i AMERICAN LITERATURE THROUGH ILLUSTRATIVE READINGS BY SARAH E. SIMONS HElAn OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS, WASHINGTON, D. C. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON Copyright, 1915, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS FEB "6 1915 A39163i /m PREFACE This volume is intended as a handbook for high-school students of American literature. The purpose of the book is to give a fair view of what has been done and is still being done in the domain of American letters, and to stimu- late, through the illustrations, further reading in and ap- preciation of American authors. The work is by no means exhaustive, but it is believed that it is representative of the periods and the personalities in our literary develop- ment. A relatively large space has been given to Hving writers and recent Hterary activities because the high- hool pupil's interest is emphatically in the present-day ithor and his reading is chiefly from contemporary pro- uctions. Hence he needs direction and guidance in this field as nuch as anywhere. Moreover, through the study of the good modern writer, he may be drawn to the classic when he sees the dependence of the new writer on the old, when he realizes the modern author's appreciation of the great and the good in the achievement of earlier men. All work of a critical nature has been purposely omitted as outside the sphere of interest and comprehension of the high-school student. Even in the bibhographies no mention is made of books which are works of appraisal mainly. Further readings in the particular authors are indicated and reference is made to works which shed light on the period and on the environment of the author, for the sake of atmosphere and background. vi Preface The character of such a course in American literature as is intended by the use of this handbook is extensive rather than intensive. The pupils must, from the nature of the case, make free use of the library. The mere handling of many books is valuable training. A splendid opportu- nity is also offered for the preparation of special topics. Here the work should become more specialized and de- tailed than for the daily class preparation. And last, but not least important, such a course gives frequent chance for oral reading. Perhaps, indeed, this is the most ef- fective means of inducing appreciation of the author vmder consideration. Says Professor Rose Colby in Literature and Life in the School: "The best response to be secured by the teacher from the student," in the work on any bit of literature, "is the fullest interpretative vocal rendering of it." Thus such a course in American literature may be viewed incidentally from various angles as a course in library work, or a course in special-topic reports, or a course in oral reading — any one of which would be valuable per se. The bibliographies contain suggestions for further read- ings in the authors treated in this volume and also sug- gestions for readings in certain authors from whom, owing to copvTight restrictions, it was impossible to get extracts. Thanks are due to the publishers for permission to use the following selections: The Open Shop, by L>Tnan Abbott, The Outlook Company; The Story of the Doodang, from Uncle Remus and the Little Boy, by Joel Chandler Harris, Small, Maynard &"Co; To the Death, from The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, Some Memories of Childhood, from Richard Canrl, by Winston Churchill, The Child and America to England, by George E. Woodberry, Bimini and the Fountain of Youth, from Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Changes Preface vii of the Nineteenth Century, from Democracy and Education, by Nicholas Murray Butler, Ode on the Centenary of Abra- ham Lincoln, by Percy MacKaye, The Macmillan Company; The Wheat Pit, from The Pit, by Frank Norris, The Count and the Wedding Guest, by "0. Henry," Nature in Poetry, from Songs of Nature, by John Burroughs, The Man with the Hoe, by Edwin Markham, Doubleday, Page & Com- pany; The Call of the Bugles, by Richard Hovey, Duffield & Company; John Gilley, from John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman, by Charles W. Eliot, Hughes School Days, from Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker, by S. Weir Mitchell, China to the Ranging Eye, from The Changing Chinese, by Edward Alsworth Ross, The Century Company; The Old Man and Jim, by James Whitcomb Riley, The Bobbs-Merrill Com- pany; By the Pacific Oceati and Dead in the Sierras, by Joaquin Miller, The Death of McKinley, from The Lessons of the Tragedy, in The Voice of the Scholar, by David Starr Jordan, The Whi taker & Ray-Wiggin Company; Worth While and Recrimination, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, The W. B. Conkey Company; My Double and How He Undid Me, by Edward Everett Hale, Little, Brown & Company; His Christmas Miracle, from The Raid of the Guerilla, by Mary N. Murfree, The J. B. Lippincott Company; A Southern Girl, and My Little Girl, by Samuel Minturn Peck, The Frederick A. Stokes Company; The Vocabulary, from Self-Cultivation in English, by George H. Palmer, The Thomas Y. Crowell Company; The Death of the Flowers, To a Waterfowl, The Hurricane, and To the Fringed Gentian, by William Cullen Bryant, D. Appleton & Company; A Coon Song, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, The Feeling for Literature, from Books and Culture, by Hamilton Wright Mabie, The Other One, by Harry Thurston Peck, Dodd, Mead & Company. viii Preface The selections from the writings of Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Lowell, Hohnes, Stowe, Phelps, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Sill, Hay, Howells, James, Gilder, and Arlo Bates are reprinted by permission and special arrangement with the publishers, the Houghton Mifflin Gompany. S. E. S. CONTENTS PAGE General View i , General Bibliography 3 PART I. THE PRELIMINARY PERIOD CHAPTER I. THE COLONIAL EPOCH 1. Captain John Smith (i 580-1631) 5 2. Willlam Strachey (d. 1617) . 7 3. Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, and John Eliot — The Bay Psalm Book (1640) 9 4. Anne Bradstreet (1613-1672) 10 5. Benjamin Harris — The New England Primer (1687- 1690) .12 6. Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) 13 7. The Mathers — Richard (i 596-1669) ; Increase (1639- 1723); Cotton (1663-1728) ....... 14 8. Jonathan Edwards (1703-17 58) 16 9. John Woolman (1720-1772) 17 CHAPTER II. THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA I. Orations and State Papers 1. James Otis (1725-1783) 21 2. Benjamin Franklin (i 706-1 790) 24 3. George Washington (1732-1799) . 28 4. Patrick Henry (i 736-1 799) 3° ix X Contents PACE 5. Thomas Paine (i 737-1809) 33 6. Alexander Hamilton (i 757-1804) 34 7. Thomas Jefferson (i 743-1826) 37 II. Songs and Ballads 8. Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) 41 Q. Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842) 43 10. Ballad of Nathan Hale 45 11. John Trumbull (i 750-1831) 47 12. Joel Barlow (1754-1812) 49 13. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) 51 III. Other Literary Records 14. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) 53 15. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) .... 55 16. RoYALL Tyler (1757-1826) 58 IV. A Literary Anomaly 17. Phillis Wheatley Peters 59 PART II. THE NATIONAL PERIOD CHAPTER III. THE EARLY WRITERS , I. Great Names 1. Washington Irving (1783-1859) 63 2. James Fenimore Cooper (i 789-1851) 71 3. Daniel Webster (i 782-1852) 80 4. Edgar Allan Poe (i 809-1 849) 83 5. William Cullen Bryant (i 794-1878) 91 Contents xi II. Of Lesser Note PAGE 1. Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) 97 2. Joseph R. Drake (1795-1820) 98 3. Francis Scott Key (i 779-1843) . 100 4. Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) loi 5. Emma H. Willard (1787-1870) 102 6. John Howard Payne (1791-1852) 103 7. George Morris (1802-1864) 104 8. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1807-1867) . . . . 105 9. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) no 10, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882) . . . .in 11, Rev. Samuel F. Smith (1808-1895) • • • • • 118 CHAPTER IV. WRITERS OF THE MID-CENTURY AND AFTER I. Great Names • Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 120 Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862) 131 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) 133 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). . . 147 John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) .... 161 James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) 166 Oliver Wendell Holmes (i 809-1 894) 177 II. Of Lesser Note A. Prose — Fiction 1. Harriet Beecher Stowe (181 2-1896) 193 2. Helen Fiske Jackson (1831-1885) 197 3. Louisa M. Alcott (1832-1888) 200 \ xii Contents PACK Charles F. Browne (1834-1867) 201 Henry W. Shaw (1818-1885) 202 Edgar Wilson Nye (i 850-1 896) 203 Donald Grant Mitchell (1822-1908) 204 Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) 207 Lewis Wallace (1827-1905) 217 Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902) 217 Bret Harte (1839-1902) • . 223 Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) 224 Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910) 224 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-191 i) . . 229 B. Prose — Non-Fiction Edward Everett (1794-1865) 235 Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 240 Wendell Philips (1811-1884) . . . . . . .242 John Lothrop Motley^ (1814-1877) 244 Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) 247 Bayard Tayloi^ (1825-1878) 251 George William Curtis (1824-1892) 254 Francis Parkman (1823-1893) 256 John Fiske (1842-1901) 259 Henry W. Grady^ (1850-1889) 259 Charles Eliot Norton^ (1827-1908) 262 Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) . . . 264 C. Poetry I. Albert Pike (1809-1891) 268 3. Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) 270 Contents xiii PAGE Henry Timrod (1829-1867) 273 Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886) 274 ic Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) 275 ■ Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864) 280 v Alice Gary (1820-1871) 281 Phcebe Gary (1824-1871) 282 Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872) . . . . . 283 * Emf.Y Dickinson (1830-1886) 285 Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) 286 Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) 287 Walt Whitman (18x9-1892) 287 • Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) . . . . 290 > Julla Ward Howe (1819-1910) 291 ' John Hay (1838-1905) 292 CHAPTER V. LATER AND PRESENT-DAY WRITERS I. Prose— Fiction 1. S. Weir Mitchell (1830-1914) . . 2. Willlam Dean Ho wells (1837- ) 3. Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838- ) 4. George Washington Gable (1844- 5. Joel Ghandler Harris (1848- 1908) 6. Thomas Nelson Page (1853- ) . 7. Ruth McEnery Stuart (1856- ) 8. Henry R. James (1843- ) . . 9. Frances Hodgsqn Burnett (1849- 296 302 305 308 310 313 320 320 324 Contents VKGZ Mary N. Murfree (1850- ) 326 Margaret Wade Deland (1857- ) 331 Hamlin Garland (i860- ) 331 Ernest Thompson-Seton (i860- ) 331 John Fox, Jr. (1861- ) 333 Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman (1862- ) • • • • 335 Edith Wharton (1862- ) 335 Richard Harding Davis (1864- ) 341 Frank. Norkis (1870-1902) 344 WiLLLAM Sidney Porter (0. Henry) (1867-1910) . 350 Winston Churchill (187 i- ) 355 Jack London (1876- ) 359 II. Prose— Non-Fiction Lyman Abbott (1835- ) 362 2. John Burroughs (1837- ) 364 3. Hamilton Wright Mabie (1845- ) 366 4. Agnes Repplier (1857- ) 368 5. Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ) 368 6. Booker T. Washington ' night, Had a murderous will; had a murderous will; They took him and bore him afar from the shore, To a hut on the hill; to a hut on the hiU. 46 American Literature No mother was there, nor a friend who could cheer, In that Httle stone cell; in that Uttle stone cell. But he trusted in love, from his Father above. In his heart all was well; in his heart all was well. An ominous owl, with his solemn bass voice. Sat moaning hard by; sat moaning hard by: " The tyrant's proud minions most gladly rejoice, For he must soon die; for he must soon die." The brave fellow told them, no thing he restrained, — The cruel general ! the cruel general ! — His errand from camp, of the ends to be gained. And said that was all; and said that was all. They took him and bound him and bore him away, Down the hill's grassy side; down the hill's grassy side. 'Twas there the base hireUngs, in royal array, jffis cause did deride; his cause did deride. Five minutes were given, short moments, no more, For him to repent; for him to repent. He prayed for his mother, he asked not another. To Heaven he went; to Heaven he went. The faith of a martyr the tragedy showed, As he trod the last stage; as he trod the last stage. And Britons will shudder at gallant Hale's blood, As his words do presage ; as his words do presage. "Thou pale king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe. Go frighten the slave; go frighten the slave; Tell tyrants, to you their allegiance they owe. No fears for the brave; no fears for the brave." Prominent among the Revolutionary poets were John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, and Timothy Dwight, all three of them Yale men. They belonged to a group of Hterary men known as the "Hartford Wits." The Revolutionary Era 47 II. John Trumbull (i 750-1831), the best known of the "Hartford Wits," wrote many poems, the most ambitious being McFingal, a mock heroic epic modelled on Butler's Hudi- bras. It depicts the troubles of a Tory squire surrounded by patriotic Americans. This was the most famous political satire of the Revolution. An extract follows. McFingal to the Whigs (From McFingal, Canto II) Your boasted patriotism is scarce, And country's love is but a farce: For after all the proofs you bring, We Tories know there's no such thing. Hath not Dalrymple show'd in print. And Johnson too, there's nothing in 't; Produced you demonstration ample, From others' and their own example, That self is still, in either faction, The only principle of action; The loadstone, whose attracting tether Keeps the politic world together: And spite of all your double dealing, We all are sure 'tis so, from feeling. And who believes you will not run ? Ye're cowards, every mother's son; And if you offer to deny. We've witnesses to prove it by. Attend th' opinion first, as referee. Of your old general, stout Sir Jeffrey; Who swore that with five thousand foot He'd rout you all, and in pursuit Run thro' the land, as easily As camel thro' a needle's eye. Did not the mighty Colonel Grant Against your courage pour his rant, Affirm your universal failure In every principle of valour, And swear no scamperers e'er could match you, 48 Americafi Literature So swift, a bullet scarce could catch you? And will you not confess, in this A judge most competent he is; Well skiird on running to decide. As what himself has often tried ? Have you not roused, his force to tn- on, That grim old beast the British Lion; And know you not. that at a sup He"s large enough to eat you up? Britain, depend on 't. will take on her T' assert her dignity and honor. And ere she'd lose your share of pelf, Destroy your country, and herself. For has not North declared they fight To gain substantial rev'nue by 't Denied he'd ever deign to treat, TiU on your knees and at his feet? A TniE-WoRN Belle (From Th<' Progress of DuJmss) Poor Harriet now hath had her day; Xo more the beaux confess her sway; Xew beauties push her from the stage; She trembles at th' approach of age, And starts to \-iew the alter'd face, That wrinkles at her in her glass: So Satan, in the monk's tradition, Fear'd when he met his apparition. At length her name each coxcomb cancels From standing lists of toasts and angels; And slighted where she shone before, A grace and goddess now no more. Despised by all. and doom'd to meet Her lovers at her ri\*al's feet. She flies assemblies, shuns the ball, And cries out, \-anity, on all; TJie Revolutionary Era 49 Affects to scorn the tinsel-shows Of glittering belles and gaudy beaxix; Nor longer hopes to hide by dress The tracks of age upon her face. Now careless grown of airs polite, Her noonday nightcap meets the sight; Her hair uncomb'd collects together. With ornaments of many a feather; Her stays for easiness thrown by, Her rumpled handkerchief awry, A careless figure half undress'd (The reader's wits may guess the rest) ; All points of dress and neatness carried, As though she'd been a twelvemonth married; She spends her breath, as years prevail. At this sad wicked world to rail, To slander all her sex impromptu. And wonder -what the times will come to. 12. Joel Barlow (1754-1812) wrote a long epic in serious vein, The Columhiwi, but is remembered to-day for the humor- ous poem The Hasty Pudding, which he dedicated to Martha Washington. (From The Hasty Pudding. A Poem in Three Cantos. Written at Chambery, in Savoy, January, 1793. New Haven, 1796) He makes a good breakfast who mixes pudding with molasses. T« Mrs. Washington Madam: — A simplicity in diet, whether it be considered with reference to the happiness of individuals or the prosperity of a nation, is of more consequence than we are apt to imagine. In recommending so great and necessar}- a \irtue to the rational part of mankind, I wish it were in my power to do it in such a manner as would be likely to gain their attention. I am sen- sible that it is one of those subjects in which example has in- finitely more power than the most con\-incing argimients, or the highest charms of poetry. Goldsmith's Deserted Village , though possessing these two advantages in a greater degree than any other work of the kind, has not pre\,'ented \-illages in England from being deserted. The apparent interest of the 50 American Litei-ature rich individuals, who form the taste as well as the laws in that countn,', has been against him; and with that interest it has been vain to contend. The vicious habits which in this little piece I endeavor to combat, seem to me not so difficult to cure. No class of peo- ple has any interest in supporting them, unless it be the interest which certain families may feel in vying with each other in sumptuous entertainments. There may indeed be some in- stances of depraved appetites which no arguments will conquer; but these must be rare. There are very few persons but would always prefer a plain dish for themselves, and would prefer it likewise for their guests, if there were no risk of reputation in the case. This difficulty can only be removed by example; and the example should proceed from those whose situation enables them to take the lead in forming the manners of a nation. Persons of this description in America, I should hope, are neither above nor below the influence of truth and reason when conveyed in language suited to the subject. WTiether the manner I have chosen to address my arguments to them be such as to promise any success, is what I cannot decide. But I certainly had hopes of doing some good, or I should not have taken the pains of putting so many rhymes together; and much less should I have ventured to place your name at the head of these observations. Your situation commands the respect and your character the affections of a numerous people. These circumstances impose a duty upon you, which I believe you discharge to your own satisfaction and that of others. The example of your domestic virtues has doubtless a great effect among your coun- trywomen. I only wish to rank simplicity of diet among the \-irtues. In that case it will certainly be cherished by you and I should hope more esteemed by others than it is at present. The Author. The H.\sty Pudding— Canto I Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise. To cramp the day and hide me from the skies; Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurled. Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world, I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, A \-irgin theme, unconscious of the Muse, The Revolutionary Era 51 But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire The purest frenzy of poetic fire. Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd Who hurl your thunders round the epic field; Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring; Or on some distant fair your notes employ, And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy. I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel. My morning incense, and my evening meal. The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl, Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul. The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine, Its substance mingle, married in with thine, Shall cool and temper thy superior heat, And save the pains of blowing while I eat. Oh ! could the smooth, the emblematic song Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue, Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime, And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme, No more thy awkward unpoetic name Should shun the muse, or prejudice thy fame; But rising grateful to the accustom'd ear, All bards should catch it, and all realms revere ! 13. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, was at one time President of Yale College. One of his well-remembered songs follows. Psalm CXXXVII (From Dwight's revision of Watts's Psalms) I love thy kingdom. Lord, The house of thine abode. The church, our blest Redeemer sav'd With his own precious blood. I love thy church, O God ! Her walls before thee stand, 52 American Literature Dear as the apple of thine eye, And graven on thy hand. If e'er to bless thy sons My voice, or hands, deny, These hands let useful skill forsake, This voice in silence die. For her my tears shall fall, For her my prayers ascend; To her my cares and toils be given Till toils and cares shall end. Beyond my highest joy I prize her heavenly ways. Her sweet communion, solemn vows, Her hymns of love and praise. Jesus, thou friend divine, Our Saviour and our King, Thy hand from every snare and foe Shall great deliverance bring. Sure as thy truth shall last. To Zion shall be given The brightest glories earth can yield. And brighter bhss of heaven. III. Other Literary Records This period is interesting from the purely literary view- point as being an era of beginnings. At this time we dis- cover both the first American poet and the first American novelist. Philip Freneau, in such poems as The Wild Honeysuckle, is decidedly the forerunner of Bryant; and Charles Brockden Brown, the father of American fiction, is the herald of Poe. Here, too, we find the beginnings of the American drama. In April, 1767, The Prince of The Revolutionary Era 53 Parthia, a tragedy written by Thomas Godfrey, a young American author, was performed at the Southwark Theatre, Philadelphia. Hugh H. Brackenridge in 1776 wrote a play called The Battle of Bunker Hill. He was then a school-teacher, and the play was presented by his pupils. Afterward he became a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The first American play to be produced by a professional company was The Contrast, a comedy of American life compared to English. It was written by Royall Tyler and performed in New York, April 16, 1787. 14. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) was born in New York City and educated at Princeton. During the Revolution he was captured by the British and spent some time on a prison ship. He wrote much that is of slight literary worth, but a few lyrics that reveal the true poet, as, for instance. The Wild Honeysuckle and On a Honey Bee Drinking from a Glass of Wine, both of which are given below. The Wild Honeysuckle Fair flower, that dost so comely grow. Hid in this silent, dull retreat. Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet: No roving foot shall crush thee here. No busy hand provoke a tear. By Nature's self in white arrayed. She bade thee shun the vulgar eye. And planted here the guardian shade, And sent soft waters murmuring by; Thus quietly thy summer goes, Thy days declining to repose. Smit with those charms, that must decay, I grieve to see your future doom; They died — nor were those flowers more gay. 54 American Literature The flowers that did in Eden bloom; Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power, Shall leave no vestige of this flower. From morning suns and evening dews At first thy little being came; If nothing once, you nothing lose, For when you die you are the same; The space between is but an hour, The frail duration of a flower. On a Honey Bee Drinking from a Glass of Wine and Drowned Therein Thou, born to sip the lake or spring, Or quaff the waters of the stream. Why hither come on vagrant wing? — Does Bacchus tempting seem — Did he, for you, this glass prepare? — Will I admit you to a share ? Did storms harass or foes perplex. Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay — Did wars distress, or labours vex, Or did you miss your way ?— A better seat you could not take Than on the margin of this lake. Welcome ! — I hail you to my glass : All welcome, here, you find; Here let the cloud of trouble pass, Here, be all care resigned. — This fluid never fails to please. And drown the griefs of men or bees. What forced you here we cannot know, And you will scarcely tell — But cheery we would have you go And bid a glad farewefl; The Revolutionary Era 55 On lighter wings we bid you fly, Your dart will now all foes defy. Yet take not, oh ! too deep to drink, And in this ocean die; Here bigger bees than you might sink, Even bees full six feet high. Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said To perish in a sea of red. Do as you please, your will is mine; Enjoy it without fear — And your grave will be this glass of wine, Your epitaph— a tear — Go, take your seat in Charon's boat, We'll tell the hive, you died afloat. 15. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) was born in Philadelphia but spent most of his life in New York. He made literature the business of his life ; in fact, he was the first Amer- ican to adopt letters as a profession. His first story, Wieland, was immediately successful. There is a touch of both realism and weirdness in his tales. Embedded in his long rambling romances are many short stories, but he lacked the genius to crystallize them into artistic form. The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia (From Arthur Merwyn) In proportion as I drew near the city, the tokens of its calamitous condition became more apparent. Every farm- house was filled with supernumerary tenants, fugitives from home, and haunting the skirts of the road, eager to detain every passenger with inquiries after news. The passengers were numerous; for the tide of emigration was by no means exhausted. Some were on foot, bearing in their countenances the tokens of their recent terror, and filled with mournful reflections on the forlornness of their state. Few had secured to themselves an asylum; some were without the means of paying for victuals or lodgings 56 American Literature for the coming night; others, who were not thus destitute, yet knew not whither to apply for entertainment, every house being already overstocked with inhabitants, or bar- ring its inhospitable doors at their approach. . . . Between these and the fugitives whom curiosity had led to the road, dialogues frequently took place, to which I was suffered to listen. From every mouth the tale of sorrow was repeated with new aggravations. Pictures of their own distress, or of that of their neighbors, were exhibited in all the hues which imagination can annex to pestilence and poverty. . . . My frequent pauses to listen to the nar- ratives of travellers contributed ... to procrastination. The sun had nearly set before I reached the precincts of the city. I pursued the track which I had formerly taken, and entered High Street after nightfall. Instead of equipages and a throng of passengers, the voice of levity and glee, which I had formerly observed, and which the mildness of the season would, at other times, have produced, I found nothing but a dreary solitude. The market place, and each side of this magnificent avenue, were illuminated, as before, by lamps; but between the verge of Schuylkill and the heart of the city I met not more than a dozen figures; and these were ghost-like, wrapped in cloaks, from behind which they cast upon me glances of wonder and suspicion, and as I approached, changed their course, to avoid touching me. Their clothes were sprinkled with vinegar and their nostrils defended from contagion by some powerful perfume. I cast a look upon the houses, which I recollected to have formerly been, at this hour, brilliant with lights, resound- ing with lively voices, and thronged with busy faces. Now they were closed, above and below; dark, and without tokens of being inhabited. From the upper windows of some, a gleam sometimes fell upon the pavement I was traversing, and showed that their tenants had not fled, but were secluded or disabled These tokens were new, and awakened all my panics. Death seemed to hover over this scene, and I dreaded that the floating pestilence had already lighted on my frame. The Revolutionary Era 51 I had scarcely overcome these tremors, when I approached a house, the door of which was opened, and before which stood a vehicle, which I presently recognized to be a hearse. The driver was seated on it. I stood still to mark his visage, and to observe the course which he proposed to take. Presently a coffin, borne by two men, issued from the house. The driver was a negro; but his companions were white. Their features were marked by ferocious in- difference to danger or pity. One of them, as he assisted in thrusting the coffin into the cavity provided for it, said, ... "It wasn't the fever that ailed him, but the sight of the girl and her mother on the floor ... it wasn't right to put him in his coffin before the breath was fairly gone. I thought the last look he gave me told me to stay a few minutes." "Pshaw! He could not live" [said the other]. "The sooner dead the better for him; as well as for us. Do you mark how he eyed us when we carried away his wife and daughter? I never cried in my Hfe, since I was knee- high, but curse me, if I ever felt in better tune for the business than just then. Hey!" continued he, looking up, and observing me standing a few paces distant, and listen- ing to their discourse; "what's wanted? Anybody dead?" I stayed not to answer or parley, but hurried forward. My joints trembled, and cold drops stood on my forehead. I was ashamed of my own infirmity; and, by vigorous efforts of my reason, regained some degree of composure. The evening had now advanced, and it behooved me to procure accommodation at some of the inns. ... I proceeded, in a considerable degree at random. At length I reached a spacious building in Fourth Street, which the sign-post showed me to be an inn. I knocked loudly and oftpn at the door. At length a female opened the window o^ the second story, and, in a tone of peevish- ness, demanded what I wanted. I told her that I wanted lodging. "Go hunt for it somewhere else," said she; "you'll find none here." I began to expostulate; but she shut the win- dow with quickness and left me to my own reflections. . . . 58 American Literature i6. Royall Tyler (1757-1826), a Vermont jurist, was our first successful playwright. He wrote many dramas, the most popular of which was The Contrast, an extract from which is given below. The First American Comedy Regularly Produced (the contrast, a comedy in five acts: written by a citizen of the united states — performed in 1 787, at the theatre in john street, new york — 179o.) (From The Advertisement) In justice to the Author it may be proper to observe that this Comedy has many claims to the public indulgence, independent of its intrinsic merits: It is the first essay of American genius in a difficult species of composition; it was written by one who never critically studied the rules of the drama, and, indeed, had seen but few of the exhibitions of the stage; it was undertaken and finished in the course of three weeks; and the profits of one night's performance were appropriated to the benefit of the sufferers by the fire at Boston. Prologue, In Rebuke Of The Prevailing Anglomania Exult each patriot heart ! — this night is shown A piece, which we may fairly call our own; Where the proud titles of "My Lord ! Your Grace !" To humble "Mr." and plain "Sir" give place. Our author pictures not from foreign climes The fashions, or the follies of the times; But has confined the subject of his work To the gay scenes — the circles of New York. On native themes his Muse displays her powers; If ours the faults, the virtues too are ours. Why should our thoughts to distant countries roam, When each refinement can be found at home ? Who travels now to ape the rich or great, To deck an equipage and roll in state; To court the graces, or to dance with ease, — Or by hypocrisy to strive to please ? Our free-born ancestors such arts despised; The Revolutionary Era 59 Genuine sincerity alone they prized ; Their minds with honest emulation fired, To solid good — not ornament — aspired ; Or, if ambition roused a bolder flame, Stern virtue throve, where indolence was shame. But modern youths, with imitative sense, Deem taste in dress the proof of excellence ; And spurn the meanness of your homespun arts. Since homespun habits would obscure their parts; Whilst all, which aims at splendor and parade. Must come from Europe, and be ready-made. Strange we should thus our native worth disclaim, And check the progress of our rising fame. Yet one, whilst imitation bears the sway. Aspires to nobler heights, and points the way. Be roused, my friends ! his bold example view; Let your own bards be proud to copy you ! Should rigid critics reprobate our play. At least the patriotic heart will say, "Glorious our fall, since in a noble cause; The bold attempt alone demands applause." Still may the wisdom of the Comic Muse Exalt your merits, or your faults accuse. But think not 'tis her aim to be severe; — We all are mortals, and as mortals err. If candor pleases, we are truly blest; Vice trembles, when compelled to stand confessed. Let not light censure on your faults offend. Which aims not to expose them, but amend. Thus does our author to your candor trust; Conscious the free are generous, as just. IV. A Literary Anomaly 17. Phillis Wheatley Peters, a negro girl brought from Africa at the age of eight, became a slave in a Boston family. She was very precocious, learned easily, and began early to write verses imitating the English poets of the eighteenth cen- tury. A volume of her poems was published in 1773. They show little creative talent but ready imitative ability. American Literature To The Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn, Fair Freedom rose New England to adorn ! The northern clime beneath her genial ray, Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway: Elate with hope her race no longer mourns, Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns, While in thine hand with pleasure we behold, The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold. Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies She shines supreme, while hated Faction dies. Soon as appeared the Goddess long desired, Sick at the view, she languished and expired; Thus from the splendors of the morning light The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night. No more, America, in mournful strain, Of wrongs, and grievance unredressed complain; No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain. Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand Had made, and with it meant to enslave the land. Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song. Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung. Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feehng hearts alone best understood, I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatched from Afric's fancied happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest. What sorrows labor in my parents' breast ! Steeled was that soul and by no misery moved That from a father seized his babe beloved : Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway ? The Revolutionary Era (6^ BIBLIOGRAPHY I. For Further Illustration Orations and State Papers Brewer, D. J.: The World's Best Orations. Bryan, W. J.: The World's Famous Orations. (Vol. VIII.) Cairns, W. B.: Selections from Early American Writers. 1607- 1800. Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. Depew, C. M.: The Library of Oratory. (Vol. III.) Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L.: Cyclopedia of American Liter- ature. Moore, F.: American Eloquence. Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. (Vols. II, III, IV.) Songs and Ballads Long, A. W.: American Poems. 1776-1Q00. Matthews, B.: Poems of American Patriotism. Moore, F.: Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution. Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. (Vol. III.) Stevenson, Burton E.: Poems of American History. Other Literary Records Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L.: Cyclopcsdia of American Litera- ture. Stedman, E. C: An American Anthology. Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. (Vols. Ill and IV.) II. For the Period Churchill, Winston: Richard Carvel. Cooper, J. F.: The Spy. The Pilot. Emerson, R. W. : Concord Hymn. Ford, Paul Leicester: Janice Meredith. Johnston, Mary: Lewis Rand. 62 American Literature Longfellow, H. W. : Paul Revere's Ride. Mitchell, S. Weir: Hugh Wynne. Pierpont, John: Warren's Address. Trumbull, James H.: The Origin of McFingal. In Stedman and Hutchinson, vol. VII. (See also General Bibliography, supra, p. 3.) PART II THE NATIONAL PERIOD CHAPTER III THE EARLY WRITERS I. Great Names With the close of the Revolution, the adoption of the Constitution, and the launching of the ship of state Amer- ica came to a realization of self and began to exhibit that self in literary as well as political activity. Our authors for the first time wrote as Americans, our contribution to the world of literature from now on was a distinctive prod- uct, the creation of a new people. I. "Washington Irving (i 783-1859), the "Father of Amer- ican Letters," was the first American writer to achieve inter- national fame. He spent many years abroad, was Secretary to the American legation in London and afterward Minister to Spain. In 1830 he was awarded one of the two medals given annually by the Royal Society of Literature to authors of distinguished merit. Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. He wrote under the pseudonyms of Diedrich Knicker- bocker, Jonathan Oldstyle, and Geoffrey Crayon. His Knicker- bocker History of New York is considered a masterpiece of American humor. Irving's best work is to be found in his sketches. His home, Sunnyside at Tarrytown on the Hudson, is sometimes spoken of as the Abbotsford of America because its popularity with tourists is about as great as that of the home of Sir Walter Scott. 63 04 American Literature The Adventure of My Aunt (From Tales of a Traveller) My aunt was a lady of large frame, strong mind, and great resolution: she was what might be termed a very manly woman. My uncle was a thin, puny Httle man, very meek and acquiescent, and no match for my aunt. It was observed that he dwindled and dwindled gradually away, from the day of his marriage. His wife's powerful mind was too much for him; it wore him out. My aunt, however, took all possible care of him; had half the doc- tors in town to prescribe for him; made him take all their prescriptions, and dosed him with physic enough to cure a whole hospital. All was in vain. My uncle grew worse and worse the more dosing and nursing he underwent, until in the end he added another to the long Hst of matri- monial victims who have been killed with kindness. "And was it his ghost that appeared to her?" asked the inquisitive gentleman, who had questioned the former story-teller. "You shall hear," replied the narrator. — My aunt took on mightily for the death of her poor husband. Perhaps she felt some compunction at having given him so much physic, and nursed him into the grave. At any rate, she did all that a widow could do to honor his memory. She spared no expense in either the quantity or quality of her mourning weeds; wore a miniature of him about her neck as large as a Httle sun-dial, and had a full length por- trait of him always hanging in her bed-chamber. All the world extolled her conduct to the skies; and it was deter- mined that a woman who behaved so well to the memory of one husband deserved soon to get another. It was not long after this that she went to take up her residence in an old country-seat in Derbyshire, which had long been in the care of merely a steward and a house- keeper. She took most of her servants with her, intending to make it her principal abode. The house stood in a lonely, wild part of the country, among the gray Derby- The Early Writers 65 shire hills, with a murderer hanging in chains on a bleak height in full view. The servants from town were half frightened out of their wits at the idea of living in such a dismal, pagan-looking place; especially when they got together in the servants' hall in the evening, and compared notes on all the hob- goblin stories picked up in the course of the day. They were afraid to venture alone about the gloomy, black look- ing chambers. My lady's maid, who was troubled with nerves, declared she could never sleep alone in such a "gashly rummaging old building"; and the footman, who was a kind-hearted young fellow, did all in his power to cheer her up. My aunt was struck with the lonely appearance of the house. Before going to bed, therefore, she examined well the fastnesses of the doors and windows; locked up the plate with her own hands, and carried the keys, together with a Httle box of money and jewels, to her own room; for she was a notable woman, and always saw to all things herself. Having put the keys under her pillow, and dis- missed her maid, she sat by her toilet, arranging her hair; for being, in spite of her grief for my uncle, rather a buxom widow, she was somewhat particular about her person. She sat for a little while looking at her face in the glass, first on one side, then on the other, as ladies are apt to do when they would ascertain whether they have been in good looks; for a roistering country squire of the neighborhood, with whom she had flirted when a girl, had called that day to welcome her to the country. All of a sudden she thought she heard something move behind her. She looked hastily round, but there was nothing to be seen, — nothing but the grimly painted por- trait of her poor dear man, hanging against the wall. She gave a heavy sigh to his memory, as she was accus- tomed to do whenever she spoke of him in company, and then went on adjusting her night-dress, and thinking of the squire. Her sigh was reechoed, or answered, by a long-drawn breath. She looked round again, but no one was to be seen. She ascribed these sounds to the wind 66 American Literature oozing through the rat-holes of the old mansion, and pro- ceeded leisurely to put her hair in papers, when, all at once, she thought she perceived one of the eyes of the portrait move. **The back of her head being towards it !" said the story- teller with the ruined head, — "good !" "Yes, sir!" replied dryly the narrator, "her back being towards the portrait, but her eyes fixed on its reflection in the glass."— Well, as I was saying, she perceived one of the eyes of the portrait move. So strange a circumstance, as you may well suppose, gave her a sudden shock. To assure herself of the fact, she put one hand to her forehead as if rubbing it; peeped through the fingers, and moved the candle with the other hand. The light of the taper gleamed on the eye, and was reflected from it. She was sure it moved. Nay, more, it seemed to give her a wink, as she had sometimes known her husband to do when living ! It struck a momentary chill to her heart; for she was a lone woman, and felt herself fearfully situated. The chill was but transient. My aunt, who was almost as resolute a personage as your uncle, sir, (turning to the old story-teller,) became instantly calm and collected. She went on adjusting her dress. She even hummed an air, and did not make even a single false note. She casually overturned a dressing-box; took a candle and picked up the articles one by one from the floor; pursued a rolUng pin-cushion that was making the best of its way under the bed; then opened the door; looked for an instant into the corridor, as if in doubt whether to go; and then walked quietly out. She hastened down-stairs, ordered the servants to arm themselves with the weapons first at hand, placed herself at their head, and returned almost immediately. Her hastily levied army presented a formidable force. The steward had a rusty blunder-buss, the coachman a loaded whip, the footman a pair of horse-pistols, the cook a huge chopping-knife, and the butler a bottle in each hand. My aunt led the van with a red-hot poker, and in my opinion she was the most formidable of the party. The Early WHUrs 67 The waiting-maid, who dreaded to stay alone in the ser- vants' hall, brought up the rear, smelHng at a broken bottle of volatile salts, and expressing her terror of the ghostesses. "Ghosts!" said my aunt, resolutely. "I'll singe their whiskers for them !" They entered the chamber. All was still and undis- turbed as when she had left it. They approached the portrait of my uncle. "Pull down that picture!" cried my aunt. A heavy groan, and a sound like the chattering of teeth, issued' from the portrait. The servants shrunk back; the maid uttered a faint shriek, and clung to the footman for sup- port. "Instantly !" added my aunt, with a stamp of the foot. The picture was pulled down, and from a recess behind it, in which had formerly stood a clock, they hauled forth a round-shouldered, black-bearded varlet, with a knife as long as my arm, but trembling all over Hke an aspen-leaf. "Well, and who was he? No ghost, I suppose," said the inquisitive gentleman. "A Knight of the Post," replied the narrator, "who had been smitten with the worth of the wealthy widow; or rather a marauding Tarquin, who had stolen into her chamber to violate her purse, and rifle her strong box, when all the house should be asleep. In plain terms," continued he, "the vagabond was a loose idle fellow of the neighborhood, who had once been a servant in the house, and had been employed to assist in arranging it for the reception of its mistress. He confessed that he had contrived this hiding-place for his nefarious purpose, and had borrowed an eye from the portrait by way of a reconnoitring-hole. ' ' "And what did they do with him? — did they hang him?" resumed the questioner. "Hang him! — how could they?" exclaimed a beetle- browed barrister, with a hawk's nose. "The offence was not capital. No robbery, no assault had been committed. No forcible entry or breaking into the premises " "My aunt," said the narrator, "was a woman of spirit, 68 American Literature and apt to take the law in her own hands. She had her own notions of cleanUness also. She ordered the fellow to be drawn through the horse-pond, to cleanse away all offenses, and then to be well rubbed down with an oaken towel." "And what became of him afterwards?" said the in- quisitive gentleman. ''I do not exactly know. I beheve he was sent on a voyage of improvement to Botany Bay." "And your aunt," said the inquisitive gentleman; "I'll warrant she took care to make her maid sleep in the room with her after that." "No, sir, she did better; she gave her hand shortly after to the roistering squire; for she used to observe, that it was a dismal thing for a woman to sleep alone in the country." She was right," observed the inquisitive gentleman, nodding sagaciously; "but I am sorry they did not hang that fellow." . . . The Mysterious Chambers (From The Alhambra) As I was rambling one day about the Moorish halls, my attention was, for the first time, attracted to a door in a remote gallery, communicating apparently with some part of the Alhambra which I had not yet explored. I attempted to open it, but it was locked. I knocked, but no one answered, and the sound seemed to reverberate through empty chambers. Here then was a mystery. Here was the haunted wing of the castle. How was I to get at the dark secrets here shut up from the pubUc eye? Should I come privately at night with lamp and sword, according to the prying custom of heroes of romance; or should I endeavor to draw the secret from Pepe the stut- tering gardener; or the ingenuous Dolores, or the loqua- cious Mateo ? Or should I go frankly and openly to Dame Antonia the chatelaine, and ask her all about it ? I chose the latter course, as being the simplest though the least The Early Writers 69 romantic; and found, somewhat to my disappointment, that there was no mystery in the case. I was welcome to explore the apartment, and there was the key. When I returned to my quarters, in the governor's apartment, everything seemed tame and common-place after the poetic region I had left. The thought suggested itself: Why could I not change my quarters to these vacant chambers? that would indeed be Hving in the Al- hambra, surrounded by its gardens and fountains, as in the time of the Moorish sovereigns. I proposed the change to Dame Antonia and her family, and it occasioned vast surprise. They could not conceive any rational induce- ment for the choice of an apartment so forlorn, remote, and solitary. ... I was not to be diverted from my humor, however, and my will was law with these good people. So, calling in the assistance of a carpenter, and the ever officious Mateo Ximenes, the doors and windows were soon placed in a state of tolerable security, and the sleeping- room . . . prepared for my reception. Mateo kindly vol- unteered as a body-guard to sleep in my antechamber; but I did not think it worth while to put his valor to the proof. With all the hardihood I had assumed and all the pre- cautions I had taken, I must confess the first night passed in these quarters was inexpressibly dreary. I do not think it was so much the apprehension of dangers from without that affected me, as the character of the place itself, with all its strange associations: the deeds of vio- lence committed there; the tragical ends of many of those who had once reigned there in splendor. . . . The whole family escorted me to my chamber, and took leave of me as of one engaged on a perilous enterprise ; and when I heard their retreating steps die away along the waste antechambers and echoing galleries; and turned the key of my door, I was reminded of those hobgobHn stories, where the hero is left to accomplish the adventure of an enchanted house. 70 American Literature In the course of a few evenings a thorough change took place in the scene and its associations. The moon, which when I took possession of my new apartments was invis- ible, gradually gained each evening upon the darkness of the night, and at length rolled in full splendor above the towers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court and hall. The garden beneath my window, before wrapped in gloom, was gently lighted up, the orange and citron trees were tipped with silver; the fountain sparkled in the moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly visible. I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on the walls: ''How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? nothing but the moon in her fulness, shining in the midst of an unclouded sky !" On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my window inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered fortunes of those whose history was dimly shadowed out in the elegant memorials around. Some- times, when all was quiet, and the clock from the distant cathedral of Granada struck the midnight hour, I have sailed out on another tour and wandered over the whole building; but how different from my first tour! . . . Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and such a place ? The temperature of a summer midnight in Andalusia is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere; we feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, which render mere exis- tence happiness. But when moonlight is added to all this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. Every rent and chasm of time; every mouldering tint and weather- stain is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are illuminated with a softened radiance, — we tread the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale ! What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little The Early Writers 71 airy pavilion of the queen's toilet . . . which, like a bird- cage, overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from its light arcades upon the moonlight prospect ! To the right, the swelling mountains of the Sierra Nevada, robbed of their ruggedness and softened into a fairy land, with their snowy summits gleaming hke silver clouds against the deep blue sky. And then to lean over the parapet of the Tocador and gaze down upon the Granada and the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all buried in deep repose; the white palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine, and beyond all these the vapory Vega fading away like a dreamland in the distance. Sometimes the faint cHck of castanets rises from the Alameda, where some gay Andalusians are dancing away the summer night. Sometimes the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of an amorous voice, tell perchance the whereabouts of some moonstruck lover serenading his lady's window. Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have passed loitering about the courts and halls and balconies of this most suggestive pile, "feeding my fancy with sugared suppositions," and enjoying that mixture of reverie and sensation which steals away existence in a southern climate; so that it has been almost morning be- fore I have retired to bed and been lulled to sleep by the falUng waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa. 2. James Fenimore Cooper (i 789-1851) is often called the American Scott. He gave us the historical novel based on American history just as Scott gave us the historical novel based on English history. He really stumbled into the profession of literature. One day as he finished reading a cheap English society novel he exclaimed, " I could do better myself!" He was challenged to do so, and the result was his first book. Pre- caution, a story of English life. It occurred to Cooper that if he could write a story of some worth describing life little known to him he might write tales of greater merit describing life well known to him; and so the next year gives us The Spy. By this time he had found himself. Through the following years he wrote the Leather Stocking Tales and the Sea Tales, one of 72 American Literature which, The Pilot, was the first salt-water novel ever written and is, says Professor Brander Matthews, "to this day one of the best." It is hoped the following extract will stimu- late the student to a complete reading of one of Cooper's tales. Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas (From The Last of the Mohicans, chapter III) On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid stream, within an hour's journey to the encampment of Webb, like those who awaited the appear- ance of an absent person, or the approach of some expected event. . . . While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited, through the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter, though sun-burnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent from a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy log, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his earnest language, by the calm but expressive ges- tures of an Indian engaged in debate. ... A tomahawk and scalping-knife, of Enghsh manufacture, were in his girdle; while a short military rifle, of that sort with which the poHcy of the whites armed their savage allies, lay care- lessly across his bare and sinewy knee. The expanded chest, full-formed Hmbs, and grave countenance of this warrior, would denote that he had reached the vigor of his days, though no symptoms of decay appeared to have yet weakened his manhood. The frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed by his clothes, was Hke that of one who had known hardships and exertion from his earliest youth. ... He wore a hunting shirt of forest-green, fringed with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of wam- pum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but no tomahawk. ... A pouch and horn com- pleted his personal accoutrements though a rifle of great The Early Writers 73 length, which the theory of the more ingenious whites had taught them was the most dangerous of all firearms, leaned against a neighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might be, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on every side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden approach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding the symptoms of habitual suspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but at the moment at which he is introduced it was charged with an expression of sturdy honesty. "Even your traditions make the case in my favor, Chingachgook," he said, speaking in the tongue which was known to all the natives who formerly inhabited the country between the Hudson and the Potomac. . . . "Your fathers came from the setting sun, crossed the big river, fought the people of the country, and took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over the salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been set them by yours; then let God judge the mat- ter between us, and friends spare their words !" "My fathers fought with the naked red men !" returned the Indian, sternly, in the same language. "Is there no difiference, Hawkeye, between the stone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you kill? " "There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red skin!" said, the white man, shaking his head hke one on whom such an appeal to his justice was not thrown away. . . , "I am no scholar, and I care not who knows it; but, judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel hunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their grandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye." "You have the story told by your fathers," returned the other, coldly, waving his hand. "What say your old men? do they tell the young warriors that the pale faces met the red men, painted for war and armed with the stone hatchet and wooden gun ? " 74 American Literature "I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts him- self on his natural privileges, though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an Iroquois, daren't deny that I am genuine white," the scout rephed, surveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and sinewy hand, "and I am wilHng to own that my people have many ways, of which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor feel a pride in striving to outdo them. For myself, I conclude the Bumppos could shoot, for I have a natural turn with a rifle, which must have been handed down from generation to generation, as, our holy commandments tell us, all good and evil gifts are bestowed; though I should be loath to answer for other people in such a matter. But every story has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what passed, according to the traditions of the red men, when our fathers first met?" A silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian sat mute; then, full of the dignity of his office, he com- menced his brief tale, with a solemnity that served to heighten its appearance of truth. "Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 'Tis what my fathers have said, and what the Mohicans have done." He hesitated a single instant, and bending a cautious glance toward his companion, he continued, in a manner that was divided between interrogation and assertion. "Does not this stream at our feet run toward the summer, until its waters grow salt, and the current flows upward?" "It can't be denied that your traditions tell you true in both these matters," said the white man; "for I have been there, and have seen them; though, why water, The Early Writers 75 which is so sweet in the shade, should become bitter in the sun, is an alteration for which I have never been able to account." "And the current!" demanded the Indian, who ex- pected his reply with that sort of interest that a man feels in the confirmation of testimony, at which he marvels even while he respects it; "the fathers of Chingachgook have not lied !" "The holy Bible is not more true, and that is the truest thing in nature. They call this upstream current the tide, which is a thing soon explained, and clear enough. Six hours the waters run in, and six hours they run out, and the reason is this: when there is higher water in the sea than in the river, they run in until the river gets to be highest, and then it runs out again." "The waters in the woods, and on the great lakes, run downward until they lie like my hand," said the Indian, stretching the Hmb horizontally before him, " and then they run no more." "No honest man will deny it," said the scout, a little nettled at the implied distrust of his explanation of the mystery of the tides; "and I grant that it is true on the small scale, and where the land is level. But everything depends on what scale you look at things. Now, on the small scale, the 'arth is level; but on the large scale it is round. In this manner, pools and ponds, and even the great freshwater lakes, may be stagnant, as you and I both know they are, having seen them; but when you come to spread water over a great tract, like the sea, where the earth is round, how in reason can the water be quiet? You might as well expect the river to lie still on the brink of those black rocks a mile above us, though your own ears tell you that it is tumbling over them at this very mo- ment." If unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the Indian was far too dignified to betray his unbelief. He listened like one who was convinced, and resumed his nar- rative in his former solemn manner. "We came from the place where the sun is hid at night, 76 American Literature over great plains where the buffaloes live, until we reached the big river. There we fought the Alligewi, till the ground was red with their blood. From the banks of the big river to the shores of the salt lake, there was none to meet us. The Maquas followed at a distance. We said the country should be ours from the place where the waters run up no longer on this stream, to a river twenty- suns' journey toward the summer. The land we had taken like warriors we kept like men. We drove the Maquas into the woods with the bears. They only tasted salt at the licks; they drew no fish from the great lake; we threw them the bones." "All this I have heard and believe," said the white man, observing that the Indian paused; "but it was long before the EngUsh came into the country." "A pine grew then where this chestnut now stands. The first pale faces who came among us spoke no EngUsh. They came in a large canoe, when my fathers had buried the tomahawk with the red men around them. Then, Hawkeye," he continued, betraying his deep emotion, only by permitting his voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which render his language, as spoken at times, so very musical; "then, Hawkeye, we were one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood its deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we worshiped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of our songs of triumph!" "Know you anything of your own family at that time?" demanded the white. "But you are a just man, for an Indian; and as I suppose you hold their gifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the coun- cil-fire." "My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The blood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch landed, and gave my people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they were driven back from the shores, until The Early Writers 77\ I, that am a chief and a Sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have never visited the graves of my fathers." "Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind," returned the scout, a good deal touched at the calm suffering of his companion; "and they often aid a man in his good inten- tions; though, for myself I expect to leave my own bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by the wolves. But where are to be found those of your race who came to their kin in the Delaware country, so many summers since ? " "Where are the blossoms of those summers ! — fallen, one by one; so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on the hilltop and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows in my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans." "Uncas is here," said another voice, in the same soft guttural tones, near his elbow; "who speaks to Uncas?" The white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made an involuntary movement of the hand toward his rifle, at this sudden interruption; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head at the imexpected sounds. At the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a noiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question asked, or reply given, for several minutes; each appearing to await the moment when he might speak, without betraying womanish curiosity or childish impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs, and, rehnquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and reserved. At length Chingach- gook turned his eyes slowly toward his son, and demanded: "Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their mocca- sins in these woods?" "I have been on their trail," replied the young Indian, "and know that they number as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they He hid like cowards," 78 American Literature "The thieves are out-lying for scalps and plunder !" said the white man, whom we shall call Hawkeye after the man- ner of his companions. "That bushy Frenchman, Mont- calm, will send his spies into the very camp, but he will know what road we travel !" '"Tis enough." returned the father, glancing his eye towards the setting sun; "they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us eat to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men to-morrow." "I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the Iroquois 'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 'tis necessary to get the game — talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the biggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the hill ! Now, Uncas," he continued, in a half whisper, and laughing with a kind of inward sound, like one who had learned to be watchful, "I will bet my charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum, that I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the right than to the left." "It cannot be!" said the young Indian, springing to his feet with youthful eagerness; "all but the tips of his horns are hid!" "He's a boy!" said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke and addressing the father. "Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the creatur', he can't tell where the rest of him should be?" Adjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill on which he so much valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece with his hand, saying, — "Hawkeye! will you fight the Maquas?" "These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by instinct!" returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like a man who was convinced of his error, "I must leave the buck to your arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to eat." The instant the father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture of the hand, Uncas threw himself on the ground, and approached the animal with wary move- The Early Writers 79 ments. When within a few yards of the cover, he fitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers moved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another moment the twang of the cord was heard, a white streak was seen glancing into the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the very feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the throat, when bounding to the edge of the river it fell, dyeing the waters with its blood. "'Twas done with Indian skill," said the scout laughing inwardly, but with vast satisfaction; "and 'twas a pretty sight to behold! Though an arrow is a near shot, and needs a knife to finish the work." "Hugh!" ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, like a hound who scented game. "By the Lord, there is a drove of them!" exclaimed the scout, whose eyes began to glisten with the ardor of his usual occupation; "if they come within range of a bullet I will drop one, though the whole Six Nations should be lurking within sound ! What do you hear, Chingachgook ? for to my ears the woods are dumb." "There is but one deer, and he is dead," said the Indian, bending his body till his ear nearly touched the earth. "I hear the sounds of feet !" "Perhaps the wolves have driven the buck to shelter, and are following on his trail." "No. The horses of white men are coming!" returned the other, raising himself with dignity, and resuming his seat on the log with his former composure. "Hawkeye, they are your brothers; speak to them." "That will I, and in EngHsh that the king needn't be ashamed to answer," returned the hunter, speaking in the language of which he boasted; "but I see nothing, nor do I hear the sounds of man or beast; 'tis strange that an In- dian should understand white sounds better than a man who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although he may have hved with the red skins long enough to be sus- pected 1 Ha ! there goes something Uke the cracking of a dry 80 Ajnerican Literature stick, too — now I hear the bushes move — yes, yes, there is a trampling that I mistook for the falls— and — but here they come themselves; God keep them from the Iroquois !" (See Dramatization, by S. E. Simons and C. T. Orr, for dramatization of scenes from The Last of the Mohicans.) 3. Daniel Webster (1782-185 2), a native of New Hamp- shire and a graduate of Dartmouth, was probably the greatest of American orators. While in Congress, in 1830-1832, he defended the Union against State sovereignty. The closing words of his speech in Reply to Hayne sum up his political creed, " Liberty and Union, now and ijrever, one and insepara- ble." Because Webster compromised in the slavery issue be- tween the North and South in 1850, Whittier wrote Ichabod, a scathing rebuke to him. But after many years he did some- what tardy justice to Webster's memory by writing The Lost Occasion. Webster was twice returned to thd'tJnited States Senate and was Secretary of State 1841-1843. ^ijfcsitwo Bunker Hill speeches are among his best orations. The Federal Union (From Webster's Reply to Hayne) I profess, Sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity, and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. . . . I have not allowed myself. Sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving Uberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this govern- ment, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on consider- ing, not how the Union may best be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to The Early Writers 81 penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, the curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and Hngering glance rather behold the gorgeous en- sign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterward"; but everywhere spread all over in characters of living Hght, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sen- timent, dear to every true American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! The Character of Washington (From the Second Bunker Hill Oration, delivered June 17, 1843) America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind. Washington! "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen!" Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelhgence of Europe and the world, What char- acter of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most subHme? 82 American Literature and I doubt not, that, by a suffrage approaching to unanim- ity, the answer would be, Washington ! The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, its soHdity, its durabiUty, is no unfit emblem of his char- acter. His public virtues and pubUc principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives, as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or a single state, but by all the families of man, ascends the colossal grandeur of the character and life of Washington. In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown, it is an American production. It is the embod- iment and vindication of our Transatlantic liberty. Born upon our soil, of parents also born upon it; never for a moment having had sight of the Old World; instructed, according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but wholesome elementary knowledge which our institu- tions provide for the children of the people; growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of American society; living from infancy to manhood and age amidst our expanding but not luxurious civiUzation; partaking in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man, our agony of glory, the war of Independence, our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment of the Constitution, — he is all, all our own ! Washington is ours. . . . I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened moment of the state, in the midst of the reproaches of enemies and the misgivings of friends, I turn to that transcendent name for courage and for consolation. To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can be combined with law, with order, with the security of property, with the pursuits and advancement of happi- ness; to him who denies that our forms of government are capable of producing exaltation of soul and the passion of The Early Writers 83 true glory; to him who denies that we have contributed anything to the stock of great lessons and great examples, — to all these I reply by pointing to Washington ! (Compare with Jefferson's characterization, supra, p. 39.) 4. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), poet and short-story writer, the greatest of our Southern men of letters, has the widest international fame of any American author. Tennyson con- sidered him the best American poet. He was the inventor of the detective story and, with the sole exception of Hawthorne, ranks as the greatest of our short-story writers. In his treat- ment of the weird he is excelled only by Coleridge. The Masque of the Red Death The " Red Death " had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body, and especially upon the face, of the victim were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour. But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light- hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the Prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers, and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of in- gress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance 84 American Literature to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The Prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet- dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death." It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad that the Prince Prospero entertained his thou- sand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnifi- cence. It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven — an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the fold- ing-doors shde back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been ex- pected from the Prince's love of the bizarre. The apart- ments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but httle more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass, whose color varied in accor- dance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern ex- tremity was hung, for example, in blue — and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the case- ments. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange, the fifth with white, the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closeb'' shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But, in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed The Early Writers 85 to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet — a deep blood-color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bear- ing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hang- ings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the counte- nances of those who entered that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so pecuHar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound ; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang it was observed that the giddiest grew pale and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervous- ness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty min- utes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred sec- 86 American Literature onds of the Time that flies) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremu- lousness and meditation as before. But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and mag- nificent revel. The tastes of the Prince were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His follow- ers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not. He had directed, in great part, the movable embellish- ments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were gro- tesque. There were much glare and gHtter and piquancy and phantasm — much of what has been since seen in Hernani. There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were deKrious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beau- tiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a Uttle of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these — the dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away — they have endured but an instant — and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams Uve, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted win- dows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away, and there flows a ruddier The Early Writers 87 light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gayeties of the other apartments. But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of Hfe. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it hap- pened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, wdth more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, ex- pressive of disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust. In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the Prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are mat- ters of which no jests can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to 88 American Literature foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny- must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in hlood — and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror. When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage. "Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him — "who dares insult us with this blas- phemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him — ^that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!" It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly — for the Prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had be- come hushed at the waving of his hand. It was in the blue room where stood the Prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a sHght rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain name- less awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the Prince's person; and while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber The Early Writers 89 to the purple — through the purple to the green — through the green to the orange — through this again to the white — and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apart- ment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry — and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summon- ing the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-Hke mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flame of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all. ISRAFEL "And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures." — Koran. In Heaven a spirit doth dwell, "Whose heart-strings are a lute." None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, American Literature And the giddy stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. Tottering above, In her highest noon, The enamoured moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red leven (With the rapid Pleiads, even. Which were seven) Pauses in Heaven. And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings, — The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings. But the skies that angel trod. Where deep thoughts are a duty — Where Love's a grown-up God — Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star. Therefore thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest: Merrily Uve, and long ! The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit: Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute: Well may the stars be mute ! The Early Writers 91 Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely— flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bhss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, — While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky. 5, William Cullen Bryant (1794-187 8), the patriarch of American poetry, was born in Massachusetts but, like Irving and Cooper, belongs to New York. He is our first great poet and is often called the American Wordsworth. He was a child prodigy, but in his case the child prodigy became the great literary artist and producer. At the age of seventeen he wrote Thanatopsis, a poem giving his ideas of death; at the age of seventy-three he began the translation of Homer into blank verse. "For faithfulness and majesty," says Professor Newcomer, "his translation ranks among the best that have been made." The Death of the Flowers The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of waiUng winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves he dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through afl the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ? 92 American Literature Alas ! They all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen. And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come. To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still. And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore. And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of ours. So gentle and so beautiful should perish with the flowers. The Early Writers 9S To A Waterfowl Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy sohtary way ? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side ? There is a power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast^ The desert and illimitable air — Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere. Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. And shall not soon depart. He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright. 94 American Literature The Hurricane Lord of the winds ! I feel thee nigh, I know thy breath in the burning sky ! And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, For the coming of the hurricane ! And lo ! on the wing of the heavy gales, Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails; Silent, and slow, and terribly strong, The mighty shadow is borne along. Like the dark eternity to come; While the world below, dismayed and dumb. Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear. They darken fast — and the golden blaze Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze. And he sends through the shade a funeral ray — A glare that is neither night nor day, A beam that touches, with hues of death. The clouds above and the earth beneath. To its covert ghdes the silent bird, While the hurricane's distant voice is heard, Uplifted among the mountains round. And the forests hear and answer the sound. He is come ! he is come ! do ye not behold His ample robes on the wind unrolled ? Giant of air ! we bid thee hail ! — How his gray skirts toss in the whirHng gale; How his huge and writhing arms are bent, To clasp the zone of the firmament. And fold, at length, in their dark embrace. From mountain to mountain the visible space. Darker — still darker ! the whirlwinds bear The dust of the plains to the middle air: And hark to the crashing, long and loud, Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud ! You may trace its path by the flashes that start From the rapid wheels where'er they dart, The Early Writers 95 As the fire-bolts leap to the world below, And flood the skies with a lurid glow. What roar is that ? — 'Tis the rain that breaks, In torrents away from the airy lakes, Heavily poured on the shuddering ground, And shedding a nameless horror round. Ah ! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies, With the very clouds ! — -ye are lost to my eyes. I seek ye vainly, and see in your place The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space, A whirling ocean that fills the wall Of the crystal heaven, and buries all. And I, cut off from the world, remain Alone with the terrible hurricane. To THE Fringed Gentian Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue, That openest, when the quiet Hght Succeeds the keen and frosty night; Thou comest not when violets lean O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, Or columbines, in purple dressed. Nod o'er the ground bird's hidden nest. Thou waitest late, and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near liis end. Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye Look through its fringes to the sky, Blue — blue — as if that sky let fall A flower from its cerulean wall. I would that thus, when I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, 96 American Literature Hope, blossoming within my heart, May look to heaven as I depart. (Compare with this Freneau's The Wild Honeysuckle, supra, p. 53, and Wordsworth's To the Small Celandine.) BIBLIOGRAPHY I. Irving For Further Illustration Knickerbocker's History, books V, VI, and VII. The Christmas Dinner, in The Sketch Book. The Stout Gentleman, in Bracebridge Hall. Westminster Abbey. For Collateral Reading Longfellow, H. W.: In the Churchyard at Tarrytown. Thackeray, W. M.: Nil Nisi Bonum. II. Cooper For Further Illustration The Deerslayer, chapters XXVII to XXXI. The Pilot, chapters I to IV. The Pioneers, chapters III and XXVIII. Corporal Flint's Murder, in The Oak Openings. For Collateral Reading Bryant's Memorial Address, in Orations and Addresses of W. C. Bryant. III. Webster For Further Illustration First Bunker Hill Oration. Reply to Hayne. Second Bunker Hill Oration. For Collateral Reading Whittier, J. G.: Ichabod. The Lost Occasion. IV. POE For Further Illustration A Descent into the Maelstrom The Fall of the House of Usher \ Prose. Willicm Wilson The Early Writers 97 Annabel Lee 1 The Bells \ Poetry. The Raven J For Collateral Reading Boner, J. H. : Poe^s Cottage at Fordham. Whitman, Sarah Helen: Sonnets, in Stedman's An American Anthology. V. Bryant For Further Illustration A Lifetime (Biographical.) The Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. The Planting of the Apple Tree. The Song of Marion'' s Men. For Collateral Reading Lowell, J. R.: On Board the '76. A Fable for Critics. (His characterization of Bryant.) Whitman, W.: My Tribute to Four Poets (in Specimen Days). II. Of Lesser Note From the time of Irving to the rise of the brilliant New England group about the middle of the century, New York was the loadstar that attracted the man of letters. Here he could get work on one or several of the many periodicals that jflourished during these years, and here he could find congenial companions, men of similar tastes and talents. Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) and Joseph Rodman Drake ( 1 795-1820) were two of the early New York group of writers. The friendship of these men is one of the most interesting in all literary history. Halleck is remembered to-day for his beauti- ful lines written on the death of his friend, and Drake for his poem The American Flag, of which the four concluding lines were written by Halleck. I. Fitz-Greene Halleck On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days ! 98 American Literature None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. Tears fell when thou wert dying, From eyes unused to weep, And long, where thou art lying. Will tears the cold turf steep. When hearts, whose truth was proven, Like thine, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth. And I, who woke each morrow To clasp thy hand in mine. Who shared thy joy and sorrow, Whose weal and woe were thine; It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow, But I've in vain essayed it. And feel I cannot now. While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, — The grief is fixed too deeply That mourns a man like thee. 2. Joseph Rodman Drake The American Flag When Freedom, from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night. And set the stars of glory there. She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure celestial white With streakings of the morning light; Then, from his mansion in the sun The Early Writers 99 She called her eagle bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land. Majestic monarch of the cloud, Who rear'st aloft thy regal form. To hear the tempest trumpings loud And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, — Child of the sun ! to thee 'tis given To guard the banner of the free. To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle stroke. And bid its blendings shine afar, Like rainbows on the cloud of war, To harbingers of victory ! Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly The sign of hope and triumph high ! When speaks the signal trumpet tone. And the long Hne comes gleaming on. , Ere yet the Hfe-blood, warm and wet, Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,_ Each soldier eye shall brightly turn To where thy sky-born glories burn. And, as his springing steps advance. Catch war and vengeance from the glance. And when the cannon-mouthings loud Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, And gory sabres rise and fall Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, Then shall thy meteor glances glow, And cowering foes shall sink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below That lovely messenger of death. Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; 100 American Literature When death, careering on the gale, Sweeps darkly round the belHed sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack, Each dying wanderer of the sea Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendors fly In triumph o'er his closing eye. Flag of the free heart's hope and home, By angel hands to valor given ! Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet ! Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ! 3. Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) was a lawyer of Wash- ington, D. C. He was inspired to write the S tar-Spangled Banner while witnessing from a British man-of-war the bom- bardment of Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, during the War of 1812. The Star-Spangled Banner 01 say, can you see, by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleam- ing,— Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly stream- ing? And the rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O ! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ? On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep. The Early Writers 101 As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream; 'Tis the star-spangled banner — O ! long may it wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ! And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more ? Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hirehng and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. O ! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation ! Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a na- tion ! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto — In God is our trust. And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 4. Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) was the author of the well-known song which follows. The Bucket How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view ! The orchard, the meadow, the deep- tangled wildwood. And every loved spot which my infancy knew ! The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell, The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it; And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well — The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket that hung in the well. lO^i Anu'Hmn Literature The moss-a^vercvl vessel I haikxi as a treasure, For often at n(.XMi. when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure. The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardeut 1 sei/.evi it. with hands tJiat were glowing, And quick to the whiti^pebbkxi bottom it fell; Theu s^xMi. with the emblem of truth over-tlowing, And dripping with c*.x^lness. it rose from the well — The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. The moss-a^veretl bucket arose from the well. How sweet from the green, mossy brim to receive it, As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips ! Not a full, blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, The brightest that beauty or revelry sips. And now. far removevi from the loveil habitation, The tear of regret will intrusively swell. As fancy reverts to my father's plantation. And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the well — The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. The moss-covered bucket that hangs in the well ! 5. Emma H. Willard (1787-1870'^ was a Connecticut woman who became f.mious as an evlucator. She >\Tote the familiar hymn Rocked in Ute CraJi^ of the Deep. Rocked in the Cr.\dle of the Deep Rocked in the cradle of the deep I lay me down in peace to sleep; Secure I rest upK>n the wave. For thou. O Lord 1 hast power to save. I know thou wilt not sHght my call. For Thou dost mark the spuirrow's fall; And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, Rocked in the cradle of the deep. \\'hen in the dead of night I He And gaze upon the trackless sky. The Early Writers lOS The star-be^>ang^ heavenly scroll, The hxnindless waters as they roll, — I feel thy wondrous power to save From perils of the stormy wave: Rocked in the cradle of the deep, I calmly rest and soimdly sleep. And such the trust that still were mine, Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine, Or through the tempest's fiery breath Roused me from sleep to wreck and death- In ocean cave, still safe with Thee The germ of immortality I And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, Rocked in the cradle of the deq). 6. John Howard Payne C1791-1852) was a dramatist who won lasting fame through his song Home, Sweet Home/ This occurs in his opera Clari, the Maid of MUan, wiudi was first produced at Covent Garden, London, in 1823- HoiLE, Sv.xET Home! Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam. Be it e\'er so humble, there's no place like home; A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, WTiich, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home I There's no place like Home ! there's no place like Home ! An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ! The birds singing gayly, that came at my call, — (Hve me them — and the peace of mind, dearer than all I Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home ! There's no place like Home 1 there's no place Hke Home I How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond fathers smile. And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile I 104 American Literature Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, O, give me, the pleasures of home ! Home ! Home ! sweet, sweet Home ! There's no place Uke Home ! there's no place like Home ! To thee I'll return, overburdened with care; The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there; No more from that cottage again will I roam; Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Home ! Home ! sweet, sweet Home ! There's no place like Home ! there's no place like Home ! 7. George Morris (1802-1864) is remembered to-day for his poem Woodman, Spare That Tree. Woodman, Spare That Tree ! Woodman, spare that tree ! Touch not a single bough ! In youth it sheltered me. And I'll protect it now. 'T was my forefather's hand That placed it near his cot; There, woodman, let it stand, Thy axe shall harm it not. The old famiUar tree. Whose glory and renown Are spread o'er land and sea — And wouldst thou hew it down ? Woodman, forbear thy stroke ! Cut not its earth-bound ties; Oh, spare that aged oak Now towering to the skies ! When but an idle boy, I sought its grateful shade; In all their gushing joy Here, too, my sisters played. The Early Writers 105 My mother kissed me here; My father pressed my hand — Forgive this fooHsh tear, But let that old oak stand. My heart-strings round thee cling, Close as thy bark, old friend ! Here shall the wild-bird sing, And still thy branches bend. Old tree ! the storm still brave ! And, woodman, leave the spot; While I've a hand to save. Thy axe shall harm it not. 8. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1807-1867) was born in New England and educated at Yale, but he identified himself with the literary life of New York City, especially with its periodi- cal literature. He was sent abroad by the management of the Mirror in order to contribute European letters to the magazine. He founded the Home Journal, a weekly which is still popular. Professor Barrett Wendell considers him the most characteris- tic New York man of letters after the year 1832, the most typical of the school which flourished throughout the career of the Knickerbocker Magazine (i 833-1 864), and says: " In his palmy days he was the most popular American writer out- side of New England." But his work has proved ephemeral, for it was almost wholly occasional. His Sacred Poems repre- sent his best achievement. The Belfry Pigeon On the cross-beam under the Old South bell, The nest of a pigeon is builded well. In summer and winter, that bird is there, Out and in with the morning air; I love to see him track the street With his wary eye and active feet. And I often watch him, as he springs, CircHng the steeple with easy wings. Till across the dial his shade has passed, American Literature And the belfry edge is gained at last; 'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note, And the trembUng throb in its mottled throat; There's a human look in its swelUng breast, And the gentle curve of its lowly crest; And I often stop with the fear I feel, — He runs so close to the rapid wheel. Whatever is rung on that noisy bell, — Chime of the hour, or funeral knell, — The dove in the belfry must hear it well. When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon, When the sexton cheerly rings for noon, When the clock strikes clear at morning light, When the child is waked with "nine at night," When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air, Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,— Whatever tale in the bell is heard, He broods on his folded feet unstirred, Or, rising half in his rounded nest, He takes the time to smooth his breast; Then, drops again, with filmed eyes, And sleeps as the last vibration dies. Sweet bird ! I would that I could be A hermit in the crowd like thee ! With wings to fly to wood and glen, Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men; And, daily, with unwilhng feet, I tread, like thee, the crowded street; But, unlike me, when day is o'er. Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar; Or, at a half-felt wish for rest, Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast, And drop, forgetful, to thy nest. I would that, on such wings of gold, I could my weary heart upfold; I would I could look down unmoved, (Unloving as I am unloved) And while the world throngs on beneath, The Early Writers 107 Smooth down my cares and calmly breathe; And, never sad with others' sadness, And, never glad with others' gladness, Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime. And, lapped in quiet, bide my time. Absalom The waters slept. Night's silvery veil hung low On Jordan's bosom, and the eddies curled Their glassy rings beneath it, like the still, Unbroken beating of the sleeper's pulse. The reeds bent down the stream ; the willow leaves, With a soft cheek upon the lulhng tide. Forgot the hfting winds; and the long stems, Whose flowers the water, hke a gentle nurse, Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way. And leaned in graceful attitudes to rest. How strikingly the course of nature tells, By its light heed of human suffering. That it was fashioned for a happier world ! King David's limbs were weary. He had fled From far Jerusalem; and now he stood. With his faint people, for a little rest. Upon the shore of Jordan. The Ught wind Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow To its refreshing breath; for he had worn The mourner's covering, and he had not felt That he could see his people until now. They gathered round him on the fresh green bank. And spoke their kindly words; and, as the sun Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them there. And bowed his head upon his hands to pray. Oh ! when the heart is full, — when bitter thoughts Come crowding thickly up for utterance, And the poor common words of courtesy Are such an empty mockery,— how much The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer ! 108 Atnerican Literature ' He prayed for Israel ; and his voice went up Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those Whose love had been his shield; and his deep tones Grew tremulous. But, oh ! for Absalom, — For his estranged, misguided Absalom, — The proud, bright being who had burst away In all his princely beauty, to defy The heart that cherished him, — for him he poured, In agony that would not be controlled, Strong supplication, and forgave him there, Before his God, for his deep sinfulness. The pall was settled. He who slept beneath Was straightened for the grave; and, as the folds Sunk to the still proportions, they betrayed The matchless symmetry of Absalom. His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls Were floating round the tassels as they swayed To the admitted air, as glossy now As when, in hours of gentle dalUance, bathing The snowy fingers of Judea's daughters. His helm was at his feet; his banner, soiled With traiHng through Jerusalem, was laid. Reversed, beside him; and the jeweled hilt, Whose diamonds Ht the passage of his blade, Rested, like mockery, on his covered brow. The soldiers of the king trod to and fro, Clad in the garb of battle; and their chief, The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier, And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly, As if he feared the slumberer might stir. A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade As if a trumpet rang; but the bent form Of David entered, and he gave command, In a low tone, to his few followers, And left him with his dead. The king stood still Till the last echo died; then, throwing off The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back The Early Writers 109 The pall from the still features of his child, He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth In the resistless eloquence of woe: "Alas ! my noble boy ! that thou shouldst die ! Thou, who were made so beautifully fair ! That death should settle in thy glorious eye, And leave his stillness in this clustering hair ! How could he mark thee for the silent tomb. My proud boy, Absalom ! " Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill As to my bosom I have tried to press thee ! How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill. Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, And hear thy sweet ' My father ! ' from these dumb And cold lips, Absalom ! "But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush Of music, and the voices of the young; And hfe will pass me in the mantling blush. And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung, — But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come To meet me, Absalom ! "And, oh ! when I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, How will its love for thee, as I depart. Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token ! It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, ' To see thee, Absalom ! "And now, farewell ! 'Tis hard to give thee up. With death so Hke a gentle slumber on thee; And thy dark sin ! — Oh ! I could drink the cup, If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home, My lost boy, Absalom !" 110 American Literature He covered up his face, and bowed himself A moment on his child; then, giving him A look of melting tenderness, he clasped His hands convulsively, as if in prayer ; - And, as if strength were given him of God, ' He rose up calmly, and composed the pall Firmly and decently, and left him there, As if his rest had been a breathing sleep, 9. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) was a talented Southern novelist and poet. His tales show the influence of Brown and Cooper. The Partisan, published in 1835, is num- bered among his best stories. One of his poems follows. The Lost Pleiad Not in the sky, Where it was seen So long in eminence of light serene, — Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave, Nor down, in mansions of the hidden deep, ' Though beautiful in green And crystal, its great caves of mystery, — Shall the bright watcher have Her place, and, as of old, high station keep ! Gone ! gone ! Oh ! nevermore, to cheer The mariner, who holds his course alone On the Atlantic, through the weary night, When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep, Shall it again appear. With the sweet-loving certainty of light, Down shining on the shut eyes of the deep ! The upward-looking shepherd on the hills Of Chaldea, night-returning with his flocks, He wonders why his beauty doth not blaze, Gladding his gaze, — And, from his dreary watch along the rocks, The Early Writers 111 Guiding him homeward o'er the perilous ways ! How stands he waiting still, in a sad maze, Much wondering, whiie the drowsy silence fills The sorrowful vault ! — how hngers, in the hope that night May yet renew the expected and sweet light, So natural to his sight ! And lone, Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone. Brood the once happy circle of bright stars: How should they dream, until her fate was known, That they were ever confiscate to death ? That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars. And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath, That they should fall from high; Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die, All their concerted springs of harmony Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone ! Ah ! still the strain Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky; The sister stars, lamenting in their pain That one of the selectest ones must die, — Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest ! Alas ! 'tis ever thus the destiny. Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone Of waiHng, as for bliss too quickly gone. The hope most precious is the soonest lost. The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost. Are not all short-Hved things the loveliest ? And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky, Look they not ever brightest, as they fly From the lone sphere they blest ? lo. Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882) was born in Cam- bridge, Mass., and was educated at Harvard. While at college he interrupted his course to take a two years' voyage to the Pacific coast on account of his health. He shipped as a common sailor, and his experiences form the subject-matter of Two Years Before the Mast (1840), the book which has made 112 American Literature his name famous. Mr. William J. Long calls this book a verita- ble classic and says: " After more than half a century we can still recommend it as a virile, wholesome story, and as probably the best reflection of sailor Hfe in the old days when American ships and seamen were known and honored the world over." A Flogging at Sea (From Two Years Before the Mast) (chapter xv) For several days the captain seemed very much out of humour. Nothing went right or fast enough for him. He quarrelled with the cook, and threatened to flog him for throwing wood on deck, and had a dispute with the mate about reeving a Spanish burton; the mate saying that he was right, and had been taught how to do it by a man who was a sailor! This the captain took in dudgeon and they were at swords' points at once. But his displeasure was chiefly turned against a large, heavy-moulded fellow from the Middle States, who was called Sam. This man hesitated in his speech, was rather slow in his motions, and was only a tolerably good sailor, but usually seemed to do his best; yet the captain took a dislike to tum, thought he was surly and lazy, and "if you once give a dog a bad name" — as the sailor-phrase is — "he may as well jump overboard." The captain found fault with everything this man did, and hazed him for dropping a marline-spike from the mainyard, where he was at work. This, of course, was an accident, but it was set down against him. The cap- tain was on board all day Friday, and everything went on hard and disagreeably. "The more you drive a man, the less he will do," was as true with us as with any other peo- ple. We worked late Friday night, and were turned-to early Saturday morning. About ten o'clock the captain ordered our new officer, Russell, who by this time had become thoroughly disliked by all the crew, to get the gig ready to take him ashore. John, the Swede, was sitting in the boat alongside, and Mr. Russell and I were standing by the main hatchway, waiting for the captain, who was The Early Writers 113 down in the hold, where the crew were at work, when we heard his voice raised in violent dispute with somebody, whether it was with the mate or one of the crew I could not tell, and then came blows and scuffling. I ran to the side and beckoned to John, who came aboard, and we leaned down the hatchway, and though we could see no one, yet we knew that the captain had the advantage, for his voice was loud and clear — ^ ''You see your condition! You see your condition! Will you ever give me any more of your jaw ? " No answer; and then came wrestling and heaving, as though the man was trying to turn him. "You may as well keep still, for I have got you," said the captain. Then came the ques- tion, "Will you ever give me any more of your jaw?" "I never gave you any, sir," said Sam; for it was his voice that we heard, though low and half choked. "That's not what I ask you. Will you ever be impu- dent to me again?" "I never have been, sir," said Sam. "Answer my question, or I'll make a spread eagle of you ! I'll flog you, by G — d." "I'm no negro slave," said Sam. "Then I'll make you one," said the captain; and he came to the hatchway, and sprang on deck, threw off his coat, and, rolling up his sleeves, cafled out to the mate: "Seize that man up, Mr. Amerzene ! Seize him up! Make a spread eagle of him! I'fl teach you ah who is master aboard!" The crew and officers followed the captain up the hatch- way; but it was not until after repeated orders that the mate laid hold of Sam, who made no resistance, and car- ried him to the gangway. "What are you going to flog that man for, sir?" said John, the Swede, to the captain. Upon hearing this, the captain turned upon John; but, knowing him to be quick and resolute, he ordered the steward to bring the irons, and, caUing upon Russell to help him, went up to John. "Let me alone," said John. "I'm wilHng to be put in 114 American Literature irons. You need not use any force;" and, putting out his hands, the captain slipped the irons on, and sent him aft to the quarter-deck. Sam, by this time, was seized up, as it is called; that is placed against the shrouds, with his wrists made fast to them, his jacket off, and his back ex- posed. The captain stood on the break of the deck, a few feet from him, and a Httle raised, so as to have a good swing at him, and held in his hand the end of a thick, strong rope. The officers stood round, and the crew grouped together in the waist. All these preparations made me feel sick and almost faint, angry and excited as I was. A man — a human being, made in God's likeness — fastened up and flogged like a beast ! A man, too, whom I had lived with, eaten with, and stood watch with for months, and knew so well ! If a thought of resistance crossed the minds of any of the men, what was to be done ? Their time for it had gone by. Two men were fast, and there were left only two men besides Stimson and myself, and a small boy of ten or twelve years of age; and Stimson and I would not have joined the men in a mutiny, as they knew. And then, on the other side, there were (besides the captain) three officers, steward, agent, and clerk, and the cabin supplied with weapons. But besides the num- bers, what is there for sailors to do? If they resist, it is mutiny; and if they succeed, and take the vessel, it is piracy. If they ever yield again, their punishment must come; and if they do not yield, what are they to be for the rest of their lives? If a sailor resist his commander, he resists the law, and piracy or submission is his only alterna- tive. Bad as it was, they saw it must be borne. It is what a sailor ships for. Swinging the rope over his head, and bending his body so as to give it full force, the captain brought it down upon the poor fellow's back. Once, twice, — six times. "Will you ever give me any more of your jaw?" The man writhed with pain, but said not a word. Three times more. This was too much, and he muttered something which I could not hear; this brought as many more as the man could stand, when the captain ordered him to be cut down. The Early Writei^s 115 "Now for you," said the captain, making up to John, and taking his irons off. As soon as John was loose, he ran forward to the forecastle. "Bring that man aft!" shouted the captain. The second mate, who had been in the forecastle with these men in the early part of the voy- age, stood still in the waist, and the mate walked slowly forward; but our third officer, anxious to show his zeal, sprang forward over the windlass, and laid hold of John; but John soon threw him from him. The captain stood on the quarter-deck, bareheaded, his eyes flashing with rage, and his face as red as blood, swinging the rope, and calling out to this officers, "Drag him aft! Lay hold of him! I'll sweeten him !" etc., etc. The mate now went forward, and told John quietly to go aft; and he, seeing resistance vain, threw the blackguard third mate from him, said he would go aft of himself, that they should not drag him, and went up to the gangway and held out his hands; but as soon as the captain began to make him fast, the indignity was too much, and he struggled; but, the mate and Rus- sell holding him, he was soon seized up. When he was made fast, he turned to the captain, who stood rolling up his sleeves, getting ready for the blow, and asked him what he was to be flogged for. "Have I ever refused my duty, sir? Have you ever known me to hang back or to be in- solent, or not to know my work?" "No," said the captain, "it is not that that I flog you for; I flog you for your interference, for asking ques- tions." "Can't a man ask a question here without being flogged?" "No," shouted the captain; "nobody shall open his mouth aboard this vessel but myself"; and he began lay- ing the blows upon his back, swinging half round between each blow, to give it full effect. As he went on his passion increased, and he danced about the deck, calling out, as he swung the rope, "If you want to know what I flog you for, I'fl tell you. It's because I like to do it ! because I like to do it ! It suits me ! That's what I do it for !" The man writhed under the pain until he could endure 116 Ajnerican Literature it no longer, when he called out, with an exclamation more common among foreigners than with us: "O Jesus Christ! O Jesus Christ!" "Don't call on Jesus Christ," shouted the captain; ^^He can't help you. Call on Frank Thompson ! He's the man ! He can help you ! Jesus Christ can't help you now !" At these words, which I never shall forget, my blood ran cold. I could look on no longer. Disgusted, sick, I turned away, and leaned over the rail, and looked down into the water. A few rapid thoughts, I don't know what — our situation, a resolution to see the captain punished when we got home — crossed my mind; but the falling of the blows and the cries of the man called me back once more. At length they ceased, and, turning round, I found that the mate, at a signal from the captain, had cast him loose. Almost doubled up with pain, the man walked slowly for- ward, and went down into the forecastle. Every one else stood still at his post, while the captain, swelling with rage and with the importance of his achievement, walked the quarter-deck, and at each turn, as he came forward, call- ing out to us: "You see your condition! You see where I've got you all, and you know what to expect ! You've been mistaken in me ! You didn't know what I was ! Now you know what I am ! I'll make you toe the mark, every soul of you, or I'll flog you all, fore and aft, from the boy up ! You've got a driver over you ! Yes, a slave- driver — a nigger-driver ! I'll see who'll tell me he isn't a NIGGER slave!" With this and the like matter, equally calculated to quiet us, and to allay any apprehensions of future trouble, he entertained us for about ten minutes, when he went below. Soon after, John came aft, with his bare back covered with stripes and wales in every direc- tion, and dreadfully swollen, and asked the steward to ask the captain to let him have some salve, or balsam, to put upon it. "No," said the captain, who heard him from below; "tell him to put his shirt on; that's the best thing for him, and pull me ashore in the boat. Nobody is going to lay-up on board this vessel." He then called to Mr. Russell to take those two men and two others in the boat. The Early Writers 117 and pull him ashore. I went for one. The two men could hardly bend their backs, and the captain called to them to "give way!" but finding they did their best, he let them alone. The agent was in the stern sheets, but during the whole pull — a league or more — not a word was spoken. We landed; the captain, agent, and officer went up to the house, and left us with the boat. I and the man with me stayed near the boat, while John and Sam walked slowly away, and sat down on the rocks. They talked some time together, but at length separated, each sitting alone. I had some fears of John. He was a foreigner, and violently tempered, and under suffering; and he had his knife with him, and the captain was to come down alone to the boat. But nothing happened; and we went quietly on board. The captain was probably armed, and if either of them had Hfted a hand against him, they would have had noth- ing before them but flight, and starvation in the woods of Cahfornia, or capture by the soldiers and Indians, whom the offer of twenty dollars would have set upon them. After the day's work was done we went down into the forecastle and ate our plain supper; but not a word was spoken. It was Saturday night; but, there was no song • — no "sweethearts and wives." A gloom was over every- thing. The two men lay in their berths, groaning with pain, and we all turned in, but, for myself, not to sleep. A sound coming now and then from the berths of the two men showed that they were awake, as awake they must have been, for they could hardly lie in one posture long; the dim swinging lamp shed its Hght over the dark hole in which we Hved, and many and various reflections and pur- poses coursed through my mind. I had no real apprehen- sion that the captain would lay a hand on me; but our situation, living under a tyranny, with an ungoverned, swaggering fellow administering it; of the character of the country we were in; the length of the voyage; the uncer- tainty attending our return to America; and then, if we should return, the prospect of obtaining justice and satis- faction for these poor men ; and I vowed that, if God should 118 Ainerican Literature ever give me the means, I would do something to redress the grievances and relieve the sufferings of that class of beings with whom my lot had so long been cast. . . . II. Rev. Samuel F. Smith (i 808-1 895) is remembered to-day for his song America, which was published in 1832. America My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of Hberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died. Land of the pilgrims' pride. From every mountain-side Let freedom ring. My native country, thee. Land of the noble free,— Thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills. Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture thrills Like^that above. Let music swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees, Sweet freedom's song; Let mortal tongues awake. Let all that breathe partake. Let rocks their silence break, — The sound prolong. Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of Hberty, To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by thy might. Great God, our King. The Early Writers 119 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. For Further Illustration Bryant, W. C. : Library of Poetry and Song. Dana, R. H., Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast. Long, G. W.: American Poems. (1776-1900.) Simms, W. G. : The Partisan. Stedman, E. C: An American Anthology. Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. Willis, N. P.: Andrews Request to Washington. The Torn Hat. II. For Collateral Reading Holmes, O. W.: The Boys. (Contains a humorous reference to Smith's America.) Lowell, J. R.: Fable for Critics. (On Halleck and Willis.) Whittier, J. G.: Fitz-Greene Halleck. J CHAPTER IV WRITERS OF THE MID-CENTURY AND AFTER /. Great Names The mid-century discovers a remarkable group of writers in New England, and the literary centre of America shifts from New York to Cambridge. The most distinguished names in American literature are found in this brilliant group of New England authors, and their achievements so far outclass anything else in the realm of American litera- ture before or since that the period of their activity is often called the golden age of American letters. Yet the fact is patent that, while the stature of these men assumes noble proportions when compared with that of other writers na- tive th, American soil, it does not measure up to the size of the great Victorian poets and prose-writers. This is said with no lack of appreciation for the positive worth of the contribution that the New England grOup made to American literature. At this time the influence of Goethe, Coleridge, and Car- lyle was dominant in the works of our leaders of culture. Literary men "thought and talked and wrote upon truths which cannot be demonstrated, which lie beyond the sphere of the established, which transcend human experience and ordinary knowledge," says Professor Simonds. Hence they> are known as Transcendentalists. Chief among them was Ralph Waldo Emerson. I. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803- 1882) was born in Boston and educated at Harvard. After graduation he taught school 120 Writers of the Mid- Century and After 121 for a while and then studied for the ministry. He was or- dained and given charge of the historic Old North Church, where the Mathers had preached in colonial days. This had now become the most important pulpit of the Unitarians. But Emerson could not agree even with the liberal tenets of the Unitarians, so he withdj^ew from the church. He then went abroad for his health. While in England he visited Carlyle with whom he formed a friendship which lasted through life. On his return to America he settled in Concord, where he lived quietly for the rest of his days. Mr. Barrett Wendell asserts that Emerson was " by far the most eminent figure among the Transcendentalists, if not, indeed, in all the literary history of America." Of all American writers he is probably the most inspiring to the young. The bulk of his writings is in the form of essays, many of which were delivered as lectures, but he wrote poems now and then all through his life. Of his ability as a poet he himself says: " I am a born poet, of a low class, without doubt, yet a poet. That is my nature and my voca- tion." Though most critics agree that his verse is too intel- lectual, Stedman calls hini " our most typical and inspiring poet." He had a genius for the happy word and his essays teem with epigrams such as, "Never read any book that is not a year old," "Never read any but famed books," "Never read any but what you like," "Hitch your wagon to a star," and the like. With him, most emphatically, the style is the man. (From The American Scholar) (This address was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, August 31, 1837. Holmes calls it "our intellectual Declaration of Independence," and Lowell says: "The eflfect produced upon the audience by its delivery was without any parallel in our literary annals, a scene to be always treasured in the memory for its pic- turesqueness and its inspiration.") I. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and, after sunset, Night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar V22 American Literature is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him ? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always cir- cular power returning into itself. Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find, — so entire, so boundless. Far too as her splendours shine, system on system shooting Uke rays, upward, down- ward, without centre, without circumference, — in the mass and in the particle, Nature hastens to render account of her- self to the mind. Classification begins. To the young mind every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomahes, discovering roots running under ground whereby contrary and remote things cohere and flower out from one stem. It presently learns that since the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation and classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of plane- tary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelli- gible method throughout matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each refrac- tory fact; one after another reduces all strange constitu- tions, all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes on forever to animate the last fibre of organization, the out- skirts of nature, by insight. Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is suggested that he and it proceed from one root; one is leaf and one is flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that root? Is not that the soul of his soul? A thought too bold; a dream too wild. Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures, — when he has learned to worship Writers of the Mid- Century and After 123 the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a be- coming creator. He shall see that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then be- comes to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim. II. The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar is the mind of the Past, — in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth, — learn the amount of this influence more conveniently, — by considering their value alone. The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of liis own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him life; it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing. Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the distillation, so will the purity and im- perishableness of the product be. But none is quite per- fect. As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the con- ventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all re- spects, to a remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or 124 A'me?ican Literature rather to the second age. Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The bouks of an older period will not lit this. Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation, the act of thought, is transferred to the record. The poet chanting was felt to be a divine nan: henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit: henceforward it is settled the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes noxious: the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by think- ers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in Ubraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and "^aron were only young men in libraries when they wrote hese books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees. Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; 'this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favourite, Wiiters of the Mid- Century and After 125 but the sound estate of every man. In its essence it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, — let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his fore- head, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; — cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair. On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of Hght, without periods of sohtude, inquest and self-recovery, and a fatal disservice is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence. The Uterature of every nation bears me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two hundred years. Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must, — when the sun is tid and the stars withdraw their shining, — we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, ''A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful." It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction that one natu re wrote and the same read^ We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy, — with a 126 American Literature pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the ab- straction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived HI some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which hes close to my soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some pre-established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some prepara- tion of stores for their future wants, like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never see. There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian, — as unfit for any handiwork or pubUc labour as a penknife for an axe. The so-called "practical men" sneer at speculative men, as if , because they speculate or see, they could do nothing. I have heard it said that the clergy, — who are always more universally than any other class, the scholars of their day, — are ad- dressed as women; that the rough spontaneous conversa- tion of men they do not hear, but only a mincing and diluted speech. They are often virtually disfranchised; and in- deed there are advocates for their cehbacy. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the con- scious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not. The world — this shadow of the soul, or other me, hes wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run Writers of the Mid- Century and After 127 eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. ... So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my do- minion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes for- ward at all hours. Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit action has the richest return of wisdom. I will not shut myself out of this globe of action, and transplant an oak into a flower-pot, there to hunger and pine; nor trust the revenue of some single faculty, and exhaust one vein of thought, much like those Savoyards, who, getting their livelihood by carving shepherds, shepherdesses, and smok- ing Dutchmen, for all Europe, went out one day to the mountain to find stock, and discovered that they had whit- tled up the last of their pine-trees. Authors we have, in numbers, who have written out their vein, and who, moved by a commendable prudence, sail to Greece or Palestine, follow the trapper into the prairie, or ramble round Algiers, to replenish their merchantable stock. If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labours; in town, in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of master- 128 American Literature ing in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already Uved, through the pov- erty or the splendour of his speech. Life Hes behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and cope-stones for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made. But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than books, is, that it is a resource. . . . The mind now thinks, now acts; and each fit reproduces the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended and books are a weariness, — he has always the resource to live. Character is higher than in- tellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the function- ary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart his truths? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection cheer his lowly roof. Those "far from fame," who dwell and act with him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and passages of the day better than it can be measured by any pubhc and designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives. Herein he unfolds the sacred germ of his instinct, screened from influence. What is lost in seemliness is gained in strength. Not out of those on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of un- handselled savage nature; out of terrible Druids and Ber- serkers come at last Alfred and Shakespeare. I hear, therefore, with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labour to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labour is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this Writers of the Mid- Century and After 129 limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action. Concord Hymn sung at the completion of the battle monument, APRIL 19, 1836 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. \ The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee. Each and All Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee from the hill- top looking down; The heifer, that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton tolling the bell at noon. Dreams not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight. Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 130 American Literature Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent: All are needed by each one, Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home in his nest at even; He sings the song, but it pleases not now; For I did not bring home the river and sky; _He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye. The delicate shells lay on the shore; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me; I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white quire, At last she came to his hermitage. Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage, The gay enchantment was undone, A gentle wife, but fairy none. Then I said, "I covet Truth ;- Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat, — I leave it behind with the games of youth." As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burrs; I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; Writers of the Mid- Century and After 131 Above me soared the eternal sky, Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolHng river, the morning bird; — Beauty through my senses stole, I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 2. Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862) was a Harvard graduate who became famous for his semipoetic, semiscientific studies of nature. A devoted lover of the open, he lived the simple life alone for two years in a cabin which he built himself on the shore of Walden Pond. The careful observations which he made while living there form the subject-matter of Walden, his most important contribution to American letters. The Battle of the Ants (From Walden, chapter XII, "Brute Neighbors") One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a helium, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle- field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red repubHcans on the one hand, and the black imperiahsts on the oth^r. On every side they were en- gaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a httle sunny valley amid the chips, now at noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down, or Ufe 132 American Literature went out. The smaller red champion had fastened him- self like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumbhngs on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking, had already divested him of several of his mem- bers. They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In the mean while there came along a single red ant on the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar, — for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the reds, — he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respec- tive musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited some- what even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight ! Two killed on the patriot's side, and Luther Blanchard Writers of the Mid- Century and After 133 wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick, — "Fire! for God's sake, fire!" — and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hirehng there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as impor- tant and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Plill, at least. I took up the chip on which the three I have partic- ularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his re- maining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he accompHshed. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feehngs excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door. 3. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is "the most com- manding figure that America has produced in the field of ro- 134 Amei'ican Literature mance" according to Professor Shiionds. He was a graduate of Bowdoin College and lived much of his life at Concord and Salem. By nature he was a recluse; " his soul was like a star and dwelt apart." " Beyond any one else," says Professor Barrett Wendell, "he expresses the deepest temper of that New England race which brought him forth, and which now, at least in the phases we have known, seems vanishing from the earth." Mr. Henry James declares The Scarlet Letter to be "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in this country." And by some critics Hawthorne's style is considered superior to that of all other American writers of fiction. The Ambitious Guest (From Twice Told Tales) One September night, a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled it high with the drift-wood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees, that had come crashing down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed; the eldest daughter was the image of Happiness at seventeen; and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image of Happiness grown old. They had found the "herb, heart's-ease," in the bleakest spot of all New England. This family were situated in the Notch of the White Hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the year, and pitilessly cold in the winter, — giving their cot- tage all its fresh inclemency, before it descended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot and a dan- gerous one; for a mountain towered above their heads, so steep, that the stones would often rumble down its sides, and startle them at midnight. The daughter had just uttered some simple jest, that filled them all with mirth, when the wind came through the Notch and seemed to pause before their cottage, — rattling the door, with a sound of waiUng and lamentation, before it passed into the valley. For a moment, it sad- dened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones. But the family were glad again, when they per- JVriters of the Mid- Century and After 135 ceived that the latch was lifted by some traveller, whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast, which heralded his approach, and wailed as he was entering, and went moaning away from the door. The door was opened by a young man. His face at first wore the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wild and bleak road, at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened up, when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. He felt his heart spring forward to meet them all, from the old woman, who wiped a chair with her apron, to the little child that held out its arms to him. One glance and smile placed the stranger on a foot- ing of innocent famiHarity with the eldest daughter. "Ah, this fire is the right thing!" cried he; "especially when there is such a pleasant circle round it. I am quite benumbed; for the Notch is just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows; it has blown a terrible blast in my face, all the way from Bartlett." "Then you are going towards Vermont?" said the mas- ter of the house, as he helped to take a light knapsack off the yoimg man's shoulders. "Yes; to BurHngton, and far enough beyond," replied he. "I meant to have been at Ethan Crawford's to-night; but a pedestrian fingers along such a road as this. It is no matter; for, when I saw this good fire, and all your cheerful faces, I felt as if you had kindled it on purpose for me, and were waiting my arrival. So I shall sit down among you, and make myself at home." The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire, when something like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing down the steep side of the mountain, as with long and rapid strides, and taking such a leap, in passing the cottage, as to strike the opposite precipice. The family held their breath, because they knew the sound, and their guest held his, by instinct. "The old mountain has thrown a stone at us, for fear we should forget him," said the landlord, recovering him- self. "He sometimes nods his head, and threatens to come 136 American Literature down; but we are old neighbors, and agree together pretty well, upon the whole. Besides, we have a sure place of refuge, hard by, if he should be coming in good earnest." . . . [The stranger] was of a proud, yet gentle spirit, — haughty and reserved among the rich and great; but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door, and be like a brother or a son at the poor man's fireside. . . . But, this evening, a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence. And thus it should have been. Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth ? The secret of the young man's character was a high and abstracted ambition. He could have borne to Uve an undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. Yearning desire had been transformed to hope; and hope, long cherished, had become hke certainty, that, obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his path- way, — though not, perhaps, while he was treading it. But, when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of what was now the present, they would trace the brightness of his footsteps, brightening as meaner glories faded, and confess, that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb, with none to recognize him. "As yet," cried the stranger, his cheek glowing and his eyes flashing with enthusiasm, — ''as yet, I have done nothing. Were I to vanish from the earth to-morrow, none would know so much of me as you; that a nameless youth came up, at nightfall, from the valley of the Saco, and opened his heart to you in the evening, and passed through the Notch, by sunrise, and was seen no more. Not a soul would ask, 'Who was he? Whither did the wanderer go?' But I cannot die till I have achieved my destiny. Then let Death come! I shall have built my monument!" "You laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand, and laughing himself. "You think my ambition as Writers of the Mid- Century and After 137 nonsensical as if I were to freeze myself to death on the top of Mount Washington, only that people might spy at me from the country round about. And truly, that would be a noble pedestal for a man's statue !" "It is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, blushing, "and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us." "I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there is something natural in what the young man says; and if my mind had been turned that way, I might have felt just the same. It is strange, wife, how his talk has set my head running on things that are pretty certain never to come to pass." "Perhaps they may," observed the wife. "Is the man thinking what he will do when he is a widower?" "No, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness. "When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine, too. But I was wishing we had a good farm in Bartlett, or Bethlehem, or Littleton, or some other town- ship round the White Mountains; but not where they could tumble on our heads. I should want to stand well with my neighbors, and be called Squire, and sent to Gen- eral Court for a termor two; for a plain, honest man may do as much good there as a lawyer. And when I should be grown quite an old man, and you an old woman, so as not to be long apart, I might die happy enough in my bed, and leave you all crying around me. A slate gravestone would suit me as well as a marble one, — with just my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let peo- ple know that I lived an honest man and died a Christian," "There now !" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our nature to desire a monument, be it slate, or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of man." "We're in a strange way, to-night," said the wife, with tears in her eyes. "They say it's a sign of something, when folks' minds go a- wandering so. Hark to the chil- dren!" They listened accordingly. ... At length, a little boy, 138 American Literature instead of addressing his brothers and sisters, called out to his mother. "I'll tell you what I wish, mother," cried he. *'I want you and father and grandma'm, and all of us, and the stranger too, to start right away, and go and take a drink out of the basin of the Flume !" Nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of leaving a warm bed, and dragging them from a cheerful fire, to visit the basin of the Flume, — a brook which tum- bles over the precipice, deep within the Notch. The boy had hardly spoken, when a wagon rattled along the road, and stopped a moment before the door. . . . "Father," said the girl, "they are calKng you by name." But the good man doubted whether they had really called him, and was unwilling to show himself too solic- itous of gain, by inviting people to patronize his house. He therefore did not hurry to the door; and the lash being soon appHed, the travellers plunged into the Notch, still singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearily from the heart of the mountain. "There, mother!" cried the boy again, "they'd have given us a ride to the Flume." Again they laughed at the child's pertinacious fancy for a night ramble. But it happened that a Kght cloud passed over the daughter's spirit; she looked gravely into the fire, and drew a breath that was almost a sigh. It forced its way, in spite of a little struggle to repress it. Then, starting and blushing, she looked quickly round the cir- cle, as if they had caught a glimpse into her bosom. The stranger asked what she had been thinking of. " Nothing," answered she, with a downcast smile. "Only I felt lonesome just then." "O, I have always had a gift of feeling what is in other people's hearts !" said he, half seriously. "Shall I tell the secrets of yours? For I know what to think, when a young girl shivers by a warm hearth, and complains of lonesomeness at her mother's side. Shall I put these feel- ings into words?" "They would not be a girl's feelings any longer, if they Writers of the Mid- Century and After 139 could be put into words," replied the mountain nymph, laughing, but avoiding his eye. All this was said apart. . . . But, while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the light- some shadows, the shy yearnings of a maiden's nature, the wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of the blast, who, in old Indian times, had their dwelling among these mountains, and made their heights and recesses a sacred region. There was a wail, along the road, as if a funeral were passing. To chase away the gloom, the family threw pine branches on their fire, till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, dis- covering once again a scene of peace and humble happi- ness. The light hovered about them fondly, and caressed them all. There were the little faces of the children, peep- ing from their bed apart, and here the father's frame of strength, the mother's subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youth, the budding girl, and the good old grandam, still knitting in the warmest place. The aged woman looked up from her task, and with fingers ever busy, was the next to speak. "Old folks have their notions," said she, "as well as young ones. You've been wishing and planning and letting your heads run on one thing and another, till you've set my mind a- wandering too. Now what should an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes to her grave ? Children, it will haunt me night and day till I tell you." "Wliat is it, mother?" cried the husband and wife, at once. "I want one of you, my children, — when your mother is dressed and in her coffin, — I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take a glimpse at myself, and see whether all's right?" "Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured the stranger youth. "I wond'er how mariners 140 American Literature ' feel, when the ship is sinking, and they, unknown and un- distinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean, — that wide and nameless sepulchre?" For a moment, the old woman's ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers, that a sound abroad in the night, rising Hke the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep, and terrible, before the fated group were conscious of it. The house, and all within it, trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump. Young ; and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an in- J stant, pale, affrighted, without utterance, or power to move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips. "The Slide! The Slide!" The simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the ' unutterable horror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed from their cottage and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot, — where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared. Alas ! they had quitted their security, and fled right into the pathway of destruc- tion. Down came the whole side of the mountain, in a cataract of ruin. Just before it reached the house, the stream broke into two branches, — shivered not a window there, but o-^/erwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up the road, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. Long ere the thunder of that great Slide had ceased to roar among the mountains, the mortal agony had been endured, and the victims were at peace. Their bodies were never found. The Toll-Gatherer's Day a sketch of transitory life Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over the current of life, than to plunge into its tumultuous waves, no undesirable retreat were a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land. In youth, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 141 perhaps, it is good for the observer to run about the earth, — to leave the track of his footsteps far and wide, — to mingle himself with the action of numberless vicissitudes, — and, finally, in some calm sohtude, to feed a musing spirit on all that he has seen and felt. But there are na- tures too indolent, or too sensitive, to endure the dust, the sunshine, or the rain, the turmoil of moral and physical elements, to which all the wayfarers of the world expose themselves. For such a man, how pleasant a miracle, could Hfe be made to roll its variegated length by the threshold of his own hermitage, and the great globe, as it were, perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes before his eyes without whirKng him onward in its course. If any mortal be favored with a lot analogous to this, it is the toll-gatherer. So, at least, have I often fancied, while lounging on a bench at the door of a small square edifice, which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a long bridge. Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea; while above, like the life-blood through a great artery, the travel of the north and east is continually throbbing. Sitting on the aforesaid bench, I amuse my- self with a conception, illustrated by numerous pencil- sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day. In the morning — dim, gray, dewy summer's morn — the distant roll of ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend's slumbers, creaking more and more harshly through the midst of his dream, and gradually replacing it with realities. Hardly conscious of the change from sleep to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and throwing wide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. The timbers groan beneath the slow-revolv- ing wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen, and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house, is seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long. The toll is paid, — creak, creak, again go the wheels, and the huge hay-mow vanishes into the morning mist. As yet, nature is but half awake, and familiar objects appear visionary. But yonder, dashing 142 American Literature from the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a confused clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail, which has hurried onward at the same headlong, restless rate, all through the quiet night. The bridge resounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls on without a pause, merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the sleepy passengers, who now bestir their torpid limbs, and snuff a cordial in the briny air. The morn breathes upon them and blushes, and they forget how wearily the darkness toiled away. And behold now the fervid day, in his bright chariot, glittering aslant over the waves, nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden beams on the toll-gatherer's little hermitage. The old man looks eastward, and (for he is a moralizer) frames a simile of the stage-coach and the sun. While the world is rousing itself, we may glance slightly at the scene of our sketch. It sits above the bosom of the broad flood, a spot not of earth, but in the midst of waters, which rush with a murmuring sound among the massive beams beneath. Over the door is a weather-beaten board, inscribed with the rates of toll, in letters so nearly effaced that the gilding of the sunshine can hardly make them legible. Beneath the window is a wooden bench, on which a long succession of weary wayfarers have reposed them- selves. Peeping within doors we perceive the whitewashed walls bedecked with sundry Kthographic prints and adver- tisements of various import, and the immense show-bill of a wandering caravan. And there sits our good old toll- gatherer, glorified by the early sunbeams. He is a man, as his aspect may announce, of quiet soul, and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple mind, who, of the wisdom which the passing world scatters along the wayside, has gathered a reasonable store. Now the sun smiles upon the landscape, and earth smiles back again upon the sky. Frequent, now, are the travel- lers. The toll-gatherer's practised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number of its wheels, and how many horses beat the resounding timbers with their iron tramp. Here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forth Writers of the Mid- Century and After 143 betimes to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gen- tleman and his wife, with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely between them. The bottom of the chaise is heaped with multifarious band-boxes and carpet- bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk dusty with yesterday's journey. Next appears a four-wheeled carryall, peopled by a round half-dozen of pretty girls, all drawn by a single horse, and driven by a single gentleman. Luckless wight, doomed, through a whole summer day, to be the butt of mirth and mischief among the frolicsome maidens. Bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged man, who, as he pays his toll, hands the toll-gatherer a printed card to stick upon the wall. The vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles. Now paces slowly from timber to timber a horseman clad in black, with a meditative brow, as of one who, whitherso- ever his steed might bear him, would still journey through a mist of brooding thought. He is a country preacher, going to labor at a protracted meeting. The next object passing townward is a butcher's cart, canopied with its arch of snow-white cotton. Behind comes a "sauceman," driving a wagon full of new potatoes, green ears of corn, beets, carrots, turnips, and summer squashes; and next, two wrinkled, witch-looking old gossips, in an antediluvian chaise, drawn by a horse of former generations, and going to peddle out a lot of huckleberries. See there, a man trundling a wheelbarrow load of lobsters. And now a milk-cart rattles briskly onward, covered with green can- vas, and conveying the contributions of a whole herd of cows, in large tin canisters. But let all these pay their toll and pass. Here comes a spectacle that causes the old toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if the travellers brought sunshine with them and lavished its gladsome influence all along the road. It is a barouche of the newest style, the varnished panels of which reflect the whole moving panorama of the land- scape, and show a picture, likewise, of our friend, with his visage broadened, so that his meditative smile is trans- formed to grotesque merriment. Within, sits a youth, 144 American Literature fresh as the summer morn, and beside him a young lady in white, with white gloves upon her slender hands, and a white veil flowing down over her face. But methinks her blushing cheek burns through the snowy veil. Another white-robed virgin sits in front. And who are these, on whom, and on all that appertains to them, the dust of earth seems never to have settled? Two lovers, whom the priest has blessed, this blessed morn, and sent them forth, with one of the bridemaids, on the matrimonial tour. Take my blessing too, ye happy ones ! May the sky not frown upon you, nor clouds bedew you with their chill and sullen rain ! May the hot sun kindle no fever in your hearts ! May your whole life's pilgrimage be as bhssful as this first day's journey, and its close be gladdened with even brighter anticipations than those which hallow your bridal night ! They pass; and ere the reflection of their joy has faded from his face, another spectacle throws a melancholy shadow over the spirit of the observing man. In a close carriage sits a fragile figure, muffled carefully, and shrink- ing even from a mild breath of summer. She leans against a manly form, and his arm enfolds her, as if to guard his treasure from some enemy. Let but a few weeks pass, and when he shall strive to embrace that loved one, he will press only desolation to his heart. And now has morning gathered up her dewy pearls, and fled away. The sun rolls blazing through the sky, and cannot find a cloud to cool his face with. The horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave their glistening sides in short, quick pantings, when the reins are tightened at the toll-house. Glisten, too, the faces of the travellers. Their garments are thickly bestrewn with dust; their whiskers and hair look hoary; their throats are choked with the dusty atmosphere which they have left behind them. No air is stirring on the road. Nature dares draw no breath, lest she should inhale a stifling cloud of dust. *'A hot and dusty day!" cry the poor pilgrims, as they wipe their begrimed foreheads, and woo the doubtful breeze which the river bears along with it. "Awful hot! Writers of the Mid- Century and After 145 Dreadful dusty!" answers the sympathetic toll-gatherer. They start again, to pass through the fiery furnace, while he reenters his cool hermitage, and besprinkles it with a pail of briny water from the stream beneath. He thinks within himself, that the sun is not so fierce here as else- where, and that the gentle air does not forget him in these sultry days. Yes, old friend; and a quiet heart will make a dog-day temperate. He hears a weary footstep, and perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who sits down upon the hospitable bench, and removes the hat from his wet brow. The toll-gatherer administers a cup of cold water, and discovering his guest to be a man of homely sense, he engages him in profitable talk, uttering the maxims of a philosophy which he has found in his own soul, but knows not how it came there. And as the wayfarer makes ready to resume his journey, he tells him a sovereign remedy for blistered feet. Now comes the noon-tide hour, — of all the hours nearest akin to midnight; for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, the world begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day; when an accident impedes the march of sublunary things. The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner, laden with wood from the eastern forests, she sticks immovably, right athwart the bridge ! Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm, a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. Here are two sailors in a gig, with the top thrown back, both puffing cigars, and swearing all sorts of forecastle oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly dressed gen- tleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board, and she from a milliner's back-room, — the aristocrats of a summer afternoon. And what are the haughtiest of us, but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer's day? Here is a tin- pedler, whose glittering ware bedazzles all beholders, like a travelling meteor, or opposition sun; and on the other side a seller of spruce-beer, which brisk liquor is confined in several dozen of stone bottles. Here comes a party of ladies on horseback, in green riding habits, and gentlemen attendant; and there a flock of sheep for the market, 146 American Literature pattering over the bridge with a multitudinous clatter of their little hoofs. Here a Frenchman, with a hand-organ on his shoulder; and there an itinerant Swiss jeweller. On this side, heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles, appears a train of wagons, conveying all the wild beasts of a caravan; and on that, a company of summer soldiers, marching from village to village on a festival campaign, attended by the "brass band." Now look at the scene, and it presents an emblem of the mysterious confusion, the apparently insolvable riddle, in which individuals, or the great world itself, seem often to be involved. What miracle shall set all things right again ? But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcass through the chasm; the draw descends; horse and foot pass onward, and leave the bridge vacant from end to end. "And thus," muses the toll-gatherer, "have I found it with all stoppages, even though the universe seemed to be at a stand." The sage old man ! Far westward now, the reddening sun throws a broad sheet of splendor across the flood, and to the eyes of dis- tant boatmen gleams brightly among the timbers of the bridge. Strollers come from the town to quaff the freshen- ing breeze. One or two let down long Hnes, and haul up flapping flounders, or cunners, or small cod, or perhaps an eel. Others, and fair girls among them, with the flush of the hot day still on their cheeks, bend over the railing and watch the heaps of sea-weed floating upward with the flowing tide. The horses now tramp heavily along the bridge, and wistfuHy bethink them of their stables. Rest, rest, thou weary world; for to-morrow's round of toil and pleasure will be as wearisome as to-day's has been; yet both shall bear thee onward a day's march of eternity. Now the old toll-gatherer looks seaward, and discerns the lighthouse kindling on a far island, and the stars, too, kindling in the sky, as if but a Httle way beyond; and min- gUng the reveries of Heaven with remembrances of Earth, the whole procession of mortal travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage which he has witnessed, seems like a flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtful soul to muse upon. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 147 4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (i 807-1 882) was born in Portland, Maine, and educated at Bowdoin College. After graduation he went abroad to study foreign languages and literatures so that he might be able to teach them at his alma mater. In three years he returned and spent the next six years as a professor at Bowdoin. He then accepted the pro- fessorship of modern languages at Harvard, but before enter- ing on the work went abroad for another year's study. He held the position for eighteen years; then he resigned and devoted the rest of his life to writing. He was a pioneer in revealing to the American public the beauties of foreign Ht- eratures through his translations. Longfellow is the most popular of all our poets in America and is more widely read abroad than any other American poet with the possible ex- ception of Poe. Both Oxford and Cambridge conferred on him honorary degrees. In 1884 a marble bust of Longfellow was placed in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. The Skeleton in Armor " Speak ! speak ! thou fearful guest ! Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest, Comest to daunt me ! Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou haunt me?" Then, from those cavernous eyes Pale flashes seemed to rise. As when the Northern skies Gleam in December; And, like the water's flow Under December's snow. Came a dull voice of woe From the heart's chamber. "I was a Viking old ! My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told, 148 American Literature No Saga taught thee ! Take heed, that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man's curse; For this I sought thee. " Far in the Northern Land, By the wild Baltic's strand, I, with my childish hand, Tamed the gerfalcon; And, with my skates fast-bound. Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, That the poor whimpering hound Trembled to walk on. "Oft to his frozen lair Tracked I the grisly bear, While from my path the hare Fled like a shadow; Oft through the forest dark Followed the were-wolf's bark, Until the soaring lark Sang from the meadow. "But when I older grew. Joining a corsair's crew, O'er the dark sea I flew With the marauders. Wild was the Kfe we led, Many the souls that sped. Many the hearts that bled. By our stern orders. "Many a wassail-bout Wore the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's tale Measured in cups of ale. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 149 Draining the oaken pail, Filled to o'erflowing. "Once as I told in glee Tales of the stormy sea, Soft eyes did gaze on me. Burning yet tender; And as the white stars shine On the dark Norway pine, On that dark heart of mine Fell their soft splendor. "I wooed the blue-eyed maid, Yielding, yet half afraid, And in the forest's shade Our vows were pHghted. Under its loosened vest Fluttered her little breast, Like birds within their nest By the hawk frighted. ''Bright in her father's hall ShieWs gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrels all. Chanting his glory; When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter's hand, Mute did the minstrels stand To hear my story. ''While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed. And as the wind-gusts waft The sea-foam brightly. So the loud laugh of scorn, Out of those lips unshorn, From the deep drinking-horn Blew the foam lightly. 150 American Literature "She was a Prince's child, I but a Viking wild, And though she blushed and smiled, I was discarded ! Should not the dove so white Follow the sea-mew's flight, Why did they leave that night Her nest unguarded ? "Scarce had I put to sea, Bearing the maid with me, Fairest of all was she Among the Norsemen ! When on the white sea-strand, Waving his armed hand. Saw we old Hildebrand, With twenty horsemen. "Then launched they to the blast, Bent like a reed each mast, Yet we were gaining fast. When the wind failed us; And with a sudden flaw Came round the gusty Skaw, So that our foe we saw Laugh as he hailed us. "And as to catch the gale Round veered the flapping sail, 'Death !' was the helmsman's hail; 'Death without quarter!'* Mid-ships with iron keel Struck we her ribs of steel; Down her black hulk did reel Through the black water ! "As with his wings aslant. Sails the fierce cormorant. Seeking some rocky haunt. With his prey laden; Writers of the Mid- Century and After 151 So toward the open main, Beating to sea again, Through the wild hurricane, Bore I the maiden. "Three weeks we westward bore. And when the storm was o'er. Cloud-like we saw the shore Stretching to leeward; There for my lady's bower Built I the lofty tower, Which, to this very hour, Stands looking seaward. "There lived we many years; Time dried the maiden's tears; She had forgot her fears, She was a mother; Death closed her mild blue eyes, Under the tower she Hes; Ne'er shall the sun arise On such another ! "Still grew my bosom then, Still as a stagnant fen ! Hateful to me were men. The sunlight hateful ! In the vast forest here, Clad in my warhke gear, Fell I upon my spear, ■^ O, death was grateful ! "Thus seamed with many scars Bursting these prison bars^ Up to its native stars My soul ascended ! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior's soul Skoal! to the Northland ! skoal!" — Thus the tale ended. 152 American Literature The Arrow and the Song I shot an arrow into the air. It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow in its flight. I breathed a song into the air. It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong That it can follow the flight of song. Long, long afterward, in an oak, I found the arrow still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. The Day Is Done The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist; A feeling of sadness and longing That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling. And banish the thoughts of day. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 153 Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor; And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart. As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyehds start; Who, through long days of labor. And nights devoid of ease. Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come hke the benediction That follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. Hiawatha's Wooing (From the Song of Hiawatha) "As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him. Though she draws him, yet she follows; Useless each without the other !" Thus the youthful Hiawatha 154 American Literature Said within himself and pondered, Much perplexed by various feelings, Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, Dreaming still of Minnehaha, Of the lovely Laughing Water, In the land of the Dacotahs. "Wed a maiden of your people," Warning said the old Nokomis; " Go not eastward, go not westward, For a stranger, whom we know not ! Like a fire upon the hearth-stone Is a neighbor's homely daughter, Like the starlight or the moonUght Is the handsomest of strangers !" Thus dissuading spake Nokomis, And my Hiawatha Answered Only this: "Dear old Nokomis, Very pleasant is the firelight But I like the starhght better, Better do I hke the moonlight !" Gravely then said old Nokomis: "Bring not here an idle maiden. Bring not here a useless woman. Hands unskilful, feet unwilling; Bring a wife with nimble fingers. Heart and hand that move together, Feet that run on wilHng errands !" Smiling answered Hiawatha: "In the land of the Dacotahs Lives the Arrow-maker's daughter, Minnehaha, Laughing Water, Handsomest of all the women. I will bring her to your wigwam. She shall run upon your errands. Be your starlight, moonlight, firelight, Be the sunlight of my people !" Still dissuading said Nokomis: "Bring not to my lodge a stranger From the land of the Dacotahs ! Writers of the Mid- Century and After 155 Very fierce are the Dacotahs, Often is there war between us, There are feuds yet unforgotten, Wounds that ache and still may open !" Laughing answered Hiawatha: "For that reason, if no other, Would I wed the fair Dacotah, That our tribes might be united, That old feuds might be forgotten, And old wounds be healed forever !" Thus departed Hiawatha To the land of the Dacotahs, To the land of handsome women; Striding over moor and meadow, Through interminable forests, Through uninteri^pted silence. With his moccasins of magic, At each stride a mile he measured; Yet the way seemed long before him. And his heart outran his footsteps; And he journeyed without resting. Till he heard the cataract's laughter, Heard the Falls of Minnehaha Calling to him through the silence. "Pleasant is the sound !" he murmured, "Pleasant is the voice that calls me !" On the outskirts of the forests, 'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine. Herds of fallow deer were feeding, But they saw not Hiawatha; To his bow he whispered, "Fail not !" To his arrow whispered, "Swerve not!" Sent it singing on its errand, To the red heart of the roebuck; Threw the deer across his shoulder. And sped forward without pausing. At the doorway of his wigwam Sat the ancient Arrow-maker, In the land of the Dacotahs, 156 American Literature Making arrow-heads of jasper, Arrow-heads of chalcedony. At his side, in all her beauty, Sat the lovely Minnehaha, Sat his daughter. Laughing Water, Plaiting mats of flags and rushes; Of the past the old man's thoughts were, And the maiden's of the future. He was thinking, as he sat there, Of the days when with such arrows He had struck the deer and bison, On the Muskoday, the meadow; Shot the wild goose, flying southward, On the wing, the clamorous Wawa; Thinking of the great war-parties, How they came to buy his arrows. Could not fight without his arrows, Ah, no more such noble warriors Could be found on earth as they were ! Now the men were all like women. Only used their tongues for weapons ! She was thinking of a hunter. From another tribe and country, Young and tall and very handsome, Who one morning, in the Spring-time, Came to buy her father's arrows. Sat and rested in the wigwam, Lingered long about the doorway, Looking back as he departed. She had heard her father praise him, Praise his courage and his wisdom; Would he come again for arrows To the Falls of Minnehaha ? On the mat her hands lay idle. And her eyes were very dreamy. Through their thoughts they heard a footstep, Heard a rustling in the branches, And with glowing cheek and forehead, With the deer upon his shoulders, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 157 Suddenly from out the woodlands Hiawatha stood before them. Straight the ancient Arrow-maker Looked up gravely from his labor, Laid aside the unfinished arrow, Bade him enter at the doorway, Saying, as he rose to meet him, "Hiawatha, you are welcome!" At the feet of Laughing Water Hiawatha laid his burden. Threw the red deer from his shoulders; And the maiden looked up at him, Looked up from her mat of rushes. Said with gentle look and accent, "You are welcome, Hiawatha!" Very spacious was the wigwam, Made of deer-skins dressed and whitened With the Gods of the Dacotahs Drawn and painted on its curtains, And so tall the doorway, hardly Hiawatha stooped to enter, Hardly touched his eagle-feathers As he entered at the doorway. Then uprose the Laughing Water, From the ground fair Minnehaha, Laid aside her mat unfinished. Brought forth food and set before them, Water brought them from the brooklet. Gave them food in earthen vessels. Gave them drink in bowls of bass-wood, Listened while the guest was speaking. Listened while her father answered, But not once her lips she opened. Not a single word she uttered. Yes, as in a dream she listened To the words of Hiawatha, As he talked of old Nokomis, Who had nursed him in his childhood, As he told of his companions. 158 American Literature Chibiabos, the musician. And the very strong man, Kwasind, And of happiness and plenty In the land of the Ojibways, In the pleasant land and peaceful. "After many years of warfare, Many years of strife and bloodshed, There is peace between the Ojibways And the tribe of the Dacotahs." Thus continued Hiawatha, And then 2 ,ided, speaking slowly, "That this peace may last forever, And our hands be clasped more closely, And our hearts be more united. Give me as my wife this maiden, Minnehaha, Laughing Water, Loveliest of Dacotah women !" And the ancient Arrow-maker Paused a moment ere he answered, Smoked a Httle while in silence. Looked at Hiawatha proudly, Fondly looked at Laughing Water, And made answer very gravely: "Yes, if Minnehaha wishes; Let your heart speak, Minnehaha ! " And the lovely Laughing Water Seemed more lovely as she stood there. Neither willing nor reluctant, As she went to Hiawatha, Softly took the seat beside him, While she said, and blushed to say it, "I will follow you, my husband !" This was Hiawatha's wooing ! Thus it was he won the daughter Of the ancient Arrow-maker, In the land of the Dacotahs ! From the wigwam he departed, Leading with him Laughing Water; Hand in hand they went together, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 159 Through the woodland and the meadow, Left the old man standing lonely At the doorway of his wigwam, Heard the Falls of Minnehaha CalKng to them from the distance, Crying to them from afar off, 'Tare thee well, O Minnehaha!" And the ancient Arrow-maker Turned again unto his labor, Sat down by his sunny doorway Murmuring to himself, ar 1 saying : "Thus it is our daughters leave us, Those we love, and those who love us ! Just when they have learned to help us, When we are old and lean upon them. Comes a youth with flaunting feathers, With his flute of reeds, a stranger Wanders piping through the village. Beckons to the fairest maiden, And she follows where he leads her, Leaving all things for the stranger !" Pleasant was the journey homeward, Through interminable forests. Over meadow, over mountain, Over river, hill, and hollow. Short it seemed to Hiawatha, Though they journeyed very slowly, Though his pace he checked and slackened To the steps of Laughing Water. Over wide and rushing rivers In his arms he bore the maiden; Light he thought her as a feather. As the plume upon his head-gear; Cleared the tangled pathway for her, Bent aside the swaying branches, Made at night a lodge of branches, And a bed with boughs of hemlock. And a fire before the doorway With the dry cones of the pine-tree. 160 American Literature All the traveling winds went with them, O'er the meadows, through the forest; All the stars of night looked at them, Watched with sleepless eyes their slumber; From his ambush in the oak-tree Peeped the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Watched with eager eyes the lovers; And the rabbit, the Wabasso, Scampered from the path before them. Peering, peeping from his burrow, Sat erect upon his haunches, Watched with curious eyes the lovers. Pleasant was the journey homeward ! All the birds sang loud and sweetly Songs of happiness and heart's-ease; Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa, "Happy are you, Hiawatha, Having now a wife to love you !" Sang the robin, the Opechee, "Happy are you, Laughing Water, Having such a noble husband !" From the sky the sun benignant Looked upon them through the branches. Saying to them, "O my children, Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, Life is checkered shade and sunshine, Rule by love, Q Hiawatha !" From the sky the moon looked at them. Filled the lodge with mystic splendors, Whispered to them, "O my children. Day is restless, night is quiet, Man imperious, woman feeble; Half is mine, although I follow; Rule by patience, Laughing Water !" Thus it was they journeyed homeward; Thus it was that Hiawatha To the lodge of old Nokomis Brought the moonlight, starUght, firelight, Brought the sunshine of his people, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 161 Minnehaha, Laughing Water, Handsomest of all the women In the land of the Dacotahs, In the land of handsome women. 5. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), the Quaker poet, was reared on a farm and never went to college. He became an abolitionist and devoted himself to the cause of the slave. Emancipation was the theme of many of his poems before the Civil War. It was after the war (in 1866) that he published his masterpiece Snow-Bound, which gives a vivid picture of New England farm life in winter. This ranks with Goldsmith's Deserted Village and Burns's The Cotter^s Saturday Night as one of the best pictures of homely domestic life. The Frost Spirit He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! You may trace his footsteps now On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow. He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth, And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth. He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — from the frozen Labrador, — From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er, — Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below In the sunless cold of the Hngering night into marble statues grow! He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes! — on the rushing Northern blast, And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past. 162 American Literature With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below. He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — and the quiet lake shall feel The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater's heel; And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass, Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful silence pass. He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — let us meet him as we may, And turn with the Hght of the parlor-fire his evil power away; And gather closer the circle round, when that fireUght dances high, And laugh at the shriek of the bafHed Fiend as his sound- ing wing goes by ! Maud Muller Maud Muller, on a summer's day Raked the meadow sweet with hay. Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health. Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree. But when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down, The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast, — Writers of the Mid- Century and After 163 A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known. The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees to greet the maid, And ask a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road. She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up And filled for him her small tin cup. And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. "Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed." He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees; Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, And her graceful ankles bare and brown; And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me ! That I the Judge's bride might be ! 164 American Literature "He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine. "My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat. "I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day. "And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door." The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud MuUer standing still. "A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. "And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair. "Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay: "No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, "But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words." But he thought of his sisters proud and cold. And his mother vain of her rank and gold. So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone. But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune; Writers of the Mid- Century and After 165 And the young girl mused beside the well, Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who Uved for fashion, as he for power. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, He watched a picture come and go; And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Looked out in their innocent surprise. Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead; And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, *'Ah, that I were free again ! "Free as when I rode that day. Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door. But care, and sorrow, and childbirth pain. Left their traces on heart and brain. And oft, when the summer sun shone hot, On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot. And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall. In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein. 166 American Literature And, gazing down with timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face. Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls; The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbhng o'er pipe and mug, A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law. Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, ''It might have been." ' Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge ! God pity them both ! and pity us all. Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!" Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes; And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away ! 6. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), " scholar, teacher, editor, wit, diplomat, of various and admirable gifts; Amer- ica's most finished citizen and man of letters," was a graduate of Harvard, where he succeeded Longfellow as professor of modern languages. While a student at college he tells us he read almost everything except the text-books prescribed by Writers of the Mid- Century and After 167 the Faculty. He served his country as Minister to Spain and later to England. He was the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly. In his Biglow Papers he makes a protest in Yankee dialect first against the war with Mexico and next against the Southern cause. In his Fable for Critics he gives us a witty estimate of contemporary writers. His essays in criticism rank among the best yet produced in America. The Shepherd of King Admetus There came a youth upon the earth, Some thousand years ago, Whose slender hands were nothing worth, Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. Upon an empty tortoise-shell He stretched some chords, and drew Music that made men's bosoms swell Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew. Then King Admetus, one who had Pure taste by right divine, Decreed his singing not too bad To hear between the cups of wine: And so, well-pleased with being soothed Into a sweet half-sleep. Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. His words were simple words enough. And yet he used them so, That what in other mouths was rough In his seemed musical and low. Men called him but a shiftless youth, In whom no good they saw; And yet, unwittingly, in truth, They made his careless words their law. 168 American Literature They knew not how he learned at all, For idly, hour by hour, He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, Or mused upon a common flower. It seemed the loveliness of things Did teach him all their use, For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, He found a heaUng power profuse. Men granted that his speech was wise, But, when a glance they caught Of his slim grace and woman's eyes. They laughed, and called him good-for-naught. Yet, after he was dead and gone, And e'en his memory dim. Earth seemed more sweet to Uve upon. More full of love, because of him. And day by day more holy grew Each spot where he had trod, Till after-poets only knew Their first-born brother as a god. To THE Dandelion Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold. First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found. Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Writers of the Mid- Century and After 169 Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor aUke, with lavish hand. Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment In the white Hly's breezy tent. His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass. Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears. When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! 170 American Literature Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show Did we but pay the love we owe, And with a child's undoubting wisdom look On all these living pages of God's book. The Courtin' (From The Biglow Papers — Second Series — Introduction) God makes sech nights, all white an' still Fur'z you can look or listen, Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten. Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown An' peeked ih thru' the winder, An' there sot Huldy all alone, 'Ith no one nigh to hender. A fireplace filled the room's one side With half a cord o' wood in, — There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died) To bake ye to a puddin'. The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out Towards the pootiest, bless her ! An' leetle flames danced all about The chiny on the dresser. Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, An' in amongst 'em rusted The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young Fetched back from Concord busted. The very room, coz she was in. Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', An' she looked full ez rosy agin Ez the apples she was peelin'. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 171 'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look On sech a blessed cretur, A dogrose blushin' to a brook Ain't modester nor sweeter. He was six foot o' man, A i, Clear grit an' human natur'; None couldn't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter. Hed sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells — All is, he couldn't love 'em. But long o' her his veins 'ould run All crinkly like curled maple, The side she breshed felt full o' sun Ez a south slope in Ap'il. She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing Ez hisn in the choir; My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, She knoived the Lord was nigher. An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, When her new meetin'-bunnet Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair O' blue eyes sot upon it. Thet night, I tell ye, she looked sotnel She seemed to 've gut a new soul, For she felt sartin-sure he'd come. Down to her very shoe-sole. She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, A-raspin' on the scraper, — All ways to once her feehns flew Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 172 American Literature i He kin' o' Titered on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the sekie, , His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hern went pity Zekle. An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk ; Ez though she wished him furder, I An' on her apples kep' to work, ; Parin' away Hke murder. "You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" '*Wal . . . no . . . I come dasignin' " — *'To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es Agin to-morrer's i'nin." j To say why gals acts so or so, t Or don't, would be persumin'; j Mebby to mean yes an' say no ] Comes nateral to women. 1 He stood a spell on one foot fust, ■ Then stood a spell on t'other, \ An' on which one he felt the wust j He could't ha' told ye nuther. ; Says he, "I'd better call agin"; I Says she, "Think likely, Mister": ' Thet last word pricked him like a pin, ' An' . . . Wal, he up an' kist her. When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, « Huldy sot pale ez ashes, j All kin' o' smily roun' the lips An' teary round' the lashes. i For she was jes' the quiet kind ' Whose naturs never vary, Like streams that keep a summer mind Snowhid in Jenooary. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 173 The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued Too tight for all expressin' Tell mother see how metters stood, An' gin 'em both her blessin'. Then her red come back Hke the tide Down to the Bay o' Fundy, An' all I know is they was cried In meetin' come nex' Sunday. A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow (From The Biglow Papers — First Series — No. I) Thrash away, you'll hev to rattle On them kittle-drums o' yourn, 'Tain't a knowin' kind o' cattle Thet is ketched with moldy corn; Put in stiff, you fifer feller, Let folks see how spry you be — Guess you'll toot till you are yeller 'Fore you git a-hold o' me ! Thet air flag's a leetle rotten, Hope it ain't your Sunday's best — Fact ! it takes a sight o' cotton To stuff out a soger's chest; Sence we farmers hev to pay fer't Ef you must wear humps like these S'posin, you should try salt hay fer't, It would du ez slick ez grease. 'Twouldn't suit them Southun fellers. They're a dreffle graspin' set, We must oilers blow the bellers Wen they want their irons het; Maybe it's all right ez preachin', But my narves it kind o' grates, Wen I see the overreachin' O' them nigger-drivin' States. American Literature Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, Hain't they cut a thunderin' swath (Helped by Yankee renegaders), Thru the vartu o' the North ! We begin to think it's natur To take sarse an' not be riled — Who'd expect to see a tater All on eend at bein ' biled ? Ez fer war, I call it murder — There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testament fer that; God hez sed so plump an' fairly. It's ez long ez it is broad, An' you've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. 'Tain't your eppyletts an' feathers Make the thing a grain more right; 'Tain't a-follerin' your bell-wethers Will excuse ye in His sight; Ef you take a sword an' dror it, An' go stick a feller thru, Guv'ment ain't to answer for it, God'll send the bill to you. Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin' Every Sabbath, wet or dry, Ef it's right to go a-mowin' Feller-men Hke oats an' rye ? I dunno but wut it's pooty Trainin' round in bobtail coats — But it's curus Christian dooty This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. Thay may talk o' Freedom's airy Tell they're pupple in the face — It's a grand gret cemetary Writers of the Mid- Century and After 175 Fer the barthrights of our race; They jest want this Cahforny So's to lug new slave States in To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, An' to plunder ye like sin. Ain't it cute to see a Yankee Take sech everlastin' pains, All to git the Devil's thankee Helpin' on 'em weld their chains? Wy, it's jest ez clear ez figgers, Clear ez one an' one make two, Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers Want to make wite slaves o' you. Tell ye jest the eend I've come to Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, An' it makes a handy sum, tu. Any gump could larn by heart; Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame. Ev'ythin' thet's done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same. 'Tain't by turnin' out to hack folks You're agoin' to git your right Nor by lookin' down on black folks Coz you're put upon by wite; Slavery ain't o' nary color, 'Tain't the hide thet makes it wus. All it keers fer is a feller 'S jest to make him fill his pus. Want to tackle me in, du ye? I expect you'll hev to wait; Wen cold lead puts dayhght thru ye You'll begin to kal'late; S'pose the crows wun't fall to pickin' All the carkiss from your bones, 176 American Literature Coz you helped to give a lickin' To them poor half-Spanish drones? Jest go home an' ask our Nancy Wether I'd be sech a goose Ez to jine ye — guess you'd fancy The etarnal bung wuz loose ! She wants me fer home consumption, Let alone the hay's to mow — Ef you're arter folks o' gumption, You've a darned long row to hoe. Take them editors thet's crowin' Like a cockerel three months old — Don't ketch any on 'em goin', Though they he so blasted bold; AinH they a prime lot o' fellers? 'Fore they think on't they will sprout (Like a peach thet's got the yellers), With the meanness bustin' out. Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin' Bigger pens to cram with slaves, Help the men thet's oilers deaUn' Insults on your fathers' graves; Help the strong to grind the feeble, Help the many agin the few, Help the men that call your people Witewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew? Massachusetts, God forgive her, She's a-kneelin' with the rest. She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever In her grand old eagle-nest; She thet ough' to stand so fearless Wile the wracks are round her hurled, Holdin' up a beacon peerless To the oppressed of all the world ! Writers of the Mid- Century and After 177 Hain't they sold your colored seamen? Hain't they made your env'ys wiz? Wut'll make ye act like freemen ? Wut'll git your dander riz ? Come, I'll tell ye wut I'm thinkin' Is our dooty in this fix, They'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin' In the days o' seventy-six. Clang the bells in every steeple, Call all true men to disown The tradoocers of our people, The enslavers o' their own; Let our dear old Bay State proudly Put the trumpet to her mouth, Let her ring this messidge loudly In the ears of all the South — "I'll return ye good fer evil Much ez we frail mortils can, But I wun't go help the Devil Makin' man the cuss o' man; Call me coward, call me traiter. Jest ez suits your mean idees — Here I stand a tyrant-hater. An' the friend o' God an' Peace!" Ef I'd my way I hed ruther We should go to work an' part — They take one way, we take t'other — Guess it wouldn't break my heart; Man hed ought to put asunder Them thet God has noways jined; An' I shouldn't gretly wonder Ef there's thousands o' my mind. 7. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), "the last leaf" upon the tree which had borne the fruit of the golden age of American literature, was a graduate of Harvard College and XTB Amcrlrnji Lifr?'ature afterward of the Harvard Medical School. He was professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard for thirty-five years. As a writer of occasional poems he has had no equal. In poetry, light verse was his forte; in prose the conversational paper. He published the first of his conversational papers, under the title of The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, in the Atlantic Monthly in 1857, just after its foundation, and the last, in the same magazine under the title. Over the Tea-Cups, in 1890. In 1 886 the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh conferred upon him the doctor's degree. The Chambered Nautilus (Holmes's favorite) This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings, In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs He bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! And every chambered cell. Where its dim dreaming Hfe was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, — • Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. Child of the wondering sea. Cast from her lap, forlorn ! Writei's of the Mid-Centuiy and After 179 From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past ! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by Hfe's unresting sea ! The Height of the Ridiculous I wrote some lines once on a time In wondrous merry mood. And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good. They were so queer, so very queer, I laughed as I would die; Albeit, in the general way, A sober man am I. I called my servant, and he came; How kind it was of him. To mind a slender man like me, He of the mighty limb ! "These to the printer," I exclaimed, And, in my humorous way, I added (as a trifling jest), "There'll be the devil to pay." He took the paper, and I watched, And saw him peep within ; At the first line he read, his face Was all upon the grin. 180 American Literature He read the next; the grin grew broad, And shot from ear to ear; He read the third ; a chuckling noise I now began to hear. The fourth; he broke into a roar; The fifth; his waistband split; The sixth; he burst five buttons off, And tumbled in a fit. Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, I watched that wretched man, And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can. The Deacon's Masterpiece or, the woistderful "one-hoss shay." a logical story Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay. That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day, And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, I'll tell you what happened without delay, Scaring the parson into fits, Frightening people out of their wits, — Have you ever heard of that, I say? Seventeen hundred and fifty-five, Georgius Secundus was then aUve, — Snuffy old drone from the German hive. That was the year when Lisbon-town Saw the earth open and gulp her down. And Braddock's army was done so brown, Left without a scalp to its crown. It was on the terrible Earthquake-day That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, There is always somewhere a weakest spot, — Writers of the Mid- Century and After 181 In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, In panel or cross-bar, or floor, or sill, In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still, Find it somewhere you must and will, — Above or below, or wdthin or without, — And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out. But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do. With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,^^) He would build one shay to beat the taown 'n the Keounty 'n' all the Kentry raoun' ; It should be so built that it couldn' break daoun: — "Fur," said the Deacon, *"t's mighty plain Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; 'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain. Is only jest T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." So the Deacon inquired of the \allage folk Where he could find the strongest oak. That couldn't be spht nor bent nor broke, — That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for lancewood to make the thills. The cross-bars were ash, from the straightest trees, The panels of white-wood, that cuts Uke cheese, But lasts like iron for things Hke these; The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"— Last of its timber, — they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips. And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linch-pin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through." "There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" 1S':2 A7iu^?-ica?i Literature Do I I tell you. I rather guess She was a wonder, and nothing less ! Colts grew horses, beards turned gray. Deacon and deaconess dropped away, Children and grandcWldren — where were they? But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day ! Eighteen Hundred; — it came and found The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. Eighteen hundred increased by ten;— "Hahnsum kerridge" they called it tJien. Eighteen hundred and twenty came; — Running as usual; much the same. Thirty and forty at last arrive. And then come fifty, and fifty-frt:. Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth. (This is a moral that runs at large; Take it. — You're welcome. — No extra charge.) First of Xo\t:5IBER. — the Earthquake-day — There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, A general flavor of mild decay. But nothing local, as one may say. There couldn't be. — for the Deacon's art Had made it so like in every part That there wasn't a chance for one to start. For the wheels were just as strong as the thills. And the floor was just as strong as the sills, And the panels just as strong as the floor, And the whipple-tree neither less nor more. And the back cross-bar as strong as the fore, And spring and axle and hub encore. And yet. as a whole, it is past a doubt In another hour it ^^^I1 be ivorn out! Writers of the Mid- Century and After 183 First of November, 'Fifty-five I This morning the parson takes a drive. Now. small boys, get out of the way ! Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. "Huddup !" said the parson. — Oflf went they. The parson was working his Sunday's text, — Had got to fiflhly, and stopped perplexed At what the — Moses — was coming next. All at once the horse stood still. Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. — First a shiver, and then a thrill. Then something decidedly like a spill, — And the parson was sitting upon a rock. At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, — Just the hour of the Earthquake shock I - — What do you think the parson found, When he got up and stared around ? The poor old chaise in a heap or mound. As if it had been to the mill and ground I You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, How it went to pieces all at once, — All at once, and nothing first, — Just as bubbles do when they burst. End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. Logic is logic. That's all I say. (From The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, VI) Sin has many tools, but a He is the handle which fits them all. 1 think, Sir, — said the di\dnity-student. — you must intend that for one of the sa\-ings of the Seven Wise Men of Boston you were speaking of the other day. I thank you, my young friend, — was my reply, — but I must say something better than that, before I could pretend to fill out the number. 184 American Literature The schoolmistress wanted to know how many of these sayings there were on record, and what, and by whom said. Why, let us see, — there is that one of Benjamin FrankHn, "the great Bostonian," after whom this lad was named. To be sure, he said a great many wise things, — and I don't feel sure he didn't borrow this, — he speaks as if it were old. But then he appHed it so neatly ! — "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged." Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered by my friend, the Historian, in one of his flashing mo- ments: — "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries." To these must certainly be added that other saying of one of the wittiest of men:^ "Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris." The divinity-student looked grave at this, but said nothing. The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she didn't think the wit meant any irreverence. It was only another way of saying, Paris is a heavenly place after New York or Boston. A jaunty-looking person, who had come in with the young fellow they call John, — evidently a stranger, — said there was one more wise man's saying that he had heard; it was about our place, but he didn't know who said it. — A civil curiosity was manifested by the company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly whis- pering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, Shall I tell it? To which the answer was. Go ahead! — Well, — he said, — this was what I heard: — "Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man, if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar." Sir, — said I, — I am gratified with your remark. It ex- presses with pleasing vivacity that which I have sometimes Writers of the Mid- Century and After 185 heard uttered \vith malignant dulness. The satire of the remark is essentially true of Boston, — and of all other considerable — and inconsiderable — places with which I have had the privilege of being acquainted. Cockneys think London is the only place in the world. Frenchmen — you remember the Hne about Paris, the Court, the World, etc. — I recollect well, by the way, a sign in that city which ran thus: ''Hotel de I'Univers et des Etats Unis"; and as Paris is the universe to a Frenchman, of course the United States are outside of it. — "See Naples and then die." — It is quite as bad with smaller places. I have been about, lecturing, you know, and have found the following propo- sitions to hold true of all of them: 1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the center of each and every town or city. 2. If more than fifty years have passed since its founda- tion, it is affectionately styled by the inhabitants the "goo J old town of" (whatever its name may happen to be). 3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes to- gether to listen to a stranger is invariably declared to be a "remarkably intelUgent audience." 4. The climate of the place is particularly favorable to longevity. 5. It contains several persons of vast talent little known to the world. (One or two of them, you may perhaps chance to remember, sent short pieces to the "Pactolian" some time since, which were "respectfully declined.") Boston is just like the other places of its size; — only, perhaps, considering its excellent fish-market, paid fire- department, superior monthly pubKcations, and correct habit of spelling the English language, it has some right to look down on the mob of cities. I'll tell you, though, if you want to know it, what is the real offense of Boston. It drains a large water-shed of its intellect, and will not itself be drained. If it would only send away its first-rate men, instead of its second-rate ones (no offense to well- known exceptions, of which we are always proud,) we should be spared such epigrammatic remarks as that which the gen- 186 American Literature tleman has quoted. There can never be a real metropolis in this country, until the biggest center can drain the lesser ones of their talent and wealth. — I have observed, by the way, that the people who really live in two great cities are by no means so jealous of each other, as are those of smaller cities situated within the intellectual basin, or suction- range, of one large one, of the pretensions of any other. Don't you see why? Because their promising young author and rising lawyer and large capitalist have been drained off to the neighboring big city, — their prettiest girl has been exported to the same market; all their am- bition points there, and all their thin gilding of glory comes from there. I hate Httle toad-eating cities. Would I be so good as to specify any particular example? — Oh, — an example? Did you ever see a bear- trap? Never? Well, shouldn't you like to see me put my foot into one? With sentiments of the highest con- sideration I must beg leave to be excused. Besides, some of the smaller cities are charming. If they have an old church or two, a few stately mansions of former grandees, here and there an old dwelling with the second story projecting (for the convenience of shooting the Indians knocking at the front-door with their toma- hawks), — if they have, scattered about, those mighty square houses built something more than half a century ago, and standing like architectural boulders dropped by the former diluvium of wealth, whose refluent wave has left them as its monument, — if they have gardens with elbowed apple-trees that push their branches over the high board-fence and drop their fruit on the side-walk,— if they have a little grass in the side-streets, enough to betoken quiet without proclaiming decay, — I think I could go to pieces, after my Hfe's work were done, in one of those tranquil places, as sweetly as in any cradle that an old man may be rocked to sleep in. I visit such spots always with infinite dehght. My friend, the Poet, says, that rapidly growing towns are most unfavorable to the imag- inative and reflective faculties. Let a man live in one of these old quiet places, he says, and the wdne of his soul, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 187 which is kept thick and turbid by the rattle of busy streets, settles, and, as you hold it up, you may see the sun through it by day and the stars by night. Do I think that the little villages have the conceit of the great towns?— I don't beheve there is much differ- ence. You know how they read Pope's line in the smallest town in our State of Massachusetts? — -Well, they read it: "All are but parts of one stupendous Hull !/' What I wanted to say about books is this: that there are times in which every active mind feels itself above any and all human books. 1 think a man must have a good opinion of him- self, Sir, — said the divinity-student, — ^who should feel him- self above Shakespeare at any time. My young friend, — I replied, — the man who is never conscious of any state of feehng or of intellectual effort entirely beyond expression by any form of words what- soever is a mere creature of language. I can hardly be- heve there are any such men. Why, think for a moment of the power of music. The nerves that make us alive to it spread out (so the Professor tells me) in the most sensi- tive region of the marrow, just where it is widening to run upwards into the hemispheres. It has its seat in the region of sense rather than of thought. Yet it produces a con- tinuous and, as it were, logical sequence of emotional and intellectual changes; but how different from trains of thought proper ! how entirely beyond the reach of sym- bols ! — Think of human passions as compared with all phrases ! Did you ever hear of a man's growing lean by the reading of "Romeo and JuHet," or blowing his brains out because Desdemona was maligned? There are a good many symbols, even, that are more expressive than words. I remember a young wife who had to part with her husband for a time. She did not write a mournful poem; indeed, she was a silent person, and perhaps hardly said a word about it; but she quietly turned of a deep orange color with jaundice. A great many people in this world have 188 American Literature but one form of rhetoric for their profoundest experiences, — namely, to waste away and die. When a man can read, his paroxysm of feeling is passing. When he can read, his thought has slackened its hold. — You talk about reading Shakespeare, using him as an expression for the highest intellect, and you wonder that any common person should be so presumptuous as to suppose his thought can rise above the text which hes before him. But think a mo- ment. A child's reading of Shakespeare is one thing, and Coleridge's or Schlegel's reading of him is another. The saturation-point of each mind differs from that of every other. But I think it is as true for the small mind which can only take up a little as for the great one which takes up much, that the suggested trains of thought and feehng ought always to rise above — not the author, but the reader's mental version of the author, whoever he may be. I think most readers of Shakespeare sometimes find themselves thrown into exalted mental conditions like those produced by music. Then they may drop the book, to pass at once into the region of thought without words. We may happen to be very dull folks, you and I, and prob- ably are, unless there is some particular reason to suppose the contrary. But we get glimpses now and then of a sphere of spiritual possibihties, where we, dull as we are now, may sail in vast circles round the largest compass of earthly intelHgences. 1 confess there are times when I feel like the friend I mentioned to you some time ago, — I hate the very sight of a book. Sometimes it becomes almost a physical ne- cessity to talk out what is in the mind, before putting any- thing else into it. It is very bad to have thoughts and feelings, which were meant to come out in talk, strike in, as they say of some complaints that ought to show out- wardly. I always believed in life rather than in books. I sup- pose every day of earth, with its hundred thousand deaths and something more of births, — with its loves and hates, its triumphs and defeats, its pangs and bHsses, has more of humanity in it than all the books that were ever written, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 189 put together. I believe the flowers growing at this mo- ment send up more fragrance to heaven than was ever exhaled from all the essences ever distilled. Don't I read up various matters to talk about at this table or elsewhere ? — No, that is the last thing I would do. I will tell you my rule. Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and hsten to what others say about subjects you have studied but recently. Knowl- edge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are sea- soned. Physiologists and metaphysicians have had their attention turned a good deal of late to the automatic and involuntary actions of the mind. Put an idea into your in- telligence and leave it there an hour, a day, a year, without ever having occasion to refer to it. When, at last, you return to it, you do not find it as it was when acquired. It has domicihated itself, so to speak, — become at home, — entered into relations with your other thoughts and inte- grated itself with the whole fabric of the mind. — Or take a simple and familiar example. You forget a name, in conversation, — go on talking, without making any effort to recall it, — and presently the mind evolves it by its own involuntary and unconscious action, while you were pur- suing another train of thought, and the name rises of itself to your Hps. There are some curious observations I should Hke to make about the mental machinery, but I think we are getting rather didactic. 1 should be gratified, if Benjamin Franklin would let me know something of his progress in the French lan- guage. I rather Hked that exercise he read us the other day, though I must confess I should hardly dare to trans- late it, for fear some people in a remote city where I once Hved might think I was drawing their portraits. Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. I don't know whether the piece I mentioned from the French author was intended simply as Natural History, or whether there was not a little maHce in his description. At any rate, when I gave my translation to B. F. to turn back 190 American Literature again into French, one reason was that I thought it would sound a little bald in English, and some people might think it was meant to have some local bearing or other, — which the author, of course, didn't mean, inasmuch as he could not be acquainted with anything on this side the water. [The above remarks were addressed to the schoolmistress, to whom I handed the paper after looking it over. The divinity-student came and read over her shoulder, — very curious, apparently, but his eyes wandered, I thought. Seeing that her breathing was a Httle hurried and high, or thoracic, as my friend the Professor calls it, I watched her a little more closely. — It is none of my business. — After all, it is the imponderables that move the world, — heat, elei;tricity, love. — Habet.] BIBLIOGRAPHY I. Emerson For Further Illustration Prose: Compensation. Self -Reliance. Poems : Each and All. May-Day. The Humble Bee. The Rhodora. The Snow Storm. Threnody. For Collateral Reading Alcott, A. Bronson: Concord Days. Swift, Lindsay: Brook Farm. (In National Studies in American Letters.) Whitman, W.: A Visit to Emerson. By Emerson's Grave. (In Specimen Days.) II. Thoreau For Further Illustration Walden: (Chapters I on Economy and IV on Sounds and selec- tions in Carpenter's American Prose). workers of the Mid- Century and After 191 For Collateral Reading Alcott, L. : Thoreau's Flute. (In Stedman's An American Anthology.) Channing, W. E.: Tears in Spring. (In Stedman's An American Anthology.) III. Hawthorne For Further Illustration Short Stories: Ethan Brand. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. Mr. Higgenhothani's Catastrophe. The Gentle Boy. The Gray Champio7t. The Great Stone Face. Novel : The House of the Seven Gables. For Collateral Reading Alcott, L.: Hawthorne, a Sonnet. (In Stedman's An American Anthology.) Longfellow, H. W.: Hawthorne. IV. Longfellow For Further Illustration Hiawatha. Keramos. j My Lost Youth. I Tales of a Wayside Inn. (See Dramatization, by S. E. Simons and C. T. Orr, for a dramatization of these poems.) The Children's Hour. The Courtship of Miles Standish. The Old Clock on the Stairs. For Collateral Reading Bent, S. A.: The Wayside Inn, Its History and Literattire. Hawthorne, N.: Grandfather's Chair, II, VIII. Whitman, W. : The Death of Longfellow. (In Specimen Days.) V. Whittier For Further Illustration Burns. ij In School Days. 192 American Literature Snow- Bound. (Compare with Goldsmith's Deserted Village and Burns's The Cotter's Saturday Night.) The Barefoot Boy. The Buskers. (From the Songs of Labor.) The Shoemakers. The Tent on the Beach. (Compare with Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside I tin.) The Trailing Arbutus. For Collateral Reading Holmes, O. W.: On Whittier's Birthday. Longfellow, H. W.: The Three Silences of Molinos. Lowell, J. R.: To Whittier on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Pickard, S. T.: Whittier-Land. VI. Lowell For Further Illustration Biglow Papers. (Selected poems.) Commemoration Ode. Fable for Critics. (Passage on himself.) The First Snowfall. (Compare with Emerson's The Snow Storm.) The Present Crisis. The Singing Leaves. For Collateral Reading Longfellow, H. W. : The Herons of Elmwood. Whittier, J. G. : Welcome to Lowell. VII. Holmes For Further Illustration Poems: The Ballad of the Oyster-Man. The Broomstick Train. Old Ironsides. The Last Leaf. Prose: Over the Tea-Cups. (" Paper on Old Age.") The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. ("Paper on Old Age," VII. " A Walk with the Schoolmistress," XII.) The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. (Pp. 10-32.) Writers of the Mid- Century and After 193 For Collateral Reading Higginson, T. W.: Old Cambridge. Lowell, J. R.: A Fable for Critics. (Passage on Holmes.) 11. Of Lesser Note Though the eminent men just noticed set the literary standards for America at this time, during the entire period, of their supremacy, lesser men were making for themselves somewhat of name and fame in the world of literature. As the frontier was pushed farther and far- ther westward, writers sprang up here and there and every- where, and in many cases their contribution was so dis- tinctive, so unique, so "American" as to compel attention not only from the reading public but from the literary coterie as well. The leading ones are noted below. si PROSE — FltTION I. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-1896), sister of Henry Ward Beecher, is remembered to-day for her novel Uncle • Tom's Cabin, which has been translated into more than forty languages. In reply to modern criticism concerning this work, Professor Trent says: " A book that stirs the world, and is instrumental in bringing on a civil war and freeing an enslaved race may well elicit the admiration of a more sophisticated generation." " It was," says Mr. Hamilton Wright Mabie, " pri- marily the dramatization of a great issue in terms of human conditions, and incidentally a moving novel." TOPSY (From Uncle Tom^s Cabin, Chapter XX) One morning, while Miss OpheHa was busy in some of her domestic cares, St. Clare's voice was heard, calling her at the foot of the stairs. "Come down here, cousin; I've something to show you." "What is it?" said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her sewing in her hand. 194 American Literature "I've made a purchase for your department — see here," said St. Clare; and, with the word, he pulled along a little negro girl, about eight or nine years of age. She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round, shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over everything in the room. Her mouth, half open with astonishment at the wonders of the new Mas'r's parlor, displayed a white and brilliant set of teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which stuck out in every direction. The expression of her face was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a kind of veil, an expres- sion of the most doleful gravity and solemnity. She was dressed in a single filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging; and stood with her hands demurely folded before her. Altogether, there was something odd and goblin-like about her appearance, — something, as Miss Opheha afterwards said, "so heathenish," as to inspire that good lady with utter dismay; and, turning to St. Clare, she said, — "Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing here for?" "For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she should go. I thought she was rather a funny specimen in the Jim Crow line. Here, Topsy," he added, giving a whistle, as a man would to call the attention of a dog, "give us a song, now, and show us some of your dancing." The black glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked drollery, and the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an odd negro melody, to which she kept time with her hands and feet, spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking her knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of time, and producing in her throat all those odd guttural sounds which distinguish the native music of her race; and finally, turn- ing a sommerset or two, and giving a prolonged closing note, as odd and unearthly as that of a steam-whistle, she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which she shot askance from the corners of her eyes. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 195 Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement. St. Clare, like a mischievous fellow as he was, appeared to enjoy her astonishment; and, addressing the child again, said, — "Topsy, this is your new mistress. I'm going to give you up to her; see, now, that you behave yourself." "Yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, her wicked eyes twinkhng as she spoke. "You're going to be good, Topsy, you understand," said St. Clare. "Oh, yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with another twinkle, her hands still devoutly folded. "Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for ? " said Miss Ophelia. "Well, . . . cousin," said St. Clare, drawing her aside, . . . "the fact is, this concern belonged to a couple of drunken creatures that keep a low restaurant that I have to pass by every day, and I was tired of hearing her scream- ing, and them beating and swearing at her. She looked bright and funny, too, as if something might be made of her, — so I bought her, and I'll give her to you. Try, now, and give her a good orthodox New England bringing up, and see what it'll make of her. You know I haven't any gift that way; but I'd like you to try." "Well, I'll do what I can," said Miss Ophelia; and she approached her new subject very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black spider, supposing him to have benevolent designs toward it. "She's dreadfully dirty, and half naked," she said. "Well, take her down stairs, and make some of them clean and clothe her up." When arrayed at last in a suit of decent and whole cloth- ing, her hair cropped short to her head, Miss OpheHa, with some satisfaction said she looked more ChristianHke than she did, and in her own mind began to mature some plans for her instruction. 196 American Literature Sitting down before her, she began to question her. "How old are you, Topsy?" "Dunno, Missis," said the image, with a grin that showed all her teeth. ''Don't know how old you are? Didn't anybody ever tell you ? Who was your mother ? " "Never had none !" said the child, with another grin. "Never had any mother ? What do you mean ? Where were you born?" "Never was born!" persisted Topsy, with another grin, that looked so gobhn-hke, that if Miss Ophelia had been at all nervous she might have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome from the land of Diablerie; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and business- Uke, and she said, with some sternness, — "You mustn't answer me in that way, child; I'm not playing with you. Tell me where you were born, and who your father and mother were." "Never was born," reiterated the creature, more em- phatically; "never had no father nor mother, nor nothin', I was raised by a speculator, with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car on us." "How long have you lived with your master and mis- tress?" "Dunno, Missis." "Is it a year, or more, or less?" "Dunno, Missis." "Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?" The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual. " Do you know who made you ? " •v "Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh. The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes twinkled, and she added,— "I spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me." "Do you know how to sew?" said Miss Ophelia, who Writers of the Mid- Century and After 197 thought she would turn her inquiries to something more tangible. "No, Missis." "What can you do? — what did you do for 3'our master and mistress?" "Fetch water, and wash dishes, and rub knives, and wait on folks." "Were they good to you?" "Spect they was," said the child, scanning Miss Ophelia cunningly. Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy; St. Clare was leaning over the back of her chair. "You find virgin soil there, cousin; put in your own ideas', — you won't find many to pull up." 2. Helen Fiske Jackson, " Helen Hunt " (1831-1885), was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was through her poems that she first gained a place in the world of literature. Her great novel Ramona grew out of her experiences as special examiner to the mission Indians of California and, in a measure, did for the Indian what Uncle Tom's Cabin did for the negro. It is hoped that the following excerpt will stimulate a desire to read the whole story. Dawn at the Moreno Ranch (From Ramona, a Story, Chapter V) The room in which Father Salvierderra always slept when at the Senora Moreno's house was the southeast corner room. It had a window to the south and one to the east. When the first glow of dawn came in the sky, this eastern window was lit up as by a fire. The Father was always on watch for it, having usually been at prayer for hours. As the first ray reached the wdndow, he would throw the casement wide open, and standing there with bared head, strike up the melody of the sunrise hymn sung in all devout Mexican families. It was a beautiful custom, not yet wholly abandoned. At the first dawn of light, the oldest member of the family arose, and began singing some 198 ATuerican Literature hymn familiar to the household. It was the duty of each person hearing it to immediately rise, or at least sit up in bed, and join in the singing. In a few moments the whole family would be singing, and the joyous sounds pouring out from the house Hke the music of the birds in the fields at dawn. The hymns were usually invocations to the Virgin, or to the saint of the day, and the melodies were sweet and simple. On this morning there was another watcher for the dawn besides Father Salvierderra. It was Alessandro, who had been restlessly wandering about since midnight, and had finally seated himself under the willow trees by the brook, at the spot where he had seen Ramona the evening before. He recollected this custom of the sunrise h}Tnn when he and his band were at the Senora's the last year, and he had chanced then to learn that the Father slept in the south- east room. From the spot where he sat, he could see the south window of this room. He could also see the low eastern horizon, at which a faint luminous line already showed. The sky was like amber; a few stars still shone faintly in the zenith. There was not a sound. It was one of those rare moments in which one can without dif- ficulty realize the noiseless spinning of the earth through space. Alessandro knew nothing of this; he could not have been made to believe that the earth was moving. He thought the sun was coming up apace, and the earth was standing still, — a behef just as grand, just as thrihing, so far as all that goes, as the other: men worshipped the sun long before they found out that it stood still. His eyes wandered from the horizon line of slowly in- creasing light, to the windows of the house, yet dark and still. "Which window is hers? Will she open it when the song begins?" he thought. "Is it on this side of the house? Who can she be? She was not here last year. Saw the saints ever so beautiful a creature !" At last came the full red ray across the meadow. Ales- sandro sprang to his feet. In the next second Father Writers of the Mid- Century and After 199 Salvierderra flung up his south window, and leaning out, his cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks streaming back, began in a feeble but not unmelodious voice to sing — "O beautiful Queen, Princess of Heaven." Before he had finished the second line, a half-dozen voices had joined in— the Senora, from her room at the west end of the veranda, beyond the flowers; Felipe, from the ad- joining room; Ramona, from hers, the next; and Marga- rita and other of the maids already astir in the wings of the house. " Singers at dawn From the heavens above People all regions; Gladly we too sing," continued the hymn, the birds corroborating the stanza. Then men's voices joined in. The hymn was a favorite one, known to all. " Come, O sinners. Come, and we will sing Tender hymns To our refuge," was the chorus, repeated after each of the five verses of the hymn. Alessandro also knew the hymn well. His father. Chief Pablo, had been the leader of the choir at the San Luis Rey Mission in the last years of its splendor, and had brought away with him much of the old choir music. Some of the books had been written by his own hand, on parch- ment. He not only sang well, but was a good player on the vioHn. There was not at any of the missions so fine a band of performers on stringed instruments as at San Luis Rey. Alessandro had inherited his father's love and talent for 200 American Literature music, and knew all the old mission music by heart. This hymn to the " Beautiful Queen, Princess of Heaven," was one of his special favorites ; and as he heard verse after verse rising, he could not forbear striking in. At the first notes of this rich new voice, Ramona's voice ceased in surprise; and, throwing up her window, she leaned out, eagerly looking in all directions to see who it could be. Alessandro saw her, and sang no more. "What could it have been? Did I dream it?" thought Ramona, drew in her head, and began to sing again. With the next stanza of the chorus, the same rich bari- tone notes. They seemed to float in under all the rest, and bear them along, as a great wave bears a boat. Ra- mona had never heard such a voice. Fehpe had a good tenor, and she Hked to sing with him, or to hear him; but this — this was from another world, this sound. Ra- mona felt every note of it penetrating her consciousness with a subtle thrill almost like pain. When the hymn ended, she Hstened eagerly, hoping Father Salvierderra would strike up a second hymn, as he often did; but he did not this morning; there was too much to be done; everybody was in a hurry to be at work: windows shut, doors opened; the sounds of voices from all directions, ordering, questioning, answering, began to be heard. The sun rose and let a flood of work-a-day light on the whole place. 3. Louisa M. Alcott (183 2-1 888) was the daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott, who was associated with Emerson, Thoreau, and other Transcendentalists. She became a popular writer- for young folks. Her Little Men and Little Women are dear to the hearts of most boys and girls. The latter was dramatized in 191 2 and met with great success on the New York stage. Charles F. Browne, "Artemus Ward" (1834-1867), Henry W. Shaw, "Josh Billings" (1818-1885), and Edgar Writers of the Mid- Century and After 201 Wilson Nye, "Bill Nye" (1850-1896), were popular en- tertainers in their day and contributed to the written record of American humor. Characteristic extracts follow. 4. Charles F. Browne (Artemus Ward). Woman's Rights I pitcht my tent in a small town in Injianny one day last season, & while I was standin at the dore takin money, a deppytashum of ladies came up & sed they wos members of the Bunkumville Female Reformin & Wimin's Rite's Associashun, and they axed me if they cood go in without payin. "Not exactly," sez I, "but you can pay without goin in." "Dew you know who we air?" said one of the wimin — a tall and feroshus lookin critter, with a blew kotton um- breller under her arm — "do you know who we air, Sur?" "My impreshun is," sed I, "from a kersery view, that you air females." "We air, Sur," said the feroshus woman — "we belong to a Sosiety whitch beleeves wimin has rites — whitch beleeves in razin her to her proper speer — whitch beleeves she is indowed with as much intelleck as man is — whitch beleeves she is trampled on and aboozed — & who will resist henso4th & forever the incroachments of proud & domineering men." Durin her discourse, the exsentric female grabbed me by the coat-kollor & was swinging her umbreller wildly over my hed. "I hope, marm," sez I, starting back, "that your in- tensions is honorable ! I'm a lone man here in a strange ■ place. Besides, I've a wife to hum." "Yess," cried the female, "& she's a slave! Doth she never dream of freedom — doth she never think of throwiq off the yoke of tyrrinny & thinkin & votin for herself ?-» Doth she never think of these here things?" "Not bein a natral born fool," sed I, by this time a little riled, "I kin safely say that she dothunt." •202 American Literature "Oh whot — whot!" screamed the female, swinging her umbreller in the air. "Oh, what is the price that woman pays for her experiunce." "I don't know," sez I; "the price of my show is 15 cents pur individooal." "& can't our Sosiety go in free?" asked the female. "Not if I know it," sed I. "Crooil, crooil man !" she cried, & bust into teers. "My female friends," sed I, "before you leeve, I've a few remarks ! wa them well. The female woman is one of the greatest institooshuns of which this land can boste. Its onpossible to get along without her. Had ther bin no female wimin in the world, I should scarcely be here with my unpareleld show on this occashun. She is good in sickness — -good in wellness— good at the time. O woman, woman!" I cried, my feelins worked up to a hi poetick pitch. "You air a angle when you behave yourself; but when you take off you proper appairel & (mettyforically speaken)— get into panty loons — when you desert your firesides, & with your beds full of wimin's rites noshuns go round like roarin lions, seekin whom you may devour someboddy — in short, when you undertake to play the man, you play the devil and air an emfatic noosance. My female friends," I continnered, as they were indignantly departin, "wa well what A. Ward has sed !" 5. Henry W. Shaw (Josh BiUings). The Bumblebee The bumblebee iz a kind ov big fly who goes muttering and swareing around the lots, during the summer, looking after little boys to sting them, and stealing hunny out ov the dandylions and thissells. He iz mad all the time about sumthing, and don't seem to kare a kuss what people think ov him. A skoolboy will studdy harder enny time to find a bumblebee's nest than he will to get hiz lesson in arithmetik, and when he haz found it, and got the hunny Writers of the Mid- Century and After 203 out ov it, and got badly stung into the bargin, he finds thare ain't mutch margin in it. Next to poor molassis, bumblebee hunny iz the poorest kind ov sweetmeats in market. Bumblebees hav allwuss been in fashion, and probably allwuss will be, but whare the fun or profit lays in them i never could cyper out. The proffit don't seem to be in the hunny, nor in the bumblebee neither. They bild their nest in the ground, or enny whare else they take a noshun to. It ain't afrade to fite a whole distrikt skool if they meddle with them. I don't blame the bumblebee nor enny other fellow, for defending hiz sugar; it iz the fust and last Law ov natur, and i hope the law won't never run out. The smartest thing about the bumblebee iz their stinger. 6. Edgar Wilson Nye (Bill Nye). The Garden Hose It is now the proper time for the cross-eyed woman to fool with the garden hose. I have faced death in almost every form, and I do not know what fear is, but when a woman with one eye gazing into the Zodiac and the other peering into the middle of next week, and wearing one of those floppy sunbonnets, picks up the nozle of the garden hose and turns on the full force of the institution, I fly wildly to the Mountains of Hepsidam. Water won't hurt any one, of course, if care is used not to forget and drink any of it, but it is this horrible suspense and uncertainty about facing the nozle of a garden hose in the hands of a cross-eyed woman that unnerves and par- alyzes me. Instantaneous death is nothing to me. I am as cool and collected where leaden rain and iron hail are thickest, as I would be in my own office writing the obituary of the man who steals my jokes. But I hate to be drowned slowly in my good clothes and on dry land, and have my dying gaze rest on a woman whose ravishing beauty would drive a narrow-gage mule into convulsions and make him hate himself t' death. 204 American Literature 7. Donald Grant Mitchell, "Ik Marvel " (1822-1908), was a graduate of Yale. His best-known work is Reveries of a Bachelor (1850), which was immensely popular a generation or two ago. His writings have a freshness and charm which are rarely found. The Sea (From Reveries of a Bachelor — "Fourth Reverie") The sea is around me. The last headlands have gone down under the horizon, like the city steeples, as you lose yourself in the calm of the country, or like the great thoughts of genius, as you slip from the pages of poets into your own quiet Reverie. The waters skirt me right and left; there is nothing but water before, and only water behind. Above me are sailing clouds, or the blue vault, which we call, with child- ish license, heaven. The sails white and full, like helping friends, are pushing me on; and night and day are dis- tent with the winds which come and go — none know whence, and none know whither. A land-bird flutters aloft, weary with long flying, and lost in a world where are no forests but the careening masts, and no foHage but the drifts of spray. It cleaves a while to the smooth spars, till urged by some homeward yearning, it bears off in the face of the wind, and sinks and rises over the angry waters, until its strength is gone, and the blue waves gather the poor flutterer to their cold and glassy bosom. All the morning I see nothing beyond me but the waters, or a tossing company of dolphins; all the noon, unless some white sail, like a ghost, stalks the horizon, there is still nothing but the rolling seas; all the evening, after the sun has grown big and sunk under the water-line, and the moon risen white and cold to glimmer across the tops of the surging ocean, there is nothing but the sea and the sky to lead off thought, or to crush it with their greatness. Hour after hour as I sit in the moonlight upon the taff- rail, the great waves gather far back and break, — and gather nearer, and break louder, — and gather again, and roll down swift and terrible under the creaking ship, and heave it up Writers of the Mid- Century and After 205 lightly upon their swelling surge, and drop it gently to their seething and yeasty cradle, like an infant in the swaying arms of a mother, or like a shadowy memory upon the billows of manly thought. Conscience wakes in the silent nights of ocean; life lies open like a book, and spreads out as level as the sea. Re- grets and broken resolutions chase over the soul like swift- winged night-birds; and all the unsteady heights and the wastes of action Hft up distinct and clear from the uneasy but limpid depths of memory. . . . But ocean has its storms, when fear will make strange and holy companionship; and even here my memory shifts swiftly and suddenly. It is a dreadful night. The passengers are clus- tered, trembling, below. Every plank shakes; and the oak ribs groan as if they suffered with their toil. The hands are all aloft; the captain is forward shouting to the mate in the cross-trees, and I am clinging to one of the stanchions by the binnacle. The ship is pitching madly, and the waves are toppHng up sometimes as high as the yard-arm, and then dipping away with a whirl under our keel, that makes every timber in the vessel quiver. The thunder is roaring like a thousand cannons; and at the moment the sky is cleft with a stream of fire that glares over the tops of the waves, and gUstens on the wet decks and the spars, — Hghting up all so plain, that I can see the men's faces in the main-top, and catch glimpses of the reefers on the yard-arm, clinging Hke death; — then all is horrible darkness. The spray spits angrily against the canvas; the waves crash against the weather-bow like mountains; the wind howls through the rigging, or, as a gasket gives way, the sail, bellying to leeward, splits like a crack of a musket. I hear the captain in the lulls screaming out orders; and the mate in the rigging screaming them over, until the hghtning comes, and the thunder, deadening their voices as if they were chirping sparrows. In one of the flashes I see a hand upon the yard-arm lose his foothold as the ship gives a plunge; but his arms 206 American Literature are clenched around the spar. Before I can see any more, the blackness comes, and the thunder, with a crash that half deafens me. I think I hear a low cry, as the mutter- ings die away in the distance; and at the next flash of lightning, which comes in an instant, I see upon the top of one of the waves along-side the poor reefer who has fallen. The Hghtning glares upon his face. But he has caught at a loose bit of running rigging as he fell; and I see it slipping off the coil upon the deck. I shout madly, "Man overboard !" and catch the rope, when I can see nothing again. The sea is too high, and the man too heavy for me. I shout, and shout, and shout, and feel the perspiration starting in great beads from my forehead as the Kne sHps through my fingers. Presently the captain feels his way aft and takes hold with me; and the cook comes as the coil is nearly spent, and we pull together upon him. It is desperate work for the sailor; for the ship is drifting at a prodigious rate; but he cHngs like a dying man. By-and-by at a flash we see him on a crest two oars' length away from the vessel. "Hold on, my man !" shouts the captain. "For God's sake, be quick!" says the poor fellow, and he goes down in the trough of the sea. We pull the harder, and the captain keeps calling to him to keep up courage and hold strong. But in the hush we can hear him say, — 'T can't hold out much longer; I'm 'most gone !" Presently we have brought the man where we can lay hold of him, and are only waiting for a good Hft of the sea to bring him up, when the poor fellow groans out, — "It's no use — I can't — good-by!" And a wave tosses the end of the rope clean upon the bulwarks. At the next flash I see him going down under the water. I grope my way below, sick and faint at heart; and wedging myself into my narrow berth, I try to sleep. But the thunder and the tossing of the ship, and the face of the drowning man as he said good-by, peering at me from every corner, will not let me sleep. Afterward come quiet seas, over which we boom along, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 207 leaving in our track at night a broad path of phosphores- cent splendor. The sailors bustle around the decks as if they had lost no comrade; and the voyagers, losing the pallor of fear, look out earnestly for the land. At length my eyes rest upon the coveted fields of Britain; and in a day more the bright face, looking out beside me, sparkles at sight of the sweet cottages which lie along the green Essex shores. Broad-sailed yachts, looking strangely yet beautiful, ghde upon the waters of the Thames like swans; black, square-rigged colHers from the Tyne lie grouped in sooty cohorts; and heavy, three-decked India- men — of which I had read in story-books — ^drift slowly down with the tide. Dingy steamers, with white pipes and with red pipes, whiz past us to the sea; and now my eye rests on the great palace of Greenwich; I see the wooden-legged pensioners smoking under the palace-walls, and above them upon the hill — as Heaven is true — that old fabulous Greenwich, the great center of schoolboy Longitude. Presently, from under a cloud of murky smoke, heaves up the vast dome of St. Paul's and the tall Column of the Fire, and the white turrets of London Tower. Our ship glides through the massive dock-gates, and is moored amid the forest of masts which bears golden fruit for ritons. 8. Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was born in Boston and educated at Harvard. He was a distinguished Unitarian minister who won deserved fame in the literary world through his story The Man Without a Country, published in 1863. This is now recognized as one of our classics. One of his most amus- ing short stories is given below. My Double and How He Undid Me (slightly abridged) ... I am, or rather was, a minister, of the Sandemanian connection. I was settled in the active, wide-awake town of Naguadavick, on one of the finest water-powers in Maine. 208 American Literature We used to call it a Western town in the heart of the civ- ilization of New England. A charming place it was and is. A spirited, brave young parish had I, and it seemed as if we might have all "the joy of eventful Hving" to our heart's content. . . . I had not been at work a year before I found I was Hving two lives, one real and one merely functional — ^for two sets of people, one my parish, whom I loved, and the other a vague pubhc, for whom I did not care two straws. All this was a vague notion, which everybody had and has, that this second life would eventually bring out some great results, unknown at present, to somebody somewhere. Crazed by this duahty of Ufe, I first read Doctor Wigan on the "Duality of the Brain," hoping that I could train one side of my head to do these outside jobs, and the other to do my intimate and real duties. . . . But Doctor Wigan does not go into these niceties of this subject, and I failed. It was then that, on my wife's suggestion, I resolved to look out for a Double. I was at first singularly successful. We happened to be recreating at Stafford Springs that summer. We rode out one day, for one of the relaxations of that watering place, to the great Monson Poorhouse. We were passing through one of the large halls, when my destiny was ful- filled! He was not shaven. He had on no spectacles. He was dressed in a green baize roundabout and faded blue overalls, worn sadly at the knee. But I saw at once that he was of my height — five feet four and a half. He had black hair, worn off by his hat. So have and have not I. He stooped in walking. So do I. His hands were large, and mine. And — choicest gift of Fate in all — he had, not "a strawberry-mark on his left arm," but a cut from a juvenile brickbat over his right eye, slightly affecting the play of that eyebrow. Reader, so have I ! My fate was sealed ! A word with Mr. Holly, one of the inspectors, settled the whole thing. It proved that this Dennis Shea was a harmless, amiable fellow, of the class known as shiftless, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 209 who had sealed his fate by marrying a dumb wife, who was at that moment ironing in the laundry. Before I left Stafford I had hired both for five years. We had applied to Judge Pynchon, then the probate Judge at Springfield, to change the name of Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. We had explained to the Judge, what was the precise truth, that an eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis, under this new name, into his family. It never occurred to him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years old. And thus, to shorten this preface, when we returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingharrf, and my double, who was Mr. Fred- eric Ingham, by as good right as I. Oh, the fun we had the next morning in shaving his beard to my pattern, cutting his hair to match mine, and teaching him how to wear and how to take off gold-bowed spectacles ! Really, they were electroplate, and the glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes were excellent). Then in four successive afternoons I taught him four speeches. I had found these would be quite enough for the super- numerary-Sepoy line of life, and it was well for me they were; for though he was good-natured, he was very shiftless, and it was, as our national proverb says, "like pulling teeth" to teach him. But at the end of the next week he could say, with quite my easy and frisky air: 1. "Very well, thank you. And you?" This for an answer to casual salutations. 2. "I am very glad you Hked it." 3. "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time." 4. "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room." At first I had a feeHng that I was going to be at great cost for clothing him. But it proved, of course, at once, that, whenever he was out, I should be at home. And I went, during the bright period of his success, to so few of those awful pageants which require a black dress coat and what the ungodly call, after Mr. Dickens, a white choker, 210 American Literature that in the happy retreat of my own dressing-gowns and jackets my days went by as happily and cheaply as those of another Thalaba. And Polly declares there never was a year when the tailoring cost so Httle. He Hved (Dennis not Thalaba) in his wife's room over the kitchen. He had orders never to show himself at that window. When he appeared in the front of the house, I retired to my sanctis- simum and my dressing-gown. In short, the Dutchman and his wife, in the old weather-box, had not less to do with each other than he and I. He made the furnace fire and split the wood before dayhght; then he went to sleep again, and slept late; then came for orders, with a red silk bandanna tied round his head, with his overalls on, and his dress coat and spectacles off. If we happened to be inter- rupted, no one guessed that he was Frederic Ingham as well as I ; and in the neighborhood there grew up an impres- sion that the minister's Irishman worked daytimes in the factory village at New Coventry. After I had given him his orders, I never saw him till the next day. I launched liim by sending him to a meeting of the Enlightenment Board. The EnKghtenment Board con- sists of seventy-four members, of whom sixty-seven are necessary to form a quorum. ... At this particular time we had had four successive meetings, averaging four hours each — wholly occupied in whipping in a quorum. At the first only eleven men were present; at the next, by force of three circulars, twenty-seven; at the third, thanks to two days' canvassing by Auchmuty and myself, begging men to come, we had sixty. Half the others were in Eu- rope. But without a quorum we could do nothing. All the rest of us waited grimly for four hours and adjourned without any action. At the fourth meeting we had flagged, and only got fifty-nine together. But on the first appearance of my double — whom I sent on this fatal Monday to the fifth meeting — he was the sixty-seventh man who entered the room. He was greeted with a storm of applause ! The poor fellow had missed his way — read the street signs ill through his spectacles (very ill, in fact, without them) and had not dared to inquire. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 211 He entered the room — finding the president and secretary holding to their chairs two judges of the Supreme Court, who were also members ex-officio, and were begging leave to go away. On his entrance all was changed. Presto, the by-laws were suspended, and the Western property was given away. Nobody stopped to converse with him. He voted, as I had charged him to do, in every instance with the minority. I won new laurels as a man of sense, though a Httle unpunctual^ — and Dennis, alias Ingham, returned to the parsonage, astonished to see with how little wisdom the world is governed. He cut a few of my parishioners in the street; but he had his glasses ofif, and I am known to be near-sighted. Eventually he recognized them more readily than I. . . . After this he went to several Commencements for me, and ate the dinners provided; he sat through three of our Quarterly Conventions for me — always voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned above, of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who had been losing caste among my friends, as holding myself aloof from the asso- ciation of the body, began to rise in everybody's favor. "Ingham's a good fellow— always on hand;" "never talks much, but does the right thing at the right time;" "is not as unpunctual as he used to be — he comes early, and sits through to the end." "He has got over his old talkative habit, too. I spoke to a friend of his about it once; and I think Ingham took it kindly," etc., etc. . . . Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has ob- served in the outset of this memoir. She risked Dennis one night under the eyes of her own sex. Governor Gorges had always been very kind to us, and, when he gave his great annual party to the town, asked us. I confess I hated to go. I was deep in the new volume of Pfeiffer's "Mystics," which HaHburton had just sent me from Bos- ton. "But how rude," said Polly, "not to return the Governor's civiHty and Mrs. Gorges's, when they will be sure to ask why you are away !" Still I demurred, and at last she, with the wit of Eve and of Semiramis conjoined, let me off by saying that, if I would go in with her and 212 American Literature sustain the initial conversations with the Governor and the ladies staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of the evening. And that was just what we did. She took Dennis in training all that afternoon, instructed him in fashionable conversation, cautioned him against the temp- tations of the supper table — and at nine in the evening he drove us all down in the carryall. I made the grand star entree with Polly and the pretty Walton girls, who were staying with us. We had put Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his glasses, and the girls never dreamed in the darkness, of looking at him. He sat in the carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did the agree- able to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss Fernanda; I complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in the great case of D'Aulnay vs. Laconia Mining Company; I stepped into the dressing-room for a moment, stepped out for another, walked home after a nod with Dennis and tying the horse to a pump ; and while I walked home, Mr. Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through the library into the Gorges's grand salon. Oh ! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at mid- night ! And even here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for stakes to fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls it — and says that single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve that she is ! She joined Dennis at the library door, and in an in- stant presented him to Doctor Ochterlony, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, and was. talking with her as Dennis came in. "Mr. Ingham would like to hear what you were telling us about your success among the German population." And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly, " I'm very glad you liked it." But Doctor Ochterlony did not observe, and plunged into the tide of explanation; Dennis Hstened Hke a prime minister, and bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose, the same thing. ... So was it that before Doctor Ochterlony came to the "success," or near it, Governor Gorges came to Dennis and asked him to hand Mrs. Jeffries down to supper, a request which he heard with great joy. Writers of the Mid- Century and After %V6 Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark. Auchmuty came to her "in pity for poor Ingham," who was so bored by the stupid pundit — and Auchmuty could not understand why I stood it so long. But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly could not resist standing near them. He was a Httle flustered, till the sight of the eatables and drinkables gave him the same Mercian courage which it gave Diggory. A Httle excited then, he attempted one or two of his speeches to the Judge's lady. But Httle he knew how hard it was to get in even a promplii there edgewise. "Very well, I thank you," said he, after the eating elements were adjusted; "and you?" And then did not he have to hear about the mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and beUadonna, and camomile flower, and dodecatheon, till she changed oysters for salad; and then about the old practice and the new, and what her sister said, and what her sister's friend said, and what the physician to her sister's friend said, and then what was said by the brother of the sister of the physician of the friend of her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff ? There was a moment's pause, as she decHned champagne. "I am very glad^ou Hke it," said Dennis, which he never should have said but to one who compHmented a sermon. "Oh ! you are so sharp, Mr. Ingham ! No ! I never drink any wine at all — except sometimes in summer a Httle cur- rant shrub — from our own currants, you know. My own mother — that is, I call her my own mother, because, you know, I do not remember," etc., etc., etc.; till they came to the candied orange at the end of the feast, when Dennis, rather confused, thought he must say something, and tried No. 4 — "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room" — which he never should have said but at a pubHc meeting. But Mrs. Jeffries, who never Hstens ex- cepting to understand, caught him up instantly with, "Well, I'm sure my husband returns the compHment; he always agrees with you — though we do worship with the Methodists; but you know, Mr. Ingham," etc., etc., etc., tin they move upstairs ; and as Dennis led her through the haU, he was scarcely understood by any but Polly, as he !^14 American Literature said, ''There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time." His great resource the rest of the evening was standing in the library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. . . . But I sec I loiter on my story, which is rushing to the plunge. . . . It was thus it happened. There is an excellent fellow — once a minister — I will call him Isaacs — who deserves well of the world till he dies, and after, because he once, in a real exigency, did the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, as no other man could do it. . . . It came time for the annual county meeting . . . to be held at Na- guadavick. Isaacs came round, good fellow ! to arrange for it — got the town-hall, got the Governor to preside (the saint ! He ought to have triplet doubles provided him by law) , and then came to get me to speak. ''No," I said, "I would not speak if ten Governors presided. I do not believe in the enterprise. If I spoke, it should be to say children should take hold of the prongs of the forks and the blades of the knives. I would subscribe ten dollars, but I would not speak a mill." So poor Isaacs went his way sadly, to coax Auchmuty to speak, and Delafield. I went out. Not long after, he came back and told Polly that they promised to speak, the Governor would speak, and he himself would close with the quarterly report and some interesting anec- dotes regarding ^liss Biffin's way of handling her knife and Mr. Nelhs's way of footing his fork. "Now, if Mr. Ingham will only come and sit on the platform, he need not say one word; but it will show well in the paper — it will show that the Sandemanians take as much interest in the movement as the Armenians or the Mesopotamians, and will be a great favor to me." Polly, good soul ! was tempted, and she promised. She knew Mrs. Isaacs was starving, and the babies — she knew Dennis was at home — and she promised ! Night came, and I returned. I heard her story. I was sorry. I doubted. But Polly had prom- ised to beg me, and I dared all ! I told Dennis to hold his peace, under all circumstances, and sent him down. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 21.5 It was not half an hour more before he returned wild with excitement— in a perfect Irish fury — which it was long before I understood. But I knew at once that he had undone me ! What happened was this. The audience got together, attracted by Governor Gorges's name. There were a thousand people. Poor Gorges was late from Augusta. They became impatient. He came in direct from the train at last, really ignorant of the object of the meeting. He opened it in the fewest possible words, and said other gentlemen were present who would entertain them better than he. The audience were disappointed, but waited. The Gov- ernor, prompted by Isaacs, said, "The Honorable Mr. Delafield will address you." Delafield had forgotten the knives and forks, and was playing the Ruy Lopez opening at the chess club. "The Reverend Mr. Auchmuty will address you." Auch- muty had promised to speak late, and was at the school committee. "I see Doctor Steams in the hall; perhaps he will say a word." Doctor Steams said he had come to listen and not to speak. The Govemor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor looked at Dennis, who was resplendent on the platform; but Isaacs, to give him his due, shook his head. But the look was enough. A miserable lad, ill-bred, who had once been in Boston, thought it would sound well to call for me, and peeped out, "Ingham!" A few more wretches cried "Ingham!" "Ingham!" Still Isaacs was firm; but the Govemor, anxious, indeed, to prevent a row, knew I would say some- thing, and said: "Our friend, Mr. Ingham, is always pre- pared; and, though we had not relied upon him, he will say a word perhaps." Applause followed, which tumed Dennis's head. He rose, fluttered, and tried No. 3: "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not longer occupy the time!" and sat down, looking for his hat; for things seemed squally. 216 American Literature But the people cried "Go on! Go on!" and some ap- plauded. Dennis, still confused, but flattered by the applause, to which neither he nor I are used, rose again, and this time tried No. 2: "I am very glad you hked it !" in a sonorous, clear deHvery. My best friends stared. All the people who did not know me personally yelled with de- Hght at the aspect of the evening; the Governor was beside himself, and poor Isaacs thought he was undone ! Alas, it was I ! A boy in the gallery cried in a loud tone, "It's all an infernal humbug," just as Dennis, waving his hand, commanded silence, and tried No. 4: "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room." The Governor doubted his senses and crossed to stop him — not in time, however. The same gallery boy shouted, "How's your mother?" and Dennis, now completely lost, tried, as his last shot. No. I, vainly: "Very well, thank you; and you?" I think I must have been undone already. But Dennis, like another Lockhard, chose "to make sicker." The audience rose in a whirl of amazement, rage and sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at Dennis, broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered himself an address to the gallery, inviting any person who wished to fight to come down and do so, stating that they were all dogs and cowards and the sons of dogs and cowards, that he would take any five of them single-handed. "Shure, I have said all his Riverence and the Misthress bade me say," cried he in defiance; and, seizing the Governor's cane from his hand, brandished it, quarter-staflf fashion, above his head. He was, indeed, got from the hall only with the greatest difficulty by the Governor, the City Marshal, who had been called in, and the Superintendent of my Sunday-school. The universal impression, of course, was that the Rev- erend Frederic Ingham had lost all command of himself in some of those haunts of intoxication which for fifteen years I had been laboring to destroy. Till this moment, indeed, that is the impression in Naguadavick. This num- ber of the Atlantic will reUeve from it a hundred friends of mine who have been sadly wounded by that notion now Writers of the Mid- Century and After 217 for years; but I shall not be likely ever to show my head there again. No. My double has undone me. We left town at seven the next morning. I came to No. 9, in the Third Range, and settled on the Minister's Lot. In the new towns in Maine, the first settled minister has a gift of a hundred acres of land. I am the first settled min- ister in No. 9. My wife and little Paulina are my parish. We raise corn enough to Hve on in summer. We kill bear's meat enough to carbonize it in winter. I work on steadily on my "Traces of Sandemanianism in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries," which I hope to persuade Phillips, Sampson & Company to publish next year. We are very happy, but the world thinks we are undone. — //, yes, and perhaps. V 9. Lewis Wallace (1827-1905), usually called "Lew" Wal- lace, was born in Indiana. He served with distinction in the Civil War and became a general of volunteers. His most widely read story is Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ, which has been successfully dramatized. He also wrote A Prince of India. (For readings see Bibliography, page 234,) 10. Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902) was a Philadelphia writer who, says Professor Simonds, "is unique among Amer- ican story-writers for the -whimsical mingling of the serious and the humorous in fiction.^ He made his place in the literary world by the pubUcation of Rudder Grange in 1879. Ten years later he wrote the short storjS, The Lady or the Tiger? with which his name has ever since been *agspciated. The Lady or the Tiger? In the very olden tilne, there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammelled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified was that of the public arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and cultured. 218 American Literature But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. The arena of the king was built, not to give the people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to view the inevitable con- clusion of a conflict between rehgious opinions and hungry jaws, but for purposes far better adapted to widen and de- velop the mental energies of the people. This vast amphi- theatre, with its encirchng galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance. When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient im- portance to interest the king. pubHc notice was given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, — a structure which well deserved its name; for, although its form and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of human thought and action the rich growth of his barbaric ideahsm. When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king, surrounded by his court, sat high up on his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath him opened, and the accused subject stepped out into the amphitheatre. Directly opposite him, on the other side of the enclosed space, were two doors, exactly aUke and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege of the person on trial, to walk directly to these doors and open one of them. He could open either door he pleased: he was subject to no guidance or influence but that of the aforementioned impartial and incorruptible chance. If he opened the one, there came out of it a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which immediately sprang upon him. and tore him to pieces, as a punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hired mourners Writers of the Mid- Century and After 219 posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a fate. But, if the accused person opened the other door there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects; and to this lady he was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might already possess a wdfe and family, or that his afifections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection: the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to inter- fere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns and treading an epithalamic measure, advanced to w'here the pair stood, side by side; and the wedding was promptly and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his path, led his bride to his home. This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administer- ing justice. Its perfect fairness is ob\dous. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady: he opened either he pleased, without ha\dng the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured or married. On some occasions the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of the other. The decisions of this tribunal were not only fair, they were positively de- terminate: the accused person was instantly punished if he found himself guilty; and, if innocent, he w^as rewarded on the spot, whether he hked it or not. There was no escape from the judgments of the king's arena. . . . This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and im- perious as his own. As is usual in such cases, she was 220 American Literature the apple of his eye, and was loved by him above all hu- manity. Among his courtiers was a young man of that fineness of blood and lowness of station common to the conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to a degree unsurpassed in all this kingdom; and she loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong. This love affair moved on happily for many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison, and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. This, of course, was an especially important occasion; and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly interested in the workings and development of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of a king. In after- years such things became commonplace enough; but then they were, in no slight degree, novel and startling. The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges, in order that the young man might have a fitting bride in case fate did not determine for him a different destiny. Of course, every- body knew that the deed with which the accused was charged had been done. He had loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor any one else thought of denying the fact; but the king would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the workings of the tribunal, in which he took such great delight and satisfaction. No matter how the affair turned out, the youth would be dis- posed of; and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure in watching the course of events, which would determine whether or not the young man had done wrong in allowing himself to love the princess. The appointed day arrived. From far and near the peo- Writers of the Mid- Century and After 221 pie gathered, and thronged the great galleries of the arena; and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves against its outside walls. The king and his court were in their places, opposite the twin doors, — those fateful portals, so terrible in their similarity. All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover of the princess walked into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with a low hum of admiration and anxiety. Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived among them. No wonder the princess loved him ! What a terrible thing for him to be there ! As the youth advanced into the arena he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king: but he did not think at all of that royal personage; his eyes were fixed upon the prin- cess, who sat to the right of her father. Had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature, it is probable that lady would not have been there; but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested. From the mo- ment that the decree had gone forth, that her lover should decide his fate in the king's arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and the various subjects connected with it. Possessed of more power, in- fluence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done, — she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors. She knew in which of the two rooms that lay behind those doors, stood the cage of the tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady. Through these thick doors, heavily curtained with skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within to the person who should approach to raise the latch of one of them; but gold, and the power of a woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess. And not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and loveHest of the damsels of the court 222 American Literature who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess hated her. . . . When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye met hers as she sat there paler and whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by that power of quick perception which is given to those whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady. He had expected her to know it. He understood her nature, and his soul was assured that she would never rest until she had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other lookers-on, even to the king. The only hope for the youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon the success of the princess in discovering this mystery; and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had suc- ceeded, as in his soul he knew she would succeed. Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question: "Which?" It was as plain to her as if he shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it must be answered in another. Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man in the arena. He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it. Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door or did the lady ? The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 223 but upon that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him ? How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the tiger ! But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door ! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of raptur- ous delight as he opened the door of the lady ! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the Joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitudes, in which her one despairing shriek was lost and drowned ! Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity ? And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood ! Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished dehb- eration. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and, without the slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right. The question of her decision is one not to be lightly con- sidered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door, — the lady, or the tiger? , II. Bret Harte (1839-1902) was born in New York but went to California when very young. There he identified him- 224 American Literature self with the life of the " forty-niners," and from his rich ex- perience he gave us stories of pioneer life in the West which, perhaps, are the best of their kind in our literature. (Consult the Bibliography, page 234, for readings from Bret Harte.) 12. Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), a member of the New York group of writers, was a novelist and a writer of exquisitely finished verse. The Story of a Bad Boy, published in 1870, made his name famous. He was editor of the Atlantic Monthly from 1881 to 1890. (For readings see Bibliography, page 234.) 13. Samuel L. Clemens (183 5-1 9 10), universally known as " Mark Twain," was born in Missouri and spent his early days in the region of the Mississippi River, where, after his brief schooling, he became a pilot on the river boats. He gives us a picture of this life in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Later he travelled extensively in Europe. The result of these travels was The Innocents Abroad. He easily ranks as the chief of American humorists. " Tom Sawyer and Huck- leberry Finn are prose epics of American life," says Professor William Lyon Phelps. The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (From The Jumping Frog, and Other Sketches) ... I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood, named Leonidas W. Smiley — Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley — a young minister of the gospel, who, he had heard, was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him. Simon WTieeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat down and reeled off Writers of the Mid- Century and After 225 the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned his initial sentence, he never betrayed the shghtest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. I let him go on in his own way, and never inter- rupted him once. " Rev. ^Xeonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le — well, there was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49, or maybe it was the spring of '50 — I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other, is because I remember the big flume warn't finished when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was the curiousest man about, always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other side would suit him — any way, just so's he got a bet, ke was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he 'most always come out winner. He was always ready, and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no soUt'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take ary side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken- fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on the fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here; and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to — to wherever he was going to; and if you took him up he 226 American Literature would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he would find out where he was bound for, and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to Am— he'd bet any thing — the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he said she was consid'able better — thank the Lord for his inf 'nit mercy ! — and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, 'Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half she don't anyway.' . . . "Well, this-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken- cocks, and tom-cats and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut — see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education and he could do 'most anything — and I beHeve him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor — Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog — and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping Writers of the Mid- Century and After 227 on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jump- ing on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be for fellers that had travelled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see. "Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a Httle lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller — a stranger in the camp, he was — come acrost him with his box, and says : "'What might it be that you've got in the box?' "And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, 'It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't — it's only just a frog. ' "And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, 'H'm — so 'tis. Well, what's he good for ? ' "'Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for one thing, I should judge — he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.' "The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better 'n any other frog.' "'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. 'Maybe you under- stand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a ama- ture, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.' "And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, 'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you.' "And then Smiley says, 'That's all right — that's all right — if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.' And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait. 228 American Literature " So he set there a good while, thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open, and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot — filled him pretty near up to his chin— and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says: "'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore paws just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word.' Then he says, 'One — two — three — gUT and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off hvely, but Dan'l gave a heave, and hysted up his shoulders — so — like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use — he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course. "The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder — so — at Dan'l and says again, very de- Uberate, 'Well,' he says, '/ don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog,' "Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for — I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him — he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound ! ' and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man — he set the frog down and took out after the feller, but he never ketched him. And " But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley Writers of the Mid- Century and After 229 would be likely to afford me much information concerning the R&v. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away. 14. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps "Ward (1844-1911) was a Boston woman who became known in the literary world through her mystical story The Gates Ajar, published in 1868. She wrote many other stories both long and short. Though she lived on into the twentieth century her work belongs to the older generation. The Day of Judgment (From TroUy's Wedding Tour) I am fourteen years old and Jill is twelve and a quarter. Jill is my brother. That isn't his name, you know; his name is Timothy and mine is George Zacharias; but they've always called us Jack and Jill. . , . Well, Jill and I had an invitation to Aunt John's this summer, and that was how we happened to be there. . . . I'd rather go to Aunt John's than any where else in this world. When I was a little fellow I used to- think I'd rather go to Aunt John's than to go to Heaven. But I never dared to tell. . . . She'd invited us to come on the 12th of August. It takes all day to get to Aunt John's. She Hves at Little River in New Hampshire away up. You have to wait at South Lawrence in a poky Uttle depot, . . . and you get some played out. At least I don't but Jill does. So we bought a paper and Jill sat up and read it. When he'd sat a minute and read along: "Look here!" said he. ''Look where?" said I. "Why, there's going to be a comet to-night," said Jill. ^"Who cares?" said I. Jill laid down the paper, and crunched a pop-corn all up before he answered that. Then said he, "I don't see why father didn't tell us. I s'pose he thought we'd be frightened, or something. Why, s'posing the world did come to an end? That's what this paper says. 'It is 230 American Literature predicted' — where's my place? 0! I see — 'predicted by learned men that a comet will come into con — conjunction with out plant' — no — 'our planet this night. Whether we shall be plunged into a wild vortex of angry space, or suffocated with n-o-x — noxious gases, or scorched to a helpless crisp, or blasted at once into eternal an-ni-hi '" A gust of wind grabbed the paper out of Jill's hand just then, and took it out of the window; so I never heard the rest. . . . "Father isn't a goose," said I. "He didn't think it worth mentioning. He isn't going to be afraid of a comet at his time of life !" So we didn't think any more about the comet till we got to Aunt John's. . . . There was company there. . . . It wasn't a relation, only an old schoolmate, and her name was Miss Togy; so she'd come without an invita- tion, and had to have the spare room because she was a lady. That was how Jill and I came to be put in the Httle chimney bedroom. . . . That little chimney bedroom is the funniest place you ever slept in. . . . There'd been a chimney once, and it ran up by the window, and grandfather had it taken away. It was a big, old, oW-fashioned chimney, and it left the funniest Httle gouge in the room! So the bed went in as nice as could be. We couldn't see much but the ceiling when we got to bed. "It's pretty dark," said Jill; "I shouldn't wonder if it did blow up a little. Wouldn't it scare — Miss — Bogy ! " "Togy," said I. "Well, T-o— " said Jill; and right in the middle of it he went off as sound as a weasel. The next thing I can remember is a horrible noise — I can't think of but one thing in this world it was like, and that isn't in this world so much. I mean the Last Trum- pet, with the Angel blowing as he blows in my old Primer. But the next thing I remember is hearing Jill sit up in bed, — for I couldn't see him, it was so dark, — and his piping out the other half of Miss Togy's name just as he had left it when he went to sleep : Writers of the Mid- Century and After 231 "Gy/ Bo-g3'/ Fo-gy! Soa.-ky! — O," said Jill, com- ing to at last, "I thought . . . why, what's up?" I was up, but I couldn't tell what else was, for a little while. I went to the window. It was as dark as a great rat-hole out-of-doors, all but a streak of lightning and an awful thunder, as if the world was cracking all to pieces. . . . "Come to bed!" shouted Jill, "you'll get struck, and then that'll kill me." I went back to bed, for I didn't know what else to do. We crawled down under the clothes and covered ourselves all up. "W-ould — you — call Aunt — John?" asked Jill. He was 'most choked. I came up for air. "No," said I, "I don't think I'd call Aunt John." I should have Hked to call Aunt John by that time; but then I should have felt ashamed. "I s'pose she has got her hands full with Miss Croaky, anyway," chattered Jill, bobbing up for a breath, and then bobbing under again. By that time the storm was the worst storm I had ever seen in my Hfe — it grew worse and worse. Thunder, lightning, and wind ! Wind, Hghtning, and thunder ! Rain and roar and awfuhiess ! I don't know how to tell how awful it was. . . . In the middle of the biggest peal we'd had yet, up jumped Jill. "Jack!" said he, "that comet!" I'd never thought of the comet till that minute; I felt an ugly feeling and a little cold all over. "It is the comet!" said Jill. "It is the Day of Judgment, Jack." . . . Then it happened. It happened so fast I didn't even have time to get my head under the clothes. First there was a creak. Then a crash. Then we felt a shake as if a giant pushed his shoulder up through the floor and shoved us. Then we doubled up. And then we began to fall. The floor opened, and we went through. I heard the bed-post hit as we went by. . . . Then I felt another crash. Then we began to fall again. Then we bumped down hard. After that we stopped falling. I lay still. My heels were doubled up over my head. I 232 American Literature thought my neck would break. But I never dared to stir. I thought I was dead. By and by I wondered if Jill were not dead too. So I undoubled my neck a little and found some air. It seemed to be just as uncomfortable ... to breathe without air when you were dead as when you weren't. I called out softly, "Jill!" No answer. ''Jilir' Not a sound. "O— JILL!" But he did not speak. So then I knew Jill must be dead, at any rate. I couldn't help wondering why he was so much deader than I that he couldn't answer a fellow. Pretty soon I heard a rusthng noise around my feet. Then a weak, sick kind of a noise— just the noise I always had supposed ghosts would make if they talked. ''Jack?" "Is that you, Jill?" ' * I — suppose— so . Is it you , Jack ? " " Yes. Are you dead ? " "I don't know. Are you?" "I guess I must be if you are. How awfully dark it is!" "Awfully dark ! It must have been the comet !" "Yes; did you get much hurt?" "Not much— I say — ^Jack ? ' ' "What?" "If it is the Judgment Day—" Jill broke up. So did I. We lay as still as we could. If it were the Judgment Day "JiU!"saidL "Oh, dear me !" sobbed Jill. We were both crying by that time. I don't feel ashamed to own up, as far as I'm concerned. "If I'd known," said I, "that the Day of Judgment was coming on the 12th of August, I wouldn't have been so mean about that jack-knife of yours with the notch in it !" "And I wouldn't have eaten up your luncheon that day last winter when I got mad at you," said Jill. "Nor we wouldn't have cheated mother about smoking, vacations," said I. Writers of the Mid-Centwy and After 233 "I'd never have played with the Bailey boys out behind the bam ! " said Jill. "I wonder where the comet went to," said I. "'Whether we shall be plunged into,'" quoted Jill, in a horrible whisper, from that dreadful newspaper, "'shall be plunged into a wild vortex of angry space — or suffo- cated with noxious gases — or scorched to a helpless crisp — or blasted '" "When do you suppose they'll come after us?" I in- terrupted Jill. That very minute somebody came. We heard a step, and then another. Then a heavy bang. Jill howled out a little. I didn't, for I was thinking how the cellar door banged Kke that. Then came a voice, an awful, hoarse and trembHng voice as ever you'd want to hear. " George Zacharias !" Then I knew it must be the Judgment Day and that the Angel had me up in court to answer him. For you couldn't expect an angel to call you Jack when you were dead. "George Zacharias!" said the awful voice again. I didn't know what else to do, I was so frightened, so I just hollered out, "Here !" as I do at school. "Timothy !" came the voice once more. Now Jill had a bright idea. Up he shouted, "Absent !" at the top of his lungs. "George! Jack! Jill ! where a/-^ you ? Are you killed? 0, wait a minute and I'll bring a Hght !" This didn't sound so much Hke Judgment Day as it did like Aunt John. I began to feel better. So did Jill. I sat up. So did he. It wasn't a minute till the Hght came into sight and something that looked Hke the cellar door, the ceHar stairs, and Aunt John's spotted wrapper, and Miss Togy in a night-gown, away behind, as white as a ghost. Aunt John held the Hght above her head and looked down. I don't beHeve I shall ever see an angel that will make me feel any better to look at than Aunt John did that night. "0 you blessed boys !" said Aunt John, — she was laugh- 234 American Literature ing and crying together. "To think that you should have fallen through the old chimney to the cellar floor and be sitting there ahve in such a funny heap as that !" That was just what we had done. The old flooring — not very secure — had given way in the storm; and we'd gone down through two stories, where the chimney ought to have been, jam ! into the cellar on the coal heap, and all as good as ever excepting the bedstead ! BIBLIOGRAPHY I. For Further Illustration Alcott, L.: Eight Cousins. Little Men. Little Women. Aldrich, T. B.: Marjorie Daw. {In^Marjorie Daw and Other Stories.) Pere Antoine's Date Palm. (In Marjorie Daw and Other Stories.) Two Bites at a Cherry. Babie BelJ.^^¥kiilia. (Poems.) Clemens, S. L. : A DogTTale. Col. Mulberry Sellers. Huckleberry Finn. Innocents Abroad. Tom Sawyer. Hale, E. E.: The Man Without a Country. Harte, B.: M'Liss. (In Luck of Roaring Camp.) Tennessee's Partner. (In Luck of Roaring Camp.) The Outcasts of Poker Flat.' (In Luck^f Roaring Cathp.) The Heathen Chinee. (Poem.) Jackson, H. H.: Ramona. Sonnets and Lyrics. Mitchell, D. G.: Reveries of a Bachelor. Stockton, F. R.: A Story of Seven Devils. (In Amos Kilbright and Others.) Rudder Grange. Stowe, H. B.: Uncle Tom's Cabin. Wallace, Lew: Ben-Hur. A Tale of the Christ. Ward, E. S. Phelps: An Old Maid's Paradise. (In Old Maids and Burglars in Paradise.) The Gates Ajar. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 235 II. For Collateral Reading Nicholson, M.: The Hoosiers. (In National Studies in American Letters.) Whitman, W. : Mississippi Valley Literature. (In Specimen Days.) PROSE — NON-FICTION I. Edward Everett (i 794-1 865), one of America's great scholars, orators, and statesmen, was a graduate of Harvard and president of the college from 1845 to 1849. He was successively Governor of Massachusetts, United States Sen- ator, Secretary of State, and Ambassador to England. He was an eloquent public speaker and is perhaps best remembered as an orator. Washington Abroab anb at HeME (From The Character of Washington. A speech delivered February 22, 1856) I feel, sir, more and more, as I advance in life, and watch with mingled confidence, solicitude, and hope, the development of the momentous drama of our national existence, seeking to penetrate that future which His Ex- cellency has so eloquently foreshadowed, that it is well worth our while — that it is at once one of our highest social duties and important pri\T[leges — to celebrate with ever-increasing solemnity, wdth annually augmented pomp and circumstance of festal commemoration, the anniver- sary of the nation's birth, were it only as affording a fit- ting occasion to bring the character and ser\-ices of Wash- ington, with ever fresh recognition, to the public attention, as the great central figure of that unparalleled group, that "noble army" of chieftains, sages, and patriots, by whom the Revolution was accomplished. This is the occasion, and here is the spot, and this is the day, and we citizens of Boston are the men, if any in the land, to throw wide open the portals of the temple of memory and fame, and there gaze with the eyes of a rev- erent and grateful imagination on his benignant counte- nance and majestic form. This is the occasion and the 236 American Literature day; for who needs to be told how much the cause of inde- pendence owes to the services and character of Washing- ton; to the purity of that stainless purpose, to the firmness of that resolute soul? This is the spot, this immortal hall, from which as from an altar went forth the burning coals that kindled into a consuming fire at Lexington and Concord, at Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights. We citizens of Boston are the men; for the first great success of Washington in the Revolutionary War was to restore to our fathers their ancient and beloved town. This is the time, the accepted time, when the voice of the Father of his Country cries aloud to us from the sods of Mount Vernon, and calls upon us, east and west, north and south, as the brethren of one great household, to be faithful to the dear-bought inheritance which he did so much to secure for us. But the fame of Washington is not confined to our own country. Bourdaloue, in his eulogy on the military saint of France, exclaims, "The other saints have been given by the Church to France, but France in return has given St. Louis to the church." Born into the family of nations in these latter days, receiving from foreign countries and inheriting from ancient times the bright and instructive example of all their honored sons, it is the glory of America, in the very dawn of her national existence, to have given back to the world many names of which the luster will never fade; and especially one name of which the whole family of Christendom is willing to acknowledge the un- envied pre-eminence; a name of which neither Greece nor Rome, nor repubhcan Italy, Switzerland, nor Holland, nor constitutional England can boast the rival. "A char- acter of virtues so happily tempered by one another" (I use the language of Charles James Fox), "and so wholly unalloyed by any vices, is hardly to be found on the pages of history." It is delightful to witness the generous recognition of Washington's merits, even in countries where, from po- Htical reasons, some backwardness in that respect might have been anticipated. Notwithstanding his leading agency Writers of the Mid- Century and After 237 in wresting a colonial empire from Great Britain, England was not slow to appreciate the grandeur and beauty of his character. Mr. Rufus King, our minister at that time to the Court of St. James, writing to General Hamil- ton in 1797, says: "No one who has not been in England can have a just idea of the admiration expressed among all parties for General Washington. It is a common observation, that he is not only the most illustrious, but the most meritori- ous character which has yet appeared." Nor was France behind England in her admiration of Washington. Notwithstanding the uneasy relations of the two countries at the time of his decease, when the news of his death reached Paris, the youthful and fortunate soldier who had already reached the summit of power by paths which Washington could never have trod, com- manded the highest honors to be paid to his memory. "Washington," he immediately exclaimed, in the orders of the day, "is dead! v This great man fought against tyranny; he consolidated the Hberty of his country. His memory will be ever dear to the French people, as to all freemen in both hemispheres, and especially to the soldiers of France, who like him and the American soldiers are fighting for-'liberty and equahty. In consequence, the First Consul orders that for ten days black crape shall be suspended from all the standards and banners of the re- pubhc." By order of Napoleon a solemn funeral service was performed in the "InvaHdes," in the presence of all that was most eminent in Paris. "A sorrowful cry," said Fontanes, the orator chosen for the occasion, "has reached us from America, which he liberated. It belongs to France to yield the first response to the lamentation which wiU be echoed by every great soul. These august arches have been well chosen for the apotheosis of a hero." How often in those wild scenes of her revolution, when the best blood of France was shed by the remorseless and ephemeral tyrants who chased each other, dagger in hand, across that dismal stage of crime and woe, during the reign of terror, how often did the thoughts of Lafayette and his 238 American Literature companions in arms, who had fought the battles of con- stitutional Hberty in America, call up the image of the pure, the just, the humane, the unambitious Washington ! How different would have been the fate of France, if her victorious chieftain, when he had reached the giddy heights of power, had imitated the great example which he caused to be eulogized ! He might have saved his country from being crushed by the leagued hosts of Europe; he might have prevented the names of Moscow and Waterloo from being written in letters of blood on the pages of history; he might have escaped himself the sad significance of those memorable words of Fontanes, on the occasion to which I have alluded, when, in the presence of Napoleon, he spoke of Washington as a man who, "by a destiny seldom shared by those who change the fate of empires, died in peace as a private citizen, in his native land, where he had held the first rank, and which he had himself made free !" How different would have been the fate of Spain, of Naples, of Greece, of Germany, of Mexico, and the South American Republics, had their recent revolutions been con- ducted by men Uke Washington and his patriotic associates, whose prudence, patriotism, probity, and disinterestedness conducted our Revolution to an auspicious and honorable result ! But it is, of course, at home that we must look for an adequate appreciation of our Washington's services and worth. He is the friend of the Hberties of other countries; he is the father of his own. I own, Mr. Mayor, that it has been to me a source of inexpressible satisfaction, to find, amidst all the bitter dissensions of the day, that this one grand sentiment, veneration for the name of Washing- ton, is buried — no, planted — ^down in the very depths of the American heart. It has been my privilege within the last two years to hold it up to the reverent contemplation of my countrymen, from the banks of the Penobscot to the banks of the Savannah, from New York to St. Louis, from Chesapeake Bay to Lake Michigan; and the same sentiments, expressed in the same words, have everywhere touched a sympathetic chord in the American heart. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 239 To that central attraction I have been delighted to find that the thoughts, the affections, the memories of the people, in whatever part of the country, from the ocean to the prairies of the West, from the land of granite and ice to the land of the palmetto and the magnoHa, instinc- tively turn. They have their sectional loves and hatreds, but before the dear name of Washington they are all ab- sorbed and forgotten. In whatever region of the country, the heart of patriotism warms to him; as in the starry heavens, with the circling of the seasons, the pointers go round the sphere, but their direction is ever toward the pole. They may point from the east, they may point from the west, but they will point to the northern star. It is not the brightest luminary in the heavens, as men account brightness, but it is always in its place. The meteor, kindled into momentary blaze from the rank vapors of the lower sky, is brighter. The comet is brighter that streams across the firmament, " And from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war." But the meteor explodes; the comet rushes back to the depths of the heavens; while the load-star shines steady at the pole, alike in summer and in winter, in seed-time and in harvest, at the equinox and the solstice. It shone for Columbus at the discovery of America; it shone for the pioneers of settlement, the pilgrims of faith and hope at Jamestown and Plymouth; it will shine for the mariner who shall enter your harbor to-night; it will shine for the navies which shall bear the sleeping thunders of your power while the flag of the Union shall brave the battle and the breeze. So, too, the character, the counsels, the example of our Washington, of which you bid me speak: they guided our fathers through the storms of the Revolution; they will guide us through the doubts and difficulties that beset us; they will guide our children and our children's children in the paths of prosperity and peace, while Amer- ica shall hold her place in the family of nations. 240 American Literature 2. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, was after Washington the greatest of all America's public men. Lincoln's speeches rank as classics in our literature because of their simple, direct, unadorned style. Again in his case the style is the man — sincere, unaffected, forceful. Every American should know the Gettysburg Address by heart. Address at the Dedication of the Gettysbxjrg National Cemetery, November 19, 1863 Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great dvil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. > The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 241 Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865) Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been con- stantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new can be presented. On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it— all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being deHvered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war, seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but locaUzed in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, per- petuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to re- strict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither antic- ipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a 242 American Literature just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. . . . Fondly do we hope — ^fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it shall continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With mahce toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. 3. Wendell Phillips (1811-1884) was a great antislavery orator. Before the Civil War he devoted most of his time to the cause of the abolitionists. His best-known address is Toussaint DOuverture, an extract from which follows. The Greatness of Toussaint L'Ouverture (From Toussaint L'Ouverture. First delivered in 1861) If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth cen- tury. Were I to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts — you, who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. But I am to tell you the story of a negro, Tous- saint L'Ouverture, who has left hardly one written fine. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his ene- mies, men who despised him because he was a negro and a slave, and hated him because he had beaten them in battle. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 243 Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own army — out of what? Englishmen, the best blood in Europe; out of the middle class of Enghshmen, the best blood of the island. And with it he conquered what? Enghshmen, their equals. This man manufactured his army out of what ? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass, he forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Haiti, and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they think of the negro's sword. I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. I would call him Crom- well, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave- trade in the humblest village of his dominions. You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History will write Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden 244 American Literature for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture. 4. John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877) was one of our great historians. He was a graduate of Harvard and afterward studied in Germany. His monumental work is The Rise of the Dutch Republic, an extract from which follows. Brussels in the Sixteenth Century (From The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Volume I, Chapter I) On the twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, the estates of the Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels. They had been summoned to be the witnesses and the guarantees of the abdication which Charles V had long before resolved upon, and which he was that day to execute. . . . The gay capital of Brabant — of that province which rejoiced in the Hberal constitution known by the cheerful title of the "joyful entrance," was worthy to be the scene of the imposing show. Brussels had been a city for more than five centuries, and, at that day, numbered about one hundred thousand inhabitants. Its walls, six miles in cir- cumference, were already two hundred years old. Unlike most Netherland cities, lying usually upon extensive plains, it was built along the sides of an abrupt promontory. A wide expanse of Uving verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile corn-fields, flowed round it like a sea. The foot of the town was washed by the little river Senne, while the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the steep sides of the hill like the semicircles and stairways of an amphi- theatre. Nearly in the heart of the place rose the audacious and exquisitely embroidered tower of the town-house, three hundred and sixty-six feet in height, a miracle of needle- work in stone, rivalling in its intricate carving the cobweb tracery of that lace which has for centuries been synonymous Writers of the Mid- Century and After 245 with the city, and rearing itself above a facade of profusely decorated and brocaded architecture. The crest of the el- evation was crowned by the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its extensive and thickly-wooded park on the left, and by the stately mansions of Orange, Egmont, Arem- berg, Culemburg, and other Flemish grandees, on the right. The great forest of Soignies, dotted with monasteries and convents, swarming with every variety of game, whither the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where the nobles chased the wild boar and the stag, extended to within a quarter of a mile of the city walls. The popula- tion, as thrifty, as intelHgent, as prosperous as that of any city in Europe, was divided into fifty- two guilds of arti- sans, among which the most important were the armorers, whose suits of mail would turn a musket-ball; the garden- ers, upon whose gentler creations incredible sums were annually lavished; and the tapestry-workers, whose gor- geous fabrics were the wonder of the world. Seven prin- cipal churches, of which the most striking was that of St. Gudule, with its twin towers, its charming fagade, and its magnificently painted windows, adorned the upper part of the city. The number seven was a magic number in Brussels, and was supposed at that epoch, during which astronomy was in its infancy and astrology in its prime, to denote the seven planets which governed all things terrestrial by their aspects and influences. Seven noble families, springing from seven ancient castles, supplied the stock from which the seven senators were selected who composed the upper council of the city. There were seven great squares, seven city gates, and upon the occasion of the present ceremony, it was observed by the lovers of wonderful coincidences, that seven crowned heads would be congregated under a single roof in the Hberty-loving city. The palace where the states-general were upon this oc- casion convened, had been the residence of the Dukes of Brabant since the days of John the Second, who had built it about the year 1300. It was a spacious and convenient building, but not distinguished for the beauty of its archi- 246 American Literature tecture. In front was a large open square, enclosed by an iron railing; in the rear an extensive and beautiful park, filled with forest trees, and containing gardens and labyrinths, fish-ponds and game preserves, fountains and promenades, race-courses and archery grounds. The main entrance to this edifice opened upon a spacious hall, connected with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel. The hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious proportions, and the richness of its decorations. It was the place where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece were held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arras, representing the Hfe and achievements of Gideon, the Midianite, and giving particular prominence to the miracle of the ''fleece of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, the great patron of the Knights of the Fleece. On the present occasion there were various additional embelhshments of flowers and votive garlands. At the western end a spacious platform or stage, with six or seven steps, had been constructed, below which was a range of benches for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. Upon the stage itself there were rows of seats, covered with tapestry, upon the right hand and upon the left. These were respectively to accommodate the knights of the order and the guests of high distinction. In the rear of these were other benches, for the members of the three great councils. In the centre of the stage was a splendid canopy, decorated with the arms of Burgundy, beneath which were placed three gilded arm-chairs. All the seats upon the platform were vacant, but the benches below, assigned to the deputies of the provinces, were already filled. Numer- ous representatives from all the states but two — Gelder- land and Overyssel — had already taken their places. Grave magistrates, in chain and gown, and executive officers in the splendid civic uniforms for which the Netherlands were celebrated, already filled every seat within the space allotted. The remainder of the hall was crowded with the more favored portion of the multitude which had been fortunate enough to procure admission to the exhibition. The archers and hallebardiers of the body-guard kept Writers of the Mid- Century and After 247 watch at all the doors. The theatre was filled— the au- dience was eager with expectation — the actors were yet to arrive. As the clock struck three the hero of the scene appeared. Caesar, as he was always designated in the classic language of the day, entered, leaning on the shoul- der of William of Orange. They came from the chapel, and were immediately followed by PhilHp the Second and Queen Mary of Hungary. The Archduke Maximilian, the Duke of Savoy, and other great personages came after- wards, accompanied by a glittering throng of warriors, councillors, governors, and Knights of the Fleece. 5. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was a famous preacher and an eloquent public speaker. He lectured much on the cause of the slave in England as well as in America. The fol- lowing extract is typical. Difficulties of Union (From the speech delivered in Edinburgh, October 14, 1863) It shall be my business to speak, for the most part, of what I know, and so to speak that you shall be in no doubt whatever of my convictions. America has been going through an extraordinary revo- lution, unconsciously and interiorly, which began when her present national form was assumed, which is now devel- oping itself, but which existed and was in progress just as much before as now. The earher problem was how to establish an absolute independence in states from all external control. Next, how, out of independent states to form a nation, yet without destroying local sovereignty. The period of germination and growth of the Union of the separate colonies is threefold. The first colonies that planted the American shores were separate, and jealous of their separateness. Sent from the mother country with a strong hatred of oppression, they went with an intense individualism, and sought to set up, each party, its Uttle colony, where they would be free to follow their convic- tions and the dictates of conscience. And nothing is more 248 Ainerican Literature characteristic of the earUer politics of the colonists than their jealous isolation, for fear that even contact would contaminate. Two or three efforts were made within the first twenty or twenty-five years of their existence to bring them together in union. Delegates met and parted, met again and parted. Indian wars drove them together. It became, by external dangers, necessary that there should be a union of those early colonies, but there was a fear that in going into union they would lose something of the sover- eignty that belonged to them as colonial states. The first real union that took place was that of 1643, between the colonists of what is now New England. It was not till 1777, a year and a half after the Declaration of Indepen- dence, and while the colonies were at full war with the mother country, that what are called the Articles of Federa- tion were adopted. But about ten years after these ar- ticles were framed they were found to be utterly inadequate for the exigencies of the times; and in 1787 the present Constitution of the United States was adopted by conven- tion, and, at different dates thereafter, ratified by the thir- teen states that first constituted the present Union. Now during all this period there is one thing to be re- marked, and that is, the jealousy of state independence. The states were feeHng their way toward nationahty; and the rule and measure of the wisdom of every step was, how to maintain individuahty with nationahty. That was their problem. How can there be absolute independence in local government with perfect nationahty? Slavery was only incidental during all this long period; but in reading from contemporaneous documents and debates that took place in conventions both for confederation and for final union, it is remarkable that the difficulties which arose were difficulties of representation, difficulties of taxation, difficulties of tariff and revenue; and, so far as we can find, neither North nor South anticipated in the future any of those dangers which have overspread the continent from the black cloud of slavery. The dangers they most feared, they have suffered least from; the dangers they have suf- fered from, they did not at all anticipate, or but Httle. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 249 But the Union was formed. The Constitution, defining the national power conferred by the states on the federal government, was adopted. Thenceforward, for fifty years and more, the country developed itself in wealth and poHtical power, until, from a condition of feeble states ex- hausted by war, it rose to the dignity of a first-class nation. We now turn our attention to the gradual and uncon- scious development within this American nation of two systems of poHcy, antagonistic and irreconcilable. Let us look at the South first. She was undergoing unconscious transmutation. She did not know it. She did not know what ailed her. She felt ill, put her hand on her heart sometimes; on her head sometimes; but had no doctor to tell her what it was, until too late; and when told she would not believe. For it is a fact that when the colonies combined in their final union, slavery was waning not only in the Middle and Northern states but also in the South itself. When therefore they went into this union, slavery was perishing, partly by cHmate in the North, and still more by the convictions of the people, and by the unpro- ductive character of farm slavery. The first period of the South was the wane and weakness of slavery. The second period is the increase of slavery, and its apologetic de- fense; for with the invention of the cotton gin an extraor- dinary demand for cotton sprang up. Slave labor began to be more and more in demand, and the price of slaves rose. Then came the next period, one of revolution of opinion as to the inferior races of the South, a total and entire change in the doctrines of the South on the question of human rights and human nature. It dates from Mr. Calhoun. From the hour that Mr. Calhoun began to teach, there commenced a silent process of moral deteriora- tion. I call it a retrogression in morals — an apostasy. Men no longer apologized for slavery; they learned to defend it, to teach that it was the normal condition of an inferior race; that the seeds and history of it were in the Word of God; that the only condition in which a republic can be prosperous is where an aristocracy owns the labor of the community. That was the doctrine of the South, 250 American Literature and with that doctrine there began to be ambitious designs not only for the maintenance but the propagation of slavery. This era of propagation and aggression con- stitutes the fourth and last period of the revolution of the South. They had passed through a whole cycle of changes. These changes followed certain great laws. No sooner was the new philosophy set on foot than the South recognized its legitimacy and accepted it with all its inferences and inevitable tendencies. They gave up wavering and mis- givings, adopted the institution— praised it, loved it, de- fended it, sought to maintain it, burned to spread it. During the last fifteen years I believe you cannot find a voice, printed or uttered, in the cotton states of the South, which deplored slavery. All believed in and praised it, and found authority for it in God's Word. PoHticians admired it, merchants appreciated it, the whole South sang paeans to the new-found truth, that man was born to be owned by man. This change of doctrine made it cer- tain that the South would be annoyed and irritated by a Constitution which, with all its faults, still carried the God- given principle of human rights, which were not to be taken by man except in punishment for crime. That Constitu- tion, and the policy which went with it at first, began to gnaw at, and irritate, and fret the South, after they had adopted slavery as a doctrine. The great cause of the conflict — the center of necessity, round which the cannons roar and the bayonets gleam — is the preservation of slavery. Beyond slavery there is no difference between North and South. Their interests are identical, with the exception of work. The North is for free work — the South is for slave work ; and the whole war in the South, though it is for independence, is, nevertheless, expressly in order to have slavery more firmly established by that independence. On the other hand, the whole policy of the North as well as the whole work of the North, re- joicing at length to be set free from antagonism, bribes, and intimidations, is for liberty — liberty for every man in the world. There never was so united a purpose as there is to-day Writers of the Mid- Century and After 251 to crush the rebelUon. We have had nearly three years of turmoil and disturbance, which not only has not taken away that determination, but has increased it. The loss of our sons in battle has been grievous, but we accept it as God's will, and we are determined that every martyred son shall have a representative in one hundred liberated slaves/^ 6. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was a native of Pennsylvania. He travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa and wrote several volumes descriptive of his travels. At the time of his death he was Minister to Germany. He was a poet as well as a prose-writer and achieved fame as a translator of Goethe's Faust. A Glimpse of Mendelssohn (From Views A-Foot, Chapter XVI) Mendelssohn, one of the greatest living composers, has been spending the winter here, and I have been fortunate enough to see him twice. One sunny day, three weeks ago, when all the population of Frankfort turned out upon the budding promenades and the broad quays along the Main, to enjoy the first spring weather, I went on my usual afternoon stroll, with my friend Wilhs, whose glow- ing talk concerning his art is quite as refreshing to me after the day's study in the gloomy Markt-platz, as are the blue hills of Spessart, which we see from the bridge over the river. As we were threading the crowd of boatmen, Tyrolese, Suabians, and Bohemians, on the quay, my eye was caught by a man who came towards us, and whose face and air were in such striking contrast to those about him, that my whole attention was at once fixed upon him. He was simply and rather negligently dressed in dark cloth, with a cravat tied loosely about his neck. His beard had evidently not been touched for two or three days, and his black hair was long and frowzed by the wind. His eyes, which were large, dark, and kindling, were directed forward and lifted in the abstraction of some 252 American Literature absorbing thought, and as he passed, I heard him singing to himself in a voice deep but not loud, and yet with a far different tone from that of one who hums a careless air as he walks. But a few notes caught my ear, yet I remember their sound, elevated and with that scarcely perceptible vibration which betrays a feehng below the soul's surface, as distinctly now as at the time. Willis grasped my arm quickly, and said in a low voice, "Mendelssohn!" I turned hastily, and looked after him as he went down the quay, apparently but half conscious of the stirring scenes around him. I could easily imagine how the balmy, indo- lent sensation in the air, so hke a soothing and tranquil- Uzing strain of music, should have led him into the serene and majestic realm of his own creations. It was something to have seen a man of genius thus alone and in communion with his inspired thoughts, and I could not repress a feehng of pleasure at the idea of having unconsciously acknowledged his character before I knew his name. After this passing ghmpse, this flash of him, however, came the natural desire to see his features in repose, and obtain some impression of his personality. An opportunity soon occurred. The performance of his "Walpurgisnacht," by the CaeciHen-Verein, a day or two thereafter, increased the enthusiasm I had before felt for his works, and full of the recollection of its subhme Druid choruses, I wrote a few lines to him, expressive of the de- Ught they had given me, and of my wash to possess his name in autograph, that I might take to America some token connected with their remembrance. The next day I received a very kind note in reply, enclosing a man- uscript score of a chorus from the "Walpurgisnacht." Summoning up my courage the next morning, I decided on calUng upon him in person, feehng certain that he would understand the motive which prompted me to take such a liberty. I had no difhculty in finding his residence in the Bockenheimer Gasse in the western part of the city. The servant ushered me into a handsomely furnished room, with a carpet, an unusual thing in German houses; a grand piano occupied one side of the apartment. These Writers of the Mia- Century and After 253 struck my eye on entering, but my observation was cut short by the appearance of Mendelssohn. A few words of introduction served to remove any embarrassment I might have felt on account of my unceremonious call, and I was soon put entirely at ease by his frank and friendly manner. As he sat opposite to me, beside a small table, covered with articles of vertii, I was much struck with the high intellectual beauty of his countenance. His fore- head is white, unwrinkled, and expanding above, in the region of the ideal faculties. His eyes are large, very dark, and lambent with a light that seemed to come through them — like the phosphorescent gleam on the ocean at mid- night. I have observed this peculiar character of the eye only in men of the highest genius. None of the engrav- ings of Mendelssohn which have yet been made give any idea of the kindling effect which is thus given to his face. His nose is shghtly prominent, and the traces of his Jewish blood are seen in this, as well as the thin but delicate curve of the upper lip, and the high cheek-bones. Yet it is the Jewish face softened and spirituaHzed, retaining none of its coarser characteristics. The faces of Jewish youth are of a rare and remarkable beauty, but this is scarcely ever retained beyond the first period of manhood. In Mendelssohn, the perpetual youth of spirit, which is the gift of genius alone, seems to have kept his features moulded to its expression, while the approach of maturer years but heightens and strengthens its character. He spoke of German music, and told me I should hear it best performed in Vienna and Berlin. Some remarks on America led him to speak of the proposed Musical Festi- val in New York. He has received a letter inviting him to assist in it, and said he would gladly attend it, but his duty to his family will not permit of his leaving. He ap- peared to be much gratified by the invitation, not only for the personal appreciation which it implied, but as a cheering sign of progress in the musical art. Mr. Willis, who met with Mendelssohn last summer, at the baths of Kronthal, said that he expressed much curiosity respecting our native negro melodies — which, after all, form the only 254 American Literature peculiarly national music we possess — and that he con- siders some of them exceedingly beautiful and original. I did not feel at liberty to intrude long upon the morning hours of a composer, and took my leave after a short inter- view. Mendelssohn, at parting, expressed his warm in- terest in our country's progress, especially in the refined arts, and gave me a kind invitation to call upon him in whatever German city I should find him. 7. George William Curtis (11824-189^) before the Civil War was an eloquent defender of the Union cause. He was con- nected for almost fifty years with Harper's Magazine as editor of the Easy Chair. His style is graceful and conversational, reminiscent at times of Charles Lamb and again of Addison. Mr. Potiphar's New House (From "A Meditation by Paul Potiphar, Esq.," in The Potiphar Papers) Well, my new house is finished — and so am I. I hope Mrs. Potiphar is satisfied. Everybody agrees that it is ''palatial." The daily papers have had columns of de- scription, and I am, evidently, according to their authority, "munificent," "tasteful," "enterprising," and "patriotic." Amen ! but what business have I with palatial resi- dences ? What more can I possibly want, than a spacious, comfortable house? Do I want buhl escritoires? Do I want or molu things? Do I know anything about pic- tures and statues? In the name of heaven, do I want rose-pink bed curtains to give my grizzly old phiz a del- icate "auroral hue," as Cream Cheese says of Mrs. P.'s complexion! Because I have made fifty thousand this last year in Timbuctoo bonds must I convert it all into a house, so large that it will not hold me comfortably — so splendid that I might as well live in a porcelain vase, for the trouble of taking care of it — so prodigiously "palatial" that I have to skulk into my private room, put on my slip- pers, close the door, shut myself up with myself, and wonder why I married Mrs. Potiphar? Writers of the Mid- Century and After '^55 Why does a man build a house? To live in, I suppose — to have a home. But is a fine house a home? I mean, is a "palatial residence," with Mrs. Potiphar at the head of it, the "home" of which we all dream more or less, and for which we ardently long as we grow older? A house, I take it, is a retreat to which a man hurries from business, and in which he is compensated by the tenderness and thoughtful regard of a woman, and the play of his children, for the rough rubs with men. I know it is a silly view of the case, but I'm getting old and can't help it. "You men are intolerable. . . . Men are tyrants, Mr. Potiphar. They are ogres who entice us poor girls into their castles, and then eat up our happiness, and scold us while they eat." Well, I suppose it is so. I suppose I am an ogre and enticed Polly into my castle. But she didn't find it large enough, and teased me to build another. "How about the library?" said she one day. "What hbrary?" inquired I. "Why, our Hbrary, of course." "I haven't any." "Do you mean to have such a house as this without a library?" "Why," said I plaintively, "I don't read books — I never did, and I never shall; and I don't care anything about them. Why should I have a hbrary ? " "Why, because it's part of a house hke this." "Mrs. P., are you fond of books?" "No, not particularly. But one must have some regard to appearances. Suppose we are Hottentots, you don't want us to look so, do you?" I thought that it was quite as barbarous to imprison a lot of books that we should never open, and that would stand in gilt upon the shelves, silently laughing us to scorn, as not to have them if we didn't want them. I proposed a compromise. 256 American Literature "Is it the looks of the thing, Mrs. P. ?" said I. "That's all," she answered. "Oh ! well, I'll arrange it." So I had my shelves built, and my old friends Matthews and Rider furnish me with complete sets of handsome gilt covers to all the books that no gentleman's library should be without, which I arranged, carefully, upon the shelves, and had the best-looking Ubrary in town. I locked 'em in, and the key is always lost when anybody wants to take down a book. However, it was a good investment in leather, for it brings me in the reputation of a reading man and a patron of hterature. O ! dear me, I wonder if this is the "home sweet home" business the girls used to sing about ! Music does certainly alter cases. I can't quite get used to it. Last week I was one morning in the basement breakfast-room, and I heard an extra cried. I ran out of the area door — dear me ! — before I thought what I was about; I emerged bareheaded from under the steps, and ran a little way after the boy. I know it wasn't proper. I am sorry, very sorry. I am afraid Mrs. Croesus saw me; I know Mrs. Gnu told it all about that morning: and Mrs. Settum Downe called directly upon Mrs. Potiphar, to know if it were really true that I had lost my wits, as everybody was saying. I don't know what Mrs. P. answered. I am sorry to have compromised her so. I went immediately and ordered a pray-do of the blackest walnut. My resignation is very gradual. Kurz Pacha says they put on gravestones in Sennaar three Latin words — do you know Latin? if you don't, come and borrow some of my books. The words are: or a pro me! 8. Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was a great historian and a master of English. His theme was America — the story of the pioneer in the West, of the conflicts of the settler and the Indian. He personally experienced the life about which he wrote, going West soon after graduating from Harvard and Writers of the Mid- Century and After 257 living with the Indians. The following extract illustrates the sincerity and soundness of his style. The Death of Pontiac (From The Conspiracy of Pontiac, Chapter XXXI) He who, at the present day, crosses from the city of St. Louis to the opposite shore of the Mississippi, and passes southward through a forest festooned with grape-vines, and fragrant with the scent of flowers, will soon emerge upon the ancient hamlet of Cahokia. To one fresh from the busy suburbs of the American city, the small French houses, scattered in picturesque disorder, the light-hearted, thriftless look of their inmates, and the woods which form the background of the picture, seem like the remnants of an earHer and simpler world. Strange changes have passed around that spot. Forests have fallen, cities have sprung up, and the lonely wilderness is thronged with human life. Nature herself has taken part in the general transformation; and the Mississippi has made a fearful inroad, robbing from the luckless Creoles a mile of rich meadow and woodland. Yet, in the midst of all, this relic of the lost empire of France has preserved its essen- tial features through the lapse of a century, and offers at this day an aspect not widely different from that which met the eye of Pontiac, when he and his chiefs landed on its shore. The place was full of Illinois Indians; such a scene as in our own time may often be met with in some squalid settlement of the border, where the vagabond guests, bedizened with dirty finery, tie their small horses in rows along the fences, and stroll idly among the houses, or lounge about the dramshops. A chief so renowned as Pontiac could not remain long among the friendly Creoles of Cahokia without being summoned to a feast; and at such primitive entertainment the whiskey-bottle would not fail to play its part. This was in truth the case. Pontiac drank deeply, and, when the carousal was over, strode down the village street to the adjacent woods, where he was 258 American Literature heard to sing the medicine songs, in whose magic power he trusted as the warrant of success in all his undertakings. An EngUsh trader, named WilHamson, was then in the village. He had looked on the movements of Pontiac with a jealousy probably not diminished by the visit of the chief to the French at St. Louis; and he now resolved not to lose so favorable an opportunity to despatch him. With this view, he gained the ear of a strolHng Indian, belonging to the Kaskaskia tribe of the IlKnois, bribed him with a barrel of Uquor, and promised him a farther reward if he would kill the chief. The bargain was quickly made. When Pontiac entered the forest, the assassin stole close upon his track; and, watching his moment, gUded behind him, and buried a tomahawk in his brain. The dead body was soon discovered, and startled cries and wild howhngs announced the event. The word was caught up from mouth to mouth, and the place resounded with infernal yells. The warriors snatched their weapons. The Illinois took part with their guilty countryman; and the few followers of Pontiac, driven from the village, fled to spread the tidings and call the nations to revenge. Meanwhile the murdered chief lay on the spot where he had fallen, until St. Ange, mindful of former friendship, sent to claim the body, and buried it with warlike honors, near his fort of St. Louis. Thus basely perished this champion of a ruined race. But could his shade have revisited the scene of murder, his savage spirit would have exulted in the vengeance which overwhelmed the abettors of the crime. Whole tribes were rooted out to expiate it. Chiefs and sachems, whose veins had thrilled with his eloquence; young warriors, whose aspiring hearts had caught the inspiration of his greatness, mustered to revenge his fate; and, from the north and the east, their united bands descended on the villages of the IlHnois. Tradition has but faintly preserved the memory of the event; and its only annalists, men who held the intestine feuds of the savage tribes in no more account than the quarrels of panthers or wildcats, have left but a meagre record. Yet enough remains to tell us Wiiters of the Mid- Century and After 259 that over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out in atonement, than flowed from the veins of the slaughtered heroes on the corpse of Patroclus; and the remnant of the Illinois who survived the carnage remained for ever after sunk in utter insignificance. Neither mound nor tablet marked the burial-place of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the forest hero; and the race whom he hated with such burn- ing rancor trample with unceasing footsteps over his for- gotten grave. 9. John Fiske (1842-1901) was another one of our most famous historians. He was long connected with Harvard. His theme, like Parkman's, was America, but he stressed the institutional and governmental side of the story of the Amer- ican nation. (For readings see Bibliography, p. 267.) 10. Henry W. Grady (1850-1889), was an eloquent Southern speaker and writer who did much by his addresses and writings to establish the right feeling between the North and the South after the Civil War. The Old South and The New (From The New South, a speech delivered before the New England Society at its annual dinner in New York City, December 12, 1886. This made a great sensation. Grady hirnself said: "When I found myself on my feet, — I knew then that I had a message for that assemblage. As soon as I opened my mouth it came rushing out.") "There was a South of slavery and secession — that South is dead. There is a South of union and freedom— that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour." These words, delivered from the immortal lips of Benjamin H. Hill at Tammany Hall in 1866, true then and true now, I shall make my text to-night. My friends, Dr. Talmage has told you that the typical American has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has already come. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow 260 American Literature to flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonies, Puritans and Cavaliers, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through a century, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this republic — Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavaher, in that he was American, and that in his honest form were first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of his ideal government — charging it with such tre- mendous meaning and elevating it above human suffering, that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions and honoring his fathers, build with reverend hands to the type of this simple but subHme life, in which all types are honored, and in our common glory as Americans there will be plenty and to spare for your forefathers and for mine. Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes ! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war — an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory — in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home ! Let me picture to you the foot- sore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his chil- dren of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds. Having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and Writers of the Mid- Century and After 261 lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and faithful journey. What does he find — let me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice — what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful. He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away; his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone. Without money, credit, employ- ment, material, or training, and, besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelli- gence, — the estabhshing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves. What does he do — this hero in gray with a heart of gold ? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness pre- vailed. ... Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than the upHfting and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding South — misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave and generous always. In the record of 262 American Literature her social, industrial, and political illustration we await with confidence the verdict of the world. . . . The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilUng with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanded horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because through the inscrutable wis- dom of God her honest purpose was crossed, and her brave armies were beaten. This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The South has nothing for which to apologize. She beheves that the late struggle between the States was war and not rebelHon; revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own con- victions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hill — a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men — that of a brave and simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England, from Plymouth Rock all the way, would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the foot of that shaft I shall send my children's children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory, which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for which he gave his hfe was adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in His Almighty hand and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil, and the American Union was saved from the wreck of war. . . , II. Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), a graduate of Har- vard and for many years a professor at his alma mater, was Writers of the Mid- Century and After 263 a noted New England scholar. He devoted himself to art and literature, travelling and lecturing much both in Europe and America. The Building of the Cathedral (From Notes of Travel and Study in Italy, "Orvieto," March, 185&) The best Gothic architecture, indeed, wherever it may be found, affords evidence that the men who executed it were moved by a true fervor of religious faith. In build- ing a church, they did not forget that it was to be the house of God. No portion of their building was too minute, no portion too obscure, to be perfected with thorough and careful labor. The work was not let out by contract or taken up as a profitable job. The architect of a cathedral might hve all his life within the shadow of its rising walls, and die no richer than when he gave the sketch; but he was well repaid by the delight of seeing his design grow from an imagination to a reality, and by spending his days in the accepted service of the Lord. For the building of a cathedral, however, there needs not only a spirit of religious zeal among the workmen, but a faith no less ardent among the people for whom the church is designed. The enormous expense of construc- tion, an expense which for generations must be continued without intermission, is not to be met except by liberal and willing general contributions. Papal indulgences and the offerings of pilgrims may add something to the revenues, but the main cost of building must be borne by the com- munity over whose house-tops the cathedral is to rise and to extend its benign protection. Cathedrals were essentially expressions of the popular will and the popular faith. They were the work neither of ecclesiastics nor of ifeudal barons. They represent, in a measure, the decHne of feudahsm, and the prevalence of the democratic element in society. No sooner did a city achieve its freedom than its people began to take thought for a cathedral. Of all the arts, architecture is the most quickly responsive to the instincts and the desires of a people. And in the cathedrals, the popular beliefs, hopes. 264 American Literature fears, fancies, and aspirations found expression, and were perpetuated in a language intelligible to all. The life of the Middle Ages is recorded on their walls. When the democratic element was subdued, as in Cologne by a Prince Bishop, or in Milan by a succession of tyrants, the cathedral was left unfinished. When, in the fifteenth century, all over Europe, the turbulent, but energetic fiber ties of the people were suppressed, the building of cathedrals ceased. 12. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) was a younger member of the famous Cambridge group of writers which included Longfellow, Lowell, and Motley. Though he never attained the distinction of the writers named, he was the author of many charming essays and interesting biographies and histories. Ho was a bitter opponent of slavery and was colonel of the first colored regiment formed during the Civil War. BiMINI AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YoUTH (From Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, Chapter XX) When Juan Ponce de Leon set forth from Porto Rico, March 13, 151 2, to seek the island of Bimini and its Foun- tain of Youth, he was moved by the love of adventure more than by that of juvenifity, for he was then but about fifty, a time when a cavafier of his day thought himself but in Ws prime. He looked indeed with perpetual sorrow . . . upon his kinsman Luis Ponce, once a renowned warrior, but on whom age had already, at sixty-five, laid its hand in earnest. ... It was a vain hope of restored youth which had brought Don Luis from Spain to Porto Rico four years before; and, when Ponce de Leon had subdued that island, his older kinsman was forever beseeching him to carry his flag farther, and not stop till he had reached Bimini, and sought the Fountain of Youth. . . . "How know we," said his kinsman, "that there is any such place?" "All know it," said Luis. "Peter Martyr saith that there is in Bimini a continual spring of running water of Writers of the Mid- Century and After 265 such marvellous virtue that the water thereof, being drunk, perhaps with some diet, maketh old men young." And he adds that an Indian grievously oppressed with old age, moved with the fame of that fountain, and allured through the love of longer Ufe, went to an island near unto the country of Florida, to drink of the desired fountain, . . . and having well drunk and washed himself for many days with the appointed remedies, by them who kept the bath, he is reported to have brought home a manly strength, and to have used all manly exercises. "Let us therefore go thither," he cried, "and be like him." They set sail with three brigantines and found without difficulty the island of Bimini among the Lucayos (or Bahamas) islands; but when they searched for the Foun- tain of Youth they were pointed farther westward to Florida, where there was said to be a river of the same magic powers, called the Jordan. . . . They came at last to an inlet which led invitingly up among wooded banks and flowery valleys, and here the older Knight said, "Let us disembark here and strike in- land. My heart tells me that here at last will be found the Fountain of Youth." "Nonsense," said Juan, "our way lies by water." "Then leave me here with my men," said Luis. . . . A fierce discussion ended in Luis obtaining his wish, and being left for a fortnight of exploration; his kinsman prom- ising to come for him again at the mouth of the river St. John. . . . Sending the youngest of his men up to the top of a tree, Luis learned from him that they were on an island, after all, and this cheered him much, as making it more hkely that they should find the Fountain of Youth. He saw that the ground was pawed up, as if in a cattle-range, and that there was a path leading to huts. Taking this path, they met fifty Indian bowmen, who, whether large or not, seemed to them like giants. The Spaniards gave them beads and hawk-bells and each received in return an arrow, as a token of friendship. ... At the houses there were many fires, and the Spaniards would have been wholly comfort- 266 American Literature able had they not thought it just possible that they were to be offered as a sacrifice. Still fearing this, they left their Indian friends after a few days and traversed the country, stopping at every spring or fountain to test its quaUty. Alas ! they all grew older and more worn in look, as time went on, and farther from the Fountain of Youth. After a time they came upon new tribes of Indians, and as they went farther from the coast these people seemed more and more friendly. They treated the white men as if come from Heaven, — brought them food, made them houses, carried every burden for them. ... If the visitors seemed offended, the natives were terrified, and apparently thought that they should die unless they had the favor of these wise and good men. . . . Wherever there was a fountain, the natives readily showed it, but apparently knew nothing of any miraculous gift; yet they themselves were in such fine physical condition, and seemed so young and so active, that it was as if they had already bathed in some magic spring. They had wonderful endurance of heat and cold, and such health that, when their bodies were pierced through and through by arrows, they would recover rapidly from their wounds. These things con- vinced the Spaniards that, even if the Indians would not disclose the source of all their bodily freshness, it must, at any rate. He somewhere in the neighborhood. Yet a little while, no doubt, and their visitors would reach it. It was a strange journey for these gray and care-worn men as they passed up the defiles and valleys along the St. John's River, beyond the spot where now spreads the city of Jacksonville, and even up to the woods and springs about Magnolia and Green Cove. Yellow jasmines trailed their festoons above their heads, wild roses grew at their feet; the air was filled with the aromatic odors of pine or sweet bay; the long gray moss hung from the Uve-oak branches; birds and butterflies of wonderful hues fluttered around them; and strange lizards crossed their paths, or looked with dull and blinking eyes from the branches. They came at last to one spring which widened into a natural basin, and which was so deHciously aromatic that Writers of the Mid- Century and After 267 Luis Ponce said, on emerging: "It is enough. I have bathed in the Fountain of Youth, and henceforth I am young." His companions tried it, and said the same: "The Fountain of Youth is found." No time must now be lost in proclaiming the great dis- covery. They obtained a boat from the natives, who wept at parting with the white strangers whom they had so loved. In this boat they proposed to reach the mouth of the St. John, meet Juan Ponce de Leon, and carry back the news to Spain. But one native, whose wife and chil- dren they had cured, and who had grown angry at their refusal to stay longer, went down to the water's edge, and, sending an arrow from his bow, transfixed Don Luis, so that even his fore-taste of the Fountain could not save him, and he died ere reaching the mouth of the river. If Don Luis ever reached what he sought, it was in another world. But those who have ever bathed in Green Cove Spring, near Magnolia, on the St. John's River, will be ready to testify that had he but stayed there longer, he would have found something to recall his visions of the Fountain of Youth. BIBLIOGRAPHY I. For Further Illustration Brewer, D. J.: The World^s Best Orations. Bryan, W. J.: The World's Famous Orations. Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose. Curtis, G. W.: The Public Duty of Educated Men. Denney, Joseph V.: American Public Addresses. Fiske, J.: American Political Ideas. Moore, F.: American Eloquence. Norton, C. E.: Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. O'Connell, Joseph Moore: Southern Orators — Speeches and Orations. Parkman, F.: The Oregon Trail. (See also General Bibliography, p. 3.) II. For Collateral Reading Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman: The Perfect Tribute. (Lin- coln's Gettysburg Address.) Gerry, Margarita Spaulding: The Toy Shop. (A Lincoln Story.) 268 American Literature Higginson, T. W. : Cheerful Yesterdays. Lowell, J. R.: Wendell Phillips. Markham, E.: Lincoln, the Great Commoner. POETRY Albert Pike, Theodore O'Hara, Henry Timrod, Paul Hamilton Hayne, and Sidney Lanier are, with the excep- tion of Poe, the best known of our Southern poets. I. Albert Pike (1809-1891), a soldier of the Confederate army, is chiefly remembered for his song Dixie and for his poem To the Mocking Bird. Dixie Southrons, hear your country call you ! Up ! lest worse than death befall you ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Lo ! the beacon fires are hghted, Let all hearts be now united ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! Hurrah ! hurrah ! For Dixie's land we'll take our stand, To hve or die for Dixie ! To arms ! to arms ! And conquer peace for Dixie ! To arms ! to arms ! And conquer peace for Dixie ! Hear the Northern thunders mutter ! Northern flags in South winds flutter ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Send them back your fierce defiance ! Stamp upon the accursed alliance ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. Fear no danger ! shun no labor ! Lift up rifle, pike, and sabre ! Writers of the Mid- Century and After 269 To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Shoulder pressing close to shoulder ! Let the odds make each heart bolder ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. How the South's great heart rejoices At your cannon's ringing voices ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! For faith betrayed and pledges broken, Wrongs inflicted, insults spoken. To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. Strong as lions, swift as eagles, Back to their kennels hunt these beagles ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Cut the unequal bonds asunder ! Let them hence each other plunder ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. Swear upon your country's altar Never to submit or falter; To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Till the spoilers are defeated, Till the Lord's work is completed. To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. Halt not till our federation Secures among earth's Powers its station ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Then at peace, and crowned with glory, Hear your children tell the story ! To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. If the loved ones weep in sadness, Victory soon shall bring them gladness; 270 American Literature To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Exultant pride soon banish sorrow; Smiles chase tears away to-morrow. To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie ! Advance the flag of Dixie ! etc. 2. Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) was a Southerner who made his reputation as a writer through his poem The Bivouac of the Dead, which commemorates the Kentuckians who fell at the battle of Buena Vista. The Bivouac of the Dead • < The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on life's parade shall meet That brave and faflen few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead. No rumor of the foe's advance Now swells upon the wind ; No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms; No braying horn nor screaming fife At dawn shall call to arms. Their shivered swords are red with rust, Their plumed heads are bowed; Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, Is now their martial shroud. And plenteous funeral tears have washed The red stains from each brow. And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 271 The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The bugle's stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout, are past; Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal Shall thrill with fierce dehght Those breasts that never more may feel The rapture of the fight. Like the fierce northern hurricane That sweeps this great plateau, Flushed with triumph yet to gain. Came down the serried foe. Who heard the thunder of the fray Break o'er the field beneath. Knew well the watchword of that day Was "Victory or death." Long has the doubtful conflict raged O'er all that stricken plain. For never fiercer fight had waged The vengeful blood of Spain ; And still the storm of battle blew, Still swelled the gory tide; Not long, our stout old chieftain knew, Such odds his strength could bide. 'Twas in that hour his stern command Called to a martyr's grave The flower of his beloved band The nation's flag to save. By rivers of their fathers' gore His first-born laurels grew, And well he deemed the sons would pour Their lives for glory too. Full many a norther's breath has swept O'er Angostura's plain — And long the pitying sky has wept Above its mouldering slain. 272 American Literature The raven's scream, or eagle's flight, Or shepherd's pensive lay, Alone awakes each sullen height That frowned o'er that dread fray. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Ye must not sluhiber there, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Along the heedless air. Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave; She claims from War his richest spoil — The ashes of her brave. Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest, Far from the gory field; Borne to a Spartan mother's breast On many a bloody shield; The sunlight of their native sky Smiles sadly on them here. And kindred eyes and hearts watch by The heroes' sepulchre. Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead, Dear as the blood ye gave, No impious footstep here shall tread The herbage of your grave, Nor shall your glory be forgot While Fame her record keeps, Or Honor points the hallowed spot Where Valor proudly sleeps. Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone In deathless song shall tell When many a vanished age hath flown, The story how ye fell; Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Nor Time's remorseless doom, Shall dim one ray of glory's light That gilds your glorious tomb. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 273 Compare with this: CoUins's How Sleep the Brave; Tennyson's Balaclava. 3. Henry Timrod (1829-1867) was a native of South Caro- lina. He attended the University of Georgia but could not finish his course because of poverty. During the Civil War he enlisted as a volunteer for the Confederacy. Before and after the war he devoted himself to Uterature, and he ranks to-day as one of the most considerable of our Southern poets. Ode Sleep, sweetly in your humble graves, Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; Though yet no marble column craves The pilgrim here to pause. In seeds of laurel in the earth The blossom of your fame is blown, And somewhere, waiting for its birth, The shaft is in the stone ! Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years Which keep in trust your storied tombs, Behold ! your sisters bring their tears And these memorial blooms. Small tributes ! but your shades will smile More proudly on these wreaths to-day, Than when some cannon-moulded pile Shall overlook this bay. Stoop, angels, hither from the skies ! There is no holier spot of ground Than where defeated valor lies, By mourning beauty crowned ! Whittier called this Ode "the noblest poem ever written by a Southern poet." Compare with this Collins's Ode How Sleep the Brave! 274 American Literature 4. Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886) was also a South Carolinian. He belonged to a wealthy family and had the best advantages in education and association. He graduated from Charleston College and became identified with the leading literary circles of the city. Because of his health, he could not enUst in the Southern cause at the outbreak of the Civil War, but he wrote many stirring war lyrics to encourage his people. In the Wheat-Field When the lids of the virgin Dawn unclose, When the earth is fair and the heavens are calm, And the early breath of the wakening rose Floats on the air in balm, I stand breast-high in the pearly wheat That ripples and thrills to a sportive breeze, Borne over the field with its Hermes feet, And its subtle odor of southern seas; While out of the infinite azure deep The flashing wings of the swallows sweep. Buoyant and beautiful, wild and fleet, Over the waves of the whispering wheat. Aurora faints in the fulgent fire Of the Monarch of Morning's bright embrace. And the summer day climbs higher and higher Up the cerulean space; The pearl-tints fade from the radiant grain And the sportive breeze of the ocean dies. And soon in the noontide's soundless rain The fields seem graced by a million eyes; Each grain with a glance from its hdded fold As bright as a gnome's in his mine of gold, While the slumb'rous glamour of beam and heat Glides over and under the windless wheat. Yet the languid spirit of lazy Noon, With its minor and Morphean music rife. Is pulsing in low, voluptuous tune With summer's lust of Ufe. winters of the Mid- Century and After 275 Hark ! to the droning of drowsy wings, To the honey-bees as they go and come, To the ''boomer" scarce rounding his sultry rings, The gnat's small horn and the beetle's hum; And hark to the locust ! — noon's one shrill song, Like the tingHng steel of an elfin gong, Grows lower through quavers of long retreat To swoon on the dazzled and distant wheat. Now day declines ! and his shafts of might Are sheathed in a quiver of opal haze; Still thro' the chastened, but magic light, What sunset grandeurs blaze ! For the sky, in its mellowed luster, seems Like the realm of a master poet's mind, — A shifting kingdom of splendid dreams, — With fuller and fairer truths behind; And the changeful colors that blend or part, Ebb like the tides of a living heart. As the splendor melts and the shadows meet, And the tresses of Twihght trail over the wheat. Compare with this Lanier's Corn. 5. Sidney Lanier (1842-1881), the musician poet, is next to Poe the greatest of our Southern writers. He was born in Georgia and educated at Oglethorpe College. During the Civil War he entered the ranks of the Confederacy and was confined for five months in a Union prison. After the war he went to Baltimore, where he was engaged as flute-player by the Peabody Orchestra and later as lecturer on English Htera- ture by Johns Hopkins University. The musical quahty of his verse is remarkable, as is shown in the following selections. The Marshes of Glynn braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine. While the riotous noonday sun of the June day long did shine Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine; But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, 276 American Literature And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, — Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak, And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know. And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within. That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bit- terness sore, And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, — Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face The vast, sweet visage of space. To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, Where the gray beach ghmmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, For a mete and a mark To the forest — dark:— So: Affable live oak, leaning low, — Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand, (Not lightly touching your person. Lord of the land !) Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand. Free By a world of marsh, that borders a world of sea. Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmer- ing band Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl Writers of the Mid- Century and After Til As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the jBrm sweet Umbs of a girl. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of Hght. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high ? The world Ues east: how ample the marsh and the sea and the sky ! A league and a league of marsh grass, waist-high, broad in the blade. Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, To the terminal blue of the main. Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? Somehow my soul seems suddenly free From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn. Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withhold- ing and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea ! Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, Ye spread and span Hke the catholic man who hath mightily won God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain And sight out of bhndness and purity out of a stain. As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God : I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies: By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God : 278 American Literature Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within The range of the marshes, the Hberal marshes of Glynn. And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty the sea Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be: Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow Here and there, Everywhere, Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes, And the marsh is meshed with a milUon veins, That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow In the rose-and-silver evening glow. Farewell, my lord Sun ! The creeks overflow: a thousand ri\ailets run 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh grass stir; Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one. How still the plains of the waters be ! The tide is in his ecstasy; The tide is at its highest height: And it is night. And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep Roll in on the souls of men, But who will reveal to our waking ken The forms that swim and the shapes that creep Under the waters of sleep ? And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the tide comes in On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes of Glynn. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 279 Song of the Chattahoochee Out of the hills of Habersham. Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, SpHt at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover's pain to attain the plain Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the valleys of Hall. All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried Abide, abide, The wilful water weeds held me thrall. The laving laurels turned my tide. The ferns and the fondhng grass said Stay, The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the Kttle reeds sighed Abide, abide, Here in the hills of Habersham, Here in the valleys of Hall. High o'er the hills of Habersham, Veiling the valleys of Hall, The hickory told me manifold Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, These glades in the valleys of Hall. And oft in the hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone 280 American Literature Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, And many a luminous jewel lone — Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, and amethyst — Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the valleys of Hall. But oh, not the hills of Habersham. And, oh, not the valleys of Hall Avail: I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty call — Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys of Hall. Compare with the last poem above : Tennyson's Brook; Southey's The Cataract of Lodore ; Hsiyne's Meadow Brook. 6. Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864) was the author of the popular Old Folks at Home and My Old Kentucky Home. Old Folks at Home Way down upon de Swanee Ribber Far, far away, Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber, Dere's wha de old folks stay. All up and down de whole creation Sadly I roam. Still longing for de old plantation, And for de old folks at home. All de world am sad and dreary, Ebery where I roam; Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary, Far from de old folks at home ! Writers of the Mid- Century and After 281 All round de little farm I wandered When I was young, Den many happy days I squandered, Many de songs I sung, When I was playing wid my brudder Happy was I; Oh, take me to my kind old mudder ! Dere let me live and die. One little hut among de bushes, One dat I love, Still sadly to my memory rushes, No matter where I rove. When will I see de bees a-humming All round de comb ? When will I hear de banjo tumming, Down in my good old home ? , All de world am sad and dreary, Ebery where I roam. Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary, Far from de old folks at home ! 7. Alice Gary (1820-1871) composed some beautiful lyrics. Horace Greeley said of her: "I do not believe that she ever wrote one line that she did not believe to be true. She con- centrated all her powers and energies on the task of making truth more palpable and good, more acceptable to hungry wait- ing souls." Balder's Wife Her casement Hke a watchful eye From the face of the wall looks down, Lashed round with ivy vines so dry. And with ivy leaves so brown. Her golden head in her lily hand Like a star in the spray o' the sea. And wearily rocking to and fro, She sings so sweet and she sings so low To the little babe on her knee. 282 American Literature But let her sing what tune she may, Never so light and never so gay, It sHps and sHdes and dies away To the moan of the willow water. , Like some bright honey-hearted rose That the wild wind rudely mocks, She blooms from the dawn to the day's sweet close Hemmed in with a world of rocks. The livelong night she does not stir. But keeps at her casement lorn, And the skirts of the darkness shine with her As they shine with the light o' the morn, And all who pass may hear her lay, But let it be what tune it may, It slips and slides and dies away To the moan of the willow water. And there, within that one-eyed tower. Lashed round with the ivy brown, She droops Hke some unpitied flower That the rain-fall washes down: The damp o' the dew in her golden hair, Her cheek like the spray o' the sea, And wearily rocking to and fro, She sings so sweet and she sings so low To the little babe on her knee. But let her sing what tune she may, Never so glad and never so gay. It slips and sHdes and dies away To the moan of the willow water. 8. Phcebe Gary (1824-1871), the younger sister of Alice, is remembered for the familiar hymn which follows. Nearer Home One sweetly solemn thought Comes to me o'er and o'er; I am nearer home to-day Than I ever have been before: Writers of the Mid- Century and After 283 Nearer my Father's house, Where the many mansions be; Nearer the great white throne, Nearer the crystal sea; Nearer the bound of life, Where we lay our burdens down; Nearer leaving the cross, Nearer gaining the crown ! But lying darkly between, Winding down through the night, Is the silent, unknown stream, That leads at last to the light. Closer and closer my steps Come to the dread abysm: Closer Death to my lips Presses the awful chrism. Oh, if my mortal feet Have almost gained the brink; If it be I am nearer home Even to-day than I think; Father, perfect my trust; Let my spirit feel in death, That her feet are firmly set On the rock of a living faith ! 9. Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872) was a Pennsyl- ania artist and a poet of no mean ability. His most famous loem is the battle song Sheridan's Ride, which follows. Sheridan's Ride Up from the South, at break of day. Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay. The affrighted air with a shudder bore. Like a herald in haste, to a chieftain's door 284 American Literature The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar Telling the battle was on once more. And Sheridan twenty miles away. And wider still those billows of war Thundered along the horizon's bar; And louder yet into Winchester rolled The roar of that red sea uncontrolled Making the blood of the listener cold As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, With Sheridan twenty miles away. 3- But there is a road from Winchester town, A good broad highway leading down; And there through the flush of the morning light, A steed as black as the steeds of night, Was seen to pass with eagle flight. As if he knew the terrible need, He stretched away with his utmost speed; Hills rose and fell, — but his heart was gay With Sheridan fifteen miles away. 4. Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south The dust Hke smoke from the cannon's mouth Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. The heart of the steed and the heart of the master Were beating Hke prisoners assaulting the walls Impatient to be where the battlefield calls; Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play With Sheridan only ten miles away. 5- Under his spurning feet the road Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 285 And the landscape sped away behind Like an ocean flying before the wind; And the steed, Uke a bark fed with furnace fire Swept on with his wild eyes full of ire, But lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire, He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, With Sheridan only five miles away. The first that the general saw were the groups Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops; What was done, — what to do, — a glance told him both, And, striking his spurs with a terrible oath. He dashed down the fine mid a storm of huzzas, And the wave of retreat checked its course there because The sight of the master compelled it to pause, With foam and with dust the black charger was gray; By the flash of his eye and the red nostrils' play He seemed to the whole great army to say, "I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester, down to save the day !" 7. Hurrah ! hurrah for Sheridan ! Hurrah ! hurrah for horse and man ! And when their statues are placed on high, Under the dome of the Union sky, — The American soldier's Temple of Fame, — Then with the glorious General's name Be it said in letters both bold and bright: "Here is the steed that saved the day By carrying Sheridan into the fight. From Winchester — twenty miles away !" 10. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) lived a life of seclusion : Amherst, Massachusetts, where she wrote some remarkable Dcms which are in a class by themselves. They were not pub- shed until 1890, four years after her death. (See Bibliography, ige 294, for suggested readings.) 286 American Literature II. Edward Rowland Sill (i 841-1887) was a native of New England. He went to California for his health, where he became professor of English literature in the University of California. He "exhibited a notable talent in his poetry, which shows rich gifts of spiritual insight and power," says Professor Simonds. The Fool's Prayer The royal feast was done; the King Sought some new sport to banish care, And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool, Kneel now, and make for us a prayer !" The jester doflfed his cap and bells, And stood the mocking court before; They could not see the bitter smile Behind the painted grin he wore. He bowed his head, and bent his knee Upon the monarch's silken stool; His pleading voice arose: "O Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool ! "No pity, Lord, could change the heart From red with wrong to white as wool: The rod must heal the sin; but Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 'Tis not by guilt the onward sweep Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'Tis by our follies that so long We hold the earth from heaven away. "These clumsy feet, still in the mire, Go crushing blossoms without end; These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust Among the heart-strings of a friend. "The ill-timed truth we might have kept — Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ! W^riters of the Mid- Century and After 287 The word we had not sense to say — Who knows how grandly it had rung ! "Our faults no tenderness should ask, The chastening stripes must cleanse them all; But for our blunders — ^oh, in shame Before the eyes of heaven we fall. "Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will; but Thou, Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool." The room was hushed; in silence rose The King, and sought his gardens cool, And walked apart, and murmured low, "Be merciful to me, a fool !" 12. Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was a Jewess of New York City who wrote some remarkable poems protesting against the persecution of her race in Russia. She had a message to de- liver to her people, but unhappily it was given only in part, because of her untimely death. (See Bibliography, page 294, for suggested readings.) 13. Walt Whitman (1819-1892), the most unconventional of all our poets both in choice of theme and form of expression, aspired to be the poet of Democracy. He was born on Long Island, was practically self-educated, became a teacher, and later a journalist. During the Civil War he went to Wash- ington where he served as nurse in the hospitals. His latter days were spent in Camden, New Jersey, where he was known as " the good gray poet of Camden Town." He is sometimes called " the poet of epithets, phrases. Hues." " His message was unique, his manner of giving it bizarre," yet he was a real force in literature and has had much influence. Mr. Edmund Gosse calls him a poet in solution. The following extracts show not only his eccentricities of form but his sincerity of purpose. In Captain! My Captain! and some other poems he dem- onstrates that it was possible for him to follow regular form if he so willed. 288 American Literature Myself (From The Song of Myself) I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loaf and invite my soul, I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance. Retiring back awhile sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy. O Captain! My Captain! O Captain ! m.y Captain ! our fearful trip is done. The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and dar- ing; But O heart ! heart ! heart 1 O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the shores acrowding, Writers of the Mid- Century and After 289 For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turn- ing; Here Captain ! dear father ! This arm beneath your head ! It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells ! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. To THE Man-of- War-Bird Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, Waking renewed on thy prodigious pinions (Burst the wild storm ? above it thou ascendedst. And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee), Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee (Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast). Far, far at sea. After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks, With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, The limpid spread of air cefulean. Thou also re-appearest. Thou born to match the gale (thou art all wings). To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails. Days, even weeks, un tired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, 290 American Literature At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, That sport'st amid the hghtning-flash and thunder-cloud, In them, in thy experiences, hadst thou my soul. What joys ! what joys were thine ! 14. Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) belonged to the New York group of writers of the early days. Here he was for a long time engaged in editorial work. He was a frequent contributor to the leading magazines and a poet of great talent. Burial of Lincoln Peace ! Let the long procession come. For hark ! — the mournful, muffled drum, The trumpet's wail afar; And see ! the awful car ! Peace ! Let the sad procession go, While cannons boom, and bells toll slow; And go, thou sacred car. Bearing our woe afar ! Go, darkly borne, from State to State, Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait To honor, all they can, The dust of that good man ! Go, grandly borne, with such a train As greatest Kings might die to gain: The just, the wise, the brave Attend thee to the grave ! And you, the soldiers of our wars, Bronzed veterans, grim with noble scars. Salute him once again. Your late commander, — slain I Yes, let your tears indignant fall, But leave your muskets on the wall; Writers of the Mid- Century and After 291 Your country needs you now Beside the forge, the plow ! So sweetly, sadly, sternly goes The fallen to his last repose, Beneath no mighty dome, But in his modest home, The churchyard where his children rest, The quiet spot that suits him best, There shall his grave be made. And there his bones be laid ! And there his countrymen shall come, With memory proud, with pity dumb, And strangers, far and near. For many and many a year ! For many a year and many an age, While History on her ample page The virtues shall enroll Of that paternal soul ! 15. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) was a well-known lec- turer and reformer. She became famous through her war-song, the Battle-Hymn of the Republic, which was published in 1861. Battle-Hymn of the Republic Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampKng out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; 292 American Literature They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on." He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh ! be swift my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my feet ! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the hlies Christ was born across the sea, With the glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. i6. John Hay (1838-1905), statesman and diplomat, was a graduate of Brown University. He rendered valuable ser- vices to his country as Ambassador to England and as Secretary of State. His Pike County Ballads gave him wide popularity as a poet. The following poem is illustrative. Jim Bludso, of the " Prairie Belle (From Pike County Ballads) Wall, no ! I can't tell whar he lives, Because he don't live, you see; Leastways, he's got out of the habit Of livin' like you and me. Writers of the Mid- Century and After 293 Whar have you been for the last three year That you haven't heard folks tell How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks The night of the Prairie Belle ? He weren't no saint, — them engineers Is all pretty much ahke, — One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill And another one here, in Pike; A keerless man in his talk was Jim, And an awkward hand in a row. But he never flunked, and he never lied, — I reckon he never knowed how. And this was all the religion he had, — To treat his engine well; Never be passed on the river; To mind the pilot's bell; And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, — A thousand times he swore, He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last soul got ashore. All boats has their day on the Mississip, And her day come at last, — The Movastar was a better boat, But the Belle she wouldn't be passed. And so she come tearin' along that night — The oldest craft on the Une — With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. The fire bust out as she clared the bar. And burnt a hole in the night, And quick as a flash she turned, and made For that wilier-bank on the right. There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out, Over all the infernal roar : 294 American Literature "I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot's ashore." Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat Jim Bludso's voice was heard, And they all had trust in his cussedness, And knowed he would keep his word. And, sure's you're born, they all got off Afore the smokestacks fell, — And Bludso's ghost went up alone In the smoke of the Prairie Belle. He weren't no saint, — but at jedgment I'd run my chance with Jim, 'Longside of some pious gentlemen That wouldn't shook hands with him. He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, — And went for it thar and then; And Christ ain't a-goin' to be too hard On a man that died for men. BIBLIOGRAPHY I. For Further Illustration Dickinson, E.: Mortiing. A Book. With Flovrers. Called Back. Hay, John: Pi^i County Ballads. Lanier, S.: Hymns of the Marshes. The Symphony. Corn. Lazarus, E.: The Banner of the Jew. The New Ezekiel. Scudder, H. E.: American Poetry. Sill, E. R.: Before Sunrise in Winter. Stoddard, R. H.: Wind and Rain. The Country Life. The Flight of Youth. Weber, W. F.: Selections from the Southern Poets. (Macmillan Pocket Classics.) Writers of the Mid- Centui-y and After 295 Whitman, W. : When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. II. For Collateral Reading Gosse, E.: Walt Whitman. (In Critical Kit-Cats.) Link, S. A.: Pioneers of Southern Literature. Mims, E. : Life of Sidney Lanier. Pickett, La Salle Corbett: Literary Hearthstones of Dixie. CHAPTER V LATER AND PRESENT-DAY WRITERS /. Prose — Fiction The death of the last of the great men who had made New England — and through New England, America — a factor to be reckoned with in the hterary world, ushers in the day of our literary expansion. Though Mr. Brander Matthews tells us that New York City has once more become the literary centre of America, it is in no sense the literary centre as it was in the days of Irving, or as Cam- bridge and Boston were in the days of Longfellow and Lowell. To-day there are small local literary centres all over the United States. We find them scattered through the Middle West from one university town to another; from the Pacific coast to the Lake region; from the lakes to the Atlantic coast. The following selection of representative writers shows how impossible it would be for any one section to hold a monopoly of our literary output to-day. The choice is typical but by no means exhaustive. "1. S. Weir Mitchell (1830-1914) was a physician of Phila- delphia who became well known for his novels, the best of which is Hugh Wynne. "This," declares Professor Barrett Wendell, "is so accurate and vivid a fiction aS to have the value of an authority." Hugh's School Days. (From Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker, Chapter II) The day I went to school for the first time is very clear in my memory. I can see myself, a stout little fellow 296 Later and Present- Day Writers 297 about eight years old, clad in gray homespun, with breeches, low shoes, and a low, flat beaver hat. I can hear my mother say, "Here are two big apples for thy master," it being the custom so to propitiate pedagogues. Often afterward I took eggs in a Httle basket, or flowers, and others did the like. "Now run! run!" she cried, "and be a good boy; run, or thou wilt be late." And she clapped her hands as I sped away, now and then looking back over my shoulder. I remember as well my return home to this solid house, this first day of my going to school. One is apt to as- sociate events with persons, and my mother stood leaning on the half-door as I came running back. She was some little reassured to see me smiling, for, to tell the truth, I had been mightily scared at my new venture. . . . As I came she set those large, childhke eyes on me, and opening the lower half-door, cried out: "I could scarce wait for thee ! I wish I could have gone with thee, Hugh; and was it dreadful? Come, let us see thy little book. And did they praise thy reading? Didst thou tell them I taught thee? There are girls, I hear," and so on — a way she had of asking many questions with- out waiting for a reply. As we chatted we passed through the hall, where tall mahogany chairs stood dark against the white-washed walls, such as were in all the rooms. Joyous at escape from school, and its confinement of three long, weary hours, from eight to eleven, I dropped my mother's hand, and, running a Httle, sKd down the long entry over the thinly sanded floor, and then sHpping, came down with a rueful countenance, as nature, foreseeing results, meant that a boy should descend when his legs fail him. My mother sat down on a settle, and spread out both palms toward me, laughing, and crying out: "So near are joy and grief, my friends, in this world of sorrow." This was said so exactly with the voice and manner of a famous preacher of our Meeting that even I, a lad then of only eight years, recognised the imitation. Indeed, she 298 Atnerican Literature was wonderful at this trick of mimicry, a thing most odious to Friends. As I smiled, hearing her, I was aware of my father in the open doorway of the sitting-room, tall, strong, with much iron-gray hair. Within I saw several Friends, large rosy men in drab, with horn buttons and straight collars, their stout legs clad in dark silk hose, without the paste or silver buckles then in use. All wore broad- brimmed, low beavers, and their gold-headed canes rested between their knees. My father said to me, in his sharp way, "Take thy noise out into the orchard. The child disturbs us, wife. Thou shouldst know better. A committee of overseers is with me." He disHked the name Marie, and was never heard to use it, nor even its Enghsh equivalent. Upon this the dear lady murmured, "Let us fly, Hugh," and she ran on tiptoe along the hall with me, while my father closed the door. "Come," she added, "and see the floor. I am proud of it. We have friends to eat dinner with us at two." . . . And thus began my life at school, to which I went twice a day, my father not approving of the plan of three ses- sions a day, which was common, nor, for some reason, I know not what, of schools kept by Friends. So it was that I set out before eight, and went again from two to four. ... I have observed that teachers are often eccentric, and surely David Dove was no exception, nor do I now know why so odd a person was chosen by many for the care of youth. I fancy my mother had to do with the choice in my case, and was influenced by the fact that Dove rarely used the birch, but had a queer fancy for setting culprits on a stool, with the birch switch stuck in the back of the jacket, so as to stand up behind the head. I hated this, and would rather have been birched secundum artem than to have seen the girls giggling at me. I changed my opinion later. . . . Our school life with Dove ended after four years in an odd fashion. I was then about twelve, and had become a vigorous, daring boy, with, as it now seems to me, some- Later and Present- Day Writers 299 thing of the fortunate gaiety of my mother. Other lads thought it singular that in peril I became strangely viva- cious; but underneath I had a share of the relentless firm- ness of my father, and of his vast dislike of failure, and of his love of truth. I have often thought that the father in me saved me from the consequences of so much of my mother's gentler nature as might have done me harm in the rude conflicts of Kfe. David Dove, among other odd ways, devised a plan for punishing the unpunctual which had considerable success. One day, when I had far overstayed the hour of eight, by reason of having climbed into Friend Pemberton's gardens, where I was tempted by many green apples, I was met by four older boys. One had a lantern, which, with much laughter, he tied about my neck, and one, marching be- fore, rang a bell. I had seen this queer punishment fall on others, and certainly the amusement shown by people in the streets would not have hurt me compared with the advantage of pockets full of apples, had I not of a sudden seen my father, who usually breakfasted at six, and was at his warehouse by seven. He looked at me composedly, but went past us saying nothing. On my return about eleven, he unluckily met me in the garden, for I had gone the back way in order to hide my apples. I had an unpleasant half-hour, despite my mother's tears, and was sent at once to confess to Friend James Pemberton. The good man said I was a naughty boy, but must come later when the apples were red ripe, and I should take all I wanted, and I might fetch with me an- other boy, or even two. I never forgot this, and did him some good turns in after-years, and right gladly too. In my own mind I associated David Dove with this painful interview with my father. I disliked him the more because, when the procession entered the school, a little girl for whom Warder and I had a boy friendship, in place of laughing, as did the rest, for some reason began to cry. This angered the master, who had the lack of self- control often seen in eccentric people. He asked why she cried, and on her sobbing out that it was because she was 300 American Literature sorry for me, he bade her take off her stays. These being stiff, and worn outside the gown, would have made the punishment of the birch on the shoulders of trifling mo- ment. As it was usual to whip girls at school, the little maid said nothing, but did as she was bid, taking a sharp birch- ing without a cry. Meanwhile I sat with my head in my hands, and my fingers in my ears lest I should hear her weeping. After school that evening, when all but Warder and I had wandered home, I wrote on the outside wall of the school-house with chalk, "David Dove Is A Cruel Beast," and went away somewhat better contented. Now, with all his seeming dislike to use the rod, David had turns of severity, and then he was far more brutal than any man I have ever known. Therefore it did not surprise us next morning that the earher scholars were looking with wonder and alarm at the sentence on the wall, when Dove, appearing behind us, ordered us to enter at once. Going to his desk, he put on his spectacles, which then were worn astride of the nose. In a minute he set on be- low them a second pair, and this we knew to be a signal of coming violence. Then he stood up, and asked who had written the opprobrious epithet on the wall. As no one replied, he asked several in turn, but luckily chose the girls, thinking, perhaps, that they would weakly betray the sinner. Soon he lost patience, and cried out he would give a king's pound to know. When he had said this over and over, I began to reflect that, if he had any real idea of doing as he promised, a pound was a great sum, and to consider what might be done with it in the way of marbles of Amsterdam, tops, and of certain much-desired books, for now this latter temptation was upon me, as it has been ever since. As I sat, and Dove thundered, I remembered how, when one Stacy, with an oath, assured my father that his word was as good as his bond, my parent said dryly that this equality left him free to choose, and he would prefer his bond. I saw no way to what was for me the mysterious security of Later and Present- Day Writers 301 a bond, but I did conceive of some need to stiffen the promise Dove had made before I faced the penalty. Upon this I held up a hand, and the master cried, "What is it?" I said, "Master, if a boy should tell thee wouldst thou surely give a pound?" At this a lad called "Shame !" thinking I was a telltale. When Dove called silence and renewed his pledge, I, overbold, said, "Master, I did it, and now wilt thou please to give me a pound — a king's pound?" "I will give thee a pounding!" he roared; and upon this came down from his raised form, and gave me a beating so terrible and cruel that at last the girls cried aloud, and he let me drop on the floor, sore and angry. I lay still awhile, and then went to my seat. As I bent over my desk, it was rather the sense that I had been wronged, than the pain of the blows, which troubled me. After school, refusing speech to any, I walked home, and ministered to my poor little bruised body as I best could. Now this being a Saturday, and therefore a half- hoHday, I ate at two with my father and mother. Presently my father, detecting my uneasy movements, said, "Hast thou been birched to-day, and for what bad- ness?" Upon this my mother said softly, "What is it, my son? Have no fear." And this gentleness being too much for me, I fell to tears, and blurted out all my httle tragedy. As I ended, my father rose, very angry, and cried out, "Come this way!" But my mother caught me, saying, "No! no! Look, John! see his poor neck and his wrist! What a brute ! I tell thee, thou shalt not ! it were a sin. Leave him to me," and she thrust me behind her as if for safety. To my surprise, he said, "As thou wilt," and my mother hurried me away. We had a grave, sweet talk, and there it ended for a time. I learned that, after all, the woman's was the stronger will. I was put to bed and declared to have a fever, and given sulphur and treacle, and kept out of the paternal paths for a mournful day of enforced rest. 302 American Literature On the Monday following I went to school as usual, but not without fear of Dove. When we were all busy, about ten o'clock, I was amazed to hear my father's voice. He stood before the desk, and addressed Master Dove in a loud voice, meaning, I suppose, to be heard by all of us. "David Dove," he said, "my son hath been guilty of disrespect to thee, and to thy office. I do not say he has lied, for it is my behef that thou art truly an unjust and cruel beast. As for his sin, he has suffered enough [I felt glad of this final opinion] ; but a bargain was made. He, on his part, for a consideration of one pound sterling, was to tell thee who wrote certain words. He has paid thee and thou hast taken interest out of his skin. Indeed, Friend Shylock, I think he weighs less by a pound. Thou wilt give him his pound, Master David." Upon this a little maid near by smiled at me, and Warder punched me in the ribs. Master Dove was silent a mo- ment, and then answered that there was no law to make him pay, and that he had spoken lightly, as one might say, *'I would give this or that to know." But my father re- pHed at once: "The boy trusted thee, and was as good as his word. I advise thee to pay. As thou art Master to punish boys, so will I, David, use thy birch on thee at need, and trust to the great Master to reckon with me if I am wrong." All this he said so fiercely that I trembled with joy, and hoped that Dove would deny him ; but, in place of this, he muttered something about Meeting and Friends, and meanwhile searched his pockets and brought out a guinea. This my father dropped into his breeches pocket, saying, "The shilHng will be for interest" (a guinea being a shil- ling over a king's pound). After this, turning to me, he said, "Come with me, Hugh," and went out of the school- house, I following after, very well pleased, and thinking/ of my guinea. 2. William Dean Ho wells (1837- ) is generally con- sidered the foremost American novelist of our generation. He was born in Ohio, never went to college, but got valuable train- Later and Present- Day Writers 303 ing in various newspaper offices early in life. For many years he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly; at present he is connected editorially with Harper's Magazine. He has written many novels, sketches, and farces. Of his novels, The Rise of Silas Lapham is the strongest. Here he gives us a picture of the self-made Amer- ican who has been such a famiUar figure among us in these latter days. Howells stands for realism in fiction and has a large following among the younger writers. He is justly called the dean of American letters. Some Islands of the Lagoons (From Venetian Life, Chapter XII) Nothing can be fairer to the eye than these "summer isles of Eden" lying all about Venice, far and near. The water forever trembles and changes with every change of light, from one rainbow glory to another, as with the restless hues of an opal; and even when the splendid tides recede, and go down with the sea, they leave a heritage of beauty to the empurpled mud of the shallows, all strewn with green, disheveled sea-weed. The lagoons have almost as wide a bound as your vision. On the east and west you can see their borders of sea-shore and mainland; but looking north and south, there seems no end to the charm of their vast, smooth, all-but-melancholy expanses. Beyond their southern limit rise the blue Euganean Hills, where Petrarch died; on the north loom the Alps, white with snow. Dotting the stretches of lagoon in every direction lie the islands — now piles of airy architecture that the water seems to float under and bear upon its breast, now "Sunny spots of greenery," with the bell-towers of demolished cloisters shadowily showing above their trees;— for in the days of the Republic nearly every one of the islands had its monastery and its church. At present the greater number have been for- tified by the Austrians, whose sentinel paces the once- peaceful shores and challenges all passers with his sharp 304 American Literature "Halt! Wer da!" and warns them not to approach too closely. Other islands have been devoted to different utiHtarian purposes, and few are able to keep their distant promises of loveliness. One of the more faithful is the island of San Clemente, on which the old convent church is yet standing, empty and forlorn within, but without all draped in glossy ivy. . . . THE GHETTO AND THE JEWS OF VENICE (Chapter XIV) As I think it extremely questionable whether I could get through a chapter on this subject without some feeble pleasantry about Shylock, and whether, if I did, the reader would be at all satisfied that I had treated the matter fully and fairly, I say at the beginning that Shylock is dead; that if he lived, Antonio would hardly spit upon his gor- geous pantaloons or his Parisian coat, as he met him on the Rial to; that he would far rather call out to him, "Cid Shylock! Bon di! Go piaser vederla";^ that if Shylock by any chance entrapped Antonio into a foohsh promise to pay him a pound of his flesh on certain conditions, the honest commissary of pohce before whom they brought their affair would dismiss them both to the madhouse at San Servolo. In a word, the present social relations of Jew and Christian in this city render the ''Merchant of Venice" quite impossible; and the reader, though he will find the Ghetto sufficiently noisome and dirty, will not find an oppressed people there, nor be edified by any of those insults or beatings which it was once a large share of Christian duty to inflict upon the enemies of our faith. The CathoHc Venetian certainly understands that his Jewish fellow-citizen is destined to some very unpleasant experiences in the next world, but Corpo di Bacco! that is no reason why he should not be friends with him in this. He meets him daily on exchange and at the Casino, and he partakes of the hospitahty of his conversazioni. If he still despises him — ^and I think he does, a little — he keeps his '"Shylock, old fellow, good-day. Glad to see you." Later and Present-Day Writers 305 contempt to himself, for the Jew is gathering into his own hands a great part of the trade of the city, and has the power that belongs to wealth. He is educated, hberal, and enlightened, and the last great name in Venetian lit- erature is that of the Jewish historian of the Republic, Romanin. The Jew's pohtical sympathies are invariably patriotic, and he calls himself, not Ebreo, but Veneziano. He lives, when rich, in a palace or a fine house on the Grand Canal, and he furnishes and lets many others (I must say at rates which savor of the loan secured by the pound of flesh) in which he does not Hve. The famous and beautiful Ca' Doro now belongs to a Jewish family; and an Israelite, the most distinguished physician in Venice, occupies the appartamento signorile in the palace of the famous Cardinal Bembo. The Jew is a physician, a banker, a manufacturer, a merchant; and he makes himself re- spected for his intelligence and his probity, — which per- haps does not infringe more than that of Italian Cathohcs. He dresses well, — with that indefinable difference, however, which distinguishes him in everything from a Christian, — and his wife and daughter are fashionable and styhsh. They are sometimes, also, very pretty; and I have seen one Jewish lady who might have stepped out of the sacred page, down from the patriarchal age, and been known for Rebecca, with her oriental grace, and delicate, sensitive, high-bred look and bearing — no more western and modern than a lily of Palestine. The following writers are representative of our Htera- ture in the South, — the old South, with its plantation life, its slaves, and its Creoles: Francis Hopkinson Sm.ith, George Washington Cable, Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, and Ruth McEnery Stuart. 3. Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838- ) is a native of Baltimore. He is an artist and a mechanical engineer, as well as an author who ranks with the best of our fiction writers from the South to-day. His Colonel Carter of Cartersville stands a 306 American Literature fair chance of becoming a classic; his short stories are fascinat- ing studies in character types. MacWherter's Fireplace (From The Wood Fire in No. 3) Sandy MacWhirter would have an open fire. He had been brought up on blazing logs and warm hearths, and could not be happy without them. . . . There was no chimney in No. 3 when he moved in— no place really to put one, unless he knocked a hole in the roof . . . nor was there any way of supporting the neces- sary brickwork. . . . But trifling obstacles like these never daunted MacWhirter. Lonnegan, a Beaux Arts man, who built the big Opera House, and who also hungered for blazing logs, solved the difficulty. . . . It was a great day when Mac's fireplace was completed. Everybody crowded in to see it. . . . And the friends that this old fire had; and the way the men loved it despite the Hberties they tried to take with it! And they did, at first, take liberties, and of the most ex- asperating kind to any well-intentioned, law-abiding, and knowledgeable wood fire. Boggs, the animal painter, whose studio lay immediately beneath MacWhirter's, was never, at first, satisfied until he had punched it black in the face; Wharton, who occupied No. 4, across the hall, would insist that each log should be on its head and the kindling grouped about it; while Pitkin, the sculptor, who occupied the base- ment because of his dirty clay and big chunks of marble, was miserable until he had jammed the back-log so tight against the besmoked chimney that not a breath of air could get between it and the blackened bricks. But none of these well-meant but inexperienced attacks ever daunted the spirit of this fire. It would splutter a moment with ill-concealed indignation, threatening a dozen times to go out in smoke, and then, all of a sudden a little bubble of laughing flame would break out under one end of a log, and then another, and away it would go roar- ing up the chimney in a very ecstasy of delight. Now and then it would talk back; I have heard it many Later and Present-Day Writers 307 a time, when Mac and I would be sitting alone before it listening to its chatter. "Take a seat," it would crackle, "right in front where I can warm you. Sit, too, where you can look into my face and see how ruddy and joyous it is. I'll not bore you; I never bored anybody — never in all my Kfe. I am an end- less series of surprises, and I am never twice alike. I can sparkle with merriment, or glow with humor, or roar with laughter, dependent on your mood, or upon mine. Or I can smoulder away all by myself, crooning a low song of the woods — the song your mother loved, your cradle song — so full of content that it will soothe you into forgetful- ness. When at last I creep under my gray blanket of ashes and shut my eyes, you, too, will want to sleep — you and I, old friends now with our thousand memories." Only MacWhirter really understood its many moods. "Alexander MacWhirter, Room No. 3," the signboard read in the hall below — and only MacWhirter could satisfy its wants; and so, after the first few months, no one dared touch it but our host, whose slightest nudge with the tongs was sufficient to kindle it into renewed activity. It was not long after this that a certain sense of owner- ship permeated the coterie. They yielded the chimney and its mechanical contrivances to MacWhirter and Lonnegan, but the blaze and its generous warmth belonged to them as much as to Mac. Soon chairs were sent up from the several studios, each member of the half-circle furnishing his own — the most comfortable he owned. Then the mug followed, and the pipe-racks, and soon Sandy MacWhirter's wood fire in No. 3 became the one spot in the building that we all loved and longed for. And Mac was exactly fashioned for High Priest of just such a Temple of Jollity: Merry-eyed, round-faced, with one and a quarter, perhaps one and a half, of a chin tucked under his old one — a chin though that came from laughter, not frort; laziness; broad-shouldered, deep-chested, hearty in his voice and words, with the faintest trace — just a trace, it was so slight — of his mother- tongue in his speech; whole-souled, spontaneous, unselfish, ready to praise and 308 American Literature never to criticise, brimming with anecdotes and adventures of forty years of experience ... he had all the warmth of his blazing logs in his grasp and all the snap of their coals in his eyes. "By the Gods, but I'm glad to see you!" was his in- variable greeting. "Draw up ! draw up ! Go get a pipe — the tobacco is in the yellow jar." This was when Mac was alone or when no one had the floor, and the shuttlecock of general conversation was being battledored about. If, however, Mac or any of his guests had the floor, and was gi\"ing his experience at home or abroad, or was reaching the cUmax of some tale, it made no difference who entered no one took any more notice of him than of a servant who had brought in an extra log, the lost art of hstening still being in vogue in those days and much re- spected by the occupants of the chairs — by all except Boggs, who would always break into the conversation irre- spective of restrictions or traditions. . . , 4. George Washington Cable (1844- ) is a native of New Orleans where he has spent most of his life, though he now lives in the North. He has won distinction in the literary world through his Creole stories, which are unique in the realm of American letters. He also ranks high as a poet. Cafe des Exiles (From Old Creole Days) An antiquated story-and-a-half Creole cottage sitting right down on the banquette, as do the Choctaw squaws who sell bay and sassafras and life-everlasting, with a high, close board-fence shutting out of view the diminutive garden on the southern side. An ancient willow droops over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored stucco, which keeps dropping off into the garden as though the old cafe was stripping for the plunge into obhvion — disrobing for its execution. I see, well up in the angle of the broad side gable, shaded by its rude awning of clap- Later and Present- Day Writers 309 boards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh, for the image of the maiden, were it but for one moment, leaning out of the casement to hang her mocking-bird and looking down into the garden, — where, above the barrier of old boards, I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of bananas, the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two orange-trees holding up their hands toward the window, heavy with the promises of autumn; the broad crimson mass of the many-stemmed oleander, and the crisp boughs of the pomegranate loaded with freckled apples, and with here and there a Hngering scarlet blossom. The Cafe des Exiles, to use a figure, flowered, bore fruit, and dropped it long ago — or rather Time and Fate, like some uncursed Adam and Eve, came side by side and cut away its clusters, as we sever the golden burden of the banana from its stem; then, like a banana which has borne its fruit, it was razed to the ground and made way for a newer, brighter growth. I beheve it would set every tooth on edge should I go by there now, — now that I have heard the story,— and see the old site covered by the "Shoo-fly Coffee-house." Pleasanter far to close my eyes and call to \iew the unpretentious portals of the old cafe, with her children— for such those exiles seem to me — dragging their rocking-chairs out, and sitting in their wonted group under the long, out-reaching eaves which shaded the banquette of the Rue Burgundy. It was in 1835 that the Cafe des Exiles was, as one might say, in full blossom. Old M. D'Hemecourt, father of Pauline and host of the cafe, himself a refugee from San Domingo, was the cause — at least the human cause — of its opening. As its white-curtained, glazed doors expanded, emitting a httle puff of his own cigarette smoke, it was Hke the bursting of catalpa blossoms, and the exiles came like bees, pushing into the tiny room to sip its rich variety of tropical sirups, its lemonades, its orangeades, its orgeats, its barley-waters, and its outlandish wines, while they talked of dear home — that is to say, of Barbadoes, of Mar- tinique, of San Domingo, and of Cuba. 310 American Literature There were Pedro and Benigno, and Fernandez and Francisco, and Benito. Benito was a tall, swarthy man, with immense gray moustachios, and hair as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes. When he could spare his cigarette from his lips, he would tell you in a cavernous voice, and with a wrinkled smile, that he was "a-t-thorty- seveng." There was Martinez of San Domingo, yellow as a canary, always sitting with one leg curled under him, and holding the back of his head in his knitted fingers against the back of his rocking-chair. Father, mother, brother, sisters, all, had been massacred in the struggle of '21 and '22; he alone was left to tell the tale, and told it often, with that strange infantile insensibihty to the solemnity of his bereavement so peculiar to Latin people. But, besides these, and many who need no mention, there were two in particular, around whom all the story of the Cafe des Exiles, of old M. D'Hemecourt and of PauUne, turns as on a double centre. First, Manuel Mazaro, whose small, restless eyes were as black and bright as those of a mouse, whose Ught talk became his dark girhsh face, and whose redundant locks curled so prettily and so wonderfully black under the fine white brim of his jaunty Panama. He had the hands of a woman, save that the nails were stained with the smoke of ciga- rettes. He could play the guitar dehghtfuUy, and wore his knife down behind his coat-collar. The second was ''Major" Galahad Shaughnessy. I imagine I can see him, in his white duck, brass-buttoned roundabout, \\dth his sabreless belt peeping out beneath, all his bo}dshness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning Hghtly against the door-post of the Cafe des Exiles as a child leans against his mother, running his fingers over a basketful of fragrant limes, and watching his chance to strike some solemn Creole under the fifth rib with a good old Irish joke. . . . Y 5. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) was a Georgia writer whose name became identified with his creation Uncle Remus, the teller of tales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, which are the delight of all children. Later and Present- Day Writers 311 The Story of the Doodang (From Uncle Remus and the Little Boy.) "I wish," said the little boy, sitting in the doorway of Uncle Remus's cabin, and watching a \'ulture poised on motionless ^ing, almost as high as the clouds that sailed by— "I ^-ish I could fly." The old man regarded him curiously, and then a frown crept up and sat do-«Ti on his forehead. ''I'll tell you dis much, honey," he said, "ef eve'ybody vr^iz ter git all der wishes, de wide worl' 'ud be turned upside down, an' be rolHn' over de wrong way. It sho would I" He continued to regard the little boy with such a solenm aspect that the child moved uneasily in his seat on the door-step. "You sho does put me in min' er de ol' Doodang dat useter live in de mud-flats down on de river. I ain't never see 'im myse'f, but I done seed dem what say dey hear tell 'er dem what is see 'im. "None im um can't tell what kinder creetur de Doodang wuz. He had a long tail, like a yallergater, a great big body, four short legs, two short y'ears. and a head mo' funny lookin' dan de rh\-nossyho5S. His mouf retched from de een er his nose ter his shoulder-blades, an' his tushes \\niz big 'nough, long 'nough, an' sharp 'nough fer ter bite off de behime leg uv a elephant. He could hve in de water, er he could Hve on dry Ian', but he mos'ly wallered in de mud-flats, whar he could retch do\sTi in de water an' ketch a fish, er retch up in de bushes an' ketch a bird. But all dis ain't suit 'im a tall; he got restless; he tuk ter wantin' things he ain't got; an' he worried an' worried, an' groaned an' growled. He kep' all de creeturs, fur and feather, wide awake fer miles aroun'. "Bimeby. one day. Brer Rabbit come a-sa'nterin' by, an' he ax de Doodang what de name er goodness is de matter, an' de Doodang 'spon' an' say dat he wanter swim ez good ez de fishes does. "Brer Rabbit say, 'Ouch! you make de col' chills run up an' down my back when you talk 'bout swimmin' in 312 American Literature de water. Swim on dry Ian' ol' frien' — swim on dry Ian'!' "But some er de fishes done hear what de Doodang say, an' dey helt a big 'sembly. Dey vow, dey can't stan' de racket dat he been makin' bofe day an' night. De upshot uv de 'sembly wuz dat all de fishes 'gree fer ter loan de Doodang one fin apiece. So said, so done, an' when dey tol' de Doodang about it, he fetched one loud howl an' rolled inter shaller water. Once dar, de fishes loant 'im eve'y one a fin, some big an' some Httle, an' atter dey done dat, de Doodang 'skivver dat he kin swim des ez nimble ez de rest. "He skeeted about in de water, wavin' his tail fum side ter side, an' swimmin' fur an' wide; Brer Rabbit wuz settin' off in de bushes watchin'. Atter while de Doodang git tired, an' start ter go on dry Ian', but de fishes kick up sech a big fuss, an' make sech a cry, dat he say he better gi' um back der fins, an' den he crawled out on de mud- flats fer ter take his nap. "He ain't been dozin' so mighty long, 'fo' he hear a mighty big fuss, an' he look up an' see dat de blue sky wuz fa'rly black wid birds, big an' little. De trees on de islan' wuz der roostin' place, but dey wuz comin' home soon so dey kin git some sleep "fo' de Doodang set up his howlin' an' growlin', an' moanin' an' groanin'. Well, de birds ain't mo'n got settle', 'fo' de Doodang start up his howlin' an' bellerin'. Den de King-Bird flew'd down an' ax de Doodang what de nam' er goodness is de matter. Den de Doodang turn over in de mud, an' howl an' beller. De King-Bird flew'd aroun', an' den he come back, an' ax what de trouble is. Atter so long a time, de Doodang say dat de trouble wid him wuz dat he wanted ter fly. He say all he want wuz some feathers, an' den he kin fly ez good ez anybody. "Den der birds hoi' a 'sembly, an' dey all 'gree fer ter loan de Doodang a feather apiece. So said, so done, an' in a minnit er mo' he had de feathers a-plenty. He shuck his wings, an' ax whar 'bouts he mus' fly fer de first try. "Brer Buzzard say de best place wuz ter de islan' what Later and Present- Day Writers 313 ain't got nothin' but dead trees on it, an' wid dat de Doo- dang tuk a runnin' start, an' headed fer de place. He wuz kinder clumsy, but he got dar all right. De birds went 'long fer ter see how de Doodang 'ud come out. He landed wid a turrible splash an' splutter, an' he ain't hardly hit de groun' 'fo' Brer Buzzard say he don't want his feather fer ter git wet, an' he grabbed it. Den all de birds grabbed der'n, an' dar he wuz. " Days an' days come an' went, an' bimeby Brer Rabbit wanter know what done gone wid de Doodang. Brer Buzzard say, ' You see my f ambly settin' in de dead trees ? Well, dar's whar de Doodang is, en' ef you'll git me a bag, I'll fetch you his bones !' An' den Brer Rabbit sot back an' laugh twel his sides ache !" "Anyhow," said the Httle boy, "I should like to fly." "Fly, den," replied Uncle Remus; "Fly right in de house dis minnit, ter yo' mammy !" 6. Thomas Nelson Page (1853- ) is one of the best- known writers of the South. His stories of Virginia life " be- fore the war" are widely read. He was appointed Ambassador to Italy by President Wilson in 1913. Marse Chan (From In Oh Virginia) "Well, one night Marse Chan come back from de offis wid a telegram dat say, 'Come at once,' so he wuz to start nex' mawnin'. He uniform wuz all ready, gray wid yaller trimmin's, an' mine wuz ready too, an' he had ole marster's sword, whar de State gi' 'im in de Mexikin war; an' he trunks wuz all packed wid ev'rything in 'em, an' my chist wuz packed too, an' Jim Rasher he druv' 'em over to de depo' in de waggin', an' we wuz to start nex' mawnin' 'bout light. Dis wuz 'bout de las' o' spring, yo' know. Dat night ole missis made Marse Chan dress up in he uniform, an' he sut'n'y did look splendid, wid he long mustache an' he wavin' hyar an' he tall figger. 314 American Literature "Arfter supper he come down an' sez: 'Sam, I wan' you to tek dis note an' kyar it over to Cun'l Chahmb'lin's. an' gi' it to Miss Anne wid yo' own han's, an' bring me wud what she sez. Don' let any one know 'bout it, or know why you've gone.' 'Yes, seh,' sez I. "Yo' see, I knowed Miss Anne's maid over at ole Cun'l Chahmb'Un's — dat wuz Judy . . . —an' I knowed I could wuk it. So I tuk de roan an' rid over, an' tied 'im down de hill in de cedars, an' I wen' 'roun 'to de back yard. ... I soon foun' my gal, an' arfter tellin' her two or three lies 'bout herse'f , I got her to go in an' ax Miss Anne to come to de do'. When she come, I gi' her de note, an' arfter a little while she bro't me anurr, an' I tole her good-by, an' she gi' me a dollar, an' I come home an' gi' de letter to ^Marse Chan. He read it, an' tole me to have de bosses ready at twenty minits to twelve at de corner of de garden. An' jes' befo' dat he come out ez ef he wuz gwine to bed, but instid he come, an' we all struck out to'ds Cun'l Chahmb'- lin's. When we got mos' to de gate, de bosses got sort o' skerred, an' I see dey wuz some'n or somebody stan'in' jes' inside; an' Marse Chan he jump' off de sorrel an' flung me de bridle and he walked up. "She spoke fust. 'Twuz Miss Anne had done come out dyah to meet Marse Chan, an' she sez, jes' cz cold ez a chill, 'Well, seh, I granted your favor. I wished to re- Hebe myse'f of de obhgations you placed me under a few months ago, when you made me a present of my father, whom you fust insulted an' then prevented from gittin' satisfaction.' "Marse Chan he didn' speak fur a minit, an' den he said: 'Who is with you?' (Dat wuz ev'y word.) "'No one,' sez she; 'I came alone.' "'My God!' sez he, 'you didn't come all through those woods by yourse'f at this time o' night ? ' '"Yes, I'm not afraid,' sez she. (An' heah dis nigger ! I don't b'heve she wuz.) . . . "Marse Chan, he den tole her he bed come to say good- by to her, ez he wuz gwine 'way to de war nex' mawnin'. I wuz watchin' on her, an' I tho't when Marse Chan tole Later and Present- Day Writers 315 her dat, she sort o' started an' looked up at 'im Hke she wuz mighty sorry, an' 'peared like she didn' stan' quite so straight arfter dat. Den Marse Chan he went on talkin' right fars' to her; an' he tole her how he had loved her ever sence she wuz a little bit o' baby mos', an' how he nuver 'membered de time when he hedn' hope' to marry her. He tole her it wuz his love for her hed made 'im stan' fust at school an' collige, and hed kep' 'im good an' pure; an' now he wuz gwine 'way, wouldn' she let it be like 'twuz in ole times, an' ef he come back from de war wouldn' she try to think on him ez she use' to when she wuz a Uttle guirl ? "Marse Chan he had done been talkin' so serious, he hed done tuk Miss Anne's han', an' wuz lookin' down in her face like he wuz list'nin' wid he eyes. "Arfter a minit Miss Anne she said somethin', an' Marse Chan he cotch her urr han' an' sez: "'But if you love me, Anne?' "When he said dat, she tu'ned her head 'way from 'im, an' wait' a minit, an' den she said — right clear: "'But I don' love yo'. (Jes' dem th'ee wuds.) De wuds fall right slow — like dirt falls out a spade on a cofl&n when yo's buryin' anybody, an' seys, 'Uth to uth.' Marse Chan he jes' let her hand drap, an' he stiddy hisse'f 'g'inst de gate-pos', an' he didn' speak torekly. When he did speak, all he sez wuz: "'I mus' see you home safe.' "I 'clar, marster, I didn't know 'twuz Marse Chan's voice tell I look at 'im right good. Well, she wouldn' let 'im go wid her. . . . Soon ez she got 'mos' 'roun' de curve, Marse Chan he followed her, keepin' under de trees so ez not to be seen, an' I led the bosses on down de road behine 'im. He kep' 'long behine her tell she wuz safe in de house, an' den he come an' got on he boss, an' we all come home. "Nex' mawnin' we all went off to j'ine de army. . . . In camp he use' to be so sorrerful he'd hardly open he mouf. You'd 'a' tho't he wuz seekin', he used to look so moanful; but jes' le' 'im git into danger, an' he use' to be like ole times — jolly an' laughin' like when he wuz a boy. 316 American Literature "When Cap'n Gordon got he leg shoot off, dey mek Marse Chan cap'n on de spot. . . . "An' Marse Chan he wuz jes' de same. He didn' nuver mention Miss Anne's name, but I knowed he wuz thinkin' on her constant. . . . "Well, I got one o' de gent'mens to write Judy a letter for me, an' I tole her . . . how Marse Chan wuz a-dyin' fur love o' Miss Anne. An' Judy she had to git Miss Anne to read de letter fur her. Den Miss Anne she tells her pa, an' — you mind, Judy tells me all dis arfterwards, an' she say when Cun'l Chahmb'hn hear 'bout it, he wuz settin' on de poach, an' he set still a good while, an' den he sey to hisse'f : "'Well, he earn' he'p bein' a Whig.' "An' den he gits up an' walks up to Miss Anne an' looks at her right hard; an' Miss Anne she hed done tu'n away her haid an' wuz makin' out she wuz fixin' a rose-bush 'g'inst de poach; an' when her pa kep' lookin' at her, her face got jes' de color o' de roses on de bush, and pres'n'y her pa sez: "'Anne!' "An' she tu'ned roun', an' he sez: "'Do yo' want 'im?' "An' she sez, 'Yes,' an' put her head on he shoulder an' begin to cry; an' he sez: '"Well, I won' Stan' between yo' no longer. Write to 'im an' say so.' "We didn' know nuthin' 'bout dis den. We wuz a- fightin' an' a-fightin' all dat time; an' come one day a let- ter to Marse Chan, an' I see 'im start to read it in his tent ... an' he face hit look so cu'iousome an' he ban's trembled so I couldn' mek out what wuz de matter wid 'im. An' he fol' de letter up an' wen' out an' wen' way down 'hine de camp, an' stayed dyah 'bout nigh an hour. Well, seh, I wuz on de lookout for 'im when he come back, an' 'fo' Gord, ef he face didn' shine like a angel ! I say to myse'f , 'Umm', ef de glory o' Gord ain' done shine on 'im!' An' what yo' 'spose 'twuz? "He tuk me wid 'im dat evenin' an' he tell me he had Later and Present- Day Writers 317 done git a letter from Miss Anne, an' Marse Chan he eyes look like gre't big stars. . . . "He fol' de letter wha' was in his han' up, an' put it in he inside pocket — right dyah on de lef side; an' den he tole me he tho't mebbe we wuz gwine hev some warm wuk in de nex' two or th'ee days, an' arfter dat ef Gord speared 'im he'd git a leave o' absence fur a few days, an' we'd go home. "Well, dat night de orders come, an' we all hed to git over to'ds Romney; an' we rid all night till 'bout light; an' we halted right on a little creek, an' we stayed dyah till mos' breakfast time . . . an' I see Marse Chan set down on de groun' hine a bush an' read dat letter over an' over. I watch 'im, an' de battle wuz a-goin' on, but we had orders to stay 'hine de hill, an' ev'y now an' den de bullets would cut de limbs o' de trees right over us, an' one o' dem big shells what goes Awhar — awhar — awhar — is you ! would fall right 'mong us; but Marse Chan he didn' mine it no mo'n nuttin' ! Den it 'peared to git closer an' thicker, and Marse Chan he calls me, an' I crep' up, an' he sez: "'Sam, we'se goin' to win in dis battle, an' den we'll go home an' git married; an' I'm goin' home wid a star on my collar.' An' den he sez, 'Ef I'm wounded, kyar me home, yo' hear?' An' I sez, 'Yes, Marse Chan.' "Well, jes' den dey blowed 'boots an' saddles,' an' we mounted. . . . An' dey said, ' Charge 'em ! ' an' my king ! ef ever you see bullets fly, dey did dat day. Hit wuz jes' like hail; an' we wen' down de slope (I 'long wid de res') an' up de hill right to'ds de cannons, an' de fire wuz so strong dyah (dey hed a whole rigiment o' infintrys layin' down dyah onder de cannons) our lines sort o' broke an' stop; de cun'l was kilt, an' I b'lieve dey wuz jes' 'bout to bre'k all to pieces, when Marse Chan rid up an' cotch hoi' de fleg an' hollers, ' Poller me ! ' an' rid strainin' up de hill 'mong de cannons. . . . Yo' ain' nuver hear thunder ! Fust thing I knowed, de roan roll' head over heels an' flung me up 'g'inst de bank, like yo' chuck a nubbin over 'g'inst de foot o' de corn pile. An' dat's what kep' me from bein' kilt, I 'specks. . . . When I look' 'roun', de roan wuz layin' dyah by me, stone dead, wid a cannon-ball gone 'mos* 318 American Literature th'oo him, an' our men hed done swep' dem on t'urr side from de top o' de hill. 'Twan' mo'n a minit, de sorrel come gallupin' back wid his mane fiyin' an' de rein hanging down on one side to his knee. ' Dyah ! ' sez I, ' 'fo' Gord ! I 'specks dey done kill Marse Chan, an' I promised to tek care on him.' "I jumped up an' run over de banks, an' dyah, wid a whole lot o' dead men, an' some not dead yit, onder one o' de guns wid de fleg still in he han', an' a bullet right th'oo he body, lay Marse Chan. I tu'n 'im over an' call 'im, 'Marse Chan !' but 'twan' no use, he wuz done gone home, sho' 'nuff. I pick' 'im up in my arms wid de fleg still in he ban's, an' toted 'im back jes' like I did dat day when he wuz a baby, an' ole marster gin 'im to me in my arms, an' sez he could trus' me, an' tell me to tek keer on 'im long ez he lived. I kyar'd 'im 'way off de battlefiel' out de way o' de balls, an' I laid 'im down onder a big tree till I could git somebody to ketch de sorrel for me. He wuz cotched arfter a while, an' I hed some money, so I got some pine plank an' made a coffin dat evenin', an' wrapt Marse Chan's body up in de fleg, an' put 'im in de coffin; but I didn' nail de top on strong, 'cause I knowed ole missis wan' see 'im; an' I got a' ambulance an' set out for home dat night. We reached dyah de nex' even', arfter travelHn' all dat night an' all nex' day. "Hit 'peared hke some thin' hed tole ole missis we wuz comin' so; for when we got home she wuz waitin' for us — done drest up in her best Sunday-clo'es, an' stan'in' at de head o' de big steps, an' ole marster settin' in his big cheer — ez we druv up de hill to'ds de house, I drivin' de ambulance an' de sorrel leadin' long behine wid de stir- rups crost over de saddle. "She come down to de gate to meet us. We took de coffin out de ambulance an' kyar'd it right into de big parlor. ... In dyah we laid de coffin on two o' de cheers, an' ole missis nuver said a wud; she jes' looked so ole an' white. "When I hed tell 'em all 'bout it, I tu'ned 'roun' an' rid over to Cun'l Chahmb'lin's, 'cause I knowed dat wuz Later and Present- Day Writers 319 what Marse Chan he'd 'a' wanted me to do. I didn't tell anybody whar I wuz gwine, 'cause yo' know none on 'em hadn' nuver speak to Miss Anne, not sence de dull, an' dey didn' know 'bout de letter. "When I rid up in de yard, dyah wuz Miss Anne a- stan'in' on de poach watchin' me ez I rid up. I tied my hoss to de fence, an' walked up de parf. ... I drapt my cap down on de een o' de steps an' went up. She nuver opened her mouf ; jes' stan' right still an' keep her eyes on my face. Fust, I couldn' speak ; den I cotch my voice, an' I say, 'Marse Chan, he done got he furlough.' "Her face was mighty ashy an' she sort o' shook, but she didn' fall. She tu'ned 'roun' an' said, 'Git me de ker'ige ! ' Dat wuz all. "When de ker'ige come 'roun', she hed put on her bon- net, an' wuz ready. Ez she got in, she sey to me, 'Hev yo' brought him home ? ' an' we drove 'long, I ridin' behine. "When we got home, she got out, an' walked up de big walk — up to de poach by herse'f. Ole missis hed done fin' de letter in Marse Chan's pocket, wid de love in it, while I wuz 'way an' she wuz a-waitin' on de poach. Dey sey dat wuz de fust time ole missis cry when she find de letter, an' dat she sut'n'y did cry over it, pintedly. "Well, seh. Miss Anne she walks right up de steps, mos' up to ole missis stan'in' dyah on de poach, an' jes' falls right down mos' to her, on her knees fust, an' den flat on her face right on de flo', ketchin' at ole missis' dress wid her two han's — ^so. "Ole missis stood for 'bout a minit lookin' down at her, an' den she drapt down on de flo' by her, an' took her in bofe her arms. "I couldn' see, I wuz cryin' so myse'f, an' ev'ybody wuz cryin'. But dey went in arfter a while in de parlor, an' shet de do'. . . . "Judy (she's my wife) she tell me she heah Miss Anne when she axed ole missis mout she wear mo'nin' fur 'im. I don' know how dat is; but when we buried 'im nex' day, she wuz de one whar walked arfter de coffin, holdin' ole marster, an' ole missis she walked nex' to 'em. 320 American Literature "Well, we buried Marse Chan dyah in de ole grabeyard, wid de fleg wrap't roun' 'im, an' he face lookin' like it did dat mawnin' down in de low groun's, wid de new sun shinin' on it so peaceful." . . . 7. Ruth McEnery Stuart (1856- ) is a native of Loui- siana. She has given us many humorous tales of the Southern negro, as in A Golden Wedding and Other Tales. (See BibHog- raphy, page 362, for suggested readings.) 1 8. Henry R. James (1843- ) was born in New York j' but has lived in England since 1869. His name is associated ^^'"~"~^ith that of Howells as a leader in American fiction. He, too, is an apostle of realism, and he has been eminently successful with the realistic short story. "When his short story The Passionate Pilgrim was published," says Mr. Hamilton Wright Mabie, "Americans had the feeling that at last we had 'ar- rived' in literature." He excels also in the international novel which his life abroad has fitted him to write. His early work is his best. Daisy Miller (1878) is considered by many his most interesting novel. Longueville's Sketch (From Confidence) It was in the early days of April; Bernard Longueville had been spending the winter in Rome. He had travelled northward with the consciousness of several social duties that appealed to him from the further side of the Alps, but he was under the charm of the Italian spring, and he made a pretext for lingering. He had spent five days at Siena, where he had intended to spend but two, and still it was impossible to continue his journey. . . . He had a fancy for sketching, and it was on his conscience to take a few pictorial notes. ... On the last morning of his visit, as he stood staring about him in the crowded piazza, and feeling that, in spite of its picturesqueness, this was an awkward place for setting up an easel, he bethought him- self, by contrast, of a quiet comer in another part of the town, which he had chanced upon in one of his first walks Later and Present- Day Writers 321 .... The thing was what painters call a subject, and he had promised himself to come back with his utensils. This morning he returned to the inn and took possession of them, and then he made his way through a labyrinth of empty streets, lying on the edge of the town, within the wall, like the superfluous folds of a garment whose wearer has shrunken with old age. He reached his little grass-grown terrace, and found it as sunny and as private as before. . . . Longueville settled himself on the empty bench, and arranging his little portable apparatus, began to ply his brushes. ... It seemed almost an interruption when, in the silent air, he heard a distant bell in the town strike noon. Shortly after this, there was another interruption. The sound of a soft footstep caused him to look up; whereupon he saw a young woman standing there and bending her eyes upon the graceful artist. . . . She stood there a moment longer — long enough to let him see that she was a person of easy attitudes — and then she walked away slowly to the parapet of the terrace. Here she stationed herself, leaning her arms upon the high stone ledge, presenting her back to Longueville, and gazing at rural Italy. Longueville went on with his sketch, but less attentively than before. . , . His first feeling was that she would spoil it; his second was that she would improve it. Little by little she turned more into profile, leaning only one arm upon the parapet, while the other hand, holding her folded parasol, hung down at her side. She was motionless; it was almost as if she were standing there on purpose to be drawn. ... "Is she posing — is she atti- tudinizing for my benefit ? .. . . But posing or not," he went on, "I will put her into my sketch. She has simply put herself in. It will give it a human interest. There is nothing like having a human interest." So, with the ready skill that he possessed, he introduced the young girl's figure into his foreground, and at the end of ten minutes he had almost made something that had the form of a like- ness. "If she will only be quiet for another ten minutes," he said, " the thing will really be a picture." Unfortunately, the young lady was not quiet; she had apparently had 322 American Literature enough of her attitude and her view. She turned away, facing Longueville again, and slowly came back, as if to re-enter the church. To do so she had to pass near him, and as she approached he instinctively got up, holding his drawing in one hand. She looked at him again, with that expression that he had mentally characterized as "bold" a few minutes before— with dark, intelligent eyes. Her hair was dark and dense; she was a strikingly handsome girl. "I am so sorry you moved," he said, confidently, in English. "You were so — so beautiful." "I am much obliged to you. Don't you think you have looked at me enough?" "By no means. I should like so much to finish my drawing." "I am not a professional model," said the young lady. "No. That's my difficulty," Longueville answered, laughing. "I can't propose to remunerate you." "You see it will be pure kindness," he went on, — "a simple act of charity. Five minutes will be enough. Treat me as an ItaHan beggar." He had laid down his sketch and had stepped forward. He stood there, obsequious, clasping his hands and smil- ing. ... "I wish to go to my mother," she said. "Where is your mother?" the young man asked. "In the church, of course. I didn't come here alone!" "Of course not; but you may be sure that your mother is very contented. I have been in that little church. It is charming. She is just resting there; she is probably tired. If you will kindly give me five minutes more, she will come out to you." "Five minutes?" the young girl asked. "Five minutes will do. I shall be eternally grate- ful." . . . The graceful stranger dropped an eye on the sketch again. "Is your picture so good as that?" she asked. Later and Present- Day Writers 323 "I have a great deal of talent," he answered, laughing. "You shall see for yourself, when it is finished." She turned slowly toward the terrace again. "You certainly have a great deal of talent to induce me to do what you ask." And she walked to where she had stood before. Longuevillc made a movement to go with her, as if to show her the attitude he meant; but, pointing with decision to his easel, she said, — "You have only live minutes." He immediately went back to his work, and she made a vague attempt to take up her position. "You must tell me if this will do," she added, in a moment. " It will do beautifully," Longueville answered, in a happy tone, looking at her and plying his brush. " It is immensely good of you to take so much trouble." For a moment she made no rejoinder, but presently she said — "Of course if I pose at all I wish to pose well." "You pose admirably," said Longueville. After this she said nothing, and for several minutes he painted rapidly and in silence. . . . Longueville's little figure was a success — a charming success, he thought, as he put on the last touches. While he was doing this, his model's companion came into view. She came out of the church, pausing a moment as she looked from her daughter to the young man in the corner of the terrace; then she walked straight over to the young girl. She was a delicate little gentlewoman, with a light, quick step. Longueville's five minutes were up; so, leaving his place, he approached the two ladies, sketch in hand. . . . "It is my portrait," said her daughter, as Longueville drew near. "This gentleman has been sketching me." "Sketching you, dearest?" murmured her mother. "Wasn't it rather sudden?" "Very sudden — very abrupt!" exclaimed the young girl with a laugh. "Considering all that, it's very good," said Longueville, offering his picture to the elder lady, who took it and be- gan to examine it. . . . 3*24 American Literature "It's a beautiful drawing," murmured [she], handing the thing back to Longueville. Her daughter meanwhile, had not even glanced at it. . . . "Won't you do me the honor of keeping my sketch?" he said. "I think it really looks like your daughter.". . . "It's extremely beautiful," she murmured, "and if you insist on my taking it " "I shall regard it as a great honor." "Very well, then; with many thanks, I will keep it." She looked at the young man a moment, while her daughter walked away. ... "I am sure you think she is a strange girl," she said. "She is extremely pretty." .... "Ah, but she's good !" cried the old lady. "I am sure she comes honestly by that," said Longue- ville, expressively, while his companion, returning his salutation with a certain scrupulous grace of her own, hurried after her daughter. Longueville remained there staring at the view, but not especially seeing it. He felt as if he had at once enjoyed and lost an opportunity. ... 9. Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849- ) was born in England, but came to the United States when a young girl. She has written many novels and short stories. Her child stories such as Little Lord Fauntleroy and Editha's Burglar are very popular. Being a Lord (From Little Lord Fauntleroy, Chapter III) Cedric's good opinion of the advantages of being an earl increased greatly during the next week. It seemed almost impossible for him to realize that there was scarcely anything he might wish to do which he could not do easily; in fact, I think it may be said that he did not fully realize it at all. But at least he understood, after a few conver- sations with Mr. Havisham, that he could gratify all his nearest wishes, and he proceeded to gratify them with a simplicity and delight which caused Mr. Havisham much Later and Present- Day Writers 325 diversion. In the week before they sailed for England, he did many curious things. The lawyer long after remem- bered the morning they went down-town together to pay a visit to Dick, and the afternoon they so amazed the apple-woman of ancient lineage by stopping before her stall and teUing her she was to have a tent, and a stove, and a shawl, and a sum of money which seemed to her quite wonderful. "For I have to go to England and be a lord," explained Cedric, sweet-temperedly. "And I shouldn't like to have your bones on my mind every time it rained. My own bones never hurt, so I think I don't know how painful a person's bones can be, but I've sympathized with you a great deal, and I hope you'll be better." "She's a very good apple-woman," he said to Mr. Havisham, as they walked away, leaving the proprietress of the stall almost gasping for breath, and not at all be- lieving in her great fortune. "Once, when I fell down and cut my knee, she gave me an apple for nothing. I've always remembered her for it. You know you always re- member people who are kind to you." It had never occurred to his honest, simple little mind that there were people who could forget kindnesses. The interview with Dick was quite exciting. Dick had just been having a great deal of trouble with Jake, and was in low spirits when they saw him. His amazement when Cedric calmly announced that they had come to give him what seemed a very great thing to him, and would set all his troubles right, almost struck him dumb. Lord Fauntleroy's manner of announcing the object of his visit was very simple and unceremonious. Mr. Havisham was much impressed by its directness as he stood by and listened. The statement that his old friend had become a lord, and was in danger of being an earl if he lived long enough, caused Dick to so open his eyes and mouth, and start, that his cap fell off. When he picked it up, he uttered a rather singular exclamation. Mr. Havisham thought it singular, but Cedric had heard it before. "I soy !" he said, "what're yer givin' us?" This plainly 326 Arnerican Literature embarrassed his lordship a little, but he bore himself bravely. "Everybody thinks it not true at first," he said. "Mr. Hobbs thought I'd had a sunstroke. I didn't think I was going to hke it myself, but I Hke it better now I'm used to it. The one who is the earl now, he's my grandpapa; and he wants me to do anything I hke. He's very kind, if he is an earl; and he sent me a lot of money by Mr. Havisham, and I've brought some to you to buy Jake out." And the end of the matter was that Dick actually bought Jake out, and found himself the possessor of the business and some new brushes and a most astonishing sign and outfit. He could not beheve in his good luck any more easily than the apple-woman of ancient lineage could be- heve in hers; he walked about like a boot-black in a dream; he stared at his young benefactor and felt as if he might wake up at any moment. He scarcely seemed to realize anything until Cedric put out his hand to shake hands with him before going away. . . . lo. Mary N. Murfree ("850- ) is a native of Tennessee. Under the pen-name "Charles Egbert Craddock" she has written interesting character studies of the mountaineers of Tennessee, many novels of life in Tennessee and Mississippi, also historical romances, and volumes of short stories, magazine articles, and books for juvenile readers. J His Christmas Miracle (In The Raid of the Guerilla) He yearned for a sign from the heavens. . . The house was gone ! Even the site had vanished ! Ken- nedy stared bewildered. Slowly the realization of what had chanced here began to creep through his brain. Evidently there had been a gigantic landsHde. The cHfT-like projection was broken sheer off, — hurled into the depths of the valley. Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages, doubtless, had been undermining the great crags till the rocky crust of the earth had collapsed. He could see even Later and Present- Day Writers 327 now how the freeze had fractured out-cropping ledges where the ice had gathered in the fissures. A deep abyss that he remembered as being at a considerable distance from the mountain's brink, once spanned by a foot-bridge, now showed the remnant of its jagged, shattered walls at the extreme verge of the precipice. A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the wife, the children, — where were they? A terrible death, surely, to be torn from the warm securities of the hearth- stone, without a moment's warning, and hurled into the midst of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to the depths of the Gap, — a thousand feet below ! And at what time had this dread fate befallen his friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads' store, when he had paused on his way to warm himself that morning, some gossip was de- tailing the phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the previous night, while others protested that it must have been only the clamors of "Christmas guns" firing all along the country-side. . . . Kennedy was s^^ely. conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the land-sKde, scattered from the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap — inverted roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown streams newly Hberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from the crevices of the rocks. In ejffect he could not believe his own eyes. His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart suddenly plunged with a wild hope, — he had discerned amongst the turmoil a shape of line and rule, the Httle box-hke hut ! Caught as it was in the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out at an incline a httle less than vertical, the inmates might have been spared such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. He wondered, if the inmates yet lived, — he pitied them still more if they only existed to realize their peril, to await 328 American Literature in an anguish of fear their ultimate doom. Perhaps — he knew he was but trifling with despair — some rescue might be devised. Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain ! — full of horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The echoes of the Gap seemed reluctant to repeat the tones, dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy halloo responded from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay on its side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the paUid simulacrum of a face. ''This be Jube Kennedy," he cried, reassuringly. "I be goin' ter fetch help, — men, ropes, and a windlass." "Make haste then, — we uns be nigh friz." "Ye air in no danger of fire, then?" asked the practical man. "We have hed none, — before we war flunged oflf'n the bluff we hed squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would scorch his feet comin' down the chimbley, — powerful lucky fur we uns; the fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously." Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a mo- ment, galloping at frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad Hght of the gray day; . . . reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, bleed- ing, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence for help in this matter of life or death ! Death, indeed, only, — for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the bluff were several who had been employed in the silver mines of this region, and they dem- onstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked clear of the obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered chffs; that a human being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair, must needs be torn from it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful death against the jagged rocks in the transit. "But not ef the chair was ter be steadied by a guy-rope from — say — from that thar old pine tree over thar," Ken- Later and Present-Day Writers 329 nedy insisted, indicating the long bole of a partially up- rooted and inverted tree on the steeps. ''The chair would swing cl'ar of the bluff then." "But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that tree, — ^more than a man's Hfe is wuth ter try it." \ moment ensued of absolute silence, — space, however, for a hard-fought battle ... ere he said with a spare dull voice and dry lips, "Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys, — ■ I'll kerry a guy-rope over thar." At one side the crag beetled, and although it was im- possible thence to reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here, and might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be fastened the guy- rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which could be lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the cUff. Kennedy harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the outcome of the enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as with the great rope knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over the brink at the point where the crag jutted forth, — lower and lower still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, caught amidst the debris of earth and rock; now failing to reach its boughs; once more •swinging back to a great distance, so did the length of the rope increase the scope of the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last fairly lodged on the icy bole, knotting and coiling about it the end of the guy-rope, on which he had come and on which he must needs return. It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the Uttle group, a long time before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly lowered, and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious glance was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a flaw of wind,— and even now all would be lost. Dusk too im- pended, and as the rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist, every eye was strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this aerial journey, — the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This was well, 330 American Literature — all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk the added delay. The chair came swinging easily, swiftly, along the gradations of the rise, the guy-rope holding it well from the chances of contact with the jagged projec- tions of the face of the cHff, and the first shout of triumph rang sonorously from the summit. When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of anxiety and anger went through Ken- nedy's heart to note, from his perch on the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who should go first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to the long wait in this precarious lodgment. The man was the stronger. AureHa was forced into the chair, tied fast, pushed off, waving her hand to her husband, shedding floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, as she fancied, and calKng out dismally, "Far'well, Basil, far'- well." Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp the spirits of the men, working like mad at the windlass. They were jovial enough for bursts of laughter when it became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing in- terval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent wiih himself, the two objects which he next most treasured, his vioKn and his old hound. The trusty chair bore all aloft, and Basil was received with welcoming acclamations. Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, the aspect of the group on the cliff had changed. It had grown eerie, indistinct. . . . The vale had disappeared in a sinister abyss of gloom, though Kennedy would not look down at its menace, but upward, always upward. . . . Now several drew together, and Hke a constellation glim- mered crown-like on the brow of the night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to hoist. Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stel- lular coronal, as it shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its mystic glamour, — disin- tegrated by gradual approach he could see the long handks of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun- Later and Present- Day Writers 331 tinted smoke that rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them, all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence that he was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being struck downward into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the ropes, for he was almost frozen. . . . A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal beard. "Will ye deny es ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?" the old circuit-rider straitly demanded. "How could ye hev strengthened yer heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily within ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my brethren, ye hev done it unto me." "That ain't the kind o' sign, parson," Kennedy faltered. "I be looking fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or hear." "The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom," said the parson solemnly. "The kingdom of Christ is a spiritual kingdom, an' great are the wonders that are wrought therein." 11. Margaret Wade Deland (1857- ) was born in Pennsylvania. She spent her early life in New York City but now lives in Boston. Her first novel John Ward, Preacher, published in 1888, at once made her popular. She has since written much for the magazines and has established a reputa- tion as one of the best of American noveHsts. (See Bibliog- raphy, page 361, for suggested readings.) 12. Hamlin Garland (i860- ) is a Wisconsin author who has written many stories dealing with country life in the Middle West. Among his best-known books are Main- Travelled Roads and Rose of Butcher's Coolly. (See Bibliography, page 362, for suggested readings.) ^13. Ernest Thompson-Seton (i860- ) is an animal painter and illustrator as well as a writer of animal stories. He lives in New York City. 332 American Literature Raggylug the story of a cottontail rabbit (From Wild Animals I Have Known) The rank swamp grass bent over and concealed the snug nest where Raggylug's mother had hidden him. She had partly covered him with some of the bedding, and, as always, her last warning was to "lay low and say nothing, whatever happens." . . . After a while he heard a strange rustling of the leaves in the near thicket. It was an odd, continuous sound, and though it went this way and that way and came ever nearer, there was no patter of feet with it. Rag had lived his whole life in the Swamp (he was three weeks old) and yet had never heard anything like this. Of course his curiosity was greatly aroused. His mother had cautioned him to lay low, but that was understood to be in case of dan- ger, and this strange sound without foot-falls could not be anything to fear. The low rasping went past close at hand, then to the right, then back, and seemed going away. Rag felt he knew what he was about; he wasn't a baby; it was his duty to learn what it was. He slowly raised his roly-poly body on his short fluffy legs, lifted his little round head above the covering of his nest and peeped out into the woods. The sound had ceased as soon as he moved. He saw nothing, so took one step forward to a clear view, and instantly found himself face to face with an enormous Black Serpent. "Mammy," he screamed in mortal terror as the monster darted at him. With all the strength of his tiny limbs he tried to run. But in a flash the Snake had him by one ear and whipped around him with his coils to gloat over the helpless little baby bunny he had secured for dinner. "Mam-my — Mam-my," gasped poor Kttle Raggylug as the cruel monster began slowly choking him to death. Very soon the little one's cry would have ceased, but Later and Present- Day Writers 333 bounding through the woods straight as an arrow came Mammy. . . . The cry of her baby had filled her with the courage of a hero, and — hop, she went over that hor- rible reptile. Whack, she struck down at him with her sharp hind claws as she passed, giving him such a stinging blow that he squirmed with pain and hissed with anger. "M-a-m-m-y," came feebly from the little one. And Mammy came leaping again and again and struck harder and fiercer until the loathsome reptile let go the Httle one's ear and tried to bite the old one as she leaped over. But all he got was a mouthful of wool each time, and Molly's fierce blows began to tell, as long bloody rips were torn in the Black Snake's scaly armor. Things were now looking bad for the Snake ; and bracing himself for the next charge, he lost his tight hold on Baby Bunny, who at once wriggled out of the coils and away into the underbrush, breathless and terribly frightened, but unhurt save that his left ear was much torn by the teeth of that dreadful Serpent. Molly now had gained all she wanted. She had no notion of fighting for glory or revenge. Away she went into the woods and the little one followed the shining beacon of her snow-white tail until she led him to a safe corner of the Swamp. 14. John Fox, Jr. (1861- ), has written both short stories and novels dealing chiefly with life in Kentucky. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, one of his most popular works, has been successfully dramatized. The Lonesome Pine (From The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Chapter II) He had seen the big pine when he first came to those hills — one morning, at daybreak, when the valley was a sea of mist that threw soft clinging spray to the very moun- tain tops: for even above the mists, that morning, its mighty head arose — sole visible proof that the earth still slept beneath. Straightway, he wondered how it had ever 334 American Literature got there, so far above the few of its kind that haunted the green dark ravines far below. Some whirlwind, doubt- less, had sent a tiny cone cirding heavenward and dropped it there. It had sent others, too, no doubt, but how had this tree faced wind and storm alone and alone lived to defy both so proudly ? Some day he would learn. There- after, he had seen it, at noon — but httle less majestic among the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching the last light at sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a dark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the moon. He had seen it giving place with sombre dignity to the passing burst of spring- had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green in the gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of snow — a changeless promise that the earth must wake to Hfe again. The Lonesome Pine, the mountaineers called it, and the Lonesome Pine it always looked to be. From the beginning it had a curious fascination for him, and straight- way within him — half exile that he was— there sprang up a sympathy for it as for something that was human and a brother. And now he was on the trail of it at last. From every point that morning it had seemed almost to nod down to him as he climbed, and, when he reached the ledge that gave him sight of it from base to crown, the winds murmured among its needles like a welcoming voice. At once, he saw the secret of its life. On each side rose a cliff that had sheltered it from storms until its trunk had shot upwards so far and so straight and so strong that its green crown could lift itself on and on and bend — blow what might — as proudly and securely as a Hly on its stalk in a morning breeze. Dropping his bridle rein, he put one hand against it as though on the shoulder of a friend. "Old Man," he said, "you must be pretty lonesome up here, and I'm glad to meet you." For a while he sat against it, resting. He had no par- ticular purpose that day — no particular destination. His saddle-bags were across the cantle of his cow-boy saddle. His fishing rod was tied under one flap. He was young and his own master. Time was hanging heavy on his Later and Present- Day Writers 335 hands that day and he loved the woods and the nooks and the crannies of them where his own kind rarely made its way. Beyond, the cove looked dark, forbidding, mys- terious, and what was beyond he did not know. So down there he would go. As he bent his head forward to rise, his eye caught the spot of sunlight, and he leaned over it with a smile. In the black earth was a human foot-print — too small and slender for the foot of a man, a boy, or a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible — wider apart — and he smiled again. A girl had been there. She was the crimson flash that he saw as he started up the steep and mistook it for a flaming bush of sumach. She had seen him coming and she had fled. Still smiling he rose to his feet. 15. Mary E. WilMns Freeman (1862- ) is famous for her sympathetic and accurate portrayal of New England life and character. Her best work is to be found in her short stories in the two volumes A New England Nun and Silence and Other Tales. (See Bibliography, page 362, for suggested readings.) 16. Edith Wharton (1862- ), a New York author of distinction, is one of our best writers of both short stories and novels. Her best novels are, perhaps, The Valley of Decision, The House of Mirth, and The Fruit of the Tree. She has also written some notable poems. The Fulness of Life She stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible gateway was in front of her. Only a wide vista of light, mild yet penetrating as the gathered glimmer of innumer- able stars, expanded gradually before her eyes, in blissful contrast to the cavernous darkness from which she had of late emerged. She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and as her eyes began to grow more familiar with the melting depths of light about her, she distinguished the outlines of a landscape, at first swimming in the opaline uncer- tainty of Shelley's vaporous creations, then gradually 336 American Literature resolved into distincter shape — the vast unrolling of a sunlit plain, aerial forms of mountains, and presently the silver crescent of a river in the valley, and a blue sten- cilUng of trees along its curve — something suggestive in its ineffable hue of an azure background of Leonardo's, strange, enchanting, mysterious, leading on the eye and the imagination into regions of fabulous dehght. As she gazed, her heart beat with a soft and rapturous surprise; so exquisite a promise she read in the summons of that hyaline distance. "And so death is not the end after all," in sheer glad- ness she heard herself exclaiming aloud. "I always knew that it couldn't be. I believed in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then Darwin himself said that he wasn't sure about the soul — at least, I think he did — and Wallace was a spiritualist; and then there was St. George Mivart " Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the mountains. "How beautiful! How satisfying!" she murmured. "Perhaps now I shall really know what it is to live." As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart- beats, and looking up she was aware that before her stood the Spirit of Life. "Have you never really known what it is to Hve?" the Spirit of Life asked her. "I have never known," she replied, "that fulness of life which we all feel ourselves capable of knowing; though my Hfe has not been without scattered hints of it, like the scent of earth which comes to one sometimes far out at sea." "And what do you call the fulness of hfe?" the Spirit asked again. "Oh, I can't tell you, if you don't know," she said almost reproachfully. "Many words are supposed to define it — love and sympathy are those in commonest use, but I am not even sure that they are the right ones, and so few people really know what they mean." "You were married," said the Spirit, "yet you did not find the fulness of hfe in your marriage?" Later and Present- Day Writers 337 "Oh, dear, no," she replied, with an indulgent scorn, "my marriage was a very incomplete afifair." "And yet you were fond of your husband?" "You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just as I was fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born in, and my old nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted a very happy couple." . . . "Then," the Spirit continued, "those moments of which you lately spoke, which seemed to come to you like scat- tered hints of the fulness of hfe, were not shared with your husband?" "Oh, no — never. He was different. His boots creaked, and he always slammed the door when he went out, and he never read anything but railway novels and the sporting advertisements in the papers — and — and, in short, we never understood each other in the least." "To what influence, then, did you owe those exquisite sensations?" "I can hardly tell. Sometimes to the perfume of a flower; sometimes to a verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; sometimes to a picture or a sunset, or to one of those calm days at sea, when one seems to be lying in the hollow of a blue pearl; sometimes, but rarely, to a word spoken by someone who chanced to give utterance, at the right moment, to what I felt but could not express." "Someone whom you loved?" asked the Spirit. "I never loved anyone, in that way," she said, rather sadly, "nor was I thinking of any one person when I spoke, but of two or three who, by touching for an instant upon a certain chord of my being, had called forth a single note of that strange melody which seemed sleeping in my soul." . . . Then the Spirit of Life said: "There is a compen- sation in store for such needs as you have expressed." "Oh, then you do understand?" she exclaimed. "Tell me what compensation, I entreat you !" "It is ordained," the Spirit answered, "that every soul which seeks in vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it can lay bare its inmost being shall find that soul here and be united to it for eternity." 338 American Literature A glad cry broke from her lips. "Ah, shall I find him at last?" she cried, exultant. "He is here," said the Spirit of Life. She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose soul (for in that unwonted light she seemed to see his soul more clearly than his face) drew her toward him with an invincible force. "Are you really he?" she murmured. "I am he," he answered. She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which overhung the valley. "Shall we go down together," she asked him, "into that marvellous country; shall we see it together as if with the self-same eyes, and tell each other in the same words all that we think and feel?" "So," he replied, "have I hoped and dreamed." "What?" she asked with rising joy. "Then you, too, have looked for me?" "All my life." "How wonderful! And did you never, never find any- one in the other world who understood you?" "Not wholly — not as you and I understand each other." "Then you feel it, too? Oh, I am happy," she sighed. They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into sapphirine space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the threshold, heard now and then a floating fragment of their talk blown backward like the stray swallows which the wind sometimes separates from their migratory tribe. ... At length, with a certain tender impatience, he turned to her and said: "Love, why should we linger here? All eternity lies before us. Let us go down into that beautiful country together and make a home for ourselves on some blue hill above the shining river." . . . "A home," she repeated slowly, "a home for you and me to live in for all eternity?" "Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has sought?" Later and Present-Day Writers 339 "Y-yes — yes, I know — but. don't you see, home would not be like home to me. unless '' ''Unless?" he wonderingly repeated. She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse of whimsical inconsistency, ''Unless you slammed the door and wore creaking boots." . . . "Come, my soul's soul." he passionately implored; "why delay a moment? Surely you feel, as I do, that eternity itself is too short to hold such bhss as ours." . . . She made no answer to his pleadings, but at length, rousing herself vdlh. a \-isible effort, she turned away from him and moved toward the Spirit of Life, who still stood near the threshold. "I want to ask you a question," she said in a troubled voice. "Ask." said the Spirit. "A httle while ago." she began, slowly, "you told me that every soul which has not found a kindred soul on earth is destined to hnd one here." '"And have you not found one?" asked the Spirit. "Yes; but vdW it be so \s-ith my husband's soul also?" "No," answered the Spirit of Life, "for your husband imagined that he had found his soul's mate on earth in you; and for such delusions eternity itself contains no cure." She gave a Httle cr},-. Was it of disappointment or tri- umph? "Then — then what will happen to him when he comes here?" ''That I cannot tell you. Some field of acti\'ity and happiness he will doubtless find, in due measure to his ca- pacity for being active and happy." She interrupted, almost angrily: "He vdVi never be happy -^-ithout me." "Do not be too sure of that," said the Spirit. She took no notice of this, and the Spirit continued: "He will not understand you here any better than he did on earth." "No matter," she said; "I shall be the only sufferer, for he alwavs thought that he understood me." 340 American Literature "His boots will creak just as much as ever " "No matter." "And he will slam the door " "Very likely." "And continue to read railway novels " She interposed, impatiently: "Many men do worse than that." "But you said just now," said the Spirit, "that you did not love him." "True," she answered, simply; "but don't you under- stand that I shouldn't feel at home without him? It is all very well for a week or two — but for eternity ! After all, I never minded the creaking of his boots, except when mv head ached, and I don't suppose it will ache here; and he was always so sorry when he had slammed the door, only he never could remember not to. Besides, no one else would know how to look after him, he is so helpless. His inkstand would never be filled, and he would always be out of stamps and visiting-cards. He would never re- member to have his umbrella re-covered, or to ask the price of anything before he bought it. Why, he wouldn't even know what novels to read. I always had to choose the kind he liked, with a murder or a forgery and a success- ful detective." She turned abruptly to her kindred soul, who stood Hsten- ing with a mien of dismay. "Don't you see," she said, "that I can't possibly go with you?" "But what do you intend to do?" asked the Spirit of Life. "What do I intend to do?" she returned, indignantly. "Why, I mean to wait for my husband, of course. If he had come here first he would have waited for me for years and years; and it would break his heart not to find me here when he comes." . . . "But, consider," warned the Spirit, "that you are now choosing for eternity. It is a solemn moment." "Choosing!" she said with a half-sad smile. . . , "He will expect to find me here when he comes, and he would Later and Present- Day Writers 341 never believe you if you told him that I had gone away with some one else — never, never." "So be it," said the Spirit. "Here as on earth, each one must decide for himself." She turned to her kindred soul and looked at him gently, almost wistfully. "I am sorry," she said. "I should have liked to talk with you again ; but you will under- stand, I know, and I dare say you will find someone else a great deal cleverer " And without pausing to hear his answer she waved him a swift farewell and turned back toward the threshold. "Will my husband come soon?" she asked the Spirit of Life. "That you are not destined to know," the Spirit repUed. "No matter," she said, cheerfully; "I have all eternity to wait in." And still seated alone on the threshold, she Hstens for the creaking of his boots. 17. Richard Harding Davis (1864- ) inherited his gift from his mother Rebecca Harding Davis, a novelist of some note. For many years he was a New York journalist. He is famous for his short stories, among which Van Bibber and Others and Gallagher are the most popular. As a newspaper corre- spondent Ke has won many laurels. He was war correspondent during the Spanish-American War and was in Belgium during the early weeks of the great European War (1914), concerning which he has written many interesting articles for the news- papers and magazines. Mr. Travers's First Hunt (From Van Bibber and Others) Young Travers, who had been engaged to a girl down on Long Island for the last three months, only met her father and brother a few weeks before the day set for the wedding. . . . Old Mr. Paddock, the father of the girl to whom Travers was engaged, had often said that when a young man asked him for his daughter's hand he would ask him in return, not if he had lived straight, but if he could ride straight. And on his answering this question 342 American Literature in the affirmative depended his gaining her parent's con- sent. Travers had met Miss Paddock and her mother in Europe, while the men of the family were at home. He was invited to their place in the fall when the hunting season opened, and spent the evening most pleasantly and satisfactorily with hh fiancee in a corner of the drawing- room. But as soon as the women had gone, young Pad- dock joined him and said, "You ride, of course?" Travers had never ridden; but he had been prompted how to answer by Miss Paddock, and so said there was nothing he liked better. As he expressed it, he would rather ride than sleep. "That's good," said Paddock. "I'll give you a mount on Satan to-morrow morning at the meet. He is a bit nasty at the start of the season; and ever since he killed Wallis, the second groom, last year, none of us care much to ride him. But you can manage him, no doubt. He'll just carry your weight." Mr. Travers dreamed that night of taking large, des- perate leaps into space on a wild horse that snorted forth flames, and that rose at solid stone walls as though they were hayricks. He was tempted to say he was ill in the morning — which was, considering his state of mind, more or less true — but concluded that, as he would have to ride sooner or later during his visit, and that if he did break his neck it would be in a good cause, he determined to do his best. He did not want to ride at all, for two excellent reasons — first, because he wanted to live for Miss Paddock's sake, and, second, because he wanted to live for his own. The next morning ... he came down-stairs looking very miserable indeed. Satan had been taken to the place where they were to meet, and Travers viewed him on his arrival there with a sickening sense of fear as he saw him pulling three grooms off their feet. Travers decided that he would stay with his feet on solid earth just as long as he could, and when the hounds were thrown off and the rest had started at a gallop he waited, under the pretence of adjusting his gaiters, until they were all well away. Then he clenched his teeth, crammed his Later and Present-Day Writers 343 hat down over his ears, and scrambled up on to the saddle. His feet fell quite by accident into the stirrups, and the next instant he was off after the others, with an indistinct feeling that he was on a locomotive that was jimiping the ties. Satan was in among and had passed the other horses in less than five minutes, and was so close on the hounds that the whippers-in gave a cry of warning. But Travers could as soon have pulled a boat back from going over the Niagara Falls as Satan, and it was only because" the hounds were well ahead that saved them from having Satan ride them down. Travers had taken hold of the saddle with his left hand to keep himself down, and sawed and swayed *on the reins with his right. He shut his eyes whenever Satan jumped, and never knew how he hap- pened to stick on; but he did stick on, and was so far ahead that no one could see in the misty morning just how badly he rode. As it was, for daring and speed he led the field, and not even young Paddock was near him from the starjt. There was a broad stream in front of him, and a hill just on its other side. No one had ever tried to take this at a jump. It was considered more of a swim than anything else, and the hunters always crossed it by the bridge, towards the left. *^ravers saw the bridge and tried to jerk Satan's head in that direction; but Satan kept right on as straight as an express train over the prairie. Fences and trees and furrows passed by and under Travers like a panorama run by electricity, and he only breathed by accident. They went on at the stream and the hill beyond as though they were riding at a stretch of turf, and, though the whole field set up a shout of warning and dismay, Trav- ers could only gasp and shut his eyes. He remembered the fate of the second groom and shivered. Then the horse rose like a rocket, lifting Travers so high in the air that he thought Satan would never come down again; but he did come down, with his feet bunched, on the oppo- site side of the stream. The next instant he was up and over the hill, and had stopped panting in the very center of the pack that were snarHng and snapping around the fox. And then Travers showed that he was a thorough- 344 American Literature bred, even though he could not ride, for he hastily fumbled for his cigar-case, and when the field came pounding up over the bridge and around the hill, they saw him seated nonchalantly on his saddle, puffing critically at a cigar and giving Satan patronizing pats on the head. "My dear girl," said old Mr. Paddock to his daughter as they rode back, "if you love that young man of yours and want to keep him, make him promise to give up rid- ing. A more reckless and more brilliant horseman I have never seen. He took that double jump at the gate and that stream like a centaur. But he will break his neck sooner or later, and he ought to be stopped." Young Paddock was so delighted with his prospective brother-in- law's great riding that, that night in the smoking-room he made him a present of Satan before all the men. "No," said Travers, gloomily, "I can't take him. Your sister has asked me to give up what is dearer to me than anything next to herself, and that is my riding. You see, she is absurdly anxious for my safety, and she has asked me to promise never to ride again, and I have given my word." A chorus of sympathetic remonstrances rose from the men. "Yes, I know," said Travers to her brother, "it is rough, but it just shows what sacrifices a man will make for the woman he loves." 1 8. Frank Norris (i 870-1 902), a journalist residing in Cal- ifornia at the time of his death, was one of the most promising of the younger group of novelists. He attained distinction through The Octopus (1901), which was the first of a series of three novels in which he planned " the epic of the wheat." The second story, The Pit, came out in 1903, but the last one planned, The Wolf, was never written. The Wheat Pit (From The Pit, Chapter III) It was a vast enclosure, lighted on either side by great windows of coloured glass, the roof supported by thin Later and Present-Day Writers 345 iron pillars elaborately decorated. To the left were the bulletin blackboards, and beyond these, in the northwest angle of the floor, a great railed-in space where the Western Union Telegraph was installed. To the right, on the other side of the room, a row of tables, laden with neatly arranged paper bags, half full of samples of grains, stretched along the east wall from the doorway of the pubhc room at one end to the telephone room at the other. The centre of the floor was occupied by the pits. To the left and to the front of Landry the provision pit, to the right the corn pit, while further on at the north ex- tremity of the floor, and nearly under the visitors' gallery, much larger than the other two, and flanked by the wicket of the official recorder, was the wheat pit itself. Directly opposite the visitors' gallery, high upon the south wall, a great dial was affixed, and on the dial a mark- ing hand that indicated the current price of wheat, fluc- tuating with the changes made in the Pit. Just now it stood at ninety-three and three-eighths, the closing quo- tation of the preceding day. As yet all the pits were empty. It was some fifteen minutes after nine. Landry checked his hat and coat at the coat room near 'the north entrance, and shpped into an old tennis jacket of striped blue flannel. Then, hatless, his hands in his pockets, he leisurely crossed the floor, and sat down in one of the chairs that were ranged in files upon the floor in front of the telegraph enclosure. He scrutinised again the despatches and orders that he held in his hands; then, having fixed them in his memory, tore them into very small bits, looking vaguely about the room, developing his plan of campaign for the morning. Meanwhile the floor was beginning to fill up. Over in the railed-in space, where the hundreds of telegraph in- struments were in place, the operators were arriving in twos and threes. They hung their hats and ulsters upon the pegs in the wall back of them, and in hnen coats, or in their shirt-sleeves, went to their seats, or, sitting upon their 346 American Literature tables, called back and forth to each other, joshing, crack- ing jokes. Some few addressed themselves directly to work, and here and there the intermittent clicking of a key began, like a diligent cricket busking himself in advance of its mates. From the corridors on the ground floor up through the south doors came the pit traders in increasing groups. The noise of footsteps began to echo from the high vaulting of the roof. A messenger boy crossed the floor chanting an unintelKgible name. The groups of traders gradually converged upon the corn and wheat pits, and on the steps of the latter, their arms crossed upon their knees, two men, one wearing a silk skull cap all awry, conversed earnestly in low tones. But by now it was near to half-past nine. From the Western Union desks the clicking of the throng of instru- ments rose into the air in an incessant staccato stridula- tion. The messenger boys ran back and forth at top speed, dodging in and out among the knots of clerks and traders, colHding with one another, and without interruption in- toning the names of those for whom they had despatches. The throng of traders concentrated upon the pits, and at every moment the deep-toned hum of the murmur of many voices swelled like the rising of a tide. The official reporter climbed to his perch in the little cage on the edge of the Pit, shutting the door after him. By now the chanting of the messenger boys was an unin- terrupted chorus. From all sides of the building, and in every direction, they crossed and recrossed each other, al- ways running, their hands full of yellow envelopes. From the telephone alcoves came the prolonged, musical rasp of the call bells. In the Western Union booths the keys of the multitude of instruments raged incessantly. Bare- headed young men hurried up to one another, conferred an instant comparing despatches, then separated, darting away at top speed. Men called to each other half-way Later and Present- Day Writers 347 across the building. Over by the bulletin boards clerks and agents made careful memoranda of primary receipts, and noted down the amount of wheat on passage, the ex- ports and the imports. And all these sounds, the clatter of the telegraph, the intoning of the messenger boys, the shouts and cries of clerks and traders, the shuffle and tramphng of hundreds of feet, the whirring of telephone signals rose into the troubled air, and mingled overhead to form a vast note, prolonged, sustained, that reverberated from vault to vault of the airy roof, and issued from every doorway, every opened window in one long roll of uninterrupted thunder. In the Wheat Pit the bids, no longer obedient of restraint, began one by one to burst out, Hke the first isolated shots of a skirmish Hne. Then suddenly, cutting squarely athwart the vague crescendo of the floor, came the single incisive stroke of a great gong. Instantly a tumult was unchained. Arms were flung upward in strenuous gestures, and from above the crowding heads in the Wheat Pit a multitude of hands, eager, the fingers extended, leaped into the air. All articulate expression was lost in the single explosion of sound as the traders surged downwards to the centre of the Pit, grabbing each other, struggHng towards each other, tramping, stamping, charging through with might and main. Promptly the hand on the great dial above the clock stirred and trembled, and as though driven by the tempest breath of the Pit moved upward through the degrees of its circle. It paused, wavered, stopped at length, and on the instant the hundreds of telegraph keys scattered throughout the building began chcking off the news to the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Mackinac to Mexico, that the Chicago market had made a shght advance and that May wheat, which had closed the day before at ninety-three and three-eighths, had opened that morning at ninety-four and a half. 348 American Literature By degrees the clamour died away, ceased, began again irregularly, then abruptly stilled. Here and there a bid was called, an offer made, like the intermittent crack of small arms after the stopping of the cannonade. . . . For an instant the shoutings were renewed. Then sud- denly the gong struck. The traders began slowly to leave the Pit. One of the floor officers, an old fellow in uniform and vizored cap, appeared, gently shouldering towards the door the groups wherein the bidding and offering were still languidly going on. His voice full of remonstration he repeated continually: "Time's up, gentlemen. Go on now and get your lunch. Lunch time now. Go on now, or I'll have to report you. Time's up." The tide set toward the doorways. In the gallery the few visitors rose, putting on coats and wraps. Over by the check counter, to the right of the south entrance to the floor, a throng of brokers and traders jostled each other, reaching over one another's shoulders for hats and ulsters. In steadily increasing numbers they poured out of the north and south entrances, on their way to turn in their trading cards to the offices. Little by little the floor emptied. The provision and grain pits were deserted, and as the clamour of the place lapsed away the telegraph instruments began to make themselves heard once more, together with the chanting of the messenger boys. Swept clean in the morning, the floor itself, seen now through the thinning groups, was littered from end to end with scattered grain — oats, wheat, corn, and barley, with wisps of hay, peanut shells, apple parings, and orange peel, with torn newspapers, odds and ends of memoranda, crushed paper darts, and above all with a countless multi- tude of yellow telegraph forms, thousands upon thousands, crumpled and muddied under the trampling of innumer- able feet. It was the debris of the battle-field, the aban- doned impedimenta and broken weapons of contending armies, the detritus of conflict, torn, broken, and rent, that at the end of each day's combat encumbered the field. Later and Present- Day Writers 349 At last even the click of the last telegraph key died down. Shouldering themselves into their overcoats, the operators departed, calling back and forth to one another, making "dates," and cracking jokes. Washerwomen appeared with steaming pails; porters pushing great brooms before them began gathering the refuse of the floor into heaps. A cat, grey and striped, wearing a dog collar of nickel and red leather, issued from the coat room and picked her way across the floor. Evidently she was in a mood of the most ingratiating friendhness, and as one after another of the departing traders spoke to her, raised her tail in the air and arched her back against the legs of the empty chairs. The janitor put in an appearance, lowering the tall colored windows with a long rod. A noise of hammer- ing and the scrape of saws began to issue from a corner where a couple of carpenters tinkered about one of the sample tables. Then at last even the settlement clerks took themselves off. At once there was a great silence, broken only by the harsh rasp of the carpenters' saws and the voice of the janitor exchanging jokes with the washerwomen. The sound of footsteps in distant quarters re-echoed as if in a church. The washerwomen invaded the floor, spreading soapy and steaming water before them. Over by the sample tables a negro porter in shirt-sleeves swept entire bushels of spilled wheat, crushed, broken, and sodden, into his dust pans. The day's campaign was over. It was past two o'clock. On the great dial against the eastern wall the indicator stood — sentinel fashion — at ninety-three. Not till the following morning would the whirlpool, the great central force that spun the Niagara of wheat in its grip, thunder and bellow again. Later on even the washerwomen, even the porter and janitor, departed. An unbroken silence, the peacefulness of an untroubled calm, settled over the place. The rays 350 American Literature of the afternoon sun flooded through the west windows in long parallel shafts full of floating golden motes. There was no sound; nothing stirred. The floor of the Board of Trade was deserted. Alone, on the edge of the abandoned Wheat Pit, in a spot where the sunlight fell warmest — an atom of life, lost in the immensity of the empty floor — the grey cat made her toilet, diligently licking the fur on the inside of her thigh, one leg, as if dislocated, thrust into the air above her head. 19. William Sidney Porter (186^910), popularly known as " O. Henry," has been called " themscoverer of the romance of New York's streets," the "Bret Harte of the city." He was a prolific writer of short stories dealing with New York life in the slums. It is said that he knew New York as no other author has known it. His stories are full of pathos and tragedy and a touch of humor withal. The Count and the Wedding Guest (In The Trimmed Lamp) One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott intro- duced him to a new boarder, a young lady. Miss Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured his name, and re- turned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan bowed with the grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for him social, business and political advancement, and erased the snuffy-brown one from the tablets of his consideration. Two weeks later Andy was sitting on the front steps enjoying his cigar. There was a soft rustle behind and above him, and Andy turned his head — and had his head turned. Just coming out the door was Miss Conway. She wore a night-black dress of crepe de — crepe de — oh, this thin Later and Present- Day Writers 351 black goods. Her hat was black, and from it drooped and fluttered an ebon veil, filmy as a spider's web. She stood on the top step and drew on black silk gloves. Not a speck of white or a spot of color about her dress anywhere. Her rich golden hair was drawn, with scarcely a ripple, into a shining, smooth knot low on her neck. Her face was plain rather than pretty, but it was now illuminated and made almost beautiful by her large gray eyes that gazed above the houses across the street into the sky with an expression of the most appealing sadness and melancholy. . . . Mr. Donovan suddenly reinscribed Miss Conway upon the tablets of his consideration. . . . "It's a fine, clear evening. Miss Conway," he said and if the Weather Bureau could have heard the confident emphasis of his tones it would have hoisted the square white signal and nailed it to the mast. "To them that has the heart to enjoy it, it is, Mr. Dono- van," said Miss Conway, with a sigh. . . . "I hope none of your relatives — I hope you haven't sus- tained a loss?" ventured Mr. Donovan. "Death has claimed," said Miss Conway, hesitating — "not a relative, but one who — but I will not intrude my grief upon you, Mr. Donovan." "Intrude?" protested Mr. Donovan. "Why, say. Miss Conway, I'd be dehghted, that is, I'd be sorry — I mean I'm sure nobody could sympathize with you truer than I would." Miss Conway smiled a little smile. And oh, it was sadder than her expression in repose. "'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and they give you the laugh,'" she quoted. "I have learned that, Mr. Donovan. I have no friends or acquaintances in this city. But you have been kind to me. I appreciate it highly." He had passed her the pepper twice at the table. "It's tough to be alone in New York — that's a cinch," said Mr. Donovan. "But, say — whenever this little old town does loosen up and get friendly it goes the limit. Say you took a little stroll in the park, Miss Conway — don't 352 American Literature you think it might chase away some of your mullygrubs? And if you'd allow me " "Thanks, Mr. Donovan. I'd be pleased to accept of your escort if you think the company of one whose heart is filled with gloom could be anyways agreeable to you." Through the open gates" of the iron-railed, old, down- town park, where the elect once took the air, they strolled and found a quiet bench. . . . "He was my fiance," confided Miss Conway, at the end of an hour. "We were going to be married next spring. . . . He was a real Count. He had an estate and a castle in Italy. Count Fernando Mazzini was his name. I never saw the beat of him for elegance. Papa objected, of course, and once we eloped, but papa overtook us, and took us back. I thought sure papa and Fernando would fight a duel. Papa has a livery business — in P'kipsee, you know. "Finally, papa came around all right, and said we might be married next spring. Fernando showed him proofs of his title and wealth, and then went over to Italy to get the castle fixed up for us. . . . And when Fernando sailed I came to the city and got a position as cashier in a candy store. "Three days ago I got a letter from Italy, forwarded from P'kipsee, saying that Fernando had been killed in a gondola accident. "That is why I am in mourning. My heart, Mr. Dono- van, will remain forever in his grave. I guess I am poor company, Mr. Donovan, but I can not take any interest in no one. I should not care to keep you from gaiety and your friends who can smile and entertain you. Perhaps you would prefer to walk back to the house?" . . . "I'm awful sorry," said Mr. Donovan gently. "No, we won't walk back to the house just yet. And don't say you haven't no friends in this city. Miss Conway. I'm awful sorry, and I want you to believe I'm your friend, and that I'm awful sorry." "I've got his picture here in my locket," said Miss Con- way, after wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. "I Later and Present- Day Writers 353 never showed it to anybody, but I will to you, Mr. Donovan, because I believe you to be a true friend." Mr. Donovan gazed long and with much interest at the photograph in the locket that Miss Conway opened for him. The face of Count Mazzini was one to command interest. It was a smooth, intelHgent, bright, almost a handsome face — the face of a strong, cheerful man who might well be a leader among his fellows. "I have a larger one, framed, in my room," said Miss Conway. "When we return I will show you that. They are all I have to remind me of Fernando. But he ever will be present in my heart, that's a sure thing." . . . Before they parted in the hall that evening she ran up- stairs and brought down the framed photograph wrapped lovingly in a white silk scarf. Mr. Donovan surveyed it with inscrutable eyes. "He gave me this the night he left for Italy," said Miss Conway. "I had one for the locket made from this." "A fine-looking man," said Mr. Donovan heartily. "How would it suit you. Miss Conway, to give me the pleasure of 3^our company to Coney next Sunday afternoon?" A month later they announced their engagement to Mrs. Scott and the other boarders. Miss Conway continued to wear black. A week after the announcement the two sat on the same bench in' the downtown park, while the fluttering leaves of the trees made a dim kinetoscopic picture of them in the moonhght. But Donovan had worn a look of abstracted gloom all day. He was so silent to-night that love's hps could not keep back any longer the questions that love's heart propounded. "What's the matter, Andy, you are so solemn and grouchy to-night?" "Nothing, Maggie." "I know better. Can't I tell? You never acted this way before. What is it?" "It's nothing much, Maggie." "Yes it is, and I want to know. I'll bet it's some other girl you are thinking about. All right. Why don't you go 354 American Literature and get her if you want her ? Take your arm away, if you please." "I'll tell you then," said Andy wisely; "but I guess you won't understand it exactly. You've heard of Mike Sulli- van, haven't you? 'Big Mike' Sullivan, everybody calls him." "No, I haven't," said Maggie. "And I don't want to, if he makes you act like this. Who is he?" "He's the biggest man in New York," said Andy, almost reverently. "He can do about anything he wants to with Tammany or any other old thing in the political line. . . . "Well, Big Mike's a friend of mine. I ain't more than deuce-high in the district as far as influence goes, but Mike's as good a friend to a little man, or a poor man, as he is to a big one. I met him to-day on the Bowery, and what do you think he does ? Comes up and shakes hands. ... I told him I was going to get married in two weeks. 'Andy,' says he, 'send me an invitation, so I'll keep in mind of it, and I'll come to the wedding.' That's what Big Mike says to me; and he always does what he says. "You don't understand it, Maggie, but I'd have one of my hands cut off to have Big Mike SulHvan at our wedding. It would be the proudest day of my Hfe." . . . "Why don't you invite him, then, if he's so much to the mustard?" said Maggie lightly. "There's a reason why I can't," said Andy sadly. "There's a reason why he mustn't be there. Don't ask me what it is, for I can't tell you." "Oh, I don't care," said Maggie. "It's something about politics, of course. But it's no reason why you can't smile at me." "Maggie," said Andy presently, "do you think as much of me as you did of your — as you did of the Count Mazzini?" He waited a long time, but Maggie did not reply. And then, suddenly she leaned against his shoulder and began to cry — to cry and shake with sobs, holding his arm tightly and wetting the crepe de Chine with tears. "There, there, there!" soothed Andy, putting aside his own trouble. "And what is it now?" Later and Present- Day Writers 355 "Andy," sobbed Maggie, "I've lied to you and you'll never marry me, or love me any more. But I feel that I've got to tell. Andy, there never was so much as the little finger of a count. I never had a beau in my life. But all the other girls had, and they talked about 'em, and that seemed to make the fellows like 'em more. And, Andy, I look swell in black — you know I do. So I went out to a photograph store and bought that picture, and had a httle one made for my locket, and made up all that story about the Count and about his being killed, so I could wear black. And nobody can love a liar and you'll shake me, Andy, and I'll die for shame. Oh, there never was anybody I liked but you — and that's all." But instead of being pushed away she found Andy's arm folding her closely. She looked up and saw his face cleared and smiling. "Could you — could you forgive me, Andy?" "Sure," said Andy. "It's all right about that. Back to the cemetery for the Count. You've straightened every- thing out, Maggie. I was in hopes you would before the wedding-day. Bully girl!" "Andy," said Maggie with a somewhat shy smile, after she had been thoroughly assured of forgiveness, "did you beheve all that story about the Count?" "Well, not to any large extent," said Andy, reaching for his cigar-case; "because it's Big Mike SulHvan's picture you've got in that locket of yours." 20. Winston Churchill (1871- ) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and is a graduate of the United States Naval Acad- emy. His field is chiefly that of the historical novel. Among his best works are Richard Carvel, The Crisis, and Coniston. Some Memories of Childhood (From Richard Carvel, Chapter II) One fifteenth of June two children sat with bated breath in the pinnace, — Dorothy Manners and myself. Mistress Dolly was then as mischievous a httle baggage as ever she 35G American Literature J proved afterwards. * She was coming to pass a week at the Hall, her parents, whose place was next to ours, having gone to Philadelphia on a visit. We rounded Kent Island, which lay green and " beautiful in the flashing waters, and at length caught 'sight of the old windmill, with its great arms majestically' turning, and the cupola of Carvel House shining white among the trees; and of the upper spars of the shipping, with sails neatly furled, lying at the long wharves, where the English wares Mr. Carvel had commanded for the return trip were unloading. Scarce was the pinnace brought into the wind before I had leaped ashore and greeted with a shout the Hall servants drawn up in a line on the green, grinning a welcome. Dorothy and I scampered over the grass and into the cool, wide house, resting awhile on the easy sloping steps within, hand in hand. And then away for that grand tour of inspection we had been so long planning together. How well I recall that sunny afternoon, when the shadows of the great oaks were just beginning to lengthen. Through the green- houses we marched, monarchs of all we surveyed, old Porphery, the gardener, presenting Mistress Dolly with a crown of orange blossoms, for which she thanked him with a pretty courtesy her governess had taught her. Were we not king and queen returned to our summer palace? And Spot and Silver and Song and Knipe, the wolf-hound, were our train, though not as decorous as rigid etiquette demanded, since they were forever running after the butter- flies. On v/e went through the stiff, box-bordered walks of the garden, past the weather-beaten sun-dial and the spinning-house and the smoke-house to the stables. Here old Harvey, who had taught me to ride Captain Daniel's pony, is equerry, and young Harvey our personal atten- dant; old Harvey smiles as we go in and out of the stalls rubbing the noses of our trusted friends, and gives a gruff but kindly warning as to Cassandra's heels. He recalls my father at the same age. Jonas Tree the carpenter, sits sunning himself on his bench before the shop, but mysteriously disappears when he sees us, and returns presently with a little ship he has Later and Present- Day Writers 357 fashioned for me that winter, all complete with spars and sails, for Jonas was a ship-wright on the Severn in the old country before he came as a King's passenger to the new. Dolly and I are off directly to the backwaters of the river, where the new boat is launched with due ceremony as the Conqueror, his Majesty's latest ship-of-the-hne. . . . How short those summer days ! All too short for the girl and boy who had so much to do in them. The sun rising over the forest often found us peeping through the bUnds, and when he sank into the Bay at night, we were still running, tired but happy, and begging patient Hester for half an hour more. "Lawd, Marse Dick," I can hear her say, ''you and Miss Dolly's been on yo' feet since de dawn. And so's I, honey." And so we had. We would spend whole days on the wharves. . . . Often we would mount together on the little horse Captain Daniel had given me, Dorothy on a pillion behind, to go with my grandfather to inspect the farm. . . . And all this time I was busily wooing Mistress Dolly; but she, little minx, would give me no satisfaction. I see her standing among the strawberries, her black hair waving in the wind, and her red lips redder still from the stain. And the sound of her childish voice comes back to me now after all these years. And this was my first proposal : — "Dorothy, when you grow up and I grow up, you will marry me, and I shall give you all these strawberries." "I will marry none but a soldier," says she, "and a great man." "Then I will be a soldier," I cried, "and greater than the Governor himself." And I beHeved it. "Papa says I shall marry an earl," retorts Dorothy, with a toss of her pretty head. "There are no earls among us," I exclaimed hotly. . . . "Our earls are those who have made their own way, like my grandfather." For I had lately heard Captain Clap- saddle say this and much more on the subject. But Dorothy turned up her nose. "I shall go home when I am eighteen," she said, "and 358 American Literature I shall meet his Majesty, the King." And to such an argument I found no logical answer. Mr. Marmaduke Manners and his lady came to fetch Dorothy home. He was a foppish little gentleman who thought more of the cut of his waistcoat than of the affairs of the province, and would rather have been bidden to lead the assembly ball than to sit in council with his Excel- lency the Governor. ... He had little in common with my grandfather, whose chief business and pleasure was to promote industry on his farm. Mr. Marmaduke was wont to rise at noon, and knew not wheat from barley, or good leaf from bad; liis hands he kept like a lady's, render- ing them almost useless by the long lace on the sleeves, and his chief pastime was card-playing. . . . Of Mrs. Manners I shall say more by and by. I took a mischievous deUght in giving Mr. Manners every annoy- ance my boyish fancy could conceive. The evening of his arrival he and Mr. Carvel set out for a stroll about the house, Mr. Marmaduke mincing his steps, for it had rained that morning. And presently they came upon the wind- mill with its long arms moving lazily in the Hght breeze, near touching the ground as they passed, for the mill was built in the Dutch fashion. I know not what moved me, but hearing Mr. Manners carelessly humming a minuet while my grandfather explained the usefulness of the mill, I seized hold of one of the long arms as it swung by, and before the gentlemen could prevent, was carried slowly upwards. Dorothy screamed, and her father stood stock still with amazement and fear, Mr. Carvel being the only one who kept his presence of mind. "Hold on tight, Richard!" I heard him cry. It was dizzy riding, though the motion was not great, and before I had reached the right angle I regretted my rashness. I caught a glimpse of the Bay with the red sun on it, and as I turned saw far below me the white figure of Ivie Rawlinson, the Scotch miller, who had run out. "O haith!" he shouted, "Haud fast, Mr. Richard!" And so I clung tightly and came down without much inconvenience, though indifferently glad to feel the ground again. Later and Present- Day Writeis 359 Mr. Marmaduke, as I expected, was in a great temper, and swore he had not had such a fright for years. He looked for Mr. Carvel to cane me stoutly. But Ivie laughed heartily and said: "I wad ye'll gang far for anither laddie wi' the spunk, Mr. Manners," and with a sly look at my grandfather, *'Ilka day we hae some sic whigmeleery." I think Mr. Carvel was not ill-pleased with the feat, or with Mr. Marmaduke's way of taking it. For afterwards I overheard him telling the story to Colonel Lloyd, and both gentlemen laughing over Mr. Manners's discomfiture. 21. Jack London (1876- ) is a promising young writer of the West. The Call of the Wild first brought his name before the public. He has since written many other stories both long and short. To THE Death (From The Call of the Wild, Chapter III) . . . Spitz, cold and calculating even in his supreme moods, left the pack and cut across a narrow neck of land where the creek made a long bend around. Buck did not know of this, and as he rounded the bend, the frost wraith of a rabbit still flitting before him, he saw another and larger frost wraith leap from the overhanging bank into the immediate path of the rabbit. It was Spitz. The rabbit could not turn, and as the white teeth broke its back in mid air it shrieked as loudly as a stricken man may shriek. . . . Buck did not cry out. He did not check himself, but drove in upon Spitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat. They rolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spitz gained his feet almost as though he had not been overthrown, slashing Buck down the shoulder and leaping clear. Twice his teeth clipped together, like the steel jaws of a trap, as he backed away for better footing, with lean and lifting lips that writhed and snarled. In a flash Buck knew it. The time had come. It was to the death. As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for the advantage, the scene came 360 American Literature to Buck with a sense of familiarity. He seemed to re- member it all, — the white woods, and earth, and moon- light, and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm. ... It was as though it had always been, the wonted way of things. Spitz was a practised fighter. . . . He never rushed till he was prepared to receive a rush; never attacked till he had first defended that attack. In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big white dog. Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they were countered by the fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and hps were cut and bleeding, but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then he warmed up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface, and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away. Then Buck took to rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawing back his head and curving in from the side, he would drive his shoulder at the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. But instead Buck's shoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped Hghtly away. Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard. The fight was growing desper- ate. And all the while the silent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down. As Buck grew winded. Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogs started up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited. But Buck possessed a quaHty that made for greatness — imagination. He fought by instinct, but he could fight by head as well. He rushed, as though attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept low to the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left fore leg. There was a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the trick and broke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz struggled madly Later and Present- Day Writers 361 to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleaming eyes, lolhng tongues and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing in upon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonists in the past. Only this time he was the one who was beaten. There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was a thing reserved for gentler climes. He ma- noeuvred for the final rush. The circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies on his flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, half crouch- ing for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone. Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth, snarling with horrible menace, as though to frighten off impending death. Then Buck sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at last squarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and looked on, the successful champion, the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and found it good. BIBLIOGRAPHY I. For Further Illustration Burnett, F. H.: Editha's Burglar. -■ My Robin. -- The Secret Garden. Through One Administration. Cable, G. W.: Old Creole Days. -Churchill, Winston: Coniston. Richard Carvel. ■Davis, R. H.: The Hungry Man was Fed. (In Van Bibber and Others.) Love Me, Love my Dog. (In Van Bibber and Others.) The Red Cross Girl. Deland, M. W.: Old Chej ter Tales. The Voice. Fox, John, Jr. : The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. 362 American Literature Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins: A New England Nun and Other Stories. Silence and Other Stories. Garland, H.: Main Travelled Roads. Rose of Butcher's Coolly. Harris, J. C.: Uncle Remus, His Songs and Sayings. Howells, W. D.: The Elevator. (In The Sleeping Car and Other Farces.) The Rise of Silas Lapham. Mrs. Johnson. (In Suburban Sketches.) A Memory that Worked Overtime. (In Between the Dark and the Daylight.) The Story of the Author's Life. (In The Howells Story Book, by Mildred Howells and Mary E. Burt.) James, H. R.: ^ Passionate Pilgrim. (In A Passionate Pilgrim.) ' The Madonna of the Future. (In A Passionate Pilgrim.) Daisy Miller. London, Jack: The Call of the Wild. Murfree, M. N.: The Young Mountaineers. The Raid of the Guerilla. Norris, F. : The Octopus. The Pit. Page, t. N.: Red Rock. Under the Crust. (Short stories.) Porter, W. S. (O. Henry) : The Hiding of Black Bill. (In Options.) The Voice of the City. (Short stories.) Seton, Ernest Thompson: Lives of the Hunted. Wild Animals I Have Known. Smith, F. H.: Colonel Carter of Cartersville. The Arm Chair at the Inn. (Short storied.) The Woodfire in No. J. (Short stories.) Stuart, R. McE.: A Golden Wedding and Other Tales. George Washington Jones. Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches. Wharton, E.: Italian Backgrounds. II. Prose — Non-Fiction I. Lyman Abbott (1835- ), editor of The Outlook, is a New York preacher and ethical teacher of note. His editorials are widely read. The following introduction to his article on the Open Shop is a splendid illustration of clear, logical reason- ing. Later and Present-Day Writers 363 The Open Shop (From an unsigned editorial which appeared in The Outlook, July 1 6, 1904) Our object in this article is, first, to define the issue joined between the ''open shop" and the "closed shop"; and, secondly, to give our judgment on that issue and the reasons upon which it is based. An open shop is one in which union men and non-union men may work side by side upon equal terms. A closed shop is one from which either union men are excluded by the employer, or non-union men are excluded by the union ; but, ordinarily, the term is applied only to those shops which are closed against non-union men by the refusal of union men to work with them. It is in that sense we use the phrase in this article. Are trades-unions justified in insisting upon the closed shop — in insisting, that is, upon the exclusion from the industry in which they are engaged of all workingmen who do not belong to the union? The arguments for the closed shop deserve careful con- sideration; they may be briefly stated thus: Workingmen have a right to choose with whom they shall work, as well as under whom they shall work. Sometimes the industry is made extra-hazardous by the employment of an incom- petent workingman; often it is made extra-difficult. For this reason a fireman has a right to refuse to work with a green locomotive engineer, or a locomotive engineer with a green fireman. But a workman has a right to protect not only his life, but also his feeling. He has the right to refuse to work in the intimacy of a common employment with a man who is persona non grata; and there is a real reason why the non-union man is persona non grata to the union man. Without sharing the expenses or the obhga- tions of the union, he gets — in improved conditions, better wages, and shorter hours — all the benefits which the union secures from the employer. The union man has a right to refuse to work with a companion who takes all the advan- tages of the union without sharing its burdens. More- over, if the shop is open on equal terms to both union men 364 American Literature and non-union men, the employer will be apt gradually to supplant the union men with non-union men because it is easy to increase the hours and reduce the wages where there is no union to interpose organized resistance to such industrial injustice. Finally, the object of the union is not merely to get larger wages, lessened hours, and better conditions. The workingman denies the assumed right of the employer to manage his business as he pleases. He insists that the employer and employed are partners in a common enterprise, and that the employee has a right to be consulted as to the conditions of the work, and to share in its prosperity when it is prosperous, as he is certain to share in its adversity when it is unprosperous. The object of the union is to secure a real co-operation for the working- man with the employer, on something like equal terms. This can be done only by "collective bargaining"; that is, by an agreement entered into by a body of workingmen acting together as a union, with the employer, who is gen- erally a body of capitalists acting together in a corporation. Only thus can democratization of industry be secured and the autocracy of industry be ended; and this result is indispensable in order to bring the industrial organization of America into harmony with its poHtical, educational, and rehgious organizations. These considerations seem to us to furnish very good reasons for the organization of labor. But do they also furnish good reasons for compelling workingmen to join organizations of labor against their will? For the real question at issue between the closed shop and the open shop is not. Shall labor organize in order to deal on terms of greater equahty with organized capital? but, Shall the laborer be' compelled to join such organization in order to get opportunity to labor ? This question is really two questions: Is the closed shop illegal? If not illegal, is it against the public interest, and therefore and to that extent immoral ? . . . 2. John Burroughs (1837- ) was born in New York State. He is a lover of nature and a writer of essays, most of Later and Present-Day Winters 365 which deal with out-of-door subjects. In a certain sense he may be called the successor of Thoreau. Nature in Poetry (From Introduction to Songs of Nature, edited by John Burroughs, 1901) ... I am surprised at the amount of so-called Nature poetry that has been added to English literature during the past fifty years, but I find only a Httle of it of perma- nent worth. The painted, padded, and perfumed Nature of so many of the younger poets I cannot stand at all. I have not knowingly admitted any poem that was not true to my own observations of Nature — or that diverged at all from the facts of the case. Thus, a poem that shows the swallow perched upon the barn in October I could not accept, because the swallow leaves us in August; or a poem that makes the chestnut bloom with the lilac — an instance I came across in my reading — would be ruled out on like grounds; or when I find poppies blooming in the corn in an American poem, as I several times have done, I pass by on the other side. In a bird poem I want the real bird as a basis — not merely a description of it, but its true place in the season and in the landscape, and no liberties taken with the facts of its life history. I must see or feel or hear the live bird in the verses, as one does in Wordsworth's "Cuckoo," or Emerson's "Titmouse," or Trowbridge's "Pewee." Lowell is not quite true to the facts when in one of his poems he makes the male oriole assist at nest building. The male may seem to superintend the work, but he does not actually lend a hand. Give me the real bird first, and then all the poetry that can be evoked from it. I am aware that there is another class of bird poems, or poems inspired by birds, such as Keats's "Ode to a Night- ingale," in which there is little or no natural history, not even of the sublimated kind, and yet that take high rank as poems. It is the "waking dream" in these poems, the translation of sensuous impressions into spiritual longings and attractions that is the secret of their power. When 366 American Literature the poet can give us himself, we can well afford to miss the bird. . . . The one thing that makes a poem anyway is emotion — the emotion of love, of beauty, of sublimity — and these emotions playing about the reality result in the true Na- ture poetry, as in Wordsworth, Emerson, and Bryant. The poet is not so much to paint Nature as he is to recreate her. He interprets her when he infuses his own love into her. 3. Hamilton Wright Mabie (1845- ) is a delightful essay writer. He is connected with the editorial department of The Outlook. The Feeling for Literature (From Books and Culture, Chapter V) The importance of reading habitually the best books becomes apparent when one remembers that taste depends very largely on the standards with which we are familiar, and that the ability to enjoy the best and only the best is conditioned upon intimate acquaintance with the best. The man who is thrown into constant association with inferior work either revolts against his surroundings or suffers a disintegration of aim and standard, which per- ceptibly lowers the plane on which he Hves. In either case the power of enjoyment from contact with a genuine piece of creative work is sensibly diminished, and may be finally lost. The delicacy of the mind is both precious and per- ishable; it can be preserved only by associations which confirm and satisfy it. For this reason, among others, the best books are the only books which a man bent on culture should read; inferior books not only waste his time, but they dull the edge of his perception and diminish his ca« pacity for delight. This delight, born afresh of every new contact of the mind with a real book, furnishes indubitable evidence that the reader has the feeling for literature, — a possession much rarer than is commonly supposed. It is no injustice to say that the majority of those who read have no feeling Later and Present- Day Winters 367 for literature; their interest is awakened or sustained not by the literary quality of a book, but by some element of brightness or novelty, or by the charm of narrative. Read- ing which finds its reward in these tilings is entirely legiti- mate, but is not the kind of reading which secures culture. It adds largely to one's stock of information, and it re- freshes the mind by introducing new objects of interest; but it does not minister directly to the refining and ma- turing of the nature. The same book may be read in entirely different ways and with entirely different results. One may, for instance, read Shakespeare's historical plays simply for the story element which runs through them, and for the interest which the skilful use of that element excites; and in such a reading there will be distinct gain for the reader. This is the way in which a healthy boy generally reads these plays for the first time. From such a reading one will get information and refreshment; more than one EngHsh statesman has confessed that he owed his knowledge of certain periods of English history largely to Shakespeare. On the other hand, one may read these plays for the joy of the art that is in them, and for the en- richment which comes fr ot it contact with the deep and tumultuous life which throbs through them; and this is the kind of reading which produces culture, the reading which means enlargement and ripening. The feehng for literature, like the feehng for art in gen- eral, is not only susceptible of cultivation, but very quickly responds to appeals which are made to it by noble or beautiful objects. It is essentially a feehng, but it is a feehng which depends very largely on intelligence; it is strengthened and made sensitive and responsive by con- stant contact with those objects which call it out. No rules can be laid down for its development save the very simple rule to read only and always those books which are literature. It is impossible to give specific directions for the cultivation of the feeling for Nature. It is not to be gotten out of text-books of any kind; it is not to be found in botanies or geologies or works on zoology; it is to be gotten only out of familiarity with Nature herself. Daily 3G8 American Literature fellowship with landscapes, trees, skies, birds, with an open mind and in a receptive mood, soon develops in one a kind of spiritual sense which takes cognizance of things not seen before and adds a new joy and resource to hfe. In like manner the feeling for literature is quickened and nourished by intimate acquaintance with books of beauty and power. Such an intimacy makes the sense of delight more keen, preserves it against influences which tend to deaden it, and makes the taste more sure and trustwor- thy. A man who has long had acquaintance with the best in any department of art comes to have, almost un- consciously to himself, an instinctive power of discerning good work from bad, of recognizing on the instant the sound and true method and style, and of feeling a fresh and constant delight in such work. His education comes not by didactic, but by vital methods. 4. Agnes Repplier (1857- ) was born in Philadelphia. She has made an enviable name for herself in the world of let- ters through her dehghtful essays. (For readings, see Bibliog- raphy, page 414.) 5. Theodore Roosevelt (iSsAjUl), President of the United States from 1901 to 1909,' wkSnroVmn New York City. He held many public offices before he became President, serving as police commissioner of New York City, member of the United States Civil Service Commission, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, during the first administration of President McKinley, Governor of New York, and Vice-President until the assassina- tion of President McKinley, when he became President. When the Spanish- American War broke out in 1898 he resigned his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and took an active part in the war. He is a great traveller and hunter of big game, a vigorous speaker, and a prolific writer — biography, history, and travel being his chief fields. The Winning of the West is, perhaps, his best-known book. Justice vs. Viintdictiveness (Speech made at Oyster Bay, New York, July 4, 1906) Mr. Chairman and you, my old friends and neighbors, you among whom I was brought up, and with whom I Later and Present- Day Writers 369 have lived for so many years, it is a real and glorious plea- sure to have the chance of being with you to-day, to say a few words of greeting to you, and in a sense to give an account of my stewardship. I say ''in a sense," friends, because, after all, the stewardship really has to give an account of itself. If a man needs to explain overmuch what he has done, it is pretty sure proof that he ought to have done it a little differently, and so as regards most of what I have done I must let it speak for itself. But there are two or three things about which I want to talk to you to-day and if, in the presence of the dominies, ^ I may venture to speak from a text, I shall take as my text the words of Abraham Lincoln which he spoke in a remark- able little address delivered to a band of people who were serenading him at the White House just after his reelec- tion to the Presidency. He said (I quote from memory only): "In any great national trial hereafter, the men of that day as compared with those of this will be as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as philosophy from which to learn wisdom, and not as wrong to be avenged." And he added later in the speech a touching and characteristic expression of his, saying, "So long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's breast." It is in just that spirit that we, as a nation, if we possess the power of learning aright the lessons to be taught us by Lincoln's life, will approach problems of to-day. We have not got the same problems nor as great problems as those with which the men of Lincoln's generation were brought face to face, and yet our problems are real and great, and upon the way in which we solve them will depend whether or not our children have cause to feel pride or shame as American citizens. If Lincoln and the men of his genera- tion, the men who followed Grant in the field, who upheld . the statesmanship of Lincoln himself in the council chamber — if these men had not done their full duty, not a man here would carry his head high as an American citizen. We have heard a great deal during the past year or two 370 American Literature of the frightful iniquities in our politics and our business life, the frightful wrongdoing in our social life. Now there is plenty of iniquity, in business, in politics, in our social life. There is every warrant for our acknowledging these great evils. But there is no warrant for growing hysterical about them. It is a poor trick to spend nine tenths of the time in saying that there never was such iniquity as is shown in this nation; and the remaining tenth in saying that we are the most remarkable nation that ever existed. We want to be more careful in blaming ourselves and more careful in praising ourselves. Overemphasis in praise, as well as overemphasis in blame, is apt to overreach itself; just as the man who promises too much — especially on the stump — is apt to strike the balance by performing too little. It is true that there is much evil; but in speaking about it do not let us lose our heads; and, above all, let us avoid the wild vindictiveness preached by certain dema- gogues — the vindictiveness as far as the poles asunder from the wise charity of Abraham Lincoln. The poorest of all emotions for any American citizen to feel is the emotion of hatred toward his fellows. Let him feel a just and righteous indignation where that just and righteous indignation is called for; let him not hesitate to inflict punishment where the punishment is needed in the interest of the public, but let him beware of demanding mere vengeance, and above all of inviting the masses of the people to such demand. Such a demand is alike un- christian and un-American, and the man who makes it is false to the highest duties, principles, and privileges of American citizenship. There is wrong and enough to fight. Fight it, cut it out, and, having cut it out, go your ways without either hatred or exultation over those at whose expense it has been necessary that it should be cut out. There are plenty of wrongs done by men of great means, and there are plenty of wrongs done by men of small means. Another sentence of Abraham Lincoln's which it is well to remember is, "There is a deal of human nature in mankind." If a man Late?' and Present- Day Writers 371 possesses a twisted morality, he will show that twisted morality wherever he happens to be. If he is not a man of really twisted morals, but an ordinary happy-go-lucky individual who does not think very deeply, he will often do what ought not to be done, if nobody brings home his duty to him, and if the chances are such as to render easy wrongdoing. This year in Congress our chief task has been to carry the government forward along the course which I think it might follow consistently for a number of years to come — that is, in the direction of seeking on behalf of the people as a whole, through the national government, which rep- resents the people as a whole, to exercise a measure of supervision, control, and restraint over the individuals, and especially over the corporations, of great wealth, in so far as the business use of that wealth brings it within the reach of the federal government. We have accomplished a fair amount, and the reason that we have done so has been, in the first place, because we have not tried to do too much, and, in the next place, because we have ap- proached the task absolutely free from any spirit of rancor or hatred. When it becomes necessary to curb a great corporation, curb it. I will do my best to help you, but I will do it in no spirit of anger or hatred to the men who own or control that corporation, and if any seek in their turn to do wrong to the men of means, to do wrong to the men who own these corporations, I will turn around and fight for them in defense of their rights just as hard as I fight against them when I think they are doing wrong. Distrust as a demagogue the man who talks only of the wrong done by the men of wealth. Distrust as a dema- gogue the man who measures iniquity by the purse. Mea- sure iniquity by the heart, whether a man's purse be full or empty, partly full or partly empty. If the man is a decent man, whether well off or not, stand by him; if he is not a decent man, stand against him, whether he be rich or poor. Stand against him in no spirit of vengeance, but only with the resolute purpose to make him act as 372 American Literature decent citizens must act if this republic is to be and to become what it should. 6. Booker T. Washington (i858-\^^-'?), the most famous negro of the day, is carrying on a great work for the elevation of his race at Tuskeegee, an industrial school which he founded. He has delivered many addresses both in this country and abroad and has published many articles and essays, his one theme being the negro. The Better Part (A speech delivered at the Thanksgiving Peace Jubilee Exercises, Chicago, October i6, 1898) Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: On an important occasion in the life of the Master, when it fell to Him to pronounce judgment on two courses of action, these memorable words fell from his lips: "And Mary hath chosen the better part." This was the supreme test in the case of an individual ! It is the highest test in the case of a race or nation. Let us apply this test to the American negro. In the life of our repubhc, when he has had the oppor- tunity to choose, has it been the better or worse part? When, in the childhood of this nation, the negro was asked to submit to slavery or choose death and extinction, as did the aborigines, he chose the better part, that which perpetuated the race. When, in 1776, the negro was asked to decide between British oppression and American independence, we find him choosing the better part, and Crispus Attucks, a negro, was the first to shed his blood on State Street, Bos- ton, that the white American might enjoy liberty forever, though his race remained in slavery. When, in 18 14, at New Orleans, the test of patriotism came again, we find the negro choosing the better part, and General Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no heart was more loyal and no arm more strong and useful in defence of righteousness. When the long and memorable struggle came between Later and Present- Day Writers 373 union and separation, when he knew that victory on the one hand meant freedom, and defeat on the other his con- tinued enslavement, with a full knowledge of the porten- tous meaning of it all, when the suggestion and the temp- tation came to burn the home and massacre wife and children during the absence of the master in battle, and thus ensure his liberty, we find him choosing the better part, and for four long years protecting and supporting the helpless, defenceless ones entrusted to his care. When, in 1863, the cause of the Union seemed to quiver in the balance, and there was doubt and distrust, the negro was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and the valor displayed at Fort Wagner and Port Hudson and Fort Pillow, testify most eloquently again that the negro chose the better part. When, a few months ago, the safety and honor of the republic were threatened by a foreign foe, ... we find the negro forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that discriminate against him in his own country, and again we find our black citizen choosing the better part. And if you would know how he deported himself in the field at Santiago, apply for answer to Shat- ter and Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let them tell how the negro faced death and laid down his life in defence of honor and humanity, and when you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the negro in the Spanish- American war . . . then decide within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country. This country has been most fortunate in her victories. . . . All this is well; it is magnificent. But there remains one other victory for Americans to win — a victory as far- reaching and important as any that has occupied our army and navy. We have succeeded in every conflict, except the effort to conquer ourselves in blotting out of racial prejudices. . . . Let us be as generous in peace as we have been brave in battle. Until we thus conquer ourselves, I 374 American Literature make no empty statement when I say that we shall have, especially in the southern part of our country, a cancer gnawing at the heart of the republic, that shall one day prove as dangerous as an attack from an army without or within. I know how vain and impotent is all abstract talk on this subject. In your efforts to "rise on stepping stones of your dead selves," we of the black race shall not leave you unaided. We shall make the task easier for you by acquiring property, habits of thrift, economy, intelligence, and character, by each making himself of individual worth in his own community. We shall aid you in this as we did a few days ago at El Caney and Santiago, when we helped you to hasten the peace we here celebrate. You know us; you are not afraid of us. When the crucial test comes, you are not ashamed of us. We have never be- trayed or deceived you. You know that as it has been, so it will be. Whether in war or in peace, whether in slavery or in freedom, we have always been loyal to the Stars and Stripes. 7. "William J. Bryan (i860- ) was born in Salem, Illinois. He is a great political leader who has been the Democratic nominee for President three times. At present (1914) he is Secretary of State. He is famous as a lecturer and is probably the most eloquent of living American orators. He is editor of The Commoner, a political weekly published in Lincoln, Ne- braska. The White Man's Burden (From an address delivered before the American Society, London, July 4, 1906) Our English friends, under whose flag we meet to-night, recalling that this is the anniversary of our nation's birth, would doubtless pardon us if our rejoicing contained some- thing of self-congratulation, for it is at such times as this Later and Present- Day Writers 375 that we are wont to review those national achievements which have given to the United States its prominence among the nations. But I hope I shall not be thought lacking in patriotic spirit if, instead of drawing a picture of the past, bright with heroic deeds and unparalleled in progress, I summon you rather to a serious consideration of the responsibility resting upon those nations which aspire to premiership. This Hne of thought is suggested by a sense of propriety as well as by recent experiences — by a sense of propriety because such a subject will interest the Briton as well as the American, and by recent experiences because they have impressed me not less with our national duty than with the superiority of Western over Eastern civilization. Asking your attention to such a theme, it is not unfitting to adopt a phrase coined by a poet to whom America as well as England can lay some claim, and take for my text "The White Man's Burden." Take up the White Man's burden — In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride. By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain, To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. Thus sings Kipling, and, with the exception of the third line (of the meaning of which I am not quite sure), the stanza embodies the thought which is uppermost in my mind to-night. No one can travel among the dark- skinned races of the Orient without feeling that the white man occupies an especially favored position among the children of men, and the recognition of this fact is accom- panied by the conviction that there is a duty inseparably connected with the advantages enjoyed. There is a white man's burden — a burden which the white man should not shirk even if he could, a burden which he could not 376 American Literature shirk even if he would. That no one ''Hveth unto himself or dieth unto himself" has a national as well as an in- dividual application. Our destinies are so interwoven that each exerts an influence directly or indirectly upon all others. Among the blessings which the Christian nations are at this time able — ^and in duty bound — to carry to the rest of the world, I may mention five: education, knowledge of the science of government, arbitration as a substitute for war, appreciation of the dignity of labor, and a high conception of life. In India, in the Phihppines, in Egypt, and even in Tur- key statistics show a gradual extension of education, and I trust I will be pardoned if I say that neither the armies nor the navies, nor yet the commerce of our nations, have given us so just a claim to the gratitude of the people of Asia as have our school-teachers, sent, many of them, by private rather than by public funds. The Christian nations must lead the movement for the promotion of peace, not only because they are enhsted under the banner of the Prince of Peace, but also because they have attained such a degree of intelligence that they can no longer take pride in a purely physical victory. Our country has reason to congratulate itself upon the success of President Roosevelt in hastening peace between Russia and Japan. Through him our nation won a moral victory more glorious than a victory in war. King Ed- ward has also shown himself a promoter of arbitration, and a large number of members of Parhament are enhsted in the same work. It means much that the two great Enghsh speaking nations are thus arrayed on the side of peace. Society has passed through a period of aggrandizement, the nations taking what they had the strength to take and holding what they had the power to hold. But we are already entering a second era — an era in which the na- tions discuss not merely what they can do, but what they should do, considering justice to be more important than physical prowess. In tribunals hke that of The Hague, Later and Present- Day Writers 377 the chosen representatives of the nations weigh questions of right and wrong, and give a small nation an equal hear- ing with great and a decree according to conscience. This marks an immeasurable advance. But is another step yet to be taken ? Justice after all is cold and pulseless, a negative virtue. The world needs something warmer, more generous. Harmlessness is bet- ter than harmfulness, but positive helpfulness is vastly superior to harmlessness, and we still have before us a larger, higher destiny of service. Even now there are signs of the approach of this third era, not so much in the actions of governments as in the growing tendency of men and women in many lands to contribute their means, in some cases their lives, to the intellectual and moral awakening of those who sit in dark- ness. Nowhere are these signs more abundant than in our own beloved land. Before the sun sets on one of these new centers of civilization it arises upon another. While in America and in Europe there is much to be cor- rected and abundant room for improvement, there has never been so much altruism in the world as there is to-day — never so many who acknowledge the indissoluble tie that binds each to every other member of the race. I have felt more pride in my own countrymen than ever before as I have visited the circuit of schools, hospitals, and churches which American money has built around the world. The example of the Christian nations, though but feebly reflecting the light of the Master, is gradually re- forming society. On the walls of the temple at Karnak an ancient artist carved a picture of an Egyptian king. He is represented as holding a group of captives by the hair — one hand raising a club as if to strike them. No king would be will- ing to confess himself so cruel to-day. In some of the capitals of Europe there are monuments built from, or ornamented with, cannon taken in war. That form of boasting is still tolerated, but let us hope that it will in time give way to some emblem of victory which will imply helpfulness rather than slaughter. 378 American Literature 8. Finley Peter Dunne (1867- ) was for some years a journalist in Chicago. He is famous for his humorous comments on current events under the name of Mr. Dooley. Books (From Mr. Dooley Says) "Well, sir, if there's wan person in th' wurruld that I really invoy 'tis me frind th' ex-prisidint iv Harvard. What a wondherful thing is youth. Old fellows like ye'ersilf an' me make a bluff about th' avantages iv age. But we know there's nawthing in it. We have wisdom but we wud rather have hair. We have expeeryence, but we wud thrade all iv its lessons f'r hope and teeth. "It makes me cross to see mesilf settin' here takin' a post-grajate coorse in our cillybrated univarsity iv th' Wicked Wurruld an' watching th' freshmen comin' in. How happy they are but how seeryous. How sure they are iv iverything. Us old fellows are sure iv nawthin'; we laugh but we are not cheerful; but we have no romance about th' colledge. Ye don't hear us givin' nine long cheers f'r our almy mather. We ain't even thankful f'r th' lessons it teaches us or th' wallops it hands us whin we f 'rget what we've been taught. We're a sad lot iv old la-ads, hatin' th' school, but hatin' th' gradjation exercises aven more. "But 'tis a rale pleasure to see th' bright-faced freshmen comin' in an' I welcome th' last young fellow fr'm Harvard to our vin'rable institution. I like to see these earnest, clear-eyed la-ads comin' in to waken th' echoes iv our grim walls with their young voices. I'm sure th' other undher- gradjates will like him. He hasn't been spoiled be bein' th' star iv his school f'r so long. Charles seems to me to be th' normal healthy boy. He does exactly what all freshmen in our univarsity do whin they enther. He tells people what books they shud read an' he invints a new relligon. Ivry well-ordhered la-ad has to get these two things out iv his system at wanst. "What books does he advise, says ye? I haven't got th' complete list yet, but what I seen iv it was good. Later and Present- Day Writers 379 Speakin' f r mesilf alone, I don't read books. They are too stimylatin'. I can get th' wrong idees iv life fr'm dhrink. But I shud say that if a man was a confirmed book-reader, if he was a man that cuddent go to sleep without takin' a book an' if he read befure breakfast, I shud think that Dr. EHot's very old vatted books are comparatively harmless. They are sthrong, it is thrue. They will go to th' head. I wud advise a man who is aisily affected be books to stick to Archibald Clavering Gunter. But they will hurt no man who's used to readin'. He has sawed thim out care- fully. 'Give me me tools,' says he, 'an' I will saw out a five foot shelf iv books.' An' he done it. He has th' right idee. He real-izes that the first thing to have in a libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing. Other- wise th' Hbry may get mixed up with th' readin' matther on th' table. Th' shelf shud thin be nailed to th' wall iliven feet fr'm th' flure an' hermetically sealed. "What books does he riccomind? Iv course there's such folk-lore as Epicalaulus in Marsupia an' th' wurrks iv Hyperphrastus. But it shows how broad an' indulgent th' doctor's taste is that he has included Milton's Arryopatigica, if I have th' name right. This is what you might call summer readin'. I don't know how I cud describe it to ye, Hinnissy. Ye wuddent iiardly call it a detective story an' yet it aint a problem play. Areopapigica is a Greek gur-rl who becomes th' editor iv a daily newspaper. That is th' beginning iv th' plot. I won't tell ye how it comes out. I don't want to spile ye'er injymint iv it. But ye'll niver guess who committed th' crime. It is absolutely un- expicted. A most injanyous book an' wan iv th' best sellers in its day. There are four editions iv thirty copies each an' I don't know how manny paper-covered copies at fifty cents were printed f'r th' circulation on th' mail coaches. I'm not sure if it iver was dhramatized; if it wasn't there's a chanst f'r some manager. "Th' darin' rescue iv Areopatigica be Oliver Cromwell — but I won't tell ye. Ye must read it. There ar-re some awful comical things in it. I don't agree with Uncle Joe 380 American Literature Cannon, who says it is trashy. It is Hght, perhaps, even frivolous. But it has gr-reat merit. I can't think iv any- thing that wud be more agreeable thin lyin' in a hammock, with a glass iv somethin' in ye'er hand on a hot day an' readin' this little jim iv pure English an' havin' a proffissor fr'm coUedge within aisy call to tell ye what it all meant. I niver go f'r a long journey without a copy iv Milton's Agropapitica in me pocket. I have lent it to brakemen an' they have invariably returned it. I have read it to men that wanted to fight me an' quited thim. " Yet how few people iv our day have read it ! I'll bet ye eight dollars that if ye wait till th' stores let out ye can go on th' sthreet an' out iv ivry ten men ye meet at laste two, an' I'll take odds on three, have niver aven heerd iv this pow'-ful thragedy. Yet while it was runnin' ye cudden't buy a copy iv th' Fireside Companyon an' f'r two cinchries it has proticted th' shelves iv more libries thin anny iv Milton's pomes, f'r Hogan tells me this author, who ye hardly iver hear mentioned in th' sthreet cars at th' prisint moment, was a pote as well as an author an' bHnd at that, an' what is more, held a prom'nent pollytickal job, I wondher if two hundred years fr'm now people will cease to talk iv Wi'Iliailb Jennings Bryan. He won't, but will they?" A There isv^a remS^bly brilliant group of university men still living who have done much for education not only as instructors and directors, but through their writings. And the literary style of their work qualifies it for notice in any history of American literature which includes pres- ent-day authors. Among them are several college presi- dents and many university professors. The selection made here is considered representative. ^^ 9. Charles William Eliot (1834-%^), president emeritus of Harvard, is probably the most eminent living educator in America. He was chosen president o| Harvard in 1869 and held the position forty years. During that time he played an Later and Present- Day Writers 381 important part in shaping American ideals of education. He has written many essays and books on educational subjects. John Gilley (From John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman) John Gilley's first venture was the purchase of a part of a small coasting schooner called the Preference, which could carry about one hundred tons, and cost between eight and nine hundred dollars. He became responsible for one-third of her value, paying down one or two hundred dollars, which his father probably lent him. For the rest of the third he obtained credit for a short time from the seller of the vessel. The other two owners were men who belonged on Great Cranberry Island. The owners pro- ceeded to use their purchase during all the mild weather — perhaps six months of each year — in carrying paving- stones to Boston. These stones, unlike the present rec- tangular granite blocks, were smooth cobblestones picked up on the outside beaches of the neighboring islands. They of course were not found on any inland or smooth-water beaches, but only where heavy waves rolled the beach- stones up and down. The crew of the Preference must therefore anchor her off an exposed beachf and then, with a large dory, boat off to her the stones whicli they picked up by hand. This work was possible. only during moderate weather. The stones must be of tolerably uniform size, neither too large nor too small; and each one had to be selected by the eye and picked up by the hand. When the dory was loaded, it had to be Hfted off the beach by the men standing in the water, and rowed out to the vessel; and there every single stone had to be picked up by hand and thrown on to the vessel. A hundred tons having been thus got aboard by sheer hard work of human muscle, the old craft, which was not too seaworthy, was sailed to Boston, to be discharged at what was then called the "Stone Wharf" in Charlestown. There the crew threw the stones out of her hold on to the wharf by hand. They therefore lifted and threw these hundred tons of stone 382 American Literature three times at least before they were deposited on the city's wharf. The cobblestones were the main freight of the vessel; but she also carried dried fish to Boston, and fetched back goods to the island stores of the vicinity. Some of the island people bought their flour, sugar, dry- goods, and other family stores in Boston through the cap- tain of the schooner. John Gilley soon began to go as captain, being sometimes accompanied by the other owners and sometimes by men on wages. He was noted among his neighbors for the care and good judgment with which he executed their various commissions, and he knew him- self to be trusted by them. This business he followed for several years, paid off his debt to the seller of the schooner, and began to lay up money. It was an immense satisfaction to him to feel himself thus established in an honest business which he understood, and in which he was making his way. There are few soUder satisfactions to be won in this world by anybody, in any condition of Hfe. The scale of the business — large or small — makes little difference in the measure of content. In 1884 the extreme western point of Sutton's Island was sold to a "Westerner," a professor in Harvard College, and shortly after a second sale in the same neighborhood was effected; but it was not until 1886 that John Gilley made his first sale of land for summering purposes. In the next year he made another sale, and in 1894 a third. The prices he obtained, though moderate compared with the prices charged at Bar Harbor or North-East Harbor, were forty or fifty times any price which had ever been put on his farm by the acre. Being thus provided with what was for him a considerable amount of ready money, he did what all his hke do when they come into possession of ready money — he first gave himself and his family the pleasure of enlarging and improving his house and other buildings, and then lent the balance on small mortgages on village real estate. Suddenly he became a prosperous man, at ease, and a leader in his world. Up to this time, Later and Present- Day Writers 383 since his second marriage, he had merely earned a com- fortable livelihood by diversified industry; but now he possessed a secured capital in addition to his farm and his buildings. At last, he was highly content, but neverthe- less ready as ever for new undertakings. His mind was active, and his eye and hand were steady. When three cottages had stood for several years on the eastern foreside of North-East Harbor, — the nearest point of the shore of Mount Desert to Sutton's Island, — John Gilley, at the age of seventy-one, undertook to deliver at these houses milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables every day, and chickens and fowls when they were wanted. This undertaking involved his rowing in all weathers nearly two miles from his cove to the landings of these houses, and back again, across bay waters which are protected indeed from the heavy ocean swells, but are still able to produce what the natives call "a big chop." Every morn- ing he arrived with the utmost punctuality, in rain or shine, calm or blow, and alone, unless it blew heavily from the northwest (a head wind from Sutton's), or his little grandson — his mate, as he called the boy — wanted to ac- company him on a fine, still morning. Soon he extended his trips to the western side of North-East Harbor, where he found a much larger market for his goods than he had found thirty-five years before, when he first delivered milk at Squire Kimball's tavern. This business involved what was new work for John Gilley, namely, the raising of fresh vegetables in much larger variety and quantity than he was accustomed to. He entered on this new work with interest and intelligence, but was of course sometimes de- feated in his plans by wet weather in spring, a drought in summer, or by the worms and insects which unexpectedly attacked his crops. On the whole he was decidedly suc- cessful in this enterprise undertaken at seventy-one. Those who bought of him liked to deal with him, and he found in the business fresh interest and pleasure. Not many men take up a new out-of-door business at seventy, and carry it on successfully by their own brains and mus- cles. It was one of the sources of his satisfaction that he 384 American Literature thus supplied the two daughters who still lived at his house with a profitable outlet for their energies. One of these — the school-teacher — was an excellent laundress, and the other was devoted to the work of the house and the farm, and was helpful in her father's new business. John Gilley transported the washes from North-East Harbor and back again in his rowboat, and under the new conditions of the place washing and ironing proved to be more profitable than school-keeping. In the fall of 1896 the family which had occupied that summer one of the houses John Gilley was in the habit of supplying with milk, eggs, and vegetables, and which had a young child dependent on the milk, Ungered after the other summer households had departed. He consented to continue his daily trips a few days into October that the child's milk might not be changed, although it was per- fectly clear that his labor could not be adequately recom- pensed. On the last morning but one that he was to come across from the island to the harbor a strong northeast wind was blowing, and some sea was running through the deep passage between Sutton's Island and Bear Island, which he had to cross on his way to and fro. He took with him in his boat the young man who had been work- ing for him on the farm the few weeks past. They dehvered the milk, crossed to the western side of North- East Harbor, did some errands there, and started cheer- fully for home, as John Gilley had done from that shore hundreds of times before. The boy rowed from a seat near the bow, and the old man sat on the thwart near the stern, facing the bow, and pushing his oars from him. They had no thought of danger; but to ease the rowing they kept to windward under Bear Island, and then pushed across the deep channel, south by west, for the western point of Sutton's Island. They were more than half-way across when, through some inattention or lack of skill on the part of the young man in the bow, a sea higher or swifter than the rest threw a good deal of water into the boat. John Gilley immediately began to bail, and told the rower to keep her head to the waves. The overweighted boat Later and Present- Day Writers 385 was less manageable than before, and in a moment another roller turned her completely over. Both men clung to the boat and chmbed on to her bottom. She drifted away before the wind and sea toward South-West Harbor. The oversetting of the boat had been seen from both Bear Island and Sutton's Island; but it was nearly three quar- ters of an hour before the rescuers could reach the floating boat, and then the young man, though unconscious, was still clinging to the boat's keel, but the old man, chilled by the cold water and stunned by the waves which beat about his head, had lost his hold and sunk into the sea. In half an hour John GilLey had passed from a hearty and successful old age in this world, full of its legitimate in- terests and satisfactions, into the voiceless mystery of death. No trace of his body was ever found. It dis- appeared into the waters on which he had played and worked as boy and man all his long and fortunate Ufe. He left his family well provided for, and full of gratitude and praise for his honorable career and his sterling char- acter. This is the Hfe of one of the forgotten millions. It con- tains no material for distinction, fame, or long remem- brance; but it does contain the material and present the scene for a normal human development through mingled joy and sorrow, labor and rest, adversity and success, and through the tender loves of childhood, maturity, and age. We cannot but believe that it is just for countless quiet, simple Kves Hke this that God made and upholds this earth. lo. Thomas R. Lounsbury (1838- H (5 is a professor of English at Yale. He has written much about Shakespeare and Browning and made many contributions to the study of the English language. Browning's Unpopularity (From The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning) We know now that Browning felt keenly the injustice with which he was treated. We learn much about his 386 American Literature attitude from his wife's correspondence. Her resentment of the neglect he experienced was greater than his own; at least it has reached us more definitely. ''To you,'" she wrote to Browning's sister in i860, ''I may say, that the bhndness, deafness, and stupidity of the Enghsh pubhc to Robert are amazing. Robert is. All England can't prevent his existence, I suppose. But nobody there, except a small knot of pre-RaffaeUte men, pretends to do him justice. ]Mr. Forster has done the best in the press. As a sort of lion, Robert has his range in society, and, for the rest, you should see Chapman's returns; while in America, he's a power, a writer, a poet. He is read — he Hves in the hearts of the people." The contrast be- tween the estimate in which she and her husband were held in their own country and the feehng entertained about them in this, she expressed wath a good deal of bitterness. "For the rest," she continued, "the Enghsh hunt hons too, but their favorite Hons are chosen among 'lords' chiefly, or 'railroad kings.' 'It's worth eating much dirt,'' said an Enghshman of high family and character here, ' to get to Lady 's soiree.' Americans \\\\\ eat dirt to get to us. There's the difference." A year later IMrs. Browning records an instance of the ignorance prevaiHng about her husband and his work which, did it come from any other source than herself, it would be hard to credit. It occurs in a letter sent to her sister-in- law from Rome in 186 1. In it she speaks again of the atti- tude of his countrymen toward her husband and his sense of its injustice. "His treatment in England," she wrote, "affects him naturalh- — and for my part I set it down as an infamy of that pubhc— no other word. He says he has told you some things you had not heard, and which, I acknowledge, I always try to prevent him from repeating to any one. I wonder if he has told you besides (no, I fancy not) that an Enghsh lady of rank, an acquaintance of ours (observe that I) asked, the other day, the American Minister whether Robert was not an American. The Min- ister answered, 'Is it possible that you ask me this? Why, there is not so poor a' \'illage in the United States where J Later and Present- Day Writers 387 they would not tell you that Robert Browning was an Englishman, and that they were very sorry that he was not an American.' Very pretty of the American Min- ister — was it not? — and literally true besides." Undoubtedly the popularity of Browning in this country was exaggerated by his wdfe to give point to the contrast. But there is no question that the reading pubHc in England remained for a long time scandalously indifferent to his achievement and showed but slight appreciation of its greatness. The fact of the neglect must be conceded. Is there any explanation of it, any palhation for it? Is there in particular any ground for the charge of unneces- sary and wlful obscurity of meaning and harshness of versification, which whether really existing or merely asserted to exist militated constantly against the accep- tance of the poet as poet? BrowTiing himself was from the beginning well aware of his reputation for lack of clear- ness. In a letter sent in April, 1845, to his future wife he remarked that something he had written to her previously was '"pretty sure to meet the usual fortime of my writings — you will ask what it means." At times this complaint of obscurity afforded him matter for jest. He was fond of repeating a remark of Wordsworth about his marriage to Miss Barrett. "I hope," said the veteran poet, "that these young people wall make themselves intelhgible to each other, for neither of them will ever be intelhgible to anybody else." The woman soon to be his wife admitted her o^\^l liabiUty to this charge of obscurity. Occasionally too she herself found her future husband uninteUigible. "People say of you and me," she wrote to him in the be- ginning of their acquaintance, "that we love the darkness and use a Sphinxine idiom in our talk." She went on to make a personal application of this view to something which he had been writing to her. "Really," she said, "you do talk a httle hke a Sphinx." II. George Herbert Palmer (1842- ), for many years a professor at Harvard, is a frequent con; periodicals. His prose translation of/ become an English classic. ributor to educational Homer's Odyssey has 388 American Literature The Vocabulary (From Self -Cultivation in English) Obviously, good English is exact English, Our words should fit our thoughts hke a glove, and be neither too wide nor too tight. If too wide, they will include much vacuity beside the intended matter. If too tight, they will check the strong grasp. Of the two dangers, looseness is by far the greater. There are people who say what they mean with such a naked precision that nobody not famiUar with the subject can quickly catch the sense. George Herbert and Emerson strain the attention of many. But niggardly and angular speakers are rare. Too frequently words signify nothing in particular. They are merely thrown out in a certain direction, to report a vague and undetermined meaning or even a general emotion. The first business of every one who would train himself in language is to articulate his thought, to know definitely what he wishes to say, and then to pick those words which compel the hearer to think of this and only this. For such a purpose two words are often better than three. The fewer the words, the more pungent the impression. Brev- ity is the soul not simply of a jest, but of wit in its finest sense where it is identical with wisdom. He who can put a great deal into a little is the master. Since firm texture is what is wanted, not embroidery or superposed ornament, beauty has been well defined as the purgation of super- fluities. And certainly many a paragraph might have its beauty brightened by letting quiet words take the place of its loud words, omitting its "verys," and striking out its purple patches of "fine writing." Here is Ben Jonson's description of Bacon's language: "There happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speech. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry or pleased at his discretion." Such Later and Present- Day Writers 389 are the men who command, men who speak "neatly and pressly." But to gain such precision is toilsome business. While we are in training for it, no word must unpermittedly pass the portal of the teeth. Something like what we mean must never be counted equivalent to what we mean. And if we are not sure of our meaning or of our word, we must pause until we are sure. Accuracy does not come of itself. For persons who can use several languages, capital practice in acquiring it can be had by translating from one language to another and seeing that the entire sense is carried over. Those who have only their native speech will find it profitable often to attempt definitions of the common words they use. Inaccuracy will not stand up against the habit of definition. Dante boasted that rhythmic exigency had ever made him say what he did not mean. We heedless and unintending speakers, under no exigency of rhyme or reason, say what we mean but seldom and still more seldom mean what we say. To hold our thoughts and words in significant adjustment requires unceasing consciousness, a perpetual determina- tion not to tell hes; for of course every inaccuracy is a bit of untruthfulness. We have something in mind, yet con- vey something else to our hearer. And no moral purpose will save us from this untruthfulness unless that purpose is sufficient to inspire the daily drill which brings the power to be true. Again and again we are shut up to evil be- cause we have not acquired the abihty of goodness. Why, then, do we hesitate to swell our words to meet our needs? It is a nonsense question. There is no reason. We are simply lazy; too lazy to make ourselves comfort- able. We let our vocabularies be limited, and get along rawly without the refinements of human intercourse, without refinements in our own thoughts; for thoughts are almost as dependent on words as words on thoughts. For example, all exasperations we lump together as ''ag- gravating," not considering whether they may not rather be displeasing, annoying, offensive, disgusting, irritating, 390 American Literature or even maddening; and without observing, too, that in our reckless usage we have burned up a word which might be convenient when we should need to mark some shading of the word "increase." Like the bad cook, we seize the frying-pan whenever we need to fry, broil, roast, or stew, and then we wonder why all our dishes taste alike while in the next house the food is appetizing. It is all unneces- sary. Enlarge the vocabulary. Let any one who wants to see himself grow, resolve to adopt two new words each week. It will not be long before the endless and enchant- ing variety of the world will begin to reflect itself in his speech, and in his mind as well. I know that when we use a word for the first time we are startled, as if a fire- cracker went off in our neighborhood. We look about hastily to see if any one has noticed. But finding that no one has, we may be emboldened. A word used three times slips off the tongue with entire naturalness. Then it is ours forever, and with it some phase of life which had been lacking hitherto. For each word presents its own point of view, discloses a special aspect of things, reports some httle importance not otherwise conveyed, and so contributes its small emancipation to our tied-up minds and tongues. But a brief warning may be necessary to make my mean- ing clear. In urging the addition of new words to our present poverty-stricken stock, I am far from suggesting that we should seek out strange, technical, or inflated ex- pressions, which do not appear in ordinary conversation. The very opposite is my aim. I would put every man who is now employing a diction merely local and per- sonal in command of the approved resources of the En- glish language. Our poverty usually comes through pro- vinciality, through accepting without criticism the habits of our special set. My family, my immediate friends, have a diction of their own. Plenty of other words, recognized as sound, are known to be current in books, and to be employed by modest and intelligent speakers, only we do not use them. Our set has never said "dic- tion," or "current," or "scope," or "scanty," or "hitherto," or "convey," or "lack." Far from unusual as these words Later and Present- Day Writers 391 are, to adopt them might seem to set me apart from those whose intellectual habits I share. From this I shrink. I do not like to wear clothes suitable enough for others, but not in the style of my own plain circle. Yet if each one of that circle does the same, the general shabbiness is in- creased. The talk of all is made narrow enough to fit the thinnest there. What we should seek is to contribute to each of the Httle companies with which our Ufe is bound up a gently enlarging influence, such impulses as will not startle or create detachment, but which may save from humdrum, routine, and dreary usualness. We cannot be really kind without being a Httle venturesome. The small shocks of our increasing vocabulary will in all probabiHty be as helpful to our friends as to ourselves. Such, then, are the excellences of speech. If we would cultivate ourselves in the use of EngHsh, we must make our daily talk accurate, daring, and full. I have insisted on these points the more because in my judgment all hterary power, especially that of busy men, is rooted in sound speech. . . . \'J 12. Arlo Bates (1850- ), professor of EngHsh at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is well known for his essays in criticism. He has also written novels and poems. New Books (From Talks on the Study of Literature, Chapter XIII) The quaHty of "timeHness" is one of the things which makes it especially difficult to distinguish among new books. There is in this day an ever-increasing tendency to treat all topics of popular discussion in ways which profess to be imaginative, and especially in the narrative form. The novel with a theory and the poem with a purpose are so enveloped with the glamour of immediate interest that they appear to be of an importance far beyond that which belongs to their real merit. Curiosity to know what these books have to say upon the questions which most deeply interest or most vitally affect humanity is as natural as it is difficult to resist. The desire to see what a book 392 American Literature which is talked about is like is doubly hard to overcome when it is so easily excused under the pretense of gaining Hght on important questions. Time seems to be proving, however, that the amount of noise made over these theory- mongering romances is pretty nearly in adverse ratio to their worth. We are told in Scripture that wisdom calleth in the streets, and no man regardeth, but the opposite seems to be true of the clamors of error. The very vehe- mence of these books is the quahty which secures to them attention; and it is impossible wholly to ignore them and yet to keep in touch with the time. The practical question which instantly arises is how one is to know good books from bad until one has read then^^ How to distinguish between what is worthy of atted(Pm and what is ephemeral trash has perplexed many a sincere and earnest student. This is a duty which should devolve largely upon trained critics, but unhappily criticism is not to-day in a condition which makes it reliable or prac- tically of very great assistance where recent pubUcations are concerned. The reader is left to his own judgment in choosing among writings hot from the press. Fortu- nately the task of discriminating is not impossible. It is even far less difficult than it first appears. The reader is seldom without a pretty clear idea of the character of notorious books before he touches them. Where the multi- tude of publications is so great, the very means of adver- tising which are necessary to bring them into notice show what they are. Even should a man make it a rule to read nothing until he has a definite estimate of its merit, he will find in the end that he has lost little. For any purposes of the cultivation of the mind or the imagination the book which is good to read to-day is good to read to-morrow, so that there is not the haste about reading a real book that there is in getting through the morning paper, which be- comes obsolete by noon. When one considers, too, how small a portion of the volumes published it is possible to have time for, and how important it is to make the most Later and Present- Day Writers 393 of life by having these of the best, one reaHzes that it is worth while to take a good deal of trouble, and if need be to sacrifice the superficial enjoyment of keeping in the front rank of the mad mob of sensation seekers whose only idea of hterary merit is noise and novelty. It is a trivial and silly vanity which is unhappy because somebody — or because everybody — has read new books first. 13. David Starr Jordan (1851- ), until recently pres- ident of Leland Stanford University, California, is a scientist and a writer on a wide range of subjects. In his poems, stories, and essays he often shows the touch of the literary artist. The Death of McKinley ■MBj^m The Lessons of the Tragedy in The Voice oj the Scholar) The last words of Garfield were these: Strangulatus pro Republica (slain for the Repubhc). The feudal tyranny of the spoils system which had made repubhcan adminis- tration a'farce, has not had, since Garfield's time a defender. It has not vanished from our politics, but its place is where it belongs — among the petty wrongs of maladministration. Again a president is slain for the Republic — and the lesson is the homely one of peace and order, patience and justice, respect for ourselves through respect for law, for pubhc welfare, and for pubhc right. For this country is passing through a time of storm and stress, a flurry of lawless sensationahsm. The irrespon- sible journahsm, the industrial wars, the display of hastily gotten wealth, the grasping of monopoly, the walking delegate, the vulgar cartoon, the foul-mouthed agitator, the sympathetic strike, the unsympathetic lockout, are all symptoms of a single disease — the loss of patriotism, the decay of the sense of justice. As in other cases, the symp- toms feed the disease, as well as indicate it. The deed of violence breeds more deeds of violence; anarchy provokes hysteria, and hysteria makes anarchy. The unfounded scandal sets a hundred tongues to wagging, and the seepage from the gutter reaches a thousand homes. . . . 394 American Literature The gospel of discontent has no place within our Republic. It is true, as has often been said, that discontent is the cause of human progress. It is truer still, as Mr. John P. Irish has lately pointed out, that discontent may be good or bad, according to its relation to the individual man. There is a noble discontent which a man turns against himself. It leads the man who fails, to examine his own weaknesses, to make the needed repairs in himself, then to take up the struggle again. There is a cowardly discontent which leads a man to blame all failure on his prosperous neighbor or on society at large, as if a social system existed apart from the men who make it. This is the sort of dis- content to which the agitator appeals, that finds its stimulus in sensational journahsm. It is that which feeds the frenzy of the assassin who would work revenge on society by de- stroying its accepted head. The real Americans, trying to hve their lives in their own way, saving a httle of their earnings and turning the rest into education and enjoyment, have many grievances in these days of grasping trusts and lawless unions. But of such free Americans our country is made. They are the people, not the trusts or the unions, nor their sensational go-betweens. This is their government, and the govern- ment of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. This is the people's president — our president — who was killed, and it is ours to avenge him. Not by lynch law on a large or small scale may we do it; not by anarchy or despotism; not by the destruction of all that call themselves anarchists, not by abridging freedom of the press nor by checking freedom of speech. Those who would wreak lawless vengeance on the an- archists are themselves anarchists and makers of an- archists. We have laws enough already without making more for men to break. Let us get a httle closer to the higher law. Let us respect our own rights and those of our neigh- bor a little better. Let us cease to tolerate sensational falsehood about our neighbor, or vulgar abuse of those in Later and Present- Day Writers 395 power. If we have bad rulers, let us change them peace- fully. Let us put an end to every form of intimidation, wherever practiced. The cause that depends upon hurling rocks or epithets, upon clubbing teamsters or deraihng trains, cannot be a good cause. . . . We trust now that the worst has come, the foulest deed has been committed, that our civil wars may stop, not through the victory of one side over the other, the trusts or the unions now set off against each other, but in the victory over both of the American people, of the great body of men and women who must pay for all, and who are the real sufferers in every phase of the struggle. Strangulatus pro Repuhlica — slain for the Republic. The lesson is plain. It is for us to take it into our daily lives. It is the lesson of peace and good-will, the lesson of manhness and godhness. Let us take it to ourselves, and our neighbors will take it from us. . . . 14. Brander Matthews (1852- ) is a professor of En- glish at Columbia University, New York City, who has written many critical essays. His studies of the drama and the short story are his most notable contribution to American literature. The Story of ''My Maryland" (From The Songs of the Civil War, in Pen and hik) A National hymn is one of the things which cannot be made to order. No man has ever yet sat him down and taken up his pen and said, "I will write a national hymn," and composed either words or music which a nation was wilHng to take for its own. The making of the song of the people is a happy accident, not to be accompKshed by taking thought. It must be the result of fiery feehng long confined, and suddenly finding vent in burning words or moving strains. Sometimes the heat and the pressure of emotion have been fierce enough and intense enough to call forth at once both words and music, and to weld them together indissolubly once and for all. Almost always the maker of the song does not suspect the abiding value of 396 American Literature his work; he has wrought unconsciously, moved by a power within; he has written for immediate rehef to himself, and with no thought of fame or the future; he has builded better than he knew. The ^at national lyric is the re- sult of the conjunction of the hour and the man. Mon- archs cannot command it, and even poets are often power- less to achieve it. No one of the great national hymns has been written by a great poet. More than one enterprising poet, and more than one aspiring musician, has volunteered to take the contract to supply the deficiency; as yet no one has succeeded. 'Yankee Doodle' we got during the Revolution, and the 'Star-spangled Banner' was the gift of the War of 1812; from the Civil War we have received at least two war songs which, as war songs simply, are stronger and finer than either of these — 'John Brown's Body' and 'March- ing Tfirough Georgia.' Of the lyrical outburst which the war called forth but little trace' is now to be detected in Hterature except by special students. In most cases neither words nor music have had vitahty enough to survive a quarter of a century. Chiefly, indeed, two things only survive, one Southern and the other Northern; one a war-cry in verse, the other a martial tune: one is the lyric 'My Maryland,' and the other is the marching song 'John Brown's Body.' The origin and development of the latter, the rude chant to which a milHon of the soldiers of the Union kept time, is uncertain and involved in dispute. The history of the former may be declared exactly, and by the courtesy of those who did the deed — for the making of a war song is of a truth a deed at arms — I am enabled to state fully the circumstances under which it was written, set to music, and first sung before the soldiers of the South. 'My Maryland' was written by Mr. James R. Randall, a native of Baltimore, and now residing in Augusta, Georgia. The poet was a professor of EngKsh hterature and the classics in Poydras College at Pointe Coupee, on Later and Present- Day Writers 397 the Fausse Riviere, in Louisiana, about seven miles from the Mississippi; and there in April, 1861, he read in the New Orleans Delta the news of the attack on the Massa- chusetts troops as they pa^H through Baltimore. "This account excited me greatlyl^Mr. Randall wrote in answer to my request for information; "I had long been absent from my native city, and the startling event there inflamed my mind. That night I could not sleep, for my nerves were all unstrung, and I could not dismiss what I had read in the paper from my mind. About midnight I rose, lit a candle, and went to my desk. Some powerful spirit appeared to possess me, and almost involuntarily I pro- ceeded to write the song of 'My Maryland.' I remember that the idea appeared to first take shape as music in the brain — some wild air that I cannot now recall. The whole poem was dashed off rapidly when once begun. It was not composed in cold blood, but under what may be called a conflagration of the senses, if not an inspiration of the intellect. I was stirred to a desire for some way linking my name with that of my native State, if not 'with my land's language.' But I never expected to do this with one single, supreme effort, and no one was more surprised than I was at the widespread and instantaneous popularity of the lyric I had been so strongly stimulated to write." Mr. Randall read the poem the next morning to the college boys, and at their suggestion sent it to the Delta, in which it was first printed, and from which it was copied into nearly every Southern journal. "I did not concern my- self much about it, but very soon, from all parts of the country, there was borne to me, in my remote place of residence, evidence that I had made a great hit, and that, whatever might be the fate of the Confederacy, the song would survive it." Unlike the authors of the 'Star-spangled Banner' and the 'Marseillaise,' the author of 'My Maryland' had not written it to fit a tune already famihar. It was left for a lady of Baltimore to lend the lyric the musical wings it 398 American Literature needed to enable it to reach every camp-fire of the Southern armies. To the courtesy of this lady, then Miss Hetty Gary, and now the wife of Professor H. Newell Martin, of Johns Hopkins Universilj^ am indebted for a pictur- esque description of the ma^J^e of the words to the music, and of the first singing of the song before the Southern troops. The house of Mrs. Martin's father was the headquarters for the Southern sympathizers of Baltimore. Correspon- dence, money, clothing, suppHes of all kinds went thence through the Hues to the young men of the Confederate army. "The enthusiasm of the girls who worked and the 'boys' who watched for their chance to slip through the lines to Dixie's land found vent and inspiration in such patriotic songs as could be made or adapted to suit our needs. The glee club was to hold its meeting in our parlors one evening early in June, and my sister, Miss Jenny Cary, being the only musical member of the family, had charge of the programme on the occasion. With a school-girl's eagerness to score a success, she resolved to secure some new and ardent expression of feelings that by this time were wrought up to the point of explosion. In vain she searched through her stock of songs and airs — nothing seemed intense enough to suit her. Aroused by her tone of despair, I came to the rescue with the sugges- tion that she should adapt the words of 'Maryland, my Maryland,' which had been constantly on my lips since the appearance of the lyric a few days before in the South. I produced the paper and began declaiming the verses. 'Lauriger Horatius,' she exclaimed, and in a flash the immortal song found voice in the stirring air so perfectly adapted to it. That night, when her contralto voice rang out the stanzas, the refrain rolled forth from every throat present without pause or preparation; and the enthusiasm communicated itself with such effect to a crowd assembled beneath our open windows as to endanger seriously the Hberties of the party." 'Lauriger Horatius' has long been a favorite college song, and it had been introduced into the Cary household Later and Present- Day Writers 399 by Mr. Burton N. Harrison, then a Yale student. The air to which it is sung is used also for a lovely German lyric, 'Tannenbaum, O Tam^baum,' which Longfellow has translated 'O Hemloc|^«-ee.' The transmigration. of tunes is too large and fert^pS subject for me to do more here than refer to it. The taking of the air of a jovial college song to use as the setting of a fiery war-lyric may seem strange afcd curious, but only to those w^ho are not famihar -^h the adventures and transformations a tune is often made^o undergo. Hopkinson's 'Hail Columbia!' for example^Bis written to the tune of the 'President's March,' jusR?Mrs. Howe's 'Battle-Hymn of the Repub- Hc' was written to 'John Brown's Body.' The 'Wearing of the Green^f the Irishman, is sung to the same air as the 'Benn)^avens, !' of the West Pointer. The 'Star- spangled Banner' has to make shift with the second-hand music of 'Anacreon in Heaven,' while our other national air, 'Yankee Doodle,' uses over the notes of an old English nursery rhyme, 'Lucy Locket,' once a personal lampoon in the days of the 'Beggars' Opera,' and now sur\aving in the 'Baby's Opera' of Mr. Walter Crane. 'My Country, 'tis of Thee,' is set to the truly British tune of 'God Save the King,' the origin of which is doubtful, as it is claimed by the French and the Germans as well as the Enghsh. In the hour of battle a war-tune is subject to the right of capture, and, like the cannon taken from the enemy, it is turned against its maker. To return to 'My Maryland': — a few weeks after the wedding of the words and the music, Mrs. Martin, with her husband and sister, went through the Hnes, convoying several trunks full of miUtary clothing, and wearing con- cealed about her person a flag bearing the arms of Maryland, a gift from the ladies of Baltimore to the Maryland troops in the Confederate army. In consequence of reports which were borne back to the Union authorities the ladies were forbidden to return. "We were Hving," so Mrs. Martin writes me, "in Virginia in exile, when, shortly after the battle of Manassas, General Beauregard, hear- ing of our labors and sufferings in behalf of the Mary- 400 American Literature landers who had already done such gallant service in his command, invited us to visit them at his headquarters near Fairfax Court House^ending a pass and an escort for us, and the friends by ^v^hi we should be accompanied. Our party encamped the n^Bnight in tents prepared for us at Manassas, with my kinsman, Captain Sterrell, who was in charge of the fortifications there. We were sere- naded by the famous Washington Artillery •f New Orleans, aided by all the fine voices within reach. Cap^m Sterrell expressed our thanks, and asked if there were any service we might render in return. 'Let us hear a^Mnan's voice' was the cry which arose in response. And,^miding in the tent-door, under cover of the darkness, mv sister sang ' My Maryland ! ' This, I beheve, was the tVv of the song in the army. The refrain was speedily c^ipit up and tossed back to us from hundreds of rebel throats. As the last notes died away there surged forth from the gathering throng a wild shout — ' We will break her chains ! She shall be free ! She shall be free ! Three cheers and a tiger for Maryland ! ' And they were given with a will. There was not a dry eye in the tent, and, we were told the next day, not a cap with a rim on it in camp. Nothing could have kept Mr. Randall's verses from Hving and growing into a power. To us fell the happy chance of first giving them voice. In a few weeks ' My Maryland ! ' had found its way to the hearts of our whole people, and become a great national song." « • r _jt*i* 15. Henry van Dyke (1852-^^ ) was for many years pro- fessor of English literature at vPrinceton. He was recently ap- pointed United States Ministe? to Holland. He writes charm- ing poems, essays, and short stories and is, perhaps, as frequently quoted as any present-day writer because of his genius for the happy phrase. Salt (From Salt. Baccalaureate Sermon, Harvard University, June, 1898. "Ye are the salt of the earth." — Matthew 5 : 13) This figure of speech is plain and pungent. Salt is savory, purifying, preservative. It is one of those super- Later and Present- Day Writers 401 fluities which the great French wit defined as "things that are very necessary." From the very beginning of human history men have set a high value upon it and sought for it in caves and by the sekshore. The nation that had a good supply of it was counted rich. A bag of salt, among the barbarous tribes, was worth more than a man. The Jews prized it especially because they lived in a warm climate where food was difficult to keep, and because their rehgion laiid particular emphasis on cleanhness, and be- cause salt w^dargely used in their sacrifices. Now, froi^pne point of view, it was an immense com- pHment for?ffne disciples to be spoken to in this way. Their Master showed great confidence in them. He set a high value upon them. The historian Livy could find nothing better to express his admiration for the people of ancient Greece than this very phrase. He called them sal gentium, "the salt of the nations." But it was not from this point of view that Christ was speaking. He was not paying compliments. He was giving a clear and powerful call to duty. His thought was not that His disciples should congratulate themselves on being "better than other men. He wished them to ask themselves whether they actually had in them the purpose and the power to make other men better. Did they in- tend to exercise a purifying, seasoning, saving influence in the world? Were they going to make their presence felt on earth and felt for good? If not, they would be failures and frauds. The savor would be out of them. They would be hke lumps of rock salt which has lain too long in a damp storehouse; good for nothing but to be thrown away and trodden under foot; worth less than common rock or common clay, because it would not even make good roads. Men of privilege without power are waste material. Men of enhghtenment without influence are the poorest kind of rubbish. Men of intellectual and moral and re- ligious culture, who are not active forces for good in society, 402 American Literature are not worth what it costs to produce and keep them. If they pass for Christians they are guilty of obtaining re- spect under false pretenses. They were meant to be the salt of the earth. And the first duty of salt is to be salty. This is the subject on which I want to speak to you to-day. The saltiness of salt is the symbol of a noble, powerful, truly rehgious Hfe. You college students are men of privilege. It costs ten times as much, in labor and care and money, to bring you out where you are to-day as it costs the average man, and a hundred times as much as it costs to raise a boy without any education. This fact brings you face to face with a question: Are you going to be worth your salt? You have had mental training and plenty of instruction in various branches of learning. You ought to be full of intelligence. You have had moral discipline, and the in- fluences of good example have been steadily brought to bear upon you. You ought to be full of principle. You have had rehgious advantages and abundant inducements to choose the better part. You ought to be full of faith. What are you going to do with your intelhgence, your principle, your faith? It is your duty to make active use of them for the seasoning, the cleansing, the saving of the world. Do not be sponges. Be the salt of the earth. I. Think, first, of the influence for good which men of intelligence may exercise in the world if they will only put their culture to the right use. Half the troubles of mankind come from ignorance — ignorance which is sys- tematically organized with societies for its support and newspapers for its dissemination — ignorance which con- sists less in not knowing things than in willfully ignoring the things that are already known. There are certain physical diseases which would go out of existence in ten years if people would only remember what has been learned. There are certain political and social plagues which are propagated only in the atmosphere of shallow self-con- fidence and vulgar thoughtlessness. There is a yellow fever of hterature especially adapted and prepared for the spread of shameless curiosity, incorrect information, and Later and Present-Day Writers 403 complacent idiocy among all classes of the population. Persons who fall under the influence of this pest become so triumphantly ignorant that they cannot distinguish be- tween news and knowledge. They develop a morbid thirst for printed matter, and the more they read the less they learn. They are fit soil for the bacteria of folly and fa- naticism. Now the men of thought, of cultivation, of reason in the community ought to be an antidote to these dangerous influences. Having been instructed in the lessons of his- tory and science and philosophy they are bound to con- tribute their knowledge to the service of society. As a rule they are wilUng enough to do this for pay, in the pro- fessions of law and medicine and teaching and divinity. What I plead for is the wider, nobler, unpaid service which an educated man renders to society simply by being thought- ful and by helping other men to think. II. Think, in the second place, of the duty which men of moral principle owe to society in regard to the evils which corrupt and degrade it. Of the existence of these evils we need to be reminded again and again, just because we are comparatively clean and decent and upright people. Men who live an orderly life are in great danger of doing nothing else. We wrap our virtue up in little bags of re- spectabihty and keep it in the storehouse of a safe reputa- tion. But if it is genuine virtue it is worthy of a better use than that. It is fit, and it is designed and demanded, to be used as salt, for the purifying of human Hfe. What the world needs to-day is not a new system of ethics. It is simply a larger number of people who will make a steady effort to live up to the system that they have already. There is plenty of room for heroism in the plainest kind of duty. The greatest of all wars has been going on for centuries. It is the ceaseless, glorious con- flict against the evil that is in the world. Every warrior 404 American Literature who will enter that age-long battle may find a place in the army, and win his spurs, and achieve honor, and obtain favor with the great Captain of the Host, if he will but do his best to make his hfe purer and finer for every one that lives. It is one of the burning questions of to-day whether university Hfe and training really fit men for taking their share in this supreme conflict. There is no abstract an- swer; but every college class that graduates is a part of the concrete answer. Therein hes your responsibihty, Gentle- men. It Hes with you to illustrate the meanness of an education which produces learned shirks and refined skulkers; or to illuminate the perfection of unselfish cul- ture with the light of devotion to humanity. It lies with you to confess that you have not been strong enough to assimilate your privileges; or to prove that you are able to use all that you have learned for the end for which it was intended. III. It remains only to speak briefly, in the third place, of the part which rehgion ought to play in the purifying, preserving, and sweetening of society. Hitherto I have spoken to you simply as men of intelligence and men of principle. But the loftiest reach of reason and the strong- est inspiration of morality is religious faith. I believe that we are even now in the beginning of a renaissance of religion. I believe that there is a rising tide of desire to find the true meaning of Christ's teaching, to feel the true power of Christ's hfe, to interpret the true significance of Christ's sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. I believe that never before were there so many young men of culture, of intelhgence, of character, passion- ately in earnest to find the way of making their religion speak, not in word only, but in power. I call you to-day, my brethren, to take your part, not with the idle, the frivolous, the faithless, the selfish, the gilded youth, but with the earnest, the manly, the devout, the devoted, the Later and Present- Day Writers 405 golden youth. I summon you to do your share in the renaissance of rehgion for your own sake, for your fellow- men's sake, for your country's sake. 1 6. Barrett Wendell (1855- ) has been for many years professor of English at Harvard. He has written novels and poems and has made noteworthy contributions to the field of criticism. His Literary History of America is his best-known work. The American Short Story (From A Literary History of America, Book VI, Chapter V) Though newspapers are incalculably the most popular vehicles of modern American expression, there are other such vehicles generally familiar to our educated classes. The principal of these are the illustrated monthly magazines published in New York. These, which circulate by hun- dreds of thousands, and go from one end of the country to the other, provide the ordinary American citizen of to-day with his nearest approach to literature. A glance through any volume of any of them will show that the literary form which most luxuriantly flourishes in their pages is the short story. This development of short stories is partly a question of business. Short stories have usually been more profitable to writers and more convenient to editors than long novels; and at this moment poetry seems not to appeal to any considerable public taste. Partly, however, this prevalence of short stories seems nationally characteristic of American as distinguished from English men of letters. Of late, no doubt, England has produced one or two writers who do this kind of work extraordinarily well; there is no living American, for example, whose stories equal those of Mr. KipKng; but Mr. Kipling, a remarkable master of this difficult literary form, is a com- paratively new phenomenon in EngHsh literature. From the days of Washington Irving, on the other hand, Ameri- cans have shown themselves able to write short stories rather better than anything else. The older short stories of America — Irving's and Poe's and even Hawthorne's — 406 American Literature were generally romantic in both impulse and manner. Accordingly, however local their sentiment may have been, and however local in certain cases their descriptive pas- sages, they were not precisely documents from which local conditions might be inferred. The short stories of modern Americans differ from these by being generally reaHstic in impulse and local in detail. We have stories of decaying New England, stories of the Middle West, stories of the Ohio region and Chicago stories, stories of the Southwest, stories of the Rocky Mountains and of CaUfornia, of Virginia and of Georgia. In plot these generally seem conventionally insignificant. Their characters, too, have hardly reached such development as to become recognized national types. These characters, however, are often t}^ical of the regions which have suggested them; and the de- scription of these regions is frequently rendered in elab- orate detail with workmanlike effectiveness. On the whole, like all the hterature of the moment, in England and in America alike, these short stories lack distinction. The people who write them, one is apt to feel, are not Olympian in temper, but Bohemian. Our American Bohemia, how- ever, is not quite Hke that of the old world; at least it is free from the kind of recklessness which one so often asso- ciates with such regions; and the writing of our Bohemians preserves something of that artistic conscience which always makes the form of careful American work finer than that of prevalent work in the old country. In the short stories of American magazines, then, so familiar through- out the United States, we have a second type of popular literature not at present developed into masterly form, but ready to afford both a vehicle and a public to any writer of masterly power who may arise. 17. Woodrow Wilson (1856- ), an eminent scholar and writer on political theory, was elected President of the United States in 1912. He is a graduate of Princeton University, where he served as president from 1902 until 1910, when he resigned to become Governor of New Jersey. His book The State made him known in two continents. One of his more recent publications is Mere Literature and Other Essays. Later and Present-Day Writers 407 The Declaration of Independence (From President Wilson's Independence Day address delivered in Philadelphia, July 4, 1914) Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens — We are assembled to-day to celebrate the one-hundred-and-thirty-eighth an- niversary of the birth of the United States. I suppose we can more vividly realize the circumstances of that birth, standing on this historic spot, than it would be possible to reahze it anywhere else. The Declaration of Independence was written in Phila- delphia. It was adopted in this historic building. I have just had the privilege of sitting in the chair of the great man who presided over those whose deliberations resulted in its adoption. Here, my hand rests on the table upon which the declaration was signed. We can almost feel we are in the visible and tangible presence of a great historic transaction. But have you ever read the Declaration of Independence ? When you have heard it read, have you attended to its sentences? The Declaration of Independence is not a Fourth of July oration. The Declaration of Independence was a document preliminary to war. It involved a vital piece of business, not a piece of rhetoric. And if you will get further down in the reading than its preliminary pas- sages, where it quotes about the rights of men, you will see that it is a very specific body of declarations concern- ing the business of the day, not the business of our day, for the matter with which it deals is past — the business of revolution, the business of 1776. The Declaration of In- dependence does not mean anything to us merely in its general statements, unless we can append to it a similarly specific body of particulars as to what we consider our Uberty to consist of. Liberty does not consist in mere general declarations as to the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action. Therefore, standing here where the declaration was adopted, reading its businesslike 408 American Literature sentences, we ought to ask ourselves, what is there in it for us? There is nothing in it for us unless we can trans- late it into terms of our own condition, and of our own Hves. We must reduce it to what the lawyers call a bill of particulars. It contains a bill of particulars — the bill of particulars of 1776 — and, if we are to revitaUze it, we are to fill it with a bill of particulars of 1914. Every idea has got to be started by somebody and it is a lonely thing to start anything. Yet, you have got to start it if there is any man's blood in you, and if you love the country that you are pretending to work for. I am sometimes very much interested in seeing gentlemen sup- posing that popularity is the way to success in America. The way to success in America is to show you are not afraid of anybody except God and his judgment. If I did not beheve that, I would not beUeve in democracy. If I did not beheve that, I would not beheve people could govern themselves. If I did not beheve that the moral judgment would be the last and final judgment in the minds of men as well as the tribunal of God, I could not beheve in popular government. But I do beheve in these things and there- fore I earnestly beheve in the democracy, not only of Amer- ica, but in the power of an awakened people to govern and control its own affairs. So it is very inspiring to come to this that may be called the original fountain of hberty and independence in America, and take these drafts of patriotic feehngs which seem to renew the very blood in a man's veins. No man could do the work he has to do in Washington if he allows himself to feel lonely. He has to make himself feel he is part of the people of the United States, and then he can not feel lonely. And my dream is this, that as the years go on and the world knows more and more of Amer- ica, it also will bring out this fountain of youth and re- newal, that it will also turn to America for those moral inspirations that lie at the base of human freedom, that it will never fear America unless it finds itself engaged in Later and Present- Day Writers 409 some enterprise inconsistent with the right of humanity; that America will come to that day when all shall know she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the flag, not only of America, but the flag of human- ity. What other great people, I ask, has devoted itself to this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world can you look for instant sympathy that thrills the whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting for their rights ? I don't know that there ever will be another Declaration of Independence, a statement of grievances of mankind; but I beHeve if any such document is ever drawn, it will be drawn in the spirit of the American Declaration of In- dependence, and that America has Hfted the hght that will shine unto all generations and guide the feet of mankind to the goal of justice, liberty, and peace. 1 8. Nicholas Murray Butler (1862- ), one of America's foremost educators, is president of Columbia University. As a member of the New Jersey State Board of Education he intro- duced manual training into the schools of New Jersey. He founded the New York College for the Training of Teachers, which is now a part of Columbia University. He is editor of the Educational Review and has written many articles on educational subjects, some of which have been collected and published in a volume caWeiX'Tke Meaning oj Education. A characteristic extract fplit^ws.: '\ '^' Changes OE.3iE_j!iiNETEENTH Centu^ (Frpm '^^J3«tnocracy and EducatlorT"^ m T//f Meaning of ^^d^ehtion. ^An address delivered before the NationarEtkteaticmar Associa- tion at Buffalo, New York, July 7, 1896) . . . The material advances made since the present cen- tury opened are more numerous and more striking than the sum total of those that all previous history records. We find it difficult even to imagine the world of our grand- fathers, and almost impossible to appreciate or understand it. Without the factory, without the manifold products 410 American Literature and applications of steam and electricity, without even the newspaper and the sulphur match, the details of our daily Hfe would be strangely different. In our time wholly new mechanical and economic forces are actively at work, and have already changed the appearance of the earth's surface. What another hundred years may bring forth no one dares to predict. The scientific progress of the century is no less mar- vellous and no less revolutionary in its effects than the material advances. . , . The geology of Lyell, the as- tronomy of Herschel, the biology of von Baer, of Darwin, and of Huxley, the physiology of Miiller, the physics of Helmholtz and of Roentgen, are already a part of the com- mon knowledge of educated men. To us the world and its constitution present an appearance very different from that which was famihar to our ancestors. But most striking and impressive of all movements of the century is the pohtical development toward the form of government known as democracy. Steadily and doggedly throughout the ten decades the movement toward de- mocracy has gone its conquering way. When the cen- tury opened democracy was a chimera. It had been attempted in Greece and Rome and again in the Middle Ages; and the reflecting portion of mankind beUeved it to be a failure. Whatever its possibihties in a small and homogeneous community, it was felt to be wholly inap- pHcable to large states. The contention that government could be carried on by what Mill called collective medi- ocrity rather than by the intelHgent few, was felt to be preposterous. The horrible spectre of the French Revolu- tion was fresh in the minds of men. The United States, hardly risen from their cradle, were regarded by the states- men of Europe with a curiosity, partly amused, partly dis- dainful. Germany was governed by an absolute mon- arch, the grand-nephew of the great Frederick himself. In England a constitutional oligarchy, with Pitt at its head, was firmly intrenched in power. The Napoleonic reaction was in full swing in France. How different will be the spectacle when the twentieth century opens ! In Great Later and Present- Day Writers 411 Britain one far-reaching reform after another has left standing only the shell of oligarchy; the spirit and support of British civiHzation are democratic. Despite the influ- ence of Bismarck and the two Wilhams, great progress is being made toward the democratization of Germany. France, after a period of unexampled trouble and unrest, has founded a successful and apparently stable repubHc. The United States have disappointed every foe and falsified the predictions of every hostile critic. The governmental framework constructed by the fathers for less than four milUons of people, scattered along a narrow strip of sea- board, has expanded easily to meet the needs of a diverse population twenty times as large, gathered into great cities and distributed over an empire of seacoast, mountain, plain, and forest. It has withstood the shock of the greatest civil war of all time, fought by men of high intelhgence and de- termined con\dctions. It has permitted the development and expansion of a civiHzation in which there is equality of opportunity for all, and where the highest civil and miH- tary honors have been thrust upon the children of the plain people by their grateful fellow-citizens. . . . 19. Edward Alsworth Ross (1866- ), professor of so- ciology at the University of Wisconsin, is one of the most bril- liant of the younger university writers. His Hterary style is picturesque, original, and compeUing, and he has imdoubtedly a "gift of the right word." His writings are stimulating and should be enjoyed by the young reader. Besides magazine articles, he has written Social Control, Sin and Society, The Changing Chinese, and Changing America. China to the Ranging Eye (From The Changing Chinese, Chapter I) China is the European Middle Ages made visible. All the cities are walled and the walls and gates have been kept in repair with an eye to their effectiveness. The mandarin has his headquarters only in a walled fortress-city and to its shelter he retires when a sudden tempest of rebellion vexes the peace of his district. . . . 412 American Literature No memory of China is more haunting than that of the everlasting blue cotton garments. The common people wear coarse deep-blue "nankeen." The gala dress is a cotton gown of a delicate bird's-egg blue or a silk jacket of rich hue. In cold weather the poor wear quilted cotton, while the well-to-do keep themselves warm with fur-lined garments of silk. A general adoption of Western dress would bring on an economic crisis, for the Chinese are not ready to rear sheep on a great scale and it will be long be- fore they can supply themselves with wool. The Chinese jacket is fortunate in opening at the side instead of at the front. When the winter winds of Peking gnaw at you with Siberian teeth, you realize how stupid is our Western way of cutting a notch right down through overcoat, coat, and vest, apparently in order that the cold may do its worst to the tender throat and chest. On seeing the sensible Chinaman bring his coat squarely across his front and fasten it on his shoulder, you feel like an exposed totem- worshiper. Wherever stone is to be had, along or spanning the main roads are to be seen the memorial arches known as pailows, erected by imperial permission to commemorate some deed or Hfe of extraordinary merit. It is significant that when they proclaim achievement, it is that of the scholar, not that of the warrior. They enclose a central gateway flanked by two and sometimes by four smaller gateways and conform closely to a few standard types, all of real beauty. . . . In South-China cities a tall moat-girt building, six or seven stories high, flat-topped and with small windows high up, towers over the mean houses Kke a mediaeval donjon keep. It is the pawnshop, which also serves the pubHc as bank and safety deposit vault for the reason that it can for some hours bid defiance to any robber attack. In the larger centers sumptuous guild-halls are to be seen. . . . In the absence of good roads and draft animals the ut- most use has been made of the countless waterways and there are probably as many boats in China as in all the Later and Present- Day Writers 413 rest of the world. Nowhere else are there such clever river-people, nowhere else is there so lavish an application of man-muscle to water movement. The rivers are alive with junks propelled by rowers who occupy the forward deck and stand as they ply the oar. Sixteen or eighteen rowers man the bigger boats and as, bare to the waist, they forge by in rhythmic swing, chanting their song of labor, the effect is fine. Save when there is a stiff breeze to sail with, the up-river junks are towed along the bank, and, as no tow-path has ever been built, the waste of toil in scrambling along slippery banks, clambering over rocks, or creeping along narrow ledges with the tow-rope is dis- tressing to behold. In the South, population is forced from the land onto the water and myriads pass their Hves in sampans and house-boats. In good weather these poor families, living as it were in a single small room with a porch at either end, seem as happy as people anywhere. There is no landlord to threaten exaction, no employer to grind them down, no foreman to speed them up. There is infinite variety in the stirring fife of river and foreshore that passes under their eyes; the babble and chatter never cease and no one need ever feel lonely. The tiny home can be kept with a Dutch cleanHness for water is always to be had with a sweep of the arm. They pay no rent and can change neighbors, residence, scenery or occupation when they please. No people is more natural, animated, and self-expressive, for they have simplified life without im- poverishing it and have remained free even under the very harrow-tooth of poverty. Their children, httle river Arabs, have their wits sharp- ened early and not for long is the baby tied to a sealed empty jar that by floating will mark his location in case he tumbles into the water. The year-old child knows how to take care of himself. The tot of three or four can handle the oar or the pole and is as sharp as our boys of six or seven. . . . Although the gates of the Chinese city close at night, the city is by no means so cut off from the open country 414 American Literature as with us. The man in the street never quite lets go of his kinsfolk in the rural village. When, a little while ago, shipbuilding and repairing became dull in Hong Kong, there was no hanging of the unemployed about the wharves, not because they had found other jobs, but because most of them had dispersed to their ancestral seats in the coun- try, there to work on the old place till times improved. The man's family always give him a chance and there is rice in the pot for him and his. Nor is this tie with the mother-stem allowed to decay with the lapse of time. The successful merchant registers his male children in the ancestral temple of his clan, contributes to its upkeep and is entitled to his portion of roast-pork on the occasion of the yearly clan festival, visits the old home during the holidays, sends money back so that his people may buy more land, takes his children out so they will get acquainted and perhaps lets them pass their boyhood in the ancestral village so that, after he is gone, they will love and cherish the old tie to the soil. BIBLIOGRAPHY For Further Illustration Burroughs, John: Birds and Poets. Time and Change. Mabie, H. W. : Essays on Nature and Culture. Books and Culture. Repplier, A.: A Plea for Humor. (In Points of View.) The Fireside Sphinx. Roosevelt, T. : A Nation of Pioneers. (In Library of Oratory, vol. 14.) Life in the Wilderness. (From The Winning of the West, vol. I, chapter V.) Ross, E. A.: The Changing Chiyiese. Changing America. Van Dyke, H.: The Unknown Quantity. Days Off. The Ruling Passion. Wilson, W. : Mere Literature and Other Essays. Later and Present- Day Writers 415 ///. Poetry 1. Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was intimately associated with Stoddard, Taylor, and Aldrich in literary work in New York before the Civil War. After the war he became a banker and has since been known in the literary world as the " banker poet." His verses all show the touch of the literary artist. He ren- dered a great service to the student of literature through his Victorian Anthology, published in 1895, and his American Anthology, published in 1900. (For readings see Bibliography, page 441.) 2. Richard Watson Gilder (1844- 1909) is one of the fore- most American poets of this generation. He was born in New Jersey and early achieved a reputation in the literary world of New York City. For a long time he was editor of Scribner's Monthly, and later of the Century Magazine. His verses are polished and beautiful. The Sonnet What is a sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea; A precious jewel carved most curiously; It is a little picture painted well. What is a sonnet ? 'Tis the tear that fell From a great poet's hidden ecstasy; A two-edged sword, a star, a song, — ah me ! Sometimes a heavy-tolling funeral bell. This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath, The solemn organ whereon Milton played And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow faUs: A sea this is, — beware who ventureth ! For like a fiord the narrow floor is laid Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls. Compare with the above: Wordsworth's Scorn Not the Sonnet and Nuns Fret Not; Symonds's The Sonnet ; Rosset- ti's " A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument," from The House of Life : a Sonnet Sequence ; Watts's The Sonnet's Voice. 416 American Literature 3. Joaquin Miller (1841-1913) was one of the most pic. turesque figures in American literature. For many years he lived alone in the mountains near Oakland, California. He is known as the "poet of the Sierras." By the Pacific Ocean Here room and kingly silence keep Companionship in state austere; The dignity of death is here, The large, lone vastness of the deep; Here toil has pitched his camp to rest; The west is banked against the west. Above yon gleaming skies of gold One lone imperial peak is seen; While gathered at his feet in green Ten thousand foresters are told: And all so still ! so still the air That duty drops the web of care. Beneath the sunset's golden sheaves The awful deep walks with the deep, Where silent sea doves shp and sweep, And commerce keeps her loom and weaves. The dead red men refuse to rest; Their ghosts illume my lurid West. Dead in the Sierras His footprints have failed us, Where berries are red. And madronos are rankest, — The hunter is dead ! The grizzly may pass By his half-open door; May pass and repass On his path, as of yore; Later and Present- Day Writers 417 The panther may crouch In the leaves on his limb; May scream and may scream, — It is nothing to him. Prone, bearded, and breasted Like columns of stone; And tall as a pine — As a pine overthrown. His camp-fires are gone, What else can be done Than let him sleep on Till the light of the sun ? Ay, tombless! what of it? Marble is dust, Cold and repellent; And iron is rust, 4. Will Carleton (1845-1912) was a well-known journalist of Brooklyn, New York. He wrote many humorous and pathetic poems. (See Bibliography, page 440, for suggested readings.) 5. Eugene Field (1850-1895) was a Chicago journalist. His verses of child life are among the most charming in our lan- guage. He has been called the Poet Laureate of Children. Little Boy Blue The little toy dog is covered with dust. But sturdy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket moulds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was passing fair; And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue Kissed them and put them there. 418 American Literature "Now, don't you go till I come," he said, "And don't you make any noise !" So, toddling off to his trundle-bed, He dreamt of his pretty toys; And, as he was dreaming, an angel song Awakened our Little Boy Blue— Oh ! the years are many, the years are long, But the little toy friends are true ! Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand. Each in the same old place, Awaiting the touch of a little hand, The smile of a little face; And they wonder, as waiting the long years through In the dust of that little chair, What has become of our Little Boy Blue, Since he kissed them and put them there. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe, — Sailed on a river of crystal light Into a sea of dew. "Where are you going, and what do you wish?" The old moon asked the three. "We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of silver and gold have we," Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. The old moon laughed and sang a song. As they rocked in the wooden shoe; And the wind that sped them all night long Ruffled the waves of dew; The little stars were the herring-fish That lived in the beautiful sea. Later and Present- Day Writers 419 Now cast your nets wherever you wish, — Never afeard are we!" So cried the stars to the fishermen three, Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. All night long their nets they threw To the stars in the twinkling foam, — Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe, Bringing the fishermen home: 'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed As if it could not be; And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed Of saihng that beautiful sea; But I shall name you the fishermen three: Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. Wynken and Blynken are two Httle eyes, And Nod is a little head. And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies Is a wee one's trundle-bed; So shut your eyes while Mother sings Of wonderful sights that be, And you shall see the beautiful things As you rock on the misty sea Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three, — Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. 6. Edwin Markham (1852- ), now engaged in editorial work in New York City, was born in Oregon and spent his early life as a teacher in California, where he wrote his poem The Man with the Hoe. This is considered one of the great songs of labor. 420 American Literature The Man with the Hoe (Written after seeing the painting by Millet) God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He him. — Genesis. Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face. And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes, StoHd and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw ? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow ? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain ? Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave To have dominion over sea and land; To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; To feel the passion of Eternity ? Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns And pillared the blue firmament with hght? Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than this — More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed — More filled with signs and portents for the soul — More fraught with menace to the universe. What gulfs between him and the seraphim ! Slave of the wheel of labor, what to lum Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades ? What the long reaches of the peaks of song. The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop; Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, Plundered, profaned, and disinherited. Cries protest to the Judges of the World, A protest that is also prophecy. Later and Present- Day Writers 421 O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands. Is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ? How will you ever straighten up this shape; Touch it again with immortahty; Give back the upward looking and the light; Rebuild in it the music and the dream; Make right the immemorial infamies. Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes ? O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands. How will the Future reckon with this Man ? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings — With those who shaped him to the thing he is — When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, After the silence of the centuries ? Read John Vance Cheney's The Man with the Hoe. A Reply. _7r"-Jaines Whitcomb Riley (1853-/ I'l-*;), a journalist living in Indianapolis, is popularly known as "the Hoosier Poet." His verses in the dialect of the Indiana farmer are widely read and loved. He is pre-eminently the poet of the common people. The Old Man and Jim^ Old man never had much to say — 'Ceptin' to Jim, — And Jim was the wildest boy he had, And the old man jes' wrapped up in him ! Never heerd him speak but once Er twice in my Hfe, — and first time was When the army broke out, and Jim he went. The old man backin' him fer three months; And all 'at I heerd the old man say Was, jes' as we turned to start away, — ^ From Poems Here at Home, by James Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1903. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 422 American Literature "Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f ! " 'Peared like he was more satisfied Jes' lookbi' at Jim And likin' him all to hisse'f-like, see? 'Cause he was jes' wrapped up in him ! And over and over I mind the day The old man come and stood round in the way While we was drilHn', a-watchin' Jim; And down at the deepot a-heerin' him say, — "Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f !" Never was nothin' about the farm Disting'ished Jim; Neighbors all ust to wonder why The old man 'peared wrapped up in him: But when Cap. Biggler, he writ back 'At Jim was the bravest boy we had In the whole dern rigiment, white er black, And his fightin' good as his farmin' bad, — 'At he had led, with a bullet clean Bored through his thigh, and carried the flag Through the bloodiest battle you ever seen, — ■ The old man wound up a letter to him 'At, Cap. read to us, 'at said, — "Tell Jim Good-by; And take keer of hisse'f !" Jim come home jes' long enough To take the whim 'At he'd Kke to go back in the calvery — And the old man jes' wrapped up in him ! Jim 'lowed 'at he'd had sich luck afore, Guessed he'd tackle her three years more. And the old man give him a colt he'd raised, And follered him over to Camp Ben Wade, And laid around fer a week er so. Later and Present- Day Writers 423 Watchin' Jim on dress-parade; 'Tel finally he rid away, And last he heerd was the old man say, — "Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f !" Tuk the papers, the old man did, A-watchin' fer Jim, Fully behevin' he'd make his mark Some way — jes' wrapped up in him ! And many a time the word 'ud come 'At stirred him up like the tap of a drum: At Petersburg, fer instunce, where Jim rid right into their cannons there. And tuk 'em, and p'inted 'em t'other way, And socked it home to the boys in gray, As they skooted fer timber, and on and on — Jim a Heu tenant, — and one arm gone, — And the old man's words in his mind all day, — "Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f !" Think of a private, now, perhaps, We'll say like Jim, 'At's dumb clean up to the shoulder-straps — And the old man jes' wrapped up in him ! • Think of him— with the war plum' through, And the glorious old Red-White-and-Blue A-laughin' the news down over Jim, And the old man, bendin' over him — The surgeon turnin' aw^ay with tears 'At hadn't leaked fer years and years, As the hand of the dvin' boy clung to His Father's, the old voice in his ears, — "Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f ! " 8. Samuel Minturn Peck (1854- ) is an Alabama man of letters. His poems are very popular. 424 American Literature A Southern Girl Her dimpled cheeks are pale; She's a Hly of the vale, Not a rose. In a muslin or a lawn She is fairer than the dawn To her beaux. Her boots are sHm and neat, — She is vain about her feet. It is said. She amputates her r's. But her eyes are hke the stars Overhead. On a balcony at night, With a fleecy cloud of white Round her hair — Her grace, ah, who could paint? She would fascinate a saint, I declare. 'Tis a matter of regret. She's a bit of a coquette, Whom I sing: On her cruel path she goes With a half a dozen beaux To her string. But let all that pass by, As her maiden moments fly, Dew-empearled; When she marries, on my life, She will make the dearest wife In the world. Later and Present-Day Writers 425 My Little Girl My little girl is nested Within her tiny bed, With amber ringlets crested Around her dainty head; She hes so calm and stilly, She breathes so soft and low, She calls to mind a Kly Half-hidden in the snow. A weary Kttle mortal Has gone to slumberland; The Pixies at the portal Have caught her by the hand. She dreams her broken dolly Will soon be mended there. That looks so melancholy Upon the rocking-chair, ,» I kiss your wayward tresses. My drowsy little queen; I know you have caresses From floating forms unseen. O, Angels, let me keep her To kiss away my cares, This darling little sleeper, Who has my love and prayers. 9. Edith Thomas (1854- ) is a writer of note, living in New York City. Stedman says: "Her place is secure among the truest living poets of our English tongue." Mother England I There was a rover from a western shore, England ! whose eyes the sudden tears did drown, Beholding the white cliff and sunny down 426 American Literature Of thy good realm, beyond the sea's uproar. I, for a moment, dreamed that, long before, I had beheld them thus, when, with the frown Of sovereignty, the victor's palm and crown Thou from the tilting:field of nations bore. Thy prowess and thy glory dazzled first; But when in fields I saw the tender flame Of primroses, and full-fleeced lambs at play, Meseemed I at thy breast, like these, was nursed;' Then mother — Mother England ! home I came, Like one who hath been all too long away ! • II As nestling at thy feet in peace I lay, A thought awoke and restless stirred in me: "My land and congeners are beyond the sea. Theirs is the morning and the evening day, Wilt thou give ear while this of them I say: ' Haughty art thou, and they are bold and free, As well befits who have descent from thee. And who have trodden brave the forlorn way. Children of thine, but grown to strong estate; Nor scorn from thee would they be slow to pay, Nor check from thee submissly would they bear; Yet, Mother England! yet their hearts are great. And if for thee should dawn some darkest day At cry of thine how proudly would they dare!'" Doubt There may be canker at the rose's core. An arrow through the summer darkness flying — A poisoned breath in the green leaves' low sighing, And bane from Trebizond our bees may store; And thou, whose face makes sunshine at my door — How know I but those sweetest lips be lying. And in their perjuries thine eyes complying. What time they say, "Trust us f orevermore ? " Later and Present- Day Writers 427 But no ! beneath what seems I'll not be prying, Not though the rose have canker at its core — My love, not though thy sweetest Kps be lying ! To- doubt, were to receive some wounding score Each hour — each day and morrow to be d>ing; To Death I yield, but not to Doubt, who slays before ! lo. Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896) was for a long time editor of Puck. His poems are full of wit and humor, and his short stories are clever reflections of real life. The Way to Arcady Oh, what's the way to Arcady, To Arcady, to Arcady; Oh, what's the way to Arcady, Where all the leaves are merry ? Oh, what's the way to Arcady? The spring is rustling in the tree, — The tree the wind is blowing through, — It sets the blossoms flickering white. I knew not skies could burn so blue Nor any breezes blow so Hght. They blow an old-time way for me. Across the world to Arcady. Oh, what's the way to Arcady? Sir Poet, with the rusty coat, Quit mocking of the song-bird's note. How have you heart for any tune, You with the wayworn russet shoon ? Your scrip, a-swinging by your side, Gapes with a gaunt mouth hungry-wide. I'll brim it well with pieces red, If you will tell the way to tread. Oh, I am hound for Arcady, And if you hut keep pace with me You tread the way to Arcady. 428 American Literature And where away lies Arcady, And how long yet may the journey be ? Ah, that (quoth he) / do not know: Across the clover and the snow — Across the frost, across the flowers — Through summer seconds and winter hours, Pve trod the way my whole life long, And know not now where it may he; My guide is hut the stir to song, That tells me I cannot go wrong, Or clear or dark the pathway he Upon the road to Arcady. But how shall I do who cannot sing ? I was wont to sing, once on a time, — There is never an echo now to ring Remembrance back to the trick of rhyme. ^Tis strange you cannot sing (quoth he), — The folk all sing in Arcady. But how may he find Arcady Who hath nor youth nor melody? What, know you not, old man (quoth he), — Your hair is white, your face is wise,— That Love must kiss that Mortal's eyes Who hopes to see fair Arcady? No gold can huy you entrance there; But beggared Love may go all hare — No wisdom won with weariness ; But Love goes in with Folly's dress — No fame that wit could ever win ; But only Love may lead Love in To Arcady, to Arcady. Ah, woe is me, through all my days Wisdom and wealth I both have got, And fame and name and great men's praise; Later and Present- Day Writers 429 But Love, ah Love ! I have it not. There was a time, when Hfe was new — But far away, and half forgot — I only know her eyes were blue; But Love — I fear I knew it not. We did not wed, for lack of gold. And she is dead, and I am old. All things have come since then to me, Save Love, ah Love ! and Arcady. Ah, then I fear we part (quote he), — My ways for Love and Arcady. But you, you fare alone, Hke me; The gray is likewise in your hair. What Love have you to lead you there, To Arcady, to Arcady ? Ah, no, not lonely do I fare; My true companion's Memory. With Love he fills the Spring-time air ; With Love he clothes the Winter tree. Oh, past this poor horizon's hound My song goes straight to one who stands, — Her face all gladdening at the sound, — To lead me to the Spring-green lands. To wander with enlacing hands. The songs within my breast that stir Are all of her. are all of her, My maid is dead long years (quoth he), — She waits for me in Arcady. Oh, yon's the way to Arcady, To Arcady, to Arcady ; Oh, yon's the way to Arcady, Where all the leaves are merry. II. Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1855- ) is a contributor to the current magazines and a popular writer of verse. iJO American Literature Worth While ^ *Tis easy enough to be pleasant When life flows along like a song; But the man worth while is the one who will smile When everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, And it always comes with the years, And the smile that is worth the praise of earth Is the smile that comes through tears. It is easy enough to be prudent When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within no voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it's only a negative virtue Until it is tried by fire. And the life that is worth the honor of earth Is the one that resists desire. By the cynic, the sad, the fallen, Who had no strength for the strife, The world's highway is encumbered to-day; They make up the item of Hfe. But the virtue that conquers passion And the sorrow that hides in a smile — It is these that are worth the homage of earth, For we find them once in a while. Recrimination 2 I Said Life to Death: ''Methinks, if I were you, I would not carry such an awesome face To terrify the helpless human race; * Reprinted from Poems of Sentiment, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, copy- righted 1892, 1906, by special permission of the publishers, The W. B. Conkey Company, Hammond, Ind. ^ Reprinted from Poems of Power, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, copyrighted 1901, 1902, 1903, by special permission of the publishers, The W. B. Conkey Company, Hammond, Ind. Later and Present- Day Writers 431 And if indeed those wondrous tales be true Of happiness beyond, and if I knew About the boasted blessings of that place, I would not hide so miserly all trace Of my vast knowledge, Death, if I were you: But, like a glorious angel, I would lean Above the pathway of each sorrowing soul, Hope in my eyes, and comfort in my breath, And strong conviction in my radiant mien, The while I whispered of that beauteous goal. This would I do if I were you, O Death." II Said Death to Life: "If I were you, my friend, I would not lure confiding souls each day With fair, false smiles to enter on a way So filled with pain and trouble to the end; I would not tempt those whom I should defend, Nor stand unmoved and see them go astray; Nor would I force unwilUng souls to stay Who longed for freedom, were I you, my friend: But, like a tender mother, I would take The weary world upon my sheltering breast. And wipe away its tears, and soothe its strife; I would fulfil my promises, and make My children bless me as they sank to rest Where now they curse — if I were you, O Life." Ill Life made no answer, and Death spoke again: *'I would not woo from God's sweet nothingness A soul to being, if I could not bless And crown it with all joy. If unto men My face seems awesome, tell me. Life, why then Do they pursue me, mad for m.y caress, Believing in my silence lies redress For your loud falsehoods?" (so Death spoke again). "Oh, it is well for you I am not fair — Well that I hide behind a voiceless tomb 432 American Literature The mighty secrets of the other place: Else would you stand in impotent despair, While unfledged souls straight from the mother's womb Rushed to my arms and spat upon your face ! " 12. George E. Woodberry (1855- ) is a graduate of Harvard. For many years he was professor of English litera- ture at Columbia University. His verses show true poetic feel- ing. The Child It was only the cHnging touch Of a child's hand in the street, But it made the whole day sweet; Caught, as he ran full-speed, In my own stretched out to his need, Caught, and saved from the fall, As I held, for the moment's poise, In my circling arms the whole boy's DeHcate sHghtness, warmed mould; Mine, for an instant mine. The sweetest thing the heart can divine, More precious than fame or gold. The crown of many joys. Lay in my breast, all mine. I was nothing to him; He neither looked up nor spoke; I never saw his eyes; He was gone ere my mind awoke From the action's quick surprise With vision blurred and dim. You say I ask too much: It was only the clinging touch Of a child in a city street; It hath made the whole day sweet. America to England Mother of nations, of them eldest we, Well is it found, and happy for the state, Later and Present-Day Writers 433 When that which makes men proud first makest them great, And such our fortune is who sprang from thee, And brought to this new land from over sea The faith that can with every household mate. And freedom whereof law is magistrate, And thoughts that make men brave, and leave them free. O Mother of our faith, our law, our lore. What shall we answer thee if thou shouldst ask How this fair birthright doth in us increase ? There is no home but Christ is at the door; Freely our toiling millions choose life's task; Justice we love, and next to justice peace. 13. Harry Thurston Peck (1856-1914) was a Connecticut scholar who held for many years the chair of Latin at Columbia University. The Other One Sweet little maid with winsome eyes That laugh all day through the tangled hair; Gazing with baby looks so wise Over the arm of the oaken chair, Dearer than you is none to me. Dearer than you there can be none; Since in your laughing face I see Eyes that tell of another one. Here where the firelight softly glows, Sheltered and safe and snug and warm. What to you is the wind that blows, Driving the sleet of the winter storm ? Round your head the ruddy light GKnts on the gold from your tresses spun, But deep is the drifting snow to-night Over the head of the other one. Hold me close as you sagely stand, Watching the dying embers shine; Then shall I feel another hand 434 American Literature That nestled once in this hand of mine; Poor little hand, so cold and chill, Shut from the light of stars and sun, Clasping the withered roses still That hide the face of the sleeping one. Laugh, little maid, while laugh you may, Sorrow comes to us all, I know; Better perhaps for her to stay Under the robe of drifting snow. Sing while you may your baby songs, Sing till your baby days are done; But oh, the ache of the heart that longs Night and day for the other one ! 14. Richard Hovey (1864-1900) was a graduate of Dart- mouth. His genius was rather slow in maturing, but he showed great promise at the time of his death. He wrote Songs from Vagabondia in collaboration with Bliss Carman, a Canadian engaged in literary work in the United States. The Call of the Bugles Bugles ! And the Great Nation thrills and leaps to arms ! Prompt, unconstrained, immediate, Without misgiving and without debate, Too calm, too strong for fury or alarms. The people blossoms armies and puts forth The splendid summer of its noiseless might; For the old sap of light Mounts up in South and North, The thrill That tingled in our veins at Bunker Hill And brought to bloom July of 'Seventy-Six ! Pine and palmetto mix With the sequoia of the giant West Their ready banners, and the hosts of war. Near and far. Sudden as dawn, Later and Present- Day Writers 435 Innumerable as forests, hear the call Of the bugles, The battle-birds ! For not alone the brave, the fortunate, Who first of all Have put their knapsacks on — They are the valiant vanguard of the rest ! — Not they alone, but all our milHons wait, Hand on sword. For the word That bids them bid the nations know us sons of Fate. Bugles ! And in my heart a cry, — Like a dim echo far and mournfully Blown back to answer them from yesterday ! A soldier's burial ! November hillsides and the falHng leaves Where the Potomac broadens to the tide — The crisp autumnal silence and the gray (As of a solemn ritual Whose congregation glories as it grieves, Widowed but still a bride) — The long hills sloping to the wave, And the long bugler standing by the grave ! Taps! The lonely call over the lonely woodlands — Rising like the soaring of wings. Like the flight of an eagle — Taps! They sound forever in my heart. From farther still, The echoes — still the echoes ! The bugles of the dead Blowing from spectral ranks an answering cry ! The ghostly roll of immaterial drums, Beating reveille in the camps of dream. As from far meadows comes, 436 American Literature Over the pathless hill. The irremeable stream. I hear the tread Of the great armies of the Past go by; I hear. Across the wide sea wash of years between. Concord and Valley Forge shout back from the unseen, And Vicksburg give a cheer. Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead ! Laurels and roses on their graves to-day, Lihes and laurels over them we lay, And \-iolets o'er each unforgotten head. Their honor still with the returning May Puts on its springtime in our memories, Nor till the last .\merican with them lies Shall the young year forget to strew their bed. Peace to their ashes, sleep and honored rest ! But we — awake ! Ours to remember them with deeds like theirs I From sea to sea the insistent bugle blares, The drums will not be still for any sake; And as an eagle rears his crest. Defiant, from some tall pine of the North, And spreads his wings to fly, The banners of America go forth Against the clarion sky. Veteran and volunteer. They who were comrades of that shadow host, And the young brood whose veins renew the fires That burned in their great sires, Alike we hear The summons sounding clear From coast to coast, — The cr>- of the bugles, The battle-birds ! Bugles ! The imperious bugles ! Later and Present-Day Writers 437 Still their call Soars like an exaltation to the sky. They call on men to fall, To die, — Remembered or forgotten, but a part Of the great beating of the Nation's heart ! A call to sacrifice 1 A call to \-ictor}' ! Hark, in the Emp\Tean The battle-birds ! The bugles ! I 15. William Vaughn Moody (1869-19 10), a graduate of Har- vard, was for several years professor in the department of En- gUsh at the University of Chicago. He wrote many poems and several dramas, the most successful of which is TheGreat Divide. Many of his h-rics are most beautiful. (See Bibhography, page 441, for suggested readings.) 16. Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906) is the first repre- sentative of the African race to attain rank as an American poet. Some of his work has the true h-ric ring. At the time of his death he held a position in the Library of Congress at Washington, D. C. A CORX-SONG On the wide veranda white. In the purple failing Hght, Sits the master while the sun is lowly burning; And his dreamy thoughts are drowned In the softly flowing sound Of the com-songs of the field-hands slow returning. Oh, we hoe de co'n Since de ehly mo'n; Now de sinkin' sun Says de day is done. 438 American Literature 'er the fields with heavy tread, Light of heart, and high of head, Though the halting steps be labored, slow, and weary; Still the spirits brave and strong Find a comforter in song, And their corn-song rises ever loud and cheery. Oh, we hoe de co'n Since de ehly mo'n; Now de sinkin' sun Says de day is done. And a tear is in the eye Of the master sitting by. As he listens to the echoes low-repl3dng, To the music's fading calls, As it faints away and falls Into silence, deep within the cabin dying. Oh, we hoe de co'n Since de ehly mo'n; Now de sinkin' sun Says de day is done. 17. Josephine Preston Peabody Marks (1874- ), for- merly an instructor at Wellesley College, has written many poems and dramas. Her play The Piper won the Stratford- on-Avon prize in 19 10 and has been successfully staged both in England and America. (See Bibliography, page 441, for suggested readings.) 18. Percy MacKaye (1875- ), a graduate of Harvard, is a talented writer of poetic dramas. Several of these have been successfully staged, as The Canterbury Pilgrims, Jeanne D'Arc, and The Scarecrow. A Garland to Sylvia is a fanciful reverie in dramatic form quite unique in its way. His latest poem. School, is one of his finest poems. Later and Present- Day Writers 439 (From Ode on the Centenary of Abraham Lincoln, 1909. Delivered before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York, February, 1909.) VII "To sleep, perchance to dream !" — No player, rapt In conscious art's soliloquy, might know To subtihze the poignant sense so apt As he, almost in shadow of the end. Murmured its latent sadness to a friend; And then he said to him: "Ten nights ago I watched alone; the hour was very late; I fell asleep and dreamed; And in my dreaming, all The White House lay in deathhke stillness round, But soon a sobbing sound. Subdued, I heard, as of innumerable Mourners. I rose and went from room to room; No Hving being there was visible; Yet as I passed, unspeakably it seemed They sobbed again, subdued. In every room Light was, and all things were familiar: But who were those once more Whose hearts were breaking there ? What heavy gloom Wrapt their dumb grieving ? Last, the East-room door I opened, and it lay before me: High And cold on solemn catafalque it lay. Draped in funereal vestments, and near by Mute soldiers guarded it. In black array, A throng of varied race Stood weeping, Or gazing on the covered face. Then to a soldier: 'Who is dead In the White House ?' I asked. He said: 'The President.' And a great moan that through the people went Waked me from sleeping." 440 American Literature VIII It was a dream ! for that which fell in death, Seared by the assassin's hghtning, and there lay A spectacle for anguish was a wraith; The real immortal Lincoln went his way Back to his only home and native heath — The common people's common heart. XII Leave then, that wonted grief Which honorably mourns its martyred dead, And newly hail instead The birth of him, our hardy shepherd chief, Who by green paths, of old democracy Leads still his tribes to uplands of glad peace. As long as — out of blood and passion blind — Springs the pure justice of the reasoning mind. And justice, bending, scorns not to obey Pity, that once in a poor manger lay. As long as, thralled by time's imperious will, Brother hath bitter need of brother, still His presence shall not cease To hft the ages toward his human excellence, And races yet to be Shall in a rude hut do him reverence And solemnize a simple man's nativity. BIBLIOGRAPHY For Further Illustration Bunner, H. C: Candor. (From Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere.) October. (From Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere.) A Wood. (From Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere.) The Nice People. (In Short Sixes.) The Love Letters of Smith. (In Short Sixes). Carleton, W.: Out of the Old House, Nancy. Later and Present- Day Writers 441 Field, E.: The Little Book of Western Verse. Gilder, R. W.: The Life Mask of Abraham Lincoln. The Cello. MacKaye, P.: A Garland to Sylvia. School. (In The Forum, October 1913-) Jeanne d'Arc. Marks, J. P. Peabody: The Singing Leaves. (Selected Poems.) A Book of Songs and Spells. (Selected Poems.) The Piper. (A drama.) Miller, Joaquin: That Gentleman from Boston. (In Complete Poetical Works.) An Idyl of Oregon. (In Complete Poetical Works.) Moody, W. v.: The Great Divide. (A drama.) The Faith Healer. (A drama.) Riley, J. W.: When the Frost is on the Pumpkin. (In Neighborly Poems.) An Old Played Out Song. (In Neighborly Poems.) Stedman, E. C: Pan in Wall Street. Helen Keller. The Diamond Wedding. CHAPTER VI TENDENCIES /. The American Magazine A glance backward and a view of the present reveal two striking features in the literary history of America, the modern magazine and the short story. Our literary efforts have crystallized about these two; they are dis- tinctively American. The modern magazine dominates the literary life of the average American to-day. Of more than passing interest, then, should be its life-story. Indeed, the history of the American magazine is the history of American literature. Periodical literature preceded or rather produced an American literature, for it was the magazine that created the audience for the author. In 1818 Sydney Smith asked, in the Edinburgh Review, "Who reads an American book?", But with the foundation of the North American Review in 181 5 the way was opened for a real American literature and, within ten years after Sydney Smith put his question not a few American books were published worthy to be read, even by the esteemed editor of the Edinburgh Review. Many of the masterpieces of American literature first found a reading pubKc through the magazine. Thus Bryant's Thanatopsis and To a Water Fowl appeared in the North American Review; Halleck's Marco Bozzaris and Bryant's Death of the Flowers were published in the New York Review; Poe's Raven was first published in the New 442 Tendencies 443 York Mirror; Longfellow's Psalm of Life came out in the Knickerbocker Magazine; Holmes's first two instalments of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table were published in the New England Magazine, the later ones in the Atlantic Monthly; Whitman's first literary success, Death in a School- Room, came out in the Democratic Review; Lowell's earlier series of Biglow Papers was published in the Boston Courier; E. E. Hale's The Man Without a Country in the Atlantic Monthly; W. D. Howells's Venetian Life in the Boston Ad- vertiser. And these are but a few instances. The editorial history of American magazines discloses the following facts. Franklin, in 1741, published the General Magazine, which ran for six months; Charles Brockden Brown established the Literary Magazine, which lived for five years; Richard Henry Dana, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton were succes- sively editors of the North American Review, whose purpose was "the cultivatios-ef literature and the discussion of philosophy"; the Knickerbocker was known as Irving's magazine from the fact that he was its chief contributor; Poe was editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, then of the Gentleman's Magazine, which afterward became Graham's, the most popular periodical between the years 1840 and 1850 and to which Longfellow, Lowell, and Whit- tier sent their material; Margaret Fuller, Emerson, and George Ripley conducted the Dial; Nathaniel Parker Willis, ''the most picturesque figure in ante-war periodical litera- ture," was editor of Peter Parley's Token and the Mirror and established (in 1839) the New York Corsair, "a Gazette of Literature, Art, Dramatic Criticism, Fashion, and Novelty." The Atlantic Monthly numbers among its editors many famous writers, from its first editor, Lowell, to Bliss Perry, until recently its distinguished editor. And to-day 444 American Literature the dean of American letters, W. D. Howells, occupies the Easy Chair of Harper's Monthly. Harper's, founded in 1850, is the pro ot}pe of our mod- ern illustrated magazine. This journal first undertook the serial publication of works of Hving English authors, notably Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot. And here the short story, which had figured conspicuously in the previous magazines, became the all-important feature. In this class to-day we have Scribners and the Century, and growing out of this type the more popular magazines, the Cosmopolitan, Munsey's, Everybody's, and many others. The Atlantic Monthly came into being as the result of a memorable dinner-party given in 1857 by Mr. Moses D. Phillips, the publisher, to Emerson, Lowell, Holmes, Long- fellow, and Motley. Holmes had the honor of naming the magazine. Soon after its foundation it was declared to be "unquestionably the best magazine in the English lan- guage," and it still stands pre-eminent in its class. Our age of speciahzation has called forth journals for discussion of thought progress in all fields of human knowl- edge. And so we have such sheets as the Engineering Maga- zine, the Psychological Review, Current Opinion, the Scientific American, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Sociology, the Educational Review; each special field of en- deavor expressing itself through its own special organ. Thus it is possible to-day to furnish, through the maga- zine, an intellectual diet suited to all tastes. The maga- zine adapts itself to the rush and hurry of American life; it fits in with our scheme of things. The magazine — which may be picked up and thrown down at will — has forced to the shelf the book, which requires leisure and quiet concen- tration, especially the book that has stood the test of ages. We still have our libraries fitted out with the five-foot Tendencies 445 shelf, but the books too often remain on the shelf, while our study tables are strewn with magazines of all sorts and colors. It has truly served a noble purpose in the history of American letters. Through its efforts literature has been democratized; the reading pubhc has been enor- mously increased. The development of literature, exten- sively through the impulse given it by the magazine, is beyond measure. But has literature lost or is it losing in- tensively because of its widened scope? Does our great and growing dependence on periodical literature signify danger ahead ? Must our literature, in order to arouse in- terest, present a constantly changing moving-picture show ? Shall we lose our power to appreciate and enjoy sustained efforts through overindulgence in the short story and brief magazine article? Are we, indeed, already missing some- thing of sweetness and light in our literature because of con- stant catering to the prevailing magazine taste of the read- ing public ? To-day, it is said, " we lack the leisure to grow wise"; but surely these questions must give us pause, must furnish food for thought as we enter upon the second decade of the twentieth century. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alden, Henry Mills: Magazine Writing and the New Literature. Cairns, W. B.: Ow the Development of American Literature from 1815 to 1835. (An exhaustive treatment of the early periodical liter- ature of America.) Faxon, F. W.: Check List of American and English Periodicals. Gilfillan, G.: Prospective Periodical Literature. (In Hogg, vol. XII, p. 97.) Holmes, 0. W.: American Magazines. (In The Atlantic, vol. LV, p. 105.) Nichols, I.: American Literature. Palfrey, J. G.: Periodical Literature of America. (In North Amer- ican Review, vol. XXXIX, p. 277.) 446 American Literature Check List of American Magazines. (In Library Journal, vol. XIV, p. 373-) Periodical Literature of America. (In Blackwood, vol. LXIII, p. io6.) Periodical Press of the United States. (In Eraser, vol. LXVIII, P- 325-) Tenth Report of the United States Census, 1884, vol. VIII. (This contains a statistical report of the newspaper and periodical press of America.) //. The American Short Story The American short story is recognized to-day "as a separate literary genre,'' to use Professor C. Alphonso Smith's happy phrase. In The Philosophy of the Short Story Professor Brander Matthews asserts that as early as 1884 he had discovered that there was an essential differ- ence, aside from the matter of length, between the short story and the novel. But the German critic Friedrich Spielhagen in his Novelle oder Roman had, in 1876, made the distinction clear, and Poe, as early as 1842, had analyzed with great care the difference in technic between the novel and the tale, as he called the short story. All Hterary critics now agree that the short story, far from being an abridgment of a possible novel is a thing distinctive in the field of Hterary techpic, with a nature all its own. r The reasons for the development of this distinctive literary form in America are to be found in the hfe of the people. Here again is an instance of the truth that litera- ture is life. The circumstances of pioneer life in the early days, growing into conditions favorable to a great and new industrial development in later times, have discounted leisure as a factor of any moment in the life of the average American. The rush and hurry here from the start, the bigness of opportunity in America, the iteration and re- iteration of the cry "So much to do, so little done," have Tendencies 447 forced upon Americans an acquired character which has become practically a national race trait. The restless spirit of the work-time of the American has thus come to dominate also his play-time. He has had and still has Httle desire for literary recreation which requires dehberate, continuous employment of his leisure moments. What more natural, then, than that the short story should find universal favor in America, if only for its shortness? The growth of the magazine, too, fostered the development of the short story, for the magazine became the natural medium for its distribution. And finally, the genius of the short story, Edgar Allan Poe, chose America for his theatre and he chose it early in the Hterary history of the country. He showed the power of this literary form, and it rapidly became the vogue. The account of the origin and development of the short stoiy in America makes a most interesting chapter in its liteiary history. Looking backward through our literary records we first catch ghmpses of the short story in the work of Charles Brockden Brown. Short stories are em- bedded in his long stories of Arthur Merwyn and Wieland. Brown gives us the short story in solution, but the solu- tion is never precipitated. He is merely the potential short- story writer. Beginning with Irving, however, the form becomes crys- tallized; in his sketches and tales we readily discover the germ of the story of local color which is so popular to-day. The influence of eighteenth century writers, especially of Addison and Steele, is very evident in the work of Irving. But, as Professor Smith says, Irving's tales and sketches "are an evolution from rather than an imitation of the Spectator. Sir Roger de Coverley," he continues, "is a typ- ical character sketch. But Rip van Winkle is more than 44S Amcfican Literature a character sketch, it is a character sketch in the moment of transition into a short story." After Irving but one really good short story appeared before Poe began writing. This was William Austin's Peter Ritgg. published in 1S24. which, in theme and atmosphere, is prophetic of Haw- thorne. Witli Poe the short story becomes a distinctive literary type, a form essentially and peculiarly American. With him it is a conscious, deliberate creation of the literary technician. And he analyzes his method minutely and presents it in clear unequivocal terms, so that all who run may read and those who dare may follow. Writing in Grahdtus Magazine for May, 1S42, he says: "A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived with dehberate care a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such in- cidents—he then combines such events — as may best aid him in estabUshing this preconceived effect. If his xery initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of wliich the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, ^^-ith such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented un- blemished because undisturbed; and this is an end unat- tainable by the novel." Hawthorne's name is linked with Poe's as the greatest of American short-story wTiters. Yet his method is totally unhke Poe's; his aim wholly different. And his technic is far less perfect, but the impression he makes is just as Tendencies 449 forceful; the effect, perhaps, more lasting. As writers of the weird they stand unexcelled ; but the weirdness of Poe is realistic, the weirdness of Hawthorne symbolic. The next contribution to our short-stor>- literature was made by Fitz-James O'Brien in 1859 with his tale What Was It? whose mystery is wrought with an almost Poe-like touch. This was followed in 1863 by Edward Everett Hale's The Man Without a Country, which now ranks as one of our American classics. In that same year Bret Harte, our next short-story writer of note, began to send stories to the magazines. He originated a new t>pe and, after the manner of Poe, made a critical analysis of his method, for he believed that he was the first to write the t>'pical American stor>'. Since his formula has been followed by many of our recent tellers of tales I shall quote from his article in the CornkiU Magazine, July, 1899, in which he tells us how to do it. '"The secret of the American short story-," he says, "is the treatment of characteristic American life, with absolute knowledge of its peculiarities and s>Tnpathy with its methods; with no fastidious ignoring of its habitual expression, or the inchoate poetry that may be foimd hidden even in its slang; with no moral determination except that which may be the legitimate outcome of the story itself; with no more elimination than may be necessar>' for the artistic conception, and ne\'er from the fear of the fetish of conventionalism. Of such is the American short story of to-day, the germ of American literature to come." The name of the short-story writer of to-day is legion. A review of the preceding pages of this volume and a j^nce at the table of contents of a few numbers of our current magazines and periodicals will show to what extent the short story has taken hold of the American public. The demand 450 American Literature is insistent, constant; the supply plentiful and really good. The short story has become the dominant note in the liter- ary history of America. It has become indeed and in truth the literary genre of America. BIBLIOGRAPHY Albright, Evelyn M.: The Short Story. (1907.) Barrett, C. R.: Short Story Writing. (1900.) Canby, H. S.: The Short Story in English. (1909.) Dye, C: The Story Teller's Art. (1907.) Esenwein, J. Berg.: Writing the Short Story. (1908.) Grabo, C. N.: The Art of the Short Story. (1913.) Harte, Bret : The Rise of the Short Story. (In the Cornhill Magazine, July, 1899.) Jessup, A., and Canby, H. S.: The Book of the Short Story. (1903.) Mabie, H. W.: American Fiction Old and New. (In The Outlook, October 26, 191 2.) Matthews, B.: The Philosophy of the Short Story. (1901.) The Short Story: Specimens Illustrating its Development. (1907.) Notestein, L. L., and Dunn, W. H.: The Modern Short Story. (1914.) Perry, Bliss: A Study of Prose Fiction, chapter XII. (1902.) Pitkin, Walter B.: Short Story Writing. (1912.) Smith, C. Alphonso: The American Short Story. (1912.) Snaith, Lewis W.: The Writing of the Short Story. (1902.) ///. The American Drama ' Many critics to-day believe that as the conversational essay shadowed forth the short story, so the short story shadows forth the drama; that indeed the day of the drama in American letters is almost come. Nearly twenty years ago Professor Brander Matthews declared that the time was ripe for the ascendancy of the drama in our Utera- ture, and Mr. Percy MacKaye in The Playhouse and the Play, published in 1910, says: "Our national Hfe now claims the theater to express itself and to that end the theater must be overhauled and reconstructed to meet the larger Tendencies 451 needs of national life. In America itself, lies the assured renascence of American drama." There is no doubt that the development of dramatic literature in America was retarded in the early years of the nineteenth century by the remarkable growth of periodical literature and the wide popularity of the story as the pre- ferred Hterary type. The potential play-writer was lured into one or the other of these fields. The American stage of those times merely reflected the London theater. There, under the leadership of John PhiHp Kemble, the Enghsh players gave reproductions of the old dramatists, especially of Shakespeare. After this followed a period of importa- tion and adaptation of the German and French dramas for both the American and the Enghsh audience. There was no call for the actor to be the abstract and brief chronicle of his time, as in the days of Shakespeare and later of Sheridan. The newspaper, which Professor Matthews calls ''a sUce of contemporary hfe," set forth from day to day the joys of Uving and the tragedies of Hfe withal. There was no demand for the play which mirrored the Hfe of the age and the nation. But with the full reaHzation of selfhood as a nation, Americans came to demand nationaHsm in their Hterary products. The desire for the local color touch on our stage harks back, indeed, to our first successful play- wright, Royall Tyler, whose drama The Contrast was a plea for things American in face of the even-then fashion- able Anglomania. No general movement, however, for nationaHsm in the American drama took place until within comparatively recent years. James A. Heme (i 840-1 901), in such dramas as Margaret Flemming, Shore Acres, and Sag Harbor, and Bronson Howard, in Shenandoah and The Henrietta, first gave the American pubHc a taste of the play that was truly American in outlook and theme, and such 452 American Literature plays became immensely popular. The hint was taken by other writers of plays and soon Augustus Thomas, Clyde Fitch, and Edward Sheldon were furnishing the stage with the season's leading play, for example, Arizona, Nathan Hale, and Salvation Nell. More and more of late have writers turned their talents to the making of plays, until to-day university men who are electing for themselves the literary career are deliberately choosing the dramatic form in which to voice their message. Witness in this connec- tion, the work of William Vaughn Moody in such plays as The Faith Healer and The Great Divide, and the work of Percy MacKaye in Jeanne d'Arc, The Canterbury Pilgrims, and The Scarecrow. Many other Americans are also pro- ducing notable dramatic work. To mention only three: Josephine Preston Peabody Marks, whose play The Piper won the Stratford prize in 1910; Charles Rann Kennedy (though born in England, we may call him an American), whose symboUc dramas The Servant in the House and The Terrible Meek have aroused much interest among play- goers; and David Belasco, whose play The Return of Peter Grimm is, says Professor Matthews, "more vitally poetic, more sincerely imaginative, and more subtly truthful in its psychology than Maeterhnck's Monna Vanna and Haupt- mann's Sunken Bell." The interest of the literary leaders of America in this form of expression is shown by the organization of such associations as the Wisconsin Dramatic Society, whose mem- bers include the leaders of culture, not only in the Uni- versity of Wisconsin but throughout the State; and of the Drama League of America, with branches in most of our large and in many of our small cities. The avowed purpose of these organizations is to create an audience for the good play, to educate the public dramatic taste. Other evidences Tendencies 453 of this interest are the work of Miss Minnie Hersts as director of the Educational Theatre for Children and Young People (New York City) ; of Charles Sprague Smith of the People's Institute of New York City; of Donald Robertson of Chicago with his endowed repertoire; and of Winthrop Ames of New York City with the New Theatre during its brief existence and with the Little Theatre since its foundation January i, 191 2. The popularity of the dramatic form is also shown by the successful dramatiza- tion of American novels and stories, noteworthy instances of which are Ben-Hur, The Awakening of Helena Ritchie, Rebecca of Sunnyhrook Farm, Little Women, and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Is the pecuhar restlessness of the average American, be- fore spoken of, creating such a distaste for the old-fashioned idle hour in the hbrary that he must have his stories read to him from the stage ? Will this desire become sufficiently wide-spread and emphatic to force the best of our literary activities into dramatic form? The novel has never been in perfect tune with American life; and the great American novel has never been written. The short story has struck the key-note of American Hf e here and there ; and the great short story has been written now and again. In 1899 Bret Harte called the American short story "the germ of Ameri- can Hterature to come." Will the near future give us the great American play ? The signs of the times seem to an- swer "Yes." Mr. William Dean Howells contends that we have already "a drama which has touched our Hfe in many characteristic points, which has dealt with our moral and material problems and penetrated psychological regions which it seemed impossible an art so objective should reach. Mainly it has been gay as our prevalent mood is; mainly it has been honest as our habit is in cases where 454 American Literature we believe we can afford it; mainly it has been decent and clean and sweet as our average life is; and now that Ibsen no longer writes new plays, I would rather take my chance of pleasure and profit with a new American play than with any other sort of new play." "If ever a nation was ready for a national drama," declares Professor Smith, "that nation is America." And "when it comes," he con- tinues, "as surely it will come, the short story will have achieved its greatest triumph." BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrews, Charlton: The Drama To-day. Archer, William: A Manual of Craftsmanship. Cofi&n, Charles H.: The Appreciation of the Drama. Craig, E. Gordon: On the Art of the Theater. Crawford, Mary Caroline: The Romance of the American Theatre. Dukes, Ashley: Modern Dramatists. Eaton, Walter Pritchard: The Americatt Stage of Today. Hale, E. E., Jr.: Dramatists. Hamilton, Clayton: The Theory of the Theatre and Other Principles of Dramatic Criticism. Studies in Stagecraft. Hapgood, Norman: The Stage in America. Hunt, Elizabeth R.: The Play of Today. The Drama League Convention. (In The Drama, August, 191 2.) Jones, Arthur Henry: The Foundatioyi of a National Drama. (In North American Review, November, 1907.) Leonard, W. E.: The Wisconsin Dramatic Society. (In The Drama, May, 1912.) MacKaye, Percy: The Playhouse and the Play. Matthews, E.: A Study of the Drama. Studies of the Stage. The Development of the Drama. The Great American Play. (In The Saturday Evening Post, October 19, 191 2.) Moses, Montrose J.: The American Dramatist. Peck, Mary Gray: The Movement for a New American Drama. (In The English Journal, March, 191 2.) Sharp, R. F. : yl Short History of the English Stage. Walkley, A. B.: Drama and Life. INDEX Names of authors from whom extracts are quoted in this book are printed in small capitals; names of all other authors and all other names are printed in ordinary lower-case; titles of extracts and books from which extracts are chosen, and all magazine titles, are printed in italics; titles of works sug- gested for reading and of works merely mentioned are printed in lower- case roman, enclosed in quotation marks; numbers refer to page; numbers in black type refer to page on which the biographical note is given. A Corn Song, 437. A Flogging at Sea, 11 2-1 18. "A Garland to Sylvia," 438. A Glimpse of Mendelssohn, 251. "A Golden Wedding and Other Tales," 320. A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow, 173-177- A Literary History of America, 405. "A New England Nim," 335. "A Prince of India," 217. A Soutfiern Girl, 424. A Storm of tJte Bermudas, 7-9. A Time-Worn Belle, 48-49. A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, 7. "A Victorian Anthology," 415. Abbott, Lyman, 362. Absalom, 107-110. Adams, John, 24. Addison, 24, 254, 447. Alcott, Amos Bronson, 200. Alcott, Louisa, 200. Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 224, 415. America, 118. America to England, 432. Ames, Winthrop, 453. "An American Anthology," 415. "Arizona," 452. "Artemxts Ward." See Browne, Charles F., 200. Arthur Merwyn, 55, 447. Atlantic Monthly, 167, 178, 224, 303. 443, 444- Austin, William, 448. Autobiography {FraukUn's), 17, 24, 26. "Balaclava," 273. Balder' s Wife, 281, Baltimore, 275, 305. Barlow, Joel, 46, 49. Bates, Arlo, 391. Battle-Hymn of the Republic, 291. Battle of the Kegs, 41-43. Beecher, Henry Ward, 193, 247. Being a Lord, 324. Belasco, David, 452. "Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ," 217, 453- Bibliography, General, 3-4; Colo- nial Epoch, 19-20; Revolutionary Era, 61-62; National Period, Early Writers, Great Names, 96-97; Of Lesser Note, 119; Writers of the Mid-Century and After, Great Names, 190-193; Of Lesser Note, Fiction, 234-235; Non-Fiction, 267-268; Poetry, 294-295; Later and Present-Day Writers, Fic- tion, 361-362; Non-Fiction, 414; Poetrj^ 440-441; the Americ'an Magazine, 445-446; the Ameri- can Short Story, 450; the Ameri- can Drama, 454. 455 456 Index Biglow Papers, 167, 170, 443. " Bill Nye." See Nye, Edgar Wilson, 201. Bimini and the Fountain of Youth, 264-267. Books, 378. Books and Culture, 366. Boston, 12, 15, 21, 58, 59, 207, 296, Boston Advertiser, 443. Boston Courier, 443. Bowdoin College, 134, 147. Brackenridge, Hugh H., 53. Bradstreet, Anne, 10. Brown, Charles Brockden, 52, 55, no, 443, 447. Brown University, 292. Browne, Charles F., 200, 201. Browning, 385. Browning's Unpopularity, 385. Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, 244. Bryan, William J., 374. Bryant, William Cullen, 52, 91, 442. BuNNER, Henry Cuyler, 427. Burke, 21. Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 324. Bums, 161. Burroughs, John, 364. Butler, Nicholas Murray, 409. Butler's "Hudibras," 47. Cable, George Washington, 305, 308. Cafe des Exiles, 308. Cambridge, 9, in, 120, 264, 296. Cambridge (England), 147, 178. Carleton, Will, 417. Carlyle, 120. Carman, Bliss, 434. Cary, Alice, 281, 282. Cary, Phcebe, 282. Century Magazine, 4x5, 444. Changes of the Nineteetith Century, 409. "Changing America," 411. "Charles Egbert Craddock." See MuRFREE, Mary N., 326. Charleston College, 274. Chatham, 21. Cheney, John Vance, 421. Chicago University, 437. China to the Ranging Eye, 411, Churchill, Winston, 355. "Clari, the Maid of Milan," 103. Clemens, Samuel L., 224. Coleridge, 83, 120. Collins, 273. "Colonel Carter of Cartersville," 305- Columbia University, 395, 409, 432, 433- "Common Sense," 33. Concord, 121, 129, 134. Concord Hymn, 129. Confidence, 320-324. "Coniston," 355. Contemplations, 10-12. Cooper, James Fenimore, 71, 91, no. Cornhill Magazine, 449. Cosmopolitan, 444. Current Opinion, 444. Curtis, George William, 254. "Daisy Miller," 320. Dana, Jr., Richard Henry, hi, 443- Dartmouth, 80, 434. Davis, Richard Harding, 341. Dawn at the Moreno Ranch, 197-200. "Death in a School- Room," 443. Deland, Margaret Wade, 331. Democracy and Education, 409. Democratic Review, 443. "Deserted Village," 161. Dial, 443. Dickens, 444. Dickinson, Emily, 285. Difficulties of Union, 247. Dixie, 268. Donne, John, 10. Doubt, 426. Drake, Joseph R., 97, 98. Drama League of America, 452. Dunbar, Paul Lawrence, 437. Index ^57 Dunne, Finley Peter, 378. Dw^GHT, Timothy, 46, 51. Each and All, 129-131. Edinburgh, 178. Edinburgh Review, 442. "Editha's Burglar," 324. Educational Review, 409, 444. Educational Theatre for Children and Young People, 453. Edwards, Jonathan, 16, 51. Eliot, Charles William, 380. Eliot, George, 444. Eliot, John, 9. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 120-121, 200, 443, 444- Engineering Magazine, 444. Everett, Edward, 235, 443. Everybody's, 444. "Fable for Critics," 167. Farewell Address, 28-30. "Federalist," 35. Field, Eugene, 417. Fiske, John, 259. Fitch, Clyde, 452. Foster, Stephen C, 280. Fox, 21. Fox, John, Jr., 333. Franklin, Benjamin, 21, 24, 443. " Freedom of the Will," 16. Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins, 335. Fren^eau, Philip, 52, 53. FuUer, Margaret, 443. "Gallagher," 341. Garland, Hamlin, 331. General Magazine, 443. Gentleman's Magazine, 443. Gettysburg Address, 240. Gilder, Richard Watson, 415. "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" Speech, 30-33. Gladstone, 35. Godfrey, Thomas, 53. Goethe, 120. Goldsmith, 161. Gosse, Edmund, 287. Grady, Henry W., 259. Graham's, 443, 448. Greeley, Horace, 281. Hail Columbia, 41, 43-45. Hale, Edward Everett, 207, 443, 449. Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 97, 442. Hamilton, Alexander, 21, 34. Hamilton's Speech in the New York Convention, June 24, 1788, 35-37. Harper's Magazine, 254, 303, 444. Harris, Benjamin, 12. Harris, Joel Chandler, 305, 310. Harte, Bret, 223, 350, 449, 453. "Hartford Wits," 46, 47. Harvard College, 15, in, 120, 121, 131, 166, 177, 207, 235, 244, 256, 259, 262, 380, 387, 400, 405, 432, 437, 438. Hauptmann, 452. Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas, 72-80. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 83, 133- 134, 448, 449- Hay, John, 292. Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 268, 274. "Helen Hunt." See Jackson, Helen Fiske, 197. Henry, Patrick, 21, 30. Herbert, George, 10. Heme, James A., 451. Hersts, Minnie, 453. Hiawatha's Wooing, 1 53-161. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 264. His Christmas Miracle, 326. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 16, 121, 177, 443, 444- Home Journal, 105. Home, Sweet Home, 103-104. Homer, 91. Hopkinson, Francis, 41. Hopkinson, Joseph, 41, 43. HovEY, Richard, 434. "How Sleep the Brave," 273. Howard, Bronson, 451. Howe, Julia Ward, 291. 458 Index HowELLS, William Dean, 302- 303, 320, 443. 444, 453- "Huckleberry Finn," 224. Hugh Wynne, 296. Hugh's School Days, 296. Ibsen, 454. "Ichabod," 80. " Ik Marv-el." See Mitchell, Donald Grant, 204. "Iliad" (Bryant's), 91. In Ole Virginia, 313. In Opposition to Writs of Assistance, 21-24. In the Wheat-Field, 274-275. Irving, Washington, 63, 91, 97, 296, 443, 447, 448. Israfel, 89-91. Jackson, Helen Fiske, 197. James, Henry, 134, 320. Jamestown, 5, 7. Jay, John, 35. "Jeanne d'Arc," 438, 452. Jefferson, Thomas, 21, 30, 37. Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, 37-39- Jim Bliidsoe, of the "Prairie Belle," 292. John Gilley, 381. "John Ward, Preacher," 331, Johns Hopkins University, 275. Jordan, David Starr, 393. " Josh Billings." See Shaw, Henry W., 200. Journal (Woolman's), 17. Journal of Sociology, 444. Justice vs. Vitidicliveness, 368-372. Kemble, John Philip, 451. Kennedy, Charles Rann, 452, Key, Francis Scott, 100. "Knickerbocker History of New York," 63. Knickerbocker Magazine, 105, 443. Lamb, Charles, 17, 254. Lanier, Sidney, 268, 275. Lazarus, Emma, 287. Learning to Write, 26-28. "Leather Stocking Tales," 71. Leland Stanford University, 393. Lincoln, Abraham, 240. Literary Magazine, 443. Little Boy Blue, 417-418. Little Lord Faimtleroy, 324. "Little Men," 200. "Little Women," 200, 453. London, 5, 103, 451. London, Jack, 359. Long, William J., 112. Longfellow, Hentiy Wadsworth, 147, 166, 264, 296, 443, 444. Longueville' s Sketch, 320-324. LouNSBURY, Thomas R., 385. Lowell, James Russell, 121, 166- 167, 264, 296, 443, 444. Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 320, 366. MacKaye, Percy, 438, 450, 452. MacWhirter's Fireplace, 306. Madison, James, 35. Maeterlinck, 452. Magnolia Christi Americana, 15. "Main-Travelled Roads," 331. "Marco Bozzaris," 442. "Margaret Fleming," 451. "Mark Twain." See Clemens, Samuel L., 224. Markham, Edwin, 419. Marks, Josephine Preston Peabody, 438, 452. Marse Chan, 313. Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, 391. Mather, Cotton, 15. Mather, Increase, 15. Mather, Richard, 9, 14. Mathers, 14, 121. Matthews, Brander, 72, 296, 395, 446, 450, 451, 452. Maud Midler, 162-166. McFingal to the Whigs, 47. "Meadow Brook," 280. Index 459 Memoirs of Remarkables in the Life and tlie Death of the Ever-Memo- rable Dr. Increase Mather, 15. " Mere Literature and Other Es- says," 406. Miller, Joaquin, 416. Mitchell, Don.\ld Grant, 204. Mitchell, S. Weir, 296. "Moima Vanna," 452. Moody, William Vaughn, 437, 452. Morris, George, 104. Mother England, 425. Motley, John Lothrop, 244, 264, 444. "Mr. Dooley." See Dunn-e, Fin- ley Peter, 378. Mr. Dooley Says, 378. Mr. Potipltar's New House, 254- 256. Mr. Travers's First Hiinl, 341. Munsey's, 444. Murfree, Mary N., 326. My Double and Hoa.< He Undid Me, 207. My Little Girl, 425. "My Old Kentucky Home," 280. Myself, 288. "Nathan Hale," 452. Nature in Poetry, 365. New Books, 391. New England Magazine, 443. New Orleans, 308. New York, 53, 55, 58, 91, 97, 105. 223, 259, 287, 290, 296, 320, 331, 335, 350, 362, 364, 368, 395, 415, 419, 425. New York Corsair, 443. New York Mirror, 105, 443. New York Review, 442. NoRRis, Frank, 344. North American Review, 442, 443. Norton, Ch-^iles Eliot, 262, 443. Notes of Travel and Study in Italv, 263. "Novelle oder Roman," 446. Nye, Edgar Wllson, 201, 203. O'Brien, Fitz- James, 449. O, Captain/ My Captain! 287,288- 289. Ode on the Centenary of Abraham Lincoln, 438. Ode (Timrod), 273. "Odyssey" (Bryant's), 91; (Pal- mer's), 387. Oglethorpe College, 275. O'Hara, Theodore, 268, 270. "O. Henry." See Porter, Wil- LLAU Sidney, 350. Old Creole Days, 308. Old Folks at Home, 280-281. Old North Church, 15, 121. On a Honey Bee, 54-55. On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake, 97-98. On the Federal Constitution, 25-26. On the Keeping of Slaves, 1 7-19. Otis, James, 21. "Over the Tea-Cups," 178. Oxford, 63. 147, 178. Page, Thomas Nelson, 305, 313. Paine, Tho\l\s, 21, 33. Palmer, George Herbert, 387. Parkman, Fr.\ncis, 256, 259. Payne, JOH^sf Howard, 103. Peck, Harry Thl-rston, 433. Peck, Samuel Minturn, 433. Pen and Ink, 395. People's Institute, 453. Pepys, 13. Perry, Bliss, 443. Peter Parley's Token, 443. "Peter Rugg," 44S. Peters, Phtllis Wheatley, 59. Phelps, William Lyon, 224. Philadelphia, 41, 53, 296, 368. PhiUips, Moses D., 444. Phillips, Wen-dell, 242. Pike, Albert, 268. Pike County Ballads, 292. Poe, Edgar Allan, 52, 83, 4i«, 443, 447, 448, 449- "Poor Richard's .\lmanac," 24. Porter, Willl^m Sidney, 350. 460 Index "Precaution," 171. Princeton College, 16, 53, 400, 406. Psalm CXXXVII (Dwight), 51. "Psalm of Life," 443. Psychological Review, 444. Puck, 427. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 444. Raggylug, 2,i2-7,i^. Ramona, 197. Read, Thomas Buchanan, 283. "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," 453- Recrimination, 430-432. Reply to Hayne, 80. Repplier, Agnes, 368. Reveries of a BacMor, 204. Richard Carvel, 355. Riley, James Whitcomb, 42*.. Ripley, George, 443. "Rip van Winkle," 447. Robertson, Donald, 453. Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep, 102- 103. Roosevelt, Theodore, 368. "Rose of Butcher's Coolly," 331. Ross, Edwasd Alsvvorth, 411. Rossetti's A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument, 415. "Rudder Grange," 217. "Sacred Poems," 105. "Sag Harbor," 451. Salem Witchcraft, 13. Salt, 400-405. "Salvation Nell," 452. "School," 438. Scientific American, 444. Scott, Sir Walter, 63, 71. Scribner's Monthly, 415, 444. "Sea Tales," 71. Second Bunker Hill Oration, 81. Second Inaugural Address, 241-242. Seton, Ernest Thompson, 331. Sewall, Samuel, 13. Shakespeare, 7, 385, 451. Shaw, Henry W., 200, 202. Sheldon, Edward, 452, "Shenandoah," 451. Sheridan, 451. Sheridan's Ride, 283-285. "Shore Acres," 451. "Silence and Other Stories," 335. Sill, Edward Roland, 286. SiMMS, William Gilmore, iio. Simonds, Professor, 45, 120, 134, 217, 286. "Sin and Society," 411. "Sir Roger de Coverley," 447. Smith, C. .Alphonso, 446, 447, 454. Smith, Charles Sprague, 453. Smith, Francis Hopkinson, 305. Smith, John, 5. Smith, Samuel F., 118. Smith, Sydney, 442. "Snow-Bound," 161. "Social Control," 411. Soine Islafids of the Lagoons, 303. Some Memories of Childhood, 355. Song of the Chattahoochee, 279-280. "Songs from Vagabondia," 434. Songs of Nature, 365. Southern Literary Messenger, 443. Spielhagen, Friedrich, 446. . Stedman, Edmimd Clarence, 121, 415, 425- Steele, 447. Stockton, Frank R., 217. Stoddard, Richard Henry, 290, 415- Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 193. Strachey, William, 7. Stratford-on-Avon, 438, 452. Stuart, Ruth McEnery, 305, 320. "Sunken Bell," 452. Symonds's "The Sonnet," 415. Tales of a Traveller, 64. Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, 264. Talks on the Study of Literature, 391. Taylor, Bayard, 251, 415. Tennyson, 83, 273. Thackeray, 444. "Thanatopsis," 91, 442. Index 461 The Adventure of My Aunt, 64-68. The Alhambra, 68. The Ambitious Guest, 134. The American Flag, 98. The American Scliolar, 121. The Arrow and tite Song, 152. The Autocrat of tlie Breakfast-Table, 178, 183, 443. " The Awakening of Helena Ritchie," 453- The Ballad of Nathan Hale, 41, 45- 46. "The Battle of Bunker Hill," 53. Tlte Battle of tlie Ants, 131-133. The Bay Psalm Book, 9-10, 15. The Belfry Pigeon, 105-107. The Better Part, 372. The Bivouac of the Dead, 270-272. "The Brook" (Tennyson), 280. The Bucket, 101-102. The Building of the Cathedral, 263- 264. The Bumblebee, 202-203. The Call of the Bugles, 434-437. The Call of tlte Wild, 359. "The Canterbury Pilgrims," 438, 452. "The Cataract of Lodore," 280. The Chambered Nautilus, 178-179. The Changing Chinese, 411. The Character of Washington (Jeffer- son), 39-40; (Webster) 81-83; (Everett) 235-239. The Child, 432. "The Columbiad," 49. The Commoner, 374. The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 257. The Contrast, 58-59, 451. "The Cotter's Saturday Night," 161. The Count and the Wedding Guest, 350-355- The Cotirtin', 170-173. The Courting of Madam Winthrop, 13-14- The Crisis, 33. "The Crisis," 355. The Day is Done, 152. The Day of Freedom, 33-34. The Day of Judgment, 229-234. The Deacon's Masterpiece, 16, 180- 183- The Death of McKinley, 393-395. The Death of Pontiac, 257-259. The Death of the Flowers, 91-92, 442. / The Declaration of Independence, 407- ,■ 409. The Early Literary Career of Robert Browning, 385. "The Faith Healer," 452. The Federal Union, 80-81. The Feeling for Literature, 366-368. The Fool's Prayer, 286-287. The Frost Spirit, 161. "The Fruit of the Tree," 335. Tlie Garden Hose, 203. "The Gates Ajar," 229. The Ghetto and the Jews of Venice, 304-305- "The Great Divide," 437, 452. The Hasty Pudding, 49-51. The Height of the Ridiculous, 179- 180. "The Henrietta," 451. The Home Journal, 105. "The House of Life," 415. "The House of Mirth," 335. The Hurricane, 94. "The Innocents Abroad," 224. The Jumping Frog,andOtherSketches, 224. The Lady or the Tiger, 217-223. The Last Days of Increase Mather, ' 15-16. The Last of the Mohicans, 72. The Lessons of the Tragedy, 393. The Little Theatre, 453. The Lonesome Pine, 333. "The Lost Occasion," 80. The Lost Pleiad, iio-iii. The Man with the Hoe, 420-421. "The Man Without a Country," 207, 443, 449- The Marshes of Glynn, 275-278. The Masque of the Red Death, 83-89. The Meaning of Education, 409. The Mirror, 105. 462 Index "The Mocking Bird," 268. The Mysterious Chambers, 68-71. The New England Primer, 12-13. The New South, 259. The New Theatre, 453. The Notorious Jumping Frog, etc., 224-229. "The Octopus," 344. The Old Man and Jim, 421-423. The Old South and the New, 259-262. The Other One, 433-434. The Outlook, 362, 366. "The Partisan," no. "The Passionate Pilgrim," 320. '"The Philosophy of the Short Story," 446. "The Pilot," 72. "The Piper," 438, 452. The Pit, 344. "The Playhouse and the Play," 450. The Potiphar Papers, 254. "The Prince of Parthia," 52. "The Raven," 442. "The Return of Peter Grimm," 452. "The Rise of Silas Lapham," 303. The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 244. "The Scarecrow," 438, 452. "The Scarlet Letter," 134. The Sea, 204-207. "The Servant in the House," 452. The Sewall Papers, 13. The Shepherd of King Adtnetus, 167. The Skeleton in Armor, 147-151. The Song of Hiawatha, 153. The Song of Myself, 288. The Songs of the Civil War, 395. The Sonnet, 415. The Spectator, 447. "The Spy," 71. The Star-Spangled Banner, loo-ioi. " The State," 406. "The Story of a Bad Boy," 224. The Story of "My Maryland," 395- 400. Tlte Story of the Doodang, 311-313. "The Tempest," 7. "The Terrible Meek," 452. The Toll-Gatherer^ s Day, 140-146. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, 333, 453- The Trimmed Lamp, 350. "The Valley of Decision," 335. The Voice of the Scholar, 393. The Way to Arcady, 427-429. The Wheat Pit, 344-350. The White Man's Burden, 374. The Wild Honeysuckle, 52, 53-54, 96. "The Winning of the West," 368. "The Wolf, "344. The Wood Fire in No. 3, 306. The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia, 55-57- Thomas, Augustus, 452. Thomas, Edith, 425. Thoreau, Henry D., 131, 200. Thoughts on a Thiinderstorm, 17. TiMROD, Henry, 268, 273. To a Waterfowl, 93, 442. To the Dandelion, 168-170. To the Death, 359-361. To tJie Fringed Gentian, 95. " To the Mocking Bird," 268. To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, 60. "To the Small Celandine," 96. "Tom Sawyer," 224. Topsy, 193-197. Toussaint L'Ouvcrture, 242-244. Transcendentalists, 120, 121, 200. Trotty's Wedding Tour, 229. True Relation, 5-7. Trumbull, John, 46, 47. Tuskeegee, 372. Tivice Told Tales, 134. Two Years Before the Mast, in, 112. Tyler, Professor, 37. Tyler, Royall, 53, 58, 451. Uncle Remus and the Little Boy, 311. Uncle Tom's Cabin, 193, 197. University of Cahfornia, 286. University of Georgia, 273. University of Wisconsin, 411. Van Bibber and Others, 341. Van Dyke, Henry, 400. Index 463 Venetian Life, 303, 443. Views A-Foot, 251. Walden, 131. Wallace, Lewis, 217. Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 229. Washington Abroad and at Home, 235. Washington, Booker, 372. Washington, D. C, 100, 287, 437. Washington, George, 21, 28. Watts's "The Sonnet's Voice," 415. Webster, Daniel, 80. Welde, Thomas, 9. Wellesley College, 438. Wendell, Barrett, 17, 105, 121, 134, 296, 405. Westminster Abbey, 147. Wharton, Edith, 335. "What Was It?" 449. Whitman, Walt, 287, 443. Whittier, John Greenleaf, 17, 80, 161, 273, 443. "Wieland," 55, 447. Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 429. Wild Animals I Have Known, 332. WiLLARD, Emma H., 102. Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 105, 443- Wilson, Woodrow, 313, 406. Wisconsin Dramatic Society, 452. Woman's Rights, 201. Wood BERRY, George E., 432. Woodman, Spare That Tree, 104-105. WooDWORTH, Samuel, ioi. Woolman, John, 17. Wordsworth, 91, 96. Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not," 415- Wordsworth's "Scorn Not the Son- net," 415. Worth While, 430. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, 418- 419- Yale College, 46, 51, 105, 204, 385. *.' ' r 9 Q Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing Agent; Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: KmBbbkreeper WW'' PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES. LP. 1 1 1 Thomson Part Dnve Cranberry Township. 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