, I occasionally divert myself with specu- 
 lations touching men and women. After close 
 observation and mature deliberation, I have come 
 to the conclusion that, on the whole, men occupy 
 vantage-ground. 
 
 I like women. I love them. I glory in them. 
 What sight can be more impressive than one' of 
 those magnificent creations we often read of, and 
 occasionally see, — stately, grand, epic, — with the 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 81 
 
 blackness and beauty of night in tlie matchless 
 locks that sweep over the calm, still brow, and 
 all the starry splendor of a thousand nights in the 
 eyes that burn beneath ? What can be more cap- 
 tivating than the opening life of a gay little blonde, 
 from whose soft curls the flutter never quite dies 
 out, whose dimpling smile is only less sweet than 
 her tender pensiveness ? Or, passing from these 
 types of an extinct womanhood, whose departing 
 left but few traces, we see every day pretty, grace- 
 ful, and elegant women ; some neat, simple, and 
 indistinctly limned ; some standing out in bold re- 
 lief, with regal adomings ; and in our daily walks 
 we jostle against countless heroines, — self-sacri- 
 ficing wives, devoted mothers, noble maidens, who 
 bear a hidden grief, who wrestle with a secret foe, 
 who silently, if need be, brave the sneer of the 
 world, who will die and give no sign, — and we 
 cannot choose but admire. Still, narrowino- the 
 question down to a point, this is the conclusion 
 of the whole matter, — high or low, rich or poor, 
 bond or free, 
 
 There is nothing so splendid as a splendid man ! 
 
 I need not search the pages of history for facts 
 to confirm my position. I need not point you to 
 Mozart, king in the realms of song ; to Napoleon, 
 " wrapped in the solitude of his own originality " ; 
 to John Bunyan, standing alone on his Delectable 
 Mountains ; to Milton, thrusting his wives behind 
 
 4* F 
 
82 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 him when he entered Paradise. . '.They are con- 
 fessedly unapproached and inapproachable, and 
 therefoi'e would in no wise strengthen my case ; 
 for they are unique, not as regards women only, 
 but the whole human race. To be a man does 
 not necessarily imply to be a Milton. Eighteen 
 hundred years furnished but one Napoleon. ('John 
 Smiths are born, married, and die by the thou- 
 sand, and nothing apparently can be more com- 
 monplace than their lives. What advantage, then, 
 has John Smith over his wife ? Precisely this. 
 Commonplace as is the life of John Smith, the 
 life of Mrs. J. S. is still more so. Small as are 
 his advantages and opportunities, hers are incom- 
 parably smaller ; and so, whether as a man I 
 might have sat in kings' palaces, or ground in 
 the prison-house of poverty, I put on sackcloth 
 and ashes, bewailing my womanhood^ 
 
 Now don't overwhelm me with a torrent of 
 platitudes about woman's opportunities for self- 
 sacrifice, moral heroism, silent influence, might of 
 love, and all that cut-and-dried woman's sphere- 
 ism ; pray don't. I know all about it. I could write 
 an octavo volume on the subject, with dedication, 
 introduction, preface, and appendix ; but just go to 
 your window the next rainy day, and notice the 
 first woman who passes. See how she is forced to 
 concentrate all the energies of mind and body on 
 herself and her casings. One delicate hand clings 
 desperately to the unwieldy umbrella ; the other 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 83 
 
 is ceaselessly struggling to keep firm hold of the 
 multitudinous draperies ; and if book, basket, or 
 bundle claim a share of her attention, her case 
 is pitiable indeed. Down goes one fold upon the 
 Avet flagstone, detected only by an ominous flap- 
 ])ing against the ankles when the garment has 
 become saturated, — a loosened hold on the um- 
 brella, of which it takes advantage, and immedi- 
 ately sways imminent over the gutter, — a con- 
 vulsive and random clutch at the petticoats. The 
 umbrella righted, a sudden gust of wind threatens 
 to bear it away, and, one hand not being sufficient 
 to detain it, the other involuntarily comes to the 
 rescue, — sweep go the draperies down on the 
 pavement ; then another clutch, another adjust- 
 ment, — forward ! march ! — and so on to the 
 dreary, draggled end. 
 
 Stalk — stalk — stalk — comes up the man be- 
 hind her. Stalk — stalk, — he has passed. Stalk 
 — stalk — stalk, — he is out of sight before she 
 has passed a single block. 
 
 Of course he is. One sinewy hand lightly 
 poising his umbrella ; water-proof overcoat " close 
 buttoned to the chin " ; tight-fitting trousers tucked 
 into enormous India-rubber boots. What is the 
 stoi-m to him ? 
 
 Is this a small matter ? Beloved friend, smaller 
 matters than these have swayed the world ; and 
 ten thousand such small matters mark the child- 
 hood, youth, and maturity of twice ten thousand 
 small men and women. 
 
84 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ! It is a very small matter for John Smith to take 
 a journey of six or eight hundred miles. He 
 rushes home from his counting-room, office, or 
 workshop, fifteen minutes before the train leaves, 
 bids Mrs. S. put a clean shirt or two in his 
 valise, takes a cold luncheon, kisses the children 
 all round, and perhaps their mother, strides to the 
 station, goes in at one end just as the engine is 
 puffing out at the other, waits leisurely till the last 
 end of the last car is opposite him, throws his 
 valise on the platform, grasps the railing, vaults 
 lightly up the steps, and in half a minute is talk- 
 ing unconcernedly with Mr. Jones, who has prob- 
 ably gone through the same performance, barring 
 the last half-minute.j 
 
 ("But if Mrs. John Smith wishes to pay a ten days' 
 visit to her mother, sixty miles away, a fortnight 
 is not too much time to devote to preparations. 
 Her wardrobe is to be thoroughly overhauled ; 
 dresses selected, bought, made ; a dressmaker con- 
 sequently to be hunted up and engaged ; old skirts 
 adjusted to new basques ; collars mended, whit- 
 ened, and clear-starched ; Mr. Smith's shirts, 
 stockings, and handkerchiefs placed where he can 
 lay his hands on them blindfolded, for no Smith 
 ever yet conceived the idea of lifting up one thing 
 to find another under it : the various strata of 
 rocks being tilted, the genus Smith seems to have 
 imbibed the opinion that bureau-drawers should 
 be arranged on the same plan. Then there are 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 85 
 
 the children to be seen to, the marketing to be ar- 
 ranged, Bridget to be admonished, and everything 
 in general wound up to go ten days without stop- 
 ping or derangement. Consequently, when the 
 appointed morning comes, and with it the ap- 
 pointed coach, Mrs. Smith is not quite ready. 
 With one cheek flushed, and no collar, she gives 
 hurried directions, ties up brown-paper packages 
 with nervous, trembling fingers, which packages no 
 sooner receive the final jerk than they are discov- 
 ered to be bursting out at both ends ; scatters the 
 young folks hither and thither, running down all 
 Avho are not agile enough to get out of the way, 
 and is only restrained from scolding outright by a 
 dim vision of plunges down embankments, butting 
 against opposing engines, splintered bridges, flying 
 axles, and life-long separation from beloved ones, 
 to which a railroad journey now-a-days renders 
 one so fearfully liable. At length, the last knot is 
 tied, the last kiss given, and Mrs. S., anxiously 
 looking at her watch, stumbles over the hem of 
 her dress into the coach, beseeching the driver to 
 hurry. He politely says " Yes," but persistently 
 drives " No." After what she considers unneces- 
 sary delay, she arrives at the station, hurries into 
 the ticket-oflfice, tries to hurry open her porte- 
 monnaie, but, as that is governed by the Medo- 
 Persic laws of inertia and attraction, it refuses to 
 be hurried. Hurriedly she asks the ticket-master, 
 " Is the train north gone ? " His loud, clear, 
 
86 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 deliberate, " No, ma'am," startles her, and before 
 she recovers herself, he has gone to the opposite 
 window. She waits her turn again. " How 
 long before it goes ? " " Twen-ty — min-utes, — 
 ma'am." With a sio-h of minMed relief and Aveari- 
 ness she sinks upon a sofa. Time would fail me to 
 follow Mrs. S. on her devious way, — to note her 
 anxious watch over " great box, little box, band- 
 box, and bundle " ; her uncertainty as to which 
 train she is to take, and her incessant inquiries of 
 every man who approaches ; the intense unrest 
 that looks out of her eyes, quivers on her lips, 
 trembles in her hands, and flutters in every thread 
 of her garments. All these things may only 
 provoke a smile, but Mrs. J. S. is tragically in 
 earnest. 
 
 Man, too, is independent. He goes where and 
 when he lists. He need not be rich to gaze upon 
 all the wonders of the New World, all the magnifi- 
 cence of the Old. He can shoulder his knapsack, 
 and traverse the globe. Every spot consecrated 
 by genius, patriotism, suffering, love, is spread 
 out before him. Whatever of beautiful, grand, or 
 glorious is to be found in art or nature, is his. 
 He can people his brain with memories that will 
 never die, adorn it with pictures whose colors will 
 never fade, treasure up untold wealth for his soul 
 to feed on in future years. 
 
 If the day's long toil leave him restless, — if 
 throbbing heart or achino; head crave a draught 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 87 
 
 of pure elixir, — if the murmur of the waterfall, 
 the glow of the stars, or the ever-new splendor 
 of the moon lure him out into the night, he goes ; 
 and the hush and solitude bring him rest and 
 healing; the night sweeps into his soul, and cools 
 the fever in his veins. The world recedes. He 
 stands face to face with God. He receives again 
 the breath of life, and becomes a living soul. 
 
 Alas for a woman ! She can never do a thing 
 except gregariously. She has no solitude except 
 m the house, which is no solitude at all. She is 
 always at the mercy of others' whims, caprices, 
 tastes, business engagements, or headaches. If 
 she travels, she must partially accommodate her- 
 self to somebody's convenience. She must go in 
 the beaten track. Her eyes must look right on, 
 and her eyelids straight before her. There are 
 no wild wanderings at her own sweet will, no 
 experimental deviations from the prescribed route, 
 no hazardous but delightful flying off in a tan- 
 gent on the spur of the moment. She cannot 
 separate herself from the past, slough off her iden- 
 tity, and become a new being in new scenes. She 
 must take her old associations with her, and they 
 are a robe of oiled silk, eflPectually excluding the 
 new atmosphere which should penetrate to the 
 very sources of life. ' She cannot enjoy in quiet- 
 ness and silence. She is one of a party, and must 
 go into a rapture here and an ecstasy there, and 
 give a definite reason for both. She must be 
 
88 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 wakened from a trance of delight by a lisped 
 " How beautifid ! " or a quotation from Byron, by 
 some one whose knowledge of Byron is derived 
 from a gilt volume of " Elegant Extracts," or the 
 " American First-Class Book." It is very exas- 
 perating. 
 
 I remember well the agonizing stupidity of a 
 journey which I once undertook with great ex- 
 pectations, Halicariiassus was obliged to leave 
 me on the road, and I contemplated a solitary 
 completion of my expedition with unbounded de- 
 light ; but at the very last moment he hunted up 
 an old schoolmate, a planter from the South, and 
 consigned me to him, ready invoiced and labelled ! 
 I yielded with a resigned and quiet despair. 
 
 He proved to be a very sensible man, and slept 
 most of the time, except when I spoke to him, which 
 I did occasionally for the sake of seeing him jump. 
 He knew that it was not polite for him to sleep, 
 but he cherished the pleasing illusion that I did 
 not know it, but fancied him lost in profound medi- 
 tation. Bless his dear soul ! If he only could 
 have known that it was the most agreeable dis- 
 position he could possibly have made of himself, — 
 though, as far as my observation goes, men cer- 
 tainly look better awake than asleep. Slumber is 
 not becoming to the masculine gender. Look at 
 the next man you see asleep in church. What 
 absolute lack of expression ; what falling jaws ; 
 what idiocy in the bobbing head ; what lack-lustre 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 89 
 
 vacancy about the eyes and in the eyes, when 
 they slowly drag themselves open ; how senseless 
 are the fingers, and how, when he awakes, he 
 half looks about, and then suddenly looks straight 
 at the minister for two minutes, and pretends he 
 has been awake all the time, just as if everybody 
 did n't know. It is as good as a pantomime. But 
 I was glad my fellow-traveller slept, for our at- 
 tempts at conversation were really distressing to a 
 sensitive mind. He had a habit of receiving my 
 most trifling remarks with an air of deep solemnity, 
 which was very provoking. It is bad enough to 
 say foolish things, and to know they are foolish 
 when you say them ; but it is a great deal worse 
 to have people think that you think you have said 
 something wise. Then he never would under- 
 stand what I said the first time ; consequently it 
 had to be repeated. Now, when you are putting 
 about in distress for a remark, you do often seize 
 hold of any platitude, and give it audible utter- 
 ance, despising yourself all the while ; but after 
 it has done duty, and you have shoved it from 
 you in disgust, to be forced to stretch out your 
 hand and draw it back once more. Eheu ! Our 
 conversation might be daguerrotyped thus : — 
 
 I. " This is a fine country." 
 
 He. " Ma'am ? " 
 
 I. " This is a fine country, I said ! " 
 
 He. " Yes, a very fine country ! " Pause. 
 Profound meditation on both sides. 
 
90 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 I. " Is that an eagle ? " (with an attempt at 
 animation) . 
 
 He. " Ma'am ? " (with a start, and wild, be- 
 wildered look). 
 
 I. " I asked if that was an eagle, but he is 
 gone now ! " (Of course he was, — a mile off.) 
 
 He. " I don't know, really. I did n't quite 
 see him." Relapse into meditation. 
 
 I. " Do we change cars at B ? " 
 
 He. " Ma'am ? " 
 
 I. " Do you know whether we change cars at 
 B , sir?" 
 
 He. " I don't know, but I think we do. I 
 will ask the conductor ! " 
 
 I. " O, no ! Pray don't, sir ! I dare say we 
 shall find out when we get there." Third course 
 of meditation, and so on. 
 
 Whenever we did have to change cars, — and 
 it seemed to me as if this occurred at irregular 
 intervals of from ten to twenty miles — [I desire 
 to enter my earnest protest against it. One is 
 scarcely seated comfortably, with valise and satchel 
 on the floor, shawl on the arm, and bundles tucked 
 
 on the rack, before " Passengers for change 
 
 cars " ; and up must come the satchels with a 
 jerk, and down the bundles with a thud, and ofiF 
 we elbow our way through a crowd, across a 
 dusty track, into another car, wdiere the same 
 process is repeated. When people are satisfac- 
 torily adjusted, why can't people be let alone ? ] 
 
MEN AND WOM^N. 91 
 
 As I was saying, whenever we had to change, he 
 was sure to be sound asleep, and I would spai-e 
 his feelings and not wake him, knowing that the 
 people jostling against him in passing would do 
 that, and suddenly he would rouse, gaze wildly 
 around, and exclaim, " Are you going to get 
 out ? " as if all the commotion was caused by me ; 
 and I would turn from the window at which I 
 had been steadfastly staring, and answer calmly, 
 and as if I had just thought of it, " Perhaps we 
 would better, sir ; the people seem to be getting 
 out ! " And so, by constant watchfulness and stud- 
 ied forbearance, I managed to pick up his goods 
 
 for him, and land him safely at H , with great 
 
 respect for his many virtues, and great contempt 
 for his qualifications as guide and protector. 
 
 Yet I was currently reported to be travelling 
 under tJie care of Mr. Lakeman of Alabama ; as if 
 I could n't take care of myself fifty thousand times 
 better than that respectable stupidity could take 
 care of me. 
 
 Men are strong. They do things, and don't 
 mind it. They can open doors in the dampest 
 weather. They can unstrap trunks without break- 
 ing a blood-vessel, turn keys in a moment which 
 Avomen have lost their temper and lamed their 
 fingers over for half an hour, look down preci- 
 pices and not be dizzy, knock each other prostrate 
 and not be stunned. You may strike them with 
 all your might on the chest, and it does n't hurt 
 
92 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 them in the least (I mean if you are a woman). 
 They never grow nervous and cry. They go up 
 stairs three at a time. They put one hand on a 
 four-rail fence, and leap it without touching. In 
 short, they do everything easily which women try 
 to do and cannot. 
 
 Moreover, men are so " easy to get along with." 
 They are good-natured, and conveniently blind and 
 benevolent. Women criticise you, not unjustly, 
 perhaps, but relentlessly. They judge you in de- 
 tail, men only in the whole. If your dress is 
 neat, well-fitting, and well-toned, men will not 
 notice it, except a few man-milliners, and a few 
 others who ought to be, and to whose opinion we 
 pay no. regard. If you will only sit still, hold up 
 your head, and speak when you are spoken to, you 
 can be very comfortable. I do not mean that men 
 cannot and do not appreciate female brilliancy ; 
 but if you are a good listener, and in the right 
 receptive mood, you can spend an hour very pleas- 
 antly without it. I'But a woman finds out in the 
 first three minutes that the fringe on your dress 
 is not a match. In four, she has discovered that 
 the silk of your sleeves is frayed at the edge. In 
 five, that the binding of the heel of your boot is 
 worn out. By the sixth, she has satisfactorily as- 
 certained, what she suspected the first moment 
 she " set her eyes on you," that you trimmed your 
 bonnet yourself. The seventh assures her that 
 your collar is only " imitation " ; and when you 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 93 
 
 part, at the end of ten minutes, she has calculated 
 Avith tolerable accuracy the cost of your dress, has 
 levelled her mental eyeglass at all your innocent 
 little subterfuges, and knows to a dead certainty 
 your past history, present circumstances, and future 
 prospects. Well, what harm if she does ? None 
 in particular. It is only being stretched on the 
 rack a little while. You have no reason to be 
 ashamed, and you are not ashamed. Your boots 
 are only beginning to be shabby, and we all know 
 the transitory nature of gtilloon. Your fringe is too 
 dark, but you ransacked the city and did your best, 
 " angels could no more." You trimmed your bon- 
 net yourself, and saved two dollars, which was 
 just what you intended to do. " The means were 
 worthy, and the end was won." Your lace is not 
 real, according to the cant of the shopkeepers ; but 
 it is real, — real cotton, real linen, real silk, or what- 
 ever the material may be, and you never pretended 
 it was Honiton or point ; and if lace is soft and 
 white and fine, and sets oflP the throat and wrists 
 prettily, I don't see why it may not just as well 
 be made in America for two cents a yard, as in 
 Paris for two dollars, or two hundred.) In fact, 
 this whole matter of lace is something entirely 
 beyond my comprehension. Why, I have seen 
 women who, in the ordinary affairs of life, were 
 neat to a fault, just not fall down and worship a 
 bit of dingy, old yellow lace, that looked fit for 
 nothing but the Avash-tub ; and, when remonstrated 
 
94 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 with, excuse tliemselves by saying, " Why, it is 
 fifty or five hundred years old " ; which may be 
 a very lucid explanation, but I cannot say I fully 
 understand and appreciate it. 
 
 Men can talk " slang." " Dry up " is nowhere 
 forbidden in the Decalogue. Neither the law nor 
 the prophets frown on " a thousand of brick." The 
 Sermon on the Mount does not discountenance 
 " knuckling to " ; but between women and these 
 minor immoralities stands an invisible barrier of 
 propriety, — waves an abstract flaming sword in 
 the hand of Mrs. Grundy, — and we must submit 
 to Mrs. Grundy, though the heavens fall. But 
 who can reckon up the loss which we sustain ? 
 
 " Dry up," — a lyric poem is sealed in that 
 Spartan conciseness. Only have eyes, and you 
 shall see a summer brook murmuring through the 
 greenwood ; hushed into stillness where the shad- 
 ows fall darkly, flashing right merrily where sun- 
 light glints through the mermaiden tresses of the 
 trees ; mingling its low song with Nature's many- 
 toned lyre ; glassing in tricksy, ever-changing 
 caricature the damp, soft mosses on its borders ; 
 dropping a deeper purple into the cups of bend- 
 ing violets ; flinging a roguish little spray against 
 the sober old rocks ; cooing small white feet to 
 tempt its limpid depths ; frisking with young lambs 
 in loving, cool embrace ; curling around smooth- 
 faced pebbles in perpetual overflow ; singing, 
 dancing, hurrying, scurrying, grave and gay, till 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 95 
 
 the baleful dog-star rises, the loitering sun treads 
 slowly through the brazen heavens, and the earth 
 lies parched and panting in his fierce, fiery clasp. 
 Then the brook-music dies away. Softly and 
 more softly the ripples sing themselves to sleep. 
 The thirsty lambs go sorrowing. The tender feet 
 turn back mournfully. The white pebbles rise 
 liot and hard. The mosses crisp and wither. 
 The violets faint and fade. The last cool moisture 
 bi'eathes itself to heaven. Sweet life is quenched. 
 The brook is — " dried up," 
 
 What equivalent can your drawing-room gram- 
 mar furnish for such a " sunny spot of greenery " ? 
 
 It would be easy to go through a long list of 
 tabooed expressions and show how they are in- 
 formed and vivified with feminine sweetness, 
 brawny vigor, strength of imagination, the play 
 of fancy, and the flash of wit. Translate them 
 into civilized dialect, — make them presentable at 
 your fireside, and immediately the virtue is gone 
 out of them. Can the man who simply rebukes 
 your proceedings compete for a moment with the 
 man wdio comes down upon you like " a thousand 
 of brick " ? Would not myriads of men weakly 
 agree to a compromise, who would start back in 
 horror at the insinuation of knuckling to their 
 opponents ? 
 
 I should like to call my luggage " traps," 
 and my curiosities " truck and dicker," and my 
 weariness " being knocked up," as well as Hali- 
 
96 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 carnassus, but I might as well rob a bank. All 1 
 high-handed Mrs. Grundy, little you reck of the 
 sinewy giants that you banish from your table ! 
 Little you see the nuggets of gold that lie on 
 the lips of our brown-fisted, shaggy-haired news- 
 boys and cabmen ! 
 
 But if men, in their strength and courage and 
 independence, are enviable, men in their gentle- 
 ness are irresistible. You expect it in women. 
 It is their attribute and characteristic. You do 
 not admire its presence so much as you deplore 
 or condemn its absence. But manly tenderness 
 has a peculiar charm. It is the wild ivy shooting 
 over the battlements of some old feudal castle, 
 lending grace to solidity, veiling strength with 
 beauty. And you meet it everywhere, — in the 
 house and by the wayside, in city and country, 
 under broadcloth and homespun. The best seat, 
 the finest stand-point, the warmest corner, is not 
 only offered, but urged upon a woman. You 
 may travel from one end of the country to the 
 other, and meet not only civility, but the most 
 cordial and considerate kindness. You may be 
 as ugly as it is possible for virtue to be, and tired 
 and travel-stained and stupid, and your neighbor 
 of a day will show you all the little attentions 
 you could claim from a father or a brother. He 
 will place his valise for your footstool and his 
 shawl for your pillow, open or close your windoW- 
 blind at every turn of the road, point out every 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 97 
 
 object of interest, explain everything you don't 
 understand, and do a thousand things to make 
 your journey pleasant. The roughest laborer Avill 
 step out ankle-deep in the " slosh " to give you a 
 firm footing ; and if you have the decency to thank 
 him, his good-natured face will light up with as 
 broad a smile as if you were doing him the great- 
 est favor in the world. When a carpenter drags 
 the heavy old road-gate — which he has just un- 
 hinged to mend — half a dozen rods, to lay it across 
 a mud-puddle that a woman, to whom he never 
 spoke before and probably never will again, may 
 pass over dryshod, it is false to say that the age 
 of chivalry is gone. Talk of Sir Walter Raleigh's 
 gallantry ! Say rather his shrewdness. Surely 
 his was the most economical use to which cloak 
 was ever put. What wonderful politeness was 
 there in a risking a few yards of plush to win the 
 smile of a sovereign whose smiles were " money 
 and fame and troops of friends " ? 
 
 I am aware that this universal politeness has 
 passed under the ban of certain of my sex, who 
 are pleased to consider and designate it as " doll- 
 treatment," and resent it accordingly. They ask 
 no favors, despise condescensions, and demand 
 dues. Very well. They are doubtless conscien- 
 tious. If I thought as they do, I should proba- 
 bly act as they do. Only I do not. 
 
 Even if this courtesy were a kind of quid pro 
 quo, — a superfluity given for an essential taking 
 5 G 
 
98 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 away, — a Roland of kindness, thrust upon us for 
 an Oliver of right, fraudulently kept back, — why, 
 I am afraid I must make the ignoble confession 
 that I — believe — I like the Roland better than 
 the Oliver, — that is, if we cannot have both, — 
 if rights preclude courtesy. It is pleasanter, or, 
 as Englishmen would say, "jollier," to sit by the 
 flesh-pots of Egypt, than to starve legally in the 
 / promised land. Women would better improve 
 the rights they have, a little more, before going 
 mad after others that they know not of. It 
 seems to me that I have business enough on my 
 hands now to occupy three persons at least ; and 
 if men will be so good as to do the law-making, 
 and stock-jobbing, and bribing, and quarrelling, 
 and stump-speaking, I will be greatly obliged to 
 them. It will give them employment, and take 
 them off our hands -for a good part of the day, 
 which is very convenient. As the big man said, 
 when asked why he let his little wife beat him, 
 " It amuses her, and it don't hurt me." 
 
 This is not at all heroic, I know ; and I sup- 
 pose, if there was the least probability that any- 
 thing would ever come of it, I could work my- 
 self up to the proper pitch of indignation, and 
 prefer a crust of bread and the right of suffrage 
 to enjoying the pleasures of slavery for a season. 
 But Plato says it is an awful gift of the gods that 
 we can become used to things ; and I have be- 
 come so used to this, that, notwithstanding an 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 99 
 
 occasional spasm, really I am — pretty well, thank 
 you, hut — 
 
 I do not believe that the stream of kindness, 
 Avhich flows so continually from men to usward, 
 has any such polluted source. It is not under- 
 hand, as some would have us believe, nor sinis- 
 ter. Men do not systematically oppress us. They 
 mean well, only they are a little thick-headed. 
 As soon as they see their way clear, they will 
 walk in it. Meanwhile comes in this involun- 
 tary outgushing, this innate nobility of soul, this 
 germ of the possible angel, which I pray God 
 may spring up, and bud and blossom into glori- 
 ous fruitage. Am I enthusiastic? I have a 
 right to be. A nation of men loyal, not to grace, 
 beauty, magnificence, but to womanhood, to the 
 highest impulses of fallen human nature, to the 
 love element of the universe, is a thing to be 
 enthusiastic about. " I will indulge my sacred 
 fiiry." 
 
 I have somcAvliere read that, in a part of the 
 Jewish worship, the men say, " I thank thee, O 
 God, that thou hast not made me a woman " ; 
 and the women devoutly and meekly follow, " I 
 thank thee, O God, that thou hast made me as 
 it pleased thee." The first is the language of 
 nature, the second of grace. The first is physi- 
 ology, and impracticable to us ; the second, phi- 
 losophy, and attainable. Let us take courage. 
 
 From the confession of faith which I have 
 
100 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 made, it will readily be inferred that I have no 
 petty spite to gratify, but that I, speak more in 
 sorrow than in anger when I say that men do 
 sometimes act like downright — persons devoid 
 of sense (dictionary definition of a word which I 
 refi'ain from using for courteous reasons), and it 
 really is necessary to fall back on undisputed 
 proofs of their common sense in other matters, 
 to convince ourselves that this is only a mono- 
 stuUitia. 
 
 I do not blame men for not understanding 
 women. It is, perhaps, not in the nature of 
 things. Two organisms so delicate, yet so dis- 
 tinct, — so often parallel, yet so entirely integral, 
 — can perhaps never be thoroughly understood 
 objectively. But I do blame them for obsti- 
 nately persisting in the belief that they do when 
 they don't. Instead of going quietly on their 
 Avay, and letting us go quietly on ours, giving 
 and receiving help when it is needed, and stand- 
 ing kindly aloof when it is not, they are continu- 
 ally projecting themselves mto our sphere, putting 
 their officious shoulders to our wheels, poking 
 their prurient fingers into our pies. They seem 
 to have no idea that there is any corner of our 
 hearts so hidden that their halfpenny tallow-can- 
 dles cannot illuminate it ; and, at the first symp- 
 tom of doubt, the tallow-candles are accordingly 
 produced. Assuming that they are entirely con- 
 versant with woman's nature, conscious with all 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 101 
 
 their stolidity that there is friction someAvhere, 
 and perfectly confident that they can tinker us 
 up " as good as new," with the best of motives 
 and the clumsiest of hands, they begin forthwith 
 to hammer away, right and left, on the delicate 
 wheels and springs, till we are forced to cry out, 
 " Dear souls, we know you are good and honest 
 and sincere. You would die for us ; but your 
 fingers are all thumbs. Let us alone ! " Do 
 you think they will? Not they. Undaunted by 
 their want of success, apparently even uncon- 
 scious of it, they ding on doggedly, and if conti- 
 nuity, persistence, inflexibility, and a continual 
 harping on the same string, could have reformed 
 us, we should have been reformed into the seventh 
 heaven long ago. But God works by means. 
 Water does not spontaneously run up hill. No 
 combination of numbers can make two and two 
 equal five. The strength of Samson would not 
 enable a man to lift himself to the stars, bv pull- 
 ing at the strap of his boots. So the Conflict of 
 Ages goes on. 
 
 O, if those who are at such infinite pains to 
 teach woman her duties, and make her contented 
 with her lot, would but stop a moment to take 
 their reckonings, and compare notes ! " Go to, 
 brothers ; we don't seem to get on very fast. 
 There must be a screw loose somewhere. Let 
 us investigate." 
 
 Do I flatter myself that what I may say will 
 
102 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 have the slightest tendency to modify the views 
 or the practice of any one of my mascuhne read- 
 ers, should I be so fortmiate as to have any? 
 Not in the least. Though I speak with the 
 tongues of men and of angels, yet, of six men 
 who should do me the honor to read me, half a 
 dozen, invited to deliver an address at the anni- 
 versarv of a female boarding-school, would rise 
 slowly in their places, smile down a bland and 
 benignant compliment on the white-robed beauty 
 before them, and glide gracefully into an oily eulo- 
 gium upon woman's influence, her humanizing and 
 elevating mission, promulgating the novel and 
 startling theory that her power is in her heart, not 
 in her arm ; that she judges by intuition rather 
 than induction ; that her sphere is not on the 
 rostrum, but by the fireside ; that she is to rule 
 by love, not by fear ; — interspersing some vener- 
 able fling at woman's-rights conventions and their 
 stroncr-minded leaders, quoting with unutterable 
 pathos, 
 
 " I called her angel, but he called her wife," — 
 
 (Query: what right has any man to be calling 
 another man's wife angel ?) — and winding up 
 gloriously in a metaphoric convulsion. 
 
 Do you ask me, then, why I write ? Because 
 I know that I shall be read by girls, and, as we 
 have been told nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 times, the girls of this generation are to be the 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 103 
 
 mothers of the next, and I hope and believe that 
 the few crumbs I cast upon the waters will be 
 returned to me or mine after many days. 
 
 Boarding-sc^jool anniversaries are becoming a 
 part of our institutions, and the above outline is 
 no fancy sketch. I once heard a lecturer on 
 such an occasion introduce such an address with 
 the remark that he was left no choice. The sub- 
 ject was forced upon him by the nature of the 
 case ; and having thus apologized at the outset, 
 he immediately struck the trail, and came in at 
 the death handsomely. His voice was melodi- 
 ous, his accentuation perfect, his language ele- 
 gant, his manner refined. He did in the best 
 possible style what needed not to be done at all. 
 And he knew that it needed not to be done. 
 The very fact that he did apologize indicated that 
 he saw the necessity of apologizing. It was as 
 if he had said, " My dear girls, I know you are 
 bored to death with people's telling you what 
 your sphere is, but I must give the screw one 
 more twist. I pray you try to bear it ; for what 
 the mischief is a man to talk about, if not this?" 
 This would not have been dignified, but it would 
 have been frank. 
 
 But I take issue on the fact. There is a choice 
 of subjects. A man is not confined to this stupid 
 treadmill. Girls can understand and appreciate 
 a broader sweep of thought. One of the finest 
 public addresses I ever heard was on such an occa- 
 
104 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 sion. I have forgotten the defii\ite theme, hut it 
 treated of the cultivation of the beautiful, and, 
 strange to relate, there was not in it, as far as I 
 recollect, a single injunction to w^men to mind 
 their own business. Truth obliges me to confess 
 that, though all the good people admired it as very 
 beautiful, they all added, " but not appropriate." 
 In my opinion, however, it was appropriate. In- 
 stead of telling us to stop doing nothing, and 
 refrain from doing the wrong thing, he showed us 
 how to do a right thing ; and no matter if people 
 do find fault with a good lecture. It only proves 
 that their taste is weakened by long disuse, and 
 must be educated up to a higher level. 
 
 That villanous old woman-hater, Alexander 
 Pope, avenged himself for the unpardonable supe- 
 riority of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's wit to 
 his own, and her scornfiil and merry refusal of his 
 proffered love, — one shrinks from profaning the 
 sacred word by applying it to such mockery of 
 the divine passion, — by pattering rhymes against 
 the whole sex, as 
 
 " flatter too soft a lasting mark to bear, 
 And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair." 
 
 The men of to-day, with all their boasted pro- 
 gress, seem to have gone but a step farther. They 
 do indeed give us sufficient consistency to beai* 
 whatever impress themselves shall stamp, but 
 acknowledge no inborn power of self-development. 
 Singularly enough, there is a wonderful sameness 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 105 
 
 in all their stamps. If we were what men have 
 tried to make us, and only that, a man ><J his mark 
 would be set upon us with the uniformity of the 
 red cross on a flock of sheep. Now, if there were 
 in our seminaries only one class of girls, and that 
 a class reared in luxurious homes, and tempted by 
 mere surfeit of idleness into forbidden paths, there 
 would be more excuse for the monotone, though it 
 would still be utterly ineffectual ; but, collected as 
 our New England schools are, — and I am speak- 
 ing now of these particularly, — there is many and 
 many a girl in them who has come from a home 
 of poverty, some perhaps of ignorance, a few, 
 alas ! of vice. He who should be the stay and 
 honor of his family is its weakness and shame. A 
 frail girl, with a strong heart and a clear brain, 
 throws herself in the breach. She studies with 
 energy, purpose, and effect. She stands on the 
 threshold of womanhood, and turns to take a last 
 look at her girlish days. All the luring pictures 
 spread out by a poetical speaker her woman's 
 heart has already portrayed, and she knows that 
 she must resolutely shut her eyes, and turn away 
 from them. Maiden hopes, wifely trust, mother's 
 love, are not for her. The sacred privacy and 
 dear delights of home, 
 
 " The graces and the loves that make 
 The music of the march of life," 
 
 she gazes upon with tear-dimmed eyes and pale 
 lips ; for between them and her rises a sad vision, 
 
 5* 
 
106 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 — a care-worn mother tottering graveward, broth- 
 ers and sisters who will rush into rude, ignorant 
 and immature maturity but for her. Her path 
 lies straight, but very rough. Duty points with 
 stern finger, " This is the way, walk ye in it," 
 and Avith silent heroism she presses the thorn to 
 her heart, and gathers up her womanly robes, 
 trembling, but unwavering. Have you no word 
 for her ? You roll out musical periods, exhorting 
 her companions to be content with the love that 
 waits to receive them with open arms : can you 
 not speak a word of comfort to her for whom no 
 arms shall ever be outstretched ? Must she feel 
 herself exiled from man's sympathy, because a 
 man's sin forces her to assume a man's duty? 
 The poor ye have always with you, — the or- 
 phaned, the unfriended, the faint-hearted. They 
 stand alone, and see the jostling, eager, selfish 
 crowds go by, and draw back, shrinking and shud- 
 dering, but have no sanctuary from the throng. 
 Speak to them. Give them your sympathy. 
 Show them the dignity of self-respect. From 
 your wiser years and your larger experience, as- 
 sure them that a crown of thorns nobly worn shall 
 become a crown of rejoicing, to be cast before the 
 Lord. Strengthen the weak hands and confirm 
 the feeble knees, by telling them how duty is 
 greater than pleasure, integrity better than happi- 
 ness, and he alone rich who is " dowered with the 
 hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love." 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 107 
 
 O men, O brothers, you talk of woman's influence, 
 but you do not know your own. You cannot sus- 
 pect how much a true woman dreads your sarcasm, 
 who will yet, if need be, brave it unflinchingly, — 
 how priceless is your sympathy and approbation to 
 the heart that will yet throb just as highly without 
 it. Cease to exhaust yourselves on those Avhose 
 every step is watched and guarded by home affec- 
 tion, who face no sterner " duty than to give 
 caresses," who neither need nor heed your injunc- 
 tions, and turn to those whose weakness must be 
 consolidated into strength, and to whom your ap- 
 preciation Avould be as the breath of life. 
 
 Even those whom you do address are not bene- 
 fited thereby. Upon the young girl about to leave 
 school for her home of comfort and peace and 
 plenty, you inculcate the duty of making home 
 happy, because you think it is the most appropriate 
 thing you can do. Very well, if you will only tell 
 her how to do it. But you do not. You utter glit- 
 tering and sounding generalities. You are definite 
 in your directions only where her way is straight 
 ahead. You bid her minister to the wants of her 
 parents, to rock the cradle of their declining years 
 gently, to tend the couch of sickness, to supply the 
 wants of the poor, and be a useful member of 
 society. To what end ? All these things she is 
 forward to do. She dusts the parlor, sees that the 
 guest-chamber is aired, supplies the breakfiist-table 
 with flowers, reads to the one or two poor old 
 
108 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 women of the village, tends her garden, teaches in 
 the Sunday school, and — what then ? Half her 
 time remains on her hands. Her soul is full of 
 the nebulse of great thoughts, lofty purposes. Can 
 you help her resolve' them into perfect, self-radiant, 
 and radiating suns ? From the chaos, as yet with- 
 out form and void, will you teach her to evoke a 
 world of symmetry and beauty, which God the 
 Judge on the Last Day shall pronounce to be very 
 good ? You have a pleasant voice, and play well 
 on an instrument, but " How shall I make my life 
 noble ? " is her eager cry. " How shall I wrest 
 from every day the heroism that it holds ? What 
 shall I do with my Monday, and Tuesday, and 
 Wednesday, — with my June and September ? " 
 Can you answer her these questions? Can you 
 even mark off a section of the heavens, that she 
 may sweep with her telescope, to find the answer ? 
 , If you cannot, your words are as idle tales. You 
 might just as well repeat your lecture as gay nuns 
 do their prayers, — " Our Father, which art in 
 heaven, &c., &c., &c.. Amen." Of what con- 
 ceivable use is it to tell her that a woman's place 
 is the 
 
 " Sweet, safe comer by the household fire, 
 Behind the heads of children," 
 
 when the very clay of which the bricks are to be 
 made, with which the hearth is to be built, on 
 which the fire is to be kindled, around which the 
 children are to gather, behind whose heads she 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 109 
 
 is to hide, is not yet dug ! This mode of talking 
 is all wrong, — to some useless, to others abso- 
 lutely hurtful. I have not observed that American 
 girls are generally too coy. They do not, to the 
 best of my knowledge, evince any conventual epi- 
 demic, any unnatural repugnance to the society of 
 men, any accountable reluctance to assume the 
 duties of wife and mother. A respectable middle- 
 aged gentleman, of rare intellectual endowment 
 and excellent moral character, tells them, sono- 
 rously and seriously, that they will probably be 
 married one day, and they would better be getting 
 ready for it. He evidently thinks the sweet little 
 innocents never heard or thought of such a thing 
 before, and would go on burying their curly heads 
 in books, and sicklying their rosy faces with " the 
 pale cast of thought " till the end of time, if he 
 did not stir up their pure minds by way of remem- 
 brance. My dear sir, a good many of your art- 
 less hearers think of nothins; else from mornino; 
 till night. They talk of their wedding-ring long 
 before they can give you a definition of the circle 
 which is its form. They are firm believers in the 
 truth of the principle, that it is better to be ready 
 and not go, than to go and not be ready ; and they 
 have already decided to be married in church with 
 the Episcopal form, because it is so much more 
 impressive. To us who are behind the scenes, 
 and know all this, your exhortations sound, to say 
 the least, rather funnv ; and we cannot avoid the 
 
110 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 faintest soupgon of a suspicion that you are carry- 
 ing coals to Newcastle. 
 
 " Of all the blind fanatics in this perverse 
 world," says one writer, " your professed hater of 
 fanaticism is the most inveterate and conspicuous ; 
 of all agitators, your determined foe to agitation 
 is the most pestilent and eflPective. Many an ex- 
 citement has been kept up long after it would have 
 died a natural death, by the wrong-headed hostility 
 of those who had determined and proclaimed that 
 it should be suppressed instanter."" These men 
 have profound faith in the vis inertics. Like the 
 dog Noble, they believe that a squirrel once in 
 a hole cannot by any possibility have got out 
 again. If Avomen are ever caught doino; a fool- 
 ish thing, men evidently fancy that they must be 
 keeping up a steady doing it. Many years ago, 
 women compressed themselves suicidally in steel 
 and whalebone, and, though the custom is dead 
 and buried beyond all hope of resurrection, there 
 are men not a few who will go down to their 
 graves in the firm belief that women are killing 
 themselves off by thousands with tight lacing 
 Here and there a foolish girl is said to have been 
 found on damp pavements with thin shoes. Cor- 
 ollary : no end of homilies on the folly and wick- 
 edness of sacrificing health to beauty. A handful 
 of women have occasionally amused themselves by 
 thrusting a long stick into the mud-puddle of so- 
 ciety, and forthwith what a hubbub among the ani- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. Ill 
 
 malculne ! Fie ! fie ! Do men really believe that 
 the mass of women are possessed with an insane 
 and insatiable desire to distinguish themselves be- 
 fore the world? Nothing is farther from the truth. 
 A decade of years may perhaps produce as many 
 women who see fairer pictures than in the house- 
 hold fire, who find sweeter music than the lisping 
 voice of childhood, but such cases are very rare. 
 On the contrary, women need to be roused rather 
 than repressed. They are far too apt to be con- 
 tent with small attainments and ignoble ends. 
 This woman's rights aoitation is but the natural 
 reaction from frivolity, aimlessness, inanity. It is 
 only a move too far in the right direction, or rather 
 an injudicious means to compass worthy ends. I 
 can far more readily sympathize with those who 
 are, blindly and blunderingly it may be, but hon- 
 estly, endeavoring to right the wrong, than with 
 those who weakly acquiesce. When such things 
 as these happen without comment, — that a school 
 for boys and girls is changed into one for girls 
 only, the boys being removed with their " excel- 
 lent and efficient Principal " to another, and the 
 girls remaining behind with their female assistant, 
 who receives less than half the salary of her male 
 predecessor, — when a father on his death-bed is 
 allowed by law to bequeath the only child of his 
 wife to strangers, and that child is torn from her 
 widowed bosom, and all her prayers and tears 
 and agony of love are of no avail, — do you won- 
 
112 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 der that a woman can help thinking, if she has 
 any think in her ? And if she be a woman of 
 energy, accustomed to act as well as think, and 
 if the men around her be stupid or indifferent, 
 is it strange that, with her burning sense of wrong, 
 her woman's intense hatred of injustice and sym- 
 pathy with the oppressed, she should herself strive 
 to redress the grievance ? And if so be the reins 
 shall slacken in her imwonted hand, — if her 
 feeble fingers essay in vain to stay her steed of 
 heaven, — if, on the sharp thorns or jagged rocks 
 of some untrodden mountain-side, you shall see 
 her womanhood lie, bleeding, shattered, formless, 
 — you may weep and wail, but — mock, if you 
 dare ! 
 
 They, therefore, are right — right in their prem- 
 ises, though wrong in their conclusions — who 
 dolefully affirm our Female Conventions and things 
 of that ilk to be the sad results of our free society. 
 They are the results of free society ; just as the 
 smoke and soot and cinders belched forth by 
 George Stephenson's first locomotive engine were 
 the results of the practical application of a great 
 principle, — the might of matter quelled by the 
 might of mind. But just as the more perfect 
 elucidation of that principle converted this very 
 smoke and soot into a motive power, so will free 
 society, when it has learned wisdom, turn all this 
 surplus activity into its proper channels, and make 
 all things work together for good, — which is God. 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 113 
 
 Newspaper readers will perhaps remember a 
 statement, originating, I am sorry to say, in Mas- 
 sachusetts, but copied by our enlightened free 
 press as accurately, extensively, and intelligently 
 as a flock of sheep follow their leader over the 
 gap in a stone fence. I am sorry that I cannot 
 give the paragraph exactly ; the writer seemed to 
 have bovmced suddenly against the fact, that there 
 are not so many marriages in the country as there 
 used to be, and ought to be. Being greatly exer- 
 cised thereby, he casts about for a cause and a 
 remedy for this deplorable state of things. In a 
 fi'enzy of haste, he seizes his cudgel, and bangs 
 away at Avhatever comes within his reach ; and, 
 as he could not walk up and down the fine old 
 high street of his native city without seeing troops 
 of handsomely-dressed women, he " falls to " upon 
 female extravao;ance. " I have found it ! I have 
 found it ! " he cries with ill-concealed exultation ; 
 and his sorrow for the fact is for a moment over- 
 powered by raptlire at his own sagacity in discov- 
 ering it. " It costs so much to support a wife, 
 that is the reason why the young men don't marry. 
 They feel that they must wait till their income 
 is enough to maintain a wife in the style to which 
 she has been accustomed. Girls think they must 
 begin where their mothers leave off," &c. The 
 mother, too, receives her share of the blame, and 
 generally the lion's share ; for it somehow happens 
 in almost all these jeremiades, that the father comes 
 
114 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 off scot-free. Then statistics are duly produced 
 to show the quantity of silks, laces, velvets, and 
 feathers yearly imported, and the whole ends with 
 a dismal groan over the degeneracy of the nine- 
 teenth century, and a prolonged howl for the mel- 
 ancholy prospects of the twentieth, in case there 
 should be any twentieth. 
 
 Now this is an elevated way of treating tlie sub- 
 ject, is it not ? Are we not placed in a dignified 
 position ? They come to us with a silk in one 
 hand, and a husband in the other, — " Which will 
 you choose? You can't have both. Come, now, 
 there 's a dear, wear calico, and it shall have a 
 nice little husband, so it shall." Girls, don't do 
 it ! There are thousands more women than men 
 in New England, and the chances are that you 
 lose both husband and dress. The husband if 
 you can, but at any rate make sure of the silk. 
 It is your duty to dress as well and look as pretty 
 as you can, consistently with your other duties. 
 You are to be guided by what is right, not by 
 what a rabble of men may like. And, above all 
 things, don't retrench because men threaten not 
 to marry you unless you do. Just let them try 
 it, and see who will hold out the longest. 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, the statement is false, 
 — at least to this extent, that women are, if any- 
 thing, less extravagant than men. They dress up, 
 not down, to their fithers', and brothers', and 
 husbands' wishes. I do not believe there is one 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 115 
 
 woman in five hundred in New England, who, 
 if frankly informed of the sources and amount of 
 her husband's income, would not cheerfully and 
 handsomely bring her expenses within it. Women 
 do undoubtedly spend a great deal of money ; 
 but if their fathers or husbands give it to them 
 to spend, why should they be blamed ? How 
 many foilures, I beg to know, have been laid on 
 the shoulders of women the last few years ? But 
 when the numbers are counted up and handed 
 in, will the statistician be so good as to tell us in 
 how many cases the husband had been in the 
 habit of making his wife conversant with the state 
 of his affairs, — how many times the wife knew, 
 or had any means of knowing, what the amount 
 of her expenses for the year ought to be. 
 
 There are very few men "who are capable of tell- 
 ing whether a woman is extravagant or not. It 
 is very dangerous to attempt to judge the cost of 
 her dress from its appearance. It is not the most 
 showy things that cost the most, nor the most sim- 
 ple that cost the least. It is not the most ele- 
 gantly, not even the most richly-dressed woman, 
 who runs up the highest bill. I know women 
 who tread royally in satin and velvet, who enter- 
 tain magnificently, and give generously, who yet 
 can economically, and do merrily, spend hour 
 after hour in making mosquito-bars, covering otto- 
 mans, putting locks on doors, upholstering old 
 chairs quite " as weel's the new," mending sewing- 
 
116 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 machines, and by thousands of ingenious and 
 happy devices saving money from animal wants, 
 to spend it in generous, intellectual, and social 
 pleasures. If your lady-love's dress does not of- 
 fend yonr taste, my fine fellow, never trouble 
 yourself about its price ; for the flounces which 
 make you so uneasy are seven years old, and 
 redeemed from a dress which her mother cast 
 off when she went into mourning ; — the velvet 
 basque, which you must allow to be very becom- 
 ing, is the joint product of two worn-out cloaks 
 of her sisters ; — the bonnet was made by herself 
 from a lace veil that has been in the family for 
 years, and all the while she was pricking her soft 
 fingers over it, she smiled unconsciously at the 
 thought of pleasing your eyes ; and this is all the 
 thanks she gets for it. Insensate ! Look at her 
 face. Is it blank? To her conversation. Is it 
 stale, flat, and unprofitable ? Find out the stuff 
 of which she is made, — the texture of her soul. 
 If there is a jewel, wear it on your brow and in 
 your heart, though the casket be gold. If there 
 is a treasure, make it yours, though the vessel be 
 rarest Sevres China. If she does not love you 
 enough to prefer poverty with you to wealth 
 without you, her love is little worth. The fault 
 is not that her purse is full, but that her heart 
 is empty. You insult not womanhood merely, 
 but human nature, by supposing that the inci- 
 dents of life are more valuable than life itself. 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 117 
 
 You discover innate meanness in that you can 
 conceive of a love influenced by dollars and cents. 
 What kind of aftection, pray, is that which counts 
 the cost, and coolly compares chances ? If you 
 are a true man and she is a true woman, you will 
 so enfold her life, so fill her heart and her eyes, 
 that she will have no power to perceive any lack. 
 If you are not true, you have no right to marry 
 her or any one else. Begone ! 
 
 " But," moans our editor, " a man who finds he 
 has married a Avardrobe and a piano, and not a liv- 
 ing, loving woman, is most egregiously taken in." 
 Of course he is, and deserves to be. Why did he 
 marry the wardrobe ? Whose fault is it ? The 
 world was all before him. What right has any 
 man to marry a woman before he knows whether 
 she is a wardrobe or not, — where her dress ends 
 and her soul begins ? He has every opportunity 
 for knowing ; and if he does not choose to take 
 the trouble, let him not complain. He at least 
 has no cause to cry foul play. The game was not 
 even, inasmuch as his superiority gave him the 
 advantage ; and if a man finds himself check- 
 mated by a wardrobe, more shame to him, but 
 don't let him come whimpering to us for pity and 
 sympathy. I for one feel very much as did the 
 old woman witnessing, with arms akimbo, the con- 
 flict between her husband and a bear, " Go it, hus- 
 band ! Go it, bear ! I donH care toJdcJi beats I ^^ 
 
 " O, if parents in educating their daughters 
 
118 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 would but insist upon their having a reasonable 
 notion of what it is to be a wife, rather than upon 
 a smattering of French, and a little thrumming 
 upon the piano, there would be such a revolution," 
 continues our disconsolate author. (I should like 
 first privately to put the question, whether any 
 man ever wrote upon any subject connected with 
 woman, Avithout being sure, somewhere in the 
 course of his article, to trot out that unflago-ing 
 piano. I have heard many musical performances 
 in my day, but I never was so tired of hearing 
 any girl thrum upon a rosewood instrument, as 
 I am of hearing men thrum on this imaginary 
 one.) But what do you mean, you talkers and 
 writers, in saying that girls should be educated to 
 be Avives and mothers ? Is not a wife a woman ? 
 Is there any special course of instruction to be 
 followed ? Is not that education the best which 
 most fully develops every power, — moral,, mental, 
 and physical ? Womanhood is greater than wife- 
 hood. It comprehends and embraces it. The 
 best woman will make the best wife. If the mind 
 of a woman is dwarfed, and her faculties weak- 
 ened by disuse, she will be an inefficient wife, 
 because she is an inefficient woman. If, on the 
 other hand, her mind is trained, her judgment 
 cultivated, her powers developed, she will b'e ade- 
 quate to any emergency as woman or wife. Soul 
 is stronger than circumstance. If a girl is a fool 
 in silks, will she be any the less a fool in calico? 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 119 
 
 Does a feeble, frivolous nature grow strong and 
 self-reliant, by being transferred from a palace to 
 a cottage. What folly is this ? Let girls be 
 taught to make the most of themselves. Let 
 them fulfil present duties, and the future will 
 take care of itself She who walks grandly as a 
 woman will not Avalk unworthily as a wife. She 
 who stands upright alone, will not drag her hus- 
 band downward. She who guides her own life 
 wisely and well, will not rule her household with 
 an erring hand. Familiarity with the details of 
 domestic management will be a help, but want 
 of familiarity will not be an insurmountable ob- 
 stacle. 
 
 I lay this down as a self-evident proposition : 
 a woman of sense, married to the right man, can 
 do anything. 
 
 But you, O maidens and matrons beloved, you 
 are greatly to be blamed for this style of acting 
 and tone of thinking. You care too little to be, 
 and too much to seem. You must command, not 
 ask, respect. You must not complain of contempt, 
 so long as you are contemptible. There is no 
 power to keep you permanently below or above 
 your proper level. Li this great rolling sea of 
 society, you will sink or sw^im according to jour 
 specific gravity. If you are stupid and heavy, 
 plump you will go to the bottom where you be- 
 long. If you are light and empty, — no cargo, 
 no ballast, no rudder, — you will be tossed about 
 
120 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 by every eddy, aimless and useless, except as 
 the toy of an hour. You must be well pro- 
 portioned, well provisioned, with adequate ma- 
 chinery in good working order, if you would 
 ride the waves proudly and make your haven 
 successfully. Remember this. Whatever is done 
 for you must be done by you. All real improve- 
 ment must work from within outward. Woman's 
 incapacity is the only real barrier to woman's 
 progress. Whenever women show themselves 
 able, men will show themselves willing. This 
 is what you need, — strength, calibre. You do 
 not set half enough value on muscular power. 
 -(Esthetic young lady-writers and sentimental 
 penny-a-liners have imbibed and propagated the 
 idea, that feebleness and fragility are womanly 
 and fascinating. The result is, a legion of languid 
 headaches, an interesting inability to walk half 
 a dozen consecutive miles, a delicate horror of 
 open windows, northwest wind, and wholesome 
 rain-storms. There is no computing the amount 
 of charming invalidism following in the wake of 
 such a line as 
 
 " There is a sweetness in woman's decay," — 
 a lengthened sweetness long drawn out by some 
 compliant and imitative females. I do not, of 
 course, refer to real invalids, who have inherited 
 feeble constitutions, and, by unavoidable and often 
 unselfish and unceasing wear and tear, have ex- 
 hausted their small capital, and to whom life is 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 121 
 
 become one long scene of weariness and pain. 
 Heaven help them bear the burden ; and they 
 do bear it nobly, often accomplishing what ought 
 to make their ruddy and robust sisters blush for 
 shame at their own inefficiency. I mean women 
 who have every opportunity to be healthy, but 
 who are not healthy, — who are sick when it is 
 their duty to be well. A woman of twenty, in 
 comfortable circumstances, ought to be as much 
 ashamed of being dyspeptic as of being drunk. 
 Fathers and mothers, burdened with cares and 
 anxieties, may neglect physiological laws without 
 impugning their moral character ; but for a girl, 
 care-free, to confess such an impeachment, is pre- 
 sumptive evidence of gluttony, laziness, or igno- 
 rance, and generally all three. This is not ele- 
 gant language, I know ; but when we have learned 
 to call things by their right names, we shall have 
 taken one step towards the millennium ; and it 
 is nn indisputable fact, that a great majority of 
 ailments arise from over-eating and under-exer- 
 cising. The innumerable hosts of nervous diseases 
 with which our women are afflicted are always 
 aggravated, and often caused, by these indulgences. 
 Women do not know this, and if they did, it 
 w'ould be of little use, so long as they consider 
 illness one of the charms of beauty. Let the idea 
 once get firm hold, that illness is stupid and vulgar, 
 and a generation or two — nay, even a year or 
 two — would show a marked chano;e. If a woman 
 
 6 
 
122 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 is ill, let her take it for gi'antecl that it is her 
 first business to get well, and let her forthwith set 
 about it. A good stout will, a resolute purpose, 
 would work wonders. " Few persons like sick 
 people," says Charles Lamb ; " as for me, I can- 
 didly confess I hate them." Whatever poetasters 
 sing, you may depend upon it, a good digestion 
 is " an excellent thing in a woman." 
 
 Health once re-established, let women next di- 
 vest themselves of the idea that moral w^eakness is 
 an essential attribute of a well-developed charac- 
 ter. It is a pandering to masculine prejudices 
 with which I have no patience. If there is any- 
 thing more disagreeable than your strong-minded 
 women, it is she who denounces them to ingratiate 
 herself with men, — who obtrudes herself as not 
 being one of them. Whenever prominent Avomen 
 are made the subject of conversation by men, if 
 there is a possible peg in their character or course 
 on which a commendation can be hung, be sure you 
 hang it. Scold them or spurn them jirivately as 
 much as you think they deserve, but defend them 
 publicly as much as you can. Scorn the meanness 
 of striving to attract men's admiration by affecting 
 little weaknesses. "I dislike to travel alone," 
 said a young lady ; " I always feel as depend- 
 ent as a child." Dependent on what ? Whom ? 
 How? It is exceedingly disagreeable to be obliged 
 to sit on the same seat with a person who evident- 
 ly does not believe that man is an amphibious ani- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 123 
 
 mal. It is not pleasant to elbow your way through 
 a mob of vociferous hackmen. You feel safer and 
 far more comfortable to be under the care of a good 
 traveller; but that the necessity of independent 
 and intelligent action should produce a feeling of 
 dependence, indicates an unsoundness somewhere 
 which should be looked after at once. I know no 
 risks in ordinary travelling so great that one should 
 pi'efer an indifferent companion to one's own soci- 
 ety. I do not believe men apotheosize this amiable 
 incapacity to the extent supposed ; but what if they 
 do ? God does not. He gave every muscle and 
 nerve, every power and faculty, to be used. He 
 never intended that we should effervesce in a sigh, 
 or collapse to a shadow. If men think so, it only 
 shows that they need, as the Brahmin said, " to 
 have a little more intellect put into them." 
 
 The old oak quivers through all its tremulous 
 leaves at the passing of the softest summer breeze ; 
 but deep hidden in the heart of its greenness flows 
 its sap of life ; and away down under the ground 
 spread out its roots of strength; and it stands the 
 storms of a hundred years ; nor does it murmur 
 out a less delicious music in June, because the 
 skirring blasts of December have no power to de- 
 stroy. They make a great mistake, who think a 
 strong, bi'ave, self-poised woman is unwomanly. 
 The stronger she is, the truer she is to her wo- 
 manly instincts, — the more unswervingly does she 
 point to the mysterious pole-star of her woman- 
 
124 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 hood. A feeble soul loves, hates, wills, feebly. 
 It is only those who have borne the burden and 
 heat of the day who know the blessedness of the 
 evening-tide. It is only those who have walked 
 well, unsiistained, who fully appreciate the unut- 
 terable happiness of leaning on a stronger arm. 
 Love is like the cholera, dysentery, and other 
 acute diseases. An emaciated, sickly nature takes 
 it lightly, and recovers quickly ; but with your 
 generous, hearty, healthy, robust, vigorous souls, 
 it goes hard. Ten to one if they ever recover ; 
 and when they do, they bear the scars for life. 
 Do not, therefore, fear to be too strong. Be not 
 afraid to grapple with the higher mathematics, lest 
 you should be called strong-minded. " Sir ! " 
 thundered the rhinoceros-hided Ursa Major of the 
 eighteenth century, " what harm does it do a man 
 to call him Holofernes ? " What harm, indeed, 
 in beino; called strong-minded ? It is better than 
 weak-minded. Do whatever you think, on ma- 
 ture deliberation, you ought to do. " Be sure you 
 are right, and then go ahead." Never mind what 
 men think about it. I do not mean that you are 
 not to try or to wish to please them. It is both 
 natural and proper. But do it honestly and open- 
 ly. Have a benevolent desire to give pleasure, 
 and it is very probable that the innocent desire to 
 please will be gratified. If you cannot please 
 without being false to yourself, you wovild better 
 displease. Admiration gained by slurring over 
 
3IEN AND WOMEN. 125 
 
 your convictions, or refraining from having any, is 
 dearly bought. Best of all, take no thought of 
 pleasing. Have no anxiety about it. Make your- 
 self worthy of love, admiration, reverence, and 
 you will always hold trumps. 
 
 " Woman's devotion " is another theme which 
 has been run into the ground. Orators extol it. 
 Editors paragraph it. Poets rhyme it, and women 
 exemplify the old proverb, " Give a dog a bad 
 name, and kill him." But devotion, of itself, has 
 no moral character. It is simply stickiness, shared 
 in common, and to a far greater degree, by oysters, 
 molasses, blood-suckers, court-plaster, and office- 
 seekers. Intelligent, voluntary devotion — devo- 
 tion to a great principle endangered, to justice 
 though obscured, to nobility though persecuted 
 
 — is good. But a discerning public utters devout 
 moral reflections over a wife's devotion to her 
 scamp of a husband. He commits theft, and is 
 thrown into prison ; he is unkind and brutal in his 
 treatment of her ; or he is coolly indifferent to her 
 happiness, and alive to the charms of other women, 
 
 — but still she clings to him with all a woman's 
 devotion. 
 
 Now I beg to ask this question. When a 
 woman marries, what does she marry? Is it a 
 coat, moustache, and umbrella ? If it is, then so 
 long as the coat, moustache, and umbrella are 
 extant, she does well to devote herself to them 
 with constancy and fervor. But if, as is popu- 
 
126 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 larly supposed, she marries a soul, a heart, a 
 character, then, when she discovers that the soul 
 rung false, the heart is not there, and the char- 
 acter assumed, I do not see what there is to cling 
 to, nor Vhere is the merit in clinging. You 
 love what you think a man is, not necessarily 
 what he is. You cherish reverently a lock of 
 hair, because it once shaded the brow of an ab- 
 sent friend ; but when you find that you have 
 been deceived, and that it is only from the head 
 of Tom, Dick, or Harry, who happened to be 
 tonsured at the same time and place, you cast it 
 from you in disgust. We admire Satan, appear- 
 ing to us as an angel of light ; but when the 
 horns protrude, shall we still cling to them with 
 woman's devotion ? Heaven forbid ! Do I then 
 aver that a woman may break away from her 
 marriage vows so soon as she becomes dissatis- 
 fied with her husband? No more than I would 
 advise you to burn down your house because it 
 is not built according to contract. You may 
 alter it if you can, and if not, you must make the 
 best of ,it as it is. But you need not admire and 
 extol it, just as it would have been right for you 
 to do if it really were what you wished and 
 planned it to be. A woman judges wrong in 
 the chief incident of her life. She makes a mis- 
 take, whose consequences are far-reaching, and 
 very deplorable, but she must bear them. Her 
 husband's neglect or refusal to fulfil his part of 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 127 
 
 the contract does not justify her non-fulfilment 
 any further than is necessary. I say than is ne- 
 cessary^ for the promise is of such a nature that 
 I do not see how it is in her power to keep the 
 whole of it, and, consequently, what is the pos- 
 sible use of making it. She vows to love, honor, 
 and obey ; but love and honor do not depend on 
 the will. You cannot love a man if he has not 
 the qualities Avhich inspire love, nor honor him 
 when he ceases to be honorable. God, it is true, 
 commands vis to love him ; but his character is 
 such that it needs only to be considered to be 
 adored. Man is a long way from Divinity, and 
 our feelings towards him cannot be bespoken be- 
 forehand. They are entirely contingent on his 
 deserts, which are variable. Therefore, a woman 
 promises to do what is quite beyond the sphere 
 of her volition, and she can neither keep nor 
 break her promise. But for her OAvn soul's sake 
 she must maintain her integrity. She must be 
 faithful and just and gentle and blameless. If 
 she does more than this, — if she is so unfortu- 
 nately constituted that she still prostrates herself 
 before the fi'agments of her broken and debased 
 idol, — she is to be pitied. She is not to be 
 praised. 
 
 For a grand nature in ruins we may have a 
 mournful and tender reverence. For a nature 
 which we thought grand, but which proved to 
 be petty, we have only contempt. 
 
128 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 This idea of devotion is sometimes carried to a 
 most unreasonable, unjust, and miscliievous extent. 
 
 John Jones and Sarah Smith played together 
 when they were little children, and took sleigh- 
 rides tog-ether when they had become great chil- 
 dren. He has given her innumerable ribbons 
 and flowers and candies, and she has worked 
 him a watch-case, a guard-chain, and a pair of" 
 slippers. Of course, they are " engaged." So 
 says the world of Onionville, and so, very likely, 
 they think themselves. At least, they have as 
 yet formed no higher ideas of happiness than to 
 gather flowers and work watch-cases for each 
 other all their lives long. Presently John's 
 father removes to the city, and John goes to 
 school, and' subsequently to college, and then to 
 a theological seminary. All this while he cher- 
 ishes a beautiful and fragrant memory, and looks 
 forward with a young man's ardor to the time 
 when boyish and girlish fancy shall be moulded 
 into mature and undying love. In the mean 
 time his mind becomes cultivated by reading and 
 study, his manners polished by mingling with 
 beauty and refinement. He visits his early home, 
 and rushes into the presence of Sarah Smith. 
 What? Is that Sarah Smith? Is that girl in a 
 green and blue broad-striped de laine dress, with 
 a bright plaid ribbon pinned round her neck, and 
 a silver w;atch, — is that the fair dream he has 
 borne in his heart these years ? To be sure there 
 
MEN AXD WOMEN. 129 
 
 are rosy cheeks and bright eyes and a buxom 
 lass; but — but — alas! poor John. He has 
 shrined her in the secret chambers of his sonl so 
 long, but his soul-love grew with his growth and 
 strengthened with his strength, and Sarah Smith 
 did not. Walking alone by the river-side where 
 he so often walked with her, " What shall I do ? " 
 is the question that ever and ever recurs. He is 
 disappointed and miserable. Like too many of 
 us, he finds his idol is but common clay, — very 
 common. His, happiness is turned to cinders, 
 ashes, and dust. Is she to be the " angel of the 
 house " ? Is hers the delicate ethereal nature 
 which is to bear him on the white wings of love 
 up beyond his lower level? Will she help him 
 to be true to himself, to his country, to his God ? 
 Aside from himself, can he make her happy? 
 Will she not see enough of the disparity between 
 them to be discontented and uneasy? Will she 
 not be entirely out of her sphere in the circle of 
 his educated and accomplished friends ? The 
 thouoht makes him hot and nervous. He be- 
 comes restless, dissatisfied, and cannot sleep o' 
 nights. Finally, after much debating and many 
 struggles, he decides that their futui'e paths must 
 diverge, and he tells her so very gently and ten- 
 derly. She has felt the same thing all along. 
 She knows there is something in him to which 
 she cannot respond. She feels that a change 
 has been going on during the years of their sep- 
 
 6* I 
 
130 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 aration, and that they cannot make each other 
 happy. They part friends. She reverences his 
 superiority. He respects her good sense. When 
 he is gone, she goes to her own room, has a 
 " good cry," almost wishes she were safe in 
 heaven, but finally thinks she would, on the 
 whole, prefer to wait till her little brothers are 
 grown up, and on the strength of this postpone- 
 ment goes to bed and to sleep, — is paler than 
 usual for a while, but her voice soon recovers 
 its tone, her cheek its color, her step its elastici- 
 ty, and anon she is as merry as before. 
 
 Well, what of it? Nothing, if you would only 
 let them alone ; nothing whatever. But you 
 won't, — busy, prying, inquisitive, meddlesome, 
 mischief-making neighbor that you are. You 
 think John left town rather suddenly, and you 
 fancy Susan is a little low-spirited ; and because 
 Satan can find nothing else for your idle hands to 
 do, you put this and that together, and saunter 
 over to Mr. Smith's, determined to ferret out the 
 whole matter. You find Mrs. Smith alone. You 
 talk indifferently on indifferent topics. Sarah 
 comes in. You say, smilingly and carelessly, 
 (your look is a lie, for you are intensely interested, 
 and you want her to think you are not,) " Well, 
 Sarah, I suppose that handsome young minister 
 is going to carry you oflp pretty soon, according 
 to all appearances." (On the contrary, the only 
 reason why you came was that, according to all 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 131 
 
 appearances, you suppose no such thing.) Sarah 
 blushes, laughs an embarrassed little laugh, hesi- 
 tates a moment, and leaves the room. Her mother 
 says, quietly, " That is all given up." " There I, 
 thought so ! " leaps to your lips, but you do not 
 say it. You exclaim, " Do tell ! " as if you never 
 Avere so surprised in your life ; and though yovi do 
 not succeed in extractino; the details of the occur- 
 rence, you have in the simple fact sufficient capi- 
 tal to do a flourishing business ; so you blazon it 
 abroad in Onion ville ; and Onionville, nothing 
 loath, takes it up, and at every sewing-circle and 
 tea-party where the Smiths happen not to be pres- 
 ent, you discuss it in all its bearings. Poor John 
 Jones ! Every virtue is torn from him piecemeal, 
 till he stands before you a mere skeleton of vices ; 
 while Sarah Smith, in your transforming hands, 
 becomes an angel of light. " To keep company 
 with her when he was nobody, and cast her off 
 when he got his learning ! " indignantly exclaims 
 one. " Yes," chimes in a second, " he feels very 
 grand now, — too proud to take a woman who 
 knows how to work. He must have a city lady, 
 with her flowers and her flounces." " Well, let 
 him have her," says a third, " there '11 no good 
 come of it, mark my word. He '11 come to some 
 bad end. Never knew it to fail. There 's Captain 
 David, dismissed Lucy Perkins, and manned 
 Squire Willis's daughter. What with her board- 
 ing-school airs and high-flown notions, her pianos 
 
132 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and her gold chains, and her new cloak every 
 year, she soon found the bottom of the Captain's 
 purse. And there 's their sons now, what are they 
 good for? You'll see"; — and the good woman 
 shakes her head ominously. Now, kind-hearted 
 people, I respect your sympathy, but what is the 
 matter ? Why are you making all this ado ? Do 
 you really mean that you would have him marry 
 her ? Marry her in the gloom of that cloud which 
 darkened his being? Marry her, when between 
 his sold and hers there could be no real commun- 
 ion ? It is true, that, before he was able to read 
 his or her inner history, he deemed her all-suffi- 
 cient ; but, discovering his mistake, he would do 
 her irreparable wrong if he should allow her to 
 go on, unknowing and unsuspecting the discovery, 
 — irreparable wrong, to fulfil his promise to the 
 letter, when he cannot to the spirit, — irreparable 
 wrong, to stand up before God and man, and sol- 
 emnly promise love till death, knowing that at the 
 very moment the life of love is gone. Alas ! you 
 would consign her to a fate compared to which the 
 prospect of death is but a pleasing hope, — to the 
 cheerless, dreary, desolate doom of an unloved 
 and unloving wife. He is not to be blamed. The 
 fault, if fault there be, is hers, not his. She knew 
 that he was devoting himself to study, and rising 
 above his former rank, and she might have done 
 the same. The way was open to her, as to him. 
 But she preferred to go to huskings and quiltings, 
 
3IEN AND WOMEN. 133 
 
 to take care of the children, and do the daiiy 
 work ; — all very well, and quite proper, only she 
 must abide by the consequences. 
 
 But, in fact, what harm is done ? Her happi- 
 ness is not destroyed. This little incident is but 
 a pebble against the tide. In a year's time, the 
 rosy cheeks, the muscular arm, the lithe figure, 
 and the strong, elastic spirit, will bless the heart 
 and cheer the home of some thriving young farm- 
 er ; and a President and all his Cabinet may yet 
 be chosen from the healthy, ruddy faces that will 
 gather every morning round her wholesome and 
 plentiful table. Spare your pity. Of this happy 
 home she will be the centre and light and stay. 
 In this, her appropriate position, her faculties will 
 be brought into full play, her abilities shown to 
 the best advantage. Her many and active duties 
 will develop vigor of mind and of body. Keen 
 intellects and iron nerves, for many generations, 
 will rise up and call her blessed. Joined to one 
 whom she could not appreciate, nor by whom be 
 appreciated, — placed in a sphere for which she 
 was unfitted, and which she could not adorn, her 
 joyous, bounding, buoyant life would be checked, 
 and the poor country minister's wife, harassed, 
 careworn, pale, and meek, would go no pleasure 
 tour so swiftly as her own pathway to the tomb. 
 
 I am aware that this is only the bright side of 
 the picture. Every woman does not take the 
 matter so easily. It does not follow, however, 
 
134 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 that the gentleman is any more at fault, or that 
 the lady is any more aggrieved. She may be 
 only less sensible and humble. Instead of doing 
 with all her might whatsoever her hand finds to 
 do, the rich and petted Ida, after parting from 
 her equally rich and petted Mortimer, grows lan- 
 guid and languishing, weeps much, seems to have 
 lost all interest in affairs of the world, listens at- 
 tentively to discourses turning upon the instability 
 of all earthly friendships, but turns a deaf, ear to 
 music, except of the H Penseroso key. Doting 
 friends mourn over the crushed affections and 
 broken heart of the dear girl. 
 
 I know I am naturally cruel. Having no super- 
 fluity of heart myself, I am apt to make too little 
 allowance for an excess of it in others. But, 
 with all sincerity and kindness, I do believe that 
 in nine cases out of ten it is the pride that is 
 mortified, rather than the heart that is broken. 
 Ida knows that, to all intents and purposes, she 
 has been weighed in the balance, and found want- 
 ing. There may be no real justice in her feeling 
 so. She may be vastly superior to her lover. 
 Women generally are. But however that may 
 be, she knows that she stands before the world 
 as one who has given her all, and the gift has 
 been rejected. Barkis is not willin'. 
 
 Now if scorn and disdain were her style, you 
 would hear nothing of sighing and meanings ; but 
 she is not of that calibre, so she becomes gentle, 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 135 
 
 pensive, and interesting. I do not blame her for 
 her sorrow. I do, indeed, think it would be better 
 for her to consider that the man who, after six 
 months or a year of acquaintance, is not profoundly- 
 impressed with a sense of her superiority, cannot 
 be a man whose name she will be honored in as- 
 suming, and his memory, therefore, is unworthy 
 a regret. Still, if she choose to look at it objec- 
 tively rather than subjectively, from the world's 
 point of view rather than her own, very w^ell. I 
 only insist that she shall not insist uj^on our taking 
 her wounded self-love for a broken heart, — her 
 disappointment in not becoming the jewelled mis- 
 tress of a brown-stone palace, an army of negro 
 servants, and a coach and six, for the agony of 
 misplaced affections. For look you. Ida's anxious 
 parents, in view of her faltering tread and droop- 
 ing form, call a family council. The decree goes 
 forth that she must travel, and anon they bear 
 her hither and thither ; dip her in the surf at 
 Newport ; nauseate her with the waters at Sara- 
 toga ; deafen her with the roar of Niagara ; ener- 
 vate her with the voluptuous airs of the South ; 
 tone her up with the breezes of the Alleghanies. 
 After undergoing these sundry processes of resus- 
 citation, the whole business is " done up " in the 
 twinkling of an eye, by the sudden entrance upon 
 the stage of a rich, handsome, mustachioed cava- 
 lier, who is smitten by the " most musical, most 
 melancholy charms " of the fair sufferer, and not 
 
136 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 disenchanted by the excellent name that papa 
 bears on Wall Street. Mirth and gayety are re- 
 instated, a bridal veil closes the scene, and the 
 cracked heart is just as good as new. 
 
 You see I have little faith in dying for love. I 
 have, however, great ftiith in moping one's self to 
 death out of spite, or stubbornness, or false shame. 
 If I am wrong, I am sorry — or glad ; perhaps I 
 ought to be glad. At any rate, I am in just that 
 state of mind in which I ousht to be under the 
 circumstances. If I have injured any one's feel- 
 ings by my unbelief, I most humbly beg pardon. 
 I dare say I shall die of unrequited love myself 
 some day. It would be no more than strict poetic 
 justice. " Doubtless God might have made a bet- 
 ter berry than a strawberry, but doubtless God 
 never did." Doubtless there might be such a 
 thing as dying for love, but doubtless there never 
 (or seldom) was. In point of fact, there is not a 
 great deal of marrying for love. Not that I sup- 
 pose all marriages are mercenary. Far from it. 
 But people marry for a thousand things, — money 
 not only, but a home, beauty, genius, because oth- 
 ers do, because it is respectable, convenient, &c. 
 Some of these motives are objectionable, some per- 
 haps not. When a poor girl, after laying the worn- 
 out bodies of her father and mother in the grave, 
 sees no prospect before her but unremitting toil, 
 loneliness, poverty, and death in the dreary end, 
 and marries the kind old physician who has tended 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 137 
 
 her parents Avithout prospect of reward ; who has 
 been the witness of her assiduity, watchfuhiess, 
 generosity, good cheerful sense, and real worth, 
 and feels that she would shed upon his widowed 
 hearth something of the light of other days, I am 
 far from Warning her. She is not false to her 
 noblest nature, although perhaps, in the dreams of 
 )ier early and happy girlhood, his was not the arm 
 she looked to lean on. He will love her with a 
 fatherly love ; she will return it with grateful affec- 
 tion, and therefore her walk in life will be higher, 
 her ends nobler, her benevolence more expansive, 
 her womanhood better developed. Though the 
 ecstatic glow that flushed her morning sky, when 
 
 " Life went a-Maying, 
 With Youth and Hope and Poesy," 
 
 may have faded ; yet a calm serenity — " the sober 
 certainty of home-felt bliss " — will enwrap her in 
 a holy atmosphere, soft, hazy, and warm-tinted, as 
 the beautiful Indian-summer. 
 
 When a young man is captivated by the fall of a 
 graceful shoulder, or the twirl of a tiny toe, and on 
 the strength of it marches straightway to church, 
 and there promises to love and cherish, I shall not 
 forbid the banns : 
 
 " Honored well are charms to sell, 
 If priests the selling do " ; — 
 
 or, if more practical, and with an eye to the wind- 
 ward, he notes that the pretty silk is not new, but 
 simply colored, turned upside down, wrong side 
 
138 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 out, with new fringe and trimmings, and new 
 waist and sleeves, and bethinks himself how, under 
 such management, his narrow cottage walls would 
 stretch away into stately halls, — if he can secure 
 the fair artisan he is doubtless lucky. I do not 
 object. Their talk will be of bread and butter, 
 the baby's teething, and the price of turnips ; but 
 let them marry. I do say, however, — and am I 
 not right? — this is not that resistless tide, which, 
 gathering to itself the thousand streams that ripple 
 through the quiet meadows of life, sweeps suddenly 
 over the heart, bearing down all the old landmarks 
 of pride and prejudice ; not that raging and quench- 
 less fire which consumes the dross of selfishness, 
 and fuses into a glowing devotion every power, 
 thought, faculty, and purpose ; not that great, 
 deep, absorbing, passionate, deathless love, which, 
 having once passed into a soul, can go no more 
 out forever. 
 
 I could wish that women were happier. This 
 may appear a needless wish to those who look 
 only on the surface ; but below the smoothly- 
 flowing surface there is an undercurrent which 
 the world knoweth not of. There is a restless- 
 ness, an unuttered discontent, a vague longing, 
 which frets and wears away the cheerfulness and 
 happiness of life, particularly in the young. It is 
 involuntary, unsought, resisted, but all-powerful. 
 Ah ! the capacity for suffering that there is in 
 girls, — the capacity, too, for enjoying and for 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 139 
 
 acting. It is weighed and measured by those wlio 
 are armed for the conflict, gii-ded for the race, 
 but for -whom no conflict and no race ever wait. 
 It is the slow wasting away of powers that have 
 nothing to grasp ; the silent, subtle corrosion of a 
 heart turned in upon itself. O girls, everywhere 
 waiting and watching for a day that never comes, 
 I have seen you. I know you. I have followed 
 you through the dreary days that dragged their 
 slow leno-th along. I know how the tramp of the 
 monotonous years seems to you the dead march 
 of your young aspirations, — how the pulse of 
 your heart grows fainter and fainter, beneath the 
 swelling fountain of tears. 
 
 " Jly heart, and hope, and prayers, and tears, 
 Are all with you, are all with you," 
 
 and therefore I have a right to bid you take heart 
 and hope, for this very unrest is a sign. It is 
 the beating of your soul against its prison-bars. 
 It is a token from above, — a voice from the un- 
 seen world, bidding you come up higher. It tells 
 vou of a level you have not yet reached ; of ener- 
 gies not yet developed ; of a life not yet rounded 
 off to full perfection. Your soul is unconsciously 
 sending out feelers, and they find nothing to grasp. 
 The world is six thousand years old, but it has 
 not yet learned to use its resources. It knows 
 not what to do with you, and you know not what 
 to do with yourselves. Your pastors and teach- 
 ers exhort you to fear God and keep his command- 
 
140 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ments ; and you try to do it. But that does not 
 fill the void, does not stop the aching, nor soothe 
 the unrest. No, and it never will. People may 
 talk as much as they choose about the power of 
 religion, but it will not satisfy your hungry heart, 
 any more than it will your hungry stomach. God 
 has given to every appetite its appropriate food, 
 to every emotion its corresponding object. He 
 has given us means and ends, but we blindly work 
 at cross-purposes, and take wrong means for right 
 ones, making his word of none effect by our tra- 
 ditions. When we ask him for bread, he gives us 
 bread ; his children, in all kindness, but ignorantly, 
 give us oftentimes a stone. Do not reproach or 
 think meanly of yourselves for not being happy. 
 If you were absorbed in dress, visiting, pleasure- 
 seeking, you would have no discontent ; but would 
 it be better so ? If you were identified with any 
 great work, anything which could enlist your 
 whole being, you feel that it would be different ; 
 but women seldom have a great work to do. Their 
 work is great only in its results, in the spirit with 
 which it is done. It is a vast conglomeration of 
 little things. You are where God has placed you, 
 or suffered you to be placed, and for our purposes 
 now it is all the same. If, in truth as in poetry, 
 love could take up the harp of life, and smite 
 on all the chords with might, then this chord of 
 self would, trembling, pass in music out of sight, 
 and this would be better. This self-abnegation is 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 141 
 
 perhaps indispensable to womanly completeness. 
 Until this chord has been touched, there is no 
 diapason. The depths of the soul are unstirred. 
 There is a power lying waste, a fountain sealed. 
 No character can be perfect which is not symmet- 
 rical. You may, you ought to love Christ with 
 an overmastering love, but the two are entirely 
 distinct. One cannot take the place of the other. 
 Every earthly affection should indeed be baptized 
 in the heavenly, — but only baptized, not trans- 
 muted. I do not think God ever intended it 
 should be. 
 
 Have I found you a remedy ? No, certainly. 
 I have only pointed out what would be a remedy 
 if found, but no searching will ever bring it. It 
 comes unsought, if it comes at all. What good 
 have I done you, then ? None at all so far ; but 
 here is the point where I wish to utter a note of 
 warning. Here is where you are in danger of 
 mistaking the seeming for the real. Faint and 
 famishing, you will eagerly pluck the fair-looking 
 apple, and it will turn to dust and ashes in your 
 mouth. You would better have died of starvation. 
 Because God has made you so that love is your 
 life and bi'eath, and you pant and gasp without it, 
 you are not to inhale a foul malaria, under the 
 mistaken impression that it is mountain air. If 
 it be pure, the more you breathe of it the better, 
 only be sure it is pure. Therefore .do not love 
 indiscriminately. An over-ripe apple falls at the 
 
142 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 first gust, whether into lily-white hands or on the 
 unheeding ground. Do not you so ; nor be con-' 
 tent with a slight preference, — a pale, nerveless, 
 flickering, uncertain emotion, that brings as many 
 misgivings as heart-throbs. I have heard of girls 
 pausing on the threshold of an engagement, " at 
 a stand to know what to do " ! Never allow your- 
 self to be in such a position. If you don't know 
 what to do, it is the very strongest of all provi- 
 dential indications that you are to do nothing. 
 By all means, give yourself the benefit of the 
 doubt. " Friendship with all, entangling alliances 
 with none," is a good motto for women as well 
 as for nations. Faithfully adhered to, it will keep 
 you free from those little attachments which in- 
 sensibly but surely fritter away your power to form 
 a lasting and noble one ; while it will no more 
 prevent your soul from going out to meet its lord 
 and king, when his trumpet sounds, than the 
 seven green withes had power to restrain the He- 
 brew athlete when his spirit returned to him, after 
 its ignoble sleep on a treacherous bosom. 
 
 Do not affect a motive in love. It is not a 
 question of motive, but of fact. I have no faith 
 in marrying to do good. The end does not sanctify 
 the means. If you do all the good you can with 
 your own individuality, I do not believe God will 
 hold you responsible for anytliing more. Nor, in 
 my opinion, does the respectability of the sinner 
 diminish the enormity of the sin. I have known 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 143 
 
 missionaries, excellent men, buiy their poor wives 
 in Hindoo jungles, and return to America to re- 
 place them, just as madam sends for a China tea- 
 cup to replace the one broken by a careless ser- 
 vant. INIen and women combine with Nature to 
 abhor a vacuum, and the missionary's loss is often 
 far more easily made up than madam the house- 
 keeper's. Mysterious wheels, wires, and pulleys 
 are set in motion by a clique of mothers in Israel 
 behind the scenes, the result of which is, that some 
 unoffending, benevolent, and practical Miss Brown 
 finds herself suddenly precipitated, nolens volens, 
 (generally volens,^ into the arms of the good mis- 
 sionary ; — he congratulating himself on the suc- 
 cess of his business transaction ; she consoling her- 
 self that she has gained an excellent husband, and 
 done God service, thereby killing two birds with 
 one stone ; and the mothers aforesaid rejoicing in 
 their skilful matrimonial diplomacy. Now I affirm 
 that it is miserable business the whole of it. It 
 may be good manoeuvring, where all manoeuvring 
 is out of place. It is an unholy traffic, though all 
 the traffickers be members of an orthodox church 
 in good and reo'ular standing. It is transferring 
 to the head what comes under the jurisdiction of 
 the heart. The parties concerned may " live hap- 
 pily ever after," but they have no right to expect 
 it. Of course, if a woman marries a missionary 
 because she loves him, even though her love sprang 
 up on his first Transatlantic appearance as a wid- 
 
144 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ower, and goes to Boorioboola Gha with him, be- 
 cause she would rather do it than stay at home 
 without him, there is not the shghtest objection ; 
 she is quite right ; only let her say so honestly, 
 if she feel called upon to say anything. But when 
 she explains her marriage by enlarging on her 
 sense of duty, the poor little children who stand 
 in such pressing need of a mother's care, the 
 heathen who are perishing for lack of knowledge, 
 why then, I say, if these really are her motives, 
 she is wrong, — just as truly, though not perhaps 
 as greatly, wrong as she who follows the glitter 
 of gold. Let her take a lesson from Jane Eyre 
 and St. John, since she has failed to learn it from 
 her Bible. If the claims of the heathen urge her 
 so irresistibly, let her go to them untrammelled. 
 The cause of God is not so desperate that it needs 
 to be propped up by a falsehood. 
 
 Nor do I believe in marrying because, as I have 
 frequently heard alleged, a woman's nature is such 
 that she " must love somebody." In the first 
 place, the implied fact is a convenient little fiction. 
 There is no sort of necessity for your " loving 
 somebody." It may be very pleasant to do so ; 
 it may be very distressing not to do so ; but it 
 is not immediately fatal. Even if it were, never 
 mind. Remember Pompey's sublime words, " It 
 is necessary for me to go ; it is not necessary 
 for me to live." Death comes to all, and the 
 world does not need your bodily presence so much 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 145 
 
 as it neetls your moral heroism. If you die rather 
 than hve falsely, you will enrich it by one great 
 example. Moreover, granting that you " must 
 love somebody," does it inevitably follow that you 
 " must love " a grown man in possession of a re- 
 spectable yearly income ? Look abroad at the or- 
 phans, thousands upon thousands, fatherless, moth- 
 erless, to whom your love would be as the dew 
 of Hermon. Christ's little ones are all around 
 you, — the ignorant, the uncared-for, the outcast. 
 Lavish on them your irrepressible affection. The 
 sunshine of love might melt the ice in which their 
 better nature is incrusted, and warm into healthy, 
 •vigorous growth the wasting germ of many a virtue. 
 The idea, girls, the idea of sacrificing your whole 
 life to a so-so sort of person, for the sake of hav- 
 ing " somebody to love," in a world so full of 
 children that the most excruciating hand-organ 
 will in two minutes block up the sidewalk in any 
 portion of any city with admiring thi'ongs of white- 
 headed urchins ! 
 
 To marry for a home or for happiness is little 
 better. A home purchased by the sale of your- 
 self is a dear bargain, and happiness is the most 
 uncertain shadow you can pursue. It is inciden- 
 tal. It comes upon us unexpectedly ; but if we 
 set out determinately and definitely in pursuit of it, 
 it generally leads us into bogs and quagmires, 
 and leaves us there. 
 
 If, instead of promising to love and honor in 
 7 J 
 
146 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 the future, custom enjoined a woman, on her mar- 
 riage-day, solemnly to aver that she did at that 
 moment love and honor, I verily believe there 
 would be fewer mock unions. I think it would 
 be safer to let the future build itself, takino; care 
 to secure in the present a firm foundation, than 
 to take the foundation for granted, and proceed 
 prematurely to the superstructure. Many women, 
 conscientious, but vague, unaccustomed to make 
 distinctions, to know clearly the diiference between 
 one thing and another, after lono; hesitatino- and 
 vacillating, do finally zigzag their way to church, 
 and make the most tremendous promises, with a 
 misty kind of belief that they shall be able to 
 keep them when the indefinitely distant trial 
 comes, — who, if the plain question were put to 
 them point-blank, " Do you now love and honor 
 this man ? " could not find it in their hearts, and 
 therefore not in their consciences, to say " Yes," 
 and would thereby be saved from a lifetime of 
 suffering, perhaps of sin. Yet, I have heard a 
 Christian woman seriously advise her young friend 
 to accept a marriage proposal, because she " would 
 not he likely to do better. A superior ivoman must 
 not expect to marry her superior.'''' I have known 
 a gentleman write, " I advise you, if an intelligent, 
 truly Christian man, who really loves you, wants 
 you to marry him, to do so." And a highly moral 
 and religious community does not cease to warn 
 contumacious maidens of the danger of " going 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 147 
 
 through the woods, and picking np a crooked 
 stick at last." 
 
 There certainly are occasions on which, if you 
 cannot do as you would, it is quite proper to do 
 as you can. Nothing can equal a good sweet- 
 potato, yet you would be very foolish to throw 
 away mashed Irish ones, because the frost has 
 destroyed the more saccharine tuber. In default 
 of mashed Irish, roasted will have no mean flavor. 
 If the potato crop fails, " Boston brown bread," 
 fresh from the oven, will enable you to bear the 
 loss Avith philosophical resignation, and even boiled 
 rice, the most unpretending of all edibles, is better 
 than starvation. But a husband is not a potato, 
 and if you select him on the same principle, be not 
 surprised if you find him extremely indigestible. 
 
 " as the dove, to far Palmyra flying, 
 
 From where her native founts of Antioch beam, 
 Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing, 
 "Lights sadly at the desei't's bitter stream " ; 
 
 (Perfectly right in the dove.) 
 
 •' So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring, — 
 
 Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed, — 
 Suffei's, recoils, then, thirsty and despairing 
 Of what it would, descends, and sips the nearest draught," 
 
 and is refreshed and strengthened, just as the ship- 
 wrecked sailor is refreshed by the mocking salt 
 sea-water, which he bears in frenzy to his fever- 
 parched lips. 
 
 Do you now, seeing that I have dealt chiefly 
 
148 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 in negatives, ask me what shall be the token ? 
 My dear child, how can I tell? By just as many 
 girl's hearts as are throbbing this wide world over, 
 by just so many ways will love enter in and take 
 possession. Keep your eye single and your heart 
 pure, and you will not fail to recognize the heav- 
 enly visitant. The molecule of oxygen roams 
 lonely through the vast universe, yearning for its 
 mate, and finding no rest, till of a sudden it meets 
 the molecule of hydrogen in a quiet nook, when 
 lo ! a rush, an embrace, and there is no more 
 either oxygen or hydrogen, but a diamond drop 
 of dew sparkling on the white bosom of the lily. 
 So, I suppose, will it be with you, when you meet 
 your destiny. A flash, and it is all over. Your 
 heart is gone, your power is gone ; power over 
 your blood, that plays mad pranks in your cheeks, 
 — over your thoughts, that hover continually about 
 one spot, — over your memories that wake to music 
 only one string, — over yourself henceforth forever- 
 more, to be held in solution by a stronger nature 
 than your own. Unless your love comes upon 
 you thus, like a strong man armed, do not believe 
 in it. If you, in cold blood, give up your name, 
 your independence, your individuality, for a con- 
 sideration, whatever that consideration be, you 
 will be a wife only in name. Priestly blessing 
 cannot sanctify unholy contract. If you have 
 parted with your birthright, what matter whether 
 it was for a mess of pottage or a stalled ox ? 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 149 
 
 I know, therefore, of no reason why a Avoman 
 should marry, except because she cannot help it, — 
 because " the spirit of life which dwelleth in the 
 most secret chambers of the soul, all trembling, 
 speaks these words : ' Behold a god more powerful 
 than I.' " 
 
 If your love raises and exalts you, if it helps 
 you on your heavenward way, if it brings you 
 nearer to God, if it strengthens you to brave 
 endurance, stimulates you to heroic action, and 
 makes all greatness possible ; if, in one word, it 
 possesses itself of you, and sweeps you vip and out 
 from the finite to the infinite, as a wave bears 
 seaward the strong swimmer, powerless, — you are 
 safe. 
 
 If anythiri^ less than this satisfies you, if you 
 content yourself with a feeble, sickly sentiment, 
 that wilts in the sun and breaks in the storm, 
 your soul will surely sufiPer. An inferior nature 
 may waken feeling enough to blind you for a little 
 while. The cares and pleasures of a busy life may 
 twine their rank growth so closely as to hide from 
 you for a season the real barrenness of the soil 
 beneath. But from the one, twenty, forty years 
 that lie before you, shall be born a day on which 
 you will awake to know that you cannot give 
 without receiving back full measure, life for life. 
 And when your dream is dreamed out, you will 
 exclaim, more bitterly than the old dame of the 
 ballad, — 
 
150 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 " Yesterday I was the Lady of Linn, 
 And now I'm but John o' the Scales' wife." 
 
 Your demon of discontent, cast out for a while, 
 will return, with seven other spirits more wicked 
 than himself, and your last state shall be worse 
 than your first. 
 
 Better, a thousand times better, go wandering 
 all your life, than bring your household gods under 
 an unworthy roof-tree. 
 
 There is, then, a way that seemeth good, but 
 the end thereof are the ways of death. With this 
 you have nothing to do. 
 
 But settle the point clearly. Know just where 
 you stand. Have the boundary-lines accurately 
 defined. Be able to give a reason fdi" the hope 
 and faith that are in you. Missing i;he crowning 
 glory of womanhood, do not childishly depreciate 
 it. Do not try to persuade yourself or others that 
 you are at the utmost bound of the everlasting; 
 hills, quite in the promised land, when in fact you 
 only see it through a glass darkly. Meet the fact 
 boldly. Courage does not consist in feeling no 
 fear, but in conquering fear. Thei-e is no heroism 
 in marchins; blindfold through a thousand dangers. 
 He is the hero who, seeing the lions on either 
 side, goes straight on, because there his duty lies. 
 Acknowledge to yourself, " I am not happy. I 
 do not like my life. I must be capable of better 
 things. I am uneasy, restless, discontented." 
 Then, knowing exactly the state of your case. 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 151 
 
 apply to youi'self comfort and healing. Remem- 
 ber first tliat God reigns. Infinite power is wield- 
 ed by infinite love. The fatherly eye that sees 
 the sparrows as they fall, will not let you walk 
 in a random path. Life is a chain of sequences. 
 From the cradle to the grave — ay ! and beyond 
 it — stretch the series of cause and effect ; and 
 what thou knowest not now, thou shalt know 
 hereafter. 
 
 You are in a school carefully graded. When 
 you have passed your examination satisfactorily, 
 you will be promoted. Just as soon as you have 
 got all the discipline which your present circum- 
 stances have for you, you will be surrounded by 
 new. Just as soon as you are fitted for a higher 
 career, the gates will be flung wide open to you. 
 You can know exactly what is best for you only by 
 observing what is. You think you could do some- 
 thing better, something greater. Do you perfectly 
 accomplish everything that you undertake ? Until 
 you perform in the best possible manner every- 
 thing which it is at present your duty to do, you 
 have no right to complain of your contracted sphere. 
 Why reach out among the stars for a treasure 
 that lies at your feet ? Be faithful over a few 
 things, before you repine at not being made ruler 
 over many things. You may talk of opposing 
 friends, unfavoring circumstances, adverse fate ; 
 but circumstances are full of Divinity, planning 
 and directing. We are not the children of Fate, 
 
152 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 but the children of our Father in Heaven ; and 
 when the Heaven-appointed hour is come, fate, 
 friend, and circumstance vs^ill swell the tide that 
 shall bear us out triumphantly to the bosom of the 
 boundless sea. 
 
 Another thing remember. Threescore years 
 and ten are not the whole of life. We say that 
 we know it, but we act as if we knew it not. 
 With our lips we aflirm ; but with our lives we 
 deny. Blind and eager, we grasp for all our good 
 things now. We weep and moan and faint, be- 
 cause for a moment we are hungry and thirsty. 
 We forget that God has not put us in this world 
 to be happy, but to be trained. It is true that 
 there is a great deal of happiness thrown in ; and 
 we find it so delightful, that w^e are apt to sub- 
 stitute it for the real end of hfe, and mourn that 
 we cannot accomplish it ; which is as if children, 
 having feasted on their Christmas candy, should 
 cry to be fed on it all the year round. Life is 
 one combined and continuous process and proof. 
 Riches, poverty, happiness, miseiy, education, ig- 
 norance, are so many chisels to form and touch- 
 stones to try our characters. One substance stands 
 fire, another water. If you reverse the trial, it 
 is fruitless. One soul must be purified by pros- 
 perity, another by adversity ; one in society, an- 
 other in solitude. Who dare be so presumptuous 
 as to say, " This is not the right kind of test for 
 me. My character would be better developed 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 153 
 
 and ascertained in such and such circumstances." 
 " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " 
 You pant for activity and exertion. You are in- 
 genious, constructive, fertile in devices, skilful in 
 combination, rapid in execution. You want a 
 subject, a field, a career. Very well. Find one 
 or make one, if you can. Exert yourself to the 
 utmost. Move heaven and earth ; but, having 
 done all without success, decide conclusively that 
 your lesson is to be learned in another school, 
 and reflect peacefully that " they also serve who 
 only stand and wait." Bring this principle in 
 prematurely, and you will be an indolent, ineffi- 
 cient cumberer of the ground. Leave it out of 
 view entirely, and you will be a pricking, irri- 
 tating thorn in all sensible and sensitive flesh. 
 Apply it just at the right time, and the world 
 will be better for your having lived in it. 
 
 As for a little happiness, more or less, never 
 mind it. Be content to put it off. When the 
 Shekinah dwelt in the Holy of Holies, did the 
 high-priest note in passing that the porch of the 
 temple was shrouded in twilight? Believe what 
 you say you believe, that there is a life beyond 
 death. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy 
 cometli in the morning. It is only for a little 
 while. Can you not for a little while be brave to 
 bear and to do ? The fulness of joy, the perfec- 
 tion of beino- beloncp to another world. The secret 
 of contentment is not the gratification nor the cru- 
 7* 
 
154 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 cifixion of every right desire, but faith in their uki- 
 mate fulfihnent. 
 
 " He who sees the future sure, 
 The baffling present may endure." 
 
 If God. has happiness in store for you here, it \\\\\ 
 surely come ; you need not stir to find it. If he 
 has not, all effort is vain ; no movement of yours 
 will bring it. Therefore be calm. 
 
 Now, if you suppose that I wish to sublimate 
 you into an airy nothing, — a cross between the 
 patient Griselda and a Romish saint, I have only 
 to inform you that you are entirely mistaken. 
 Though I would have you depend chiefly for your 
 happiness on the next world, I would also have 
 you, by all means, make the most of this. It is 
 very certain that there is a heaven, but earth is 
 also a fixed fact. It may be very pleasant to die, 
 but for the present your especial business is to live ; 
 and if you can't be as happy as you would like to 
 be, be as happy as you can. Because you can't 
 get what you want, don't throw away what you 
 can get. Squeeze out of the world all the juice 
 there is in it. It is a mistake to suppose that you 
 must be either at the brow or at the foot of the 
 hill. There are many steps between, some of 
 which command a charming view, and all a new 
 horizon. Because you are not particularly happy, 
 don't condemn yourself to particular misery. It 
 is possible to sleep soundly, eat heartily, and be 
 on the whole very comfortable, without being in 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 155 
 
 a rapturous frame of mind. Only, when you are 
 simply comfortable, don't pretend that you are ti-e- 
 mendously happy. There is nothing to be gained 
 b}' the deception ; and if there were, you don't 
 want to gain it. Do with your might whatsoever 
 your hand finds to do. Sympathize largely. Don't 
 merely tiy to feel, but feel. Associate with chil- 
 dren, not to harass them by continually setting 
 them right, — which is of no use, since they will 
 inevitably and immediately fall back into their 
 original sin, — but make yourself one with them. 
 Nothing pays so well. I think it is the easiest of 
 all ways to amuse yourself and benefit others. But 
 don't confine yourself to any one class. When- 
 ever anybody's orbit intersects yours, make some- 
 thing come of it. Sink a shaft wherever there is 
 the least probability of water. Find out the secret 
 place where abideth the soul of your Irish " girl." 
 See if there may not be something in common be- 
 tween you and your washerwoinan, your seam- 
 stress, your chambermaid, your cook. If there is 
 a single plank in their platform on which you can 
 stand, join hands thereon, and give one throb to 
 the heart of humanity. Do not wait supinely for 
 opportunity, but go out and seek her in the high- 
 ways and hedges. Be alive at every pore. Make 
 your soul great with unceasing benevolence. Make 
 common cause with virtue against temptation, with 
 goodness against wickedness, with right against 
 might. If truth is solvent in falsehood, precipitate 
 
156 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 the truth, and cast out the false. Do not be intimi- 
 dated because human nature is not every inch a 
 saint, nor cajoled because it is not every inch a 
 satan. This great world is a j^owerful diluent. 
 Accustom yourself to analyze, and, having decided 
 deliberately, maintain stoutly. However weak, 
 unpopular, or ridiculed the just cause may be, let 
 it find in you an unflinching and impartial sup- 
 porter ; — impartial, for women are too apt, having 
 once espoused a cause, to cling to it " with woman's 
 devotion," right or wrong ; or, having rejected it, 
 to fancy no good thing can come therefrom. If 
 you approve one thing and condemn another, both 
 of which Mrs. Grundy alike condemns, don't ab- 
 stain from saying so for fear of being called incon- 
 sistent. If to-day you approve any measure which 
 yesterday you condemned, don't be afraid to say 
 so for fear of being deemed fickle. Is it not Rus- 
 kin who says that he has little faith in an opinion 
 till he has changed it three times? Pope asks 
 what changing the mind is, but saying we are 
 wiser to-day than we Avere yesterday. And Rus- 
 kin again bids us say wliat we think to-day in 
 words as hard as cannon-balls, and say what we 
 think to-morrow in words just as hard, no matter 
 if one assertion flatly contradict the other. Con- 
 sistency is the bugbear of small, inactive minds. 
 A living soul, grappling with the great truths of 
 the present, has no leisure to go digging among 
 last year's ruins to see whether the two sets dove- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 157 
 
 tail exactly. Let bygones be bygones. Let the 
 dead past bury its dead. A sincere and honest 
 life will arrange itself. All opinions and beliefs, 
 intelligently and conscientiously adopted, will group 
 themselves into a beautiful mosaic, which you can- 
 not now see because you are too near, and must 
 behold one at a time ; but when a stand-point in 
 the other world gives you the proper focal distance, 
 you will behold, with wonder and admiration, how 
 the most diverse and the most similar were alike 
 necessary to form a perfect and artistic whole. 
 
 There are sorrows that spring from other sources, 
 — hope deferred, love wasted, expectation disap- 
 pointed, ambition crushed, — noiseless grief that 
 saps the foundation, eats into the very penetralia 
 of life, of which the whited walls without give no 
 sign, though Death riot within, — anguish that 
 sweeps over the soul like the desert Simoom, blast- 
 ing every green thing, drinking up every fresh 
 fountain, leaving in its wake only blackness and 
 blankness, — troubles that come naturally, and 
 troubles that seem to have been wrenched from 
 their places to assail some doomed life, — troubles 
 that no wisdom could have averted, and troubles 
 w'antonly and wickedly self-inflicted, yet all alike 
 sore evils, and of long continuance. There is in 
 woman a power of acute suffering, from causes 
 which scarcely affect the sterner natui'e of man. 
 Repulsive but merciful necessity bears down upon 
 liis sorrow, smothering it with rude, relentless 
 
158 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 hand, indeed, but smothering it. Her quieter, 
 more monotonous Hfe fans the flames, but gently, 
 so that though the bush is burning a long time, 
 yet is it not consumed. There are many, I see 
 them every day, whose garden of lilies and roses 
 is become a howling wilderness. The poetry and 
 sprightliness and spring of life are gone forever. 
 They walk, perhaps, with downcast, introverted 
 eyes. They are called reserved, haughty, cold, 
 stupid. Mere thoughtlessness would fain see if 
 there is blood beneath the marble, and, drawing 
 her bow at venture, sends an arrow quivering into 
 the heart of hearts, and goes on her smiling way. 
 
 But all this can and must be borne. The hand 
 that metes out the measure to us all never yet held 
 false balance. Every pain is instinct with good, if 
 you will but have the wisdom to discern it. From 
 every bitter, pluck its soul of sweetness. The con- 
 flict may be fierce, but who fight for God in the 
 fighting grow strong. You may leave the battle- 
 field with rent and blood-streaked robes, but with 
 a nervous right arm. " Ce n'' est pas la victoire qui 
 fait le bonheur des nobles coeurs; c'est la combat^'' — 
 (Not the victory, biit the struggle, makes the hap- 
 piness of noble hearts), — says a French writer; 
 but upon you, if you. will, wait both struggle and 
 victory. Strength which a placid life can never 
 give may be yours. Heights which unruffled souls 
 never attain you can climb if your feet are willing ; 
 and from those mountain-tops you will gaze on 
 
J/EiV AND WOMEN. 159 
 
 such visions as never met the eye of dwellers in 
 the valley. 
 
 " Behold yon grotto where the dropping tears 
 Are crj'stiiUized to cohimns by long years; 
 So shall thy sorrows, child of mighty grief, 
 Bear up like pillars for thy soul's relief." 
 
 But if your sorrow is to be thus converted into 
 strength, yourself must work the change. It has 
 not, as many seem to suppose, an innate, self- 
 developing, elevating power. Whether the sculp- 
 tor's chisel carve from Parian marble the purity 
 and grace of an ideal womanhood, or the grim vis- 
 age of a churchyard Death, depends on the hand 
 that holds it. The April rain falls alike on the 
 gray rock and the brown earth. But the one, un- 
 mindful of the treasure, yields it up to the first ray 
 of sunshine, the first breath of the west wind, and 
 anon is as gray as before. The other takes the 
 soft visitor to her kindly bosom, and down out of 
 sight the little messenger goes to where young life 
 is stirring in the darkness, and there works a mir- 
 acle. So your grief will be to you a savor of life 
 unto life, or of death unto death, according as you 
 use it. If you nurse it, and cherish it, and brood 
 over it, and talk about it, it will wax greater and 
 greater, filling your vision, shutting out from you 
 all sunshine, concentrating upon itself all your 
 thoughts, and clinging to you, a huge excrescence, 
 instead of entering into your blood and nerves and 
 sinews, softening, refining. Christianizing. Grief, 
 
160 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 it is tnily said, is sacred ; but grief brought forward 
 promiscuously, harped upon, condoled over, made 
 the staple of conversation, becomes rapidly profane. 
 Grief is a bond of union between men "svho, how- 
 ever dissimilar in other respects, are alike liable to 
 its attacks ; but the great world rushes on, and 
 cannot loiter long. You must not pull the string 
 too hard, or it will break. If you have a sympa- 
 thizing friend to whom it would be a relief to un- 
 bosom yourself, do so ; but, even then, be careful 
 that you do not dwell too long upon, or recur too 
 often to, your skeleton. Your friend will grieve 
 with you sincerely for a while, but wull presently 
 outgrow you. Does this seem harsh ? I trust not. 
 Far be it from me to wound those whom God hath 
 smitten. I only say what I believe to be true, 
 and what, if true, it behooves you to know. It is, 
 moreover, best for yourself that your eyes should 
 not always be turned inward. To bring happiness 
 to others is the surest way to bring it to yourself. 
 Apply healing to other minds diseased, and you 
 will not fail to heal your own. The law of impene- 
 trability obtains in mind as well as in matter. Sor- 
 row cannot wholly fill the heart that is occupied 
 with others' welfare. Constant melancholy, fur- 
 thermore, is constant rebellion. If you will only 
 square yourself to God's will, you will command a 
 cheerful equanimity. To drag along a miserable, 
 fi'etful, repining, or desponding existence, is not 
 resignation ; but she who turns away from the 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 161 
 
 mound beneath which her first-born lies, back to 
 a world which brings only an aching sense of void, 
 shrinking from no duty, smiling through eyes that 
 Avill ever and anon turn wistfully heavenward, 
 showing her sorrow only in the softer footfall, the 
 added tenderness of voice, the gentler sympathy, 
 the warmer pity with which she binds up the bro- 
 ken-hearted, — ah ! she is the true victor. On 
 her brow shall the crown be set. 
 
 In the old days, when our fathers were a hand- 
 ful of men in a great land, and foe, famine, and 
 pestilence threatened destruction to their lessening 
 ranks, they nightly laid their dead to rest, levelled 
 the frequent graves with surrounding earth, and 
 planted in the sacred soil their corn and grain, 
 that they might conceal their wealcness from a 
 wary and watchful foe. 
 
 So, bury your griefs out of sight, deep, deep, 
 where the eye of the Avorld cannot pierce, and 
 over them sow with a bountiful hand the seed of 
 Christian virtues, and from the ashes of your 
 dead hopes shall spring up a living growth of 
 Faith, and Patience, and Charity, and Love, be- 
 neath whose waving shadow your soul shall calmly 
 sit in the evening-tide of a serene life, waiting the 
 voice of the Lord. 
 
 But unhappiness cannot be prevented or exter- 
 minated by a " whereas, be it resolved " alone. 
 Action is not more the chief part of an orator than 
 of every other human being. It is the necessity 
 
162 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 of every noble nature. Change is the essence of 
 life, and action is continuous change, — wise ac- 
 tion, continuous advancement. Whether grief be 
 real or imaginary, — and imaginary grief is real, — 
 employment is an excellent specific. Ah! that is 
 the very thing you want, — something definite to 
 do. Well, there is the school-house, which ninety- 
 nine girls in a hundred enter, not because they 
 feel that they have any particular call that way, 
 but because it seems to open the only loop-hole of 
 escape from inanity. That you have no taste for 
 the work is the smallest possible objection. Good, 
 honest people, reasoning a priori., affirm that no 
 one can be a good teacher unless he loves teaching. 
 Educational conventions and professional periodi- 
 cals reiterate the statement, till they perhaps come 
 to believe it themselves ; but it is only a popular 
 fallacy. In all my life, I have known but one 
 woman who really loved teaching for its own sake. 
 Some of the best teachers — the most respected 
 and the most beloved — have adopted it because 
 it Avas the only work that offered ; and, hating it 
 most heartily, have accomplished it most success- 
 fully. But it is far more probable that, being 
 young and inexperienced, you fancy teaching will 
 be the " open sesame " to Paradise, — or a triple 
 coat of mail against all the ills that flesh is heir to ; 
 but you may as well undeceive yourself at once. 
 You think it will give you the great desideratum, — 
 employment, occupation, something to think about. 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 163 
 
 Yes, it will, indeed ; so much, that, if you do all 
 that you see standing in need of doing, you will 
 require the strength of Hercules and the days of 
 the planet Jupiter. If you are strong and healthy, 
 you will have the satisfaction of spending five or 
 six of the best years of your life in a school, and 
 at the expiration of that time be allowed to leave 
 with honor, a pale face, disordered nerves, tired 
 brain, and shattered constitution. The labor re- 
 quired in ordinary schools of the higher class is 
 such, that I think a woman of average physical 
 strength cannot spend more than four consecu- 
 tive years in them without breaking down. The 
 draughts on the vital energy are so unceasing, 
 that the supply cannot equal the demand, and the 
 fountain is exhausted. Of course I refer only to 
 teachers of conscience and character. An inef- 
 ficient, commonplace routinist can drone on in the 
 same rut, ad infinitum, and perhaps give complete 
 satisfaction to an astute public. So, if you have 
 been tenderly nursed and nurtured, if you have 
 indulged an appetite for sick headaches, if you 
 have been trained in the belief that rest should 
 follow labor, and that the best work can be per- 
 formed by the best-conditioned animal, engage to 
 " wash for the ladies " at sixpence an hour, or 
 enter a bookbindery and be paid by the job, or dig 
 clams on the sea-shore and sell them in the shell, 
 (which I always fancied must be a delightful occu- 
 pation,) or hire yourself out as nurser^^-maid to 
 
164 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 nine small children, but don't enter a public school, 
 — and a private school is no better, and a great 
 deal worse, since the former only devours you 
 piecemeal, but the latter swallows you whole, body 
 and soul. * 
 
 But you think it will be so delightful, so juveyies- 
 cent, to be surrounded by happy, joyous, bounding 
 children. You can quote reams of poetry on the 
 subject, — 
 
 " A beautiful, and happy girl," — 
 
 " Child amid the flowers at play," — 
 
 " A simple child, 
 That lightly draws its breath," — 
 
 " A baby in a house is a well-spring of pleasure," etc., — 
 
 all of which I am not prepared to contradict ; but 
 a hundred and fifty babies in a house, together, 
 representing every stage of infancy, from the bread 
 and molasses of three years old, to the nuts and 
 apple coquetry of thirteen, . will make larger 
 draughts on your patience than on your poetry, 
 and exercise your judgment more than your im- 
 agination. You must divest yourself, as soon as 
 possible, of the idea that all children are little 
 white-winged angels, with golden curls and rose- 
 bud lips. You must prepare yourself for dia- 
 monds in the rough, and sometimes for the rough 
 without the diamond. Even where there is a 
 diamond, you must not expect to polish it in the 
 twinkling of an eye. Perhaps it will not flash its 
 full lustre till the hand that first made way for its 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 165 
 
 gleaming has crumbled into dust. We have all 
 read any number of stories about hordes of fero- 
 cious boys, who have organized successful and suc- 
 cessive rebellions, and ejected a long line of male 
 dynasties from the professional chair, but who 
 have suddenly been brought to roar you as 
 gently as any sucking dove, by the apparition 
 of a sweet-faced, low-voiced woman. Now, I 
 know that calmness and gentleness and firm- 
 ness will work wonders, where passion and vio- 
 lence and storm have been only abbots of misrule, 
 — and of the whole circle of things that may 
 happen to you, this may happen ; but I would 
 not advise you to set your heart upon it. If 
 you begin with the practical, at least, if not theo- 
 logical belief, that the children of men are deceit- 
 ful and desperately wicked, prone to evil as the 
 sparks are to fly upward, you will be happily 
 disappointed, if you are disappointed at all. Ex- 
 pect to meet wormwood, senna, and Epsom salts ; 
 and if you do find the land overflowing with milk 
 and honey, you will be doubly delighted. Be 
 prepared to employ sternness of tone, severity of 
 manner, and anything else that may be necessary ; 
 and if a fair trial convince you that music has 
 charms enough to soothe the savages, why then 
 all you will have to do will be to sing with all 
 your might and main. 
 
 I hope you will not be shocked, and think I 
 recommend you to turn into a kind of ogress, 
 
166 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 with the appetite of the Wantley dragon, whose 
 ordinary dessert was 
 
 " Poor children three, 
 That could not with him grapple, 
 But at one sup he ate them up, 
 As one would eat an apple"; 
 
 nor into a modern Medusa, with power to trans- 
 form the trembling urchins to stone by a look. I 
 only wish to give you a hint of unpleasant possi- 
 bilities, so that, if your Spanish castle should fall, 
 it may not bury you in the ruins. As the Cat 
 observed to the Ugly Duckling, " I say disagree- 
 able things, but it is for your good." I take it 
 for granted that your own hearts will teach you 
 enough of love, and the spirit of meekness ; that 
 your woman's nature makes it incumbent on one 
 to exhort you to let justice temper mercy, rather 
 than mercy temper justice. 
 
 There are other stones of stumbling, against 
 which you may as well be forewarned. Every 
 community that has emerged from a state of bar- 
 barism is infested with excellent and exemplary 
 individuals, leaning to the " goody — good," ac- 
 customed to take things on trust, -who will 
 embrace every opportunity to speak a word, in 
 season and out of season, especially out of season, 
 on the fearful and weighty responsibilities of your 
 position. I advise you, as a friend, not to listen 
 to them. The comparative amount of your re- 
 sponsibility and mine, his, hers, or its, is a thing 
 not cognizable by human eves. 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 167 
 
 It is not necessarily the man who comes in con- 
 tact with the largest number of people who exer- 
 cises the most influence. It may be so, but it 
 does not follow, and we do not know whether it 
 is or not. When John Bunyan was cast into 
 Bedford jail, there were doubtless many pious 
 souls who mourned that the zeal and power of his 
 best years should be thus wasted ; yet through 
 those prison-walls there streams a light which 
 will grow brighter and brighter, till lost in the 
 glory of the Celestial City. Every person is re- 
 sponsible for all the good within the scope of his 
 abilities, and for no more, — and none can tell 
 whose sphere is the largest. A mother, tending 
 her child in the quiet seclusion of a Virginian 
 home, sees no foreshadowing of a mighty destiny, 
 yet there comes a day when an empire's fate 
 trembles in the tiny hand now clasping hers. It 
 is therefore impertinent to assume that the re- 
 sponsibility of teachers, or of any one class of 
 people, is greater than that of any other. The 
 only difference is, that one influences at first 
 hand, another at second or third. At every foot- 
 fall, we set in motion a chord whose trembling 
 thrills ten thousand more, and will quiver on 
 eternally. Every thought and word and deed 
 of every human being is followed by its inevitable 
 consequence ; for the one we are responsible ; 
 with the other we have nothing to do. 
 
 You will also probably encounter a great many 
 
168 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 deprecatory remarks, concerning superficial knowl- 
 edge, a smattering of the sciences, &c. Fond 
 mammas Avill think they are making a display of 
 great and judicious wisdom, in exhorting you to 
 render their infants thorough masters of whatever 
 study they pursue. Now I think superficial knowl- 
 edge is a very good thing ; and, for my own part, 
 I should be only too glad to be well-smattered. 
 In the first place, complete mastery by school- 
 children of any one study is a moral impossibility ; 
 not only from the organi-zation of our school system, 
 but from the very structure of the human mind. 
 Take geography, one of the earliest and perhaps 
 the simplest studies attempted. Childish capacity 
 cannot seize it in all its bearings, nor is the at- 
 tempt to present them w^ise. Many things are 
 taught to children which they would be far better 
 left to find out for themselves. Let them grow 
 up to their difficulties naturally, instead of having 
 difficulties thrust upon them from without. If you 
 lead them tenderly up to a fact, they will quite 
 probably be indifferent, or but partially interested ; 
 but if they run against it, they will not leave it 
 till they have found whence it came, and why it 
 is there. School life should be considered only 
 a preparatory course. It is a means, not an end. 
 It is what you work out of their minds, and not 
 what you put in, that is of importance, f If a boy, 
 at the end of his school days, has learned how to 
 study, if he has acquired mental, moral, and physi- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 169 
 
 cal self-control, his career is a success, no matter 
 how many or how few things he knows. Of all 
 the knowledge. learned, he may have forgotten the 
 greater part ; but the wisdom which that learning 
 brought him is his inalienable estate. You must 
 be content to lodge the seed, for April rain and 
 May sunshine and June warmth are necessary to 
 bring it to perfect fruitage. You may drive the 
 nail, but time alone can clinch it^ 
 
 This charge of superficial knowledge is so often 
 brought up against women, that I may be pardoned 
 for pursuing it a little further, and asking how 
 many men there are in America whose knowledge 
 of things generally extends far beyond a smatter- 
 ing ? I have something more than a suspicion 
 that, if the principle should obtain that we are to 
 know nothing of a science unless we know that 
 science thoroughly, the sphere of our knowledge 
 would suffer a sudden collapse. Is it indeed de- 
 sirable that we should be entirely ignorant of the 
 history of Greece, unless we can become imbued 
 with the spirit of her golden age, — entirely con- 
 versant with her literature, her antiquities, her 
 topography, her climate, her Fauna and Flora, — 
 know precisely what tide of religious emotion it 
 was that swept over her, bearing on its crested 
 wave the Parthenon, — what silent influence of sun 
 and shade and dew and rain centred on the crerm 
 that sprung up into that magnificent outgrowth of 
 national eloquence, whose fruit was Demosthenes 
 8 
 
170 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and his immortal compeers ? Shall we not trace 
 the long wanderings of the heroic Ten Thousand, 
 and share their madness of delight, when, from 
 the heights of the Saci'ed Mountain, their eyes 
 beheld the sparkle and glow of the Euxine Sea ; 
 or watch " Idalian Aphrodite beautiful " flush 
 from the ocean foam, to live in marble forever ; or 
 dream in the shadow of Olympus, to the music 
 of that harp whose strings have not yet ceased 
 to quiver, — because, forsooth, we do not know in 
 what city Homer was born, or even whether there 
 was any Homer at all ; what force of nature the 
 poetic mind of early Greece symbolized in the 
 Cytherean myth ; wliat wire-pullers, lobby-mem- 
 bers, or Hellenic Maintenon moved the lever that 
 thrust the Persians and the Greeks in each others' 
 faces ? Nay, verily. The world grew nearly six 
 , thousand years before' it flowered in Linnaeus, yet 
 every child in our village school-houses will listen 
 with appreciative eagerness while you point out to 
 them the diiferent parts of a common pea-blossom, 
 stamen, pistil, keel, wings, and banner ; every eye 
 will sparkle, and every little listener become a 
 practical botanist, and bring you specimens from 
 every kitchen garden in the neighborhood. The 
 Old World of his birth and the New World of 
 his adoption alike contend for Agassiz ; but on 
 shady Saturdays in May, every brook in New 
 England is fringed with ichthyologists in jackets, 
 who will tell you the habitat, the breathing ap- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 171 
 
 paratus, the locomotive power, of trout and roach 
 and shiner and sucker for miles around. A life- 
 time is not too much to spend in the investigation 
 of the structure of the earth ; but in three months 
 an intelligent boy can learn enough of " rock and 
 tree and flowing; water " to oive a new interest 
 and beauty to every landscape on which his man- 
 hood's eye may rest. Many men have a specialty, 
 something towards which they are drawn by an 
 ii'resistible impulse, and to which they devote 
 themselves with eager and delighted zest. Shall 
 they therefore be ignorant of everything else ? 
 Many more have no specialty. They have an 
 accunuilative, analytic, and critical power, and 
 roam at large through many fields. They make 
 no new discoveries, and establish no new generali- 
 zations, but they are delightful companions, the 
 appreciative -welcomers and true interpreters of 
 the Master Spirit when he comes. None, so far 
 as I know, are thoroughly versed in all branches 
 of knowledge ; few, in any one ; but many, very 
 many, are sufficiently conversant with a large 
 variety to realize the words of the poet, 
 
 " My mind to me a kingdom is." 
 
 I have by no means exhausted the possible ex- 
 asperations which society in general will give you, 
 if you decide to teach. The man who makes 
 your shoes thinks it incumbent upon him to learn 
 the trade ; the woman who trims your bonnets 
 
172 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 finds it necessary to serve an apprenticeship ; but 
 the world at large, collectively and individually, 
 considers itself abundantly qualified to make sug- 
 gestions, offer opinions, and pass judgment on so 
 simple and easy a matter as teaching ; nor will 
 any motive of delicacy prevent its doing so. You 
 will also have the satisfaction of knowing that you, 
 devoting the prime of your life, are receiving from 
 one to three fourths as much money as a boy pre- 
 paring for his junior examination would receive in 
 the same situation ; or a graduate, laying up money 
 for his medical or theological lectures. The sub- 
 ject grows too rapidly under my hand, and I be- 
 lieve I shall have to devote a separate ti*eatise to 
 its discussion ; but I must show you a few gleams 
 from the " Sunny Side," before I pass on. 
 
 In the first place, if you wish to love and to be 
 loved, it offers you delightful opportunity. You 
 will bind fresh young hearts to your own, with a 
 tie that time only strengthens and hallows. They 
 are too far removed from you to see your faults, 
 and they will leave you before they have acquired 
 discernment enough to do so. Consequently, you 
 will be enshrined in their memories, haloed with 
 a glory that is less of your deserts than of their 
 imaginings. They will see what you aim to be, 
 rather than what you are. They will mark your 
 standard, and not your inability to reach it. You 
 will be associated with their purest thoughts and 
 ambitions, their most innocent joys and simplest 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 173 
 
 pleasures, — with all that in after days they will sigh 
 to remember, — with the dew and freshness of their 
 mornino-. You will also be doino; godlike work, — 
 moulding mind, fashioliing material which is inde- 
 structible. You will see your influence, as you 
 go on from day to day, in the awakening interest, 
 the brightening eye, the more thoughtful brow, the 
 kinder hand, and warmer heart ; and below the 
 surface, below all that you can see, the train you 
 have set in motion is going noiselessly on. With- 
 out sound of hammer or axe, there is rising a 
 beautiful temple, meet residence for the indwell- 
 ing of the Holy Spirit. A lovely, gentle woman, 
 who went to heaven long ago, probably never 
 dreaming of the work she had done, perhaps 
 Aveeping that she had been but an unprofitable 
 servant, changed the current of at least one life, 
 turning it from the valley of the Shadow of 
 Death, through the pleasant land of Beulah ; and 
 now, years after, a young man, her pupil, writes 
 thus tenderly of her : " She has a place in my 
 soul, a little inner room, where once dwelt pas- 
 sion, gloom, and chaos ; but when she opened it, 
 she gently arranged it, dispelled the gloom that 
 obscured the window, and till I fall asleep her 
 face shall ever meet me there, with all I hold 
 most dear." 
 
 To be thus treasured up, not in one soul, but in 
 many souls ; to live, not your own life only, but 
 hundreds and hundreds of other lives, perhaps 
 
174 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 wiser, purer, or happier than yours ; to be woven 
 in with the warp and woof of boyhood's strong, 
 firm web ; to gleam and flash through the finer, 
 subtler texture of girlhood ; — this is your " ex- 
 ceeding great reward," 
 
 Girls generally have more or less taste for 
 writino;. If we could believe critics on the sub- 
 ject, they take to poetry as naturally as ducks to 
 water ; but we do not believe critics, because they 
 write from theory, not from observation, and know 
 little about the inner life of girls, — actual, every- 
 day girlhood. Of all those who are unfitted by 
 their organization for a life of inactivity, by their 
 moral sense for frivolity, by their position, posses- 
 sions, or taste for manual labor, by far the larger 
 part will turn to the school-room rather than to 
 the pen. Still there are, in the aggregate, many 
 who cast wistful and furtive glances towards au- 
 thorship. It is to them a 
 
 " Shadowy isle of Eden, lying in dark purple spheres of Sea," — 
 
 a Land of Promise, wreathed in golden mist, in- 
 distinctly limned, but wondrous fair. To the high- 
 spirited and finely-strung it proffers mental work 
 and pleasurable excitement behind an impene- 
 trable veil. To the poor and struggling it is a 
 mystic Aladdin's lamp, flashing before their daz- 
 zled eyes the gleam of gold, paving their way to 
 happiness with pearls and diamonds. 
 
 Undoubtedly these castles in the air are not 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 175 
 
 " the baseless fabric of a vision," but, like our 
 thrilling novels, are founded on fact, perhaps on 
 just about as large a proportion of fact. There 
 is a charm about writing. I can conceive of few 
 things more delightful than to see one's self right- 
 angled off in oblong form, on fine Avhite paper, 
 with broad margins, clear type, Russian calf, and 
 illustrations by Darley. 
 
 If your cistern is over-full, a newspaper is a 
 very convenient faucet, if you can unscrew it. I 
 know that editors complain bitterly of the multi- 
 tudinous pipes directed to their sanctums, and the 
 " weak, washy, everlasting flood " with which they 
 are inundated ; but I would not hold back on that 
 account. What is the use of having newspapers, 
 pray, if you cannot write for them? Do dry-goods 
 clerks complain because their counters ai^e contin- 
 ually strewed with silks and muslins, — because 
 they are constantly obliged to arrange, and de- 
 range, and rearrange ? Why, it is their business. 
 It is a sign of prosperity. A shop whose shelves 
 were always in order would be apt to close busi- 
 ness in a month, and a newspaper which is not 
 sufficiently alive and active to draw into its vortex 
 a host of spirits from the vasty deep around it, 
 will soon stagnate into decay and death. Besides, 
 how small a portion of the whole suffering is borne 
 by the editor. It is absolutely appalling to think 
 of the hopes and fears, the aspirations and dreams, 
 the anxieties, tears, and heart-throbs, the watch- 
 
176 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ing, waiting, and disappointment, shut up in the 
 *' dark drawers " of editorial tables, — those ter- 
 rible Black Holes of literature. And the worst 
 of it is, that in the great majority of cases the exe- 
 cution is merited. I suppose it does sometimes 
 happen that wheat and chaff are alike condemned. 
 In fact, I know it does. If you should be imperti- 
 nent, and ask me how I know, I should follow the 
 example of the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 
 and simply say, " Nullum tui negotiiJ'' Still, as I 
 was remarking, if your poem is not printed, there 
 is a presumption, at least, that it was not worth 
 printing. 
 
 Men talk as if it were a sin to write, unless the 
 writing be of the very highest order. But are all 
 preachers Pauls ? all soldiers Bonapartes ? all ac- 
 tors Garricks ? all statesmen Washingtons ? Shall 
 a woman not dance unless she have the heels of an 
 Ellsler, or sing without the voice of a Lind, or 
 paint without the pencil of an Angelo ? Would it 
 even be better so ? Is there not many a man 
 whose pulses thrill to the notes of " Yankee Doo- 
 dle," who would sit calm and impassive under 
 « Casta Diva " ? 
 
 A certain reviewer said of a certain wi'iter, that 
 her poems had done positive harm, — they had 
 weakened the English language and perverted the 
 English taste ; that it would really be better if she 
 had never taken a pen in her hand ; and then he 
 pronounced an anathema on the whole race of 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 177 
 
 feminine rhymers. Nonsense, again ! Is the 
 EngHsh language more important than the Eng- 
 hsh heart ? Is the marble statue which the skilful 
 artist carves Avith his chisel of greater moment 
 than the living soul which he is to shape, " not for 
 an age, but for all time," — ay, and for all eter- 
 nity ? All over the green fields of England, and 
 under the blue skies of America, hearts have 
 throbbed and eyes have filled with tears at a wo- 
 man's simple songs. Of what use is it, then, for a 
 critic to rise up in his self-conceit and say, " This 
 is not poetry ; this is all sentiment ; it ought not 
 to be written ; it is not Miltonian nor Spenserian 
 nor Virgilian nor Dantesque ; it is not written 
 according to the rules of high art." 
 
 You may tell a mother that her child's features 
 are not Grecian, that his skin is browned and 
 freckled by sun and wind, that his hair is coarse 
 and his form ungainly ; but will she clasp him to 
 her bosom with any the less tenderness, or will she 
 thenceforth cease to whisper his name in her morn- 
 ing and evening prayer ? The object of poetry is 
 to please — and whom? Not the elegant, the cul- 
 tivated, the delicately-nurtured, merely ; but the 
 poor, the homely, the ignorant, as well. It is to 
 polish the rough, to refine the vulgar, to ennoble 
 the commonplace, to scatter pearls before those 
 who find the path to heaven among the untrodden 
 ways of life. Go to now, fools, and slow of heart 
 to believe ! There must be vessels of honor and 
 
 8* L 
 
178 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 vessels of dishonor. All stars have not the same 
 glory ; but one star diflfereth from another star 
 in glory. Homer wrote the Iliad, and Florilla 
 Flowerdale writes a Sonnet to a Dew-drop ; and 
 though the soul of the one be the basin of an 
 ocean, and that of the other a gill dipper, they are 
 both full. There is but one Chinese wall, but 
 there are many stone fences ; and they are en- 
 tirely effectual in keeping the cows from the 
 meadow and the sheep from the corn. There 
 are but few St. Paul's Cathedrals, but white spires 
 peer heavenward from every valley ; and way- 
 worn feet tread cheerily thitherward, and many 
 souls are refreshed and gladdened. The nightin- 
 gale is the sweetest of all birds, but we could ill 
 spare from our woodland chorus the notes of the 
 robin, the hum of the bee. 
 
 No little confusion of ideas prevails as to what 
 constitutes useless and useful, light and heavy lit- 
 erature. There are many who open their damp 
 Gazettes^ Journals, Chronicles, Couriers, and plod 
 through miles of dry, dusty, dreary political edito- 
 rials, going to show that the country will sink to 
 remediless ruin if Jenkins is elected town-clerk, 
 but will rise to untold heights of glory should 
 the spotless Muggins radiate his splendor from 
 that lofty station ; and they fancy themselves pa- 
 triotic, absorbed in noble themes, interested only 
 in what is excellent and of good report. Or they 
 plunge into the foreign news column, litter their 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 179 
 
 brain with the grand dinner given by the Legation 
 on somebody's birthday, or the astute prophecies 
 of some mercantile agent, whose historical knowl- 
 edge is bound up in Whelpley's Compend, con- 
 cerning the ultimate fate of Italy, the far-reach- 
 ing designs of Louis Napoleon, and the balance 
 of power in Europe ; and don't think, probably, 
 but have a kind of pleasant, unconscious feeling, 
 that they ai-e employing their vast intellect on 
 abstruse and Aveighty matters. Or they watch the 
 light-heeled Blondin on his tight rope, admire the 
 financial operations of enterprising scoundrels, mar- 
 vel at the manifold and ino;enious crimes brought 
 to light in New York, and call this " intelligent," 
 "well-informed," — "keeping up with the times"; 
 while they pass over the stories, the essays, the 
 poetry, to their wives and daughters, as light read- 
 ing, quite too small for the attention of their stu- 
 pendous minds. 
 
 But a story or a poem may comprehend the 
 whole duty of man. I have read such a one. I 
 recollect "Herman, or Young Knighthood," which 
 contained not only more wit, but more wisdom, — 
 not only more beauty, but more grandeur, — not 
 only more play of fancy, more power of imagina- 
 tion, more directness of purpose, more felicity of 
 expression, and more elegance of diction, but more 
 knowledge of human nature, more soundness of 
 judgment, grander conceptions of human aspira- 
 tions and human capacity to love and to suffer, to 
 
180 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 enjoy, to act, to die, and to rise again, — a vaster 
 sweep of thought, broader generalization, more 
 comprehensive views, more logical and accurate 
 reasoning, nicer analysis, and a higher standard 
 of Christian manhood, — than you will find in a 
 column of your " solid reading " that would reach 
 from Maine to Georgia? 
 ' People must live their life, one way or another, 
 f — on battle-field or quarter-deck ; in cabinet, lab- 
 oratory, pulpit, or nursery. Boys expend theirs 
 on Virgil and candy ; men, on farm and ledger, 
 with a small surplus that goes to liquidate the 
 claims of Smith and Jones to the suffrages of an 
 enlightened community. Girls read Lalla Rookh, 
 crotchet lamp-mats, write interminable letters to 
 immortal female friendship, and so manage to drain 
 oflp their spare life, till, in the course of human 
 events, it runs naturally to housekeeping and ba- 
 bies, and takes the whole force to keep the mill 
 a-going. 
 
 (But sometimes the farm and nursery and work- 
 shop do not use up all the fluid ; then, according 
 as it makes for itself a channel, or is pent up in 
 too narrow bounds, you have Shakespeare chain- 
 ing the ages to his triumphal car, or Chatterton 
 flinging down life at sixteen years as a burden 
 too heavy to be borne. You have Raleigh, leav- 
 ing the apple-orchards of beautiful Devon for an 
 unknown Land of Faery, a new Jason, wander- 
 ing world-wide for a golden fleece ; Spenser, walk- 
 
MEX AND WOMEN. 181 
 
 ino- Avitli Genii in enchanted woods, and weaving 
 a mi<ditier spell than they ; Burns, upheaving not 
 only the soil with his plough, but the land with 
 his song ; Browning, voicing on her many-stringed 
 lyre the "Cry of the Children" who pass through 
 the fire to Moloch ; Bront^, chained to her deso- 
 late rock, and eating her own heart out with a 
 sharper than Promethean torture ; Stowe, throw- 
 mg open to the shuddering day a sepulchre fiill of 
 dead men's bones, and all uncleanness ; Sappho, 
 harping her own requiem on the Leucadian cliff; 
 Socrates, calmly quenching with hemlock the life 
 that would no otherwise be stayed ; Dante, gazing 
 in rapt beatific vision on the glorified face of Bea- 
 trice ; Galileo, spinning the world around in spite 
 of the pious dunces who sat on it in solemn con- 
 clave to hold it down ; Kane, walking in silence 
 with the Spirit of Storms ; Paul, transported with 
 a holy ardor, denouncing woe to himself if he rein 
 in the fiery words that leap to his lips ; David, the 
 stripling, ruddy, and of a beautiful countenance, 
 changed by the spear-touch of an heroic purpose 
 from the dreaming shepherd-boy to the champion 
 of Israel ; and William of Orange, and Alfred the 
 Great, and Milton, and Tasso, and Napoleon, and 
 Homer, and Mozart. 3 
 
 Corollary 1. Everybody has just so much life 
 to live, and if it is dammed uj) in one direction it 
 Avill overflow in another. 
 
 Corollary 2. Greatness, heroism, glory, spring 
 
182 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 from what is left over and above necessity. That 
 is, some people have just soul enough for salt. You 
 cannot conceive a further diminution of their men- 
 tal endowments unattended by immediate physical 
 decomposition. Of course they have nothing to 
 spare for fame. But the highest must have body 
 as well as the lowest intellect. The body is the 
 strong cord which keeps the " animula vagula blan- 
 dula " from flying off in a tangent. They cannot 
 live in a state of pure mind, any more than the 
 others can live in a state of pure matter. Conse- 
 (|uently, there is a plane on which they both meet, 
 and that plane is bread and butter. But the one 
 never soars above it, while the other never remains 
 upon it. Herein consists the difference between 
 the two. It is from the latter, roaming about in 
 the empyrean, that we get our grandeur and sub- 
 limity, our pathos and poetry. 
 
 Corollary 3. Female authorship, instead of 
 being deprecated, ought to be encouraged as the 
 great safety-valve of society ; and those who ridi- 
 cule and oppose it show themselves far behind 
 the age in endeavoring to put down such an 
 army with no better weapon than that where- 
 with Samson slew a thousand Philistines fifty 
 centuries ago. 
 
 (Many a woman with no pretensions to genius 
 walks her daily round, fulfils all wifely duties, 
 seems contented and happy in her home of peace 
 and plenty, who is nevertheless sometimes lonely 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 183 
 
 and dispirited. There are glimmerings of some- 
 what higher ; shadowy remembrances of girhsh 
 aspirations and heroic purposes ; a sad and eager 
 questioning — " Is this all ? " — to the heart that 
 vouchsafes no reply. This feeling can find no 
 vent like poetry or music. If from the keys of 
 her piano or the strings of her harp her troubled 
 spirit, Savd-Iike, shall find rest, it is well ; but if 
 she have no spell to evoke the genius of song, 
 why should you forbid her to give expression by 
 rhythmic cadence to the feeling which, unvoiced, 
 will be crushed back into the soil whence it 
 sprang, to moulder and decay, and cast a mil- 
 dew and blight on all the graces, virtues, and 
 affections which should adorn and beautify life ? 
 The little poem may be simple in thought and 
 rugged in outline ; it may be at once consigned 
 to the silence of a secret drawer ; but the long- 
 ing is gratified, the pent-up mind has found an 
 outlet, and the weary woman goes on her way 
 rejoicing. Years afterward, when the hand that 
 wrote it is cold in the grave, a daughter's eyes, 
 it may be, will fall upon it, and a page of that 
 mother's history, hitherto all unrevealed, be sud- 
 denly illuminated ; and between the daughter 
 on earth and the mother in heaven there will 
 be another and a golden link, which the world 
 knoweth not of.^ 
 
 Girls, do not be deceived. Write, Write 
 poetry, — write in rhyme, — if it is only 
 
184 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 " One, two, 
 Buckle my shoe; 
 Three, four, 
 Open the door." 
 
 Form the habit. It is often convenient. It is a 
 refuge from ennui. It may do good. Any one 
 of you who refrains from writing for fear of 
 ridicule, is a coward. Don't be a coward. 
 There is not much to a woman at best. She 
 is not expected to have physical courage ; but if 
 she has not moral, pray, what has slie ? The 
 more a man tells you not to write, the more do 
 you write. By this I do not mean to say that 
 you must immediately publish a volume of 
 " Something, and other Poems," though even 
 that I advise you to do, if you feel disposed and 
 can afford it. It is better than to be talking 
 scandal or making flounces. Would-be critics 
 lament pathetically or satirize mercilessly this 
 " rushing into print." It is mere selfishness on 
 their part. You might rush elbow deep into a 
 batter pudding, or bury heart and soul and 
 mind, beyond all hope of disinterment, beneath a 
 confused rubbish of unmended stockings, or by a 
 letter of recommendation become the fifth wife of 
 some hard-worked, hard-working, broken-down, 
 and worn-out missionary, and they would not lift 
 a finger to prevent. No, girls ; no. If your 
 heart is stirred within you to write, write ! If 
 you can find an editor or publisher who is will- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 185 
 
 ing to print for you, print I Somewhere in the 
 world, a heart-string may tremble to your feeble 
 and unsteady touch, with a strange bliss. I do 
 not suppose a line of poetry was ever written, 
 from the New Hampshire bard's 
 
 " The beauties of nature, I positive declare 
 The beauties of nature are very rich and rare," 
 
 to the stately hexameters of Britain's sturdy old 
 Republican, which did not bear a message of joy 
 or consolation to some of God's children, — 
 whose coming was not watched for, perhaps, by 
 many loving eyes, and gazed at with untiring 
 satisfaction. Never be concerned about readers. 
 You w^ill, at all events, read it yourself, and, bet- 
 ter than all, you wdll appreciate it. Your darling 
 Arabella will read, admire, and very probably 
 cut it out and place it in her scrap-book. What 
 is fame, more than this ? 
 
 If you are a little inclined to egotism, and toler- 
 ably imaginative, you can trick yourself out in all 
 sorts of Protean shapes ; serve yourself up in as 
 many different disguises as a French cook does a 
 ragout ; and, at the same time, preserve the most 
 ricrid reticence : because no one knows how much 
 is memory and how much is imagination. Or if 
 you have acquired the habit of entertaining views 
 of things, it gives you an excellent opportunity to 
 exhibit them ; and of the many comfortable things 
 in the world, one of the most comfortable is to give 
 your views. It is so agreeable to say things, when 
 
186 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 you have things to say. Your opmions may not 
 be very striking, or original, or important ; still it 
 is a relief to express them. No matter if they 
 have been said fifty times before ; you never said 
 them. They must go through the crucible of your 
 brain before they can be efficient in preventing a 
 congestion from plethora of ideas. The stream 
 may have meandered down the mountains of life 
 a thousand years, and heaped together priceless 
 diamonds and ingots of gold, and yet fail in that 
 fertilizing power more valuable than all, till it 
 sweeps along the rich alluvial deposits that lie in 
 the green meadows of your own soul. It does not 
 satisfy your craving for the " delicacies of the sea- 
 son," to know that salmon and peas have been 
 eaten since the world began. 
 
 In so far as literature seems to you a royal road 
 to fame and fortune, let me entreat you not to be 
 deceived. If you have been put through Watts's 
 " Sixteen Rules for Gaining Knowledge and Men- 
 tal Improvement " as thoroughly as I, I shall not 
 need to say, " Be not so weak as to imagine that 
 a life of learning is a life of laziness and ease.", 
 But, besides good Dr. Watts's exhortations, the 
 testimony of the great mass of writers proclaims, 
 
 " Hard the labor, small the gain, 
 Is in making bread from brain." 
 
 I have seen, in several modern American novels, 
 certain counter statements. Brilliant but obscure 
 young women are represented as having surrep- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 187 
 
 titiuuslj sprung a book upon an unsuspecting pub- 
 lic, and being summarily overwhelmed with money, 
 and fame, and troops of distinguished friends and 
 patrons. I know that charming Fanny Burney 
 did really smuggle her Eveline into the world 
 without even the complicity of " Daddy Crisp," 
 and that there presently fell upon her listening, 
 straining, but scarcely expectant ear, a rusthng 
 among the mulberry-trees ; coaches blocked up 
 the way to the circulating libraries ; Burke sat up 
 all night to watch the adventures of a young lady 
 upon her first entrance into the world ; fops lev- 
 elled their glasses ; women of fashion patronized 
 the shrinking authoress ; and the brutal, benevolent 
 " Great Cham " coiled his huge arm thrice about 
 her slender waist, and bound her to him forever. 
 Nor have I any doubt that, notwithstanding Camp- 
 bell's savage toast, publishers are often honest, up- 
 right, excellent men, many of whom would gladly 
 bind up the wounds and bruises which their own 
 hands have been forced to inflict. There are indi- 
 viduals among them — several I know — who are 
 perfect pinks of disinterested kindness, full of good 
 works and alms-deeds. Still, I think I do not err 
 in affirming that, as a class, they are not large- 
 ly addicted to sending huge rolls of spontaneous 
 bank-bills to anonymous correspondents. When 
 you hear of men's receiving twenty, forty, or a 
 hundred dollars a page, and twenty and forty thou- 
 sand for a volume of history or romance or science. 
 
188 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 don't think of the forty dollars simply, but of the 
 forty years of daily and nightly toil, research, 
 study, thought, contrivance, experiment, disap- 
 pointment, discouragement, vexation, and heart- 
 ache that have preceded them. 
 
 " The crowd, tliey only see the crown, 
 They only hear the hymn ; 
 They mark not that the cheek is pale, 
 And that the eye is dim." 
 
 Do you prize the crown so highly, that you will 
 bear the cross ? To be purified by the poet's fire, 
 will you endure the anguish of the burning ? Do 
 you worship the goddess with so true a faith, that 
 you will offer up yourself at her shrine ? 
 
 There are obstacles without as well as within. 
 A certain prejudice against female writers " still 
 lives." It is fine, subtle, impalpable, but real. It 
 is like the great ocean of air that wraps us round. 
 A little of it cannot be seen ; it is only in mass 
 that it becomes visible. It is like a far-off star ; 
 look straight at it, and it is not there ; look askance, 
 and it twinkles and winks at you again. It is like 
 the Indian in warfare ; it never meets you face to 
 face, and takes fair aim, but, darting behind shelter, 
 sends a shot obliquely. It is also like the Devil ; 
 resist it, and it will flee from you. It is indeed 
 vanishing every day ; and as woman gravitates to 
 her proper place, and the elements cease to be 
 agitated, it wuU entirely disappear. Like other 
 fashions founded on whim, caprice, or injustice, 
 
MEN AND WOMEN 189 
 
 and not on the eternal fitness of things, it will go 
 from master to man, from man to scullion, from 
 scullion to the dogs. It has already begun its 
 downward progress. Large-hearted and large- 
 bi'ained men, the monarchs of thought, have flung 
 it clean off. The ranks below them, men of small 
 capacities but unbounded ambition, who see in 
 women their own rivals, — who fear, and justly, 
 too, that a fair field and no favor would oust them 
 from seats they have questionable claim to fill and 
 infinite difficulty to hold, — have caught the flim- 
 sy, floating thing, and see but darkly through its 
 tremulous shimmer ; and, with limbs tangled in its 
 fair, strong, invisible meshes, walk stumbling and 
 uncertain. So long as you will lend yourself to 
 the amusement of these men, — be witty, playful, 
 piquant, affectionate, and saucy ; dance and sparkle 
 along their ascending pathway ; circle, as brilliant 
 a satellite as you please, round themselves, the 
 central, acknowledged sun, — they will shine down 
 on you the most benignant and complacent conde- 
 scension. But once undertake to set up for your- 
 self; get the troublesome idea into your head, that 
 that head was given you for something more than 
 a series of fireworks ; tell them seriously that you 
 have been thinking whether all play may not make 
 Gill a mere toy, just as it does Jack, and whether 
 there may not be something in the world for you 
 to do, — whether the purling, singing, happy brook, 
 that now only freshens the violets on its banks. 
 
190 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 may not, by widening and deepening the channel, 
 be made subservient to nobler and not less pure 
 uses, — whether the same vivacity, compactness, 
 and power that enliven the social circle, and fling 
 a charm around a few favored lives, may not gleam 
 on a broader sphere with no diminished lustre, 
 soften the harsh outline of some unwelcome truth 
 into grace and loveliness, light up some sombre 
 picture with golden tints, polish some hidden blade 
 — rusty, disused, and rusty because disused — 
 into Damascene gleaming, suppleness, and sharp- 
 ness, and restore it once more to the armory of 
 God, — and lo ! our respected friend, who, whilom, 
 found no words so sweet as fitly could express his 
 love, complacence, interest in j^our weal, admira- 
 tion of your character, and pride in your reputa- 
 tion, cools suddenly down to zero, leans leisurely 
 back in his comfortable study-chair, strokes caress- 
 ingly his black moustache, and, with eyes turned 
 contemplatively ceiling-ward, and infinite and pity- 
 ing forbearance of voice and manner : " Yes " 
 (with an inflection indicative of mental and sub- 
 jective interrogation), — "yes " (falling inflection ; 
 interrogation not satisfactorily answered). "You 
 may be able to effect something. There are very 
 respectable authors among Avomen." (Magnani- 
 mous concession !) " There is no doubt that the 
 thing is overdone. Still — " and here, or a min- 
 ute after, at furthest, he will cut an intellectual 
 pirouette, and, with a most frank, arch, and en- 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 191 
 
 gaging smile, inform you that, after all, he would 
 " rather see a ring on your third finger than an 
 ink-spot on your first." Stupid ! 
 
 You will often see the outcropping of this feel- 
 ing in the criticisms of women's books ; not that 
 just and generous criticism which discriminates 
 between the evil and the good, condemns the one 
 without rancor, and applauds the other without 
 servility, but that half-flattering, half-contemptu- 
 ous, and wholly contemptible notice, whose com- 
 passionate blame and condescending praise are 
 alike insulting;. Such was the revenge of some 
 of our sleek, respectable, self-admiring male writ- 
 ers, when Aurora Leigh dashed in upon their 
 fancied security, and shivered her most knightly 
 yet right womanly lance against their time-hon- 
 ored commonplaces. What a shaking of the 
 dry bones there must have been, indeed, under 
 the hoofs of her high-mettled steed ! But as 
 soon as their spirits returned to them again, 
 they fell a-babbling of Socialism, and Fourier- 
 ism, and Chartism, and " all the others that end 
 in " ism ; and there was poetry in the book, hut 
 thei'e Avas a deal of obscurity ; and there was 
 felicity of expression, hut there was occasional 
 awkwardness ; and there were a great many 
 things, hut there were also a great many others ; 
 and, on the whole, Aurora Leigh must be pro- 
 nounced a failure. Self-blinded ! If Aurora Leigh 
 be a woman's failure, what would a woman's 
 success be? 
 
192 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Sometimes this prejudice takes the form of clis- 
 intei'ested counsel, paternal and affectionate ad- 
 vice ; but through the lion's skin, the long ears 
 reveal indubitably the true nature of the animal. 
 " Aspiring sisters," says the domestic brute before 
 alluded to, " why is the tone of your lucubrations 
 always so mournful ? If you must write, write 
 cheerfully. Don't let every song be a dirge. We 
 want to be amused when we read " (there is the ear 
 again) ; " consume in private your private griefs." 
 Not a doubt of it. Beyond cavil, it would be 
 vastly agreeable to our private Neros, — Heaven 
 be praised that they are few, I know that there 
 are some, — who harry the life out of wife and 
 child, who are tyrants without the fear of assas- 
 sination, because their victims are too good, or 
 of public opinion, because the thing is done in a 
 corner, or of the law, because it takes no cog- 
 nizance of soul-murder, — doubtless it would be 
 vastly agreeable to them, that women should en- 
 dure uncomplainingly. No voice louder than 
 theirs in praise of her sweet self-abnegation and 
 silent fortitude, or in deprecation of publicly-dis- 
 played sorrow, when, in song or story, the minor 
 key of sadness, the outburst of long-pent-up 
 anguish, or the unmistakable wail of a broken 
 heart, sends home to their own breasts the 
 prophet's stern charge, " Thou art the man." 
 Consume in private your private griefs ! No. 
 Take them in a bundle, and bear them to the 
 
MEN AXD WOMEN. 193. 
 
 liighest mountain-top ; ring the church-bells, hoist 
 the flags, beat the drums, and let the whole world 
 see the bonfire ; and if the flame scorclies our 
 sensitive friends, let theni stand back. Why 
 should tliey flutter about it, if they don't want 
 their wings singed ? 
 
 Do all or any of these things move you ? Do 
 you fear to launch your bark on so unquiet a sea ? 
 Do you shrink from the lion without, lest you 
 should be slain in the street ? Then by all means 
 remain within doors, and hold your peace. Do 
 not fancy that you would achieve immortality, if 
 you only had the chance, — that you would soar 
 sunward, if your wings were not pinioned. 
 Genius is expansive, irresistible, and irresistibly 
 expansive. If it is in you, no cords can confine 
 it. A good book will get itself wi'itten. Author- 
 ship is not a thing to be quietly chosen, as cir- 
 cumstance may determine. It chooses you ; you 
 do not choose it. Did Mrs. Browning sit down 
 in her little back parlor, and wonder whether she 
 would better fashion a song, or devote herself ex- 
 clusively to Robert's shirts and stockings ? And, 
 observing that she had facility in language, fa- 
 miliarity with the classics, knowledge of human 
 nature, and abundant leisure, did she forthwith 
 seize her pen, and tell us 
 
 " how a faiiy bride from Italy, 
 With smells of oleander in her hair, 
 Was coming through the vines " ? 
 
 9 M 
 
194 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 I trow not. I rather believe that her spirit 
 groaned, being burdened, — that she was but an 
 unwilHng Sibyl, lashed on, foaming, by a fierce 
 Apollo. Currer Bell trod in agony the desolate 
 heaths of Haworth, till the consuming fire burned 
 deep scars in her tortured soul, before Jane Eyre 
 leaped, full armed, not from her throbbing brain 
 alone, but from her riven heart. 
 
 If prejudice, ignorance, or sloth pile a Hill 
 Difficulty which you hesitate to scale ; if indiffer- 
 ence, neglect, or rebuff quench your spirit's flow ; 
 if encouragement and appreciation must be the 
 Aaron and Hur on either side, without whose aid 
 your failing hands droop, nerveless ; if you fear 
 to speak out boldly your convictions lest you for- 
 feit approbation ; if peace and smiles and sun- 
 shine seem to you more desirable than truth ; 
 if you are not in and of yourself sufficient to 
 yourself; if a mind conscious of rectitude, of up- 
 right intentions, and honorable performance, is 
 not to you a sufficient guerdon, — you may be 
 
 " A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort, and command," 
 
 but lyre and tripod are not for you. The world 
 awards its meed of praise to no uncertain claimant. 
 Only to him that hath shall be given. You go 
 out on a mission of high emprise, with scrip and 
 staff and " sandal shoon," and there are few to 
 say, " God bless you." You return in purple and 
 scarlet and fine linen, with gilded chariot and 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 195 
 
 liorse of Arabia, and the world comes out to meet 
 you, with timbrels and dancing, and ministers 
 unto you a triumphal entrance. I do not say that 
 this is wrong ; only that it is. You must conquer 
 Fate, before Fate will bow the knee. You must 
 prove your royal blood, before you can wear the 
 royal crown ; and that perhaps so late that it will 
 only press, cold and heavy, on aching brows. 
 
 Watchman ! What of the night ? The morn- 
 ing Cometh. 
 
 It is not for the generation among whom Eliza- 
 beth Browning has sung, and Charlotte Bront^ 
 spoken, and Harriet Hosmer chiselled, and Rosa 
 Bonheur painted, and Mary Lyon taught, and 
 Florence Nightingale lived, to despair of woman's 
 achievement of her highest destiny. In whatever 
 direction you choose to walk, you will find that 
 a firm footfall has preceded yours ; that a strong 
 hand has hewed down the giant trees, and cleared 
 away the tangled undergrowth, so that the forest 
 which once required all a man's strength and a 
 woman's fortitude, a child may thrid unharmed. 
 Thus do the strong bear the burdens of the weak. 
 Thus have noble women made straight, in the 
 desert, a highway for our God. " Inasmuch as 
 ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
 my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The 
 costly step has been taken. 
 
 But let us not suppose that generous ends can 
 be attained only on the mountain-top. To but 
 
196 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 few is strength given to climb its ragged sides, 
 and clearness and breadth of vision to take in the 
 broad sweep of its low-lying landscape. Down in 
 the valley there is work to be done, — humble, yet 
 divine ; small in the germ, yet great in the un- 
 folding. However simple or however difficult, 
 however obscui'e or however prominent the work 
 may be, matters not, provided it be God's ap- 
 pointed work. It is better to rule a household 
 well, than a kingdom ill. 
 
 " He that sweeps a floor as to God's law, 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 The ring on a child's finger is as perfect a circle 
 as the zone of this round world. The Dairyman's 
 Daughter "just knew, and knew no more, her 
 Bible true," lived out her brief and simple life, 
 and was not, for God took her. But from her 
 humble island home her voice still speaks comfort 
 and hope to the ends of the earth. 
 
 Here and there, both in the beaten paths and 
 the untrodden ways, on the lowlands and the up- 
 lands of life, I meet an angel, — not in white robes, 
 garlanded with roses, and winged for Heaven, but 
 plain in calico, it may be, or grand in velvet. I 
 recall now the face of one whose life is to me a 
 constant gospel. A slight, pale girl, orphaned, 
 homeless, neglected by those who should have 
 watched her young years tenderly, she yet seems 
 to have drawn to herself, by some magnetic power, 
 all the good of all the persons by whom she has 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 197 
 
 been surrounded, and to have fed her own soul 
 thereon. She went to school, bearing in her mean 
 and scanty dress, her thin cheeks, and hard hands, 
 the marks of poverty and toil ; and wild, thought- 
 less, elegantly-dressed, and carefully-nurtured girls 
 hushed their heedless sarcasm, softened their merry 
 voices, and spoke to her with love, and of her with 
 tears. Shrinkingly sensitive to their opinions, 
 tremblingly alive to her own disadvantages, con- 
 scious as she must have been that she served a 
 hard taskmaster, no word of complaint ever passed 
 her lips. Always cheerful, modest, happy, willing 
 to be pleased, grateful for kindness, and patient 
 of any chance neglect, you might have supposed 
 her entirely msensible to the motives and feelings 
 that influence ordinary girls, were it not for the 
 occasional quiver of the lip, the quick, nervous 
 gesture, the moistened eye, and faltering tone. 
 She left school with disease lurking in her system, 
 slowly and surely undermining the citadel of life ; 
 but she kept up her courage. She had no idea 
 of dying till her hour should come, and, as long 
 as she should live, she determined that her liv- 
 ing sliould bring forth fruit. She earned money 
 enough to transport herself to a climate which was 
 pronounced favorable to her health ; there, in wild 
 backwoods, among a rough people, who had forgot- 
 ten, if they ever knew, the common refinements 
 of life, she opened a school. From her rude home 
 she wrote merry letters, describing her adventures 
 
198 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and her circumstances. There was no talk of self- 
 denial, the greatness of sacrifice, the hardship of 
 missionary life. Over all the harsh outline, and 
 the harsher filling in, she threw the veil of her 
 playful fancy, and few heard the mournful under- 
 tone that thrilled through the gay, sprightly song. 
 The new scenes and the softer air did not have the 
 desired effect, and a short time since she wrote to 
 a friend : " I have moved from a small, quiet 
 school to a large, rollicking, frolicking, fun-loving 
 one. I am happy ; I think I ought to be. Every 
 one is kind. But I am quite puzzled. I don't 
 know just what to do. If I am to teach much 
 longer, it would be better for me to return to 
 New England, and go to school awhile. I have 
 earned enough to keep me at school a year or so, 
 and I do believe I am willing to exert myself to 
 the utmost to improve. But, then, this cough 
 increases. It may not be long before it will have 
 an end. If I go to New England, I may spend 
 all the life left me in acquiring knowledge, and so 
 lose the opportunity for usefulness that I might 
 have if I remained here. Now the question is, 
 Wliich will bring the largest pile of wood, — the 
 dull axe for six hours, or the sharp one for 
 two?" 
 
 This is what I mean by heroism. This young 
 girl standing at bay, watching what she believes 
 to be the approach of inevitable death, asking for 
 no rest from toil, no indulgence for weakness and 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 199 
 
 weariness, no sympathy in loneliness, but only 
 striving to know how the little life that remains 
 may be turned to the best account. Brave heart ! 
 on the wings of this soft south-wind, that munnurs 
 of violets in the ear of winter, I send you greeting. 
 In your far-off home my voice may never reach 
 you ; but if by any chance your eyes should fall 
 upon these words, know that my soul does will- 
 ing homage to yours, and forgive these few sen- 
 tences, for the love and reverence that prompted 
 them. 
 
 " None but thou and I shall know." 
 
 I remember another, a stranger in a strange 
 land ; an exile from the home of her fathers ; a 
 fair-haired and blue-eyed girl, a warm-hearted and 
 whole-souled woman ; of exquisite sensibility, re- 
 fined taste, and elegant culture ; a lover of song 
 and grace and beauty in any guise ; a man in 
 strength, a martyr in endurance ; performing a 
 father's duty to children not her own ; fighting 
 the battle single-handed, and no holiday contest, 
 but a life-and-death struo;crle with the wolf at the 
 door ; welcoming the cold embrace of Duty as 
 smilingly as if it were the warm clasp of Love ; 
 eager eyes and ears wide open to the green fields, 
 the upspringing daisies, the note of bee and bird, 
 yet swerving not a hair's breadth from the rocky 
 path which her aching feet most resolutely tread ; 
 and where I see her footprints, I know it is holy 
 ground. 
 
200 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 And yet another face shines on me through the 
 night, — a face over which the Angel of Sorrow 
 has swept his wing in passing, and saddened into 
 a beauty that is not of the earth. You, look- 
 ing, see only dark eyes that flash laughter, love, or 
 tears ; a delicate cheek, that pales and flushes at 
 your words ; red lips, whence drop rare gems of 
 wit and wisdom. These are there, and I see them ; 
 but beyond these, and deeper than these, I see 
 a soul that has been weighed in the balance and 
 not found wanting ; a heart that has been wrung 
 by sorest anguish, and only grown more pitying 
 and tender; a hand that has touched every note 
 from highest to lowest, and learned to strike from 
 earthly chords most heavenly harmonies ; a wo- 
 man who has said to wealth and station and ease, 
 " Get thee behind me ! " and, mailed in her own 
 integrity, has dared opposing fate. It is these, 
 and such as these, that 
 
 " show us how divine a thing 
 A woman may be made." 
 
 They redeem their sex from the charge of frivol- 
 ity, inanity, and feebleness, revealing to us the 
 capacities that lie hidden in her heart of hearts ; 
 and it is because I have witnessed such noble liv- 
 ing, such " extraordinary, generous seeking," that 
 I believe in woman ; and when I see life going to 
 waste, — when I see a woman's soul bent on ig- 
 noble ends, frittered away on trifling toys, finding 
 content and happiness in things that perish with 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 201 
 
 the using, — I feel, not contempt, not anger, but 
 sadness and sore regret : — 
 
 " The pity of it, lago, the pity of it." 
 
 I mourn for gold grown dim, and fine gold changed, 
 — for fields white to harvest, and the reapers dis- 
 porting among flowers, — for a world lying in 
 ignorance and wickedness, and the power that 
 should raise and redeem it, and fit it once more 
 for the footsteps of its Lord, spending its strength 
 for naught. 
 
 O, if this latent power could be aroused ! If 
 woman would shake off this slumber, and put on 
 her strength, her beautiful garments, how would 
 she go forth conquering and to conquer, — how 
 would the mountains break forth into singing, and 
 the trees of the field clap their hands, — how would 
 our sin-stained earth arise and shine, her light be- 
 ing come, and the glory of the Lord being risen 
 upon her ! 
 
 One cannot do the world's work ; but one can 
 do one's work. You may not be able to turn the 
 world from iniquity, but you can at least keep the 
 dust and rust from gathering on your own soul. 
 If you cannot be directly and actively engaged in 
 fighting the battle, you can at least polish your 
 armor and sharpen your weapons, to strike an 
 effective blow when the hour comes. You can 
 stanch the blood of him who has been wounded in 
 the fray, — bear a cup of cold water to the thirsty 
 
 9* 
 
202 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and fainting, — give help to tlie conquered and 
 smiles to the victor. You can rather from the 
 past and the present stores of wisdom, so that, 
 when the future demands it, you may bring forth 
 from your treasures things new and old. What- 
 ever of bliss the Divinity that shapes our ends 
 may see fit to withhold from you, you are but 
 very little lower than the angels so long as you 
 have the 
 
 " Godlike power to do, — the godlike aim to know." 
 
 You can be forming habits of self-reliance, sound 
 judgment, perseverance, and endurance, which 
 may one day stand you in good stead. You can 
 so train yourself to right thinking and right acting, 
 that uprightness shall be your nature, truth your 
 impulse. His head is seldom far wrong whose 
 heart is always right. We bow down to mental 
 greatness, intellectual strength, and they are Di- 
 vine gifts ; but moral rectitude is stronger than 
 they. It is irresistible, — always in the end trium- 
 phant. There is in goodness a penetrative power 
 that nothing can withstand. Cunnincp and malice 
 melt away before its mild, open, steady glance. 
 Not alone on the fields where chivaliy charges for 
 laurels, with helmet and breastplate and lance in 
 rest, can the true knight exultantly exclaim, 
 
 " My strength is as the strength often, 
 Because my heart is pure," 
 
 but wherever man meets man, wherever there is 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 203 
 
 a prize to be won, a goal to be reached. Wealth 
 and rank and beauty may form a brilhant setting to 
 the diamond, but they only expose more nakedly 
 the false glare of the paste. Only when the king's 
 daughter is all glorious within, is it fitting and 
 proper that her clothing should be of wrought 
 gold. 
 
 From the great and the good of all ages rings 
 out the same monotone. The high-priest of na- 
 ture, the calm-eyed poet who laid his heart so 
 close to hers that they seemed to throb in one 
 pulsation, yet whose ear was always open to the 
 " still sad music of humanity," has given us the 
 fruit of his life-lono; wisdom in these grand 
 words : — 
 
 " True happiness abides with him alone 
 Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, 
 Can still respect and still revere himself." 
 
 Through the din of twenty rolling centuries 
 pierces the sharp, stern voice of the brave old 
 Greek : " Let every man, when he is about to \ 
 do a wicked action, above all things in the world ' 
 stand in awe of himself, and dread the witness 
 within him." All greatness and all glory, all that 
 earth has to give, all that heaven can proifer, lies 
 within the reach of the lowliest as well as the 
 highest ; for He who spake as never man spake 
 has said that the very " kingdom of God is within 
 you." 
 
 Born to such an inheritance, will you wantonly 
 
204 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 cast it away ? With such a goal in prospect, will 
 you suffer yourself to be turned aside by the 
 sheen and shimmer of tinsel fruit? With earth 
 in possession and heaven in reversion, will you 
 go sorrowing and downcast, because here and there 
 a pearl or ruby fails you ? Nay, rather, forget- 
 ting those things which are behind, and reaching 
 forth unto those which are before, press forward. 
 Discontent and murmuring are insidious foes ; 
 trample them under your feet. Utter no com- 
 plaint, whatever betide ; for complaining is a sign 
 of weakness. If your trouble can be helped, help 
 it ; if not, bear it. You can be whatever you 
 will to be. Therefore, form and accomplish worthy 
 purposes. If you walk alone, let it be with no 
 faltering tread. Show to an incredulous world 
 
 " How grand may be Life's might, 
 Without Love's circling crown." 
 
 Or if the golden thread of love shine athwart the 
 dusky warp of duty, if other hearts depend on 
 yours for sustenance and strength, give to them 
 from your fulness no stinted measure. Let the 
 dew of your kindness fall on the evil and the good, 
 on the just and on the unjust. 
 
 Compass happiness, since happiness alone is 
 victory. On the fragments of your shattered plans 
 and hopes and love, on the heaped-up ruins of 
 your past, rear a stately palace, whose top shall 
 reach unto heaven, whose beauty shall gladden 
 
MEN AND WOMEN. 
 
 205 
 
 the eyes of all beholders, whose doors shall stand 
 wide open to receive the wayworn and weary. 
 Life is a burden, but it is imposed by God. 
 What you make of it, it will be to you, 
 whether a millstone about your neck, 
 or a diadem upon your brow. 
 Take it up bravely, bear 
 it on joyfully, lay 
 it down trium- 
 phantly. 
 
 
My Birds. 
 
 TRICTLY speaking, I haven't any, — 
 only an old cage thrust away up gar- 
 ret under the eaves, — nor, in fact, do 
 I want any. Do not, however, for a 
 moment suppose that I indulge in a sentimental 
 compassion for caged birds, for I don't. I con- 
 sider such a thing entirely uncalled for, and mis- 
 placed. I have no doubt that a canary-bird, with 
 a cup of seed and a glass of water, finds every 
 aspiration of his soul satisfied. A sorrow's crown 
 of sorrow is remembering happier things. He 
 was born and bred in a cage, and, so far from 
 being discontented with a restraint of which he is 
 not conscious, freedom would bewilder him and 
 bring him to grief. But, though I do not take 
 into account the bird's feelings, I do mind my 
 own ; and a prisoned bird always gives me a 
 cramped, asthmatic sensation, if I know what 
 cramp and asthma are, which I don't. 
 
 My birds, the birds that furnish my right to 
 that possessive pronoun, are the little darlings 
 
MY BIRDS. 207 
 
 which this moment brighten the cold, damp, 
 clammy spring earth with their flutter and chirp 
 and song, — little, happy-hearted, hollow-boned 
 braves, who dare untimely frosts, and the whirl- 
 ing snow-wreaths which winter, forced to leave, 
 flings spitefully behind him, — daring the long, 
 cold, dismal rains which chill to the heart this 
 sweet May month, — merry messengers of the 
 storm-king, bearing the olive-leaf of peace ; twit- 
 tering prophecies of summer ; tender little bars 
 struck off from the music of the spheres ; famt, 
 sweet echoes, in their wooing and winning, their 
 prudence and painstaking, their tender protec- 
 tion and assiduous provision, of the strong, care- 
 ful, passionate, loving humanity that swells and 
 surges beneath them. 
 
 I love birds ; " I do not mind if it is nothing 
 but a hawk or a crow, or a sooty little chimney- 
 swallow. I even like chickens till they become 
 hens and human. I cannot look with indifference 
 upon turkeys standing out forlorn in the rain, 
 too senseless to think of going in for shelter, and 
 so taking it helplessly, with rounded backs, droop- 
 ing heads, dripping feathers, and long, bare, red, 
 miserable legs, quite too wretched to be ridicu- 
 lous. I dote on goslings, — little soft, yellow, 
 downy, awkward things, waddling around with 
 the utmost self-complacency, landing on their 
 backs every third step, and kicking spasmodi- 
 cally till they are set right side up with care, 
 
208 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 when they resume their waddle and their self- 
 complacency as if nothing in the woi'ld had 
 happened. The only fault one can find with 
 them is, that they will grow up ; and goslings 
 grown up are nothing but geese, with their 
 naivete degenerated into stupidity, their awk- 
 wardness crystallized into vulgarity, and their 
 tempers unspeakably bad. But the little birds 
 that sing to me from the apple-trees, and hop 
 about on the sunny southern slope, are not of 
 these. Purer blood runs through finer veins. 
 Golden robins, a fiery flash of splendor, gleam in 
 the long grass, and put the dandelions to shame. 
 There are magnificent bluebirds, with their pale, 
 unwinking intensity of color; and homely little 
 redbreasts, which we all called robins when we 
 were young, and invested with the sanctity of 
 that sweet, ancestral pity which has given them a 
 name in our memory and a place in our hearts, till 
 somebody must needs flare up, and proclaim that 
 they are nothing but thrushes ! As if this world 
 were in a general way such an Elysium that peo- 
 ple can afford to make themselves unnecessarily 
 disagreeable. If there is any one thing more 
 than another that is an unmitigated abomination 
 aod bore, it is those persons who are always set- 
 ting you right ; who find their delight in prick- 
 ing your little silk balloons of illusion with their 
 detestable pins of facts ; who are always bringing 
 their statistics to bear upon your enthusiasms ; 
 
MY BIRDS. 209 
 
 ■who go around with a yardstick and a quart- 
 measure to give you the cubic contents of your 
 rapture, demonstrating to a logical certainty that 
 you need not have been rapt at all ; pro\nng by 
 the forty-seventh proposition of the first book of 
 Euclid that spirits disembodied cannot have any 
 influence upon spirits embodied ; setting up that 
 there is n't any Maelstrom and never was, — that 
 the Aurora Borealis is a common cloud reflecting 
 the sunlight, and turning the terrible ocean- 
 waves that ran mountain-high when you were a 
 child into pitiful horse-pond shivers, never mount- 
 ing above the tens. For my part, I don't be- 
 lieve a word of it. (I believe the equatorial line 
 cuts through Africa like a darning-needle, that 
 the Atlantic waves would drown the Himalayas 
 if they could get at them, that eclipses are caused 
 by the beast which Orion is hunting trying to 
 gulp down the moon, and I should not wonder 
 if the earth w^as supported on the back of a great 
 turtle, wdiicli hypothesis has at least the advan- 
 tage of explaining satisfactorily why it is that we 
 all travel heavenward at such a snail's pace, and 
 founds in a sympathetic and involuntary attrac- 
 tion the aldermanic weakness for turtle-soup. 
 When one has been born and brought up in an 
 innocent belief, one does not like to have it dis- 
 turbed on slight grounds ; and people who have 
 an insane proclivity to propagandism would do 
 well to go to heathendom, where they will find 
 
210 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ample room and verge enough in overthrowing 
 mischievous opinions. But no punishment is too 
 severe for him who roots up a thrill, and plants in 
 its place only a fact. Suppose it is a fact, what 
 then ? Facts are not necessarily truth. Facts 
 ai'e often local, incidental, deceptive. But a thrill 
 is the quiver of the boundless, fathomless life that 
 underlies humanity, — a sign and a symbol of 
 tliat infinite from which we sprang, and towards 
 which, perforce, we tend. Come then, my robin 
 redbreast ! Never shall my hand rise sacrilegious 
 to wrest from you heraldic honors. Always 
 shall you w^ear an aureole of that golden light 
 that glimmers down the ages, the one bright spot 
 in a dark and deathful wood. Always shall you 
 sing to me angels' songs, of peace on earth, good- 
 will to men. 
 
 So they hop through the May mornings' shade 
 and sun, robins, and bluebirds, and dingy little 
 sparrows as thick as blackberries, at once wild and 
 tame, familiar yet shy, tripping, fluttering, snatch- 
 ing their tiny breakfasts, cocking their saucy heads 
 as if listening to some far-off strain, then, moved 
 by a sudden impulse, hopping along again in a 
 fork-lightning kind of way, and again coming to 
 a capricious full stop and silence, with momentary 
 interludes of short, quick, silvery jerks of head 
 and tail. And, as they sit and sing, — as I watch 
 their ceaseless busyness, their social twittering, 
 their energetic, heart-whole melody, their sudden 
 
MY BIRDS. 211 
 
 flights, tlieir graceful SAveeps, and agile darts, — 
 I recognize the Pauline title-deeds, and, havino- 
 notliing, yet possessing all things, I say in deed 
 and in truth, "My birds." 
 
 But I came very near having a proprietary right 
 in one small family last summer. I discovered a 
 ground-sparrow's nest just on the overhanging 
 edge of the cornfield. There were three little 
 eggs in it, gray and mottled, and not very pretty. 
 But eggs forerun birds, so I visited it regularly 
 every day to take observations. All the corn- 
 people were sworn not to disturb it. A stick was 
 set up to beacon-mark the plough away in case 
 of momentary forgetfulness ; and, notwithstanding 
 all this care and caution, that selfish, cowardly 
 old mother-bird took a panic, shattered my hopes, 
 and went away leaving her helpless egglets to 
 their fate. Their fate was to have a hole bored 
 through them from stem to stern, their embryotic 
 souls blown remorselessly through it, and then be 
 transported, nest and all, to a what-not in my 
 room, where to this very day they stand looking 
 seaward, a hollow monument of the heartlessness 
 of birds, and of the mournful extent to which 
 children are — shall I say it? — humbugged by 
 their judicious parents. When we were young, 
 were we not all exhorted to be very pitiful and 
 of tender mercy to the birds ? Was it not rep- 
 resented to be the height of cruelty to plunder 
 their nests ? Were not pathetic changes rung on 
 
212 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 the depth and strength of their domestic affection ? 
 And will anybody tell me, then, why this unnat- 
 ural sparrow deserted her home, that was not even 
 threatened ? Domestic affection ! I have no doubt 
 the story was originally trumped up to keep us 
 from tearing our clothes by climbing the trees. I 
 have come to the conclusion that, though birds 
 may take on airs of tenderness, it is all a dainty 
 acting. They have no rights which mankind is 
 bound to respect, and I hereby give public notice 
 that I intend for the future to rob every bird's-nest 
 that I can lay my hands on. 
 
 I came still nearer to owning birds in the winter. 
 A pair of doves — pigeons, some people call them, 
 with perverted taste, but pigeon has no character. 
 It is a generic name, without history or associa- 
 tions. It savors of iiunnino; aiid game, and noth- 
 ing else. Dove is the word, bubbling up and 
 boiling over with the sweetness of honeymoons. 
 So it was not pigeons, but a pair of brown doves, 
 that began to make nervous raids upon our back- 
 yard when the frosts began to whiten and blacken. 
 They were old acquaintances of mine. Their 
 summer residence had been under the roof of a 
 barn a few yards ofiP, and I had watched the 
 process of their courtship with great interest. It 
 had not run smooth at all. A little dove-cot had 
 been constructed under the eaves, with a doorway 
 and platform outside for the accommodation of 
 any solitary who might desire to be set in families. 
 
MY BIRDS. 213 
 
 and I was startled one morning by a succession of 
 strange, angry, guttural sounds proceeding from 
 tlie barn. I went out. A lively scene was enact- 
 ing upon the platform under the ernes. There 
 sat a lady-bird in the doorway, and there were 
 her two suitors before her, putting each other into a 
 terrible passion. Number One held possession of 
 the platform, and Number Two was making frantic 
 efforts to carry it by assault. Number One strutted 
 back and forth, ruffling his feathers, dilating his 
 throat, and swearing frightfully in dove dialect. 
 Number Two was calmer, but persistent and deter- 
 mined. He attacked in front and flank and rear. 
 He made desperate dashes from above. Where- 
 ever Number Two planted his adventurous foot, 
 thither Number One betook himself in great force, 
 and ousted him. If Number Two stole a march, 
 and sidled up to my lady. Number One made a 
 sortie and shoved him oft". There was no rest for 
 the sole of his foot but the ridge-pole of the neigh- 
 boring corn-barn, where he occasionally alighted 
 to take breath. Evidently both were very plucky, 
 very much in love, quite conscious that they were 
 fighting under the eye of their mistress, and equally 
 determined never to give up the ship. She, most 
 gracious lady, all this while preserved an imper- 
 turbable and thorough-bred indifference. I have 
 no doubt she saw every ebb and flow of the con- 
 test, and probably had her own preferences about 
 the victory, but her fiice said nothing of it. Some- 
 
214 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 times she sat immovable, looking far out into the 
 intense inane, as if on sublimer thoughts intent. 
 Sometimes she would rise, arch and coquettish, 
 jauntily shalfe out her plumage, and trip lightly 
 to and fro, displaying her fine face and figure in 
 the most -bewilderingly charming attitudes. This 
 was a sure signal for her belligerent lovers to fall 
 to with renewed and indescribable rancor. Some- 
 times she gave herself up to a fascinating languor. 
 The silken lids would creep slowly and softly over 
 her brilliant eyes, as if weariness at the prolonga- 
 tion of a strug-ole in which she was so little in- 
 terested had positively overpowered her. Long 
 time in even scale the battle hung. But posses- 
 sion is nine points of the law of might, as well as 
 of right. Number One fought under the im- 
 mense advantage of being on the spot, and able 
 to rest directly after one round, and come fresh 
 to the next, while Number Two had to make long 
 journeys between each, with nothing to stand on 
 when he got there. Fighting on a firm footing 
 is nothing, but fighting on nothing is a good deal ; 
 and Number Two was at length forced to desist, 
 leaving the fair one and her successful admirer to 
 devote themselves to the pursuits of peace. 
 
 Which they did with such assiduity that for 
 many weeks they were scarcely visible to the 
 naked eye ; but if Fate led any to the vicinity of 
 the barn scaffold, they became at once conscious 
 of a mysterious stir and bustle and flutter, a cer- 
 
MY BIRDS. 215 
 
 tain sign that something was happening. When 
 tlie tidness of time was come, the sometliing turned 
 out, or ratlier chipped out, to be two httle brown 
 doves, the very image of their respected parents. 
 These respected parents it was who, impelled by 
 the 7'es angustce domi, came foraging in our back- 
 yard. I determined to befriend them, to attach 
 them to me as far as possible. They surely needed 
 friendship and attachment if they were to stand 
 the long, cold Northern winter that was setting 
 in, and I was very sure that I should be extremely 
 glad of some little life to keep the genial current of 
 my own soul from freezing. So I made advances 
 by scattering a few kernels of corn on the porch- 
 roof under my chamber window. They mounted 
 the shed-roof and eyed it longingly. I mounted 
 the window-seat and eyed them. They wished 
 they dared, but they did n't. They were evi- 
 dently suspicious of masked batteries and infer- 
 nal machines. Then I hid behind the curtain. 
 They stepped nearer. No appearance of hostility. 
 Nearer still. All quiet along the Potomac. A 
 twitching of wings, a stretching of neck, a set- 
 tling of body for about five minutes, and down 
 they came to the outmost verge of the porch, 
 balancing themselves on the wire edge just one 
 second, and immediately flying back, alarmed at 
 their own temerity. But though retreating so 
 precipitately, that one onset had given them assur- 
 ance, and they soon returned, stejoping daintily 
 
216 COUNTRY LI VI NG. 
 
 and gingerly along, with many starts and tremors, 
 to where the corn lay. Then they became ridicu- 
 lous. They would shoot at a kernel, and rush 
 back alarmed at the noise which their beaks made 
 against the tin roofing. The least breath of 
 wind, the buzzing of a fly, startled them. They 
 gobbled up the corn in a perfect hysteric of hurry, 
 darting about twenty times at a single kernel be- 
 fore they could get possession of it. I don't think 
 they were very skilful at best, — I am sure I 
 could hit better than that if I were a dove ; but 
 they were in great trepidation of mind, and that 
 is not favorable to accuracy of aim. After a 
 few days they became reassured, and demon- 
 strated their confidence by bringing their young 
 and interesting family along with them. Their 
 family, it must be confessed, were not difficult to 
 bring ; they evinced not the slightest backward- 
 ness. They entered into the spirit of it at once. 
 They acknowledged the corn with the most self- 
 possessing alacrity. I fed them regularly twice a 
 day, filching their meals from the garret without 
 remorse. The corn had no business to be there in 
 the first place, tolling all the mice in the neighbor- 
 hood ; and I reasoned that there was no cause 
 why scores of mice should overflow with milk and 
 honey, and a brood of doves die of starvation. So 
 they did not, and so daily we established more 
 amicable and more intimate relations. Re^ularlv 
 every morning, at about eight o'clock, the swooj) 
 
31 Y BIRDS. 217 
 
 of their white wings cleft the frosty air, click, 
 click, click, went their horny little toes over the 
 tin plating, and in a moment their little round 
 eyes wei'e peering in through the window as they 
 perched upon the sill outside. (I trust there is 
 no truth in the doctrine of the transmigration of 
 souls !} I believe they formed and cherished for 
 me a real affection, — something quite beyond the 
 loaf-and-fishy attachment of the general animal 
 race, — something, in short, sentimental and super- 
 dovian ; for, after they had been abundantly fed, 
 they still sat on the window-sill from morning till 
 late in the afternoon. Through driving sleet and 
 snow, or wrapped in the winter sunshine, they 
 held their post, occasionally hopping down upon 
 the roof to get the kinks out of their legs, but re- 
 turning soon to take up their old position. When 
 I spoke to them, they would tiutter, and wink, 
 and snap their eyes, and look mightily pleased. If 
 I sat by the other window, round they swept to 
 that, nodding and cooing a " Here we are ! " 
 
 But one morning — woe worth the day ! — I 
 heard a noise overhead, a wild, violent, muffled, 
 murderous noise of struggle and assault, and sud- 
 denly down past my window floated a tiny cloud 
 of white, fleecy feathers, — dripped three drops of 
 blood. I started up, suspicious at once of crime 
 and the cat. The cat's name is Moses, — a treach- 
 erous fellow, striking you when you caress him ; 
 a totally depraved cat by nature, choosing evil 
 
 10 
 
218 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 when the good is not only better, but sweeter ; 
 turnmg away from his allotted food to steal what- 
 ever he can lay his paws and claws on ; a quar- 
 relsome fellow, and cowardly withal, attacking 
 where he is sure of success, and yowling fright- 
 fully where he is not. (IBut he is a good mouser, 
 and you manage about cats as you do about con- 
 gressmen, generals, and other public officers. If 
 they will do the work you want done, and do it 
 well, you have to take them, though they may 
 abuse their wives, tell lies, and be otherwise abomi- 
 nable. You execrate their moral character, but 
 you need their special ability, and you use it, not 
 indorsing them thereby r) So we tolerated our cat, 
 because he would not tolerate mice, though as a 
 cat and a oentleman he could never be introduced 
 into good society. The garret was his peculiar 
 haunt. There lay the golden corn in forty-thievic 
 profusion. Thither came the mice to levy black- 
 mail for themselves and their little ones, and there 
 I feared my tender dove, lured by the tempting 
 repast, might have flown through the open window 
 and met his fate. I rushed up garret. On the 
 floor by the window lay a clawful of white, fleecy 
 feathers, clotted with blood. Yes, it must be, but 
 where was the murderer? I called to Moses. 
 The echoes alone called back from the rafters. I 
 walked up and down, peering behind the boxes 
 and the barrels. No Moses, no dove. Marvel- 
 ling at the mystery, I turned to go, and encoun- 
 
MY BIRDS. 219 
 
 tered tlic gleam of two green, phosphorescent eyes, 
 slarino; at me through the darkness under an old 
 bed in the corner. I went near, and lifted the 
 corner of the quilt. There lay the mother dove 
 on her back, her beautiful white and brown feath- 
 ers dabbled with blood, her stiff, pathetic legs 
 stretched upwards and outwards, her bright eyes 
 closed, her fond heart still. Over her stood the 
 fiend Moses, burning his fierce, fiery eyes into my 
 soul ; and as I tarried there, bending to behold, 
 with my two hands resting on my two knees, pity- 
 ing the dove and confounding the cat, a snip of the- 
 ology came into my mind. Let not envy or bigotry 
 interpose a scornful smile. If the great magician 
 of literature could see tongues in the trees, books 
 in the running brooks, and sermons in stones, may 
 not I, who am indeed no magician, but a humble 
 little page, read theology in a .cat's eyes ? 
 
 I desire to say preliminarily that I am a Calvin- 
 ist. I say it because the Atlantic Monthly has 
 been in sundry quarters suspected of a certain lean- 
 ing the other way, and I may be suspected of lean- 
 ing with it out of an ignoble subserviency. Not 
 that what I am about to say does at all deviate 
 from the right line of Orthodoxy ; but " liberal 
 Christians" have a way of exercising their liberal- 
 ity to an astonishing extent on themselves. When- 
 ever I give out anything unusually brilliant in the 
 line of ethics or theology, up jumps a Unitarian, 
 and exclaims, " That is Unitarianism." Whatso- 
 
220 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, 
 whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
 pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
 things are of good report, if there be any virtue, 
 and if there be any praise, — all the grist goes to 
 their mill. But what right have they, I should 
 like to know, to monopolize just thinking and wise 
 uttering? Is there nothing sensible, philosophic, 
 natural, judicious, catholic, in Orthodoxy? Does 
 every good gift and every perfect gift come from 
 the Gospel according to Channing, and no good 
 thing at all out of Emmons ? Do not the " Evan- 
 gelical " sometimes drop their lines into the great 
 ocean of truth and get a nibble ? and is it gen- 
 erous or liberal for the un-Evangelical to snatch 
 at it? Truth belongs to him who recognizes it. 
 There may be certain points not held in common, 
 but they are few when compared to the myriads 
 which are the inheritance of humanity, and which 
 bind men together in golden bands of brotherhood. 
 In this rich, unfenced land, one may make perpetual 
 forays, and draw off laden with spoil, yet trench on 
 no man's rights, appropriate no man's possessions. 
 
 I must confess that the Orthodox are only too 
 ready to play into their opponents' hands. When 
 the latter take me up, the former drop me in- 
 stantly. Instead of tightening their hold, and say- 
 ing to their antagonists, " No, you don't ! Anti- 
 christ is not going to pre-empt all the sense and 
 sparkle there is in the world. We have right and 
 
MV BIRDS. 221 
 
 title to this, and we mean to defend it against all 
 comers. Go and raise yonr own prodigies. We 
 want ours, for home consumption," — they take 
 the Unitarians' word for it, and give me over as a 
 repi'obate mind concerning the faith. They have 
 such a heresy-phobia, that heretics have only to 
 raise the cry, " Mad dog ! " and out they tumble 
 with broom-stick and shillalah to hunt me down, 
 never stopping to inquire whether I am only 
 labelled mad, or whether I do indeed foam at the 
 mouth. 
 
 What 's in a name. Miss Capulet ? Everything, 
 my dear. 
 
 But for all this, I am not to be lured or fisti- 
 cuffed away from the faith of my fathers. A Cal- 
 vinist I was born, and a Calvinist I remain. It 
 does occur to me sometimes that I should like to 
 know what Calvinism is ; but that is not essential. 
 Whatever it is, I believe in it. I accept its points, 
 all five of them ; and if there were five thousand of 
 them I should accept them just the same. Origi- 
 nal sin, total depravity, natural ability, — noth- 
 ing is too hard for me. I follow wherever Calvin 
 leads. If he could stand it, I can. Servetus does 
 not stagger me. I could swallow a good deal 
 larger camel than he is, and not make faces. I 
 don't believe, in the first place, that Calvin burned 
 Servetus, and if he did, I dare say Servetus richly 
 deserved it. Why could he not keep still ? Why 
 must he needs jump from the hot water of Tou- 
 
222 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 louse into the frying-pan of Basle and the fire 
 of Geneva ? Why could he not content himself 
 with being a doctor and killing other people, in- 
 stead of turning theologian and killing himself? 
 It is just these very wiliul, pushing, impracticable, 
 one-idea men that make the mischief. If people 
 would only eat their dinners and let things alone, 
 there would be no trouble. But every age and 
 country has its pestilent fellows, who are never 
 easy unless they are poking into somebody's pet 
 belief, or custom, or prejudice, and turning the 
 world upside down. Only the nineteenth century 
 has grown squeamish about cauterizing for disease, 
 and so lets it run till the whole head is sick and 
 the whole heart faint. Our own country furnishes 
 a melancholy example of this. If Hopkins and 
 Phillips and Beecher, and two or three hundred 
 more, could have been summarily Servetized, our 
 friends would not now be up to their necks in 
 Southern mud, and slaveholders would be crack- 
 ing their whips in peace over the heads of their 
 negroes, and our own. Moreover, whatever Ser- 
 vetus's opinions deserved, his manners certainly 
 merited the stake ; and I wish there could be a 
 law passed to-morrow, that everybody who does 
 not try to make himself agreeable, everybody who 
 is arrogant, or supercilious, or sneering, or biting, 
 or in any way gratuitously uncomfortable, should 
 be toasted on a gridiron like St. Lawrence, without 
 even the privilege of turning the other side to the 
 
MY BIRDS. 223 
 
 fire, until he promises to mend liis ways. For my 
 part, I believe I would about as soon be burnt at 
 the stake — I know I would rather be consider- 
 ably scorched — as come in contact with those tre- 
 mendous people that one sees occasionally walk- 
 ing up and down the earth, seeking whom they 
 may devour. 
 
 If I have now stated my position, and made it 
 sufficiently clear that I do not design to conceal or 
 assume any views out of deference to any institu- 
 tion, I Avill return to my muttons, as the French 
 say. 
 
 It chanced to me once to overhear a company 
 of theologians talking. They were discussing re- 
 sponsibility, penalty, and things of that ilk, and, as 
 far as an uninitiated person could gather, the gist 
 of it was whether babies sinned before they began, 
 or not till afterwards. The thing which they all 
 evidently agreed upon . was, that beings did not 
 have moral responsibility till they had moral ideas, 
 — that is, till they knew right from wrong. This, 
 I am sure, all must agree to. But as I stood 
 steadfastly gazing at that cat, I went a step be- 
 yond, and I remembered a little girl whose educa- 
 tion had advanced to the degree that she could 
 make feint of articulating single words, but was in 
 no wise equal to the effort of stringing two words 
 together. This tiny maiden, tempted of the Devil, 
 and aided and abetted thereby, had feloniously 
 abstracted a lump of sugar from the sugar-firkin, 
 
224 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and retired behind the closet-door to enjoy her 
 prize. There she was overtaken in her iniquity. 
 Her eyes looked up to see her mother's eyes fixed 
 on hers ; and whoever saw the shame and guilt 
 and remorse that settled in those eyes, and spread 
 over that three-cent-piece of a face, — whoever, 
 indeed, saw the tiny figure smuggled behind the 
 door, or felt the unwonted silence occasioned by 
 her temporary withdrawal from the world, — could 
 have had no doubt that she knew in the half-inch 
 depths of her frail little heart that she was doing 
 wrong. Yet how far was she morally respon- 
 sible ? If she had died that moment, would she not 
 have gone straight up to the arms of the Christ ? 
 I verily believe so. And looking into the eyes of 
 Moses, my belief found confirmation there ; for 
 Moses exhibited just as unmistakable signs of 
 moral ideas as did Metty. Both took what they 
 knew they had no right to take. Metty's mamma 
 called to her, and Metty did not reply, though 
 usually both feet and tongue were swift to meet 
 that voice. I called "Moses ! " and silence was 
 my only response, though he generally leaped with 
 great strides to the stairs the moment the garret 
 door was opened. Metty took her sugar behind 
 the door to eat it. Moses took his bird under the 
 bed. Metty spoke no word of justification. No 
 more did Moses. The fact I believe to be, that 
 one was just about as morally responsible as the 
 other ; only a human soul is grafted on, and will 
 
MY BIRDS. 225 
 
 bud and blossom from the little girl's animtil in- 
 stincts, and the poor old cat will grope along for- 
 ever throu£[h his blind brute life. 
 
 But he shall not have my dove to sustain him 
 in it, I said. He shall not crown his grievous 
 transgression with festive orgies. He shall at 
 least suifer the torture of seeing the prize 
 snatched from him in the moment of victory. 
 I went to the head of the stairs and gave a 
 general call for assistance. Dr. Sangrado came. 
 Dr. Sangrado said at, once that he should pick 
 the dove and have her cooked. I turned away 
 in disgust without opening my lips. Moses's 
 arrangement was but ferocity. Dr. Sangrado's 
 was cannibalism. He did pick her, and brought 
 me the wings, — two sj^otless, appealing white 
 wino-s. One is laid away, the other is tied with 
 a pink satin ribbon and hangs under my mantel- 
 piece. If you should mistake it for an ordinary, 
 household wing, and should begin to sweep up 
 the hearth with it, you Avould experience a sud- 
 den difficulty of respiration. This wing is only 
 a memento. Occasionally, I apply it to such 
 aesthetic uses as brushing a silk cushion or a 
 velvet cover, but never to any profaner purposes. 
 
 The next morning I was rejoiced to hear that 
 Dr. Sangrado, having prepared his victim for the 
 vile obsequies which he designed, had hung her 
 in the cellar, and Moses, prowling around as 
 usual in search of prey, had got at the bird and 
 10* o 
 
226 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 fared sumptuosly. As concerning Moses against 
 the dove, I was implacable ; but as concerning 
 Dr. Sangrado against Moses, I took sides with 
 the latter. So, though I would have preferred 
 decent interment for my pet, I yet felt that the 
 worst had been spared; the king had come to his 
 own again, and I was content. 
 
 For one day the widower dove looked bewil- 
 dered. Then he disappeared for three days. 
 Then he returned jubilant with the handsomest 
 dark slate-colored mate it is possible to conceive. 
 Her feathers gleamed and glistened in the sun, 
 flashing through green and purple and pink, daz- 
 zling and magnificent. Then I saw exemplified 
 the truth of the old adage : 
 
 " A mother 's a mother all the days of her life; 
 A father 's a father till he gets him a new wife." 
 
 The two young doves immediately began to suffer 
 an unrelenting persecution, not from their step- 
 mother, but from their father, though I dare say 
 she privately egged him on. He determined to 
 drive them away. He chased them all around 
 the edge of the roof. He pecked at them fu- 
 riously when they came for food as aforetime. 
 He would not suffer them to take a single grain 
 of corn in peace, while the Black Princess settled 
 on her lees and waxed fat. His unnatural treat- 
 ment at length effected the desired object. His 
 persecuted offspring took leave of him forever, the 
 tawny bride reigned triumphant, and he basked 
 
MY BIRDS. 227 
 
 in the sunsliine of unclouded prosperity. But his 
 dehght Avas sliort-lived. Swift justice overtook 
 liini. His beautiful brunette assumed a sudden 
 pique and freak, and repulsed him severely. Be- 
 fore he had recovered from the shock of aston- 
 ishment, she turned his discomfiture into annihi- 
 lation by introducing a new actor to the scene, — 
 a handsome stranger, snow-white and resplendent. 
 Both set themselves remorselessly to work against 
 the head of the flimily. The chalice which he 
 had forced upon his innocent offspring was com- 
 mended to his own lips. He tasted to the full the 
 bitterness of being shoved and pecked and out- 
 raged in his own home, till he fled, a broken- 
 hearted bird, from his violated hearth. I should 
 have pitied him if his previous ill-behavior had 
 not alienated from him the sympathy of all vir- 
 tuous people. As it was, I confess to a grim sat- 
 isfaction in the cruel chagrin which must have 
 torn his bosom as he sat on the ridge-pole of the 
 barn, contemplating the ruin of his domestic hap- 
 piness, while his faithless bride and her new com- 
 panion made love to each other on my window- 
 sill in full view. And it is surprising to see how 
 much love birds can make when they set about 
 it. They actually kissed/ I should not suppose 
 there could be much pleasure in it. Two ten- 
 penny nails might as well attempt caresses, but 
 they seemed to enjoy it. They ran the sharp 
 points of their hard bills over and around each 
 
228 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 other's bills, and bui'ied their noses in each other's 
 feathers, and cooed and simpered, as fond and 
 silly as you please. Perhaps it is this demon- 
 strativeness that has made " dove " a term of en- 
 dearment, but I suspect there may be a good deal 
 more in that application of it than comes to the 
 surface at once. My observations have led me 
 to conclude that doves are of a decidedly quarrel- 
 some disposition, capable of developing into vira- 
 goes, termagants, and downright scolds. Also 
 their tenderness, though laid on pretty thick while 
 it lasts, very soon gives out. Has not some close 
 observer, a little cynical, perhaps, given the word 
 its erotic turn as a delicate but sharp satire ? 
 
 Since the spring has come, my doves have flown. 
 I neglected to feed them one day, and they left me. 
 When I have been from home a week at a time 
 they never seemed to mind it, but frequented me 
 as usual on my return. I suppose tny oifence lay 
 in being at home and not feeding them ; and as 
 the mild weather and the resurrection of insect- 
 life made it practicable for them to gratify their 
 resentment, they concluded to do so. 
 
 I am consoled for their absence by the advent 
 of those delicious little beings, those true fairies of 
 the air, those tiny marvels of creative power, — 
 the protest of tliis new world against the Trans- 
 atlantic notion that its grandeur is not exalted by 
 a corresponding finish, — humming-birds. A pa- 
 per of round, black, microscopic seeds, labelled 
 
MY BIRDS. 229 
 
 " humming-bird balm," sent me by an honored 
 and valued friend, who, amid the stern duties of 
 life finds time for its small, sweet courtesies, was 
 sown in the fall, rij^ened through the frosts and 
 snows, and sprang up with the sirring into green 
 and flowery strength. Attracted by some myste- 
 rious influence, the little birdlets come flying from 
 east and west and north and south. I hear their 
 lively chirp in the warm morning. On they dart 
 with rapid flight, — their forked tails fluttering, 
 their black eyes sparkling, their black bills aiming 
 straight ahead, their brown wings deepening into 
 royal purple, their glossy backs gleaming out a 
 golden-green splendor, their breasts and throats 
 now dazzhng me with ruby fire, now throbbing like 
 molten gold, changing from intense black to burn- 
 ing orange and fiery crimson, the brilliant scales 
 instinct with glowing life, — more beautiful than 
 tongue can tell. Now he poises himself, a quiver- 
 ing, shining mist, above the balm. Now he thrusts 
 liis slender tongue into the flower-cup, and rifles 
 its hidden honey. And now I see indeed 
 the force of Sidney Smith's advice to 
 women to give a kiss as a hum- 
 ming-bird runs his bill into 
 a honey - suckle, — 
 deep, but deli- 
 cate. 
 
Tommy. 
 
 ^ OMETIMES when I am sitting in my 
 room, I hear a prolonged " g-a-a-h ! " 
 Then I know that Tommy is out. 
 Tommy has escaped from his keepers, 
 and is pursuing his investigations in the world at 
 large. So I go to the window, and a pink gleam 
 flashes up from the grass, and there, sure enough, 
 is Tommy, climbing up toward the house Avith 
 slow, tottering, uncertain steps, but with a face 
 indicative of a desperate resolve to get somewhere, 
 and with both arms acting as balancing-poles. 
 Then I call out, " jSitMo ! little Tom-wiee.'" and 
 everything changes. The arms drop, the feet 
 stop, the resolution fades out of his face. He 
 looks blankly towards all points of the compass, 
 and when finally his eyes alight on me, what a 
 smile ! An ordinary curve of his generous, Irish 
 lips does n't seem at all adequate to his feelings. 
 He smiles latitudinally and longitudinally, — away 
 round towards the back of his head, up to his 
 nose, and down into his chin. Out goes his right 
 
•TOMMY. 231 
 
 arm as far as it can stretch, with the fat fore- 
 finger extended towards me, and a more intense 
 "g-a-a-h!" bursts from the little throat. Then, 
 with renewed energy, he resumes his travels. He 
 does very well so long as the ascent is gradual, 
 but when it becomes abrupt, his troubles begin. 
 It is n't the tumbling down, however, that hurts 
 him. Like all the rest of us, he can do that very 
 easily, but it is the getting up again that plays 
 the mischief. He rears himself on his toes and 
 fingers, and there he stands, a round-backed little 
 quadruped, utterly at a loss what to do next ; 
 for Tommy does not yet understand the use of 
 his knees. If he thinks I am looking at him, he 
 will stand there and squeal till he becomes con- 
 vinced that I have gone away and left him to his 
 own resources, which I generally do ; when he 
 drops, or rolls, or wriggles along, in some illegal 
 and unatomical way, and at last stands radiant 
 in the porch. Then he steers straightway to the 
 side-lio-hts. Those side-liohts are an unfailino; 
 source of admiring wonder. If somebody is on 
 the opposite side to play bo-peep, he is ecstatic. 
 If nobody is there, he is calmly blissful. 
 
 Tommy is a great nuisance during the " fall 
 cleaning." He is always getting into the soap- 
 suds and hot-water generally. I volunteered once 
 to take charge of him. I was going to tack down 
 a carpet. Tommy looked on in amazement. Then 
 he got down on the floor, and tried to take the 
 
232 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 tacks in his soft fingers. I rapped the soft fingers 
 with my carpet-hammer. He gave one yell, and 
 drew them back. I kept on with my work. In 
 a minute, the soft fingers were creeping in among 
 the tacks. Another rap, another yell, another 
 creep, — - rap I yell ! creep, — till I grew tired of 
 rapping, if he did not of being rapped. I suppose 
 I did n't hit quite hard enough, but one does n't 
 like to take liberties with other people's babies. 
 Then I took hold of him by the back of his frock 
 with one hand, carried him, with head and feet 
 hanging, to the fiirthest side of the room, and de- 
 posited him in a corner. I had hardly driven one 
 tack in, before the little rascal was rounding up 
 his back again under my very eyes. I gathered 
 him up once more, and dumped him in the corner 
 as before. Evidently it was fine fun for him. 
 Nothing could exceed the alacrity with which he 
 crawled over to me. In despair, I at length put 
 up the tacks, and proceeded to arrange some cur- 
 tain-fixtures. Tommy was suspiciously still for 
 several minutes, and when I went to ascertain the 
 cause, I found he had got a bucket of sea-sand 
 that had been left in the room, had emptied it on 
 the carpet, and was flinging it about in royal style. 
 I regretted to stop his enjoyment, for I have a 
 fondness for sand myself, but it did not seem to 
 be appropriate under the circumstances, and I 
 scooped it up as well as I could, and put it beyond 
 his reach. The next time I looked at him, which 
 
TOMMY. 233 
 
 was in about a quarter of a minute, he was exert- 
 ing himself to the utmost in pushing a large pitcher 
 oft' the lower part of the wash-hand-stand. I 
 caught it just as it was toppling over the brink, 
 and before I could get that out of harm's way, 
 he had tumbled a writing-desk out of a chair, scat- 
 tering pens, ink, and paper in all directions, I 
 saw at once that, if I was going to take care of 
 Tommy, I must "give my mind to it." I took 
 him into the kitchen, as the place best prepared 
 to resist his incursions. He struck a bee-line for 
 the stove, and covered himself with crock. I 
 could n't undertake to wash him, but I mopped 
 him up a little, put on his hat, and took him out 
 to Avalk. Everything went on blithely till I 
 turned to go home, then he raised the standard 
 of rebellion. Tommy seldom cries, but he has a 
 gamut of most surprising squeals at his command. 
 On the present occasion, he exhibited them in 
 Avonderful variety, and with remarkable comiDass 
 of sound. I might say every step was a squeal. 
 The neighborhood rushed to the windows, not 
 unreasonably fearing a repetition of the " babes 
 in the wood." I covered his eyes, and swung 
 him around rapidly three or four times, to be- 
 wilder him so that he should not know which way 
 lie was going. But Tommy was too old a bird 
 to be caught by such chaff". He pulled backward, 
 sidewise, every way but the way he ought to 
 have pulled. I sat down on the root of an old 
 
234 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 elm- tree, and gazed at liim in silent despair. He 
 smiled back at me serene* as a summer morning, 
 but the moment I showed symptoms of starting, 
 he showed symptoms of squealing, till at length 
 I conquered my compunctions, took him up in 
 my arms, crock and all, and carried him home. 
 
 Tommy has a little black kitten, and the un- 
 derstandino; between them is wonderful to see. 
 Whenever you see Tommy's pink dress, you may 
 be sure the kitty's glossy fur is not far oif ; and 
 she whisks around him, and tantalizes him in the 
 most provoking manner. Sometimes they both 
 run a steeple-chase after her tail ; kitty is too wise, 
 by far, to let anything so valuable as her tail get 
 into the clutch of those undlscriminating fingers ; 
 but she frisks and gambols around him delicrht- 
 fully, and Tommy turns, too, as fast as he can, 
 and does n't know that the flashing tail is never 
 to be got hold of by him. It is surprising how 
 slowly children develop compared with other ani- 
 mals. Tommy's kitten is a good deal younger 
 than he, yet she makes nothing of climbing up to 
 the ridge-pole of the barn after the doves, which 
 she never catches, or scudding up the tall cherry- 
 tree and peeping down at Tommy from the upper 
 branches. I believe she does it to excite his envy. 
 C Tommy is intimate only with the kitten, but he 
 makes friends with the chickens, and cultivates the 
 acquaintance of the pig by throwing the clothes- 
 pins over in his pen. An old rooster, nearly as 
 
TOMMY. 235 
 
 tall as liimself, seems to have attracted his especial 
 ix'i^ard. His efforts to catch him are persistent, 
 though as yet unsuccessfuh He evidently has 
 perfect faith in his ultimate success, however, 
 and every time Rooster heaves in sight. Tommy 
 makes a lurch after him with both arms extended. 
 Rooster understands perfectly how matters stand, 
 and preserves a dignified composure till Tommy 
 gets within a foot of him, when he leisurely with- 
 draws. Tommy stops a moment, takes a survey, 
 and goes at it again.) 
 
 The days, and the weeks, and the months pass 
 on, and Tommy's rich Irish blood ripens in the 
 summer sunshine. His tottering legs grow firmer. 
 His dimpled arms forebode strength. As I sit at 
 my window, I see the apple-trees in the orchard 
 grow white with bloom, and under them my best 
 silk umbrella is marching about, as the courts say, 
 without any visible means of support. While I 
 gaze in astonishment, it suddenly gives a lurch, 
 and reveals Tommy under its capacious dome in a 
 seventh heaven of ecstasy. Or I am startled, 
 while sitting alone in the warm afternoon, by see- 
 ing a blue eye, just a naked, human eye, peering 
 in through the lowest chink of a closed blind 
 opening on the porch. It turns out to belong 
 to Tommy, who, by standing on tiptoe in the 
 porch, can jvist get one eye in range. Now I see 
 him trotting down the lane alone, (?lad in a gay 
 scarlet frock, et p- outer ea nihi^ his fat little legs 
 
236 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 brown with dirt, liis white neck, face, and arms 
 mottled with the same, and his curly hair a jungle. 
 From his abstracted and eager manner, I infer 
 that he is bent on some grave errand. " Where 
 going, Tommy ? " I call, suspicious of a secret ex- 
 pedition. " 0-gah-gi-bah ! " shouts Tommy, with- 
 out slackening his pace. Out comes his mother, 
 with a twig, and gives chase. Tommy becomes 
 cognizant of a fire in the rear, and his eager walk 
 tumbles into a trot, for he feels that he is verily 
 guilty, and knows that he is easily accessible ; but 
 fate overtakes him, and he is borne igndminiously 
 back. Then his mother explains that she had just 
 been trying on his new frock, and had remarked 
 that she must get some buttons, and so Tommy 
 had stolen away, and was going " over-shop-get- 
 buttons." 
 
 Accidents, we are told, will happen in the best 
 of families, and Tommy awoke one morning and 
 found that his nose was out of joint. A little, 
 lumpy baby sister had sadly deranged the machin- 
 ery of his life, and he did n't know what to make 
 of it. Formerly, when he stole out-doors un- 
 awares, his pretty young mother used to run out 
 after him, and toss him up in her stout, bare arms 
 into the house. Now an old woman in a cap came, 
 and brought her hand down very heavily on his 
 sensitiveness. Then, too, he was ousted out of his 
 cradle by the interloper, and his life was in a fair 
 way of becoming a burden to him. But his good- 
 
TOMMY. 237 
 
 nature never failed. To be sure, he would throw 
 the plates, and the flat-irons, and the coal into the 
 cradle, but it was probably " all in fun," When 
 I went in to see " the baby," the first time, he 
 pointed to it with great exultation, and as soon 
 as tlie blanket was rolled down, first poked his 
 finger into her eyes, and then, quick as thought, 
 gave her a rousing slap on the cheek. Baliy 
 screamed, as she had a right to do, and Tommy 
 had the slap returned with compound interest, as 
 he richly deserved. 
 
 Yet, in senseless, instinctive fashion, in his wild, 
 Irish way, Tommy loved his baby sister. The 
 little life drooped and died while the roses were 
 yet in bloom. Tommy's baby sister was borne to 
 her burial, and Tommy's heart was troubled with 
 a blind fear. What it was he did not know, but 
 somethino; was wrona;. He lingered about the 
 cradle where she lay, and when the tiny form was 
 taken up to be placed in the coffin, he plucked 
 wildly at her white robe, crying bitterly, and re- 
 fused to be comforted. 
 
 Darling little Tommy ! The very thought of 
 your happy face, white and soft, and fine as a lily- 
 cup, of your merry blue eyes, with their long, 
 cui'ling, black eyelashes, of your bungling little 
 feet, and your meddlesome little fingers, warms 
 my heart. 1[f I could have my way, you should 
 always stay just as you are now, only having your 
 face washed semi-occasionally. But I cannot have 
 
238 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 my way, and you will by and by run to school 
 barefoot, and wear blue overalls, and smoke bad 
 tobacco in a dingy pipe, and carry a hod, and vote 
 the " dimmocratic ticket." 
 
 So I said last year with foolish human prophecy, 
 and now, behold ! there is no democratic ticket 
 to vote, and there is no Tommy to vote it. For 
 Tommy is gone. Never any more while I live 
 shall the gleam of his shining hair light up the 
 greensward, or the irregular thumping of his 
 copper-toed shoes bring music to my ears as he 
 stumbles up the yard and clatters across the 
 kitchen-floor. A dreamy October morning, all 
 gold and amethyst with the haze of the Indian 
 summer, took him beyond my sight over the blue 
 waters to the fair island of his fathers, which has 
 been to me ever since a " summer isle of Eden, 
 lying in dark purple spheres of sea " ; and it 
 seemed to me for the moment that nothing would 
 be so delightful, nothing looked so winning, as 
 to leave this surging, eager, battling land, and 
 sail over the sea with Tommy, and live quietly in. 
 a little brown cottage on the border of Donegal 
 bog, with a well-burnt pipe in the cupboard, plenty 
 of peat on the fire, potatoes smoking in the ashes, 
 a fine fat pig in the corner, and nothing to be 
 careful or troubled about all the days of my life. 
 
 While I grieve for Tommy gone, T reflect that 
 he would probably be a little pest if he had stayed. 
 Already his feet were swift to do mischief. His 
 
TOMMY. 239 
 
 rosy lips could swear you as round an oatli as 
 any Flanders soldiers, and he beat the calf, and 
 chased the hens, and worried the sheep, and poked 
 the cow, and pvilled the cat's tail, and worked the 
 key out of the door and lost it, and was perpet- 
 ually carrying oflp the hoe, and making the gravel 
 fly, and surreptitiously possessing himself of the 
 whip. Fumble, rattle, — Tommy is at the door ; 
 creak, creak, — he has got it open ; thump, thump, 
 thump, — he is making for the whip ; silence, — 
 he is getting it down. " Tommy ! Tommy ! don't 
 touch the whip, will you ? " " No," says Tommy, 
 stoutly, in the very act of marching off with it 
 firmly clasped in both hands, brandishing it right 
 and left, and whisking every living thing, and 
 dead ones too, that came in his way, or that did n't, 
 either, for that matter. 
 
 In the warm, moonlight evening. Tommy sits 
 again in a high chair in the porch, and his mother 
 tells me of the home to which she is going in Ire- 
 land, and of the schools which Tommy will attend, 
 and the books that he will study, and she promises 
 to send me one to look at, but I greatly fear it will 
 never reach me. As the conversation proceeds, I 
 am driven into a corner, and forced to admit that I 
 do not reckon among my acquisitions an acquaint- 
 ance with the Irish language. She is silent for a 
 moment, and never fails in the politeness of her 
 race ; but I do not think I shall ever quite recover 
 the ground which that revelation cost me. I fear 
 
240 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 me my reputation is permanently lowered. Tom- 
 my, climbing in and ont of his high chair, up his 
 mother's neck, and down the porch steps, wiggling 
 everywhere, and clawing everything, takes part in 
 the pleasant chat. " Where are you going, Thomas, 
 by and by ? " asks his mother, designing to show 
 his paces. " Kitty, kitty," gurgles Tommy, mak- 
 ing a dive after the kitten. " Now, Thomas," says 
 she, drawing him back with a strong arm, " tell 
 'em where you 're going next month, in a ship, 
 you know, over the water." " Cow," says Tom- 
 my, perversely, having a mortal aversion to water, 
 wholesale and retail. But I know a quick way to 
 his tongue. " Tommy, tell me where you are 
 going, and I '11 give you a sugar-plum." " Isle," 
 says he, with a fine brogue, rapidly coming to his 
 senses. " An' tell 'em what '11 your gran'father 
 be sayin' to you, when he sees you." A pink pep- 
 permint in my hand becoming visible to the naked 
 eye, he answers promptly, " Ye ! ga ! Tom ! wi I 
 ko ! yah ! bk ! " which, being interpreted, means, 
 " Here comes Tom with the clock on his back," 
 referring to a clock which is to be carried with 
 them, and which he evidently believes will be his 
 own personal luggage. Sometimes his answer 
 turns into " Here 's Tom, coming in at the door ! " 
 which seems to me to indicate a decided dramatic 
 power. " Tommy," I say, pathetically, " I am 
 afraid you will forget all about me when you go 
 to Ireland." " Iss," roars Tommy, backing out 
 
TOMMY. 241 
 
 from under his chair. " But I want you not to 
 forget. Stand still, now, and tell me what my 
 name is." " Yah ! " shouts Tommy, jumping up 
 and down. " Yah what ? " " Yah Yah! " And 
 even when the last morning comes, — when Tom- 
 my, gay with scarlet frock and feather, and " bran 
 new " shoes, is borne in his mother's arms up the 
 steps to say his last good-by, — the hard-hearted 
 little pagan is utterly unmoved by her tears, and 
 only jounces up and down, and cries, " Ride ! 
 Horse ! " and, in virtue of a doughnut in each fist, 
 inarches off for fatherland, triumphant. 
 
 But Ireland is glorified henceforth. I see no 
 more there want, nor squalor, nor suffering, but 
 verdurous meadow-depths, and a little child crowned 
 with myrtle and arbutus, flinging around him the 
 crushed- wealth of daisy and primroses and gold 
 cups, while his upturned face, shining against the 
 morning sun, is as it were the face of an angel. 
 
 God bless the Irish ! I cannot choose but love 
 them. They do unearthly things, I know, and 
 are a grief of heart to the sorely-tried housewives. 
 One whole winter did Bridget sweep my room, 
 and invariably set the table with the drawer toward 
 the wall. Never by any mistake did it happen to 
 come right side out. Patsy had a way of swoop- 
 ing up all the contents of all the wash-hand-stands, 
 in her regular round with broom and duster, and 
 distributing them again without respect of persons. 
 Accordingly, your own stand would be garnished 
 11 p 
 
242 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 with the tooth-brush of your neighbor on the right, 
 the nail-brush of your neighbor on the left, the 
 hair-brush of your neighbor above, and the hat- 
 brush of your neighbor below. But Patsy is a 
 diamond in the rough. I wrote a love-letter for 
 her once. She came to me beaming with ruddy 
 shyness, and, after baching and filling for fifteen 
 minutes, gave me to understand that her lover was 
 by " the far Avash of Australasian seas," and would 
 I write him a letter for her. He was a fond swain, 
 but she had been coy and coquettish, and, now 
 that he was so far away, her heart relented. Did 
 I write to him ? Of course I did, conjecturing, to 
 the best of my ability, Avhat manner of document 
 a love-letter should be, and determining that at 
 least it should not lack the quality which gives it 
 a name. So, after exhausting my own vocabulary, 
 I had recourse to the poets, and quoted Tennyson. 
 It smote me in the heart to look up when I had 
 read it to her, and see her beautiful almond eyes 
 filled with tears ; for though one's own love-letters 
 may be a serious enough matter, one can hardly 
 voice another's tenderness with entire good faith. 
 " Oh ! " said Patsy, with a sigh from the very bot- 
 tom of her warm Irish heart, " them is jes' my 
 feelin's," and even put her head back through the 
 door after going out, to add, " An' sure, ye must 
 have had them feelin's yourself, or ye niver could 
 have done it." "Ah, Patsy!" I said, — but 
 never mind what I said. 
 
T03IMY. 243 
 
 God l)less the Irish I They supply an element 
 that is wanting to our Anglo-Saxon blood, the 
 easy, eloquent, picturesque race. Their rest is 
 such a cushion to our restlessness. As they mount 
 the ladder, their individualities lose outline, but 
 an Irish poor ftimily is world-wide from an Ameri- 
 can poor iamily. The Americans will be so sharp 
 and angular, and clearly defined. They will have 
 such an air of having seen better days, and not 
 giving up seeing them again. Their poverty is 
 self-conscious, and draws comparisons. A painful 
 scrubbiness is in the air. Everything is neat, 
 whitewashed, and made the most of Evidently 
 they are struggling against fate. They contest 
 every inch of ground. If you offer them assist- 
 ance, you must double and turn, and ten to one 
 give mortal offence after all. I know these are 
 the very things that the books applaud, and I 
 suppose they are one of the bases of greatness ; 
 but for solid comfort, give me an Irish shanty, 
 where all are dirty and happy and contented. 
 For the spare, stooping American mother, with 
 thin hair, pointed elbows, and never fewer than 
 forty years, you have the Irish matron, always 
 young, — red, round arms, luxuriantly full figure, 
 great white teeth, head set back, and royal hair. 
 You are received with nonchalant courtesy, and 
 your " remainder biscuit " with graceful gratitude. 
 No care furrows any forehead. If the baby creeps 
 into the ashes, one blacksmithy arm whips him 
 
244 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 out again as good as new. In winter tlie air is 
 warm with the mingled odor of soapsuds, boiUng 
 cabbage, and fragrant tobacco. In the summer 
 they set their wash-tubs at the back door, and, in 
 a sensible scantiness of costume, rub to the robin's 
 song, and never seem to look forward to a pos- 
 sible presidency. They float across the tide ac- 
 quiescent. Thus poverty is robbed of its sting. 
 
 If one must be poor, it is so much easier to be 
 comfortable about it. And if one is thoroughly 
 comfortable, what matter whether one lives in one 
 room or twenty ? 
 
 God bless the Irish ! Their strong arms are 
 lifted, their warm heai'ts are beating, side by side 
 with ours, for the honor and life of their adopted 
 country. Does famine impend over their island 
 home ? We have enough and to spare. From 
 our bursting granaries, from our larders over-full, 
 let their tables be spread with plenty. Surely the 
 bread, the few crumbs which we cast upon the 
 waters, many days ago, are already returned to 
 us in Irish truth and loyalty. And when their 
 civilization and Christianity are brought abreast 
 with their inborn poetry, Ireland shall come forth 
 fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible 
 as an army with banners. 
 
 Tommy, Tommy, I am loath to leave you. I 
 do not see how you can possibly grow up good ; 
 but your angel, always beholding the face of our 
 Father which is in heaven, may read there plans 
 
TOMMY. 
 
 245 
 
 of love which my dim eyes cannot discern. To 
 
 God I commend you. Wherever you go, the Lord 
 
 give his angels charge concerning you, to keep 
 
 you in all your ways, and even though 
 
 you worship him blindly, with bell and 
 
 incense and crucifix and rosary, 
 
 may he none the less keep 
 
 your eyes from tears, your 
 
 feet from falling, and 
 
 your soul from 
 
 death. 
 
 G) 
 
Boston and Home Again. 
 
 NE thing there is in the world which 
 I admire. It is hlase people, — peo- 
 ple, as Curtis expresses it, who have 
 pumped life dry, and the pump only 
 wheezes, — people who are not interested in any- 
 thing, — people who have gone through the whole 
 round of sensations, and have the satisfactory con- 
 sciousness of having nothing more to feel, — peo- 
 ple who are always self-possessed, never thrown 
 off their balance. Attacked from any quarter, 
 they are ready. There is the Englisli Quarterly 
 Reviewer. He has all things under his feet. He 
 is calmly superior to the world, the flesh, and so 
 forth. He holds in his hands the reins of the uni- 
 verse. He embraces the whole circle of knowl- 
 edge. Nothing ever happens to which he cannot 
 assign its true cause and prophesy its remotest 
 future. He knows more of poetry than the poet, 
 more of art than the artist, more of history than 
 the historian. He can get more out of anything 
 than ever was in it. The scanty grains of infer- 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 247 
 
 mation which you have been able to gather by- 
 hard digging into dictionaries and grammars, and 
 which you reserve for grand occasions, dwindle to 
 nothino; before the huge boulders of learnino; which 
 he scoops up and tosses about with his finger-tips 
 on the slightest provocation. But the seal of his 
 royalty is the air of quiet superiority, of having 
 been born to it, with which he handles his re- 
 sources, and, awed by which, you abdicate at 
 once, feeling it an honor to be tyrannized over 
 by such a one. But this is a remarkable world 
 in many respects, and in none more so than in 
 a certain organic disjointedness. Causes do not 
 seem to produce effects. Sequences are arbitrary. 
 There is general law, but a great deal of special 
 lawlessness. You lay all your plans to accomplish 
 an object, and miss of it ; while the good that you 
 never dream of obtaining comes to you unsought. 
 Machines that work well in theory will not work 
 at all in iron. There seems to be no reason why 
 the stove should smoke, but it does. I knew a 
 man who, at twenty, was given up by his physi- 
 cians. His lungs were gone, his stomach was 
 going, his heart was capricious, — in short, all his 
 internal apparatus seemed to be destroyed or de- 
 ranged ; it is plain that, under such circumstances, 
 he ouo'ht to have died. If this were a logical 
 world, he would have died. On the contrary, 
 he most unreasonably persisted in living, and is 
 now, at forty, roaming over Europe, climbing the 
 
248 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Alps, braving the Pontine Marshes, tampering with 
 Rhein wine, sauer-kraut, and all manner of foreign 
 edibles, and threatens to live out his threescore 
 years and ten, unless death comes to him from 
 without. Certainly, there is a hitch in the w^orld 
 I somewhere. So, though I would give any reason- 
 able sum to be hlase and au fait myself, I am in 
 fact very far from it. I often become bewildered 
 in cities. I lose my purse, and I lose my way, 
 and I almost lose my senses. I admire, and 
 am astonished. I like to look in at shop win- 
 dows, to see a monkey capering to a hand-organ, 
 to buy fruit of old women crouching on the cor- 
 ners of streets. When I get into an omnibus, I 
 never can remember to get out again, and once 
 I rode from Boston to Cambridge three times 
 before I remembei'ed to pull the strap at the place 
 where I wanted to be left. I like to be in a 
 crowd, if I am not in a hurry (in a carriage, — I 
 should n't like to be on foot, and have all sorts of 
 people knocking against me), and see the feathers 
 and silks trying to get on, and can't, and men 
 elbowing through by the skin of their teeth, and 
 truckmen shouting, and wheels interlocking, and 
 horses pawing, and timid people looking scared. 
 That sounds rather malignant, but it is n't. I 
 would not scare them myself for the sake of the 
 fun ; but as they are scared independently of any 
 effort of mine, I enjoy it simply as a part of the 
 pantomime. Besides, I don't see any use in being 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 249 
 
 friglitcned in such a case. I don't expect a coach- 
 man to have any especial regard for my individual 
 bones, but I do expect him to have a regard for his 
 own reputation as a coachman, and for his pocket, 
 both of which demand that he should not upset his 
 coach and injure his passenger, unless circumstan- 
 ces absolutely require it. I take it for granted, 
 also, that he understands his business a great deal 
 better than I do ; and as he does n't fret about 
 my writing, I won't fret about his driving me 
 through a crowd. I also like, in passing through 
 streets, to count the windows, and see how many 
 stories the shops have. I like to talk with news- 
 boys, and rag-pickers, and the little beggar-girls, 
 and with all sorts of out-of-the-way people. It 
 seems to take you into another world. I am al- 
 ways awed in the presence of milliners and dress- 
 makers. If I have an opinion before I go in, it 
 presents itself to them in the form of the meek- 
 est and timidest suggestion, and melts away and 
 evaporates before their slightest objection. There 
 is something in their art perfectly incomprehensible 
 to me. I can understand how a locomotive engine 
 or a sewing-machine can be made. I think I could 
 make one myself, if I were educated to it, and had 
 the proper tools ; for a ponderous machine cuts 
 out your work by rule, and you put it together, 
 one engine just like another. But a milliner must 
 have creative power. She must conceive an idea 
 of every bonnet separately, and then, from a wil- 
 11* 
 
/ 250 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 derness of silk and straw and lace and flowers, she 
 must evoke the perfect bonnet, every one sepa- 
 rately, and every one adapted to the figure, com- 
 plexion, and character of every separate wearer, — 
 and this for months and years continuously. 
 
 But of course all this is incompatible with that 
 air of savoir /aire which is at once my admiration 
 and my despair. You cannot be tranquilly inter- 
 ested and keenly indifferent at the same time. 
 And how can one go up from the country, where 
 the quiet is a perpetual Sabbath, into the city, 
 where life whirls in ten thousand different forms, 
 and not be interested, — and not show it ? I have 
 had opportunities to observe my sex in the transi- 
 tion state, and I am forced to say that I do not 
 think the female traveller is always a pleasant object 
 of contemplation. She is never quite free from 
 anxiety or bundles, and is generally pretty highly 
 charged with both. She asks the conductor the 
 same question twice, as if she believed he might 
 undergo a moral reformation between the first and 
 second asking, and tell the truth at last, though he 
 told a lie at first. Sweetly patient at home, sub- 
 limely patient in great pain or peril, she is ludi- 
 crously impatient on her travels. She cannot wait 
 the march of events, but outstrips the present, an- 
 ticipates the future, and asks the conductor " if we 
 change cars at B." Trustful to a fault in the do- 
 mestic circle, she becomes a very sceptic in the 
 cars, and never believes him unless he says "Yes." 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN 251 
 
 When he announces at B., " Passengers chano-e 
 cars for the East," she steps out with alacrity upon 
 the platform, and immediately asks him, " Do we 
 change cars here?" Acute of vision, and rapid in 
 perception at home, abroad a glamour seems to fall 
 upon her. The time-table invariably hangs upon 
 the station-walls, but, as if incapable of calculation, 
 she invariably asks the ticket-master at what hour 
 the train is due ; and if it is five minutes late, she 
 o-oes to him aiiain, and asks him how lono; before 
 it will arrive. Of course, observing the inconse- 
 quence of these and similar vagaries, I am espe- 
 cially careful to avoid them. You will presently 
 see how I succeed.) 
 
 I will, however, say this in extenuation, that no 
 city has any moral right to be as crooked as Bos- 
 ton. It is a crookedness without excuse, and 
 without palliation. It is crooked in cold blood, 
 and with malice aforethought. It goes askew 
 when it might just as easily go straiglit. It is 
 illogical, inconsequent, and incoherent. 'Nowhere 
 leads to anywhere in particular. You start from 
 any given point, and you are just as likely to come 
 out at one place as another^ Of course, all this can 
 but have an effect on the inhabitants. Straight- 
 forwardness becomes impossible where you are 
 continually pitching up against sharp points. Peo- 
 ple born and bred in angles, and blind alleys, and 
 cross-ways, cannot fail to have a knack at ter- 
 giversation and intrigue. Diplomatists should be 
 
252 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 chosen from Boston, or should at least take a pre- 
 paratory course of five years there, as soldiers do 
 at West Point. 
 
 The number of the streets is amazing. The 
 Bostonians seem to have a perfect frenzy for them. 
 If they can squeeze in a six-foot passage between 
 two houses, they are happy. Half a dozen stairs 
 and a brick platform is an avenue and an elysium. 
 They build tlieir houses in the shape of a letter V, 
 with the point sticking out in front, apparently for 
 no other reason than the exquisite satisfaction of 
 having a street pass up each side ; and they make 
 their streets crooked to look at, and then make 
 alleys to get there. Washington Street, the prin- 
 cipal thoroughfare, 
 
 " Like fi wounded snake drags its slow length along." 
 
 I have heard that it was originated by cows, me- 
 andering down to drink. This hypothesis may 
 answer in the one case, but it won't apply to the 
 smaller streets, for a cow could not make so acute 
 angles if she tried. Owing to this vaccine inabil- 
 ity, Washington street rolls on with considerable 
 dignity for awhile, but it goes off into a deliri- 
 um tremens down by Cornhill and Dock Square. 
 Everything is as shifting as a kaleidoscope. When 
 you set out from the Revere House, you observed 
 the landmarks. There was " Oliver H. Brooks, 
 Eating-House," set in the middle of the road, and 
 peaked of course. That is easy to remember. 
 But Avhen you get back into the maze, the thing is 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 253 
 
 there, to be sure, wedging itself into space, but it 
 is no longer Oliver H. Brooks's Eating-House ; it 
 is B. F. Paine's Fruit of all kinds Chamois. You 
 go to the very spot where the Revere House stood 
 in the morning. It has died and left no sign, 
 and a block of brick houses reigns in its stead. 
 When you went up Cornhill, " V. B. Palmer '' 
 stood at the head of it in gold letters, but when 
 you come back V. B. has trotted off, and the vari- 
 ous religious and publishing societies which con- 
 gregate there have, in the incredibly short space 
 of two hours, given way to Mr. Blake's Furnish- 
 ing Rooms, or the Quincy House. As for Faneuil 
 Hall, it is perpetually dancing a jig with Dock 
 Square. Places that you are in a hurry to come 
 at, are never " at home." Places that you don't 
 want, are continually turning up. You may wan- 
 der about in that benighted region for hours, and 
 every corner you turn, there will be Faneuil Hall 
 prancing before yovir eyes as pert and coquettish 
 as if each time were the first. It is always within 
 a stone's throw, but you never get close to it. I 
 don't believe anybody ever did get close to it. 
 And you never see it standing square. You never 
 have a front view, nor a side view, but always a 
 corner view. It must have secret springs, for if 
 you make a flank movement, with the sole object 
 of o;ettino; it in a straight line, it will manage to cut 
 a pirouette, and present angles. Jefferson Davis 
 threatened to go into winter quarters in Faneuil 
 
254 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Hall. I wish he had. A sure way to stop the 
 rebellion without bloodshed would be to bring 
 him and his whole army to Faneuil Hall and 
 suburbs. They never would find their way out 
 again. I would not blindfold them. I would 
 give them every clew that they chose. After 
 they were once in, Boston could just shake 
 herself, the clews would be good for nothing, 
 and Massachusetts nurseries for a thousand years 
 would shiver at twilight over stories of wandering 
 ghosts, with phantom barred flags and shadowy 
 Golden Circles, wandering, weeping, wailing, in 
 the alleys of Dock Square, and moaning ever and 
 anon, like Sterne's starling, " I can't get out." I 
 mention only Dock Square, but there are, as the 
 Yankees say, " lots of 'em." That one has made 
 the deepest impression on me, for whenever I am 
 lost, I drift into that, and it seems like the night- 
 mare. I suppose it is called " Square," on the 
 same principle that the only man in the House 
 of Representatives who cannot make a speech is 
 called Mr. Speaker. Certainly there never was 
 such a misnomer as Dock Square. . Dock Dodeca- 
 gon would be nearer the truth, but that would 
 only approximate it, for a dodecagon has regular 
 sides, and there is not a regular side to anything, 
 from one end of Boston to the other, let alone 
 Dock Square, which has no sides at all, but con- 
 sists solely of corners. 
 
 That the crookedness of Boston is not external 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 255 
 
 only, but strikes in, there is abundant proof. You 
 go into a sliop, — Kinmonth's, for instance. You 
 founder at once in a raging sea of agitated silks 
 and laces and feathers. Appalled, you turn to 
 Turnbull's, next door. Another sea, but some- 
 thing must be done. You want sixpence Avortii 
 of galloon. At home, in your one little " cheap 
 cash store," you could get it, and be gone, in two 
 minutes ; but the female population of the rural 
 districts has a mortal aversion to buying anything 
 at home that can be bought in Boston. The 
 grandeur of the metropolis seems to cling around 
 whatever radiates from it into the country, even 
 though it be only a paper of pins. So, feeling very 
 tall, and awkward, and conspicuous, you timidly ask 
 the first clerk to whom you gain access for galloon. 
 " Back part of the store," says he, briskly, and 
 turns to the next comer. You color away up to 
 your hair, and down under your collar, feeling- 
 guilty and ashamed, and very rustic, — as if you 
 ought to have known, by instinct or education, 
 that galloon is never to be found in the front 
 ranks. You flounder through the press into the 
 back part of the store, and repeat your request 
 Avitli as much au fait as you can assume. " Back 
 part of the store," jerks clerk No. 2, and is off in 
 a twinkling, and there you are, stranded high and 
 dry. It turns out that what you thought was the 
 back ])art of the store is only' the beginning of 
 another room at right angles with the first, — and 
 
256 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 so yon go on, and the rooms go on. Yon are shot 
 up by some pop-gun of a clerk from counter to 
 counter, from room to room, fondly thinking every 
 one to be the last, but finding in the backest part 
 a backer part, — (vide Milton,) — till, after making 
 half a dozen angles of incidence and reflection, 
 you get your galloon, and — there is the door 
 close by you ! Is Turnbull's, then, built circu- 
 larly ? Have you circumnavigated it till, as the 
 old geographies used to say, you have arrived 
 at the point from which you started, in an op- 
 posite direction ? In your bewilderment, this 
 is not difficult to believe, and you depart, but 
 everything Avithout is changed. The din seems 
 hushed, or far off. The tide of drays and omni- 
 buses has ebbed. You remember that Kin- 
 month's was next door, — yes, there is Kin- 
 month's, but no longer next door ; it has stepped 
 across the street and stands opposite, and the big 
 sign has dwindled into a little one. Terror- 
 struck, you strike out at random, fearful lest the 
 Merlin, or Math, or Michael Scott, who roams in 
 Boston, stretch forth his wand again ; sign, shop, 
 and city disappear before your eyes, and you 
 find yourself wandering among the forests and 
 wigwams of Shawraut. 
 
 Boston, moreover, has a way of contracting and 
 expanding herself that is marvellous in country 
 eyes. You shall, for instance, be in search of 
 Number Thirty-three. Passing up the street, 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 257 
 
 reading eagerly every sign, you count " twenty- 
 seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine," — and then 
 there is a sudden leap over to thirtj^-eight ! 
 What now ? You look again, fancying you 
 must have made a mistake. No, this door is 
 certainly twenty-nine, and the next is certainly 
 thirty-eight, if you can read Arabic characters. 
 Eight houses, therefore, must be squeezed into 
 one brick partition-wall. You think of micro- 
 scopes. You wonder if the houses are to be 
 pulled out one after another, as Mr. Hermann 
 prestidigitates twenty apples and fifty tin cups out 
 of one empty old hat. Presently, you summon 
 courage to go into a neighboring shop, and re- 
 quest to be enlightened. They inform you that 
 the missing numbers are attached to the doors 
 of rooms inside. A most extraordinary circum- 
 stance ! It is generally supposed that a house 
 means a house. In Boston, however, it appears 
 to mean only a room. Number Ten does not 
 necessarily indicate the tenth house on the street. 
 You must fumble through the dark passages and 
 over the strange staircases within before you can 
 be sure that it does not point out the tenth room. 
 If we should go and do likewise in the country, 
 numbering and labelling every barn, corn-barn, 
 cider-press, pig-sty, dog-kennel, hen-coop, and 
 dove-cot, we should have quite a little settle- 
 ment at every homestead. 
 
 The result of it all is, that you never know 
 
258 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 how much ground you have been over, nor 
 where you ought to stop. You make your way 
 to the dry-goods desk in a shop, and ask for pop- 
 lins, overhaul them all, find nothing to suit, and 
 go on till you come to another shop, and by a 
 similar process are passed up to a similar desk, 
 and repeat your meek inquiry. " You looked at 
 all our poplins a few moments ago," says the clerk, 
 politely. You lift your eyes quickly to his face. 
 Yes, it is the same man and the same place that 
 you went to before, — and then do you not feel 
 amiable? Yet you have been a Sabbath-day's 
 journey since then. How in the world, then, 
 came you back again ? Because these wary 
 merchants open doors and send out feelers in all 
 directions, and there is nothing for a poor, silly 
 little fly like you to do but walk into their par- 
 lors whichever way you turn. 
 
 But Boston, though crooked and inexplicable, 
 is not without her charms. " God made the 
 country and man made the town," as a general 
 fact. But there is a good deal in Boston that 
 man never made and never will. 
 
 Come, behold the works of the Lord. You need 
 not turn yourself into a polar bear with furs, live 
 on raw frozen walrus beef, tallow candles, and 
 blubber, be drawn by dogs, and sleep in a hut with 
 a naked Esquimaux baby for a pillow, — nor need 
 you brave the snakes and scorpions and hurricanes 
 of the tropics, or plunge full many a fathom deep 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 259 
 
 in the gliost-enpcopled sea, — to gaze u[)oii the 
 wonderful works of God ; for behold they are nigh 
 yon, even at your doors. 
 
 Right in the thick of Boston is a glass tank, bio; 
 enough to sail a small fleet, and in that tank a huge 
 Avhite whale bulges his billowy bulk in a never- 
 ending round of treadmill travel. I call him huge, 
 but it is relatively. He is, in fact, rather diminu- 
 tive for a whale, but he is prodigious for a fish. 
 You have studied in Parley's Geography about a 
 whale as big as the steeple of the meeting-house, — 
 an indefinite, but sublime comparison. You have 
 read thrilling narratives of whale captures, — long 
 and perilous voyages, boats stove, races run, men 
 submerged, shipwreck and suffering and death in 
 far-off, mysterious seas. Think then what a tri- 
 umph of mind over matter is implied in the fact, 
 that for twenty-five cents you can go and sit in 
 your best clothes, and look at a whale. But you 
 must look closely, or you will not see him ; he but 
 just heaves above the surface to breathe, and then 
 sinks down till he is only a white mist in the green 
 water. What a fortitude the poor fellow needs to 
 sustain his change of fortune. Surely, if any one 
 ever had right to complain of " reduced circum- 
 stances," it is he, wrested from the halls of his 
 fathers, from the forests of the vivid-tressed mer- 
 maidens, from the crystalline corridors " of his dim 
 water- world," to a glass tank, — admission twenty- 
 five cents ; children under ten years of age fifteen 
 
260 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 cents. And what a lonely life it is ! There are 
 stfurgeons and lobsters and a dolphin, to be sure, 
 but they are not like •' own folks." A whale can- 
 not be expected to be hand and glove with a lob- 
 ster. A sturgeon cannot enter into the feelings of 
 a whale. So, as Burke said of Napoleon, " grand, 
 gloomy, and peculiar, he sits upon his throne, a 
 sceptred hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his 
 own originality." 
 
 The little dolphin is alone too, but he does not 
 seem to mind it. I call him little, but that is also 
 relative. Little beside the whale, he is a giant 
 among the dolphins, and he sports around the 
 whale, a dusky satellite, as gay as a lark, doubling, 
 bobbing, and seeming to take life in a very free and 
 easy manner. 
 
 " This is a weary world, little Dolphin," one 
 can fancy the melancholy whale saying, in sepul- 
 chral tones, and with that dignity of bearing which 
 the great are wont to employ towards the small. 
 
 " Not a bit of it, Whaley," retorts the dolphin, 
 cheerily, with the smart familiarity of ignorance. 
 
 " I am haunted evermore, O Dolphin, by the 
 dull brilliancy of golden memories. Did I ever 
 sweep around the illimitable shores of an icy conti- 
 nent ? Were my pearly whiteness and the splen- 
 dor of my opal tints caught from the glow of an 
 unsetting sun ? Whence come the diamond moun- 
 tains, ruby-crested, that rise forever in my dreams ? 
 Do you not remember, O Dolphin, a brighter sky, 
 a broader sea, and other shores than these ? " 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 261 
 
 " None to speak of, Whaley. Nothing that 
 could hold a candle to this. Cold as Greenland, 
 that 's all I remember, and no nice people to look 
 at you. Tip-top world : 
 
 ' Here we go up, up, up, 
 
 Here we go down, down, downy. 
 Here we go backwards and forwards. 
 Here we go round, round, roundy.' " 
 
 , And, with a double-and-twisted frisk of his tail, off 
 he darts, leaving his gigantic companion to roll on 
 his monotonous way " in slow and solemn bright- 
 ness." 
 
 It is amusing to see how the other little fellows 
 in the tank keep out of the whale's and the dol- 
 phin's orbit. They have caught the fashion, and 
 revolve, but they hug the shore. I am sure they 
 need not be afraid, for, if there is any truth in 
 physiognomy, that whale is a humane and benevo- 
 lent individual, and Dolphin is too good-natured, 
 with all his giddiness, to harm a fly. But, from 
 whatever cause, the " small fry " never come in 
 collision with their Anak brethren. It is a very 
 easy matter for them to avoid it. Men have to 
 move on the same plane, but when haddock meets 
 haddock, he can dive, or soar, or pass on one side, 
 as he chooses, and this certainly is one of the com- 
 pensations foi- being a fish. You encounter Mr. 
 Smith, and, because you are a reasoning animal, 
 you must keep to the right as the law directs, 
 though you wet your feet and get a lung-fever in 
 
262 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 consequence ; but if you were only a bass or a 
 cod-fish, you could dart down and go under him, 
 or you could strike up and go over him, which 
 would save invaluable time, temper, and health. 
 Here comes Mrs. Jones under full sail, her silken 
 expansiveness resplendent in the morning sun. 
 She needs, and should receive, the whole side- 
 walk, and a coal-cart presses against the curb- 
 stone. What now? A smile, a bow, a graceful 
 imdulation, one bird's-eye view of Mrs. Jones, 
 and you have alighted on the sidewalk behind 
 her, resuming your stroll with unspotted boots 
 and unruffled placidity. Elieu ! non ow,nia possu- 
 mus omnes ; which means, dear unlearned readers, 
 who have never pushed your researches to the last 
 page of Webster's Spelling-book, that, though it is 
 possible to be a fish, and possible to be a man, it is 
 not possible to be both at one and the same mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Around the central tank are small tanks full 
 of unimagined beauty. The exquisite, elaborate 
 forms, and the intense green of sea-plants ; the 
 multiplied hues, shifting, flashing, dazzling, — 
 green, and purple, and pink, and gold, — of the 
 millions of little lives ; the feathery waving of the 
 sea-anemone, the burnished scales of the humblest 
 trout, the sluggish torpor of the slow, and the 
 electric agility of the quick, — inspire you with 
 delighted wonder. Little marvellous outbursts of 
 life ! For Avhat service were they formed and 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 2G3 
 
 fasliioned ? We see but one, and the ocean teems 
 with myriads which no human eye hath seen, or 
 shall see ; but does not the great Creator, whose 
 name is Love, enjoy the happiness of his lowliest 
 creations ? May not his eye dwell delighted on 
 the work of his hands ? What presumption for 
 us to marvel at the production of beauty which 
 ive cannot see ! As if in the broad universe there 
 were no eyes but ours ! 
 
 Here is a den of tortoises, excessively ugly, and 
 inconceivably heavy of movement. What is re- 
 markable about a turtle is, that he is not only 
 sluggish, but he does not seem to try to be other- 
 wise. He takes pains to be lazy. If he wants to 
 go from the u})per to the lower story of his cage, 
 instead of climbing or jumping down, he lolls to 
 the edge, and then drops off. I have lost my 
 early faith in the fable of the hare and the tortoise. 
 I believe a hare could get anywhere sooner than a 
 tortoise, if he slept all the time. 
 
 Up and down, up and down, tramp the lions, 
 and the leopards, and the bears, tramp, tramp, 
 tramp, — their fierce hearts beating against their 
 prison-bars like restless souls chained, in the cage 
 of circumstance, hungering, thirsting, maddened, 
 for their native jungles, and the freedom of their 
 uncramped, strong limbs. No philosophy, no 
 religion, gives them resignation. They cannot 
 " find, for outward Eden lost, a paradise within." 
 No self-control ennobles them. Their savao-e 
 
264 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 souls know no restraint . but the iron bars 
 against which they press in vain. No reason for 
 their stolen liberty mitigates the severity of its 
 loss. It is nothing to them that they are daily 
 waiting on the pleasure and the wisdom of a 
 higher race. So, perhaps, our sufferings, — the 
 blow that shocks us out of all conventionalities, 
 and the inward, silent, hidden torture, — all the 
 ache and agony, — "the dull, deep pain, and 
 constant anguish of patience," — shall work out 
 for other lives, if not for ours, a far more exceed- 
 ing and eternal w^eight of glory. 
 
 Time Avould fail me to speak of the deers, and 
 the snakes, and the squirrels, the porcupines, the 
 woodchucks, and the guinea-pigs, the rats, and 
 the cats, and the kangaroos. There will always 
 be a CTOwd watching the frisky little monkeys, 
 whose bodies are so rollicking, whose faces are 
 so dismal, and whose gymnastics are so almost 
 incredible. And if you are not too fastidious to 
 join the crowd, you will see some display of 
 human, as well as of simic nature. A little boy 
 near me had long been silently devouring the 
 monkeys with his eyes ; presently his father came 
 along, and, anxious that his son should — as Ms 
 old copy-books doubtless enjoined upon him — 
 devote every moment of his time to the acquire- 
 ment of useful knowledge, began, in the regu- 
 lar Harry and Lucy style, to advise him to 
 " watch their motions, observe the variety," &c. 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 265 
 
 Wliy, you dear, good man, as I know you must 
 be, what in the world did you suppose your boy 
 was doing with those great wide eyes of liis ? Set 
 any boy down before a cage of monkeys, and see 
 if you can make him do anything else than watch 
 their motions ! 
 
 Do not forget the seal, the sea-dog, round, fat, 
 and sleek, with full, pathetic eyes. What name- 
 less tragedy, far back in the history of the race, 
 has left those mute, appealing eyes ? — a monu- 
 ment more durable than brass. Fortunately, the 
 tragedy has not affected his appetite, as the alac- 
 rity with which he gulps down a piece of fish as 
 big as your arm, and then looks up at you as 
 tragic and trusting as if he had not swallowed a 
 morsel, and you never suspected he had, abun- 
 dantly testifies. Our seal has accomplishments, 
 too. He jerks a waddling kind of a duck at you, 
 and thinks it is a bow. He flops up and turns a 
 crank, calling it a hand-organ. As his education 
 is still going on, there is no telling what attrac- 
 tions he may not finally attain. 
 
 So the tropics and the frozen North-land meet. 
 Sea and shore give up the wonders which are in 
 them ; and in the midst of man's work and man's 
 devices, we say, with reverent hearts, " The earth 
 is full of the riches of the Lord." 
 
 And Boston is not only valuable as a depository 
 of curiosities and dry-goods, but she has her beau- 
 tiful aspects. I will tell you how to arrive at 
 
 12 
 
266 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 one of them. Sleep soundly through a winter 
 night in one of those rural cities in her suburbs 
 that lie toward the sunset. Rise early on the 
 fine, frosty morning. The snow lies six inches 
 deep on the ground, and is covered with ice. 
 Every tree is heavy fruited with gems, pale and 
 pearly now, but the up-coming sun shall kindle 
 them to prismatic fire. Take possession of some 
 
 good friend who owns a , I have forgotten 
 
 the name, but it is a square box on runners, and 
 is either a pun, or a pung, or a bun, or a bung, 
 and coax him to harness his horse and drive you 
 into Boston. Then you shall see her glorified. 
 The keen air clarifies your vision, thrills your 
 blood, and tingles through your soul. At first, 
 Boston wraps herself in mist, and is a city of the 
 clouds, invisible to earth-born. But the sun, 
 coming up from the Under-Land, sends his her- 
 alds before, and the vapor glows into amethyst. 
 Still the heralds come, — the sky grows rosy, the 
 swelling dome that crowns the three-hilled city 
 mounts up from the vapor sea, the church spires 
 shoot golden arrows into the ruddy heavens, — 
 all is soft, and sparkling, and beautiful. 
 
 Boston, you are more beautiful than this. When, 
 after long absence and wandering, I come over the 
 marshes to meet you, you are lovely as the day. 
 I wait for you as they that watch for the morning, 
 and when your stately dome curves its clear con- 
 tour against the blue sky, " my heart swells and 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 2G7 
 
 my eyes are dim." Beloved Queen of my beloved 
 State, the archers have sorely grieved you, and 
 shot at you, and hated you, but your bow abides 
 in strength. When envious rivals traduce you, I 
 make no defence. " She needs none. There she 
 is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves." When 
 I am asked, " What is thy beloved more than an- 
 other beloved ? " 1 only say, " My beloved is mine,''' 
 but I think of all the grandeur garnered there, of 
 all your inheritance, all your possession, and all 
 the promise of your future. 
 
 Yet, O Boston, I have somewhat even against 
 you. There are stains vipon your escutcheon. 
 There is blood upon your garments. I have heard 
 that you once, in blind fury, placed a rope around 
 the neck of an innocent man, and dragged him 
 through your streets. What tears shall wash out 
 the footprints you made that day ? I have heard 
 that iron chains once clanked around your noble 
 court-house, that white-haired judges passed under 
 the yoke, and that you let a man be dragged back 
 mto the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Do you 
 say that it was not your fault ? Did your loyalty 
 to law clash with your loyalty to God? But how 
 was it when, not two years ago, you stood up with 
 deliberate intent to crush free speech? Where 
 then was your loyalty to law ? Where was your 
 manhood ? Where was your honor ? Where was 
 your chivalry ? Where your high birth and breed- 
 ing? W^ith malice prepense yon assembled your 
 
268 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 " merchant princes," and lewd fellows of the basest 
 sort, and placed a knife at the throat of liberty. 
 You stabbed the breast that cherished your infancy. 
 You shamed the mother that bore you. The guilt, 
 if not the stam, of blood is at your door. 
 
 O Boston, Boston ! be as crooked as you like, 
 waltz as bewilderingly as you will, but keep your- 
 self pure. Sully not your fair fame. Play not 
 false to humanity. Shame not the memory of your 
 fathers. Make atonement to-day for the sins of 
 the past, if so be the Lord will yet have mercy 
 u2)on you. Now is the accepted time. Gird thy 
 sword upon thy thigh, and in thy majesty ride 
 prosperously, because of truth and meekness and 
 righteousness. Let thine arrows be sharp in the 
 hearts of the kino-'s enemies. Love rio;hteousness 
 and hate wickedness. So shall the king greatly 
 desire thy beauty, and make thy name to be re- 
 membered in all generations. 
 
 But shopping and sight-seeing, like all things 
 earthly, must come to an end, and having accom- 
 plished a few of my thousand and one errands, I 
 — for whether I have in this narrative said " you " 
 or "I," it all means myself — turned my fece 
 homeward. I did not wish to go by the direct 
 route, but through Salem, stopping over one train 
 at Melrose. Geography, I regret to say, has al- 
 ways been my weak point, and I was quite igno- 
 rant of the situation of Melrose, and consequently 
 did not know what railroad ran throuoh it. To 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 269 
 
 my country eyes there are railroads and depots 
 enougli in Boston to give a separate one to every 
 village in the vicinity. I inquired at a shop on 
 Cornhill from what depot I should leave foj- ]\Iel- 
 rose. They advised me to take the horse cars. 
 I did not know horse cars went there. They be- 
 lieved they did ; at any rate I could inquire at 
 the car-office just above. I started for the car- 
 office. " Just above " not seeming to develop 
 such an institution, I went into another shop, and 
 asked a clerk if he could tell me where the car- 
 office was. He asked me what car-office. I was 
 vexed with myself for asking stich a question, as 
 if, like the man who inquired the way to Boston 
 meeting-house, I supposed there was but one in 
 the city. I answered, with as much intellectuality 
 and cosmopolitanism as I could call up, " The 
 Meh'ose office." " Why," said he, " there it is, 
 right there." There, sure enough, it was before 
 my face and eyes, in staring capitals, " Maiden and 
 Melrose Railroad." I launched another thunder- 
 bolt against myself for my blindness, and went 
 in, determined to be on my guard and ask no 
 more foolish questions. A woman was transact- 
 ing business with the clerk, and, while waiting, 
 I reflected that the question I set out with, viz. 
 if the cars went to Melrose, would be a foolish 
 one, after seeing the sign, and I would therefore 
 simply ask at what hour they left. Having made 
 this resolution I had leisure to observe the woman 
 
270 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 who was talking with the clerk. She seemed to 
 be rather excited. She had, it seemed, paid her 
 fare in the cars, the conductor had not given the 
 right change back, and she wanted the clerk to 
 make it right. I could see that it was none of 
 his business, but she could not, and was highly 
 indignant at his refusal. He directed her to the 
 Superintendent of the road as the proper person. 
 She remarked, with the air of a Nemesis, that she 
 should not come to the office again about it. He 
 seemed resigned. She went away, woman-like, 
 declaring with her last breath, " You owe me 
 twenty-three cents." He had been as polite as 
 could be expected, but it was not in human na- 
 ture not to retort, " I don't owe you a cent," and 
 then, turning to a gentleman near by, he added, 
 " There 's a woman says I owe her twenty-three 
 cents, and I never had any dealings with her in 
 my life." All my womanhood blushed at this 
 woman's unreasonableness ; I determined to try 
 to obliterate the impression from his mind by the 
 utmost consideration and politeness ; and blandly 
 asked, putting a good deal of sympathy for his 
 embarrassing position into my manner, " Will you 
 be so good as to tell me at what hour the cars 
 leave for Melrose ? " 
 
 " They don't leave at all. They don't go there." 
 I could have borne the disappointment of fruit- 
 less search with fortitude ; but to be baffled in my 
 magnanimity was too much. I am afraid I lost 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 271 
 
 my temper for a moment, and that the clerk found 
 it in my impetuous question, " What under the 
 sun do you have that sign there for then ? " He 
 muttered something about a charter, which was 
 probably satisfactory to himself, but of little avail 
 to my wounded feelings, and, in the chaotic state 
 of my mind, I could hardly be blamed for asking 
 the first question that came up, " What time do 
 the steam-cars go to Melrose ? " He did n't know, 
 and I perceived that I had fallen into a trap again. 
 Of course he did n't ; he had nothing to do with 
 steam-cars. I went back to the original shop. 
 They were very polite, and looked up evidence, 
 and decided that the Boston and Maine Railroad 
 was the one. They directed me to the depot, but 
 they killed me with kindness, for one told me to 
 take this street, and another said tliat street was 
 nearer, and a third said the first street was just as 
 near, and they all seemed to talk together, though 
 I don't suppose they did, and I was conscious of 
 nothing but a din of " Union Street," and " Brat- 
 tle Street," and " Haymarket Square," which 
 quite bewildered me, though I endeavored to look 
 as if I comprehended everything clearly, and said 
 yes all round, anxious only to get out doors and 
 into the next shop, to inquire the way to the Bos- 
 ton and Maine Railroad depot. Only one thing I 
 understood, — that, instead of going out at the 
 front door, I was to go " right out this way," but 
 " out this way " I could see nothing but windows, 
 
272 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 though, all the while they were talking, I cast 
 stolen glances to catch any sign of a door. I was 
 determined, however, not to ask another foolish 
 question, and merely remarked that I saw no 
 mode of egress that way except through the win- 
 dows. Then they showed me a basement door, 
 through which I made good my escape, grateful 
 for their kindness, but not much the wiser. 
 
 By assiduous inquiry, I found my way to the 
 depot, and gathered my various packages together. 
 Observation and experience both combine to make 
 me a firm foe to packages. I lose half my self- 
 respect and all my independence unless my hands 
 are free. At this time, by circumstances entirely 
 beyond my control, I was the proprietor of five 
 different articles, — a package of books and paper, 
 cumbrous and heavy, a travelling-basket bursting 
 full, as I particularly dislike to see travelling-bas- 
 kets, a roll of cloth, a parasol, and a bottle of yeast. 
 One of the pleasantest feelings in the world is that 
 of being master of one's position ; but when one is 
 weighed down with bundles, one is its victim, and 
 I got into the cars under a deep sense of degrada- 
 tion, though innocent of any palpable sin. The 
 cars were full. I walked slowly through till a 
 gentleman arose and gave me his seat. Men make 
 so much ado about the ingratitude and impolite- 
 ness of travelling w^omen, that I make a point of 
 acknowledging the smallest courtesy; but just as 
 I was putting on my most grateful expression to 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 273 
 
 thank him in, it suddenly occurred to me that this 
 seat, being next to the stove, might prove fatal to 
 my yeast-bottle. I had been particularly warned 
 not even to let it come in contact with my person 
 more than was necessary, lest the warmth should 
 make it ferment, — and to sit in front of a red-hot 
 air-tight stove I I could have borne to lose the 
 yeast, though it was a new kind, said to be of a 
 superior quality, which I was taking home for 
 trial ; nor should I have been inconsolable for the 
 loss of my dress, though it was my best silk ; but I 
 did not feel that I could endure the scene. In my 
 consternation, I forgot to thank the gentleman, to 
 whom I now make this public apology and ex- 
 planation. I at length managed to lift the window 
 about an inch and a quarter, and held the bottle in 
 the draft, and my peace as well as I could. 
 
 I thought Melrose was the first station from Bos- 
 ton, but it was not. The s-econd one did not sound 
 like Melrose, and I kept my seat. Then I began 
 to fear that I had missed it, so I compromised with 
 my principles, and asked my seat-mate if he knew 
 which station from Boston Melrose was. He said 
 he did not, but should know it when he saw it. 
 By and by he said this was it. I do not like to 
 see people, particularly women, hurry out before 
 cars stop, or in before passengers are out, but I 
 had many encumbrances and could not move rap- 
 idly, so I thought I would for once take time by 
 the forelock and just move down the aisle to be 
 
 12* K 
 
274 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 near the door when the cars stopped. I accord- 
 ingly did so, and the conductor opened the door 
 and shouted, " Wy-o-ming ! " and, partly to punish 
 myself, and partly because of the difficulty of re- 
 turning to my seat, I stood up in the aisle, covered 
 with shame, till we reached Melrose. 
 
 My errand there being performed, I returned to 
 the station in ample time, — indeed, long before the 
 ticket-office was opened. There was a glass win- 
 dow looking into the ladies' room, and a corre- 
 sponding one into the gentleman's room. Presently 
 a large boy walked in and established communica- 
 tion between the office and the men's room, but 
 left ours alone. There were several women in the 
 room, who all seemed to take it very coolly, and I 
 was not going to be anxious. Still, as the time 
 passed and the window was not opened, I did think 
 it rather strange. By and by the whistle began to 
 whistle, and the cars rushed in. I supposed they 
 must be some branch, or extra train ; but to make 
 certain, I said, carelessly, to an official, " This is 
 not the Salem train." " Yes," was the prompt 
 reply. Surprised into it, I ejaculated, " Not the 
 Salem train ? " " Yes," with equal promptness, 
 " last car." I marched along in a most unwilling 
 hurry. I think there must have been at least seven 
 cars, and under the pressure it seemed to me that 
 I never should get to the last one ; so I thought I 
 would steal into the nearest, and at the next stop- 
 ping-place change to the right one. I turned aside, 
 
BOSTON AND HOME AGAIN. 21b 
 
 but the fellow called out, " Not that, — the last car. 
 Be spry 1 " If I had obeyed the impulse of the 
 natural heart, I should have hurled my yeast-bottle 
 at him, telling me to be " spry," — me who am fa- 
 mous for my fleetness of foot, — telling me to be 
 spry as if I were a barefoot pond-lily boy ! My dig- 
 nity and capacity were both insulted. I was vexed 
 with myself for having disregarded his direction, 
 and vexed with him for havino- caught me in it. 
 If I had been sure that the cars would wait for me, 
 I should have loitered, simply to show a proper 
 spirit ; but as it was, there was no time for indig- 
 nation, and I put my foot on the step just as the 
 cars started. But when I went to open the door, 
 there Avas no door there. I fumbled and stared 
 and rubbed my eyes, but no open sesame will un- 
 lock a door that does not exist. The conductor 
 came to the rescue, and directed me through a 
 hide-and-go-seek chink passage, such as I never 
 saw or heard of before, away round on one side 
 of the car. In my perturbation I could n't find it 
 for a while, and then I could n't tell whether the 
 door was at the end or one side, and he kept say- 
 ing, " There, there ! " as if I knew where " there " 
 was. I meekly remarked that I did n't like to get 
 in while cars were going, — a moral reflection which 
 I might just as well have spared him. He said 
 I could n't fall off if I tried. I knew I could, 
 for the railing had only one rail, and that was at 
 the top ; but I was so utterly humiliated by such a 
 
276 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 series of disasters, that I let him have everything 
 his own way, and was glad to drop into a seat at 
 last. 
 
 We rustics have a phrase " starched up." When 
 we say a man is starched up, we do not at all refer 
 to his linen, but to his character. We also, in 
 continuance of the same figure, talk of taking the 
 starch out of him. That was the way I felt. The 
 starch was completely taken out of me. I did not 
 become reglutinated till I impinged upon Halicar- 
 nassus. With him, whatever my feelings may be, 
 I find it necessary always to maintain an aspect of 
 superiority and self-satisfaction. If I should once 
 suffer him to see me discomfited by any opposing 
 force whatever, I should at once lose all power over 
 him. The sole basis of my authority is his implicit 
 belief in my thorough invulnerability. There- 
 fore, nothing and nobody as I felt myself, 
 I sloughed it all off when I stepped from 
 the train and stood before him, an 
 invincible armada. My foot 
 was on my native heath, 
 and my name was 
 McGregor. 
 
Brown-Bread Cakes. 
 
 m ASTES differ. 
 
 That is not an original remark, but 
 it is a true one. The Frenchman rolls 
 as a sweet morsel under his tongue the 
 hind legs of a frog. To the patriotic Chinese, no 
 savor is so savory as that which arises from roasted 
 mouse or broiled puppy. The Esquimaux, plunged 
 into the pots and kettles of civilization, moans for 
 the delicious blubber and whale-oil which once 
 gladdened his heart. Connecticut delights in the 
 frying-pan. Meat, bread, rice, turnovers, apples, 
 potatoes, hasty-puddings, " whatever goods the 
 gods provide her," — and every dweller in her 
 valleys will attest they are neither few nor small, 
 — she casts incontinently into the sputtering fat, 
 till Connecticut joints, from constant lubrication, 
 acquire a suppleness which neither age, nor time, 
 nor travel, nor the burden of her traditionary nut- 
 megs, clocks, and hams, can overcome. 
 
 But thou, O Massachusetts ! land of my birth, 
 and thrice and four times land of my love ! queen 
 
278 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 mother of men, reverent children, who turn to 
 thee from every shore, and bind on thy brow the 
 laurels they learned from thee to win, — will any 
 wanderer from thy sturdy soil ever 
 
 " Forget the sky that bent above 
 His childhood, like a dream of love ? 
 The stream beneath the green hill flowing, 
 The broad-armed trees about it growing," 
 the smoke from thousand fires ascending, with fragi'ant odors sweetly 
 blending, of thousand pans, bright, glazed, and red, a thousand pans 
 of hot brown-bread ? 
 
 Nor is thy fame confined to thy children alone. 
 From the lumberino- and fishino; East to the mias- 
 matic and ague-atic West, an unfortunate race, 
 whose veins have never throbbed with Bay State 
 blood, who have not sufficient ingenuity to step 
 out of the even tenor of their wheat-bread way, 
 but whose stomachs have been endowed with a 
 sensibility denied to their brains, weekly distend 
 their pliant throats with " Boston brown bread." 
 
 Can such a generation be supposed, in the high- 
 est flights of its imagination, ever to have soared 
 to brown-bread calces ? Is not the attempt to rouse, 
 in these sluggish minds, an enthusiasm for the 
 ambrosial food, Quixotic to the last degree ? Nay, 
 is it possible to introduce into their stolid souls any 
 conception of the ethereal flavor which penetrates 
 my inmost frame when I sit down to a repast of 
 brown-bread cakes ? Yet, in the great multitude 
 gathered from every nation under heaven, the 
 mighty throng that are making the wilderness of 
 
Bonnet 
 
 : Head 
 
 Shoe 
 
 : Foot 
 
 Bay 
 
 : Soul 
 
 Canvas 
 
 : Faces 
 
 Cup 
 
 : Wine 
 
 Dew : 
 
 ; Rose 
 
 Noon 
 
 : Evening 
 
 Earth ; 
 
 : Heaven 
 
 BROWN-BREAD CAKES. 279 
 
 this New World to bud and blossom as the rose, 
 there must needs be a few who have an eye for 
 the curve that swells the luxuriant sides of a sweet 
 potato, a nose to discern the fumes tliat rise, in- 
 cense-like, from a fair, young beefsteak, floating 
 in its own sapient juices, a soul to mount upwards 
 on the Avino-s of smokino; Mocha ; and since 
 
 Brown-bread : Brown-Bread Cakes; 
 
 or, less mathematically, as a beautiful bonnet to 
 the beautiful head that bears it, or a delicate satin 
 shoe to the delicate foot that wears it, as the green 
 of the deathless bay to the lofty brow that won it, 
 as tiie canvas is to the faces that startingly glow 
 upon it, as the grace of the golden cup to the 
 mantling wine that fills it, as the quivering globe 
 of dew to the regal rose that distils it, as the glare 
 of the midsummer noon to the scented breath of 
 Eden, as the homely and kindly earth to the 
 grand and star-lit heaven, — so is the "home-felt 
 bliss " which a loaf of brown bread makes, to 
 the exquisite thrill of delight arising from brown- 
 bread cakes. Because of all this, I will make the 
 attempt. 
 
 Let me give the modus operandi. Of fine 
 
280 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 maize flour, yellow as tlie locks of the lovely 
 Lenore, take — well, take enough — I cannot 
 tell exactly how much ; it depends upon circum- 
 stances. Of fresh new milk, white as the brow 
 of the charming Arabella, take — I don't know 
 exactly how much of that, either ; it depends 
 upon circumstances, particularly on the quantity 
 of meal. If you have not new milk, take blue 
 milk, provided it be sweet ; or if y6u have 
 none that is sweet, sour milk will answer ; or 
 if " your folks don't keep a cow," take water, 
 clear and sparkling as the eyes of the peerless 
 Amanda ; but whether it be milk or water, let it 
 be scalding as the tears of the outraged Isabel. 
 Of molasses, sweet as the tones of the tuneful 
 Lisette, take — a great deal, if it is summer, in 
 the winter not quite so much (for the reasons 
 therefor, see Newton's Treatise on the Expansive 
 Power of Fluids., Vol. I. p. 175). Of various 
 other substances, animal, vegetable, and mineral, 
 which it becomes not me to mention, — first, 
 because I have forgotten what they are ; secondly, 
 because I never knew ; and, thirdly, because, as 
 the irrimortal Toots remarks, " it is of no conse- 
 quence," — take whatever seems good in your 
 sight, and cast them together into the kneading- 
 trough, and knead with all your might and main. 
 Provide yourself, then, with a tin plate, not bright 
 and new, for so will your cakes be heavy, your 
 crust cracked, and your soul sorrowful, but one 
 
BROWN-BREAD CAKES. 281 
 
 blackened by fire, and venerable with time, and 
 rough with service. With your own roseate 
 fingers scoop out a portion of the pulpy mass. 
 Fear not to touch it ; it is soft, yielding, and 
 plastic, as the heart of the affectionate Clara, 
 Turn it lovingly over in your hands ; round it ; 
 mould it ; caress it ; soften down its asperities ; 
 smooth off its angularities ; repress its bold pro- 
 tuberances ; encourage its timid shrinkings ; and 
 when it is smooth as the velvet cheek of Ida, 
 and oval as the classic face of Helen, give one 
 " last, long, Imgering look," and lay it tenderly 
 in the swart arms of its tutelar plate. Repeat 
 the process, until your cakes shall equal the sands 
 on the sea-shore or the stars in the sky for mul- 
 titude, or as long as your meal holds out, or till 
 you are tired. I am prescribing for one only. 
 " Ab uno disce omnes." 
 
 To the Stygian cave that yawns dismally from 
 the kitchen-stove, consign it without a murmur. 
 Item : said stove must have a prodigious crack 
 up and down the front. A philosophical reason 
 for this I am unable to give. I refer the curious 
 in cause and effect to Galen's deservedly cele- 
 brated Disquisition on the Relations of Fire and 
 3Ietals, passim ; also Debrauche on Dough, p. 35, 
 Appendix. I only know that the only stove 
 whence I ever saw brown-bread cakes issue had 
 an immense crack up and down the front. 
 
 [Since writing the above, a new stove has been 
 
282 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 substituted for the old one, and still brown-bread 
 cakes are duly max'shalled every morning. Con- 
 sequently, you need not be particular about the 
 crack. Still, I would advise all amateurs to con- 
 sult the authorities I have mentioned. It will be 
 a good exercise.] 
 
 When your cake has for a sufficient length of 
 time undergone the ordeal of fire, bring it again 
 to the blessed light of day. If the edge be 
 black and blistered, like a giant tree blasted by 
 the lightning's stroke, or if the crust be rent and 
 torn as by internal convulsions, cast it away. It 
 is worthless. Trample it under foot. Item : put 
 on your stoutest boots, and provide yourself with 
 cork soles ; otherwise, the trampling may prove to 
 be anything but an agreeable pastime. But if the 
 surface be a beautiful auburn brown, crisp, brittle, 
 and unbroken, — 
 
 "Joy, joy, forever! your task is done! 
 The gates are past, and breakfast is won " ; — 
 
 or, as the clown said of the apple-dumplings, 
 " Them 's the jockeys for me." 
 
 If you are an outside barbarian, ignorant of the 
 refinements of civilized life, you will at once pro- 
 ceed to cut open with your knife the steaming 
 cake, as you would an oyster, and thereby render 
 it heavy as the heart of the weeping Niobe ; but 
 if you are a gentleman and a scholar, you will 
 gently sunder its clinging sides without " armed 
 interference," and so preserve its spongy, porous 
 
BROWN-BREAD CAKES. 283 
 
 texture. To tlie uninitiated, one part is as good as 
 another ; but let me confidentially whisper in your 
 ear, if it should be your duty to pass the plate, 
 present to your neighbor that side which bears the 
 TUider-crust, as that is liable to be burnt and un- 
 j^alatable, and reserve to yourself the smoothly- 
 rounded upper crust, which is deliciously tooth- 
 some. Lay your portion on your plate, crust 
 downward. With your own polished knife (the 
 reason of this you will presently perceive) carve 
 from the ball of golden butter a lump of mag- 
 nificent dimensions. Be not niggardly in this re- 
 spect. Exercise toward yourself a large-hearted 
 generosity ; for butter sinks into itself, and in 
 itself is lost with wonderful rapidity, when it rests 
 on a pedestal of hot bread. Press your butter, 
 still adhering to your knife, down into the warm, 
 soft bread, in various places, forming little wells, 
 whose walls are unctuous with the melted luxury, 
 and then — O then ! but I cannot sustain the 
 picture which my fancy has drawn. 
 
 " My eyes are dim witli childish tears, 
 My heart is idly stirred ; 
 For the same sound is in my ears 
 That in those days I heard. 
 
 " Thus fares it still in our decay, 
 Yet mourns the wiser mind 
 Less for the crusts time takes away, 
 Than those he leaves behind." 
 
 " The bridegroom may forget the bride 
 Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; 
 The monarch may forget the crown 
 That on his head an hour hath been," 
 
284 
 
 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 but never, O brown-bread cakes ! never may your 
 taste pass away from my lips, your odor from 
 my nostrils, or your memory from my heart, till 
 " my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last 
 time, the sun in the heavens." 
 
 " Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos." 
 
 ^^b^^^^^^Sm 
 
A Complaint of Friends. 
 
 r'F things would not ran into each other 
 so, it would be a thousand times easier 
 and a million times pleasanter to get 
 ■^ on in the world. Let the sheepiness 
 be set on one side and the goatiness on the other, 
 and immediately you know where you are. It is 
 not necessary to ask that there be any increase of 
 the one or any diminution of the other, but only 
 that each shall pre-empt its own territory and stay 
 there. Milk is good, and water is good, but don't 
 set the milk-pail under the pump. Pleasure 
 softens pain, but pain imbitters pleasure ; and who 
 would not rather have his happiness concentrated 
 into one memorable day, that shall gleam and glow 
 through a lifetime, than have it spread out over a 
 dozen comfortable, commonplace, humdrum fore- 
 noons and afternoons, each one as like the others 
 as two peas in a pod ? Since the law of compen- 
 sation obtains, I suppose it is the best law for us ; 
 but if it had been left with me, I should have 
 made the clever people rich and handsome, and 
 
286 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 left poverty and ugliness to the stupid people ; be- 
 cause — don't you see ? — the stupid people won't 
 know they are ugly, and won't care if they are 
 poor, but the clever people will be hampered and 
 tortured. I would have given the good wives to 
 the good husbands, and made drunken men marry 
 drunken women. Then there would have been 
 one family exquisitely happy, instead of two strug- 
 gling against misery. I would have made the rose- 
 stem downy, and put all the thorns on the thistles. 
 I would have gouged out the jewel from the toad's 
 head, and given the peacock the nightingale's 
 voice, and not set everything so at half and half. 
 
 But that is the way it is. We find the world 
 made to our hand. The wise men marry the fool- 
 ish virgins, and the splendid virgins marry dolts, 
 and matters in general are so mixed up, that the 
 choice lies between nice things about spoiled, and 
 vile things that are not so bad after all, and it is 
 hard to tell sometimes which you like best, or 
 which you loathe least. 
 
 I expect to lose every friend I have in the 
 world by the publication of this paper — except 
 the dunces who are impaled in it. They will 
 never read it, and if they do, will never suspect 
 I mean them ; while the sensible and true friends, 
 who do me good and not evil all the days of their 
 lives, will think I am driving at their noble hearts, 
 and will at once haul off and leave me inconsola- 
 ble. Still I am going to write it. You must open 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 287 
 
 the safety-valve once in a while, even if the steam 
 does whiz and shriek, or there will be an explo- 
 sion, which is fatal, while the whizzing and shriek- 
 ing are only disagreeable. 
 
 Doubtless friendship has its advantages and its 
 pleasures ; doubtless hostility has its isolations and 
 its revenges: still, if called upon to choose once 
 for all between friends and foes, I think, on the 
 whole, I should cast my vote for the foes. Twenty 
 enemies will not do you the mischief of one friend. 
 Enemies you always know where to find. They 
 are in fair and square perpetual hostility, and you 
 keep your armor on and your sentinels posted ; 
 but with friends you are inveigled into a false se- 
 curity, and, before you know it, your honor, your 
 modesty, your delicacy are scudding before the 
 gales. Moreover, with your friend you can never 
 make reprisals. If your enemy attacks you, you 
 can always strike back and hit hard. You are 
 expected to defend yourself against him to the 
 top of your bent. He is your legal opponent in 
 honorable warfare. You can pour hot-shot into 
 him with murderous vigor ; and the more he 
 wriggles, the better you feel. In fact, it is rather 
 refreshing to measure swords once in a while 
 with such a one. You like to exert your power 
 and keep yourself in practice. You do not re- 
 joice so much in overcoming your enemy as in 
 overcoming. If a marble statue could show fight, 
 you would just as soon fight it ; but as it cannot, 
 
288 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 you take something that can, and something, be- 
 sides, that has had the temerity to attack you, 
 and so has made a lawful target of itself. But 
 against your friend your hands are tied. He has 
 injured you. He has disgusted you. He has in- 
 furiated you. But it was most Christianly done. 
 You cannot hurl a thunderbolt, or pull a trigger, 
 or lisp a syllable, against those amiable monsters 
 who with tenderest fingers are sticking pins all 
 over you. So you shut fast the doors of your 
 lips, and inwardly sigh for a good, stout, brawny, 
 malignant foe, who, under any and every cir- 
 ciimstance, will design you harm, and on whom 
 you can lavish your lusty blows with a hearty 
 will and a clear conscience. 
 
 Your enemy keeps clear of you. He neither 
 grants nor claims favors. He awards you your 
 rights, — no more, no less, — and demands the 
 same from you. Consequently there is no fric- 
 tion. Your friend, on the contrary, is continually 
 getting himself tangled up with you " because 
 he is your friend." I have heard that Shelley 
 was never better pleased than when his associ- 
 ates made free with his coats, boots, and hats for 
 their own use, and that he appropriated their 
 property in the same way. Shelley was a poet, 
 and perhaps idealized his friends. He saw them, 
 probably, in a state of pure intellect. I am not 
 a poet ; I look at people in the concrete. The 
 most obvious thing about my friends is their 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 289 
 
 avoirdupois ; and I prefer that they should wear 
 tlieir own cloaks and suffer me to wear mine. 
 There is no neck in the world that I want my 
 collar to span except my own. It is very ex- 
 asperating to me to go to my bookcase and miss 
 a book of which I am in immediate and pressing 
 need, because an intimate friend has carried it 
 off without asking leave, on the score of his in- 
 timacy. I have not, and do not wish to have, 
 any alliance that shall abrogate the eighth com- 
 mandment. A great mistake is lying round loose 
 hereabouts, — a mistake fatal to many friendships 
 that did run well. The common fallacy is, that 
 intimacy dispenses with the necessity of politeness. 
 The truth is just the opposite of this. The more 
 points of contact there are, the more danger of 
 friction there is, and the more carefully should 
 people guard against it. If you see a man only 
 once a month, it is not of so vital importance that 
 you do not trench on his rights, tastes, or wdiims. 
 He can bear to be crossed or annoyed occasion- 
 ally. If he does not have a very high regard for 
 you, it is comparatively unimportant, because 
 your paths are generally so diverse. But you 
 and the man with whom you dine every day 
 have it in your power to make each other ex- 
 ceedingly uncomfortable. A very little dropping 
 will wear aw^ay rock, if it only keep at it. The 
 thing that you would not think of, if it occurred 
 only twice a year, becomes an intolerable burden 
 13 s • 
 
290 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 ■when it happens twice a day. This is where 
 husbands and wives run aground. They take too 
 much for granted. If they would but see that 
 they have something to gain, something to save, 
 as well as something to enjoy, it would be better 
 for them ; but they proceed on the assumption 
 that their love is an inexhaustible tank, and not 
 a fountain depending for its supply on the stream 
 that trickles into it. So, for every little annoying 
 habit, or weakness, or fault, they draw on the 
 tank, without being careful to keep the supply 
 open, till they awake one morning to find the 
 pump dry, and, instead of love, at best, nothing 
 but a cold habit of complacence. On the con- 
 trary, the more intimate friends become, whether 
 married or unmarried, the more scrupulously 
 should they strive to repress in themselves every- 
 thing annoying, and to cherish both in them- 
 selves and each other everything pleasing. While 
 each should draw on his love to neutralize the 
 faults of his friend, it is suicidal to draw on his 
 friend's love to neutralize his own faults. Love 
 should be cumulative, since it cannot be station- 
 ary. If it does not increase, it decreases. Love, 
 like confidence, is a plant of slow growth, and of 
 most exotic fragility. It must be constantly and 
 tenderly cherished. Every noxious and foreign 
 element must be carefully removed from it. All 
 sunshine, and sweet airs, and morning dews, and 
 evening showers, must breathe upon it perpetual 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 291 
 
 fragrance, or it dies into a hideous and repulsive 
 deformity, fit only to be cast out and trodden 
 under foot of men, while, properly cultivated, it 
 is a Tree of Life. 
 
 Your enemy keeps clear of you, not only in busi- 
 ness, but in society. If circumstances thrust him 
 into contact with you, he is curt and centrifugal. 
 But your friend breaks in upon your " saintly 
 solitude" with perfect equanimity. He never for 
 a moment harbors a suspicion that he can intrude, 
 " becaiase he is your friend." So he drops in on 
 his way to the office to chat half an hour over the 
 latest news. The half-hour is n't much in itself. 
 If it were after dinner, you would n't mind it ; 
 but after breakfast every moment " runs itself in 
 golden sands," and the break in your time crashes 
 a worse break in your temper. " Are you busy ? " 
 asks the considerate wretch, adding insult to in- 
 jury. What can you do ? Say yes, and wound 
 his self-love forever? But he has a wife and 
 family. You respect their feelings, smile and smile, 
 and are villain enough to be civil with your lips, 
 and hide the poison of asps under your tongue, 
 till you have a chance to relieve your o'ercharged 
 heart by shaking your fist in impotent wrath at 
 his retreating form. You will receive the reward 
 of your hypocrisy, as you richly deserve, for ten to 
 one he will drop in again when he comes back from 
 his office, and arrest you wandering in Dreamland 
 in the beautiful twilight. Deliiihted to find that 
 
292 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 you are neither reading nor writing, — the absurd 
 dolt ! as if a man were n't at work unless he be 
 wielding a sledge-hammer ! — he will preach out, 
 and prose out, and twaddle out another hour of 
 your golden eventide, " because he is your friend." 
 You don't care whether he is judge or jury, — 
 whether he talks sense or nonsense ; you don't 
 want him to talk at all. You don't want him 
 there any way. You want to be alone. If you 
 don't, why are you sitting there in the deepening 
 twilight ? If you wanted him, could n't you send 
 for him ? Why don't you go out into the draw- 
 ing-room, where are music, and lights, and gay 
 people ? What right have I to suppose, that, be- 
 cause you are not using your eyes, you are not 
 using your brain ? What right have I to set my- • 
 self up as judge of the value of your time, and so 
 rob you of perhaps the most delicious hour in all 
 your day, on pretence that it is of no use to you ? 
 
 — take a pound of flesh clean out of your heart, 
 and trip on my smiling way as if I had not earned 
 the gallows ? 
 
 And what in Heaven's name is the good of all 
 this ceaseless talk ? To what purpose are you 
 wearied, exhausted, dragged out and out to the 
 very extreme of tenuity ? / A sprightly badinage, 
 
 — a running fire of nonsense for half an hour, — 
 a tramp over unfamiliar ground with a familiar 
 guide, — a discussion of something with somebody 
 who knows all about it, or who, not knowing. 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 293 
 
 wants to learn from you, — a pleasant interchange 
 of commonplaces witli a circle of friends around 
 the fire, at such hours as you give to society : all 
 this is not only tolerable, but agreeable, — often 
 positively delightful ; but to have an indifferent 
 person, on no score but that of friendship, break 
 into your sacred presence, and suck your blood 
 through indefinite cycles of time, is an abomina- 
 tion. If he clatters on an indifferent subject, you 
 can do well enough for fifteen minutes, buoyed up 
 by the hope that he will presently have a fit, or be 
 sent for, or come to some kind of an end. But 
 when you gradually open to the conviction that 
 vis inertice rules the hour, and the thing which has 
 been is that which shall be, you wax listless ; your 
 chariot-wheels drive heavily ; your end of the pole 
 drags in the mud, and you speedily wallow in un- 
 mitigated disgust. If he broaches a subject on 
 which you have a real and deep living interest, 
 you shrink from unbosoming yourself to him. You 
 feel that it would be sacrileo;e. He feels nothino- 
 of the sort. He treads over your heart-strings in 
 his cow-hide brogans, and does not see that they 
 are not whip-cords. He pokes his gold-headed 
 cane in among your treasures, blind to the fact 
 that you are clutching both arms around them, that 
 no gleam of flashing gold may reveal their where- 
 abouts to him. J You draw yourself up in your 
 shell, projecting a monosyllabic claw occasionally 
 as a sign of continued vitality ; but the pachyderm 
 
294 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 does not withdraw, and you ^gradually lower into 
 an indignation, — smothered, fierce, intense. 
 
 Wliy, ivhy, why will people inundate their un- 
 fortunate victims with such " weak, washy, ever- 
 lasting floods " ? Why will they haul everything 
 out into the open day ? Why will they make the 
 Holy of Holies common and unclean ? Why will 
 they be so ineffably stupid as not to see that there 
 is that which speech profanes ? Why will they 
 lower their drag-nets into the unfathomable waters, 
 in the vain attempt to bring up your pearls and 
 gems, whose lustre would pale to ashes in the 
 garish light, — whose only sparkle is the deep sea- 
 soundings ? Procul, procul este, profani ! 
 
 O, the matchless power of silence ! There are 
 words that concentrate in themselves the glory of 
 a lifetime ; but there is a silence that is more pre- 
 cious than they. Speech ripples over the surface 
 of life, but silence sinks into its depths. Airy 
 pleasantnesses bubble up in airy, pleasant words. 
 Weak sorrows quaver out their shallow being, and 
 are not. When the heart is cleft to its core, there 
 is no speech nor language. 
 
 Do not now, Messrs. Bores, think to retrieve 
 your characters by coming into my house and sit- 
 ting mute for two hours. Heaven forbid that your 
 blood should be found on my skirts ! but I believe 
 I shall kill you, if you do. The only reason why 
 I have not laid violent hands on you heretofore is 
 that your vapid talk has operated as a wire to con- 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 295 
 
 duct my electricity to the receptive and kindly 
 earth ; but if you intrude upon my magnetisms 
 without any such life-preserver, your future in this 
 world is not worth a crossed sixpence. Your 
 silence would break the reed that your talk but 
 bruised. The only people with whom it is a joy 
 to sit silent are the people with whom it is a joy to 
 talk. Clear out ! 
 
 Friendship plays the mischief in the false ideas 
 of constancy which are generated and cherished in 
 its name, if not by its agency. Your enemies are 
 intense, but temporary. Time wears off the edge 
 of hostility. It is the alembic in which offences 
 are dissolved into thin air, and a calm indifference 
 reigns in their stead. But your friends are ex- 
 pected to be a permanent arrangement. They 
 are not only a sore evil, but of long continuance. 
 Adhesiveness seems to be the head and front, the 
 bones and blood, of their creed. It is not the direc- 
 tion of the quality, but the quality itself, which 
 they swear by. Only stick, it is no matter what 
 you stick to. Fall out with a man, and you can 
 kiss and be friends as soon as you like ; the re- 
 cordino- angel will set it down on the credit side 
 of his books. Fall in, and you are expected to stay 
 in, ad infinitum^ ad nauseam. No matter what 
 combination of laws got you there, there you are, 
 and there you must stay, for better, for worse, till 
 merciful Death you do part, — or you are — " fic- 
 kle." You find a man entertaining for an hour, a 
 
296 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 week, a concert, a journey, and presto I you are 
 saddled with him forever. What preposterous ab- 
 surdity ! Do but look at it calmly. You are 
 thrown into contact with a person, and, as in duty 
 bound, you proceed to fathom him : for every man 
 is a possible revelation. In the deeps of his soul 
 there may lie unknown worlds for you. Conse- 
 quently you proceed at once to experiment on him. 
 It takes a little while to get your tackle in order. 
 Then the line begins to run off rapidly, and your 
 eager soul cries out, " Ah ! what depth ! What 
 perpetual calmness must be down below ! What 
 rest is here for all my tumult ! What a grand, 
 vast nature is this ! " Surely, surely, you are on 
 the high seas. Surely, you will now float serenely 
 down the eternities ! But by and by there is a 
 kink. You find, that, though the line runs off so 
 fast, it does not go down, — it only floats out. A 
 current has caught it and bears it on horizontally. 
 It does not sink plumb. You have been deceived. 
 Your grand Pacific Ocean is nothing but a shal- 
 low little brook, that you can ford all the year 
 round, if it does not utterly dry up in the summer 
 heats, when you want it most ; or, at best, it is a 
 fussy little tormenting river, that won't and can't 
 sail a sloop. What are you going to do about it ? 
 You are going to wind up your lead and line, 
 shoulder your birch canoe, as the old sea-kings 
 used, and thrid the deep forests, and scale the pur- 
 ple hills, till you come to water again, when you 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 297 
 
 will unroll your lead and line for another essay. 
 Is tliat fickleness ? What else can you do ? Miast 
 you launch yoiu' bark on the uncyuiet stream, 
 against whose pebbly bottom the keel continually 
 grates and rasps your nerves — simply that your 
 reputation suffer no detriment ? Fickleness ? 
 There was no fickleness about it. You were 
 trying an experiment which you had every right to 
 try. As soon as you were satisfied, you stopped. 
 If you had stopped sooner, you would have been 
 unsatisfied. If you had stopped later, you would 
 have been dissatisfied. It is a criminal contempt 
 of the magnificent possibilities of life not to lay 
 hold of " God's occasions floating by." It is an 
 equally criminal perversion of them to cling tena- 
 ciously to what was only the simulacrum of an 
 occasion. A man will toil many days and nights 
 among the mountains to find an ingot of gold, 
 which, found, he bears home with infinite pains 
 and just rejoicing ; but he would be a fool who 
 should lade his mules with iron-pyrites to justify 
 liis labors, however severe. 
 
 Fickleness ! what is it, that we make such an 
 ado about it? And what is constancy, that it 
 commands such usurious interest? The one is a 
 foible only in its relations. The other is only 
 thus a virtue. " Fickle as the winds " is our 
 death-seal upon a man ; but should we like our 
 winds unfickle ? Would a perpetual North- 
 easter lay us open to perpetual gratitude? or is 
 
 13* 
 
298 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 a soft South gale to be orisoned and vespered 
 forevermore ? 
 
 I am tired of this eternal prating of devotion 
 and constancy. It is senseless in itself and harm- 
 ful in its tendencies. The dictate of reason is to 
 treat men and women as we do oranges. Suck 
 all the juice out and then let them go. Where is 
 the good of keeping the peel and pulp-cells till 
 they get old, dry, and mouldy? Let them go, 
 and they will help feed the earth-worms and bugs 
 and beetles who can hardly find existence a con- 
 tinued banquet, and fertilize the earth which will 
 have you give before you receive. Thus they will 
 ultimately spring up in new and beautiful shapes. 
 Clung to with constancy, they stain your knife 
 and napkin, impart a bad odor to your dining- 
 room, and degenerate into something that is nei- 
 ther pleasant to the eye nor good for food. I 
 believe in a rotation of crops, morally and socially, 
 as well as agriculturally. When you have taken 
 the measure of a man, when you have sounded 
 him and know that you cannot wade in him more 
 than ankle-deep, when you have got out of him 
 all that he has to yield for your soul's sustenance 
 and strength, what is the next thing to be done ? 
 Obviously, pass him on ; and turn you " to fresh 
 woods and pastures new." Do you work him an 
 injury ? By no means. Friends that are simply 
 glued on, and don't grow out of, are little w^orth. 
 He has nothing more for you, nor you for him ; 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 299 
 
 but he may be rich in juices wherewrthal to nour- 
 ish the heart of another man, and tlieir two hves, 
 set together, may have an endosmose and exos- 
 niose whose result shall be richness of soil, grand- 
 eur of growth, beauty of foliage, and perfectness 
 of fruit ; while you and he would only have lan- 
 guished into ai'idity and a stunted crab-ti'ee. 
 
 For my part, I desire to sweep off my old 
 friends with tlie old year, and begin the new with 
 a clean record. It is a measure absolutely neces- 
 sary. The snake does not put on his new skin 
 over the old one. He sloughs off the first, before 
 he dons the second. He would be a very clumsy 
 serpent, if he did not. One cannot have succes- 
 sive layers of friendships any more than the snake 
 has successive layers of skins. One must adopt 
 some system to guard against a congestion of the 
 heart from plethora of loves. I go in for the 
 much-abused fair-weather, skin-deep, April-shower 
 friends, — the friends who will drop off, if let 
 alone, — who must be kept awake to be kept at 
 all, — who will talk and laugh with you as long 
 as it suits your respective humors and you are 
 prosperous and happy, — the blessed butterfly-race 
 who flutter about your June mornings, and when 
 the clouds lower, and the drops patter, and the 
 rains descend, and the winds blow, will spread 
 their gay wings and float gracefully away to sunny 
 Southern lands, where the skies are yet blue and 
 the breezes violet-scented. They are not only 
 
300 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 agreeable, but deeply wise. (^So long as a man 
 keeps his streamer flying, his sails set, and his hull 
 above water, it is pleasant to paddle alongside ; 
 but when the sails split, the yards crack, and the 
 keel goes staggering down, by all means paddle 
 off. Why should you be submerged in his whirl- 
 pool ? Will he drown any more easily because 
 you are drowning with him ? Lung is lung. He 
 dies from want of air, not from want of sympathy. 
 When a poor fellow sits down among the ashes, 
 the best thing his friends can do is to stand afar 
 off. Job bore the loss of property, children, health, 
 with equanimity. Satan himself found his match 
 there ; and for all his buffe tings. Job sinned not, 
 nor charged God foolishly. But Job's three friends 
 must needs make an apj)ointment together to come 
 and mourn with him and to comfort him, and after 
 this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day, — 
 and no wonder.") 
 
 Your friends have an intimate knowledge of you 
 that is astonishing to contemplate. It is not that 
 they know your affairs, which he who runs may 
 read, but they know you. From a bit of bone, 
 Cuvier could predicate a whole animal, even to 
 the hide and hair. Such moral naturalists are 
 your dear five hundred friends. It seems to your- 
 self that you are immeasurably reticent. You 
 know, of a certainty, that you project only the 
 smallest possible fragment of yourself. You yield 
 your universality to the bond of common brother- 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 301 
 
 hood ; but your individualism — what it is that 
 makes you you — withdraws itself naturally, invol- 
 untarily, inevitably, into the background, — the 
 dim distance which their eyes cannot penetrate. 
 But, from the fraction which you do project, they 
 construct another you, call it by your name, and 
 pass it around for the real, the actual you. You ' 
 bristle with jest and laughter and wild wliims, to 
 keep them at a distance ; and they fancy this to 
 be your every-day equipment. They think your 
 life holds constant carnival. It is astonishing what j 
 ideas spring up in the heads of sensible people. I 
 There are those who assume that a person can ( 
 never have had any grief, unless somebody has/ 
 died, or he has been disappointed in love, — not j 
 knowing that every avenue of joy lies open to the ) ' 
 tramp of pain. They see the flashing coronet on 
 the queen's brow, and they infer a diamond wo- 
 man, not recking of the human heart that throbs 
 wildly out of sight. They see the foam-crest on 
 the wave, and picture an Atlantic Ocean of froth, 
 and not the solemn sea that stands below in eter- 
 nal equipoise. You turn to them the luminous 
 crescent of your life, and they call it the whole 
 round globe ; and so they love you with a love 
 that is agate, not pearl, because what they love 
 in you is something infinitely below the highest. 
 They love you level : they have never scaled your 
 heights nor fathomed your depths. And when 
 they talk of you as familiarly as if they had taken 
 
302 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 out your auricles and ventricles, and turned them 
 inside out, and wrung them, and shaken them, — • 
 when they prate of your transparency and open- 
 ness, the abandonment with which you draw aside 
 the curtain and reveal the inmost thoughts of your 
 heart, — you, who are to yourself a miracle and a 
 mystery, you smile inwardly, and are content. 
 They are on the wrong scent, and you may pur- 
 sue your plans in peace. They are indiscriminate 
 and satisfied. They do not know the relation of 
 what appears to what is. If they chance to skirt 
 along the coasts of your Purple Island, it will be 
 only chance, and they will not know it. You may 
 close your portholes, lower your drawbi'idge, and 
 make merry, for they will never come within gun- 
 shot of the " Round Tower of your heart." 
 
 There is no such thing as knowing a man in- 
 timately. Every soul is, for the greater part 
 of its mortal life, isolated from every other. 
 Whether it dwell in the Garden of Eden or the 
 Desert of Sahara, it dwells alone. Not only do 
 we jostle against the street-crowd unknowing 
 and unknown, but we go out and come in, 
 we lie down and rise up, with strangers. (Jupi- 
 ter and Neptune sweep the heavens not more 
 unfamiliar to us than the worlds that circle our 
 own hearth-stone. Day after day, and year after 
 year, a person moves by your side ; he sits at 
 the same table ; he reads the same books ; he 
 kneels in the same church. You know every 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 303 
 
 liair of his head, every trick of liis hps, every 
 tone of his voice ; you can tell him far off by his 
 gait. Without seeing him, you recognize his 
 step, his knock, his laugh. "Know him? Yes, 
 I have known him these twenty years." No, 
 you don't know him. You know his gait, and 
 hair, and voice. You know what preacher he 
 hears, what ticket he voted, and what were his 
 last year's expenses ; but you don't know him. 
 He sits quietly in his chair, but he is in the 
 temple. You speak to him ; his soul comes out 
 into the vestibule to answer you, and returns, — 
 and the gates are shut ; therein you cannot 
 enter. You were discussing the state of the 
 country ; but when you ceased, he opened a 
 postern-gate, went down a bank, and launched 
 on a sea over whose waters you have no boat 
 to sail, no star to guide. You have loved and 
 reverenced him. He has been your concrete of 
 tiTith and nobleness. Unwittingly you touch a 
 secret spring, and a Blue-Beai*d Chamber stands 
 revealed. You give no sign ; you meet and part 
 as usual ; but a Dead Sea rolls between you two 
 forevermore.j 
 
 It must De so. Not even to the nearest and 
 dearest can one unveil the secret place whete 
 his soul abideth, so that there shall be no more 
 any winding ways or hidden chambers ; but to 
 your indifferent neighbor, what blind alleys, and 
 deep caverns, and inaccessible mountains ! To 
 
304 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 liim who " touches the electric chain wherewith 
 you 're darkly bound," your soul sends back an 
 answering thrill. Our little window is opened, 
 and there is short parley. Your ships speak 
 each other now and then in welcome, though 
 imperfect communication ; but immediately you 
 strike out again into the great, shoreless sea, 
 over which you must sail forever alone. You 
 may shrink from the far-reaching solitudes of 
 your heart, but no other foot than yours can 
 tread them, save those 
 
 " That, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed, 
 For our advantage, to the bitter cross." 
 
 Be thankful that it is so, — that only His eye 
 sees whose hand formed. If we could look in, 
 we should be appalled at the vision. The worlds 
 that glide around us are mysteries too high for 
 us. We cannot attain to them. The naked soul 
 is a sight too awful for man to look at and live. 
 There are individuals whose topography we would 
 like to know a little better, and there is danger 
 that we crash against each other while roaming 
 around in the dark ; but, for all that, Avould we 
 not have the Constitution broken up. Somebody 
 says, " In heaven there will be no secrets," 
 Which, it seems to me, would be intolerable. (If 
 that were a revelation from the King of Heaven, 
 of course I would not speak flippantly of it ; but 
 though towards Heaven we look with reverence 
 and humble hope, I do not know that Tom, 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 305 
 
 Dick, and Harry's notions of it have any special 
 claim to our respect.) Such publicity would de- 
 stroy all individuality, and undermine the foun- 
 dations of society. Clairvoyance — if there be 
 any such thing — always seemed to me a stupid 
 impertinence. When people pay visits to me, 
 I wish them to come to the front-door, and ring 
 the bell, and send up their names. I don't 
 AA'ish them to climb in at the window, or creep 
 througli the pantry, or, worst of all, float through 
 the keyhole, and catch me in undress. So I be- 
 lieve that in all worlds thoughts will be the sub- 
 jects of volition, — more accurately expressed 
 when expression is desired, but just as entirely 
 suppressed when we will suppression. 
 
 After all, perhaps the chief trouble arises from 
 a prevalent confusion of ideas as to what consti- 
 tutes a man your friend. Friendship may stand 
 for that peaceful complacence which you feel 
 towards all well-behaved people who wear clean 
 collars and use tolerable grammar. This is a 
 very good meaning, if everybody will subscribe 
 to it. But sundry of these well-behaved people 
 Avill mistake your civility and complacence for 
 a recognition of special affinity, and proceed at 
 once to frame an alliance offensive and defensive 
 while the sun and the moon shall endure. O, 
 the barnacles that cling to your keel in such 
 waters ! The inevitable result is, that they win 
 your intense rancor. You would feel a genial 
 
306 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 kindliness towards them, if they would be satis- 
 fied with that ; but they lay out to be your spe- 
 cialty. They infer your innocent little inch to 
 be the standard-bearer of twenty ells, and goad 
 you to frenzy. I mean you, you desperate little 
 horror, who nearly dethroned my reason six 
 years ago ! I always meant to have my re- 
 venge, and here I impale you before the public. 
 For three months, you fastened yourself upon 
 me, and I could not shake you off. What availed 
 it me, that you were an honest and excellent 
 man ? Did I not, twenty times a day, wish you 
 had been a villain, who had insulted me, and I a 
 Kentucky giant, that I might have the unspeak- 
 able satisfaction of knocking you down ? But 
 you added to your crimes virtue. Villany had 
 no part or lot in you. You were a member of 
 a church, in good and regular standing ; you had 
 graduated with all the honors worth mentioning; 
 you had not a sin, a vice, or a fault that I knew 
 of; and you were so thoroughly good and re- 
 pulsive that you were a great grief to me. Do 
 you think, you dear, disinterested wretch, that I 
 have forgotten how you were continually putting 
 yourself to horrible inconveniences on my ac- 
 count ? Do you think I am not now filled with 
 remorse for the aversion that rooted itself in- 
 eradicably in my soul, and which now gloats 
 over you, as you stand in the pillory where my 
 own hands have fastened you ? But can Nature 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 307 
 
 be cruslied forever ? Did I not ruin my nerves, 
 and seriously injure my temper, by the over- 
 powering pressure I laid upon them to keep 
 them quiet when you were by ? Could I not, 
 by the sense of coming ill through all my quiv- 
 ering frame, presage your advent as exactly as 
 the barometer heralds the approaching storm ? 
 Those three months of agony are little atoned for 
 by this late vengeance ; but go in peace ! 
 
 Mysterious are the ways of friendship. It is 
 not a matter of reason or of choice, but of mag- 
 netisms. You cannot always give the premises 
 nor the ai'gument, but the conclusion is a pal- 
 pable and stubborn fact. Abana and Pharpar 
 may be broad, and deep, and blue, and grand ; 
 but only in Jordan shall your soul wash and be 
 clean. A thousand brooks are born of the sun- 
 shine and the mountains : very, very few are 
 they whose flow can mingle with yours, and not 
 disturb, but only deepen and broaden the current. 
 
 Your friend ! Who shall describe him, or 
 worthily paint what he is to you ? No merchant, 
 nor lawyer, nor farmer, nor statesman, claims 
 your suffrage, but a kingly soul. He comes to 
 you from God, — a prophet, a seer, a revealer. 
 He has a clear vision. His love is reverence. 
 He goes into the jjenetralia of your life, — not 
 presumptuously, but with uncovered head, unsan- 
 dalled feet, and pours libations at the innermost 
 shrine. His incense is grateful. For him the 
 
308 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 sunlight brightens, the skies grow rosy, and all 
 the days are Junes. Wrapped in his love, you 
 float in a delicious rest, rocked in the bosom of 
 piirple, scented waves. Nameless melodies sing 
 themselves through your heart. A golden glow 
 suffuses your atmosphere. A vague, fine ecstasy 
 thrills to the sources of life, and earth lays hold 
 on heaven. Such friendship is worship. It ele- 
 vates the most trifling services into rites. The 
 humblest offices are sanctified. All things are 
 baptized into a new name. Duty is lost in joy. 
 Care veils itself in caresses. Drudgery becomes 
 delight. There is no longer anything menial, 
 small, or servile. All is transformed 
 
 " Into something rich and strange." 
 
 The homely household-ways lead through beds of 
 spices and orchards of pomegranates. The daily 
 toil among your parsnips and carrots is plucking 
 May violets with the dew upon them to meet the 
 eyes you love upon their first awaking. In the 
 burden and heat of the day you hear the rustling 
 of summer showers and the whispering of summer 
 winds. Everything is lifted up from the plane of 
 labor to the plane of love, and a glory spans your 
 life. With your friend, speech and silence are 
 one; for a communion mysterious and 'intangible 
 reaches across from heart to heart. The many 
 dig and delve in your nature with fruitless toil to 
 find the spring of living water : he only raises his 
 
A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS. 309 
 
 wand, and, obedient to the hidden power, it bends 
 at onoe to your secret. Your friendship, though 
 independent of language, gives to it life and light. 
 The mystic spirit stirs even in commonplaces, and 
 the merest question is an endearment. ' You are 
 quiet because your heart is over-full. You talk 
 because it is pleasant, not because you have any- 
 thing to say. You weary of terms that are already 
 love-laden, and you go out into the highways and 
 hedges, and gather up the rough, wild, wilful 
 words, heavy with the hatreds of men, and fill 
 them to the brim with honey-dew. All things 
 great and small, grand or humble, you press into 
 your service, force them to do soldier's duty, and 
 your banner over them is love.j 
 
 With such a friendship, presence alone is happi- 
 ness ; nor is absence wholly void, — for memoi4es, 
 and hopes, and pleasing fancies, sparkle through 
 the hours, and you know the sunshine will come 
 back. 
 
 For such friendship one is grateful. No matter 
 that it comes unsought, and comes not for the 
 seeking. You do not discuss the reasonableness 
 of your gratitude. You only know that your 
 whole being bow^s with humility and utter thank- 
 fulness to him who thus crowns you monarch of 
 all realms. 
 
 And the kingdom is everlasting. A weak love 
 dies weakly Avith the occasion that gave it birth ; 
 but such friendship is born of the gods, and im- 
 
310 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 mortal. Clouds and darkness may sweep aromid 
 it, but within the cloud the glory lives undijnmed. 
 Death has no power over it. Time cannot dimin- 
 ish, nor even dishonor annul it. Its direction may 
 have been earthly, but itself is divine. You go 
 back into your solitudes : all is silent as aforetime, 
 but you cannot forget that a Voice once resounded 
 there. A Presence filled the valleys and gilded 
 the mountain-tops, — breathed upon the plains, and 
 they sprang up in lilies and roses, — flashed upon 
 the waters, and they flowed to spheral melody, — 
 swept through the forests, and they, too, trembled 
 into soncT. And though now the warmth has 
 faded out, though the ruddy tints and amber clear- 
 ness have paled to ashen hues, though the mur- 
 muring melodies ai'e dead, and forest, vale, and hill 
 look hard and angular in the sharp air, you know 
 that it is not death. The fire is unquenched 
 beneath. You go your way not disconso- 
 late. There needs but the Victorious 
 Voice. At the touch of the 
 Prince's lips, life shall rise 
 again and be perfected 
 forevermore. 
 
Dog-Days. 
 
 f OUBTLESS they have their uses, but 
 they are not agreeable. That must 
 be conceded. There is no out-doors. 
 >^i'^^ You Avake in the morning with a mild 
 sense of strangulation, though all your windows 
 are open at top and bottom. You thrust your 
 head out into the morning air, but there is n't any. 
 It has all run to fog./ Fog lies heavy and gray 
 on the grass. Trees and hills and fences are 
 smothered in fog. It creeps into your house, tar- 
 nishes all your gilt, swells your drawers and doors 
 so that you can't open them, and when you have 
 opened them you can't shut them. It breathes 
 upon your muslin curtains, and they turn into 
 limpsy strings. It steals into your closet, and 
 little blue specks and white feathery spots appear 
 on your pies. A pungent taste develops itself in 
 your pound-cake. The stray cup-custard filched 
 from the general larder for private circulation is a 
 keen and acid disappointment. Milk refuses to 
 curdle into cheese, and cream will tumble about 
 
312 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 in your churn for hours, and. come out mitigated 
 buttermilk at last, j 
 
 Flies are rampant. If the cover is left off the 
 sugar-bowl, a colony of flies take immediate pos- 
 session. If yovir bare arm happens to be carrying 
 a vase of flowers with special care, a fly lights on 
 your elbow, and proceeds by short and easy stages 
 (to him) to your wrist. If you are writing, a 
 horde of flies institute an investigation of your 
 head and hands, with a special commission for 
 ,your nose. You brush them ofi\, and they only 
 rub their fore legs together, bob their heads, brush 
 down their wings, and go at it again. Your 
 kitchen ceiling looks like huckleberries and milk. 
 All the while it is very warm, but not so warm as 
 it is sticky, only the stickiness is all on the out- 
 side. Within, you feel a constant tendency to fall 
 to pieces, because there is n't brace enough in the 
 air to hold you together. If we were English, we 
 should say it was nasty weather. Being Ameri- 
 cans, we only sigh, " Dog-days ! " 
 
 But they must have their uses. Everything is 
 good for something. Let us see. First, they are 
 excellent for the complexion, — a matter in which, 
 whatever we say, we are all more or less interest- 
 ed. Bile-y, jaundice-y, sallow faces clear up into 
 healthy tints. Freckles " try out." Pale cheeks 
 tone up into delicate rose, and dry, parched, burn- 
 ing flushes tone down into a cool liquescence. All 
 the pores are opened, and the whole system Ian- 
 
DOG-DAYS. 313 
 
 guislies in a pleasant helplessness, — pleasant, if 
 one has been so industrious all the year, that he 
 can afford to be idle during the dog-days. 
 
 Dog-days are good as tests. Their effect on 
 curl-paper curls is melancholy, but natural curls 
 laugh them to scorn, and riot In twistinops. Just 
 so the temper. /Placidity at Christmas often dis- 
 solves in an August fog. What you thought was 
 amiability, may have been only oxygen. If you 
 Avish to see whether your temper can really bear 
 the strains of wind and weather, just remember 
 how you went to the middle drawer in your 
 bureau for gloves, fearing you should be too late 
 for the cars, — liow the drawer would only come 
 out by hitches, first one side, then the other, and 
 then not at all, — how you thrust in your hand up 
 to the wrist, and could just not reach the gloves 
 with the end of your longest finger, while your 
 wrist was tortured by the sharp edge of the drawer 
 on one side, and the sharp edge of the bureau on 
 the other. Did you possess your soul in pa- 
 tience ? When a shower came suddenly pelting 
 down through the fog, and you tried to close the 
 window, and got yourself wet through for your 
 pains, and could n't move it an inch for all your 
 shaking and pounding, — when you put your 
 cake into the oven to " scald," and forgot it, till 
 a sense of something burning travelled up-stairs 
 to stir your passivity, and you imshed down to 
 snatch too late a burnt and blackened loaf, — did 
 
 14 
 
314 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 you remember the first three words of Psalm 
 xxxvii. 1 ? ) 
 
 In the cahii complacency of a balmy spring 
 morning, we look clown with a serene smile on the 
 follies of the world. We assume a calm and quiet 
 superiority, give it a pat on the shoulder, and say, 
 condescendingly : " Yes, you will do very well ; a 
 little rickety in the joints ; a slight softening of the 
 brain ; but very passable for your age." Nothing 
 can exceed our amiability when we are pleased 
 and comfortable ; but, floundering up to the neck 
 in July, keeping the breath of life in us only by 
 becoming amphibious and web-footed, bound to 
 the earth by no stronger tie than ice-cream and 
 sherbet, wooing to our side every passing breeze, 
 as if it were the king's daughter, — then, a beflow- 
 ered, bespangled, bedizened abomination, coming 
 betwixt the wind and our nobility, is the spear 
 of Ithuriel to our smiling good-nature, and we feel 
 disposed to pluck its eyes out with a demoniac 
 delight. 
 
 Dog-days can teach us trust. You have heard 
 of the woman who, when her horse ran away, 
 trusted to Providence till the breeching broke. 
 A good deal of our trust is like this. We call it 
 Providence, but it is really breeching. Not that 
 breeching is not a very good thing to trust to as 
 far as it goes, — only it is not Providence. So, 
 when our doors can be bolted and locked, we lie 
 down in peace and sleep ; but when they Avon't go 
 
DOG-DAYS. 315 
 
 )')to, and we have to make a precarious arrangement 
 ^ ' of sticks and strings, we feel more keenly that we 
 awake because the Lord sustained us. 
 
 Dog-days are friendly to greenness. Our lawns 
 smile with velvet verdure. The fog goes into the 
 soil and wraps it around the tender strawberry- 
 vines that we have just transplanted, and in soft 
 swaddling-clothes the young fruit will slumber till 
 next summer's sun shall bid it leap to luxuriant 
 life, and a creamy and glorious death. Down into 
 the heart of the sweet-pea, deep into the cup of 
 the morning-glory, steals the kindly mist, and a 
 pink and purple splendor crowns the rising day. 
 The cucumber swells its prickly sides and snuffs 
 the coming vinegar. The squash-vine creeps along 
 the ground, sorrowing that it has all turned to 
 pumpkin, but catching from the moist air a deeper 
 shade for the generous gold of its blossom. Ah ! 
 in the laboratories of nature the fog has a great 
 work to do. 
 
 But the best of dog-days is their departing. 
 Grateful for the returning sun, and the sweet 
 west wind, we see a deeper blue in the sky, and 
 a denser green in the fields. The tall corn waves 
 with statelier grace. The trees are fretted with 
 fresh-springing life. The earth is a billowy and 
 dimpled emerald, tender and smiling ; but the sky 
 — the ever-shifting sky — is an absorbing and per- 
 petual joy. Sometimes its sweep of stainless blue 
 is glorious afar. Then the dving sun leaves its 
 
316 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 legacy in the west, of saffron, and amber, and 
 pale green. Now the clouds sail out white and 
 warm into the central blue, or rush exultant, 
 whirling up masses of lavender rimmed with gold, 
 or shoot from the glowing west spires of rosy 
 pink, or mount to the zenith in delicate shells of 
 pearl, or lie above the horizon, passionate, breath- 
 less, and ruddy, floating in seas of fire. Anon 
 they group themselves in all tricksy shapes. A 
 turreted castle sends down shafts of light from its 
 pearly gates. The mailed warrior places liis lance 
 in rest, and a couchant lion 
 
 " Scatters across the sunset air 
 The golden radiance of his hair." 
 
 " Cloud-land ! Gorgeous land ! " All grace of 
 outline, all wealth of color, are gathered there. 
 Tropical splendor and heavenly purity kiss each 
 other, and the angels of God can almost be seen 
 ascendino; and descending. 
 
 So gazino; with thankful and reverent hearts, 
 we remember that great city, the holy Jerusalem, 
 descending out of heaven from God, whose light is 
 like unto a stone most precious, for the glory of God 
 doth lio;hten it, and the Lamb is the lio;ht thereof. 
 
 So, when the west winds come laden with fra- 
 grance from the prairies, and the cold winds blow 
 down from the north, bearing us healing and 
 strength, we will gird up our loins anew to the 
 work of tlie Lord of light, contented to rest and 
 stand in our lot at the end of the days. 
 
Summer Gone. 
 
 HOPE, a throb, a memory, — that is 
 summer in these high latitudes. The 
 sorrow of her going follows close upon 
 the jubilee of her welcome. The lips 
 that part to ring out her joyous " Salve ! " close, 
 white and tremulous, upon her thrice-wailed 
 " Vale ! " The same breath wafts her Hail ! and 
 Farewell ! 
 
 But be not cast down, O my soul, nor disquiet- 
 ed within me. The beauty that budded with the 
 opening spring is not yet gone, though autumn 
 winds wail, and chilly nights pi'ophesy dismantled 
 Avoods. That beauty will be a joy forever. No 
 time, no tyranny, can rob me of the riches which 
 the summer brought. Wherever I go, my walls 
 will be always spread with .pictures that no artist 
 can rival. I haA^e but to close my eyes, and the 
 hill-sides whiten with Innocence once more. I see 
 again that strange, hardy, frail-looking thing, with 
 the soft, delicate, liquescent " feel " of a month- 
 old baby, yet popping up its audacious little head 
 
318 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 close upon the heels of the departing snow. De- 
 fiant of frost, and storm, and wmd, — tremulous, 
 mellow, luscious, — yet pure, and sweet, and 
 saintly, it meets me everywhere. On the very 
 top of the hill, where the moss is only a brown 
 crisp in the sun, a little clump of white richness 
 sways in the scented air. I put aside the dark, 
 dense grass under the apple-trees, down in the 
 moist meadow-land, and it laughs up at me with 
 joyful recognition. Sometimes it takes on a deep, 
 creamy white ; sometimes it is tinted Avith pearl, 
 or lavender, or pale violet deepening at the border 
 into a purple rim, but always spreading purest 
 white around the centre, where, in a silver pal- 
 ace, the baby-prince lies sleeping, crowned with a 
 golden crown. 
 
 Here in my quiet room, with the curtains drawn 
 and the red fire-light settino; the room ao;low, I 
 gather them once more into a swelling wave of 
 white loveliness, circled with deep green moss or 
 the royal purple of pansies. I do not mingle them 
 with other flowers, because I think it destroys their 
 individuality. They look crowded, and uncom- 
 fortable, and overlooked, but by themselves they 
 are the sweetest, happiest little company in the 
 world. Their talk is of the floating of angel-gar- 
 ments, the fathomless depths of mothers' hearts, 
 and the souls of little children that went to God 
 unstained. They are like fluttering memories of 
 some sweet, strange sphere long ago, and they 
 
SUMMER GONE. 319 
 
 murmur rare melodies if you but leau your heart 
 close and listen. 
 
 Side by side with tlie Innocence, the purple vio- 
 let rears its slender stalk and bends its swan-like 
 neck with a queenly condescension. This is an 
 age of iconoclasm. Dr. Livingstone has demol- 
 ished the traditional valor of the lion, and Al- 
 phonse Karr makes count that the violet is one of 
 the most ambitious and aspiring of flowers. I 
 marvel, however, that it needed Alphonse Karr to 
 show us that the violet is not modest. I do not 
 mean that it is m-modest, — far from it ; but only 
 that in looking at it, modesty, humility, do not 
 seem to be its prevailing or most striking char- 
 acteristic. I should rather say it was stateliness. 
 Innocence, which has never been accused of mod- 
 esty, to my knowledge, conveys to me a far 
 stronger impression of it. It springs up with a 
 light, unconscious air, as if it were not thinking 
 about itself at all, — peeping and peering into the 
 great mystery of sun and sky with an investigat- 
 ing, curious, wide-awake, humble look, as if quite 
 aware that it was an ignorant little good-for-noth- 
 ing of a flower, but would thankfully receive infor- 
 mation from any quarter on any subject. Not so 
 the violet. It does not shoot up like the Inno- 
 cence with any definite object in view, but rather 
 glides deliberately, having decided that, on the 
 whole, it may as Avell dispose of its elegant leisure 
 in that as in any way, and once up, it seems to 
 
320 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 take a comprehensive survey of the universe, con- 
 cludes that nothing therein is especially worthy of 
 its august notice, and then — does n't droop its 
 head as many people persist in asserting, though, 
 if you will but notice its two winged petals ex- 
 panding laterally from a certain inward prompt- 
 ing, and the two upper ones flung spiritedly back 
 and curling over, you will see that there is no 
 more droop to it than there is to a — I don't think 
 of anything to finish my comparison with, so it 
 must hang as it is — and then, as I was saying, it 
 bows its stately head as a queen miglit to a chim- 
 ney-sweeper who raises his tattered cap as she 
 rides past. 
 
 It is true that the violet does seem to delight in 
 obscure, out-of-the-way places, " half hidden from 
 the eye " ; for though it does sometimes appear in 
 the open fields, it is shorn of its glory, — a pale, 
 spiritless thing, afraid of its own shadow, and 
 clinging so timorously to its mother Earth that 
 you can hardly find it in your heart to stoop and 
 pluck it thence ; while, if you chance to leap over 
 an old, tumbling-down stone wall, you will see 
 hosts of them rising on the other side, with tall, 
 juicy stems, and deep, rich petals, fearless and 
 free. In my stroll one morning, I came unex- 
 pectedly upon a bed of — I beg everybody's par- 
 don, but I never heard it called' anything but 
 " skunk-cabbage." It was in a low, swampy ra- 
 vine, and I was turning vigorously away, when 
 
SUMMER GONE. 321 
 
 the sudden twinkling of flowers beckoned me 
 forward. Treading very insecurely among the 
 mushy hassocks, and thrusting aside the uncouth 
 leaves, lo ! a great army of violets rollicking under 
 their odorous shade, in all the intensest passionate 
 purple of tropical luxuriance. Strange ! They 
 love the sunshine. It nourishes their strength 
 and beauty. Grace of form and wealth of color 
 come to them from its beneficence. They would 
 fade and die without it, yet they hide from it. 
 They pale in it. They keep their richest bloom 
 for dark shady dells, where sunshine only drips 
 through lazily. It is no coquettish teasing, but a 
 real shyness, — not the petty tyranny of a weak 
 vanity, but the shrinking of a true heart, a-trem- 
 ble in the grasp of its own passion, hiding invol- 
 untarily, in silence and solitude, from the love that 
 has evoked it, and that glows, and flames, and 
 dazzles in lambent embrace around it, yet in voice- 
 less solitude feeding on nothing else than the full- 
 ness of that very love, drinking in its sweetness, 
 softening down the brilliancy to its own white 
 lustre, and filling up the springs of life with an 
 inward and unspeakable joy. 
 
 Still the place does not make, though it often 
 does reveal, the man. Let many a one who 
 passed in his cottage for a quiet, sensible, well- 
 bred person be raised suddenly to a palace ; or, 
 since, notwithstanding the newspapers, we don't 
 have palaces in this country, say a five-story, 
 14* n 
 
322 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 brown-stone front, with income to match, and his 
 innate vulgarity crops out. Or vice versa., the 
 large-hearted, hospitable master of the aforesaid 
 palace, falsely so called, coming suddenly to grief 
 and a pittance per annum, is transformed into a 
 fretful, jealous, petty, and pitiful soul. The springs 
 of his generosity lay in his pocket, not in his heart. 
 His bank-book, not himself, made him a gentle- 
 man. A little, fat, good-natured woman is not 
 majestic because she dons a diadem ; nor was 
 Godiva ever more a queen than when she swept 
 down the turret stairs, clad only in her loveliness. 
 Circumstances may veil or obscure for a time, but 
 cannot prematurely hide, — 
 
 " May cloud the soul with shadows, but may not 
 Its glory blot." 
 
 Pomp disguises meanness, and poverty shackles 
 grandeur ; but sooner or later the heaven-lit flame 
 plays around the brow of the true prince, and 
 reveals his royal birth, — whether it be Havelok 
 in the fisherman's hut, or lulus in burning Troy. 
 
 So, little violets, wax pallid on the hill-tops if 
 you will, and shun the garish day. Nestle under 
 the shadows of gray old rocks, and verdurous, 
 large-leaved plantain. I know you. In your self- 
 sought solitude your royal blood reveals itself By 
 your amethystine locks, by your incense-breathing 
 vestments, by your princely port and mien, I read 
 your noble lineage. Your kinghood stands con- 
 fessed. 
 
SUMMER GONE. 323 
 
 Still with closed eyes I see thousands of dande- 
 lions gleaming sun-ward. All the highways and 
 by-ways are mottled with their generous gold. 
 Dust cannot choke them, — can scarcely dim their 
 shining. On the warmest summer noon, place 
 one against your cheek, and it has the same cool, 
 soft, fresh feeling. Little curling tendrils nestle 
 lovingly among the petals. Young eyes untrained 
 to minute uses are attracted by their unblinking 
 gaze, and dimpled hands pluck at them with ill- 
 aimed eagerness, and hold them in unsteady grasp. 
 Obedient to " waxen touches," their satin-smooth 
 stems curl in involute circles, adorning child-brows 
 with fantastic grace, or link themselves in tremu- 
 lous chains about little white throats. When their 
 yellow disks round into nebulous globes of pale, 
 feathery softness, merry hands clutch them afresh, 
 and puckered red lips and puffed cheeks send out 
 as strong a blast as juvenile lungs can furnish ; 
 because, you know, if you can blow away the 
 down with one breath, it is a sure sign that " your 
 mother wants you " ! Happy little lion-toothed 
 flower, with nothing of the lion but the tooth, and 
 with neither the power nor the wish to use that, — 
 woven in with the unconscious sunshine of child- 
 hood, with the memories of continual spring-time, 
 and innocence, and blissful ignorance, — the bless- 
 ing of all baby-life be upon you ! Never cease to 
 fringe the dusty road with sunlit smiles, — a boon 
 and a benediction alike to the infant and to him 
 that is an hundred years old. 
 
324 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 All the knolls are studded with star-flower, 
 but you must go down on your knees to see it, 
 and gather with painful care, one by one, if you 
 gather at all. I should let them be. They look 
 pretty where they are, sprinkling the somewhat 
 bare slope with a crystalline delicacy, and their 
 leaves have an elaborate, clear-cut beauty ; but 
 they do not make much figure in a — must I 
 say bouquet ? O that the old English nosegay 
 might be reinstated in its ancient dignity, and the 
 stiff, foreign, unmeaning, wrong-meaning, cut- 
 and-dried bouquet ousted from the throne where 
 its presence is a perpetual usui'pation ! It never 
 will be naturalized, and never is natural. We 
 don't know how to pronounce it ; we don't know 
 how to spell it ; and if any of us do happen to 
 know, the printer does n't, and he goes straight- 
 way and spells it wrong. Let us have the nose- 
 gay, brimful of rich old meanings, replete with 
 associations ; and reserve the foreign word for 
 the only thing which it fits, — namely, the round, 
 stiff, hard, close-clipped, tightly-squeezed horror 
 that comes from the hand of professional hot- 
 house men, — solid enough to knock you down, 
 if fired with sufficient force, and so ugly that 
 you are divided between pity for the poor little 
 things forced into such unnatural contiguity, — 
 divested of the green which relieved their bril- 
 liancy from the charge of gaudiness, and laced 
 into a hideous regularity, — and wrath against the 
 
SUMMER GONE. 325 
 
 man who has so misused his eyes and hands as 
 not to be able to construct any better imitation 
 of the viny, spray ey, feathery, airy, slender, 
 pendulous lightness, winsomeness, and grace of 
 nature than that artificial knob. Call that a 
 bouquet, and with merciful hands rend off its 
 swaddling-clothes, tone down its rainbow hues 
 with all tints of green, from the pale tenderness 
 that springs up on the sunny, sheltered side of 
 the Avood, to the deep luxuriance that lurks in 
 its unsunned and unstirred heart, and make of it 
 twenty nosegays, whose colors shall delight, and 
 whose odors shall intoxicate ; in which nosegays, 
 as I have said, my little star-flowers would make 
 but a poor figure. Their stems are so short, that it 
 is difficult to group them with any effect. Their 
 tiny faces become quite hidden behind their stur- 
 dier kinsmen. But in their own haunts they lead a 
 quiet, noiseless life, which well repays an observer. 
 If you went away to foreign lands when you 
 were young, and your knowledge of buttercups 
 is only a childish memory hanging on an obscure 
 peg in some inner chamber of your brain, you 
 will very likely — as I did — look upon the first 
 star-flowers that you see as juvenile buttercups, 
 — just as children invariably suppose mice to be 
 young rats, and rats adult mice ; and though you 
 have a vague, half-unconscious feeling that those 
 wee things do not quite satisfy your sense of but- 
 tercups, you will attribute it to the difference 
 
326 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 between tlie eyes of cliildhood and of maturity. 
 " Years dwarf so many of our grandeurs, and dim 
 so many of our lustres ! " you will begin to sigh. 
 Don't. It 's no such thing. Wait awhile, just 
 a few days, and — whence comes that shining ? 
 Is it the twinkling of a star-flower? Not a bit. 
 It is the gleam of knightly armor. It is the 
 glitter of burnished gold. There stands the real 
 buttercup. Does it pale before your young 
 memories ? Your memories were, on the con- 
 trary, but a faint herald of its splendor. Yon 
 little star-flowers might grow for an age of sum- 
 mers, and never attain such form and comeliness. 
 Their timid, delicate, soft sweetness is to the 
 defiant, glittering, manly beauty of buttercups 
 
 " As moonlight unto sunlight, or as water unto wine." 
 
 Think of the merry scorn with which, hiding in 
 the grass, they must have heard your mournful 
 musing on their short-comings ; and the sturdy 
 self-confidence with which they bided their time. 
 No wonder they toss their heads a little saucily 
 as you pass by, and nod and wink at each other 
 in ill-concealed jubilee over your undisguised ad- 
 miration. One idea concerning them, however, I 
 have discarded, — my belief in the traditional test- 
 ship. In fact, now that I am grown up and ovit 
 of harm's way, I will say that I never did believe 
 it. I think if you hold a buttercup under ariy- 
 bodi/^s chin, near enough, his chin will turn yel- 
 
SUMMER GONE. 327 
 
 low, and it is no sign at all that he is inordi- 
 nately fond of butter. But when I was little, I 
 was not as bold as an eagle, and often waived, 
 or at least suppressed, my convictions, for the 
 sake of being let alone. Moreover, I was con- 
 scious of a weakness in the direction indicated 
 by the buttercups ; so I suffered them to be 
 brought in confirmation strong, and only smiled 
 in outward acquiescence, but with inward pro- 
 test. I am older now, and have learned that 
 Paul's order of sequence is best, — first pure, 
 tlien peaceable ; that peace is not so precious a 
 treasure as to be bought at any price ; that, in 
 fact, it is a curse 
 
 " Till the Might with the Right and the Truth shall be." 
 
 " Better war, loud war by land and by sea, 
 War with a thousand battles and shaking a hundred thrones." 
 
 Nay, so fearful, so deceitful, so dangerous, is the 
 calm of a stagnant peace, — a peace that scums 
 the pool in whose foul depths lurk dishonesty 
 and oppression and cowardice, lust and rapine 
 and murder, — that I rather feel 
 
 " 'T is better to have fought and lost, 
 Than never to have fought at all." 
 
 The anemones have passed into my heart for- 
 ever. Their reign was short, but they bloomed 
 in beautiful profusion. Almost before I thought 
 of looking for them, I found a clump two feet in 
 diameter on the edge of a swamp where I least 
 expected to find any. I don't suppose a soul had 
 
328 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 seen them but myself, — a soul in a mortal body, I 
 mean, — for I dare say many of the shining ones had 
 looked upon it, and lent perhaps some ray of white- 
 ness to its pure garments ; but there in their shel- 
 tered nook, unseen, unknown, they revelled in sun- 
 ny, exuberant life, every petal springing back with 
 joyous eagerness. It seemed as if they gladdened 
 at sight of me, — as if they wanted mortal eyes 
 to be refreshed with a glimpse of their overflowing 
 happiness ; and the breath of the soft morning — 
 a June morning dropped into the stormy lap of 
 March — that gently swayed their pliant stems, 
 seemed to intone a song of peace on earth, good- 
 will toward men. I think they are very human. 
 Perhaps it is because we associate them with 
 those 
 
 " Who in their youthful beauty died." 
 
 Gazing upon their exquisite tracery, we see once 
 more the blue-veined loveliness that grew so deep 
 into our hearts, but vanished from our aching 
 eyes long ago, — the first little baby-daughter, who 
 learned only in heaven how dear she was on 
 earth ; the sister who fell asleep while the dew 
 of life was yet fresh on her brow ; the young wife 
 who glided ogat of the arms, strong but utterly 
 poM'-erless, that would have held her forever ; the 
 young mother who could have found her angel- 
 garments scarcely whiter than the robes of her 
 sacred motherhood ; — so, with tear-dimmed eyes, 
 we press the anemones to our white lips, and bless 
 
SUMMER GONE. 329 
 
 the memories, sad, yet passing sweet, which they 
 awaken. Tliere is a pain whicli is better and 
 liigher and holier than pleasure. Since that morn- 
 ino- I have seen many anemones springing np from 
 their warm bed of dry leaves which the foil frosts 
 scattered and the fall winds spread, and where, 
 safe as in the hollow of His hand who metes out 
 heaven with a span, they slept to a glad resurrec- 
 tion ; but none came so near me, none so took 
 hold of my strength, as the stray little cluster 
 that awoke first in the embrace of the sun on the 
 edge of that Dismal Swamp. 
 
 Faerily, daintily, tricksily, they troop around 
 me now, — the sun-born, gala-robed sprites. Ad- 
 vancing, receding, bending their lithe forms in 
 aii'y dances to the music of vocal brooks, rocking 
 dreamily back and forth in the lap of soft south 
 gales, surging into my soul, but mocking my 
 yearning arms, now pensive with dewy tears, 
 now laughing softly to little, cooling showers, now 
 drunken with the fierce wine of the northwest 
 wind, they circle me in elfin ring. The wild col- 
 umbine flings out his scarlet banner, but gives me 
 no Open Sesame to the vaults where his nectared 
 honey is stored. The gay geranium leaps from 
 his lurking-place beneath the maple-trees, but 
 I have no charm to bid him stay. The tawny 
 wood-lily glares sylvan rage, and will not be 
 soothed by my caresses, but his white-bosomed 
 sister in the valley pours crisp coolness from her 
 
330 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 crystal cups, and whispers of rippling waters, and 
 golden sunshine glinting down the greenwood. 
 The spirasas rise before me still and stately ; the 
 vervain shoots at me his slender arrows, purple- 
 tipped ; the honeysuckle vies with the sweet-brier 
 to flood me with heavenly odors ; and the garden 
 of God is my perpetual heritage. 
 
 " We all do fade as a leaf." The sad voice 
 whispers through my soul, and a shiver creeps 
 over from the churchyard. " How does a leaf 
 fade ? " It is a deeper, richer, stronger voice, with 
 a ring and an echo in it, and the shiver levels 
 into peace. I go out upon the October hills and 
 question the Genii of the woods. " How does a 
 leaf fade?" Grandly, magnificently, imperially, 
 so that the glory of its coming is eclipsed by the 
 glory of its departing ; — thus the forests make 
 answer to-day. The tender bud of April opens its 
 bosom to the wooing sun. From the soft airs of 
 May and the clear sky of June it gathers green- 
 ness and strenoth. Through all the summer its 
 manifold lips are opened to every passing breeze, 
 and great draughts of health course through its 
 delicate veins, and meander down to the sturdy 
 bark, the busy sap, the tiny flower, and the ma- 
 turing fruit, bearing life to the present, and treas- 
 uring up promise for the future. 
 
 Then its work is done, and it goes to its burial, 
 — not mournfully, not reluctantly, but joyously, 
 
SUMMER GONE. 331 
 
 as to a festival. Its grave-clothes wear no fune- 
 real look. It robes itself in splendor. Solomon 
 in all liis glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
 First there is a flash of crimson in the low lands, 
 then a glimmer of yellow on the hill-side, then, 
 rushing on, exultant, reckless, rioting in color, 
 grove vies with grove, till the woods are all aflame. 
 Here the sunlight streams through the pale gold 
 tresses of the maple, serene and spiritual, like the 
 aureole of a saint ; there it lingers in bold dalli- 
 ance with the dusky orange of the walnut. The 
 fierce heart of the tropics beats in the blood-red 
 branches that surge against deep solemn walls 
 of cypress and juniper. Yonder, a sober, but not 
 sombre, russet tones down the flaunting vermilion. 
 The intense glow of scarlet struggles for suprem- 
 acy with the quiet sedateness of brown, and the 
 numberless tints of year-long green come in every- 
 where to enliven, and soothe, and subdue, and 
 harmonize. So the leaf fades, — brilliant, gor- 
 geous, gay, rejoicing, — as a bride adorned for her 
 husband, as a king goes to his coronation. 
 
 But the frosts come wdiiter and whiter. The 
 nio-hts grow longer and longer. Ice glitters in the 
 morning light, and the clouds shiver with snow. 
 The forests lose their flush. The hectic dies into 
 sere. Tlie little leaf can no longer breathe the 
 strength-giving air, nor feel juicy life stirring in its 
 veins. Fainter and fainter grows its hold upon 
 the protecting tree. A strong wind comes and 
 
332 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 loosens its last clasp, and bears it tenderly to earth. 
 A whirl, an eddy, a rustle, and all is over, — no, 
 not all, its work is not yet done. It sinks upon 
 the protecting earth, and, Antaeus-like, gathers 
 strength from the touch, and begins a new life. It 
 joins hands with myriads of its mates, and takes 
 up again its work of benevolence. No longer sen- 
 sitive itself to frosts and snows, it wraps in its 
 warm bosom the frail little anemones, and the 
 delicate spring beauties, that can scarcely bide the 
 rigors of our pitiless winters, and, nestling close 
 in that fond embrace, they sleep securely till the 
 spring sun wakens them to the smile of blue skies, 
 and the song of dancing brooks. Deeper into the 
 earth go the happy leaves, mingling with the moist 
 soil, drinking the gentle dews, cradling a thousand 
 tender lives in theirs, and springing again in new 
 forms, — an eternal cycle of life and death " for- 
 ever spent, renewed forever." 
 
 We all do fade as a leaf. Change, thank God, 
 is the essence of life. " Passing away " is written 
 on all things ; and passing away is passing on 
 from strength to strength, from glory to glory. 
 Spring has its growth, summer its fruitage, and 
 autumn its festive in-gathering. The spring of 
 eager preparation waxes into the summer of noble 
 work ; mellowing, in its turn, into the serene au- 
 tumn, the golden-brown haze of October, when 
 the soul may robe itself in jubilant drapery, 
 awaiting the welcome command, " Come up 
 
SUMMER GONE. 333 
 
 higher," where mortahty shall be swallowed up 
 iu lite. 
 
 Why, then, should autumn tinge our thoughts 
 Avith sadness ? We fade as the leaf, and the leaf 
 fades only to revivify. Though it fall, it shall rise 
 again. Does the bud fear to become a blossom, or 
 the blossom shudder as it swells into fruit, and 
 shall the redeemed weep that they must become 
 glorified ? Strange inconsistency. We faint with 
 the burden and heat of the day. We bow down 
 under the crosses that are laid upon our shoulders. 
 We are bruised and torn by the snares and pitfalls 
 which beset our way, and into which our unwary 
 feet often fall. We are famished, and foot-sore, 
 and travel-stained from our long journey, and yet 
 we are saddened by tokens that we shall pass 
 away from all these. Away from sin and sorrow, 
 from temptation and fall, from disappointment and 
 weary waiting, and a fearful looking for of evil, to 
 purity and holiness, and the full fruition of every 
 hope, — bliss which eye hath not seen, nor ear 
 heard, nor heart conceived, — to a world whence 
 all that made this dreary is forever banished, and 
 where all that made this delightful is forever re- 
 newed and increased, — a world where the activ- 
 ities and energies of the soul shall have full scope, 
 and love and recognition wait upon its steps for- 
 ever. 
 
 Let him alone fear who does not fade as the 
 leaf, — him whose sources are not in God, and 
 
334 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 who does not draw his Hfe thence, — him whose 
 spring is gathering no strength, whose summer is 
 maturing no fruit, and whose autumn shall have 
 no vintage. Is not this the real sorrow of us all ? 
 not a dread of change, but a secret consciousness 
 of wasted power, — of disloyalty to God as the 
 supreme object of our love and service ? Yet even 
 here the fading leaf brings hope. Our future is 
 always before us. The past is fixed. No tears 
 can wash away its facts. Let us waste no vain 
 regrets upon it, but, from the wisdom which its 
 very mistakes and sins have bequeathed us, start 
 afresh on the race. Though yesterday we were 
 weak, and selfish, and indolent, let us to-day, at 
 this moment, begin to be strong, and brave, and 
 helpful, and just, and generous, and considerate, 
 and tender, and truthful, and pure, and patient, 
 and forcvivino;. " Now " is a glorious word. 
 " Henceforth " is always within our grasp. 
 
 " 0, my soul, look not behind thee. Thou hast work to do at last: 
 Let the brave toil of the Present overarch the crumbling Past. 
 Build thy great acts high and higher, build them in the conquered 
 
 sod, 
 Where thy weakness first fell bleeding, where thy first prayer rose 
 
 to God." 
 
Winter. 
 
 OME people have a way, you probably, 
 my dear friend, among tlie rest, of 
 going into the country. When the 
 sun beats down hot and hard, when 
 the earth gets parched and arid, when the fields 
 have gone gray for lack of rain, and all the little 
 leaves have curled themselves to dry death, and 
 the heavens are dull, shimmering brass, and the 
 roads are ankle-deep in fine, powdery dust, and 
 the thirsty oxen stand panting in muddy bogs that 
 were once pools of water, and the grasshopper has 
 become a burden, and your desire for everything 
 but ice-water has failed, — then you wrap the 
 chairs in brown holland, turn the pictures to the 
 wall, carry the silver down to the bank, pack a 
 dry-goods store into your trunk, leave your cool, 
 blinded, shaded city house with its large rooms, its 
 ample baths, and its attentive well-trained servants, 
 join a great dusty caravan, in a little dusty, cin- 
 dery, clamorous railroad-car, whirl off to a great 
 hotel, pitch about among hackmen and porters till 
 
336 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 you have ensconced yourself somewhere in a seven 
 by nine room, with the clatter of a legion of feet 
 continually above, around, beneath, and the pro- 
 longed torture of a gong forever summoning you 
 to the two-hundredth part of a table, when you 
 unpack your dry goods, and put on your flounces 
 and laces and diamonds, and sit up straight, grace- 
 ftil, and lady-like, and dine off" the same meats, 
 and hop with the same hoppers, and talk with the 
 same talkers, and see the same faces, and do the 
 same things you did yesterday at home ; and this 
 you call " going into the country." 
 
 Or, being a notch lower in the social scale, and 
 not able to contribute your part to the splendors 
 of a great establishment, you go to a little village, 
 eight miles away, and engage a southwest cham- 
 ber in a house set on a hill, without blinds, with a 
 tank of rain-water directly under the window, a 
 feather bed, wooden chairs, and red-flowered car- 
 pet, where you slumber out your mornings, simmer 
 out your middays, and fight out your nights with 
 mosquitos, — to all of which I have not the slightest 
 objection — if you like it. It is change, and that, 
 after all, is what you need ; and even if you have 
 jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, it will 
 serve to make the frying-pan more tolerable when 
 you go back to it. But if, having done this, you 
 consider that you have been in the country, that 
 you have exhausted nature, and that there is noth- 
 ing new under the sun for you to see, Avhy, I must 
 
WINTER. 337 
 
 take the liberty of respectfully informing you that 
 you don't know what you are talking about. 
 
 Nature is very exacting. You may make her a 
 flying visit in August, and she will indeed unfold 
 to you the beauties of dew-drop, and thunder- 
 shower, and evening sky ; but to know her in her 
 wholeness, to drink in full measure the " life that 
 hides in marsh and wold," to conceive all her 
 magnificent possibilities, you must woo her from 
 New Year to New Year, and every New Year 
 shall bring you a fairer picture, a richer blessing, 
 than the last. 
 
 You shall look out upon a gray, frozen earth, 
 and a gray, chilling sky. The trees stretch forth 
 naked branches imploringly. The air pinches and 
 pierces you, a homesick desolation clasps around 
 your shivering, shrinking heart, and then God 
 works a miracle. The windows of heaven are 
 opened, and there comes forth a blessing. The 
 gray sky unlocks her treasures, and softness and 
 whiteness and warmth and beauty float gently 
 down upon the evil and the good. Through all 
 the long night, while you sleep, the work goes 
 noiselessly on. Earth puts off her earthliness, and 
 when the morning comes she stands before you in 
 the white robes of a saint. The sun hallows her 
 with baptismal touch, and she is glorified. There 
 is no longer on her pure brow anything common 
 or unclean. The Lord God hath wrapped her 
 about with light as with a garment. His Divine 
 15 V 
 
338 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 chanty liath covered the multitude of her sins, 
 and there is no scar or stain, no " mark of her 
 shame," no " seal of her sorrow." Tlie far-off 
 hills swell their white purity against the pure blue 
 of the heaven. The sheeted splendor of the fields 
 sparkles back a thousand suns for one. The trees 
 lose their nakedness and misery and desolation, 
 and every slenderest twig is clothed upon with 
 glory. All the roofs are blanketed with snow ; 
 all the fences are bordered. Every gate-post is 
 statuesque ; every wood-pile is a marble quarry. 
 Harshest outlines are softened. Instead of angles, 
 and ruggedness, and squalor, there are billowy, 
 fleecy undulations. Nothing so rough, so com- 
 mon, so ugly, but it has been transfigured into 
 newness of life. Everywhere the earth has re- 
 ceived beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourn- 
 ing, the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- 
 ness. Without sound of hammer or axe, without 
 the grating of saw or the click of chisel, prose has 
 been sculptured into poetiy. The actual has put 
 on the silver veil of the ideal. 
 
 Will you look more closely? A part is, if 
 possible, more beautiful than the whole. On the 
 Brobdignagian textui'e of your coat-sleeve, one 
 wandering snow-flake has alighted. Gaze at it or 
 ever it vanishes from your sight. What a world 
 of symmetry it discloses to you ! What an airy, 
 fairy, crystalline splendor ! What delicate spires 
 of feathery light shoot out from the centre with 
 
WINTER. 339 
 
 tiny fringes, and rosy, radiating bars. In all your 
 life you have never seen anything more beautiful, 
 more perfect, and you may stand " breast-high " 
 in just such marvellous radiance. Talk of rob- 
 bers' caves and magic lamps 1 No Eastern im- 
 agination, rioting in " barbaric pearl and gold," 
 can eclipse the magnificence in which you live 
 and move and have your being. 
 
 And there is a deeper beauty than this. It 
 is not only that the snow makes fair what was 
 good before, but it is a messenger of love 
 from heaven, bearing glad tidings of great joy. 
 Hope for the future comes down to the earth in 
 every tiny snow-flake. Under the purity that 
 spans the hill-side, and lies lightly piled in the 
 valleys, the earth-spirits and fairies are ceaselessly 
 working out their multifold plans. The grasses 
 hold high carnival safe under their crystal roof. 
 The roses and lilies keep holiday. The snow- 
 drops and hyacinths, and the pink-lipped May- 
 flower, wait as they that watch for the morning. 
 The life that stirs beneath thrills to the life that 
 stirs above. The spring sun will mount higher 
 and higher in the heavens ; the sweet snow will 
 sink down into the arms of the violets, and, at 
 the word of the Lord, the earth shall come up 
 once more as a bride adorned for her husband. 
 
 And " as the rain cometh down, and the snow 
 from heaven, and returneth not thither, but 
 watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth 
 
340 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, 
 and bread to the eater : so sliall my word be 
 that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall not 
 return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that 
 which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing 
 whereto I sent it." 
 
 Native land ! Fatherland ! Is not the word 
 spoken to you ? 
 
 O beautiful, sorrowful country I for whom the 
 watch-fires of freedom have been lighted on the 
 hills, for whom the flames of sin lurk ghastly 
 and baleful in the valleys ; baptized in the blood 
 of heroes ; consecrated with the prayers of saints ; 
 precious for your priceless past, unspeakably pre- 
 cious for the hope of your golden future ; for all 
 your faults never more dear than now ; rocked 
 with the throes of a mortal agony ; shuddering 
 through all your frame in the slimy coil of a 
 monster ; your young strength once prostrated, 
 but now alive, your young life poisone<], but re- 
 newed again ; — shall not " Nature bring you 
 solace"? Already the winter is past, the flowers 
 appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of 
 birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is 
 heard in our land. Shall we not therein read a 
 sweet prophecy ? The winter of your discontent 
 shall be made glorious summer. You too shall 
 go out with joy, and be led forth with peace ; the 
 mountains and the hills shall break forth before 
 you into singing, and all the trees of the field 
 
WINTER. 341 
 
 shall clap tlieir hands. Instead of the thorn 
 shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the 
 brier shall come up the myrtle-tree ; and it shall 
 be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting 
 sign that shall not be cut off. 
 
 There is nothing like winter in the country to 
 develop one's resources and mature one's graces. 
 Blocked up by the snow, driven in by the cold, 
 forced to subside on yourself, it stands you in 
 hand to be agreeable and inventive. If your 
 chimney smokes, if your door-knobs loosen and 
 come off, if the rain soaks through the walls, if 
 the roof is leaky, if holes yawn in your shoes, 
 if your skate-straps are too short, or your sled- 
 runner is broken, or your note-paper gives out, 
 you cannot jump upon the train and go to the 
 next market-town to be set up again. You must 
 either wait for the spring or a January thaw, or 
 you must contrive some remedy yourself. 
 
 If your Decembers have been genially warmed 
 into Junes without any intervention of your own, 
 and you find yourself suddenly in a remote village, 
 under the necessity of attending to your fire or 
 going without it, you will often be in that state 
 of mind which will demand for solace a constant 
 repetition of the old saw, " It takes a fool to make 
 a fire." If, worse than this, you sufter yourself 
 to be lured by siren songs of warmth, conven- 
 ience, and economy from the good old groves of 
 
342 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 hickory and oak and maple, to try, like the old 
 man in the spelling-book, what virtue there is in 
 stones, you will have an admirable opportunity to 
 cultivate the virtue of patience ; and patience is a 
 divine virtue. When we look at God, holy, just, 
 and kind, and at his creatures, rebelling against 
 him, cruel to each other, polluting themselves with 
 sin, and violating his wise laws, — and yet see how 
 he ever makes his sun to rise upon evil and good, 
 and sends his rain upon just and unjust, contin- 
 uing to all alike the blessings of seed-time and 
 harvest, — we are ready to say, that patience is of 
 all virtues the most divine. 
 
 But it is not only divine, it is pre-eminently a 
 human virtue. It works into daily life a sweet- 
 ness, a balm, a peacemaker, a consoler. It makes 
 home happy. It shames vice. It disarms ill- 
 temper. It goes far to make society tolerable. 
 So important is this virtue esteemed in the Divine 
 economy, that a large part of our experience is 
 framed so as to strengthen and improve it. We 
 deviate into no path in which we cannot find some 
 circumstance fitted to exercise and perfect it. It 
 is, however, a solemn thought, that opportunities 
 wasted are burdens upon our shoulders. If we 
 grow wicked by a means which was intended and 
 adapted to make us grow good, we grow a great 
 deal more wicked than we should if such means 
 had never been tried. A blessing turned into a 
 curse is doubly accursed. Sorrows that do not 
 
WINTER. 343 
 
 soften, harden. Life is full of little occasions wliich 
 may help us to grow in grace, and may show us 
 whether we have already done so ; but neglected 
 or perverted, they deteriorate us. 
 
 But these reflections will not occur to you in 
 the early stages of your experience with coal fires. 
 On the contrary, you will begin your work full 
 of hope. Careful to follow to the letter every 
 direction, you are confident of success. With 
 half-contemptuous commiseration, you think of 
 some cousin, or aunt, or friend, who has been 
 appalled by the lions in the way, and turned 
 back. You consider it a weakness of character, 
 rather to be pitied than severely censured. You 
 are charitable to all the world as you lay in 
 your kindlings with mathematical regularity, — 
 paper, shavings, splinters, sticks. You apply 
 the match. A furious roar springs u]). You 
 start back, half delighted, half scared. What if 
 the chimney should catch fire. You hustle on 
 the coal to smother the exceeding fierceness. The 
 roar crackles, sputters, stifles, and dies the death. 
 There is a pause. You open the door, and peep 
 in furtively. A faint siTggestion of flame and half 
 a dozen sparks. A second peep, — the flames have 
 disappeared, the sparks are diminished, A third 
 peep, — black as Acheron. The kindlings burned 
 charmingly, but they mistook means and ends, 
 and kindled nothing. You put in your hand and 
 pry under the surface to see if anything is hap- 
 
344 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 pening. Whew ! Who could imagine tliat any- 
 thing so cold-looking could be so hot, or anything 
 so hard-looking could be so smutty. But vour 
 black fingers will be atoned for to-morrow by 
 three little white blisters at this moment develop- 
 ing under the blackness. Then you turn a crank 
 and let the coal down, that you may take it out 
 and try again. Down it comes crashing into the 
 drawer. You proceed to pull it out. Something 
 sticks. You wriggle and twist, and jerk it in 
 vain. You are forced to thrust your arm into 
 the stove, and take the coal out by handfuls. 
 Then you begin anew, and after consuming wood 
 enough to heat your room all day, and time 
 enough for as much more wood to grow, you 
 succeed in getting a fire. But you do not mind 
 the time spent, for you say to yourself, " It is 
 once for all." You flatter yourself that, once 
 kindled, it will stay kindled. You are doomed to 
 disappointment. You open the stove door in the 
 morning, and it is " upper, nether, and surround- 
 ing darkness," abysmal and dismal. You have 
 to go through the whole process again, with the 
 added misery of ashes, which come, puff"! into 
 your face, a suffocating cloud, on the slightest 
 provocation. You plod on for a few days. Every 
 separate member of your family has a separate 
 opinion, and proffers different advice, — all entirely 
 conjectural and at random. You have recourse to 
 the experienced. One advises you to shake down 
 
WINTER. 345 
 
 the old coal before you put on new, which you do 
 vigorously, and shake all the life out of it. Then 
 you are told that you must keep it quiet, and you 
 tread gingerly, laying in the fresh coal carefully 
 Avitli your own shuddering fingers, — as if you 
 were planning a surprise, and designed to get it 
 on fire before it should know what was going on ; 
 but the enemy is on the alert, and baffles you with 
 a " masterly inactivity." Meanwhile there comes 
 a cold snap, and the thermometer plumps down to 
 zero. Everything about the house freezes solid, 
 and breaks. Friends who call are pressed to have 
 a shawl, and stop to dinner. Bores are blandly 
 invited, in rural formula, to " take off their coats 
 and make themselves at home." Then somebody 
 tells you that the grate must be poked to keep it 
 clear. Submissive, you procure a sharp stick in 
 lieu of a poker, which, if it exists at all, is not visi- 
 ble to the naked eye, and, like any Parsee, prone 
 on the floor you fall before your swart divinity, 
 and ram the stick up under the grate. Down 
 come the ashes in a gray shower over your sleeve 
 and hand, covering every thread of the one, and 
 filling every pore of the other ; but desperately 
 you poke on, till light shines through. Sometimes 
 your exertions will be rewarded with success, and 
 sometimes not ; and this is your great perplexity. 
 Everything is inconsequent. Similar causes pro- 
 duce dissimilar effects. You do, with slavish imi- 
 tation, everything you are told to do, till it is 
 
 15* 
 
346 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 shown to be useless, when you give rein to genius 
 and branch off on your own account, in brilliant 
 and startling combinations. You shake down, and 
 refrain from shaking. You poke, and you cease 
 poking. You set the wood on fire before you 
 put the coal on, and you put the coal on before 
 you set the wood on fire. You open everything 
 openable, and shut everything shutable, and you 
 I never have any inkling of what will happen next. 
 There is no satisfaction when the fire does burn, 
 for it does not burn logically. It is an isolated 
 fact. It does not establish anything, nor indi- 
 cate anything. No palpable reason exists why it 
 should burn this time, that did not apply with 
 equal force to the four previous occasions when 
 it declined burning. It ought to have gone out 
 last night as well as the night before. It is like 
 the proverbial woman, — 
 
 "If she will, she will, you may depend on 't, 
 If she won't, she won't, and there 's an end on 't." 
 
 It is like an over sensitive man, — one of 
 those disagreeable unfortunates who are known 
 as "touchy." If you don't treat it "just so," 
 it is all over with you. Its dignity is as ticklish 
 as that of our self-made aristocrats. You can 
 scarcely look askance at it without disturbing its 
 equilibrium. You begin to believe that some 
 " imp of the perverse " has taken up his abode 
 there, — that some unhoused gnome is wreaking 
 vengeance on you for his violated home, — and 
 
WINTER. 347 
 
 you fall gradually into a pugnacious mood. You 
 get a way of looking at the coal as a malicious and 
 skilful foe, and it is a drawn battle between you. 
 You grow, as the country-people say, " short- 
 waisted." The harder it is for the coal to kindle, 
 the easier it becomes for you. Your conversation 
 turns growly and snappish. You wax dangerous. 
 Every inquiry as to your progress, you get to look 
 on as an insult. You suffer under a sense of in- 
 jury. You feel as if the world and the elements 
 were in league against you. You are sensitive of 
 the slightest allusion to fire. You have a: kind of 
 pyrophobia. 
 
 No, my dear friend, this will never do. This is 
 all wrong. Tliis is the abuse, not the iise, of coal. 
 You are wasting anthracitic opportunities for the 
 development of the noble virtue of patience. Be 
 not deceived. Martyrdom comes to but few. 
 Few are called to resist unto blood, striving 
 against sin, but many are called to resist unto 
 inconvenience, restraint, and self-denial ; and an 
 incessant pin-pricking is perhaps harder to bear 
 than the swift-descending axe, or the cranch of a 
 lion's jaws ; and if yon come off conqueror from 
 the one, you shall in no wise lose your reward, any 
 more than he who calmly faced the horrors of the 
 other. If the trials to which you are subjected 
 seem all the more severe from being so petty, re- 
 member that Rome was not built in a day, and it 
 is the constant, hourly chipping at the quarried 
 
348 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 marble tliat is to rear in the end — the temple of 
 God. Remember, too, that however out of joint 
 the matter may be, fretting will never mend it. It 
 is bad to feel your hands growing rough, but it is 
 worse to let your temper keep them company. It 
 ruffles you to hear of stoves that run like a clock 
 from November to May, but it won't smooth 
 you to go into a rage about it. It is aggravat- 
 ing to have the fire burn up and warm the room 
 delightfully, just as the stove-man, for whom you 
 have sent to see what the trouble is, arrives, and 
 tlien to have it go out as soon as he does ; but 
 what are you going to do about it ? If you are 
 wise, you will remember that you are only sharing 
 the common lot. You will think of the sreat 
 multitudes who have passed through the same 
 tribulations, and the summer atmosphere of a thou- 
 sand happy homes will beckon you on to victory. 
 You will think, with admiring gratitude, of the man 
 who first discovered the combustibility and practi- 
 cability of coal. You will see the fatherliness of 
 your Creator in making this wonderful provision 
 for you, — how the giant trees leaped heavenward 
 at his bidding, and at his balding died, to become 
 in death your ministei^s. What wisdom and be- 
 nevolence wrought this marvellous work in the 
 great laboratories of the earth, — scooped out 
 those vast basins, piled therein these inexhaustible 
 treasures, more precious than gold, and so took 
 care for your comfort ages and ages before you 
 
WINTER. 349 
 
 were born ! And will you be petulant because 
 you carry your end of the pole a little awkwardly 
 at first ? Shall your orisons and vespers be the 
 prayer of the daughters of the horse-leech ? Will 
 you not be content that the Lord has given you 
 the coal, but will you require him to work a mir- 
 acle to kindle it ? For you fail only because you 
 are fiohting; against the nature of tliino;s, and here 
 is another lesson which you may learn, — the in- 
 exorableness of law. Not a spark of fire, not 
 the smallest black coal-speck on your finger, but 
 follows the law of its being, fixed, relentless. 
 Your intentions are good. You mean to do right. 
 But you are transgressing some chemical or me- 
 chanical law, and the dumb coal, which has never 
 deviated from rectitude, is a swift witness against 
 you. With nature, ignorance is no excuse for 
 transgression. The penalty follows surely on the 
 heels of sin. Is the law of matter more fixed than 
 the law of mind ? If you cannot sin against life- 
 less stones with impunity, can you sin against a 
 living soul, and go scot free ? If a right purpose 
 will not kindle a fire without wise means, will it 
 fashion a son's mind ? Do you not see how the 
 blind may mislead the blind, with utmost tender- 
 ness, to destruction ? 
 
 Above all things, do not " give up." Rise to 
 the height of the emergency. Be master of your- 
 self Get the victory over impatience ; so from 
 the stubborn coal shall you express the oil of joy. 
 
350 
 
 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and find beauty for ashes. Every lambent tongue 
 
 of flame shall be to you a messenger ft'om heaven, 
 
 and every day a pentecost. With a heart open to 
 
 all pure influences, you shall feel the full 
 
 force of those sweet words, " Lo ! I am 
 
 with you always," and with eyes 
 
 which the Lord hath opened, 
 
 you shall see " sermons in 
 
 stones, and good in 
 
 evervthino:." 
 
My Flower-Bed. 
 
 AM oppressed with a feeling that, 
 I, whatever welcome my literary venture 
 '' may meet, I have not, so far as appears 
 y *^ l in this volume, made a brilliant figure 
 at gardening. I think, therefore, that I ought, 
 in justice to myself, to relate the distinguished 
 success which attended my second attempt. An 
 ordinary person would have been deterred, by so 
 unparalleled a series of disasters as befell me, from 
 ever making another endeavor ; but, for my part, 
 I like always to retire with the honors of war. 
 Therefore, when February crept away to the 
 north, and March came breezing up from the 
 south, I went to a seed-shop and laid in an entire 
 new supply of garden ammunition. 
 
 I began on a smaller scale than before. My 
 ambition had not forgotten the severe lesson of 
 the past spring. I relinquished the idea of supply- 
 ing our table with vegetables, and concluded to 
 devote myself solely to the department of the 
 beautiful. Instead of taking the whole estate for 
 
352 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 a centre, and radiating over the land in all direc- 
 tions, I pre-empted from the Avaste of corn and 
 potato-field a corner, ill-suited, indeed, to my 
 desires and my dreams, but better suited, I was 
 forced to admit, to my inexperience. 
 
 A square piece of ground, of moderate size, was 
 the basis of my flower-bed. The circle described by 
 the drapery of a fashionably-dressed woman, stand- 
 ing in the centre, would be scarcely more than 
 contained in it. But does not " Rare Ben " say, 
 
 " In small proportions we just beauties see, 
 And in small measure life may perfect be " ? 
 
 It is amazing to note the. interest one has in the 
 weather when one becomes a landed proprietor. 
 It is equally amazing to note the coquetry of the 
 weather ■ when it becomes aware of that fact. 
 With the poets, who have hitherto kept me in 
 Almanacs, April is a sunny, showery month ; May 
 melts into music and warmth ; and June is redo- 
 lent of roses. But, O Messrs. Poets, you have 
 dealt treacherously with me, or else you have 
 studied nature from Chaucer, not from herself. 
 What did April do for me this year ? Blocked 
 me up with a snow-storm. What did May do ? 
 Took advantage of her name, entrapped my coal- 
 stove into the garret, then benumbed my fingers, 
 and turned me into a Nova-Scotian. Nay, Winter, 
 lingering, was not content to chill the lap of May, 
 but even set young June a-shivering. The fact is, 
 Spring as a figure of speech, and the prolific mother 
 
MY FLOWER-BED. 353 
 
 of figures of speech, is a good thing ; but Spring 
 as an institution ought to be abolished. It has 
 outhved its usefuhiess. It exists only in tradition ; 
 and that tradition is productive of much mischief. 
 Our idea of it, derived chiefly from Old English 
 ballads, smells of violets, and soft airs, and gay, 
 green woods, and frisking lambs, and golden- 
 throated birds. In pursuance of which idea we 
 get up May parties on May-day, and lay aside 
 our flannels, and make ourselves miserable, let 
 alone the rheumatisms and neuralgias and con- 
 sumptions whose highway we make straight. 
 The blue skies, the greening fields, and the poets 
 aforesaid, conspire to draw us into the trap of 
 raw east wind and chill vapor, from which we 
 return with a stiff neck, a sore throat, and settled 
 melancholy. All this would be obviated if there 
 could only be a general understanding that Winter 
 in this latitude lasts till the Fourth of July, and 
 comes out in spots all summer. We should then 
 know what to depend upon, and the " fair, mild 
 days " would be so many extra blessings thrown 
 in. That is, the rule would be comfortable, and 
 the exceptions delicious ; whereas now, the rule 
 is indiffei-ent, and the exceptions intolerable. 
 
 Understand, I am not finding fault with the 
 weather, but with our nomenclature. A north- 
 east snow-storm is a splendid thing in its way ; 
 only don't let us pretend it is a shower of apple- 
 blossoms, and act accordingly. 
 
 w 
 
354 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 But snowy April days and murky May mornings 
 may cultivate the divine virtue of patience, if 
 nothing else, I said to myself, as I stood, flower- 
 seeds in hand, awaiting the Spring. It came at 
 last, or something which a vivid imagination, com- 
 bined with the Ahnanac, could call Spring, and I 
 levelled and spaded and raked and squared my 
 flower-bed that was to be. On the north and 
 south I bounded it with a line of currant-bushes ; 
 on the east and west with rose-bushes. At least, 
 that is what they were given to me for. In 
 my heart I believed they were mere dry sticks, 
 but I stuck them into the ground, nothing waver- 
 ing. Between the rose-sticks I set out pansy- 
 roots, and between the currant- sticks dahlias, and 
 whatever is the plural of gladiolus. Next came 
 the question of internal arrangement. You may 
 let a forest grow wild. Nature will group her 
 trees, and drape herself with all manner of creep- 
 ing mosses, and trailing berries, and sprightly 
 undergrowth, and you shall find nothing amiss. 
 But snip off a little bit of nature, and the case 
 is altered. A garden that you can put in your 
 pocket .is nothing if it is not regular. You must 
 have a design, a diagram. I thought of a star. 
 But a star is a great deal easier to think of than 
 it is to make. If you don't believe me, I should 
 just like to have you try it. I have a vague im- 
 pression that, if I could have got hold of a treatise 
 on geometry, I could have constructed one on 
 
3IY FLOWER-BED. 355 
 
 scientific principles, and without much trouble ; 
 but I don't suppose there was such a treatise with- 
 in twenty miles ; so I had to bungle with sticks 
 and strino-s. However, the result was an obvious 
 star. To be sure, the rays were rather " peak<3d,''' 
 and not exactly equidistant at the tips, and some- 
 what skewy at the centre ; but it was a very good 
 star for all that. At least, it was more like a star 
 than like anything else. Aid aster aut nulliis ! 
 When I had completed that, I put outside, between 
 the five rays, two gladiolus roots, a pansy, a 
 circle of candy-tuft, and one of lily of the valley. 
 Then there was nothing to do but wait. That 
 is the beauty of being a farmer. A little pro- 
 vision, a few days of hard work, and the sweet 
 sunshine, the soft rain, the silent dews, finish the 
 business. You do not have to hammer away day 
 after day at your lapstone or your sermon. Na- 
 ture herself puts a shoulder to your wheel, and 
 rolls you on to fortune. 
 
 Or would, if it were not for the weeds and 
 chickens and bugs and worms, that choke and 
 peck and gnaw her gifts. A few innocent flower- 
 seeds will make a remarkable number of enemies ; 
 and it is surprising to see how much faster weeds 
 grow than jflowers. I wonder what the result 
 would be if one should set out Roman wormwood, 
 and tend it carefully. Would it forget it was a 
 weed, fancy itself a flower, and become shy and 
 sensitive ? As it is, I have found it one of the 
 
356 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 most enterprising of individuals. Before I thought 
 of looking for one of my roots or seeds, up came 
 this Italian bitterness, speedily followed by the 
 pig-plant, close on whose heels tramped the smart- 
 weed ; and in a twinkling appeared quitch-grass, 
 and sorrel, and a mob of little villanous vines, 
 sprawling things, which had never been plant- 
 ed, and never came to anything, and had no 
 business there, and only gave the trouble of pull- 
 ing them up. 
 
 But one warm night something happened. The 
 evening had given no sign ; but under the silent 
 moon a host of tiny warriors, clad in Lincoln- 
 green, unsheathed their sharp swords, cleft the 
 brown earth, and when the day dawned there 
 they were marshalled in knightly array, along the 
 white lines of my star. 
 
 I know few sensations more exquisitely satis- 
 factoiy than the springing u^ of something which 
 your own hands have planted. You have, per- 
 haps, — if you are a neophyte, — had a lurking 
 fear lest you might not detect the difference be- 
 tween the gold and the gilt, have suffered weeds 
 to flourish, lest, in exterminating them, you might 
 ignorantly exterminate something that was not a 
 weed ; but when the gold comes, you recognize 
 its gleam. A flower is no more like a weed 
 than if it had never grown. It is pale, and soft, 
 and juicy, and tender. The first lifting of its 
 little face above ground is a mute appeal to your 
 
MY FLOWER-BED. 357 
 
 sympathy and protection. It would seem as if a 
 harsh look might crush out its little life. But 
 the weed is a saucy, reckless, pushing, defiant, 
 strong-nerved Yankee fellow. " Here I am," 
 he says, tossing his plumes six inches in the air 
 before you knew he was " anywhere round." 
 " Here I am. You did n't invite me, but I 
 came, and brought all my brothers, and we are 
 going to have a rollicking time of it. You can 
 give me the cut direct. O yes. But I am not 
 sensitive. I am not overladen with modesty. 
 It is a very nice place, this world, with its 
 sun and dew and rain, and I don't intend to 
 be driven out of it in a hurry." 
 
 I suppose every school-girl and school-boy in 
 New England has compared weeds and flowers 
 to the vices and virtues of the human heart ; 
 but you don't take in the full force of the illus- 
 tration till you have a flower-bed of your own, 
 and actually see the thing going on with your 
 own eyes. Then you make the illustration 
 yourself, and it seems just as fresh to you as 
 if nobody had ever made it before. This living 
 A. M. 5865, or thereabouts, is very damaging to 
 originality, — when it comes to writing. Adam 
 and Seth and Noah had the advantage of us 
 there. Yet as a matter of living, sun and sky, 
 the broad-bosomed earth and the " many-sound- 
 ing sea," are newly created for every baby bom. 
 
 When the world was young, /,he seed spake 
 
358 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 vaguely of the soul. But Paul, standing in the 
 newly-risen light, saw what his fathers could not 
 see, and in unfolding leaf-buds " learned the 
 language of another world." Ever since, the 
 spring's resurrection is a revelation. You lay 
 in the brown soil the ugly, shrivelled, insensate 
 seed, but under that unseemly garb the soul 
 of the plant keeps watch and ward. Life is 
 there, hidden in death. When the fulness of 
 time is come, life shall burst its cerements, and 
 mount upward to its fate, which is sunshine 
 and greenness, and royal beauty, and matchless 
 grace. 
 
 So this mortal puts on immortality. 
 
 I suppose a professional gardener might laugh 
 at my flowers. In fact, people do laugh at them 
 who are not professional gardeners, — for that mat- 
 ter, who are no gardeners at all, any more than 
 I am. They think I don't see them, but I do. 
 They think that I think a nasturtion is some- 
 thing very smart, and grand, and recherche. I 
 don't think anything of the sort. I know as 
 well as they that it is a very common, kitchen- 
 gardeny kind of a flower. So are poppies. So 
 are mallows. So are lady's-delights, and bache- 
 lor's-buttons, and pinks, and candy-tuft, and 
 asters, and coreopsis, and roses ; but wdiat of that ? 
 Is a thing less beautiful because it is common ? 
 The blue sky bends over the evil and the good. 
 The earth unfolds her loveliness to the just and to 
 
MY FLOWER-BED. 359 
 
 the unjust. No title-deeds can convey possession 
 of the splendor or the beauty of the universe. No 
 landed proprietor can fence in from lowliest eyes 
 the swell of the hills, or the scoop of the valleys. 
 No gas agent can turn off the bland breezes from 
 those who cannot pay monthly bills therefor. No 
 " merchant prince " can adorn his garden with 
 the grandeur and the glory of the sea ; while the 
 coarsest clodhopper may cleave its crystal curves, 
 be rocked on its heaving bosom, and sink to rest 
 with its surging lullaby. God makes his most 
 beautiful things most common, and shall we baffle 
 his benevolence, spurning his blessings ? A nas- 
 turtion " common," — with the heart of a thou- 
 sand sunsets shrined in its kingly cup, or the 
 shadow of royal robes empurpling its " wine-dark 
 depths " ! Common ! shall I see less beauty in 
 its golden gleam because that gleam has flashed 
 brightness into myriads of hearts ? Shall it not 
 rather have an added value ? The hard hand of 
 labor, the wasted hand of disease, the restless hand 
 of poverty, have found peace, and hope, and joy, 
 in training these happy flowers to grasp the sun- 
 shine, and the glad gifts of the dew. I see on 
 the folds of their scarlet banners the message of 
 good-will to weary souls. Peering into those 
 glowing caverns, the radiant eyes of little chil- 
 dren laugh up to meet my own, and the touch of 
 their tender stems is like the touch of groping 
 baby-fingers. Shine on, fairest messengers of 
 
3G0 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Heaven, and show to all waiting, toiling, dislieart- 
 ened, sorrowful lives 
 
 " A strange and mystic story, — 
 How moistened earthly dust can wear celestial glory." 
 
 My horticultural cook-book affirms that nastur- 
 tlons make a toothsome salad. I dare say. I 
 should like to see the individual, however, who 
 should venture to go browsing among my nastur- 
 tlons. I am strongly opposed to Judge Lynch's 
 code of laws, but I think I should give that per- 
 son something harder to swallow than the worst 
 salad he ever saw. 
 
 A poppy is not like a nasturtion, but it has a 
 fringed, downy beauty all its own. A mystical, 
 crimson languor suflPuses the encircling air. Vivid 
 blood-red plashes stain its white softness. Some- 
 times, in riotous revelling. It hurls back the arrows 
 of the sun, till my dazzled eyes can hardly endure 
 the brightness. But pale or purple, it Is enchanted 
 ground. Under that fretted greenery, the poets 
 lie asleep. Hence, far hence, all ye profaner ones ! 
 It Is not for you to tread the courts of the poppy- 
 crowned god. 
 
 " Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe, 
 And low, where dawning day doth never peeije, 
 His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed 
 Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe 
 In silver deaw his ever-drouping hed. 
 And, more, to lulle him in his slumber soft, 
 A trickling stream from high rock tumbling downe, 
 And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft, 
 Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoone. 
 
MY FLOWER-BED. 361 
 
 Carelesse Quiet I_ves 
 
 Wrapt in eternal silence forre from erimyes." 
 
 So dream the poets. But common people must 
 keep wide awake. 
 
 When my nasturtions came, they came with a 
 ■leap. They hardly seemed to have grown. They 
 lifted their broad, shield-shaped leaves, one morn- 
 ing, and looked as if they had always been there. 
 But poppies tread delicately. There is just a faint 
 line of green, shading the brown soil. For several 
 days it hardly increases. While you are looking 
 at it, you persuade yourself that nothing will come 
 of it, — there is nothing there. But when you 
 are away, you have a very strong impression that 
 something was there, and will " turn up." While 
 you are waiting further developments, the " heated 
 •cerm " comes, — dry, dusty, suffocating, blinding, 
 baking, brazen days, — when the sun lanmasks his 
 batteries, and opens upon you a steady fire. If 
 you want to know how your flowers feel about it, 
 go out doors barefoot, and the grass that was so 
 tender, and cool, and dewy in the morning, is 
 cvirled and crisp, and burns your feet. (Neverthe- 
 less, it is an excellent thing to go barefoot. Civil- 
 ization is shocked at the mention of such a thino;, 
 but Hygiene rejoices. Physicians tell us that one 
 of the reasons why our Irish population are so 
 healthy, notwithstanding their untidy, irregular 
 habits, is that they go barefoot so much. Cer- 
 tainly the stout frames and brawny arms of Irish- 
 
 16 
 
362 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 women are an argument very difficult to over- 
 come ; while, in point of comfort, nothing can sur- 
 pass untrammelled, unhampered feet. It stands 
 to reason. Shoes are bad heat-conductors. They 
 confine and accumulate it ; but without shoes and 
 stockings it passes off as fast as it is generated, 
 and not only the feet, but the whole body pre- 
 serves a pleasant equilibrium. People have only 
 to lay aside their prejudices, and their shoes and 
 stockings will follow, till the summer custom and 
 costume will be as fashionable as Nahant.) 
 
 Presently the parched look of your flower-bed 
 excites your compassion. You water it, but the 
 water runs off the hardened surface. You loosen 
 the soil around, and it is a little better. In the 
 height of the drought the spout of the water-pot 
 generally comes off, and then your strong plants 
 are drenched with torrents, and for your weak 
 ones you take a colander, which is not " handy." 
 So you blunder on, day after day, wishing and 
 watching for a thunder-shower or a tin-pedler. 
 By and by a cloud in the west appears, rises, 
 spreads, and descends in beautiful and doubly wel- 
 come abundance. The dear, benevolent rain ! the 
 kindly, saving rain ! It is better than a thousand 
 watering-pots with the spouts all on. It does the 
 business so easily and so thoroughly. You hardly 
 wonder that 
 
 " Danae in a golden tower, 
 Where no love was, loved a shower." 
 
MY FLOWER-BED. 363 
 
 You are in love with it yourself, and as you stand 
 silent, with smiling eyes, a silver voice begins to 
 well murniurously around you; but just here the 
 rumbling of wheels breaks in upon the murmur- 
 ous voice, and a tin-pedler's cart heaves in sight, 
 blossoming with watering-pots. Of course you 
 don't buy any, but it is "trying" to see them 
 just then. After this, however, you are in no 
 doubt about the poppies. They leap up into 
 rounded vigor and obviousness, and the whole 
 garden is quickened. 
 
 I made a mistake in my planting. I put the 
 seeds in too close, and the centre of my star is a 
 perfect tangle. The nasturtions had the advan- 
 tage at the start, and they keep it ; but they are 
 smothered in their own sweetness, and the gilias 
 and geraniums fairly gasp for breath. A sly little 
 portulacca hides under an overgrown marigold, 
 and cheated me for a loner while. I thouiiht sev- 
 eral mornings that he had buds on the brink of 
 opening, and sometimes I surely thought I saw 
 buds that had opened and closed again, but that 
 was all, so I set a watch, and one day, just at 
 noon, (when I never visited him, and he thought 
 himself safe from intrusion,) I spied a flash of 
 Solferino, rushed upon him, and caught him in 
 the very act. Since then he has hung out his 
 colors quite openly. My rose sticks have pros- 
 pered beyond measure. I counted fourteen buds 
 on one of them. My gladiolus is the delight of 
 my eyes. 
 
364 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 " A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, 
 And most divinely fair." 
 
 My dahlias came up headlong, four or five in a 
 group. Somebody said I must break off all but 
 one. I rejected the Vandalism with horror. I 
 am a Republican and a Christian, and I would 
 have no Turks about that could " bear no brother 
 near the throne." It shows the weakness of 
 moral principle, that three weeks after, when I 
 saw a bed of dahlias twice as tall as mine, I came 
 home and broke mine oif with a bleeding heart. 
 Then they shot up, and a high wind came and 
 twisted and prostrated them remorselessly. (Then 
 I hunted up stakes and poles, worn-out broom- 
 sticks and dislocated hoe-handles, and tied up my 
 dahlias, till my flower-bed might have been taken 
 for a returned regiment from a thirty years' war. 
 Presently one of them " made an effort," and put 
 out a flower, which looked like an agitated turnip. 
 I never saw such a dismal, washed-out rag in my 
 life. I do not think much of dahlias. They are 
 coarse and unsightly in leaf, and forlorn in flower, 
 and ten to one don't flower at all. I call them 
 nothing more than an aristocratic potato. Several 
 of my most beautiful and promising plants I pulled 
 up, because Halicarnassus said they were weeds. 
 I did not believe it then, and the more I think of 
 it, the more I do not believe it still. It was envy 
 on his part, not weeds on mine. Still I pulled 
 them up. So I lost the cream of my garden ; but 
 
MY FLOWER-BED. 
 
 365 
 
 the skim-milk that is left is ravishingly tooth- 
 some^ 
 
 Dear old Earth, " tickle her with a hoe, and she 
 laughs with a harvest." I scarcely so much as 
 tickled her. I did but lay the tip of an unskilful 
 finger in one of her dimples, and she broke forth 
 before me into sinmno;. Dear old mother of us 
 all, what you were before Adam I cannot con- 
 ceive, for with the burden of his curse upon you, 
 you are more lovely than tongue can tell, or 
 pencil portray, and in your bosom lie 
 hidden treasures of strength, and 
 honor, and glory, and blessing 
 for him who is wise to woo. 
 The earth is full of 
 the riches of 
 the Lord. 
 
Lights among the Shadows of 
 OUR Civil War. 
 
 'IVIL war is a very terrible thing. Be- 
 cause it is terrible, however, it is not 
 necessarily unmitigated. Even civil 
 war may have its sunny side. In the 
 lessons which it teaches, in the sophistry which it 
 demolishes, in the manhood which it develops, we 
 may find wherewithal to stay our souls, when they 
 are ready to faint with the burden and heat of this 
 our bloody day. 
 
 And first, what has become of the people who 
 were always talking about the bravery, and virtue, 
 and hardihood, and patriotism of our forefathers, 
 in sad contrast with the pusillanimity, effeminacy, 
 and selfishness of us their descendants ? You have 
 doubtless heard persons, in and out of the news- 
 papers, linger regretfully over the olden devotion 
 to country, sacrifice for a righteous cause, perse- 
 verance under difficulties, undaunted bravery in 
 battle, and unshaken fortitude in defeat. They 
 would speak with reproachful admiration of the 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 367 
 
 mothers who beat their pewter spoons into bullets, 
 and sent their sons to battle ; and then would 
 come a sigh over these degenerate days, when 
 men think of nothing but to buy and sell, and 
 get gain. I must say that I, for one, never did 
 believe one word of it. I think we are just as 
 good as our fothers, and always have been ; but 
 you cannot expect martial virtues in a time of 
 peace, any more than you can expect the triumphs 
 of peace in time of war. I always believed that, 
 if we ever had an opportunity, we should show 
 ourselves just as brave, just as loyal, just as 
 self-sacrificing, as our fathers. Did they fight in 
 a holier cause than we ? Did they exercise a 
 greater forbearance than we, so long as forbear- 
 ance seemed of any avail ; and when forbearance 
 would have been weakness, did they spring to 
 arms with greater alacrity ? Were they more 
 prodigal of men and money ? Have we not 
 brought forward our precious things, laying upon 
 the altar even our prejudices, and preferences, and 
 opinions ? Did our fathers fight for liberty ? So 
 do we. Was their struggle less for themselves 
 than for the fixture ? So is ours. We should 
 have got along very comfortably, letting things go 
 on as they have been going on. That we might 
 leave to the future a righteous legacy, that we 
 might maintain in its integrity a righteous cause, 
 we have sacrificed, not only without a murmur, 
 but with a spontaneous and irresistible enthusiasm. 
 
368 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, — 
 lives just as dear, honor just as sensitive, and 
 fortunes ten times as large as those of our fathers. 
 The " Spirit of '76 " was noble ; but its noble- 
 ness is rivalled and its power excelled by the 
 Spirit of '61. The blood of our fathers does not 
 run thin, and pale, and sordid in our veins. The 
 canker of peace has not taken out our life. Let 
 us have done forever with this exaltation of the 
 past by the depreciation of the present. The 
 world is richer now in all the elements of great- 
 ness than it ever was before, and this is the 
 Golden Age. 
 
 Another compensation is the love of country 
 springing up in every Northern heart. It is to 
 many of us a new revelation. Love is always 
 creative. When a man begins to love a woman, 
 a new world unfolds itself to him in this. With 
 every baby born, the mother is herself new-born. 
 When the soul awakens first to the love of Christ, 
 old things pass away and all things become new. 
 We have been living quietly under our vines and 
 fig-trees. We have, as the mood took us, boasted 
 of our government, or rebuked its administrators ; 
 but, excepting those who have been abroad, we 
 never had much feeling about it one way or the 
 other. We have been protected by it. We have 
 known it only by its constant benefactions, to 
 which we were born, among which we were nur- 
 tured, and of which we were scarcely more con- 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 369 
 
 scious than of the air we breathed. It is not that 
 we were especially ungrateful. We did not love, 
 because there was nothing in particular to love. 
 The President is too short-lived to create a strong 
 attachment. Yesterday he was nobody, and to- 
 morrow he will relapse into nobody. The Senate 
 and House are not peculiarly adapted to call forth 
 emotions of tenderness, nor can one in ordinary 
 times wax wildly enthusiastic over a piece of 
 bunting. We have no royal family to define, 
 concentrate, and vivify our loyalty, so it had to 
 go wandering for an object, or lie sleeping in the 
 bottom of our hearts ; but the besom of war has 
 swept away all difficulties. We want no princely 
 blood now. A new love is born, strong, vigorous, 
 full grown in a day. I don't know that we could 
 tell precisely what it is that we love now, but it 
 is something ! The love is there. It swells and 
 surges in our hearts, it overflows our eyes. It 
 quivers on every lip. It melts down all barriers 
 of sect, and race, and religion, and politics. It 
 throbs wherever a banner floats. It thrills out in 
 brave, tender words, in manly deeds, in public 
 generosities and private heroisms. Selfishness 
 and worldliness shrivel and scorch in its white 
 heat, and the hearts of the nation are welded 
 too;ether as the heart of one man. We are, as 
 we never were before, a united North. Sectional 
 animosities, local hatreds, petty rivalries, are swal- 
 lowed up in the deep sea of universal brotherhood, 
 16* X 
 
370 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 whose boundless extent is only made more impos- 
 ing by the few traitors who are scudding under 
 bare poles over its heaving bosom. 
 
 There is another benefit which we would not 
 inaugurate civil war to procure, but in which, 
 since civil war has, unsought, reared his horrid 
 front among us, we will rejoice and be glad. 
 We shall, for a little while at least, be spared our 
 Fourth of July literature and oratory. A certain 
 map of the United States, probably in possession 
 of a good many of my readers, is adorned along- 
 its borders with various pictures, one of which is 
 labelled, " An American showing to the Sover- 
 eigns of Europe the Progress of his Country." 
 The American stands, with one foot on a bale of 
 goods, pointing to the steamers, and railroads, and 
 schoolhouses, and churches which mark the land- 
 scape. Louis Philippe, Victoria, Nicholas, and a 
 mob of kings and queens, with their crowns on, 
 crowd around him, mouths agape, eyes staring, in 
 the most intense and unroyal astonishment and 
 admiration. In England the picture might be 
 relished as a clever caricature, but it comes too 
 near the simple truth for home consumption. It 
 is evidently sketched in perfect good faith, and is 
 the expression of a widely prevalent, not to say 
 universal feeling. We have thought, and have 
 not always exercised the modesty which good taste 
 would have suggested in saying, that 
 
 " We are the greatest nation 
 In all creation." 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 371 
 
 No more of this for the present. We will, 
 indeed, congratulate each other in a quiet way, 
 among " own folks," (as I have just been doing,) 
 on our many virtues and large capabilities, but we 
 •will let our spread eagle go into winter quarters. 
 We Avill cease for a while to ring changes on our 
 " unexampled prosperity^" our " commerce whiten- 
 ing every sea with its sails," our ingenuity filling 
 the world with its products, our cities springing 
 up in the wilderness, our great and glorious Re- 
 public, laying hold of the Atlantic with one hand 
 and the Pacific with the other, crowning her head 
 with the snows of the Northern mountains and 
 dipping her feet in the waters of the Southern 
 seas. We have had a sudden check in our career. 
 A strong man armed is at the door. He of our 
 own blood which did eat of our bread has lifted up 
 his heel against us. A brother has struck at his 
 brother, — nay, worse than this, a man has done 
 treason to his mother. The children whom she 
 has nourished and brought up tenderly have re- 
 belled against her, and striven to cut down her 
 strenn;th. Shame and confusion of face belono;s to 
 us all, — that our soil should have nourished, our 
 skies spanned, and our airs sustained a treachery 
 so base. We are in a death-grapple with our 
 own, and a most glorious victory, as surely as the 
 most disastrous defeat, bears in its bosom the seeds 
 of a profound sorrow. 
 
 Again, the cost of war is undoubtedly very 
 
372 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 great. It takes a good deal of money to begin 
 with, and a good deal more to carry it on, and not 
 a little to repair damages after it is over. We 
 must contract an immense debt, but our children 
 must look to it. It will be their business as well 
 as ours. The vices, the virtues, and the debts of 
 the fathers are visited upon the children. The 
 head of Louis the Sixteenth paid for th^e vices and 
 extravagances and ambitions of the Grand Mon- 
 arch. This seems an ungracious consolation, but 
 it is not. Our children have the best of the bar- 
 gain at that. We take the laboring oar. The 
 price is the price of liberty, not of slavery. If 
 we dance for them the dance of death, they may 
 consider themselves well oflF if they only have to 
 pay the piper. But what is this debt ? Where 
 does our government get the money which it bor- 
 rows ? It is loaned by our moneyed institutions, 
 our banks, our citizens. And who are the gov- 
 ernment ? Citizens likewise. The people are the 
 sovereigns. Through their servants, chosen from 
 and by themselves, they borrow of themselves 
 twenty or a hundred millions of dollars, and there 
 is a great debt ; but the money is owned as well 
 as owed by themselves. In their capacity as gov- 
 ernment, they owe money to themselves as people, 
 — which is, to say the least, a rather Pickwickian 
 kind of debt. 
 
 Moreover, a debt may be the measure of credit. 
 If a man owes a thousand dollars, it shows that 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 373 
 
 his property is valued at that sum. The fabulous 
 millions of the national debt of England is the 
 lowest sum at which her pecuniary value to the 
 people of England can be rated. This strong, 
 pecuniary, direct interest which the people of 
 England have in the perpetuity of their govern- 
 ment, is one of the bulwarks of her Constitution. 
 It helps to keep her throne steady when the Con- 
 tinental thrones are tottering. Her debt is her 
 life insurance. The moment her government is 
 destroyed, the debt is wiped out, and the people, 
 her creditors, are bankrupt. So Louis Napoleon, 
 wise in his generation, issues his coupons, and, by 
 making the people the creditors of his dynasty, 
 makes them at the same time its firmest sup- 
 porters. 
 
 And what becomes of the money borrowed by 
 the government ? It levies and maintains and 
 transports armies, and provides the munitions of 
 war. That is, it goes to the farmers, and butch- 
 ers, and bakers, and grocers, and tailors, and 
 shipbuilders, and gun-makers, — straight into the 
 pockets of the people, just where it came from. 
 It is not sunk in the ocean or burned in the fire, 
 as a general thing. It is still in circulation, which 
 is the only thing money is good for. 
 
 And how is this debt to be paid, or upheld? 
 By taxation. 
 
 Our people have «generally been opposed to 
 direct taxation, both politically and "socially. If 
 
374 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 we want a Sunday-school library, instead of tak- 
 ing the money and buying it out and out, we get 
 up a fair. That is, we put ourselves to a world 
 of trouble to make a wilderness of knick-knacks, 
 that we don't want, and nobody else wants, and 
 then we pay twenty-five or fifty cents for the 
 supreme satisfaction of going to look at them, and 
 three or four dollars more for the pleasure of lit- 
 tering our houses with them, and then we are 
 ready to buy our library, — at five times the cost, 
 and five thousand times the trouble, that it would 
 have been had each one quietly handed in his 
 share of money in the first place. But each one 
 won't quietly hand in his share, — he won't hand 
 it in at all, and so you must have a fair, or go 
 without. You may demonstrate twenty times 
 over that one course of action is better than an- 
 other to accomplish a certain end, but so long as 
 people will not adopt the one, and will adopt the 
 other, what are you going to do ? 
 
 In respect of taxation, the case is somewhat 
 similar. We pay duties on silk, and tea, and 
 wine, and so, ordinarily, make shift to support the 
 government without finding it out. But now the 
 times are becoming extraordinary, the newspapers 
 are discussing taxation, the bankers shut up their 
 vaults demanding taxation, financiers announce 
 the imperative necessity of taxation ; now, there- 
 fore, let us have done witl»this child's play. So 
 long as a question of finance is but a question of 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 375 
 
 here or there, we mny 2?restidigitate it harmlessly 
 enough, making the burden disappear under any 
 pleasant name we choose, or even turning it into 
 a profit as featly as Mr. Hermann disposes of his 
 pocket-handkerchiefs, or makes a gold dollar out 
 of a walnut ; but when it is a question of here or 
 nowhere, it is time to demand new measures and 
 new men. Is it supposed that this people is an 
 infant, to be frightened by a bugbear ? Are we 
 a nation of pagans, to fall down before a molten 
 imaoe ? Do we shrine our gold and silver in 
 the Holy of holies, with a " These be thy gods, 
 O Israel " ? True, a forced taxation, a taxation 
 levied by alien publicans and sinners, an arbitrary, 
 unjust, and unrighteous taxation, we refused to 
 submit to eighty years ago, and we have never 
 repented of it since ; but a tax self-imposed, im- 
 posed to insure the triumph of a cause in which 
 all our religion, all our loyalty, all our honor, 
 everything that is dear and sacred in life, nay, 
 even life itself, is concerned, should be hailed, and 
 shall be hailed, with acclamation. 
 
 It is true there are not wanting those who will 
 bemoan their heavy taxes, who seem already to 
 see their golden eagles putting forth the wings 
 which they are to take to themselves, in order 
 to fly away ; but surely they are in a frightful 
 minority, and if they are not, they ought to be. 
 What in the world is money good for, if not 
 for just such a crisis as this ? It brings comfort 
 
376 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and luxury, and, to a certain extent, position and 
 power ; but what are all these to a man whose 
 only child, the heir of his house and heart, lies 
 mangled and dying on his own door-stone ? All 
 that he prizes his money for, then, is the prompt 
 and efficient aid it may bring to the suffering boy. 
 Does he clench his hands and knit his brow, and 
 mourn over the expense which the surgeon's visit 
 will bring, and lament that the best mattress in 
 the house will be thoroughly spoiled, and wonder 
 if molasses and water won't do instead of French 
 brandy ? Yet this is what we should do to groan 
 over taxes. Taxes ! Every dollar that goes to 
 put down the rebellion is stamped with the image 
 and superscription of the Lord. Surely, surely, 
 never was money so honored, so glorified, — so 
 sanctified ! A handful of gold-dust, a scrap of 
 rag-paper, moistened with our tears, hallowed by 
 our prayers, may help to usher in the millennial 
 year ! Shall we grumble ? Shall we not rather 
 lay our hand on our mouth, and our mouth in the 
 dust, and cry, " Will God in very deed conde- 
 scend to accept so poor a gift ? " Behold heaven 
 and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. 
 All the beasts of the forests are his, and the cattle 
 upon a thousand hills, — nay, the earth and they 
 that dwell therein ; yet he is willing to associate 
 us with himself. As the father suffers the tiny 
 fingers of his son to grasp the basket, that his little 
 heart may please itself by fancying that he helps 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. Zll 
 
 carry it, and to learn early the luxury of doing 
 good, so God, who spake, and the work of creation 
 was done, who commanded, and the heavens, and 
 the earth, and all the host of them stood fast, per- 
 mits us to have part in the great work of the 
 world's redemption. And Ave are to draw back, 
 are we ? We Avill clutch a little longer this gold, 
 which of itself is as worthless as the stones of the 
 street, — which depends for its value solely upon 
 what it can do for us ! We shall make a poor in- 
 vestment. We can, if w^e will, convert our mone}' 
 into stocks, and bonds, and mortgages, and houses, 
 and carpets, and pictures, and laces, and plate, and 
 jewels, and we shall receive such consideration as 
 these will bring — when they are bought at the 
 price of manhood ; and then we shall die, and they 
 will all fall off from us, and we shall go, naked 
 souls, into the next world, and who knoweth what 
 shall be after us under the sun ? Or, on the other 
 hand, we can turn our money into loyalty, and 
 trust, and truth, and righteousness, and self-sacri- 
 fice, and magnanimity, and devotion to a just 
 cause, succor to the oppressed, strength to the 
 w^eak, a cup of cold water to Christ's little ones, 
 and so our money becomes for ever and ever a 
 part of ourselves, and the best and noblest part, 
 from wdiich neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor 
 principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
 other creature, shall be able to separate us. O, 
 
378 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 blessed are the rich in tliese days, who can bring 
 all the firstlings of his flock for a sin-offering, and 
 blessed are the poor also, for his pair of turtle- 
 doves and two young pigeons may be brought for- 
 ward unto the Lord, — nay, even the tenth part of 
 an ephah of fine flour shall be an acceptable sacri- 
 fice. Do we know that such an opportunity will 
 ever again be offered us to speed our wealth or 
 our poverty on an errand so grand ? Let us not 
 sink below the height of the hour. 
 
 And there is another advantage which, at such 
 a juncture as this, taxation has above any and 
 every other method of raising a revenue. They 
 are round-about. This is direct. The disadvan- 
 tage of a fair compared with a contribution-box 
 is, that in the first you get something which is 
 reckoned an equivalent for your money, — only a 
 flimsy toy, perhaps, but enough to conduct away 
 all the pleasure which the downright giving of 
 your money would have afforded you. You have 
 neither the satisfaction which arises from a " good 
 bargain," nor the glow which springs from the 
 gratification of a benevolent desire. So, even if 
 we could put clown the rebellion by increasing 
 our imports, and by other expedients of that na- 
 ture, we should miss half the pleasure. We should 
 not be giving money to our country, we should 
 only be paying high prices for tea and sugar. 
 But with direct taxation, there would be no go- 
 between to rob us of all our benevolences by way 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 379 
 
 of commission. We should stand face to face 
 witli the object of our solicitude and our love. 
 Our hearts would be warmed with the conscious- 
 ness of actual contact. We should take joyfully 
 the spoiling of our goods, knowing that we were 
 laying up treasure in heaven and on earth for our- 
 selves and for the generations that are to come. 
 
 If there are any with whom these considerations 
 have no weight, they may perliaps be influenced 
 by another. When the nation shall give its voice 
 in favor of taxation, there is no appeal. You 
 will have to pay " whether or no." It is only 
 whether you will do it jubilantly, reckoning your 
 cross a crown, counting it all joy to spend and be 
 spent in so glorious a service, and so receive back 
 full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and 
 running over ; or whether you will hold back, 
 have your will throttled, your pride humbled, your 
 purse taken by storm, and yet nothing for it after 
 all. 
 
 It remains now for the people to choose what 
 they will do. We can rise up against taxation, 
 save our money, and lose the day, lose the age, 
 lose God's grand " occasion floating by," but what 
 shall be the profit of such a gain ? 
 
 " Gained — the infamy of fame, 
 Gained — a dastard's deathless name, 
 Gained — eternity of shame. 
 
 " Lost — desert of manly worth, 
 Lost — the right we had by birth, 
 Lost — lost — freedom for the earth." 
 
380 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 And it may be that such *a withholding will 
 tend to the very poverty that we dread, the only 
 poverty which our ignoble souls can feel. " Wis- 
 dom for a man's self," says Bacon, " is, in many 
 branches thereof, a depraved thing. But that 
 which is specially to be noted is, that those which 
 are lovers of themselves without a rival are many 
 times unfortunate ; and whereas they have all their 
 time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the 
 end themselves sacrificed to the inconstancy of for- 
 tune, whose wings they thought by their self-wis- 
 dom to have pinioned." 
 
 God forbid that any of us should, standing, as 
 we soon shall stand, on the outer shore of the 
 world, and looking back over the land which was 
 before us a land of golden promise, see it lying 
 behind us a land of bitterness and desolation, — or 
 hear ringing in our ears a voice whose tones would 
 find its echo in our own hearts : " Mene, Mene, 
 Tekel, Upharsin ; God hath numbered thy king- 
 dom, and finished it. Thou art weighed in the 
 balance, and art found wanting." 
 
 I see but one reasonable objection to taxation. 
 " We are willing," it may be said, " to pour out 
 of our abundance, or of our poverty, to put down 
 the rebellion ; but we are not willing even to dole 
 out our hard earnings to enrich dishonest contrac- 
 tors, lazy clerks, grasping sutlers, wasteful Con- 
 gress-men, and the whole herd of unclean beasts 
 who feed and fatten at the public crib." But, in 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 381 
 
 tlie first place, if we are going to wait for purity 
 before we provide power, we may as well give 
 up the whole matter at once. To suppose that 
 the affairs of this nation are to be carried on ex- 
 clusively by disinterested patriots, is to obey Dog- 
 berry's injunction. We may lament the fact, but 
 it must be recognized as a fact, and as a fact dis- 
 posed of, that the world's work is, to a remarkable 
 extent, done with unwashen hands. It would be 
 a happy day for us that should see every man in 
 our government a Washington, but that day will 
 not dawn this many a year, and meanwhile we 
 must do the best we can with our present material. 
 Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles 
 be gathered together. Wherever there is a possi- 
 bility of making money without work, or wherever 
 salary is disproportioned to service, there the mor- 
 ally lame and the mentally lazy will inevitably 
 congregate. Wherever a business is so vast that 
 it must be managed by large masses of men, with 
 the certainty of ample remuneration, with the con- 
 tingency of perquisites, and a presumption of im- 
 punity for unfaithfulness arising from the very 
 magnitude of the work and the numbers of the 
 workmen, there, until the Millennium, the great 
 unemployed, the unlucky, the indolent, the shabby- 
 genteel, the unpractical and the impracticable, 
 Micawberian waiters for something to turn up, 
 louno;ing heirs for whom the dead men's shoes are 
 not yet emptied, and unjust stewards who cannot 
 
382 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 dig, and are ashamed to beg, but not afraid to 
 steal, will come up like a yoimg lion from the 
 swellings of Jordan, with a paw for every contract, 
 and a claw for every clerkship, and a maw for 
 every salary that can be wrenched or wormed 
 from the powers that be. Even with the best 
 intentions on the part of those with whom rests the 
 responsibility of selection, some ring-streaked and 
 spotted souls will wriggle in and usurp the places 
 that should be filled only by those who walk in 
 white. Some dishonest and unscrupulous men 
 will rankle there, — men who will feather their 
 own nests, though they pluck their country callow 
 to effect it ; — harpies that pollute what they can- 
 not devour, — gulping down the very shew-bread 
 from off the altar, — thrusting their three-pronged 
 flesh-hooks even into the caldrons of sacrifice, 
 and bringing thei'eby shame and dismay upon the 
 whole priesthood. 
 
 But let it not be forgotten that this is not a 
 feature peculiar to our government. Such men 
 there are in all countries, a disgrace to their age 
 and to the race. Probably our ratio of rascal- 
 age is not larger than that of any other nation. 
 Probably it is smaller than most. This is surely 
 consolatory. 
 
 Then, also, it is evident that, after all, it is com- 
 paratively a small part of our whole expenditure 
 that is thus wasted, though it be large in the 
 aggregate ; and in the working of all machinery, 
 allowance must be made for friction. 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 383 
 
 Tims much, supposing the evil to be irremedia- 
 ble ; but it is not. There is no need of all this 
 venalitv. The fact of its past existence furnishes 
 no argument for its present toleration, and if the 
 imminence of taxation shall rouse us to overthrow- 
 it, taxation will be no disguised blessing. It is 
 the duty of every man to file a complaint, and to 
 follow it up. Let him insist that taxation and 
 purification and retrenchment go hand in hand. 
 When the burden of taxation falls, let the burden 
 of corruption be lifted, and all burden will disap- 
 pear. To which end, let every man take hold of 
 the lever that is nearest to himself. If each one 
 would turn on the water of cleansing to his own 
 corner of this Augean stable, the work would soon 
 be done ; and then, and meanwhile, let him keep 
 a sharp lookout — careful, but not captious, watch- 
 ful, not meddlesome — that the republic receive 
 no harm at the hands of those servants wdiom his 
 voice and vote helped to set in place. Tocqueville 
 sagaciously says, that a government will be just 
 as corrupt as the nation will let it be ; and if the 
 virtuous sit quietly at home, and do nothing to 
 preserve or reinstate public purity, they are un- 
 faithful to their duty, and have no riglit to cast 
 the first stone. 
 
 As for retrenchment, there are a thousand ways 
 in which something can be accomplished, and 
 much will be accomplished if we all put our shoul- 
 ders to the wheel. Cono-ress is showino; a faint 
 
384 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 disposition to walk in tlie right path, and the 
 disposition should by all means be encouraged 
 and strengthened. The franking system exhibits 
 symptoms of rapid demise, and there are many 
 other systems there that will bear looking into, 
 or rather that will not bear it, and should die the 
 death. The office hours of the clerks of the de- 
 partments are, I think, from nine A. M. to three 
 P. M., and it is a current saying among them, 
 that it is nine till it is ten, and three as soon as 
 it becomes two ; and if the public work can be 
 done with such application, or want of application, 
 surely it can be done by fewer clerks, who should 
 render exact service ; and the lowest salaries are 
 $1,200 per annum. The salaries of our higher 
 officers are not munificent compared with the in- 
 come of the chief magistrates of other nations. 
 The President is perhaps the worst-paid man in 
 the country, but no salary can be any offset to the 
 discharo;e of duties so onerous, and though I do 
 not think " we the people " have the shadow of 
 a right to ask for its reduction, yet, in this crisis, 
 it seems to me that the moral effect of a voluntary 
 surrender of a part of it would be so happy, that 
 it would amply compensate for any self-denial that 
 might be involved. (I trust, however, that Mr. 
 Lincoln will not feel constrained by my suggestion. 
 I certainly shall not press it to his embarrassment.) 
 But what we want is that President, Congress, and 
 people shall give a long pull, a strong pull, and a 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 385 
 
 pull altogether, to get the nation out of the mire. 
 Money, muscle, and mind are what we need. The 
 muscle is on hand, the mind and money are in the 
 country, and must be produced. Money we can 
 all, or almost all, save and spare ; for nearly all 
 of us live a great way above our necessities. I 
 do not advocate penuriousness. I believe in fine 
 houses, fine estates, fine horses, and fine clothes. 
 I believe it is everybody's duty to live as elegantly 
 as he can, consistently with his other duties. I do 
 not believe that the God who made everything 
 beautiful in its season, who painted the wing of 
 the butterfly, and burnished the scales of the beetle, 
 and tinted the petals of the rose, and pencilled the 
 outlines of the hills, who ordered his temple to be 
 made of the purest gold, the most precious wood, 
 the most costly scarlet, — who everywhere delights 
 to lavish magnificence, — I cannot believe that this 
 Being is most appropriately worshipped by an un- 
 couth and homespun life. But there is a beauty 
 higher than speaks to the eye, and beautiful things 
 are beautiful only as they converge to this higher 
 beauty. There is nothing more stately than the 
 human body, and he who disfigures it by abuse 
 or neglect, is guilty of sin ; but more beautiful 
 than Apollo is the soldier, lying face forward on 
 the battle-field, grimed w^ith powder, torn with 
 shell, smeared with blood, — since for a sacred 
 cause he dared to die. So we may not only inno- 
 cently, but laudably, adorn our houses with the 
 
 17 Y 
 
386 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 treasures of art and the wonders of skill, surround- 
 ing ourselves with whatever, speaks to the eye or 
 the ear of loveliness and grace ; but when, in or- 
 der to do this, we sacrifice the soul to which they 
 all minister, we rob God. We misuse his bounty. 
 We utterly mistake the meaning of his gifts. 
 They have failed to do their work for us. Instead 
 of drawing us up higher, they have thrust us 
 down lower. We are sensual, when we ought to 
 be spiritual. We value means more than ends. 
 We take the hints and signs of beauty for beauty 
 itself. We put the incidents of life for its essence. 
 And what shall it profit us though we gain the 
 whole world and lose our inward worth ? When, 
 on the other hand, we sacrifice these adventitious 
 graces and glories that the soul which they grace 
 and glorify may live, — that virtue and truth and 
 justice may not want a man to stand before the 
 Lord forever, — we show a just sense of the rela- 
 tive value of things, and approve ourselves worthy 
 to be the depositary of liberty for the world. 
 
 So it irks me to hear such assertions as that a 
 member of Congress, or any other man, cannot 
 live in Washington, or any other city, on less 
 than three thousand dollars a year. Cannot live ? 
 Have we not classical authority for saying that 
 men can not only live, but cultivate the muses, on 
 a little oatmeal ? In land where corn is ten cents 
 a bushel, and coal fifteen, is it to be said that a 
 man must die of cold or hunger unless he has 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 387 
 
 three thousand dollars a year ? It is absurd. He 
 may not be able to give French dinners and cham- 
 pagne suppers, and japonica parties, and to main- 
 tain a style of corresponding expenditure ; but let 
 him diminish his expenses. Let him put a knife 
 to his throat if he be a man given to such appe- 
 tites. When his country is struggling for life, is 
 it any discredit to him to live narrowly for her 
 sake ? Is it not rather a credit ? Does he not 
 thereby give a pledge of his sincerity and his love ? 
 What was generous livino; becomes heartless ex- 
 travagance. What would be meanness is heroism. 
 Was Washington ashamed to exhibit before the 
 minister of the great and gay French court " that 
 plain and simple manner of living which accords 
 with the real interest and policy of men struggling 
 under every difficulty for the attainment of the 
 most inestimable blessing of life, liberty " ? Did 
 Luzerne, dining off the shoulder of bacon, the 
 almost imperceptible greens, and the contingent 
 apple-pie, conceive a low idea of the cause whose 
 champion could thus, for its sake, deny himself the 
 luxuries wliich fortune had laid at his feet? And 
 if, when the public good demands a reduction of 
 any salary, its recipient profess himself unable to 
 live on less, let him consider whether his life is 
 absolutely essential to the nation. 
 
 " I trust we have ■within our realme 
 Five hundred as good as hee." 
 
 Of course, retrenchment should be accomplished 
 
388 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 wisely and justly, not injudiciously and indiscrimi- 
 nately. There is that withholdeth more than is 
 meet, but it tendeth to poverty. Let the people 
 insist that abuses shall be abolished, mistakes rec- 
 tified, extravagance discouraged, dishonesty pun- 
 ished. Let them be scrupulously honorable and 
 careful and economical in all their private meas- 
 ures, effectually frowning down whosoever, in pub- 
 lic or private, loveth and maketh a lie, and then 
 welcome taxation ! welcome self-denial ! welcome 
 poverty, and hardship, and suffering, and death, 
 if, peradventure, the Lord will establish upon us 
 the work of our hands. 
 
 Civil war cannot be so fatal to a nation as many 
 have painted it. Cruel and bloody, indeed, must 
 be the fight when brothers fall to blows ; but Eng- 
 land has thriven on such warfare. Her soil has 
 been drenched again and again with the blood of 
 her children. For thirty years the white roses 
 met the red in deadly conflict. It was eighteen 
 years from the battle of Edgehill to the coronation 
 of Charles the Second, and to-day, in all the arts 
 of peace and war, England stands foremost among 
 the nations. When mad clouds clash in the sum- 
 mer sky, there is fierce strife, — the flash of death- 
 dealing lightnings and the terrific cannonade of 
 the thunder, — but the earth looks up all the 
 fresher, the air sweeps round it all the clearer 
 afterwards. So we will hope that the storm shall 
 be as a savor of life unto life. The bolts must 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 389 
 
 fall, yet our moral atmosphere shall be pureed 
 of its miasms, and our beloved land bloom with 
 a yet unknown freshness, in the light of the Sun 
 of Righteousness. 
 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
 peace, good-will toward men," sang the host of 
 heaven pouring through the pearly gates of the 
 Celestial City, and floating over the hill-tops of 
 Jud«a to proclaim to a ransomed earth the glad 
 tidings of her redemption, — the birth of the Son 
 of God. 
 
 But when the fulness of time had come, and 
 the child that was born in the city of David had 
 grown into his manhood, and great multitudes fol- 
 lowed him, what words fell on the listening ears 
 of his disciples, whom he was commissioning to go 
 to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ? " Think 
 not that I am come to send peace on earth ; I 
 came not to send peace, but a sword." 
 
 Was then the sono; of the ano;els but a sono; of 
 
 o o C 
 
 sirens, or did the Saviour Christ repent or de- 
 spair of his Divine mission, and in anger resolve 
 to cut down the rebellious people whose hearts 
 were unsoftened to his love ? Not so. James, a 
 servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 has bridged the chasm, and in one short sentence 
 showed us how the stern declaration of Christ con- 
 sorts with the resounding jubilance of the heavenly 
 hosts : " First pure, then peaceable." 
 
 So the clash and clangor of arms that suddenly 
 
390 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 cleft the usual din of our busy streets, and rent the 
 silences of our remote hills, and ruffled the quiet- 
 ness of our Puritan Sabbath, was the Gospel — 
 the good spell, the good story — of peace, rendered 
 in a different, harsher, but not less emphatic lan- 
 guage than that used by the angels. The sword 
 cuts, through the dense forest and the tangled 
 undergrowth, a highway for the Prince of Peace ; 
 the " feverish lips " of cannon thunder out the 
 preparation for the Gospel of peace, and miglity 
 men of war herald the millennial year. 
 
 Never has our country seen a more glorious 
 day than that which dawned but now, blood- 
 red in the east, but radiant with white brilliance 
 in the high noon which surely follows. It is the 
 day which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice 
 and be glad in it. It is the day which prophets 
 and kings desired to see, but have not seen. It is 
 a day so pregnant with grand possibilities, that it 
 were better for a man that a millstone were 
 hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned 
 in the depths of the sea, than that he should, by 
 an ill-timed forbearance, or a culpable negligence, 
 or an unmanly timidity, or a criminal love of 
 peace, turn back its near-approaching chariot, 
 and veil it again in the shades of a once-dis- 
 pelled night. Thrice and four times accursed 
 shall he be who cries peace when there is no 
 peace ! We feared, as we entered into the cloud, 
 but we have heard a voice from out the cloud. 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 391 
 
 saying, " This is my beloved Son," and though 
 Ave can see those divine hneaments hut darkly, 
 we fear no longer. The cup which our Father 
 has given us, shall we not drink of it ? There 
 may be bitter drops, but we know that love has 
 mingled it, and life lies in the draught. 
 
 Many a lover of his country has sought to allay 
 the fierce excitement and prevent its culmination in 
 blows, not for his own sake, not for his country's 
 sake alone, but for the sake of the world ; some 
 with the blush of shame, some with the tear of 
 pity, some with the sigh of regret. " What Avill 
 the world say ? " has been often asked, and oftener 
 thought. What will the despotisms say, to whom 
 we have been hitherto a reproach and a terror ? 
 Where shall the struggling peoples look when the 
 star that has shone upon them for a hope and a 
 guide goes out in darkness ? But take courage. 
 The star has not yet gone out in darkness, and 
 has no thought of going. Those who sorroAv, 
 and those who exvilt over our downfall, are alike 
 premature, for we are not down yet by a great 
 deal. On the contrary, we have been gradually, 
 but continually, coming up higher, advancing, with 
 many retrograde steps it is true, but with steady, 
 average progress, to an elevation whence, looking 
 down on the smiling valleys that lie .behind, and 
 the grim abysses that yawn before, we can yet, 
 for the right's sake, with blanched cheek it may 
 be, but with unfaltering step, " march right on, 
 
392 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 content and bold." We could not always have 
 done it. Not every people can do it now. 
 
 As for the world, it cannot judge us. It is not 
 in a position to judge us. It has had no precedent. 
 England, which knows more about us than any 
 other nation, — which has become familiarized 
 by constant intercourse and a common language, 
 and endeared by similar aims, family quarrels, 
 and the strong tie of blood, — even England 
 cannot form a clear and accurate conception of 
 our position. It is the most difficult thing in 
 the world for her to gain a tolerable knowledge 
 of our geogi'aphy, much less of our political and 
 social institutions, their bearings and necessities. 
 When intelligent English travellers go home and 
 write books about America, in which they put 
 Boston and Georgia side by side in the same 
 class, either as both cities or both States, how 
 can the rank and file of civihzation be thought 
 capable of judging what the reefs are on which 
 we have struck? It is undoubtedly true that 
 a very large majority of those who are watching 
 the progress of our struggle from abroad, watch 
 it as the trial of Republicanism. If we go down, 
 many brave hearts panting for freedom will 
 throb heavily, and wicked eyes, watching over 
 tyrannies, will gloat on our destruction ; but it 
 is not Republicanism, not even our Republican- 
 ism, that is on trial for life, as people will pres- 
 ently learn. If the nation should die to-day, 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 393 
 
 (which it wont,) our experience of self-govern- 
 ment, so far from being a failure, would be a 
 signal success. It has given us near a century 
 of freedom and happiness. Under it we have 
 grown from a little one to be a great nation. 
 It has been to us a blessing, and only a blessing. 
 It has not only ministered to our material pros- 
 perity, but it has educated our people to a de- 
 gree of self-respect and self-control, which, low 
 as it seems at times and in places, disagreeable 
 as it often is in its manifestations, is yet, in 
 both quantity and quality, unparalleled among 
 the nations. What other community would have 
 held itself on the brink of civil war as we did ? 
 Two forces, — one drawing itself up in battle- 
 array, the other quietly pursuing the avocations 
 of peace, — one dishonestly appropriating to it- 
 self for hostile purposes the vast wealth which 
 belongs to both, the other half unconscious, and 
 half apathetic when conscious, and, even when 
 aroused, contenting itself with remonstrance, and 
 held in check, through its loyalty to law, by 
 a power which it despised, — day after day, 
 week after week, month after month, stood face 
 to face and held their peace. It would seem as 
 if a rash act, a palpable blunder, an innocent 
 mistake, might at any moment hurl them into a 
 bloody embrace ; rash acts, blunders, and mis- 
 takes there were in lamentable profusion ; feel- 
 ing ran high ; hearts swelled with indignation ; 
 17* 
 
394 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 each felt that the other Avas trampling on his 
 dearest rights, (at any rate each said so, and we 
 know that ive spoke truly,) and we flamed up to 
 a white heat of passion ; but there was no out- 
 break. And shall it be said of such men that 
 they are not fit to govern themselves ? They 
 have governed themselves, and, by their cool- 
 ness and patience and wisdom, have shown that 
 they were eminently fit to govern themselves. 
 If the Republic falls, nevermore to rise, let no 
 despot's hand point to the place where it stood, 
 as a warning to future republics. Nothing in 
 its life will have become it like the leavino; it. 
 No circumstance of its life hitherto can so 
 strongly prove the inherent strength and dig- 
 nity, not of man simply, but of men, as this 
 present sti'uggle, even if it should be unto 
 death. The long forbearance of the people that 
 would not believe in treason and matricide ; the 
 simultaneous and spontaneous uprising of a people 
 when treason and matricide spoke out in words 
 that could no longer be misunderstood ; the sud- 
 den tempest of love and courage and sacred fury 
 that swept through a people when it saw the ark 
 of its liberties endangered, — all this shall go 
 down to the future, and men shall rejoice and 
 tyrants shall tremble at the memory of our Re- 
 public, even should it be only a memory. 
 
 No, the struggle which convulses the nation 
 does not arise from evils which inhere in its sys- 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 395 
 
 tern of government, and develop naturally from its 
 workings. Our Republic is attacked from with- 
 out, not from within. The rank vine which 
 twines its tightening coils around her sturdy 
 trunk and lusty limbs is no parasite, but a foul 
 foreio'u growth. If has indeed struck its roots 
 into the same soil, and spread out its tendrils to 
 the same breezes, but the one is a vile and short- 
 lived weed, and the other a tree of life, whose 
 leaves are for the healing of the nations. The 
 contest arises rather from tlie purity and power of 
 Republicanism. A form of government less an- 
 tagonistic to human bondage might longer hold 
 on the even tenor of its way, but Republicanism 
 is so founded on the dignity of man, the rights of 
 man, the sacredness of man, that it cannot exist 
 even with a vestige of despotism. It must have 
 free course to run and be glorified, or it must stop 
 running altogether. We have an anomalous civ- 
 ilization. On the one side freedom in its purest 
 form, on the other, slavery in its purest ; and the 
 genius of the one is so divei'se from that of the 
 other, that the two cannot coexist. All the forces 
 of the one spring upward to light and air. All 
 the forces of the other drag downward to dark- 
 ness and death. It was the inconsistencies be- 
 tween their own struggle for their rights and a 
 refusal to grant the same rights to their Negroes, 
 that led our fathers to banish slavery from New 
 England. But slavery, banished from New Eng- 
 
396 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 land, throve in a sunnier clime, side by side with 
 the freedom of the austere North. Now the har- 
 vest is ripe. Let the mowers whet their scythes, 
 and the reapers put in their sickles, for one or the 
 other shall surely fall. Multitudes, multitudes in 
 the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord 
 is near in the valley of decision. 
 
 Is this a day for a man to afflict his soul ? to 
 bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread 
 sackcloth and ashes under him ? 
 
 Though " it was but a dream, yet it lightened my despair 
 
 When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right, 
 
 That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease, 
 
 The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height, 
 
 Nor America's one sole god be the millionnaire. 
 
 No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace 
 
 Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note. 
 
 " And as months ran on and rumor of battle grew, 
 ' It is time, it is time. passionate heart,' said I, 
 (For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true,) 
 
 It is time, it is time ! I wake to the higher aims 
 
 Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold. 
 
 And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, 
 
 Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told; 
 
 And hail once more to the banner of battle unrolled ! 
 
 Though many a light shall darken, and many shall weep 
 
 For those that are crushed in the clash of jarring claims. 
 
 Yet God's just wrath shall be wreaked on a giant liar; 
 
 And many a darkness into the light shall leap. 
 
 And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, 
 
 And noble thought be freer under the sun, 
 
 And the heart of a people beat with one desire; 
 
 For the peace that I deemed no peace is over and done. 
 
 By the deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress flames 
 
 The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 397 
 
 " Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind, 
 We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still. 
 And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind; 
 It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill; 
 I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind, 
 I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assigned." 
 
 In summing up the pros and cons of this war, 
 the deterioration of the men who are engaged in 
 it, and the general backshding of society, are usu- 
 ally set down on the per contra side. It is taken 
 for granted that morality and religion will suffer, 
 both with those who go and with those who stay. 
 And having thus put matters in train, and given 
 everybody to understand what is expected of 
 him, and that if he sins it won't be very much his 
 fault, seeing it is the prescribed thing to do under 
 the circumstances, it is very likely soldiers and 
 society will answer our expectations, and duly de- 
 teriorate according to the statute for such case 
 made and provided. 
 
 It seems to me, however, that all this is entirely 
 unnecessary. I see no conclusive reason why our 
 men should come back to us any worse men than 
 they went away, or why they should find us any 
 worse men than they left us. It seems to me, on 
 the contrary, that this is the time of all times 
 when we should expect, and lay our plans for, and 
 strive to bring about, a great revival of religion, — 
 such a revival as we have never yet felt or heard 
 of, so that even a whole nation shall be born into 
 the kingdom of heaven in a day. 
 
398 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 It does not pi'ove anything to the purpose, that 
 wars always liave been attended Avith and fol- 
 lowed by demoralization. It is a long lane that 
 has no turning. America is not a land of prece- 
 dents. She is herself an unprecedented nation. 
 She has never scrupled to turn over a leaf because 
 it was new, and there is no reason why she should 
 now. If wars always have been demoralizing, it is 
 high time they should stop being so, and there 
 never was a better occasion to change this thing 
 than the present. There is nothing in the origin 
 or aim of this war to demoralize any one. No- 
 body has got to slur over his convictions, that his 
 patriotism may go scot-free. Nobody is required 
 to forget his conscience in his country. Nobody 
 is forced to merge his Christianity in his citizen- 
 ship. Conscience and patriotism, right and might, 
 all march under the same banner, and fight on the 
 same side. It is such a war, as has, perhaps, 
 never been seen outside of " Paradise Lost." It 
 is a rebellion of wicked weakness against righteous 
 strength. It is slavery, ignorance, cruelty, barba- 
 rism, writhing under the iron tramp, and striking 
 its fangs into the mailed heel, of freedom, knowl- 
 edge, and universal human progress. Every man 
 and boy who goes down to battle can go in the 
 name of the Lord. It is no personal animosity, 
 no sectional jealousy, no party pique, that should 
 whet the sword, and clean the rifle, and nerve the 
 arm. A great cause is endangered, a great princi- 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 399 
 
 pie is attacked. The lieart of humanity is struck 
 at, the battle is for the workl. 
 
 And who are they that go down to the battle ? 
 Not, as a general thing, beardless boys, with habits 
 and principles yet in the gristle ; not the off-scour- 
 ing of soci^y mainly, though that vindoubtedly 
 drizzles in to a considerable extent ; but men with 
 mothers and wives and children at home, — men 
 who have been educated in our free schools, who 
 have worshipped God in our sanctuaries, who have 
 voted in our town-houses, and taken newspapers, 
 and paid taxes, and tilled farms, and built engines, 
 and talked politics, and heard lectures, and given 
 parties. They are men who have had their posi- 
 tion and reputation in society and church ; and 
 because they have left mother, and child, and 
 church, and shop, are they to begin forthwith to 
 swear, and drink, and turn vagabond, robber, and 
 roue ? Is this the strength of our boasted free 
 institutions ? Have we been trained to a morality 
 that must be laid aside with the civilian's dress, 
 and is vice the prerogative of regimentals ? Is our 
 religion a tv/o-year-old child, to fly at the sight of 
 a uniform ? Is our virtue so weak that it must be 
 bandaged, and bolstered, and coddled with herb- 
 tea and water-gruel, to keep the breath of life in it, 
 and the moment it is let out into the rough-and- 
 tumble of the world, it droops and dies? Then, 
 verily, we may as well have no virtue at all, and 
 we have made much ado about nothino;. It has 
 
400 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 always been our boast and pride tliat we raised 
 men. It seems now that we have turned out 
 nothing but overgrown boys. Liberty, education, 
 self-control, individual responsibility, are the birth- 
 right of American freemen, and the upshot of it 
 is, that when they are put to the test^they cannot 
 stand it ! Thrown upon their manhood for three 
 months, or three years, they have not sail enough 
 to keep going, nor ballast enough to keep steady ! 
 Then let our free institutions go by the board. If, 
 after near a century of working, they can show no 
 better result than this, away with them. Despot- 
 ism could hardly do worse. Let the war go, too. 
 Let Jeff Davis come, and Floyd, and slavery, and 
 stealing, and the age of pewter and pinchbeck 
 and all uncleanness. A few rods more or less 
 deep in the slough of infamy will not make much 
 difference. Let us write on the door-posts of our 
 churches and our school-houses, " Mene, Mene, 
 Tekel, Upharsin," and then lock the doors, and 
 board up the windows, and begin new. 
 
 It is not so. I do not believe one word of it. 
 The eighty years' trial has not proved such an 
 abortion. The mountain has not labored to bring 
 forth such a mouse. I would not so slander our 
 institutions and the brave men who have gone forth 
 to defend them. Our soldiers are not mere ma- 
 chines, working accordino; to the hands of the con- 
 ductor, though they are that ; they are not misera- 
 ble conscripts, drafted and dragged into a quarrel 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 401 
 
 of which they have no knowledge, and in which 
 they liave no interest ; they are no vain and empty 
 brao-o-arts, chitchino; after a vagne, o-htterino; worth- 
 less gloxy. They are men, and soldiers because 
 they are men. They are soldiers of their own free 
 will and choice, — soldiers of opinion and senti- 
 ment and settled purpose. They are fighting be- 
 cause they have decided that it is right to fight. 
 They understand what they are fighting for, and 
 what they are fighting against, and when they are 
 going to stop. For a specific purpose, for a limited 
 time, and the better to gain their objects, they have 
 wisely and freely delegated the partial control of 
 their movements to certain leaders ; but they are, 
 every man of them, a sovereign, wrestling for a 
 kingdom which is his by divine right, and which 
 usurpers are trying to wrest from him by infernal 
 wrono;. He is fighting for his children, an^l his 
 children's children, to the third and fourth gener- 
 ations. He stands in the van of a vast nation. 
 Behind him is a great multitude, whom no man 
 can number, — men and w^omen and little children, 
 with eager eyes fixed steadily on him, — silent souls 
 of the coming ages, awaiting from his hands their 
 doom, — home, hope, happiness, all that makes life 
 desirable and heaven possible ; — above him, the 
 heavenly hosts bending over the battlements of 
 the Celestial City, and hell from beneath moved 
 to meet him at his coming. Is this a day for a 
 man to relax his hold on truth and righteousness ? 
 
402 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Is this a situation that should tempt men to sloth 
 and wickedness and riot ? Are these the men that 
 shall be found wanting when weighed in such a 
 balance ? 
 
 " I am ashamed through all my nature," when 
 I hear this talk of demoralization. Let us not for 
 a moment admit the possibility of it. Let us not 
 pave the way to vice by announcing that we expect 
 it, and don't let us expect it. Let us not put up 
 sign-boards and finger-posts to ruin, and map out 
 the country for travellers ? Let no soldier — let 
 no Massachusetts soldier especially — fancy that 
 his State will make a mock at sin. She will be 
 lenient and tender and forgiving and considerate, 
 but not indifferent. If he forgets or forswears his 
 manhood, he is no son of hers. She does not nour- 
 ish and bring up recreants. Let him remember 
 that Svery profane and obscene word loosens the 
 bond of love and sympathy between him and her, 
 and diminishes his claim to her respect. If he 
 steals, or lies, or drinks himself drunk, or in any 
 way approves himself a villain, he disgraces her. 
 He shames the mother who bore him, and is by so 
 much a bastard, and not a son. Let him not think 
 that, because he has bared his breast to bullet and 
 bayonet, he shall cover the multitude of his sins. 
 She will give him praise for bravery, but she will 
 by no means clear him of guilt. Brute courage 
 shall not save his soul from death, and the time is 
 past when it might save his memory from shame. 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 403 
 
 Watchful, if loving eyes are upon him, North or 
 South, in cottage or tent, Massachvisetts expects 
 every man to do his duty. If he is a traitor to 
 that, let him not suppose that his death will bring 
 any loss. However afflictive it may be to his fam- 
 ily, however disastrous to himself, his State can- 
 not mourn him. She has no tears for such as he. 
 Sombre hearse and nodding plume, prayer and 
 dirge and funeral pomp, there may be, for, though 
 her blood runs base in his veins, it is- still her 
 blood ; but for the heart-felt sorrow, and sore re- 
 gret, and bitter lamentation, that rise to heaven 
 when " a good man meets his fate," there shall be 
 a sense of relief and quiet acquiescence. The air 
 is purer by so much as his foul breath polluted it. 
 
 I know that a great deal of scum has probably 
 floated southward in the army ; but, if reports 
 approximate the truth, there must be a greater 
 deal of good, pure sap underneath. Many of the 
 unthinking and unprincipled are doubtless there, 
 but there must be a sreat number of those who 
 have always had the credit of sober thought and 
 guiding principle ; and it is the nature of matter 
 that, when light and darkness meet, darkness must 
 give way. A pretty pass things have come to, if 
 a lamp excuses itself from shining because it is in 
 a dark room ! What is the good of having a 
 lamp, if it can shine only in the daylight ? True, 
 light has its limit, but one little candle can throw 
 its beams very far in a naughty world ; and I 
 
404 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 should think, according to accounts, that there are 
 church-members enough in the army to Christian- 
 ize the workL Now let them show whether the 
 great revival of 1857 did anything. Let them 
 show whether praying and Christian profession 
 mean anything. If they do, every one of these 
 men should be a missionary. He should not only 
 keep himself pure, but he should be a disinfectant. 
 All around him the air should be sweet and the 
 sky clear. Let his good works be manifest, that 
 his Father in heaven may be glorified. Never, 
 never had men such a charge to keep as have our 
 Christian soldiers. They are emphatically the 
 Church militant. They have laid aside every 
 weight of business and affection and ease ; let 
 them lay aside the sins which easily beset them, 
 and they may become apostles and martyrs. " Dieu 
 et mon droit,'" " Christo et Uodesice,''^ — every watch- 
 word that has quivered on the lips of saint and 
 hero, and is tremulous still with the love and faith 
 and tears and blood that it has embodied, — may 
 tremble on his lips, and find them not unworthy. 
 If he fall, he falls from a greater height to a lower 
 depth. Let him remember that New England is 
 on trial in his person. Though every other soldier 
 should grovel among beasts, his mother State bids 
 him among the rest, in shape and gesture proudly 
 eminent, stand like a tower. Though all others 
 be faithless, let him be alone faithful. Whoever 
 denies the Lord, she bids him not deny the Lord. 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. . 405 
 
 She sends forth her sons to be 
 
 " A glorious company, the flower of men, 
 To serve as model for the mighty world, 
 And be the fair beginning of a time. 
 She bids them lay their hands in hers, and swear 
 To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
 To i-ide abroad redressing human wrongs, 
 To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it. 
 To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 
 Not only to keep down the base in man, 
 But teach high thought, and amiable words, 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame. 
 And love of truth, and all that makes a man." 
 
 So fulfilHng her behests, forever green shall be 
 the laurel on his brow, or, if God so will it, the 
 turf upon his grave. 
 
 All this our soldiers will do and be, God and 
 ourselves helping them. I do not believe we shall 
 injure or discourage them, by putting the standard 
 too high. If they are the men we take them to 
 be, they will rise to the emergency. They will 
 justify the confidence we repose in them, and mag- 
 nify their office. 
 
 What is our duty ? First, insist on their hav- 
 ing plenty of good food. Hunger is a great de- 
 moralizer. Secondly, insist on their having good 
 clothes to wear. Rags are the ally of the Devil. 
 Thirdly, provide them with good reading. It is 
 the idle hands into which Satan puts mischief. 
 This is more directly in our power than the first 
 two. Those we can only attain by roundabout 
 measures, by furnishing money which must go 
 
406 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 through a circuitous channel, and by sharply 
 supervising the supervisors, at the risk of being 
 often in the wrong ourselves, but with the certain 
 result of inducino; a more thoroucfh attention than 
 if we were indifferent. Government, however, 
 supplies no ration of books, and the soldiers must 
 look directly to the people. Let them not look in 
 vain. Fourthly, we should stop prophesying evil 
 concerning them. Prophecies often work their 
 own fulfilment. Fifthly, we should be good our- 
 selves, and this is of the fii'st importance. If we 
 are at any one time under any stronger bonds 
 than at any other to do justly, to love mercy, and 
 to walk humbly before God, it is now. If any 
 exigency can call out repentance and faith and 
 love, it is this. If any terrors of the law can per- 
 suade men, if any judgments can avail to turn our 
 feet to the testimonies of the Lord, it is the terrors 
 and the judgments that are abroad to-day. Our 
 sin entered into the world, and the death of our 
 beloved ones, who have been smitten down in the 
 beautiful promise of their youth, in the glorious 
 ripeness of their manhood, came by that sin. Sin, 
 sins, are the remote and the immediate cause of 
 these calamities. Some of the ramifications we 
 can ti'ace, others subdivide and disappear from our 
 view, but not from God's. We pandered to in- 
 iquity. We have again and again clipped our 
 birthright, and sold the fragments for messes 
 of very watery pottage. We have lightly es- 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 407 
 
 teemed our heritao-e of freedom. We have made 
 us idols of gold, and silver, and bank-stock, and 
 Yankee ingenuity, and material progress. We 
 have waxed fat, and kicked weak nations, and 
 ranted against strong ones, and exalted our own 
 to the heavens. We have strained out without 
 much ado the few little gnats that strayed into 
 our foreign wine, and have swallowed, without 
 wincing, the heads of camels that swam in our 
 home-brewed ale. We have protected our citi- 
 zens abroad, not so much from the sacred mother- 
 hood of country, or a chivalrous and Christian 
 magnanimity, as from a tumid pride ; for where 
 our citizens have received infinitely worse treat- 
 ment within our OAvn domains, we have held our 
 peace. Our reputation before the world was not 
 at stake ; it was on.ly a family matter, so we 
 hushed it up. As a people we have minded our 
 personal affairs to the neglect of national. We 
 have betrayed the trust which God reposed in us. 
 We have been false to the blood of our fathers 
 shed in battle. We have ignominiously suffered 
 the nation's weal to be managed by unworthy 
 hands. Becoming disgusted with the trickery, 
 and venality, and selfishness, and sordidness of 
 politics, we have given politics over to knaves, till 
 the A'Cry word politician has become a term of 
 contumely. Instead of going into the den, and 
 clearing it out, we have stood oflF, and, like Pilate, 
 washed our hands, as if to forego action was to 
 
408 COUXTRY LIVIXG. 
 
 forego responsibility. And here we are. Slack- 
 ing sail, sleeping at the helm, neglecting our 
 soundings, we find ourselves among the breakers. 
 Sowing to the wind, we reap the whu'lwind. The 
 chastisement of our guilty peace is upon us. Now 
 let us change all this. Patriotism demands that 
 every man, and woman, cleanse his soul from sin. 
 A nation is no nobler than its individuals. Every 
 man who cheats, or slanders, or steals, adds to the 
 aggregate guilt of the nation, helps to put it be- 
 yond the pale of God's protection, and is so far a 
 traitor. Every voter who neglects to vote helps 
 to put his country into evil hands, by not exerting 
 liis utmost to put it into good hands, and is so far 
 a traitor, for 
 
 " On life's current he who drifts 
 Is one with him who rows or saUs.'' 
 
 Let every man see to it that the sin of the na- 
 tion lies no longer at his door, that his iniquities 
 shall not draw down the wrath of God upon it. 
 Let every man, by his own upright dealings, 
 by his own unblemished manhood, show convin- 
 cingly that he is on the side of God and his coun- 
 try. This is the way in which things ought to 
 ■work, and this will effectually dispose of demoral- 
 ization at home. 
 
 The events of the last few months have earned 
 us forward by centuries. It is like one of those 
 great convulsions that mark the geologic ages. 
 After each upheaval, the earth clothed herself 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 409 
 
 with new creations, each higher than the last. 
 She never went back on one day to the rude 
 organizations which were the glory of the preced- 
 ing day. So we, owing to this great fissure in our 
 prosperity, this great change in our moral atmos- 
 phere, have to adjust ourselves to new conditions. 
 We shall press towards the mark for the prize of a 
 higher calling. We owe to God grander lives, 
 holier hearts, than we owed him last year. 
 
 the gloiy of tliis new-born freedom I O 
 this splendid rebound from servile acquiescence ! 
 To have thrown oif the intolerable burden ! To 
 cower no longer before an overshadowing evil I 
 To rise up disenthralled ! The green withes that 
 bound us snapped asunder at one blast of ear- 
 nest resolution, and we walk joyfully, unfettered. 
 The thing which we greatly feared is come upon 
 us, and lo it is bursting out with good. That 
 fearful looking for is over. The terrible evils, war, 
 secession, disunion, that have been impending so 
 long, are here, and it is a joy to meet them face to 
 face like a man. We know now what their grim 
 features are like, what their boasted power is. We 
 can grapple with them now in unrelaxing death- 
 gripe, and we feel an added strength with every 
 effort. The very struggle has a stern delight. 
 The very consciousness of fighting for the long- 
 oppressed righteousness is an inspiration. If by 
 any sacrifice we can atone for the past, if any 
 efi:brts can make restitution, they shall not be 
 
410 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 wanting. God accept the penance and forgive 
 the sin. 
 
 Here then we stand on vantaoje-cpround to do 
 battle with sin. We have the prestige of victory. 
 Our consciences are aroused. Our moral sensibili- 
 ties have partially recovered tone. Now strike 
 while the iron is hot. Now for great awakenincrs, 
 revivals, not of emotions merely, but of religion, 
 morality, and virtue. Let Christians bestir them- 
 selves, and the day is theirs. God's occasions are 
 floating by. As we have dealt with one sin, so let 
 us deal with every sin, — meet it, throttle it, away 
 with it. 
 
 It must be so. It will be so if Christians do 
 their duty. With nations, as with individuals, the 
 cross leads to the crown. Suffering is Heaven's 
 agent. It is coming out of great tribulation that 
 we shall wash our robes and make them white in 
 the blood of the Lamb. This sickness is not unto 
 death. It is to eternal life, if we will have it so. 
 Trouble is perhaps an indispensable agent in the 
 formation of character, and we ought to come out 
 of this trouble like gold seven times tried. We 
 ought to be a greater and a wiser nation, a nobler 
 and an honester people, better men, better Chris- 
 tians. We ought to develop those heroic virtues 
 which spring only in troublous times. We shall 
 do it if Christians Mnll be strong, and quit them- 
 selves like men. 
 
 We have every encouragement to eifort. All 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 411 
 
 hearts are stirred and softened. The air is full of 
 the voice of prayer. Christian mothers pray now 
 as they never prayed before, and mothers that 
 never prayed before pray now. The tens of 
 thousands gone from us went from homes. They 
 were husbands, brothers, sons, the centres of 
 liappy circles, the light of tender eyes. Love 
 filled their knapsacks, and bade them farewell. 
 Love could even make their hearts strong with 
 words of good cheer ; but* love cannot turn aside 
 the swift lead or 'the flashing steel. God alone is 
 great. He is love's last, as he should be love's 
 first resort. When love can do no more, love 
 turns to God with earnest prayers and tears. 
 Every son in the field can be wrapped around 
 with an atmosphere of prayer. Every mother will 
 pray for her son, and because there are some there 
 who have no mothers to pray for them, let every 
 mother pray for all the motherless, and because 
 every man who fights for our country belongs to 
 us all, let all pray for all. Let no soldier be able 
 to say or to feel, " No man cares for my soul or 
 body." Let the lines between God and us be 
 kept constantly open. Pray that our soldiers and ' 
 our citizens may be true to their cause, may be 
 kept from evil ways, may wax valiant in fight, 
 invincible in virtue. And this praying spirit 
 should not be suffered to run to waste. Let it, 
 from an emotion, be hardened into a principle, 
 a habit. Let it be penetrative and aggressive. 
 
412 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Let all sorrowful Iiearts be gently led to Christ, if 
 they do not know the way thither. Let the tender 
 promises of his Gospel fall like dew upon desolate 
 souls. Let our churches and our prayer-meetings 
 be places where grief can find consolation, where 
 love shall find sympathy ; ignorance, instruction ; 
 loneliness, society ; discouragement, hope ; repent- 
 ance, assistance ; and the feeblest germ of good, 
 that dew and rain and sunshine which shall make 
 it spring up and bear fruit an hundred-fold. 
 
 Let us be mindful of the bodily and spiritual 
 welfare of those who are gone out fi'om us, and 
 let them constantly feel that we are mindful of it, 
 that no forgetfulness or negligence of ours give 
 them excuse, or occasion, or temptation to falter. 
 Let us be equally mindful of those at home, re- 
 membering that we are all children of a common 
 Father. Let us keep ourselves pure. Let us 
 pray without ceasiiig. Let us do with our might, 
 and this affliction shall work out for us a far more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We shall 
 go' on from strength to strength, till in all, and 
 through all, and over all, the Lord God omnipo- 
 tent reigneth. Hallelujah ! 
 
 It should continually be kept in mind for our 
 consolation, that this war is a consequence, and not 
 a cause. It is tlie conclusion, not the commence- 
 ment of a series. It is accepted, not initiated. 
 It is recuperative, not destructive, I do not, of 
 course, mean to say that, in the Divine plan, it 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 413 
 
 may not work largely as a cause ; I speak of the 
 fact as it presents itself to us. Florence Nightin- 
 gale says that all disease is more or less a repara- 
 tive process, an effort of nature to remedy a pro- 
 cess of poisoning, or of decay, which has taken 
 place weeks, months, sometimes years beforehand, 
 unnoticed. So this war is but the subsequent of 
 disease. We may not survive, but it is not the 
 war that Avill kill us, but what has preceded the 
 war. The disease was in our blood. War is but 
 the reaction of our sound humanity against it. So 
 long as we went on peacefully, we were heaping 
 up wrath against the day of wrath. The war is 
 only saying to the disease, " Thus far shalt thou 
 go, and no farther." 
 
 They, therefore, who lament it as barbaric, hea- 
 then, a relic of paganism, are not wise. It is all 
 that. War is always that. An appeal to force is 
 always the resort of savage, immature natures. 
 But the war does not make us savages. It only 
 reveals the fact that we are savages, — a thing 
 which it behooves us to know. The war is not 
 a going back. We were back before. We have 
 never been forward. It is true, we thought we 
 were. We fondly believed ourselves in the van of 
 civilization and Christianity, and it may have been 
 so ; but civilization and Christianity were not so 
 far advanced as we thought. This war shows us 
 where we were, and we cry out as if it had put us 
 there. On the contrary, it has not only not re- 
 
414 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 tarded us, but it has given us a good lift forward. 
 When we come out of it, if we come out at all, 
 we shall be a great deal farther on than we ever 
 were before. There will be deterioration in detail, 
 but we shall be on higher ground, with firmer feet, 
 clearer vision, stouter hearts, wiser heads. Agri- 
 culture, manufacture, and commerce may be ci'ip- 
 pled, but life will be purified and energized. We 
 shall be greatly improved by being distilled. 
 
 What we have to fear in this war is not rebel 
 batteries, or foreign bulletins, but God's sover- 
 eignty. Providence is on the side of the heaviest 
 battalions only when the heaviest battalions are on 
 the side of Providence. Nothing has yet been 
 revealed in the ranks of our opponents, actual or 
 possible, which should dishearten us. So far as 
 anything we have to fight against is concerned, I 
 do not see that we need anticipate anything but 
 ultimate, and perhaps not very distant success. 
 But what I fear is, that more is meant than meets 
 the ear, or eye, or pulse of the great body of the 
 people. I tremble when — and only when — I 
 remember that God is just. The woe that I dread 
 does not threaten us from the South, nor from 
 over the sea, but from the justice, the inexorable- 
 ness, of God. He is a sovereign. His broken 
 laws must be appeased. Who can stand in the 
 day of his anger ? I fear lest we have sinned so 
 deeply, that he will hurl against us the thunder- 
 bolts of his wrath, till we be utterly consumed. 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 415 
 
 It is not only the sins of the past, but of the pres- 
 ent, that rise up in judgment against us. It is not 
 only slavery, and the vices which it engenders and 
 occasions, for which we must give account, but an 
 unclean spirit, whose name is Legion, who is prey- 
 ing upon our integrity. We have abused the good 
 gifts of Heaven. We have accounted the blood 
 of our covenant an unholy thing, and have done 
 despite to the spirit of grace. Liberty has grown 
 to license on our hands. Loyalty has given place 
 to treachery. Our democracy is rampant and 
 reckless. Our free press is blatant and bloody. 
 Our free speech seems sometimes to have grown 
 idiotic. Our enterprise runs mad. Proofs mul- 
 tiply daily. The course pursued by some of our 
 newspapers is almost enough to make one sigh for 
 a single hour of good, thorough Austrian despot- 
 ism. Love of country, fear of death, honor, pru- 
 dence, delicacy, sense, seem to be swallowed up in 
 the desire to see, or to hear, or to tell some new 
 thinff. Nothino; is too gross for our greedv ears. 
 Dinner-table talk is spread out with Boswellian 
 minuteness on a daily newspaper, and the propri- 
 etor thinks it is a feather in his cap. Some fly of 
 a Congressman chances to hear a Cabinet conver- 
 sation, and, with an itch for immortality, hops 
 straightway into the House of Representatives, 
 and twitters it all out. An exposed place turns 
 up near Washington, through which a hostile 
 army might safely and speedily march to our hurt, 
 
416 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 and anon a dolt turns up alongside to proclaim it. 
 It is no matter that the information maj enlighten 
 rebel brains as well as ours. He who can tell a 
 piece of news is the man for the times, even if we 
 smart for it afterwards. If anybody can, no mat- 
 ter how, find out anything, no matter what, his 
 first duty is to run and tell of it, no matter to 
 whom. The possession of news seems to give a 
 factitious importance. He who can worm himself 
 into the inside of anything, and then turn it wrong 
 side out, is a hero. It would seem as if holding 
 one's tongue were a deadly sin. The gossiping 
 propensities of village sewing-societies have long 
 been the theme of sarcastic comment ; but sew- 
 ing-societies and female tea-drinkings are deaf 
 mutes, compared with the great Gab Club into 
 which American society seems to have resolved 
 itself. 
 
 The war has also developed an equal inability 
 or disinclination in our people to mind their own 
 business, and let other people's alone. Civil fin- 
 gers do not pry into the military arcanum quite as 
 much as they did before the 21st of July, 1861. 
 Then we were carrying on the war swimmingly, 
 knowing a great deal more about it than General 
 Scott, marching down to Richmond with drums 
 beating and colors flying, sweeping the South from 
 Washington to New Orleans, when, of a sudden, 
 Bull Run brought us all up standing. We rubbed 
 our eyes, and concluded that some things could 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 417 
 
 not be done as well as others, cleared ourselves by 
 laying the blame vigorously on everybody else, 
 and have since been more modest and reticent. 
 But the evil, abated, is not destroyed. Ofiicers 
 swell and strut in sudden importance at Washing- 
 ton hotels, and their men lie drunk in the streets. 
 A quartermaster sends provisions to troops, and 
 of thirty cominissioned officers not one is to be 
 found in camp. Congressional busybodies, instead 
 of stopping at home on Sunday, and saying their 
 prayers, must needs tramp down to see the fight. 
 It may or may not have been necessary to fight 
 the battle on Sunday, but it certainly was not 
 necessary for civilians to leave their churches, and 
 stand agape while it was going on. It is pleasant 
 to reflect that at least one of them atoned for his 
 folly in the prisons of Virginia. 
 
 The petty schemes and petty ambitions which 
 are constantly transpiring in our own ranks are far 
 more alarming than anything which has yet tran- 
 spired in the rebel ranks. It was to be hoped that, 
 in such an emergency, all merely personal interests 
 would be forgotten in the general good ; that every 
 man would put his shoulder to the nearest wheel ; 
 that fitness would be the only recommendation to 
 place, and propriety the only inducement to meas- 
 ures. But political chicanery cannot be given up ; 
 so there is bickering about rank, and parleying on 
 old party distinctions ; and, while the country is 
 on trial for life, men dare talk on the bearing which 
 
 18* AA 
 
418 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 such and such a movement will have on the next 
 Presidency ! 
 
 There is another thing on which I look with 
 horror, as calculated to bring on us swift destruc- 
 tion, and indicating that we deserve it. I mean 
 the indulgence of what is called the war spirit. 
 The war spirit is utterly hateful. Just so far as it 
 acquires dominion over us, it will drag us down to 
 death. We may count it all joy that we are reck- 
 oned worthy to resist unto blood striving against 
 sin. We should count it all joy that God has 
 given us spirit and strength to rise up at last 
 against the iniquity which has overshadowed us so 
 long. We should feel a righteous satisfaction in 
 the struggle, so far as it is a strugo-le of right 
 against wrong ; but coarse exultation, ghastly jest- 
 ing, lust of revenge, pride of conquest, gloating 
 over the anticipated punishment of the rebels, — 
 this is of the Devil, devilish. I see prints in the 
 shop windows which seem to me like the hand- 
 writing on the wall. I see little boys dressed in 
 Zouave costume, and brandishing tiny swords, and 
 I am sick at heart. We are throwincr a meretri- 
 cious glare around the war, and concealing its true 
 issues. We ought not to veil from ourselves the 
 fact that it is solemn, terrible, momentous. We 
 cannot comprehend the grandeur of the interests 
 involved, but we can gird ourselves to present 
 duty, lay aside every weight and the sins which 
 so easily beset us, and press forward. Levity is 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 419 
 
 the result of ignorance or bravado. What I want 
 is, that we should be awake to the emergency. 
 We should put down the war-spirit, and put up 
 the Christ-spirit. It is a question, not of the 
 strength of the people, but the virtue of the people, 
 which is their strength. Are there ten righteous 
 men to save the city ? I believe there are, not- 
 withstanding unfavorable indications. The scum 
 comes first to the surface, but there must be a mass 
 of pure liquid below, which will make itself felt. 
 The unanimity of the people is astonishing. Their 
 spirit of self-sacrifice is noble, and not to be mis- 
 taken. Only when we have bestowed our goods, 
 and given our bodies to be burned, let us not with- 
 hold that other gift without which this will profit 
 lis nothing. While doing our utmost, we should 
 pray our utmost, for we are in the hands of God, 
 and not in the hands of man. We must sanctify 
 ourselves, if we would keep the sacred fire burn- 
 ing. We should humble ourselves before God, 
 repent of and turn from our sins, purify our mo- 
 tives, and count all sacrifices nothing, if at last, 
 tried seven times in the fire, we may stand before 
 Him, accepted in the beloved. 
 
 No one lesson is more clearly taught by passing 
 events, than the danger of tampering with iniquity. 
 Our fathers knew and felt and acknowledged 
 that slavery was wrong. Its glaring inconsistency 
 with the principles for which they had fought, and 
 on which they proposed to found a great nation, 
 
420 • COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 was as obvious to them as it is to the Garrison 
 Abolitionists. They would gladly have extermi- 
 nated it at once ; but there was strong opposition, 
 and, in view of its expected speedy natural death, 
 they decided not to throw it summarily over the 
 ship's side, but to roll it gently down an inclined 
 plane — just as surely into the sea. Instead of 
 making it go at once, they stood upon the order of 
 its going. They compromised with the sum of all 
 
 w villanies. They admitted it into the Constitution, 
 not by name, but by a well-understood euphuism. 
 They meant no harm. They meant only good. 
 They conceived themselves to be acting wisely and 
 rightly. Nothing was further from their thoughts 
 than the subsequent sudden rise and increase of 
 slavery. They supposed that, though they had 
 not killed it outright, they had but smoothed its 
 patliAvay to the tomb. What was the result ? 
 
 « The demoralization of the country for years, the 
 rebellion and treason that now stalk abroad un- 
 ashamed, the blood shed in Baltimore and in 
 many a battle since, the earthquake shock that 
 quivers through all the land, — these make answer 
 to-day, " Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth 
 death." It was a little sin, — only a little yield- 
 ing to wrong, for a little while, — but it has 
 brought forth death. 
 
 Not that we should reproach our fathers for in- 
 corporating into our national existence one baleful 
 element ; but that we are to take warning from 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 421 
 
 tliem. They had not our precedent and our les- 
 son. They saw only as a mustard-seed this evil 
 which we see as a broad-spreading tree. It was 
 so small a compromise that doubtless it seemed to 
 them scarcely any compromise at all. But we 
 have seen how the little worm has gnawed at the 
 life of a nation, and carried sorrow and a fearful 
 looking for into thousands of families. Their mo- 
 tives were doubtless upright, but God's laws in 
 action are modified only by each, other. A moth- 
 er's tenderest love ruins her child by mismanage- 
 ment just as thoroughly as if it were the intensest 
 hate. Isabella of Spain, a pure and lovely wo- 
 man, a most just and gracious monarch, cherished 
 in her inmost heart the welfare of her people ; yet 
 she fastened upon their necks the heavy yoke of 
 the Inquisition, under which they have groaned, 
 being burdened, now these four hundred years. 
 God did not hinder her from laying the axe at the 
 root of her kingdom, because she verily thought 
 she was doing him and it service. It may be said 
 that the original concessions were necessary ; that 
 the war of the Revolution, with all its sacrifices 
 and sufferings, would have been in vain without 
 some such compromise ; that the States would 
 have refused to become United States, and so the 
 nation would have been strangled at its birth, — 
 nay, would not have been born at all. 
 
 Here we pass from the known into the un- 
 known. We do not know that anything of the 
 
422 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 sort would have happened ; and if it had hap- 
 pened, we do not know that it was not the very- 
 best thing that could have happened. We might 
 have failed to be a great power, but God is able of 
 the very stones to raise up powers unto himself. 
 " It is necessary for me to go, it is not necessary 
 for me to live," was Pompey's reply to the weep- 
 ing friends who would have held him back from 
 fate. It is necessary to do right ; it is not neces- 
 sary to be a nation. What might have happened 
 had liberty been brought out from the struggle 
 with no blot on her escutcheon, we do not know. 
 She came out with one damning spot thereon, and 
 what has happened we do know. Sin, finished, 
 has brought forth death, and the end is not yet. 
 No. Wrong is wrong forevermore. The cor- 
 rupt tree brings forth corrupt fruit, however care- 
 fiilly planted and constantly watered. Purity of 
 motive may avail the actor before God, but not 
 the act in his world. Consequences follow relent- 
 lessly on the heels of causes. A fact once a fact 
 is forever beyond Qur reach. What may come of 
 it we do not know, and it is not our province to 
 ascertain. We are responsible only for the fact. 
 Of course, I speak only of actions that have a 
 moral quality. There are many courses of con- 
 duct which have, of themselves, no moral quality, 
 and their eligibility depends entirely on the prob- 
 able consequences ; but when two ways are open, 
 one of which is right, and the other a little wrong, 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 423 
 
 we are to choose the right, notwithstanding the 
 evils which threaten to follow. The choice is 
 ours, the consequences God's. We see the evils 
 behind the right ; we do not see the evils behind 
 the wrong ; but the inexorable logic of God's laws 
 will ultimately reveal them. It may seem to you 
 that the wrong is but for a moment, and its effects 
 imperceptible ; but some fact of which you never 
 dreamed may be travelling towards you with 
 swift, unerring feet, and its spear-touch shall 
 change your dwarf into a giant. Your little sin 
 shall receive an impulse that will drive it on con- 
 tinually, perpetuating, enlarging, and multiplying 
 itself. The men of the Revolution could not see 
 an idea which lay hidden in Whitney's brain, but 
 at the appointed hour it came forth, and changed 
 the face and fate of slavery. The moment you do 
 a wrong thing, no matter though your motives be 
 pure, no matter even though you are unconscious 
 of the wrong, that moment you have put your- 
 self out of the line of God's righteous sequences ; 
 you have disturbed relations, destroyed balance, 
 broken law, and you know not where you are, nor 
 wdiither you are drifting. But do the right thing, 
 and, though you may not see the way far before 
 you, you may surely know that you are in har- 
 mony wath God, you are parallel with the line of 
 his laws. You are precisely where you ought to 
 be, and who is he that shall harm you, if ye be 
 followers of that which is good ? 
 
424 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 But this " ]oo;ic of events " lias two sides. It 
 is powerful for good as for evil. An act done 
 with bad intentions may result in good, just as 
 truly as act done with good intentions may result 
 in evil. Let this be our hope to-day. A most 
 wicked war is waged by the South for the support 
 and extension of slavery. Glory to God in the 
 highest, and on earth peace, if it shall result in 
 the abolition of slavery. Our fathers did not take 
 up arms for independence, but they achieved it 
 before they laid them down. We did not enter 
 upon this war for the purpose of abolishing slav- 
 ery, but every day strengthens the probability that 
 tliat will be the issue. It is not the end which the 
 government has in view, but it may be the end 
 which God has in view. Destiny marches on, 
 and if slavery stands in the way, slavery must go 
 down. There would, indeed, be a sublime, a 
 divine justice, in destroying this overshadowing 
 wrong by the very instruments relied on for its 
 indefinite increase. It was begun with set pur- 
 pose of wickedness, but let not him that girdeth on 
 his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. 
 Once begun, the war and its issues passed out of 
 the hands of its beginners forever. It will go on 
 according to its own irresistible laws. The voice 
 that evoked is powerless to lay it. The hideous 
 monster may become the terror and the destruc- 
 tion of its creators. Nor, if this is indeed in the 
 decrees of God, can men at the North, any more 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 425 
 
 than mobs at the South, prevent it. The North- 
 ern mind is gradually becoming familiarized with 
 the thought, and the more we look at it the more 
 desirable it seems. The Republicans spoke truly 
 in affirming that they did not design to meddle 
 with slavery in the slave States ; but twenty, fifty, 
 a hundred years of change have come since then, 
 and different premises require different conclu- 
 sions. Slavery has meddled with them. Slavery 
 has reached out its leprous hand to strike at them, 
 and to pollute the fair heritage they would leave 
 to their children ; and it is to be decided now how 
 best to " crush the wretch." It is a difficult and 
 a dangerous problem, but it will be solved. Just 
 how the bands of the oppressed are to be loosened 
 we do not see ; nor how the victims of oppression, 
 freed from its fetters, shall be freed from its hor- 
 rors, its vices and ignorance and barbarism ; but 
 the same God that has used this nation to enslave 
 them, and shall use it to free them, — making 
 us, free agents as we are in our small spheres, 
 blind tools to work his will in his infinite sphere, 
 — can surely make and point out a way to pre- 
 serve, protect, and enlighten his down-trodden 
 little ones. We must hurry slowly. We need 
 not borrow trouble. When the time comes, we 
 shall have come too. Our present duty is to 
 secure and maintain the integrity of the nation. 
 God will strengthen and fit us for any work that 
 may result from the prosecution of this work. 
 
426 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Confident I am, that where one man, a year ago, 
 considered the speedy extinction of slavery feasible 
 and desirable, one thousand watch, and wait, and 
 pray for it now. 
 
 Let the war go on, then. If we are not en- 
 gaged in a righteous cause, may the Lord send us 
 defeat after defeat, disappointment after disappoint- 
 ment, till we weary of fighting against him, and 
 return repentant to his ways. I know no such 
 ethics as " My country, right or wrong ! " save, as 
 has been admirably said, when right, to be kept 
 right, — when wrong, to be put right. If we are, 
 as I verily believe, armed with the sword of the 
 Lord, let us go on, if God please, till every inch 
 of our soil is free, — free to slaves, free to free- 
 men. Let the Black Hole be cleansed, and thi'own 
 open to the day. Let there be no corner of our 
 vast domain where man shall not be held sacred, 
 where his opinions may not find free utterance, 
 and his person entire safety. The South says she 
 may be crushed, but she cannot be conquered. 
 Very well. Let her be crushed, then. Just as 
 she pleases about that. The hurt of the daughter 
 of my people is no surface wound, to be gently 
 bathed and tenderly bandaged. It is a deep-seated 
 sore, sending down its malignant influences to the 
 dividing asunder of soul and spirit, making the 
 whole head sick and the whole heart faint. If 
 nothing will avail but the surgeon's knife, let the 
 surgeon's knife cut sharp, quick, and deep. It is 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 427 
 
 better to enter into life maimed, than to die un- 
 scathed. Let us be sealed unto God, even though 
 we be baptized with the baptism of fire. The 
 North is not to be saved from the South. The 
 South is to be saved from herself. Her own loyal 
 sons are to be saved from the foes of her own 
 household. Her children are to be saved from 
 the vice that creeps in upon their hearthstones, 
 and corrupts their blood, and poisons their man- 
 hood, and darkens their womanhood. The whole 
 country is to be saved from the traitors that defile 
 while they attack it. Every blow struck is struck 
 for the South as much as for the North. We 
 strike at the rebels and the rebellion of the South, 
 and for the South. The only victory we want is 
 over her worst enemies. North and South will 
 alike, though not equally, suffer. We look for no 
 easy conquest. We are prepared to meet the en- 
 ergy of despair. We anticipate a mortal combat, 
 but the South must be redeemed. She must be 
 brought out from the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death. Most gladly would we give every son 
 of hers the right hand of fellowship, and bid him 
 good luck in the name of the Lord ; but if the 
 Avrong can be wiped out only by wiping out the 
 men who cherish it, and the men who defend it, 
 God's will be done. The land shall rest and 
 enjoy her Sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate, 
 it shall rest. It is better that a state should be 
 a desolation than an abomination. Men and wo- 
 
428 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 men and children, tlie innocent and the guilty, 
 must suffer alike ; but it hath been so aforetime. 
 It is the immutable law of God, that the penalty 
 of guilt shall not be monopolized by its perpetra- 
 tors ; but the South grinds in the prison-house, 
 and the redemption of her soul is precious. Not 
 revenge, nor hatred, nor pride, but the tenderest 
 love and the largest benevolence demand the sac- 
 rifice. The dumb mouths of her fettered children, 
 black and white, the generations that wait in the 
 grand and awful future, the here and the here- 
 after, all demand this at our hands. The justice 
 and truth in our own hearts demand it with so im- 
 perative a voice, that it were 
 
 " better to have fought and lost, 
 Than never to have fought at all." 
 
 Let us make the case our own. Is there a man, 
 woman, or child in Massachusetts, who would not 
 rather our beloved State (God bless her !) should 
 sink into the ocean depths forever, with her freight 
 of a million souls, than that it should be given 
 up to slavery ? And should we spare any sacri- 
 fice to save others from a doom which is so fearful 
 to ourselves ? 
 
 Let us come up to the height of this great, argu- 
 ment. Let us be strong, and quit ourselves hke 
 men. 
 
 I have seen and heard deprecations of slavery 
 discussions at the preserwt crisis. " This war," it 
 is said, "is not a w^ar for the abolition of slav- 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 429 
 
 ery, but for the existence of the government." 
 " Antislavery harangues will only alienate some 
 who are now the stanch allies of the govern- 
 ment." " Many will become disaffected, if the 
 war is made to turn slavery-ward." " One thing 
 at a time." In all of which there is some truth ; 
 but, ever since I can remember, balancing of 
 powers, parties, and principles has been in vogue, 
 and this is what we have come to. Here, an 
 able leader, a world-renowned statesman, can- 
 not be our candidate for the Presidency, because 
 his election will drive the South into secession. 
 There, a measure must be dropped, because it will 
 alienate certain localities. Such and such a terri- 
 tory must be acquired, at the price of blood, to 
 conciliate such an interest. Such and such a ques- 
 tion must not be debated, because it will inflame 
 passions. So Ave have tacked and shifted and 
 beaten, and here we are plump in the middle of 
 the very whirlpool which our prudence was to 
 avoid. With all our reticence, we are precisely 
 in the position which we were reticent in order to 
 keep out of. Now let us try another plan awhile. 
 Let us say what we think, and be straightforward, 
 and not so far-sighted for consequences, and see 
 where that will land us. If there ai*e any persons 
 attached to this government by such a spider's 
 web that they will fall off if slavery is brought in, 
 let them fall. Doubtless the government can stand 
 it, if they can. A patriotism that, at this late day, 
 
430 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 will suffer itself to be cut loose from its country by 
 slavery discussions, is not a thing to be depended 
 on. Patriotism, to be good for much, must be made 
 of sterner stuff. 
 
 Moreover, what is true in the remarks I have 
 quoted applies solely to the government. Nobody 
 wants Mr. Lincoln to issue a proclamation an- 
 nouncing the object of the war to be the abolition 
 of slavery. It would not be true. The war is, 
 indeed, a war of self-defence, not of slavery extinc- 
 tion ; but this self-defence may come to demand 
 the extinction of slavery as a " military necessity." 
 Until then, government has no right to act in the 
 matter. " One thing at a time," cex^tainly. The 
 one thing on hand now is the war, which is to be 
 carried vigorously on to a successful termination. 
 But it is to be carried on by the government ; and 
 the readers and writers of books and of newspa- 
 pers generally, the speakers and hearers in popular 
 assemblies, the hosts and o-uests in drawino--rooms, 
 the knots at the exchanges and the village post- 
 offices, are not the government. Down below the 
 government lies the people ; and while the govern- 
 ment, at the bidding of the people, its creator and 
 master, is crushing rebellion, and uprooting trea- 
 son, and protecting loyalty, and vindicating its own 
 life, " we, the people," may legally and reasonably 
 take counsel together that the republic nevermore 
 receive harm from the hand that strikes at it now. 
 This is alike our duty and our right. Having pro- 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 431 
 
 vided the sinews of war, we have nothing further 
 to do with it but watch and wait and pray. It is 
 not in our power or our province to direct its 
 processes. Our interference woukl be intermed- 
 dling. We order its existence, but we delegate its 
 details to other hands. Yet we hold the power. 
 We are responsible to God, and we shall be held 
 to strict account by posterity, for the direction 
 which that power takes. When this people wills 
 to put away the accursed thing, the accursed thing 
 will go. While the armies are fighting, we should 
 plan. When they come back to us garlanded with 
 laurel, we should go out to meet them, not only 
 with o-rateful welcome, but with the death-warrant 
 in our hands of the wretch whose wrath they have 
 bearded, whose cunning they have foiled, and 
 whose power they have broken. 
 
 •Has not the accursed thing filled up the meas- 
 ure of its iniquities ? Read the roll of crimes. It 
 is written in blood. What woe it has wrought to 
 that unhappy race which has writhed under its 
 grinding heel, we only a little know. Into the 
 secrets of that prison-house we cannot penetrate. 
 Over that bridge of sighs we may not pass. Ever 
 and anon a miasmatic blast sweeps past our star- 
 tled ears. A sob, a wail, a shriek, a moan, floats 
 up the heavy air. A lurid light flames out, a 
 sickly sunshine, pale, and blue, and ghastly, flick- 
 ers for a moment on the sluggish bog, but the 
 silence aod darkness come back. Only the All- 
 
432 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 seeing Eye discerns. God forgive us that we have 
 been too insensate of our lowly brother's woe, too 
 unmindful of his weal. God overrule his long; 
 sorrow to his longer joy, as we believe He has 
 already begun to do, and turn away from us the 
 fierceness of His anger. 
 
 But what the grim Grendel has wrought for our 
 own race we better know. All these years he 
 had been working evil under the sun. Bench, 
 and bar, and hall, and pulpit, and counting-room, 
 and field, and fireside, have been tainted with his 
 presence. He has tampered with public and pri- 
 vate honesty. He has debased, degraded, and 
 brutalized American freemen, marring their birth- 
 right. He has turned their beautiful garden into 
 a wilderness. The ignorance that disgraces, the 
 vice that demoralizes, the barrenness that lays 
 waste the South, are all his work. He has made 
 our nation a stumbling-block, a hissing, and a by- 
 word to the nations. He has introduced discord 
 and brawling, insolence, rapacity, and murder, 
 into our national councils. The bitter hatred that 
 fires the South against the North is all his doing. 
 The financial derangement that weighs so heavily 
 and perplexes so fearfully, that plows furrows in 
 young brows, and baffles the wisdom of old expe- 
 rience, and scatters the fruits of life-long toil, and 
 imbitters homes with anxieties for the loved, — all 
 are of him. But the destruction of property, the 
 stagnation of business, the pressure of want, are 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 433 
 
 the least evils of Slavery. He has despoiled us 
 of our honor. He has poisoned our fountains. 
 He has polluted our holy things. The wide- 
 spread treachery that has desolated us like a 
 plague, and made us feel as if the solid ground 
 were failing beneath our feet, had its root and rise 
 in him. The broken oaths, the piled-up perjuries 
 that have at once exasperated and saddened us, lie 
 at his door. What shall a man give in exchange 
 for his soul ? What woe can fall upon a nation 
 like the disgrace of her children ? What is the 
 price of a mother's blush for her son's shame ? 
 
 Slavery has done more. His hands are red 
 and reeking. O my country ! The voice of your 
 children's blood crieth unto you from the Ever- 
 glades of Florida and the lowlands of Texas. It 
 was Slavery that led them and left them there to 
 die. It is Slavery that arms brother against 
 brother to-day. Young wives are widows, young 
 children are fatherless, old men go mourning to 
 the grave, matron and maiden are desolate, be- 
 cause Slavery has laid the delight of their eyes in 
 the dust. From once fair Maryland and royal 
 Virmnia — old and blighted and effete before 
 their time under the simoom of Slavery — pale, 
 still forms are borne back to us, that went out 
 overflowing with sweet life. The youngest, the 
 bravest, and the best have fallen. Love and lib- 
 erty and law, whatever is most beautiful, most 
 cherished, most sacred, this Slavery demands. 
 
 19 BB 
 
434 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 The tears of mothers, the silent anguish of' white- 
 haired fathers, the fears and foreboding and 
 heart-ache that sit by uncounted firesides, mark 
 where his footsteps have been. 
 
 Now let us make an end ; for why should we be 
 destroyed, we and our children ? When we scotch 
 the snake, why not kill him, and have done with 
 it ? We may disable him for a time ; but so long 
 as there is life left in him, there is an accursed 
 thing in the midst of thee. O Israel, thou canst 
 not stand before thine enemies until ye take away 
 the accursed thing from among you. We may 
 crush the rebellion, and reinstate peace, but if we 
 leave slavery where it was, if we simply restore the 
 statu quo., it will be sowing to the wind, and our 
 children will have to reap another whirlwind, only 
 more violent than that which is sweeping over us. 
 Just as long as slavery is a part of our institutions, 
 just so long is there a rotten pillar in our temple, 
 which may at any moment give way, and bring us 
 to confusion and destruction. To restore peace, 
 leaving slavery as it was, is to put a ship on her 
 course when she has been lightened by the spas- 
 modic efforts of " all hands at the pumps," with- 
 out stopping the hole through which the water 
 rushed in. It is to weed a garden by cutting off 
 the witch-prevent grass with a hoe. It is to allay 
 boiling and steam by pouring on cold water. We 
 want not only the hold emptied, but the leak 
 stopped. We want not only treason cut off, but 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 435 
 
 its roots dug up. We want not only the steam 
 checked, but the fire put out, so that there may be 
 no more steam made. We do not want every 
 generation or every century to be convulsed as we 
 have been. Let us make a full end. If we stop 
 short of that, all our work will have to be done 
 over again at some time. There is an irrepressible 
 conflict between freedom and slavery. There will 
 be an irrepressible agitation so long as they both 
 live. We never can have peace with this element 
 of discord. We cannot serve God and mammon. 
 One or the other must be dethroned. We are not 
 left in doubt as to which it shall be. Eighty years 
 of trial have revealed the true aspect and tenden- 
 cies of Slavery. Arraigned at the bar of civiliza- 
 tion and Christianity, the verdict is, " Guilty ! " 
 In her has been found the blood of prophets and 
 of saints. She is become the habitation of devils, 
 and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of 
 every unclean and hateful bird. All nations have 
 drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication ; 
 and I hear a voice from heaven saying, Come out 
 of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her 
 sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues ; for 
 her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath 
 remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as 
 she rewarded you, and double unto her double 
 according to her works : in the cup which she hath 
 filled, fill to her double. 
 
 I know that even slavery has its sunny side. 
 
436 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Kindness, benevolence, affection, devotion, self- 
 sacrifice, are not wanting there. Instruments of 
 love as well as instruments of cruelty are in that 
 habitation. Man is better as Avell as worse than 
 his system. But a luxurious vegetation springs up 
 from the deadly Pontine Marshes. It was a goodly 
 Babylonish garment, a splendidly massive golden 
 wedge, shekels of fine silver, that wrought folly 
 in Israel. But for all their gold and goodliness, 
 they Avere none the less an accursed thing. More- 
 over, the virtues that exist in slavery do not spring 
 from it, but in spite of it. Slavery does not cher- 
 ish them. It only cannot kill them. The destruc- 
 tion of slavery would not be the destruction, but 
 the cultivation, of every good thing that is found 
 in it. Its abolition will be the abolition of what is 
 hideous, an abomination to God and man. Every 
 pleasant I'elation, every opportunity for the exer- 
 cise of every virtue, will remain. Every grace 
 that makes slavery less repulsive will make free- 
 dom more beautiful. Every gem that adorns the 
 brow of slavery shall be transferred, to shine with 
 renewed and increasing lustre in the diadem of 
 freedom. Nothing will be permanently lost, but 
 that whose loss is infinite gain. 
 
 I know that slavery cannot be destroyed with- 
 out inconvenience, and perhaps positive suffering, 
 on the part of many who are guiltless of its sin ; 
 but it cannot be retained without immeasurably 
 greater. It is not a question between an evil and 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 437 
 
 a good, but between an evil and an evil. It was a 
 great deal of trouble to stop in the enemy's coun- 
 trj, take Israel by tribes, the tribes by families, 
 the families by households, the household man by 
 man, till Achan was taken. It was a sad thing to 
 bring Achan, and his sons, and his daughters, and 
 his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, 
 and all that he had, into the valley of Achor, and 
 stone him with stones, and burn him with fire ; 
 but it was a greater trouble, and a sadder thing, to 
 see Israel fleeing before their enemies, and the 
 hearts of the people becoming as water, and the 
 face of the Lord turned upon them in anger. It 
 is hard to lose a right eye ; but if thy right eye 
 offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. 
 It is not only no loss, it is profitable for thee that 
 one of thy members should perish, and not that 
 thy whole body should be cast into hell. In the 
 extirpation of the accursed thing, loyal hearts 
 may be alienated, undeserved indignation may be 
 aroused, unoffending persons may suffer, but in 
 the face of great events " the individual withers, 
 and the world is more and more." The evil will 
 be temporary, the good everlasting. So far as we 
 can, we will help our brothers bear the burden, 
 but the burden must be imposed. For their sakes 
 and for our own, for the nation's sake and for pos- 
 terity's sake, we must take this weight on our 
 shoulders. The scenes of the last few years, cvil- 
 minating in the horrors of the last few months. 
 
438 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 must never be repeated. It would be unspeakable 
 cowardice, and weakness, and selfishness, for us, 
 with our experience of its effects, to hand this 
 accursed thing down to trouble future Israels. 
 No opposition from any quarter must be allowed 
 to overbear our will to be free. All manner of 
 opposition from those whose affections or whose 
 selfishness is interested must be expected, and 
 met, and put aside. Slavery has glorified herself, 
 and lived deliciously ; and it is natural that the 
 kings of the earth who have committed fornication 
 and lived deliciously with her shall bewail her, 
 and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke 
 of her burning. And the merchants of the earth 
 shall weep and mourn over her ; for no man 
 buyeth their merchandise any moi'e. When the 
 fruits that her soul lusted after are departed from 
 her, and all things which were dainty and goodly 
 are departed from her, and she shall find them no 
 more at all, it is not strange if the merchants of 
 these things which were made rich by her shall 
 stand afar off, for the fear of her torment, weeping 
 and wailing, saying, Alas, alas ! for in one hour 
 so great riches has come to naught. And every 
 shipmaster, and as many as trade by sea, shall 
 stand afar off, and cast dust on their heads, and 
 cry, weeping and wailing, Alas, alas ! for in one 
 hour is she made desolate. But rejoice over her, 
 thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets ; 
 for God hath avenged you on her. 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 439 
 
 The constitvitionality of slavery has been the 
 stumbling-block to conscientious and practical 
 minds. Recognizing fully its undesirableness both 
 in a moral and economical point of view, they 
 have felt that they had neither tlie right nor 
 the power to lay their hands upon it. The only 
 weapon they could bring to bear against it was 
 influence. This discrepancy between conscience 
 and the Constitution has been fruitful of conflicts 
 between well-disposed citizens. One extreme has 
 gone so far as to set aside the Constitution because 
 it recognized slavery. They called it a covenant 
 with death and an agreement with hell. The 
 other extreme accepted slavery against their own 
 moral sense, because it was found in the Constitu- 
 tion, and they considered themselves bound by that 
 for better, for worse. Accepting its benefits, they 
 felt constrained to accept its drawbacks. I must 
 confess that the Constitution never troubled me in 
 the least. It is to be interpreted either by the let- 
 ter or by the spirit. If by the letter, there is no 
 recognition of slavery. The word "slave" or 
 " slavery " does not once occur. It talks of " per- 
 sons held to service," &c. It says such persons 
 " shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
 whom such service or labor may be due." Cer- 
 tainly. By all means. Common honesty requires 
 it. If a teacher is engaged to teach a year in 
 Mississippi, and falls homesick, and is so weak as 
 to run home instead of staying there and braving 
 
440 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 it out, stern justice should shut its eyes to his 
 weakness and force him to return and finish his 
 school. If a Northern blacksmith refuses to put 
 on Southern horses the shoes which Southern 
 money has paid for, and rushes to his mother 
 State for help, let her not shield the culprit, biit 
 set him vi et armis before his forge and anvil. If 
 a clergyman stealthily and feloniously leave his 
 parish before his time is out, bearing with him 
 both salary and sermons, O carry him back to 
 old Virginia, and make him px^each his barrelful. 
 Law and equity alike demand it, and all well-edu- 
 cated people will say. Amen ! But what service 
 is due between two parties whose only contract is 
 force on the one side and fear on the other ? 
 Who can show the papers wherein God made 
 over his ownership of his children to any man or 
 men ? If any slave-hunter can shov/ to the slave- 
 harborer a quitclaim deed from God of Sambo 
 or Andy, let Sambo and Andy be given up, but 
 not till then. When service can be proved to be 
 due, let service be exacted, but let not past ser- 
 vice exacted be the proof of future service due. 
 That would be to make wickedness self-genera- 
 tive. That would make the fact of plunder the 
 justification of plunder. That would turn Christ's 
 " If any man take away thy coat, let him have 
 thy cloak also," into " If thou canst take away 
 any man's coat, it establishes thy claim to his cloak 
 also," and would make a true thief's motto of 
 " Whatever is is ri^ht." 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 441 
 
 If it is the spirit of the Constitution tliat is to 
 be observed, we are all in delightful harmony 
 again. The spirit of the Constitution contem- 
 plates the speedy removal of slavery, not its in- 
 crease or perpetuity. The framers of the Consti- 
 tution did not design to cherish it into vigor and 
 power, but to break its fall. The safeguards they 
 threw around it were not to save it, but to make 
 it die easy ! Those who are its firmest support- 
 ers admit this. The so-called Vice-President of 
 the Southern Confederacy admits that the fathers 
 were antislavery. They could not conceive that 
 a nation which had just struck the fetters from its 
 own limbs should rivet them on the limbs of an- 
 other nation. They could not conceive that lib- 
 erty should be worsted in a nation which had just 
 come off conqueror in its name. Their fear was 
 lest liberty should degenerate into license. They 
 saw that there might be danger lest, in their enthu- 
 siasm for universal liberty, they might trample on 
 rights. So far as I remember, there are but three 
 allusions to slavery in the Constitution. None of 
 these ordain slavery. All three are rather pro- 
 tective. No unprejudiced reader can, I think, 
 deny that they are designed as breakwaters against 
 the rapidly and powerfully advancing tide of anti- 
 slavery. The framers of the Constitution evi- 
 dently believed they saw the signs of slavery's 
 speedy overthrow. They seem, indeed, to have 
 feared lest it should be overthrown before the 
 
 19* 
 
442 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 country could be disentangled from it, and so both 
 fall together. Slavery must fall, but they would 
 let it down softly, and give everybody time to 
 stand from under. The Constitution was so 
 framed that emancipation would make not even a 
 verbal change necessary. The spirit of the Con- 
 stitution is essentially antislavery. 
 
 So then we are at one both as to the letter and 
 the spirit, though we get there in a roundabout 
 way, — somewhat as light travels in that instru- 
 ment by which itinerant showmen enable the 
 astonished to read through a brick. By an ar- 
 rangement of mirrors, the rays of light are so 
 reflected that the image to be seen, instead of go- 
 ing straight to the eye, turns four angles, but 
 comes right side up at last. (Opticians will par- 
 don a confusion of popular and scientific language 
 in this illustration. Most of my readers are not 
 opticians, and will not know that everything is not 
 just as it should be.) 
 
 If this should seem a Jesuitical and tortuous 
 mode of reasoning, I will simply say, that, although 
 I do not think so, I w^ill not press the argument, 
 because I do not need it. For slavery neither 
 by name nor nature is ordained in the Constitu- 
 tion. It is recognized as a fact, but it is not estab- 
 lished as a law. Now the recognition of a fact 
 does not establish a law. It was a fact that thei"e 
 were persons in the country at the time who were 
 not free, and, though the fact could be glossed 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 443 
 
 over, It could not be entirely ignored ; but its 
 acknowledgment neither jvistifies nor perpetuates 
 it. To say that a man is not free, is a very differ- 
 ent thing from saying that he shall not be free. 
 
 " Slaves for want of legislation are not quite 
 like slaves by law." So long as slavery hid its 
 noisome head in the Dismal Swamps of the South, 
 I will admit that there may have been " reason 
 on both sides," but the secessionists have changed 
 all that. Slavery, under their lead, has abandoned 
 its stirring, silent, watchful passivity, and struck 
 openly. Even as a transient thing, the fathers 
 opposed slavery, but with an opposition which its 
 expected sj^eedy death made feeble. Supposing 
 that it would be confined to the very limited local- 
 ity where it then existed, and that it would shortly 
 perish before a rapidly advancing energy, educa- 
 tion, and Christianity, they contented themselves 
 with rocking the cradle of its declining years and 
 preparing for it decent burial. But even granting 
 that they legislated with its perpetuity in view, 
 they legislated only for an institution, not for a 
 mortal foe. Since their time, slavery has reared 
 its huge form in open hostility. It has striven to 
 strike down the pillars of state, unconscious that 
 its own ruin would be involved therein. It has 
 attempted the life of the nation. It has assaulted 
 with intent to kill. It is guilty of murder in the 
 first degree. Whatever constitutional riolit it had 
 to live, its wicked course has forfeited. It has no 
 
444 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 more lien upon life than the murderer. Just as 
 well might he lift his blood-stained hands, and 
 plead against his gallows sentence the acknowl- 
 edged right of all men to life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness, as slavery point to the Con- 
 stitution for protection. A woman promises to 
 obey her husband, but if he goes mad and bids 
 her fling herself from the garret window, does her 
 marriage vow bind her to do it ? A man takes a 
 pet kitten to please a departing friend, and prom- 
 ises to cherish it all his life as a memento. But 
 the kitten turns out to be a tiger, and puts the 
 man's life and the lives of his children in jeop- 
 ardy ; does his promise bind him ? The slavery 
 which our fathers saw was a playful, if rather 
 snappish kitten, compared to the ferocious tiger 
 into which the accursed thino; has grown. Now 
 lifting its fiery eyes from rending our children's 
 flesh, and licking its bloody chaps, and growling 
 its beastly wrath, shall it find safety in the Consti- 
 tution ? Heaven forbid ! Rather take the beast, 
 and with him the false prophets who deceived 
 them that had the mark of the beast, and them 
 that worshipped his image, and cast them into a 
 bottomless pit of reprobation, abhorrence, and in- 
 famy, in whose lowest deep a lower deep still 
 threatening to devour them opens wide. 
 
 I am sick at heart when I hear the word com- 
 promise. The rumors which have sometimes dark- 
 ened the air seem to have had no foundation ; yet, 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 445 
 
 because liabit becomes a second nature, I cannot 
 hear them without a thrill of dread. I could 
 almost wish the word even blotted from our lan- 
 guage. Doubtless there is such a thing as a just 
 and righteous compromise, — a relinquishment of 
 individual benefits for the general good, — a yield- 
 ing of desires for tlie sake of peace, — a saci'ifice 
 of prejudices, tastes, sentiments, interests, in defer- 
 ence to the weakness of others. But the compro- 
 mises with which Americans are most familiar are 
 such as to whelm the word in odium. We have 
 not so much compromised as submitted. We have 
 deferred to threats till we have earned the reputa- 
 tion of cowards. We have incurred the contempt, 
 even, of those for whose sake we have given up 
 our principles. We have sacrificed everything to 
 peace, and — Heaven be praised ! — we have not 
 got it. Besides being cowards, we have been fools. 
 We have been deaf to the voice of history, which 
 has always thundered in our ears that no nation 
 ever purchased a satisfactory peace. Rome bought 
 off her foes with gold. We have bought oflF ours 
 with honor, and the result is one. Every evil 
 spirit so exorcised has returned, bringing with him 
 seven other spirits more wicked than himself. But 
 the lesson went unlearned. One after another of 
 our great men has passed through the fire to Mo- 
 loch, and the cry is still. They come. Compromise 
 is the rock on which our lives, our fortunes, and. 
 our sacred honor have been stranded, and men 
 
446 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 dare to speak of it still. We have seen both its 
 wickedness and its folly. It has outraged our 
 moral sense, and has not accomplished anything ; 
 yet there are men who cling to it. Firmness in 
 the outset might have prevented the evil, and cer- 
 tainly could not have made it any worse than it is 
 now. If, when slavery thi-eatened disunion, we 
 had bvit stood our ground, this quarrel might never 
 have arisen, or, if it arose, it might have been 
 speedily allayed. Every time we have staved it 
 off by compromises, we have been giving it ampler 
 
 " room and verge enough, 
 The characters of hell to trace." 
 
 With every respite, the accursed thing has taken 
 breath, enlarged its lair, sharpened its claws, and 
 waxed fat. With every day, the arena of the con- 
 test has been widened, its results multiplied, and 
 its intensity and bitterness increased. It may in- 
 deed be, that, in the end, this postponement may 
 be seen to have resulted in good. It may be that 
 God will overrule the severity of the struggle to 
 the welfare of the combatants. It may be that, 
 if the question had been sooner and more easily 
 settled, treason would not have been so utterly 
 abolished as we trust it now will be. It may have 
 been allowed to attain its present enormity, that 
 men may awake fully to its character and conse- 
 quences, and trample it under foot forever. But, 
 although it is well enouo-h for us to console our- 
 selves with this reflection, the thing being done, it 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 447 
 
 is no justification to the authors, and no guide for 
 the future. It is always right to make the best of 
 a bad position, but it is never right to put ourselves 
 in a bad position because we can make the best of 
 it. Judas betrayed our Saviour to the cross, and 
 the world was redeemed, but no thanks to Judas. 
 However much God may overrule our sins to carry 
 on his own wise purposes, we are not justified in 
 continuing in our sins. Our business is to make 
 straight in the desert a highway for our God, — to 
 let our eyes look right on, and our eyelids straight 
 before us. If God can use evil for good, how much 
 more can he use good for good ! 
 
 As for compromise, it is not to be so much as 
 named among us. Compromise ! Compromise 
 with traitors ! Compromise with men who have 
 incurred the unutterable guilt of lifting their hand 
 against their own mother ! What fellowship hath 
 rio'hteousness with unrio-hteousness ? What com- 
 munion hath lijiht with darkness ? What concord 
 hath Christ with Belial ? 
 
 It is said that these vague reports are sent out as 
 " feelers." Let them be feelers ! Let them feel 
 the indignation and abhorrence and utter loathino; 
 of an outraged people, from whom virtue is not yet 
 clean gone forever ; and, when they have felt this 
 long enough and strong enough, let them draw 
 back into their dens and make report. 
 
 There is probably less danger of a compromise 
 now than there will be after the war shall have 
 
448 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 been finished. The indignity offered to onr flag 
 roused the patriotism and chivahy of the people, 
 and they are not likely to sheathe the sword till 
 the insult is avenged. The measure of their long- 
 sutferino; is the measure of their indignation. I 
 think they are more awake to the importance of 
 crushing this rebellion than they are to the impor- 
 tance of eradicating its cause. I fear that, when 
 the war is over, a mistaken magnanimity towards 
 the vanquished, an eagerness to show to the South 
 that we are not their enemies, the lack of a full 
 and clear comprehension of the magnitude of the 
 issues iiivolved and the bearing thereon of the con- 
 tinuance of slavery, will induce them to deal with 
 it leniently, and give it a new lease of life. I fear 
 that slavery now, as after the Revolutionary war, 
 dreading immediate destruction, will clamor or sue 
 for new or renewed guaranties, and that the peo- 
 ple, Avitli a false generosity, will grant them, and 
 so let the occasion for righting themselves pass by. 
 Slavery will lie bleeding and helpless at their feet, 
 and pity for a fallen foe will make them overlook 
 the enormity of his crimes and the malignity of his 
 nature. But slavery, in little or in great, loyal or 
 rebellious, tyrant or suppliant, is always and every- 
 where accursed, and we cannot stand till we take 
 away the accursed thing from among us. Cruel 
 in power, subtle in weakness, its malign purpose is 
 ever the same. Whether by a direct or a winding 
 way, it goes to one mark. It preys and feeds and 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 449 
 
 Moats on the souls of men. Enslaved and enslaver 
 are alike its victims. It is of the Devil, and the 
 lusts of its father it will do. Armed to the teeth 
 to rob us of our birthright, and speaking great, 
 swelling words of vanity, it is no more dangerous 
 than fawning at our feet and begging for guaran- 
 ties. Guaranty ! Yes, give it one more. Guar- 
 antee to it a swift death and a shameful burial. It 
 certainly seems to me that if, after our experience, 
 we let things go on just as they did before, .we 
 shall richly deserve to be oppressed and despoiled 
 evermore. It is not enough to restrict slavery. All 
 our restrictions will scarcely bring it into smaller 
 compass than it occupied eighty years ago. But 
 from that acorn sprang to-day. Experience has 
 proved that simple restrictions are not enough. 
 We must not only bind it with cords, but the cords 
 must be continually tightened to the death. We 
 should not only adopt measures that look to its 
 extinction, but measures that are to bring about 
 its extinction. Never, never again, must our be- 
 loved land receive such a stab as that from which 
 she is now bleeding. In what manner her redemp- 
 tion is to be accomplished — whether by a skilful 
 untwisting or a sharp and sudden cleaving of the 
 Gordian knot — we are neither able nor called 
 upon yet to decide ; but let it be done. It is no 
 hostility to the South that shall rid her fair borders 
 of the accursed thing, nor any true friendship for 
 the South that shall retain it there. Fire, and 
 
 cc 
 
450 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 earthquake, and a gi'eat and strong wind, may 
 accompany and retard its removal, but they are 
 of the Devil, and will pass away. And after 
 them shall come the still, small voice of the 
 Lord, to approve and soothe and bless, and then 
 shall we have that peace whose basis is right- 
 eousness, and whose effect is quietness and assur- 
 ance forever. 
 
 So far I had written weeks ago. Now, as I 
 take up my pen once more on this sad summer 
 evening, there falls upon my ear the inarticu- 
 late roar from a fearful battle-field, — the melan- 
 choly moan of wounded men ; and the shadow 
 of a million hearts rests heavily on mine. Be 
 pitiful, O God! 
 
 But the clangor of battle, the deathful embrace 
 of brothers, the wail of passion and pain and an- 
 guish, are the works and words of the accursed 
 thing. O thou accursed thing ! The Lord send 
 upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke in all 
 that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until 
 thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly. 
 The Lord make the pestilence cleave unto thee, 
 until he hath consumed thee from off the land. 
 The Lord smite thee with a consumption, and 
 with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with 
 an extreme burning, and with the sword, and 
 with blasting, and with mildew, that they pursue 
 thee till thou perish. The Lord cause thee to 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 451 
 
 be smitten before thine enemies, that thou go 
 out one way against them, and flee seven ways 
 before them. The Lord smite thee with mad- 
 ness, and bhndness, and astonishment of heart, 
 that thou grope at noonday, and be only op- 
 pressed, and spoiled evermore, and no man shall 
 save thee. 
 
 O my people ! I call heaven and earth to record 
 this day against you, that God hath set before you 
 life and death, blessing and cursing ; therefore 
 choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. 
 That thou may est love the Lord thy God, and that 
 thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest 
 cleave unto him, (for he is thy life and the length 
 of thy days,) that thou mayest dwell in the land 
 which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give 
 them. 
 
 Alas ! sadder than any moan from battle-field, 
 sadder than any mother's lament, comes to me the 
 voice of a people that will not be wise, — the voice 
 and vote of a people that thrusts out the Negro 
 from its borders, ignores his rights, his claims, his 
 weakness, and says to the Most High God, " Am 
 I my brother's keeper ? " 
 
 What we have most to fear in this war is not 
 iron rams nor infernal machines, but the stupidity 
 and wickedness of our own selves. It is this which 
 prolongs, and must prolong, the war more than 
 anything which the rebels can bring into the field, 
 or sail or sink in the water. Such a paragraph as 
 
452 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 the following, from the New York Times, is full 
 of shot and shell : — 
 
 " A prominent gentleman, and a Republican 
 office-holder, who has just returned from Cincin- 
 nati and. other Western points, reports a general 
 development of an intense anti-Abolition senti- 
 ment in all quarters of the West, since the Wen- 
 dell Phillips riot in Cincinnati. This feeling, he 
 reports, is based on the popular repugnance to 
 ' Negro equality,' toward which the Abolitionists 
 are supposed to be tending, — no white man being 
 so poor in his own esteem as not to feel him- 
 self ' better than a Nigger.' " 
 
 We have no right to expect peace, we should 
 have no desire for peace, so long as such a frame 
 of mind remains. If a year of war has done no 
 more for us than this, if a year of war leaves us 
 still in such bonds of iniquity, a thirty-years' war 
 will hardly more than free us, and I pray that the 
 war may never cease till we are free. I should 
 esteem as the greatest curse wuth which this nation 
 could be accursed, the coming of a peace when 
 there is no peace. We welcomed this war wath 
 a solemn joy, because we believed its crimson 
 hand would scatter 'broadcast over our country 
 the seeds of a new^ life. We believed that the 
 day of the Lord was nigh, when he wovild either 
 wrench up the evil or wrench up the nation. 
 We cannot think the last. We cannot yet read 
 a handwriting on the wall, " God hath numbered 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 453 
 
 thy kingdom, and finished it " ; nor can we be- 
 lieve that he has shaken this nation from centre 
 to circumference only to let ns settle on our lees 
 once moi'e, with our taste remaining in us, and 
 our scent not changed. Surely there is a future 
 for us only waiting our eye and touch. And if 
 in the nation the paltry and pitiful idea couched 
 in the closing paragraph which I have quoted 
 still obtains, we shall have no peace yet, though 
 Donelson has slain his thousands, and Pittsburg 
 his ten thousands. That miserable paganism 
 must be scourged out of us. We must be 
 driven by ten, and ten times ten plagues, if need 
 be, to recognize that God hath made of one 
 blood all the nations of the earth. The hire of 
 our laborers, which has been kept back by fraud, 
 crieth, and that cry has entered into the ears of 
 the Lord of Sabaoth. In his hand there is a 
 cup, and the wine is red ; and we, in such case, 
 the most wicked upon the face of the earth, shall 
 wring out and drink the dregs thereof, if we 
 shut our ears to that exceeding bitter cry. In 
 the thunders of the cannonade that roll from 
 shore to shore, I hear the voice of the Lord : 
 " Understand, ye brutish among the people, and 
 ye fools, when will ye be wise ? " Every stal- 
 wart form that sinks down upon the battle-field, 
 or wastes away in the hospital, is a messenger 
 from God, saying unto us, " Turn ye, turn ye, 
 for why will ye die ? " Let the land be sown 
 
454 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 thicker yet with graves. Let the bolts of Di- 
 vine wrath descend swift and ceaseless, till 
 through all the land there shall not be a house 
 in which there is not one dead, rather than the 
 hurt of the daughter of my people should be 
 slightly healed. If the sword should be sheathed 
 before slavery receives its death-blow, — before 
 its vile image falls face downward on the thresh- 
 old, — before our respect and deference and ten- 
 derness for it are obliterated, and its name and 
 memory uprooted, cast out, and trodden iinder 
 foot of men, — I should believe that God had 
 reserved us to a day of fiercer Avrath and more 
 signal destruction. I should believe that he 
 had given us this last golden opportunity to rid 
 ourselves of an incubus, a shame, a crime, and 
 that we, failing to embrace it, had incurred the 
 terrible doom, " He is joined to his idols, let him 
 alone." 
 
 So it seems to me that we are not yet ready 
 for peace, even if peace were ready for us. We 
 shall not be ready for it so long as we go 
 a-whoring after caste, and color, and other false 
 gods. The war has not yet done for us what 
 we hoped, and prayed, and worked for such a 
 war to do. It has broken up our idols, but it 
 has not extirpated idolatry from our hearts. If 
 it should cease to-day, I greatly fear that we 
 should go wallowing in the mire again to-morrow. 
 We are not yet, as a people, brought straight 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 455 
 
 up to an out-and-out abhorrence of slavery for 
 its own sake. We have not yet been set long 
 enough face to face with its barbarism. We 
 have not yet been lashed close enough cheek to 
 cheek with its body of death. Its slime and 
 stench have not gone deep enough into the secret 
 place where our souls abide, and turned them 
 sick with loathing. We execrate the derange- 
 ment and devastation which it has wrought in our 
 own homes, but we are not half awake to the 
 horrible crimes which it has committed against 
 the wretched race that has so long ground in its 
 prison-house of despair. It lifts its head from 
 bending over their prostrate forms, lifts its hand 
 di'ipping with our brother's blood, and turns its 
 glowering gaze on us, and leaves its baleful fin- 
 ger-prints on our door-posts, and we spring up 
 shuddering, to thrust it back ; but a simple folk, 
 whose only power to resist was patience to en- 
 dure, a mirthful people, made pathetic and apa- 
 thetic through woe, an affectionate people, borne 
 down, and held down, even, by their affections, 
 hold out chained hands, dumb hands, beseech- 
 ingly to us. Not only because we will not be 
 slaves, but because they shall be free, should our 
 swords leap from the scabbard, and our cannon 
 belch forth death. Down into the valley of the 
 shadow where they have walked so long, that 
 sword-shine has gleamed, that cannon-roar has 
 echoed, and carried light and hope for their 
 
456 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 darkness and dole. It belongs to us to keep 
 keen blades and strong arms till hope has be- 
 come fruition. It is not enough that we fight 
 to preserve our government. We must fight to 
 purify it. We should fight not only for our 
 own lives, but for the lives of these little ones. 
 We must not only break the heathen, but up- 
 hold the Christ. God will certainly not forget 
 these poor who have cried day and night unto 
 him. I tell you that he will avenge them 
 speedily, and if he does not avenge them by 
 us, he will avenge them on us. If we do not 
 fight for God, we shall fight against him, and if 
 haply we be found to fight against God, we shall 
 surely be on the losing side. 
 
 We do ill when we merge the moral aspects of 
 this war in its political aspects. We must act po- 
 litically, but we should think morally. And only 
 when our politics are moral can they be truly pol- 
 itic. Good morals may not always be good poli- 
 tics, but bad morals can never be. We cannot 
 free slaves because we think they ought to be free, 
 but we can think they ought to be free. We can 
 bring our opinions up abreast of our powers, and 
 shoot our desires and designs world-wide beyond 
 them. We can press, with our public spirit, and 
 our public opinion, and our private deeds, close up 
 behind the slowly advancing ranks of our soldiers 
 and our law-makers, and receive with open hands 
 the panting fugitives who came to them slaves, 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 457 
 
 and wliom they pass over to us men. These out- 
 raged people have demands upon us, though they 
 do not know it. They are grateful to us, though 
 we only discharge a late duty. We can and 
 should recognize their claims. We should pay, 
 not give. Liberty is their due. Education is 
 their birthright. Withheld, it has not been for- 
 feited. More than this, we should urge on our 
 soldiers and law-makers to greater deeds. Our 
 thoughts should be continually in advance of them, 
 though our acts can only follow in their wake. 
 Let this idle, brutal, and madly stupid talk of 
 fanaticism, and abolition, and emancipation cease. 
 Emancipation is the touchstone of this nation. 
 By this sign shall it be known whether we work 
 the works of God or of the Devil. The govern- 
 ment that we ai'e fighting to uphold is not the old 
 hulk, dismantled, water-logged, rolling, helpless, 
 becalmed, on slavery's dead sea of Sargossa, but a 
 new, strong, oaken-ribbed, iron-clad man-of-war, 
 with her steam up, her portholes open, her ban- 
 ner streaming, bearing down with her whole fire, 
 and force, and speed, and strength, upon that 
 mystery of iniquity ; and her sealed orders are to 
 loose the bonds of the oppressor, and to let the 
 oppressed go free. 
 
 What do these men want, — these denouncers 
 of fanaticism ? That slavery should be let alone ? 
 It Avill not be let alone. It shall not be let alone. 
 There is no such thing written in the book of fate. 
 
 20 
 
458 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 All the agitation that has been deprecated and 
 denounced for the last thirty, forty, fifty years is 
 but a ripple in a wine-glass compared with the 
 rage and madness, the sweep and swirl of the 
 heaving, seething, boiling ocean-billows that such 
 a settlement of the slave-question would stir up. 
 The infernal dragon has sown his teeth in every 
 valley, on every hill, by every water-course of the 
 North, and for every tooth springs up a man, and 
 every man a Garrison. For every spirit laid by 
 such exorcism shall come seven other spirits sev- 
 enty times more rabid with antislavery virus than 
 the first. Men talk about saving the country by 
 putting down Abolitionism. Have they been 
 asleep for these last thirteen months ? Do they 
 think the American people is the same people now 
 that it was then ? Do they think the old spectre 
 of dissolution is going to haunt us again, and the 
 old farce of Union-saving to be played over ? 
 Are they going to raise storms about the ears of 
 Abolitionists, as in the good old times ? 
 
 Yet there is danger just here. Though thou 
 shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat, with 
 a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from 
 him. Folly that is persistent, vigilant, deter- 
 mined, is more than a match for wisdom that is 
 careless, lazy, and diffusive. Weary of conflict, 
 longing for peace, we shall be very apt to declare 
 in a general way that slavery has received its 
 death-blow from the war, and so relax our efforts 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 459 
 
 and let things work. But a great wrong like 
 slavery, that appeals to indolence, and avai'ice, 
 and lust, and pride, and every evil passion and 
 possibility of the human heart, will stand a good 
 many death-blows without dying. It has received 
 hard knocks, but if the war stops now, what is 
 there to prevent slavery from girding up her loins 
 and starting afresh? It is not safe to let things 
 work unless you have put them in good working 
 order. It spoils the fabric and ruins the ma- 
 chinery. You must make things work right, or 
 they will work wrong. 
 
 We need not clamor for the immediate abolition 
 of slavery. But by all this most costly blood that 
 we have poured out on a thrice accursed soil, we 
 have a right to demand that no settlement of this 
 controversy shall be final, which does not provide 
 security for the future as well as indemnity for the 
 past. No settlement which merely holds out in- 
 ducements to abolition — which merely contem- 
 plates the possibilities of emancipation, and provides 
 for its contingencies — is enough. Our fathers 
 settled it so, and here we are. We want a plan 
 laid, landmarks set up, boundary-lines defined, and 
 a hand on the wall, visible through all the world, 
 writing before the doomed gaze of slavery, " Thus 
 far shalt thou go, and no farther ! God hath 
 numbered thy kingdom, and finished it ! " We 
 want a paved highway through every State, from 
 Maine to Texas, on which Wendell Phillips and 
 
460 COUNTRY LIVING. 
 
 Lloyd Garrison and Beecher and Sumner and 
 Lovejoy may go secure, lecturing, as they go, 
 to all who choose to hear them. We want the 
 scourging of women, the stealing of children, the 
 crushing of men, the stifling of free speech, all 
 the raving and ravening of the mother of harlots 
 and abominations, to cease. A year of agony that 
 shall have done this is a year of the right hand 
 of the Most High. A thousand years that shall 
 have failed to do it are but as the small dust of 
 the balance. 
 
 What matters it though we do not yet know 
 what shall be done with these freedmen of the 
 republic. The best way to find out what future 
 duty will be, is to do present duty. Present duty 
 is to free the slaves as fast as possible, and educate 
 them as fast as they are free, and keep our eyes 
 open all the while. If we do not do this, we are 
 more guilty than the slaveholders. They did but 
 accept slavery thrust upon them. We shall reject 
 liberty thrust upon us. God provided himself a 
 lamb when he would receive sacrifice. " Who shall 
 roll us away the stone from the door of the sepul- 
 chre ? " asked the mournful women, for the stone 
 was very gi'cat. But when they came to the sep- 
 ulchre, lo ! the angel of the Lord had already de- 
 scended from heaven, and rolled away the stone. 
 So let us go with sweet spices, not to embalm a 
 dead, but to anoint a risen Lord, in the person 
 of these his little ones. Never fear but that we 
 
OUR CIVIL WAR. 
 
 461 
 
 shall not only find the stone rolled back, but where 
 
 we looked to see a stark corse and garments of 
 
 the srave, we shall stand face to face with 
 
 an angel, whose countenance shall be 
 
 like lightning, and his raiment 
 
 white as snow ; and so this 
 
 sepulchre of death shall 
 
 be the temple of 
 
 the Lord of 
 
 life. 
 
 Cambridge: Stereotyped and P?mted.by^4EifeIfe)i, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
 
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