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OUT-DOOR PAPERS
BY
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
BOSTON
TICKNOR AND FIELDS
I863




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
WELCH, BIGELOW, AND  COI\IPANY,
CA SI BRIDGDE.




C ONTENTS.
PAGE
SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES.....    I
PHYSICAL COURAGE.....  3
A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.....         53
THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS..                   77
BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION.                       105
GYMNASTICS..                              131
A NEW COUNTERBLAST....                  I77
THE HEALTH OF OUR GIRLS....    I99
APRIL DAYS.....                                223
MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                                247
WATER-LILIES....                              269
THE LIFE OF BIRDS..                              293
THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. 317
SNOW.....  339








SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES.
1








SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES.
EVER since the time of that dyspeptic heathen,
Plotinus, the saints have been " ashamed of their
bodies." What is worse, they have usually had reason
for the shame. Of the four famous Latin fathers, Jerome
describes his own limbs as misshapen, his skin as squalid,
his bones as scarcely holding together; while Gregory
the Great speaks in his Epistles of his own large size, as
contrasted with his weakness and infirmities. Three of
the four Greek fathers -Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory Nazianzen -  ruined their health early, and were
invalids for the remainder of their days. Three only of
the whole eight were able-bodied men, - Ambrose, Augustine, and Athanasius; and the permanent influence of
these three has been far greater, for good or for evil,
than that of all the others put together.
Robust military saints there have doubtless been in the
Roman Catholic Church: George, Michael, Sebastian,
Eustace, Martin, Hubert the Hunter, and Christopher the
Christian Hercules. But these have always held a very
secondary place in canonization. Maurice and his whole
Theban legion also were sainted together, to the number
of six thousand six hundred and sixty-six; doubtless they
were stalwart men, but there never yet has been a chapel




4       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
erected to one of them. The mediaeval type of sanctity
was a strong soul in a weak body; and it could be intensified either by strengthening the one or by further debilitating the other. The glory lay in contrast, not in
combination. Yet, to do them justice, they conceded a
strong and stately beauty to their female saints,- Catherine, Agnes, Agatha, Barbara, Cecilia, and the rest. It
was reserved for the modern Pre-Raphaelites to attempt
the combination of a maximum of saintliness with a minimum of pulmonary and digestive capacity.
But, indeed, from that day to this, the saints by spiritual laws have usually been sinners against physical laws,
and the artists have merely followed the examples they
found.  Vasari records, that Carotto's masterpiece of
painting, " The Three Archangels," at Verona, was critic
cised because the limbs of the angels were too slender,
and Carotto, true to his conventional standard, replied,
"Then they will fly the better."  Saints have been flying
to heaven, for the same reason, ever since, — and have
commonly flown young.
Indeed, the earlier some such saints cast off their bodies
the better, they make so little use of them. Chittagutta,
the Buddhist recluse, dwelt in a cave in Ceylon. His
devout visitors one day remarked on the miraculous
beauty of the legendary paintings, representing scenes
from the life of Buddha, which adorned the walls. The
holy man informed them that, during his sixty years' residence in the cave, he had been too much absorbed in
meditation to notice the existence of the paintings, but he
would take their word for it. And in this non-intercourse
with the visible world there has been an apostolical succession, extending from Chittagutta down to the Andover
divinity-student who refused to join his companions in




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.               5
their admiring gaze on that wonderful autumnal landscape
which spreads itself before the Seminary Hill in October,
but marched back into the library, ejaculating, "Lord,
turn thou mine eyes from beholding vanity!"
It is to be reluctantly recorded, in fact, that the Protestant saints have not ordinarily had much to boast of, in
physical stamina, as compared with the Roman Catholic.
They have not got far beyond Plotinus. It is scarcely
worth while to quote Calvin on this point, for he, as
everybody knows, was an invalid for his whole lifetime.
But it does seem hard that the jovial Luther, in the midst
of his ale and skittles, should have deliberately censured
Juvenal's mens sana in corpore sano, as a pagan maxim!
If Saint Luther fails us, where are the advocates of
the body to look for comfort? Nothing this side of ancient Greece, we fear, will afford adequate examples of
the union of saintly souls and strong bodies. Pythagoras
the sage may or may not have been identical with Pythagoras the inventor of pugilism, and he was, at any rate,
(in the loving words of Bentley,) " a lusty proper man,
and built, as it were, to make a good boxer." Cleanthes,
whose sublime " Prayer" is, doubtless, the highest strain
left of early piety, was a boxer likewise. Plato was a
famous wrestler, and Socrates was unequalled for his military endurance. Nor was one of these, like their puny
follower Plotinus, too weak-sighted to revise his own
manuscripts.
It would be tedious to analyze the causes of this modern
deterioration of the saints. The fact is clear. There is
in the community an impression that physical vigor and
spiritual sanctity are incompatible. Recent ecclesiastical
history records that a young Orthodox divine lost his
parish by swimming the Merrimac River, and that an



6        SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
other was compelled to ask a dismissal in consequence of
vanquishing his most influential parishioner in a game of
ten-pins; it seemed to the' beaten party very unclerical.
The writer further remembers a match, in a certain seaside bowling-alley, in which two brothers, young divines,
took part. The sides being made up, with the exception
of these two players, it was necessary to find places for
them also. The head of one side accordingly picked his
man, on the avowed presumption that the best preacher
would naturally be the worst bowler. The athletic capacity, he thought, would be in inverse ratio to the sanctity.
It is a satisfaction to add, that in this case his hopes were
signally disappointed.  But it shows which way the popular impression lies.
The poets have probably assisted in maintaining the
delusion. How many cases of consumption Wordsworth
must have accelerated by his assertion that "the good die
first"! Happily he lived to disprove his own maxim.
Professor Peirce has proved by statistics that the best
scholars in our colleges survive the rest; virtue, like intellect, doubtless tends to longevity. The experience of
the literary class shows that all excess is destructive, and
that we need the harmonious action of all the faculties.
Of the brilliant roll of the "young men of 1830," in
Paris, —Balzac, Souli6, De Musset, De Bernard, Sue,
and their compeers, - it is said that nearly every one has
already perished, in the prime of life. What is the explanation?   A  stern one: opium, tobacco, wine, and
licentiousness.  "All died of softening of the brain or
spinal marrow, or swelling of the heart." No doubt many
of the noble and the pure were dying prematurely at the
same'time; but it proceeded from the same essential
cause: physical laws disobeyed and bodies exhausted.




SAINTS, AND  THEIR  BODIES.               7
The evil is, that what in the debauchee is condemned, as
suicide, is lauded in the devotee, as saintship. The delirium tremens of the drunkard conveys scarcely a sterner
moral lesson than the second childishness of the pure and
abstemious Southey.
But, happily, times change, and saints with them. Our
moral conceptions are expanding to take in that "athletic
virtue " of the Greeks, apETr) -VvuVaTarlK?, which Dr. Arnold,
by precept and practice, defended. The modern English
" Broad Church" aims at breadth of shoulders, as well
as, of doctrines. Our American saintship, also, is beginning to have a body to it, a " Body of Divinity," indeed.
Look at our three great popular preachers. The vigor
of the paternal blacksmith still swings the sinewy arm of
Beecher; Parker performed the labors, mental and physical, of four able-bodied men, until even his great strength
yielded; and if ever dyspepsia attack the burly frame of
Chapin, we fancy that dyspepsia will get the worst of it.
This is as it should be. One of the most potent causes
of the ill-concealed alienation between the clergy and the
people, in our community, is the supposed deficiency, on
the part of the former, of a vigorous, manly life. There
is a certain moral and physical anhkemia, this bloodlessness, which separates most of our saints, more effectually
than a cloister, from the strong life of the age. What
satirists upon religion are those parents who say of their
pallid, puny, sedentary, lifeless, joyless little offspring,
"He is born for a minister," while the ruddy, the brave,
and the strong are as promptly assigned to a secular career! Never yet did an ill-starred young saint waste his
Saturday afternoons in preaching sermons in the garret to
his deluded little sisters and their dolls, without living to
repent it in maturity. These precocious little sentimen



8        SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
talists wither away like blanched potato-plants in a cellar;
and then comes some vigorous youth from his out-door
work or play, and grasps the rudder of the age, as he
grasped the oar, the bat, or the plough.
Everybody admires the physical training of military
and naval schools. But these same persons never seem
to imagine that the body is worth cultivating for any purpose, except to annihilate the bodies of others. Yet it
needs more training to preserve life than to destroy it.
The vocation of a literary man is far more perilous than
that of a frontier dragoon. The latter dies at most but
once, by an Indian bullet; the former dies daily, unless he
be warned in time, and take occasional refuge in the saddle and the prairie with the dragoon. What battle-piece
is so pathetic as Browning's " Grammarian's Funeral"?
Do not waste your gymnastics on the West Point or
Annapolis student, whose whole life will be one of active
exercise, but bring them into the professional schools and
the counting-rooms. Whatever may be the exceptional
cases, the stern truth remains, that the great deeds of the
world can be more easily done by illiterate men than by
sickly ones. Wisely said Horace Mann, " All through
the life of a pure-minded but feeble-bodied man, his path
is lined with memory's gravestones, which mark the spots
where noble enterprises perished, for lack of physical
vigor to embody them in deeds." And yet more eloquently it has been said by a younger American thinker,
Wasson, "Intellect in a weak body is like gold in a spent
swimmer's pocket, - the richer he would be, under other
circumstances, by so much the greater his danger now."
Of course, the mind has immense control over physical
endurance, and every one knows that among soldiers, sailors, emigrants, and woodsmen, the leaders, though more




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.               9
delicately nurtured, will often endure hardship better than
the followers, - -" because," says Sir Philip Sidney, "they
are supported by the great appetites of honor." But for
all these triumphs of nervous power a reaction lies in
store, as in the case of the superhuman efforts often made
by delicate women. And besides, there is a point beyond
which no mental heroism can ignore the body,- as, for
instance, in sea-sickness and toothache. Can virtue arrest
consumption, or self-devotion set free the agonized breath
of asthma, or heroic energy defy paralysis? More formidable still are those subtle influences of disease, which
cannot be resisted, because their source is unseen. Voltaire declared that the fate of a nation had often depended
on the good or bad digestion of a prime-minister; and
Motley holds that the gout of Charles V. changed the
destinies of the world.
But part of the religious press still clings to the objection, that admiration of physical strength belonged to the
barbarous ages of the world. So it certainly did, and so
the race was kept alive through those ages. They hadthat one merit, at least; and so surely as an exclusively
intellectual civilization ignored it, the arm of some robust
barbarian prostrated that civilization at last. What Sismondi says of courage is pre-eminently true of that bodily
vigor which it usually presupposes: it is by no means the
first of virtues, but its loss is more fatal than that of all
others. "Were it possible to unite the advantages of a
perfect government with the cowardice of a whole people,
those advantages would be utterly valueless, since they,
would be- utterly without security."
Physical health is a necessary condition of all permanent success. To the American people it has a stupendous importance, because it is the only attribute of power
1*




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
in which they are losing ground. Guarantee us against
physical degeneracy, and we can risk all other perils, -
financial crises, Slavery, Romanism, Mormonism, Border
Ruffians, and New York assassins; "domestic malice,
foreign levy, nothing" can daunt us. Guarantee to Americans health, and Mrs. Stowe cannot frighten them with
all the prophecies of Dred; but when her sister Catherine
informs us that in all the vast female acquaintance of the
Beecher family there are not a dozen healthy women,
one is a little tempted to despair of the republic.
The one drawback to satisfaction in our Public-School
System is the physical weakness which it reveals and
helps to perpetuate. One seldom notices a ruddy face in
the school-room, without tracing it back to a Transatlantic
origin. The teacher of a large school in Canada went so
far as to declare to me, that she could recognize the children born this side the line by their invariable appearance of ill-health joined with intellectual precocity, —
stamina wanting, and the place supplied by equations.
Look at a class of boys or girls in our Grammar Schools;
a glance along the line of their backs affords a study of
geometrical curves.  You almost long to reverse the
position of their heads, as Dante has those of the false
prophets, and thus improve their figures; the rounded
shoulders affording a vigorous chest, and the hollow chest
an excellent back.
There are statistics to show that the average length of
human life is increasing; and facts to indicate a development of size and strength with advancing civilization.
Indeed, it is generally supposed that any physical deterioration is local, being peculiar to the United States. But
the "Englishwoman's Journal" asserts that "it is allowed
by all, that the appearance of the English peasant, in the




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.               11
present day, is very different to [from] what it was fifty
years ago; the robust, healthy, hard-looking country —
woman or girl is as rare now as the pale, delicate, nervous
female of our times would have been a century ago."'
And the writer proceeds to give alarming illustrations,.
based upon the appearance of children in English schools,
both in city and country.
We cannot speak for England, but certainly no one can
visit Canada without being struck with the spectacle of a
more athletic race of people than our own. One sees a
large proportion of rosy female faces and noble manly
figures. In the shop-windows, in winter weather, hang
snow-shoes, "gentlemen's and ladies' sizes." The streetcorners inform  you that the members of the "Curling
Club" are to meet to-day at " Dolly's," and the " Montreal,
Fox-hounds" at St. Lawrence Hall to-morrow. And.
next day comes off the annual steeple-chase, at the "MileEnd Course," ridden by gentlemen of the city with their
own horses; a scene, by the way, whose exciting interest
can scarcely be conceived by those accustomed only to
" trials of speed " at agricultural exhibitions. Everything.
indicates out-door habits and athletic constitutions.
All this may be met by the alleged distinction between;
a good idle constitution and a good working constitution,
- since the latter often belongs to persons who make no
show of physical powers. But this only means that there.
are different temperaments and types of physical organization, while, within the limits of each, the distinction.
between a healthy and a diseased condition still holds;
and it is that alone which is essential.
More specious is the claim of the Fourth-of-July orators, that, health or no health, it is the sallow Americans,
and not the robust English, who are really leading the




12       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
world. But this, again, is a question of temperaments.
The Englishman concedes the greater intensity, but prefers a more solid and permanent power. He justly sets
the noble masonry and vast canals of Montreal, against:the Aladdin's palaces of Chicago. "I observe," admits
the Englishman, "that an American can accomplish more,
at a single effort, than any other man on earth; but I also
observe that he exhausts himself in the achievement.
Kane, a delicate invalid, astounds the world by his two
Arctic winters, - and then dies in tropical Cuba." The
solution is simple; nervous energy is grand, and so is
ihuscular power; combine the two, and you move the
world.
One may assume as admitted, therefore, the deficiency
of physical health in America, and the need of a great
amendment. But into the general question of cause and
eure it is not here needful to enter. In view of the vast
variety of special theories, and the inadequacy of any one,
(or any dozen,) it is wiser to forbear. Perhaps the best
diagnosis of the universal American disease is to be found
in Andral's famous description of the cholera: " Anatomical characteristics, insufficient; — cause, mysterious; --
nature, hypothetical; - symptoms, characteristic; - diagn-osis, easy; - treatment, very doubtful."
Every man must have his hobby, however, and it is a
great deal to ride only one hobby at a time. For the
present the writer disavows all minor ones. He forbears
giving his pet arguments in defence of animal food, and in
opposition to tobacco, coffee, and india-rubbers. He will
not criticise the old-school physician whom he once knew,
who boasted of not having performed a thorough ablution
for twenty-five years; nor will he question the physiological orthodoxy of Miss Sedgwick's New England artist,




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.             13
who represented the Goddess of Health with a pair of
flannel drawers on. Still less is it needful to debate, or
to taste, Kennedy's Medical Discovery, or R. R. R., or
the Cow Pepsin.
" The wise for cure on exercise depend,"
saith Dryden, - and that is the argument now in question.
A great physician has said, "I know not which is most
indispensable for the support of the frame, - food or exercise."  But who, in this community, really takes exercise?  Even the mechanic commonly confines himself to
one set of muscles; the blacksmith acquires strength in
his right arm, and the dancing-master in his left leg. But
the professional or business, man, what muscles has he at
all? The tradition, that Phidippides ran from Athens to
Sparta, one hundred and twenty miles, in two days, seems
to us Americans as mythical as the Golden Fleece.!Even
to ride sixty miles in a day, to walk thirty, to run five, or
to swim one, would cost most men among us a fit of ilk
ness, and many their lives. Let any man test his physik
cal condition, either, if he likes work, by sawing his own
cord of wood, or, if he prefers play, by an hour in the gymnasium or at cricket, and his enfeebled muscular apparatus will groan with rheumatism for a week. Or let him
test the strength of his arms and chest by raising and lowering himself a few times upon a horizontal bar, or hanging by the arms to a rope, and he will probably agree with
Galen in pronouncing it robustumn validumque laborer.,
Yet so manifestly are these things within the reach of
common constitutions, that a few weeks or months of ju.
dicious practice will renovate his whole system, and the
most vigorous exercise will refresh him like a cold bath.




14       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
To a well-regulated frame, mere physical exertion, even
for an uninteresting object, is a great enjoyment, which is,
of course, qualified by the excitement of games and sports.
To almost every man there is joy in the memory of these
things; they are the happiest associations of his boyhood.
It does not occur to him, that he also might be as happy
as a child, if he lived more like one. What do most men
know of the " wild joys of living," the daily zest and luxury of out-door existence, in which every healthy boy beside them revels? - skating, while the orange sky of sunset dies away over the delicate tracery of gray branches,
and the throbbing feet pause in their tingling motion, and
the frosty air is filled with the shrill sound of distant steel,
the resounding of the ice, and the echoes up the hillsides?
- sailing, beating up against a stiff breeze, with the waves
thumping under the bow, as if a dozen sea-gods had laid
their heads together to resist it?- climbing tall trees,
where the higher foliage, closing around, cures the dizziness which began below, and one feels as if he had left a
coward beneath and found a hero above? -the joyous
hour of crowded life in football or cricket? - the gallant
glories of riding, and the jubilee of swimming?
The charm which all have found in Tom Brown's
"School Days at Rugby" lies simply in this healthy
boy's-life which it exhibits, and in the recognition of
physical culture, which is so novel to Americans. But
efforts after the same thing begin to creep in among ourselves. A few Normal Schools have gymnasiums (rather
neglected, however); the "Mystic Hall Female Seminary" advertises riding-horses; and we believe the new
"Concord School" recognizes boating as an incidental;
-but these are all exceptional cases, and far between.
Faint and shadowy in early remembrance are certain




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.              15
ruined structures lingering Stonehenge-like'on the (ambridge "Delta," —and mysterious pits adjoining, into
which Freshmen were decoyed to stumble, and of which
it is reported that vestiges still remain. Tradition spoke
of Dr. Follen and German gymnastics; but the beneficent exotic was transplanted prematurely, and died. The
only direct encouragement of athletic exercises which
stands out in my memory of academic life was a certain
inestimable shed on the " College Wharf," which was for
a brief season the paradise of swimmers, and which, after
having been deliberately arranged for their accommodation, was suddenly removed, the next season, to make
room\ for coal-bins. Manly sports were not positively
discouraged in those days, - but that was all.
Yet earlier reminiscences of the same beloved Cambridge suggest deeper gratitude. Thanks to thee, William  Wells, — first pioneer, in New England, of true
classical learning, - last wielder of the old English birch,
- for the manly British sympathy which encouraged to
activity the bodies, as well as the brains, of the numerous
band of boys who played beneath the stately elms of that
pleasant play-ground! Who among modern pedagogues
can show such an example of vigorous pedestrianism in
his youth as thou in thine age? and who now grants halfholidays, unasked, for no other reason than that the skating is good and the boys must use it while it lasts?
It is safe to cling still to the belief, that the Persian
curriculum of studies - to ride, to shoot, and to speak the
truth - is the better part of a boy's education. As the
urchin is undoubtedly physically safer for having learned
to turn a somerset and fire a gun, perilous though these
feats appear to mothers, - so his soul is made healthier,
larger, freer, stronger, by hours and days of manly exer



16       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
cise and copious draughts of open air, at whatever risk of.idle habits and bad companions. Even if the balance is
sometimes lost, and play prevails, what matter?  It was
a pupil of William Wells who wrote
" The hours the idle school-boy squandered
The man would die ere he'd forget."
Only keep in a boy a pure and generous heart, and,
whether he work or play, his time can scarcely be
wasted. Which really has done most for the education
of Boston,-Dixwell and Sherwin, or Sheridan and
Braman?
Should it prove, however, that the cultivation of active
exercises diminishes the proportion of time given by children to study, it is only an added advantage. Every year
confirms the conviction, that our schools, public and private, systematically overtask the brains of the rising generation. We all complain that Young America grows to
mental maturity too soon, and yet we all contribute our
share to continue the evil. It is but a few weeks since
the New York newspapers were shouting the praises of a
girl's school, in that city, where the appointed hours of
study amounted to nine and a quarter daily, and the hours
of exercise to a bare unit. Almost all the Students' Manuals assume that American,students need stimulus instead
of restraint, and urge them to multiply the hours of study
and diminish those of out-door amusements and of sleep,
as if the great danger did not lie that way already. When
will parents and teachers learn to regard mental precocity
as a disaster to be shunned, instead of a glory to be coveted? One could count up a dozen young men who have
graduated at Harvard College, during the last twenty
years, with high honors, before the age of eighteen; and




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.              17
it is possible that nearly every one of them has lived to
regret it. "Nature," says Tissot, in his Essay on the
Health of Men of Letters, " is unable successfully to carry on two rapid processes at the same time. We attempt
a prodigy, and the result is a fool." There was a child in
Languedoc who at six years was of the size of a large
man; of course, his mind was a vacuum. On the other
hand, Jean Philippe Baratier was a learned man in his
eighth year, and died of apparent old age at twenty.
Both were monstrosities, and a healthy childhood would
be equidistant from either.
One invaluable merit of out-door sports is to be found
in this, that they afford the best cement for childish friendship.  Their associations outlive all others.  There is
many a man, now perchance hard and worldly, whom one
loves to pass in the street simply because in meeting him
one meets spring flowers and autumn chestnuts, skates
and cricket-balls, cherry-birds and pickerel. There is an
indescribable fascination in the gradual transference of
these childish companionships into maturer relations. It
is pleasant to encounter in the contests of manhood those
whom one first met at football, and to follow the profound
thoughts of those who always dived deeper, even in the
river, than one's own efforts could attain. There is a
certain governor, of whom I personally can remember
only that he found the Fresh Pond heronry, which I
vainly sought; and in memory the august sheriff of a
neighboring county still skates in victorious pursuit of me,
(fit emblem of swift-footed justice!) on the black ice of
the same lovely lake. My imagination crowns the Cambridge poet, and the Cambridge sculptor, not with their
later laurels, but with the willows out of which they
taught me to carve whistles, shriller than any trump of
B




18       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
fame, in the happy days when Mount Auburn was Sweet
Auburn still.
Luckily, boy-nature is too strong for theory. And
truth demands the admission, that physical education is
not so entirely neglected among us as the absence of popular games would indicate. It is very possible that this
last fact proceeds partly from the greater freedom of fieldsports in this country. There are few New England boys
who do not become familiar with the rod or gun in childhood. Perhaps, in the mother country, the monopoly of
land interferes with this, and that game laws, by a sort of
spontaneous pun, tend to introduce games.
Again, the practice of match-playing is opposed to our
national habits, both as a consumer of time, and as partaking too much of gambling. Still, it is done in the case
of " firemen's musters," which are, we believe, a wholly
indigenous institution. I have known a few cases where
the young men of neighboring country parishes have
challenged each other to games of base-ball, as is common
in England; and there was a recent match at football
between the boys of the Fall River and the New Bedford High Schools. And within a few years regattas
and cricket-matches have become common events. Still,
these public exhibitions are far from being a full exponent of the athletic habits of our people; and there is
really more going on among us than this meagre " pentathlon" exhibits.
Again, a foreigner is apt to infer, from the more desultory and unsystematized character of our out-door amusements, that we are less addicted to them than we really
are. But this belongs to the habit of our nation, impatient, to a fault, of precedents and conventionalisms. The
English-born Frank Forrester complains of the total in



SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.              19
difference of our sportsmen to correct phraseology. We
should say, he urges, " for large flocks of wild fowl,of swans, a whiteness, - of geese, a gaggle, - of brent, a
gang,- of duck, a team or a plump, — of widgeon, a
trip, - of snipes, a wisp, - of larks, an exaltation. The
young of grouse are cheepers, - of quail, squeakers, - of
wild duck, flappers."  And yet, careless of these proprieties, Young America goes "gunning" to good purpose.
So with all games. A college football-player reads with
astonishment Tom Brown's description of the very complicated performance which passes under that name at
Rugby. So cricket is simplified; it is hard to organize
an American club into the conventional distribution of
point and cover-point, long slip and short slip, but the
players persist in winning the game by novel groupings
and daring combinations.  This constitutional independence has its good and evil results, in sports as elsewhere.
It is this which has created the American breed of trotting horses, and which won the Cowes regatta by a mainsail as flat as a board.
But, so far as there is a deficiency. in these respects
among us, this generation must not shrink from the responsibility. It is unfair to charge it on the Puritans.
They are not even answerable for Massachusetts; for
there is no doubt that athletic exercises, of some sort,
were far more generally practised in this community before the Revolution than at present. A state of almost
constant Indian warfare then created an obvious demand
for muscle and agility. At present there is no such immediate necessity. And it has been supposed that a race
of shopkeepers, brokers, and lawyers could live without
bodies. Now that the terrible records of dyspepsia and
paralysis are disproving this, one may hope for a reaction




20       SAINTS, AND  THEIR  BODIES.
in favor of bodily exercises. And when we once begin
the competition, there seems no reason why any other
nation should surpass us. The wide area of our country,
and its variety of surface and shore, offer a corresponding
range of physical training. Contrast our various aquatic
opportunities, for instance. It is one thing to steer a
pleasure-boat with a rudder, and another to steer a dory
with an oar; one thing to paddle a birch-canoe, and
another to paddle a ducking-float; in a Charles River
club-boat, the post of honor is in the stern, - in a Penobscot bateau, in the bow; and each of these experiences
educates a different set of muscles. Add to this the constitutional American receptiveness, which welcomes new
pursuits without distinction of origin, —unites German
gymnastics with English sports and sparring, and takes
the red Indians for instructors in paddling and running.
With these various aptitudes, we certainly ought to become a nation of athletes.
Thus it is that, in one way or another, American schoolboys obtain active exercise. The same is true, in a very
limited degree, even of girls. They are occasionally, in
our larger cities, sent to gymnasiums, -the more the
better. Dancing-schools are better than nothing, though
all the attendant circumstances are usually unfavorable.
A fashionable young lady is estimated to traverse her
three hundred miles a season on foot; and this needs
training. But out-door exercise for girls is terribly restricted, first by their costume, and secondly by the social
proprieties. All young female animals unquestionably
require as much motion as their brothers, and naturally
make as much noise; but what mother would not be
shocked, in the case of her girl of twelve, by one tenth
part the activity and uproar which are recognized as be



SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.              21
ing the breath of life to her twin brother? Still, there is
a change going on, which is tantamount to an admission
that there is an evil to be remedied. Twenty years ago,
if we mistake not, it was by no means considered "proper" for little girls to play with their hoops and balls on
Boston Common; and swimming and skating have hardly
been recognized as "lady-like" for half that period of
time.
Still it is beyond question, that far more out-door exercise is habitually taken by the female population of almost
all European countries than by our own.  In the first
place, the peasant women of all other countries (a class
non-existent here) are trained to active labor from childhood; and what traveller has not seen, on foreign mountain-paths, long rows of maidens ascending and descending
the difficult ways, bearing heavy burdens on their heads,
and winning by the exercise such a superb symmetry and
grace of figure as were a new wonder of the world to Cisatlantic eyes? Among the higher classes, physical exercises take the place of these things. Miss Beecher glowingly describes a Russian female seminary, in-which nine
hundred girls of the noblest families were being trained
by Ling's system of calisthenics, and her informant declared that she never beheld such an array of girlish
health and beauty. Englishwomen, again, have horsemanship and pedestrianism, in which their ordinary feats
appear to our healthy women incredible. Thus, Mary
Lamb writes to Miss Wordsworth, (both ladies being between fifty and sixty,) "You say you can walk fifteen
miles with ease; that is exactly my stint, and more fatigues me"; and then speaks pityingly of a delicate lady
who could accomplish only " four or five miles every third
or fourth day, keeping very quiet between." How few




22       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
American ladies, in the fulness of their strength, (if female
strength among us has any fulness,) can surpass this English invalid!
But even among American men, how few carry athletic
-habits into manhood! The great hindrance, no doubt, is
absorption in business; and we observe that this winter's
hard times and consequent leisure have given a great
stimulus to out-door sports.  But in most places there
is the further obstacle, that a certain stigma of boyishness
goes with them. So early does this begin, that the writer
remembers, in his teens, to have been slightly reproached
with juvenility, for still clinging to foot-ball, though a
Senior Sophister. Juvenility! He only wishes he had
the opportunity now.  Mature men are, of course, intended to take not only as much, but far more active exercise than boys. Some physiologists go so far as to demand six hours of out-door life daily; and it is absurd to
complain that we have not the healthy animal happiness
of children, while we forswear their simple sources of
pleasure.
Most of the exercise habitually taken by men of sedentary pursuits is in the form of walking. Its merits may be
easily overrated. Walking is to real exercise what vegetable food is to animal; it satisfies the appetite, but the
nourishment is not sufficiently concentrated to be invigorating. It takes a man out-doors, and it uses his muscles, and therefore of course it is good; but it is not the
best kind of good. Walking, for walking's sake, becomes
tedious. We must not ignore the play-impulse in human
nature, which, according to Schiller, is the foundation of
all Art. In female boarding-schools, teachers uniformly
testify to the aversion of pupils to the prescribed walk.
Give them a sled, or a pair of skates, or a row-boat, or




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.             23put them on horseback, and they will protract the period
of exercise till the complaint is transferred to the preceptor.
Gymnastic exercises have two disadvantages: one, in
being commonly performed under cover (though this may
sometimes prove an advantage as well); another, in requiring apparatus, and at first a teacher. Apart from
these, perhaps no other form of exercise is so universally
invigorating. A teacher is required, less for the sake of
stimulus than of precaution. The tendency is almost always to dare too much; and there is also need of a daily
moderation in commencing exercises; for the wise pupil
will always prefer to supple his muscles by mild exercises
and calisthenics, before proceeding to harsher performances on the bars and ladders. With this precaution,
strains are easily avoided; even with this, the hand will
sometimes blister and the body ache, but perseverance
will cure the one and Russia Salve the other; and the
invigorated life in every limb will give a perpetual charm
to those seemingly aimless leaps and somersets. The feats
once learned, a private gymnasium can easily be constructed, of the simplest apparatus, and so daily used;
though nothing can wholly supply the stimulus afforded
by a class in a public institution, with a competent teacher. In summer, the whole thing can partially be dispensed with; but it is hard for me to imagine how any
person gets through the winter happily without a gymnasium.
For the favorite in-door exercise of dumb-bells we have
little to say; they are not an enlivening performance, nor
do they task a variety of muscles, - while they are apt
to strain and fatigue them, if used with energy. Far better, for a solitary exercise, is the Indian club, a lineal




24       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
descendant of that antique one in whose handle rare medicaments were fabled to be concealed. The modern one
is simply a rounded club, weighing from four pounds upwards, according to the strength of the pupil; grasping a
pair of these by the handles, he learns a variety of exercises, having always before him the feats of the marvellous Mr. Harrison, whose praise is in the " Spirit of the
Times," and whose portrait adorns the back of Dr. Trall's
Gymnastics.  By the latest bulletins, that gentleman
measured forty-two and a half inches round the chest,
and employed clubs weighing no less than forty-seven
pounds.
It may seem to our non-resistant friends to be going
rather far, if we should indulge our saints in taking boxing lessons; yet it is not long since a New York clergyman saved his life in Broadway by the judicious administration of a " cross-counter " or a " flying crook," and we
have not heard of his excommunication from the Church
Militant. No doubt, a laudable aversion prevails, in this
country, to the English practices of pugilism; yet it must
be remembered that sparring is, by its very name, a " science of self-defence "; and if a gentleman wishes to know
how to hold a rude antagonist at bay, in any emergency,
and keep out of an undignified scuffle, the means are most
easily afforded him by the art which Pythagoras founded.
Apart from this, boxing exercises every muscle in the
body, and gives a wonderful quickness to eye and hand.
These same remarks apply, though in a minor degree, to
fencing also.
Billiards is a graceful game, and affords, in some respects, admirable training, but is hardly to be classed
among athletic exercises. Tenpins afford, perhaps, the
most popular form of exercise among us, and have be



SAINTS, AND  THEIR  BODIES.              25
come almost a national game, and a good one, too, so far
as it goes. The English game of bowls is less entertaining, and is, indeed, rather a sluggish sport, though it has
the merit of being played in the open air. The severer
British sports, as tennis and rackets, are scarcely more
than names to us Americans, though both are to be practised in New York city.
Passing now to out-door exercises, (and no one should
confine himself to in-door ones,) one must hold with the
Thalesian school, and rank water first. Vishnu Sarma
gives, in his apologues, the characteristics of the fit place
for a wise man to live in, and enumerates among its necessities first " a Rajah " and then " a river."  Democrats
can dispense with the first, but not with the second. A
square mile even of pond water is worth a year's schooling to any intelligent boy. A boat is a kingdom. I personally own one, - a mere flat-bottomed " float," with a
centre-board. It has seen service, - it is eight years old,
- has spent two winters under the ice, and been fished in
by boys every day for as many summers. It grew at last
so hopelessly leaky, that even the boys disdained it. It
cost seven dollars originally, and I would not sell it to-day
for seventeen. To own the poorest boat is better than
hiring the best. It is a link to Nature; without a boat,
one is so much the less a man.
Sailing is of course delicious; it is as good as flying to
steer anything with wings of canvas, whether one stand
by the wheel of a clipper-ship, or by the clumsy stern-oar
of a " gundalow." But rowing has also its charms; and
the Indian noiselessness of the paddle, beneath the fringing branches of the Assabeth or Artichoke, puts one into
Fairyland at once, and Hiawatha's cheemaun becomes a
possible possession. Rowing is peculiarly graceful and
2




26       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
appropriate as a feminine exercise, and any able-bodied
girl can learn to handle one light oar at the first lesson,
and two at the second.
Swimming has also a birdlike charm of motion. The
novel element, the free action, the abated drapery, give a
sense of personal contact with Nature which nothing else
so fully bestows. No later triumph of existence is so
fascinating, perhaps, as that in which the boy first wins
his panting way across the deep gulf that severs one
green bank from another, (ten yards, perhaps,) and feels
himself thenceforward lord of the watery world. The
Athenian phrase for a man who knew nothing was, that
he could "neither read nor swim."  Yet there is a vast
amount of this ignorance; the majority of sailors, it is
said, cannot swim a stroke; and in a late lake disaster,
many able-bodied men perished by drowning, in calm
water, only half a mile from shore. At our wateringplaces it is rare to see a swimmer venture out more than
a rod or two, though this proceeds partly from the fear
of sharks, - as if sharks of the dangerous order were not
far more afraid of the rocks than the swimmers of being
eaten. But the fact of the timidity is unquestionable;
and I was told by a certain clerical frequenter of a watering-place, himself an athlete, that he had never met but
two companions who would swim boldly out with him,
both being ministers, and one a distinguished Ex-President of Brown University. This fact must certainly be
placed to the credit of the bodies of our saints.
But there is no space to descant on the details of all
active exercises. Riding may be left to the eulogies,of Mr. N. P. Willis, and cricket to Mr. Lillywhite's
" Guide."  It is pleasant, however, to see the rapid spread
of clubs for the latter game, which a few years since was




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.              27
practised only by a few transplanted Englishmen and
Scotchmen; and it is pleasant also to observe the twin
growth of our indigenous American game of base-ball,
whose briskness and unceasing activity are perhaps more
congenial, after all, to our national character, than the
comparative deliberation of cricket. Football, bating its
roughness, is the most glorious of all sports to those whose
animal life is sufficiently vigorous to enjoy it. Skating is
just at present the fashion for ladies as well as gentlemen,
and needs no apostle; it is destined to become a permanent institution.
A word, in passing, on the literature of athletic exer
cises; it is too scanty to detain us long. Five hundred
books, it is estimated, have been written on the digestive
organs, but it is hard to find half a dozen worth naming
in connection with the muscular powers. The common
Physiologies recommend exercise in general terms, but
seldom venture on details; unhappily, they are written,
for the most part, by men who have already lost their own
health, and are therefore useful as warnings rather than
examples. The first real book of gymnastics printed in
this country, so far as we know, was the work of the
veteran Salzmann, translated and published in Philadelphia, in 1802, and sometimes to be met with in libraries,
-an odd, desultory book, with many good reasonings
and suggestions, and quaint pictures of youths exercising
in the old German costume. Like Dr. Follen's Cambridge gymnasium, it was probably transplanted too
early, and produced no effect. Next came, in 1836, the
book which is still, after twenty years, the standard, so
far as it goes, - Walker's " Manly Exercises," - a thoroughly English book, and needing better adaptation to
our habits, but full of manly vigor, and containing good




28       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
and copious directions for skating, swimming, boating, and
horsemanship. The only later general treatise worth
naming is Dr. Trall's recently published " Family Gymnasium,"- a good book, yet not good enough. On gymnastics proper it contains scarcely anything; and the
essays on rowing, riding, and skating are so meagre, that
they might almost as well have been omitted, though that
on swimming is excellent. The main body of the book is
devoted to the subject of calisthenics, and especially to
Ling's system; all this is valuable for its novelty, although
it is hard to imagine how a system so tediously elaborate
can ever be made very useful for American pupils. Miss
Beecher has an excellent essay on calisthenics, with very
useful figures, at the end of her "Physiology."  And
on proper gymnastic exercises there is a little book
so full and admirable, that it atones for the defects of
all the others, — " Paul Preston's Gymnastics," - nominally a child's book, but so spirited and graphic, and
entering so admirably into the whole extent of the subject, that it ought to be reprinted and find ten thousand
readers.
These remarks have been purposely confined to those
physical exercises which partake most of the character of
sports. Field-sports alone have been omitted, as having
been so often discussed by abler hands. Mechanical and
horticultural labors lie out of the province of this essay.
So do those of the artist and the man of science. The
out-door study of natural history alone is a vast field,
even yet very little entered upon. In how many American towns or villages are to be found local collections of
natural objects, such as every large town in Europe
affords, and without which the foundations of thorough
knowledge cannot be laid? There are scarcely any. One




SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.              29
finds innumerable fragmentary and aimless "Museums,"
— collections of South-Sea shells in inland villages, and
of aboriginal remains in seaport towns, - mere curiosityshops, which no man confers any real benefit by collecting; while the most ignorant person may be a true benefactor to science by forming a cabinet, however scanty, of
the animal and vegetable productions of his own township. Professor Agassiz has often publicly lamented this
waste of energy, and all may do their share to remedy
the defect, while they invigorate their bodies by the exercise which the effort will give, and the joyous open-air
life into which it will take them.
For, after all, the secret charm of all these sports and
studies is simply this, — that they bring us into more
familiar intercourse with Nature. They give us that
vitam sub divo in which the Roman exulted,- those outdoor days, which, say the Arabs, are not to be reckoned
in the length of life. Nay, to a true lover of the open
air, night beneath its curtain is as beautiful as day. The
writer has personally camped out under a variety of auspices,- before a fire of pine logs in the forests of Maine,
beside a blaze of faya-boughs on' the steep side of a
foreign volcano, and beside no fire at all (except a possible one of Sharp's rifles), in that domestic volcano,
Kansas; and every such remembrance is worth many
nights of in-door slumber. There is never a week in the
year, nor an hour of day or night, which has not, in the
open air, its own special interest. One need not say,
with Reade's Australians, that the only use of a house is
to sleep in the lee of it; but they might do worse. As
for rain, it is chiefly formidable in-doors. Lord Bacon
used to ride with uncovered head in a shower, and loved
" to feel the spirit of the universe upon his brow "; and I




30       SAINTS, AND  THEIR BODIES.
once knew an enthusiastic hydropathic physician who
loved to expose himself in thunder-storms at midnight,
without a shred of earthly clothing between himself and
the atmosphere. Some prudent persons may possibly
regard this as being rather an extreme, while yet their
own extreme of avoidance of every breath from heaven
is really the more extravagantly unreasonable of the two.
It is easy for the sentimentalist to say, " But if the
object is, after all, the enjoyment of Nature, why not go
and enjoy her, without any collateral aim? " Because it
is the universal experience of man, that, if we have a
collateral aim, we enjoy her) far more. He knows not
the beauty of the universe, who has not learned the subtile mystery, that Nature loves to work on us by indirections. Astronomers say, that, when observing with the
naked eye, you see a star less clearly by looking at it,
than by looking at the next one. Margaret Fuller's fine
saying touches the same point, —" Nature will not be
stared at." Go out merely to enjoy her, and it seems a
little tame, and you begin to suspect yourself of affectation. There are persons who, after years of abstinence
from athletic sports or the pursuits of the naturalist or
artist, have resumed them, simply in order to restore to
the woods and the sunsets the zest of the old fascination. Go out under pretence of shooting on the marshes
or botanizing in the forests; study entomology, that most
fascinating, most neglected of all the branches of natural
history; go to paint a red maple-leaf in autumn, or watch
a pickerel-line in winter; meet Nature on the cricketground or at the regatta; swim with her, ride with -her,
run with her, and she gladly takes you back once more
within the horizon of her magic, and your heart of manhood is born again into more than the fresh happiness of
the boy.




PHYSICAL COURAGE.








PHYSICAL COURAGE.
THE Romans had a military machine called a balista;
a sort of vast crossbow, which discharged huge.
stones. It is said, that, when the first one was exhibited,
an athlete exclaimed, "Farewell henceforth to all courage!"  Montaigne relates, that the old knights, in his
youth, were accustomed to deplore the introduction of
fencing-schools, from  a similar apprehension.  Pacific
King James predicted, but with rejoicing, the same result
from iron armor. " It was an excellent thing," he said, -
"' one could get no harm in it, nor do any."  And, similarly, there exists an opinion now, that the combined powers
of gunpowder and peace are banishing physical courage,
and the need of it, from the world.
Peace is good, but this result of it would be sad indeed.
Life is sweet, but it would not be sweet enough without
the occasional relish of peril and the luxury of daring
deeds.  Amid the changes of time, the monotony of
events, and the injustice of mankind, there is always
accessible to the poorest this one draught of enjoyment, --
danger. "In boyhood," said the Norwegian enthusiast,
Ole Bull, "I loved to be far out on the ocean in my little
boat, for it was dangerous, and in danger one draws near
to God." Perhaps every man sometimes feels this long2*                         0




34           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
ing, has his moment of ardor, when he would fain leave
politics and personalities, even endearments and successes,
behind, and would exchange the best year of his life for
one hour at Balaklava with the Six Hundred. It is the
bounding of the Berserker blood in us, —the murmuring
echo of the old death-song of Regnar Lodbrog, as he lay
amid vipers in his dungeon:-" What is the fate of a
brave man, but to fall amid the foremost? He who is
never wounded has a weary lot."
This makes the fascination of war, which is in itself,
of course, brutal and disgusting. Dr. Johnson says, truly,
that the naval and military professions have the dignity
of danger, since mankind reverence those who have overcome fear, which is so general a weakness. The error
usually lies in exaggerating the difference, in this respect,
between war and peace. Madame de Sevign6 writes to
her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, after a campaign, "I cannot
understand how one can expose himself a thousand times,
as you have done, and not be killed a thousand times
also." To which the Count answers, that she overrates
the danger; a soldier may often make several campaigns
without drawing a sword, and be in a battle without seeing an enemy, — as, for example, where one is in the
second line, or rear guard, and the first line decides the
contest. He finally quotes Turenne, and Maurice, Prince
of Orange, to the same effect, that a military life is less
perilous than civilians suppose.
It is, therefore, a foolish delusion to suppose, that, as
the world grows more pacific, the demand for physical
courage passes away. It is only that its applications
become nobler.  In barbarous ages, men fight against
men and animals, and need, like Achilles, to be fed on the
marrow of wild beasts.  As time elapses, the savage




PHYSICAL COURAGE.                  35
animals are extirpated, the savage men are civilized; but
Nature, acting through science, commerce, society, is still
creating new exigencies of peril, and evoking new types
of courage to meet them.  Grace Darling at her oars,
Kane in his open boat, Stephenson testing his safety-lamp
in the terrible pit, - what were the trophies of Miltiades
to these? And, indeed, setting aside these sublimities of
purpose, and looking simply at the quantity and quality
of peril, it is doubtful whether any tale of the sea-kings
thrills the blood more worthily than the plain newspaper
narrative of Captain Thomas Bailey, in the Newburyport
schooner "Atlas," beating out of the Gut of Canso, in
a gale of wind, with his crew of two men and a boy, up
to their waists in the water.
It is easy to test the matter. Let any one, who believes
that the day of daring is past, beg or buy a ride on the
locomotive of the earliest express-train, some cold wintermorning. One wave of the conductor's hand, and the
live engine springs snorting beneath you, as no Arab
steed ever rushed over the desert. It is not like being
bound to an arrow, for that motion would be smoother;
it is not like being hurled upon an ocean crest, for that
would be slower. You are rushing onward, and you are
powerless; that is all. The frosty air gives such a brittle
and slippery look to the two iron lines which lie between
you and destruction, that you appreciate the Mohammedan
fable of the Bridge Herat, thinner than a hair, sharper
than a scimitar, which stretches over hell and leads to
paradise. Nothing has passed over that perilous track
for many hours; the cliffs may have fallen and buried it,
the frail bridges may have sunk beneath it, or diabolical
malice put obstructions on it, no matter how trivial,
equally fatal to you; each curving embankment may hide




36           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
unknown horrors, from which, though all others escape,
you, on the engine, cannot; and still the surging locomotive bounds onward, beneath your mad career. You
draw a long breath, as you dismount at last, a hundred
miles away, as if you had been riding with 5Mazeppa or
Brunechilde, and yet escaped alive. And there, by your
side, stands the quiet, grimy engineer, turning already to
his tobacco and his newspaper, and unconscious, while he
reads of the charge at Balaklava, that his life is Balaklava every day.
Physical courage is not, therefore, a thing to be so
easily set aside.  Nor is it, as our reformers appear
sometimes to assume, a mere corollary from moral courage, and, ultimately, to be merged in that. Moral courage is rare enough, no doubt, - probably the rarer quality
of the two, as it is the nobler; but they are things diverse, and not necessarily united. There have been men,
and still are such, leaders of their age in moral courage,
and yet physically timid. This is not as it should be.
God placed man at the head of the visible universe, and
if he is to be thrown from his control, daunted by a bullet, or a wild horse, or a flash of lightning, or a lee shore,
then man is dishonored, and the order of the universe
deranged. No matter what the occasion of the terror is,
a mouse or a martyrdom, fear dethrones us. " He that
lives in fear of death," said Caesar, "at every moment
feels its tortures. I will die but once."
Having claimed thus much, it may still be readily admitted that we cannot yet estimate the precise effect upon
physical courage of a state of permanent national peace,
since indeed we are not quite within sight of that desirable consummation. Meanwhile, it is worth while to
attempt some slight sketch and classification of the differ



PHYSICAL COURA GE.                  87
ent types of this quality;- among which are to be
enumerated the spontaneous courage of the blood; -the
courage of habit or discipline, - magnetic or transmitted
courage, - and the courage inspired by self-devotion or
despair.
There is a certain innate fire of the blood, which does
not dare perils for the sake of principle, nor grow indifferent to them from familiarity, nor confront them under
support of a stronger will, - but loves them for their own
sake, without reference to any ulterior object. There is
no special merit in it, for it is a matter of temperament,
Yet it often conceals itself under the finer names of selfdevotion and high purpose, - as George Borrow convinced himself that he was actuated by evangelical zeal
to spread the Bible in Spain, though one sees, through
every line of his narrative, that it was chiefly the adventure which allured him, and that he would as willingly
have distributed the Koran in London, had it been equally
contraband. No surplices, no libraries, no counting-house
desks, can eradicate this natural instinct. Achilles, disguised among the maidens, was detected by the wily
Ulysses, because he chose arms, not jewels, from the
travelling merchant's stores. In the most placid life, a
man may pant for danger; and quiet, unobtrusive persons
sometimes confess that they never step into a railroad-car
without a sort of secret hope of a collision.
This is the courage of heroic races, as Highlanders,
Circassians, Montenegrins, Afghans, and those Arabs
among whom Urquhart finely said that peace could not
be purchased by victory. Where destined to appear at
all, it is likely to be developed in extreme youth, which
explains such instances as the gamins de Paris, and that
of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who in boyhood conveyed a




38           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
despatch during a naval engagement, swimming through
double lines of fire. Indeed, among heroic races, young
soldiers are preferable for daring; such, at least, is the
testimony of the highest authorities, as Ney and Wellington. "I have found," said the Duke, " that raw troops,
however inferior to the old ones in manoeuvring, may be
superior to them in downright hard fighting with the
enemy. At Waterloo, the young ensigns and lieutenants,
who had never before seen an enemy, rushed to meet
death as if they were playing at cricket."
But though youth is good for an onset, it needs habit
and discipline to give steadiness. A boy will risk his life
where a veteran will be too circumspect to follow him;
but to perform a difficult manoeuvre in face of an enemy
requires Sicinius with forty-five scars on his breast. "The
very apprehension of a wound," said Seneca,'" startles a
man when he first bears arms; but an old soldier bleeds
boldly, for he knows that a man may lose blood and yet
win the day."  Before the battle of Preston Pans, Mr.
Ker of Graden, "an experienced officer," mounted on a
gray pony, coolly reconnoitred all the difficult ground
between the two armies, crossed it in several directions,
deliberately alighted more than once to lead his horse
through gaps made for that purpose in the stone walls,
- under a constant shower of musket-balls. He finally
returned unhurt to Charles Edward, and dissuaded him
from crossing. Undoubtedly, any raw Highlander in the
army would have incurred the same risk, with or without
a sufficient object; but not one of them would have brought
back so clear a report, - if, indeed, he had brought himself back.
The most common evidence of this frequent dependence of courage on habit is in the comparative timidity of




PHYSICAL COURA GE.                 39
brave men against novel dangers, - as of sailors on horseback, and mountaineers at sea. Nay, the same effect is
sometimes produced merely by different forms of danger
within the same sphere. Sea-captains often attach an exaggerated sense of peril to small boats; Conde confessed
himself a coward in a street-fight; and William the Conqueror is said to have trembled exceedingly (vehementer
tremens) during the disturbance which interrupted his coronation. It was probably from just the same cause, that
Mrs. Inchbald, the most fearless of actresses, was once
entirely overcome by timidity on assuming a character in
a masquerade.
On a larger scale, the mere want of habitual exposure
to danger will often cause a whole population to be
charged with greater cowardice than really belongs to
them. Thus, after the coronation of the Chevalier, in
the Scottish insurrection of 1745, although the populace
of Edinburgh crowded around him, kissing ZHis very garments when he walked abroad, yet scarcely a man could
be enlisted, in view of the certainty of an approaching
battle with General Cope. And before this, when the
Highlanders were marching on the city, out of a volunteer corps of four hundred raised to meet them, all but
forty-five deserted before the gate was passed. Yet there
is no reason to doubt that these frightened citizens, after
having once stood fire, might have been as brave as the
average. It was a saying in Kansas, that the New England men needed to be shot at once or twice, after which
they became the bravest of the brave.
This habitual courage mingles itself, doubtless, with the
third species, the magnetic, or transmitted. No mental
philosopher has yet done justice to the wondrous power of
leadership, the " art Napoleon."  "There go thirty thou



40           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
sand men," shouted the Portuguese, as Wellington rode
alone up the mountain-side, - and Wellington in turn
used almost the same phrase in describing Napoleon to
Rogers. The ancients stated it best in their proverb, that
an army of stags led by a lion is more formidable than an
army of lions led by a stag. It was for this reason that
the Greeks used to send to Sparta, not for soldiers, but
for a general. When Crillon, l'homme sans peur, defended
Quillebceuf with a handful of men against the army of
Marshal Villars, the latter represented to him, that it was
madness to resist such superiority of numbers, to which
the answer was simply, — " Crillon est dedans, et Villars
est dehors." The event proved that the hero inside was
stronger than the army outside.
Every one knows that there is a certain magnetic power
in courage, apart from all physical strength. In a family of
lone women, there is usually some one whose presence is
held to confer safety on the house: she may be a delicate
invalid, but she is not afraid. The same quality explains
the difference in the demeanor of different companies of
men and women, in great emergencies of danger. Read
one narrative of shipwreck, and human nature seems all
sublime; read another, and, under circumstances equally
desperate, it appears base, selfish, grovelling. The difference lies simply in the influence of a few leading spirits.
Ordinarily, as is the captain, so are the officers, so are the
passengers, so are the sailors. Bonaparte said, that at the
beginning of almost every battle there was a moment when
the bravest troops were liable to sudden panic; let the
personal control of the general once lead them past that,
and the field was half won.
The courage of self-devotion, lastly, is the faculty
evoked by special exigencies, in persons who have before




PHYSICAL COURAGE.                  41
given no peculiar evidence of daring. It belongs especially to the race of martyrs and enthusiasts, whose personal terrors vanish in the greatness of the object, so that
Joan of Arc, listening to the songs of the angels, does not
feel the flames. This, indeed, is the accustomed form in
which woman's courage proclaims itself at last, unsuspected until the crisis comes. This has given us the
deeds of Flora Macdonald, Jane Lane, and the Countess
of Derby; the rescue of Lord Nithisdale by his wife, and
that planned for Montrose by Lady Margaret Durham;
the heroism of Catherine Douglas, thrusting her arm within the stanchions of the doorway to protect James I. of
Scotland, till his murderers shattered the frail barrier;
and that sublimest narrative of woman's devotion, Gertrude Van der Wart at her husband's execution. It is
possible that all these women may have been timid and
shrinking before the hour of trial; and every emergency,
in peace or war, brings out some such instances. At the
close of the troubles of 1856 in Kansas, I chanced to be
visiting a lady in Lawrence, who, in opening her workbasket, accidentally let fall a small pistol. She smiled
and blushed, and presently acknowledged, that, when she
had first pulled the trigger experimentally, six months
before, she had shut her eyes and screamed, although
there was only a percussion-cap to explode. Yet it afterwards appeared that she was one of the few women who
remained in their houses, to protect them by their presence, when the town was entered by the Missourians, -
and also one of the still smaller number who brought their
rifles to aid their husbands in the redoubt, when two hundred were all that could be rallied against three thousand,
in September of that eventful year. Thus easily is the
transition effected!




42           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
This is the courage, also, of Africans, as manifested
among ourselves, — the courage created by desperate
emergencies. Suppled by long slavery, softened by mixture of blood, the black man seems to pass at one bound,
as women do, from cowering pusillanimity to the topmost
height of daring. The giddy laugh vanishes, the idle chatter is hushed, and the buffoon becomes a hero. Nothing
in history surpasses the bravery of the Maroons of Surinam, as described by Stedman, or of those of Jamaica, as
delineated by Dallas. Agents of the "Underground Railroad " report that the incidents which daily come to their
knowledge are beyond all Greek, all Roman fame. These
men and women, who have tested their courage in the
lonely. swamp against the alligator and the bloodhound,
who have starved on prairies, hidden in holds, clung to
locomotives, ridden hundreds of miles cramped in boxes,
head downward, equally near to death if discovered or
deserted, -and who have then, after enduring all this,
gone voluntarily back to risk it over again, for the sake
of wife or child, - what are we pale faces, that we should
claim a rival capacity with theirs for heroic deeds? What
matter, if none, below the throne of God, can now identify
that nameless negro in the' Tennessee iron-works, who,
during the last insurrection, said "he knew all about the
plot, but would die before he would tell? He received
seven hundred and fifty lashes, and died." Yet where,
amid the mausoleums of the world, is there carved an
epitaph like that?
The courage of blood, of habit, or of imitation, is not
necessarily a very exalted thing. But the courage of
self-devotion cannot be otherwise than noble, however
wasted on fanaticism or delusion. It enters the domain.
of conscience. Yet, although the sublimest, it is not




PHYSICAL COURA GE.                43
necessarily the most undaunted form of courage. It is
vain to measure merit by martyrdom, without reference
to the temperament, the occasion, and the aim. There is
no passion in the mind of man so weak, said Lord Bacon,
but it mates and masters the fear of death. Sinner, as
well as saint, may be guillotined or lynched, and endure
it well. A red Indian or a Chinese robber will dare the
stake as composedly as an early Christian or an abolitionist. One of the bravest of all death-scenes was the
execution of Simon, Lord Lovat, who was unquestionably
one of the greatest scoundrels that ever burdened the
earth. We must look deeper. The test of a man is not
in the amount of his endurance, but in its motive; does
he love the right, he may die in glory on a bed of down;
is he false and base, these things thrust discord into his
hymn of dying anguish, and no crown of thorns can sanctify his drooping head. Physical courage is, after all, but
a secondary quality, and needs a sublime motive to make
it thoroughly sublime.
Among all these different forms of courage it is almost
equally true that it is the hardest of all qualities to predict or identify, in an individual case, before the actual
trial. Many a man has been unable to discover, till the
critical moment, whether he himself possessed it or not.
It is often denied to the healthy and strong, and given to
the weak. The pugilist may be a poltroon, and the bookworm a hero. I have seen the most purely ideal philosopher in this country face the dark muzzles of a dozen
loaded revolvers with his usual serene composure. And
on the other hand, I have known a black-bearded backwoodsman, whose mere voice and presence would quell
any riot among the lumberers, —yet this man, nicknamed
by his employes " the black devil," confessed himself to be
in secret the most timid of lambs.




44           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
One reason of this difficulty of estimate lies in the fact,
that courage and cowardice often complicate themselves
with other qualities, and so show false colors. For instance, the presence or absence of modesty may disguise
the genuine character. The unpretending are not always timid, nor always brave. The boaster is not always,
but only commonly, a coward. Were it otherwise, how
could we explain the existence of courage in Frenchmen
or Indians? Barking dogs sometimes bite, as many a
small boy, too trustful of the proverb, has found to his
cost. "If that be a friend of yours," says Brant(me's
brave Spanish Cavalier, "pray for his soul, for he has
quarrelled with me." Indeed, the Gascons, whose name
is identified with boasting, (gasconade,) were always
among the bravest races in Europe.
Again, the mere quality of caution is often mistaken
for cowardice, while heedlessness passes for daring. A
late eminent American sculptor, a man of undoubted
courage, is said to have always taken the rear car in a
railroad train. Such a spirit of prudence, where well
directed, is to be viewed with respect. We ought not to
reverence the blind recklessness which sits on the safetyvalve during a steamboat-race, but the cool composure
which neither underrates a danger nor shrinks from it.
The best encomium is that of Malcolm M'Leod upon
Charles Edward, —" He was the most cautious man,
not to be a coward, and the bravest man, not to be rash,
that I ever saw "; or that of Charles VII. of France upon
Pierre d'Aubusson, —" Never did I see united so much
fire and so much wisdom."
Still again, men vary as to the form of danger which
tests them most severely. The Irish are undoubtedly a
brave nation, but their courage is apt to vanish in pres



PHYSICAL COURAGE.                  45
ence of sickness. They are not, however, alone in this,
if we may judge from the newspaper statements, that,
after the recent quarantine riots in New York, a smallpox patient lay all day untended in the Park, because no
one dared to go near him. It is said df Dr. Johnson,
that he was a hero against pain, but a coward against
death. Probably the converse is quite as common. To
a believer in immortality, death, even when premature,
can scarcely be regarded as an unmitigated evil, but pain
enforces its own recognition. One can hardly agree with
the frightened recruit in the farce, who thinks "Victory
or Death " a forbidding war-cry, but " Victory or Wooden
Legs" a more appetizing alternative.
Besides these complications, there are those arising
from  the share which conscience has in the matter.
" Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just," and the
most resolute courage will sometimes quail in a bad
cause, and even die in its armor, like Bois-Guilbert. It
was generally admitted, on both sides, in-Kansas, that the
" Border Ruffians" seldom dared face an equal number;
yet nobody asserted that these men were intrinsically
deficient in daring; it was only conscience which made
cowards of them all.
But it is, after all, the faculty of imagination which,
more than all else, confuses the phenomena of courage
and cowardice. A very imaginative child is almost sure
to be reproached with timidity, while mere stolidity takes
rank as courage. The bravest boy may sometimes be
most afraid of the dark, or of ghosts, or of the great mysteries of storms and the sea. Even the mighty Charlemagne shuddered when the professed enchanter brought
before him the vast forms of Dietrich and his Northern
companions, on horseback. We once saw a party of boys




46           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
tested by an alarm which appealed solely to the imagination. The only one among them who stood the test was
the most cowardly of the group, who escaped the contagion through sheer lack of this faculty. Any imaginative
person can occasionally test this on himself by sleeping in
a large lonely house, or by bathing alone in some solitary
place by the great ocean; there comes a thrill which is
not born of terror, and the mere presence of a child
breaks the spell, —though it would only enhance the
actual danger, if danger there were.
This explains the effect of darkness on danger. " Let
Ajax perish in the face of day." Who has not shuddered
over the description of that Arkansas duel, fought by two
naked combatants, with pistol and bowie-knife, in a dark
room? One thrills to think of those first few moments of
breathless, sightless, hopeless, hushed expectation, - then
the confused encounter, the slippery floor, the invisible,
ghastly terrors of that horrible chamber. Many a man
would shrink from that, who would march coolly up to the
cannon's mouth by daylight.
It is probably this mingling of imaginative excitement
which makes the approach of peril often more terrible
than its actual contact. " A true knight," said Sir Philip
Sidney, " is fuller of gay bravery in the midst than at the
beginning of danger." The boy Cond6 was reproached
with trembling, in his first campaign. " My body trembles," said the hero, " with the actions my soul meditates."
And it is said of Charles V., that he often trembled when
arming for battle, but in the conflict was as cool as if it
were impossible for an emperor to be killed. So Turenne
was once asked by M. de Lamoignon, at the dinner-table
of the latter, if his courage was never shaken at the commencement of a battle? " Yes," said Turenne, " I some



PHYSICAL COURAGE.                  47
times undergo great nervous excitement; but there are
in the army a great multitude of subaltern officers and
soldiers who experience none whatever."
To give to any form of courage an available or working
value, it is essential that it have two qualities, promptness
and persistency. What Napoleon called "two o'clock-inthe-morning courage " is rare. It requires great enthusiasm or great discipline to be proof against a surprise. It
is said that Suwarrow, even in peace, always slept fully
armed, boots and all. " When I was lazy," he said, " and
wanted to enjoy a comfortable sleep, I usually took off one
spur." In regard to persistency, history is full of instances
of unexpected reverses and eleventh-hour triumphs. The
battle of Marengo was considered hopeless, for the first
half of the day, and a retreat was generally expected
on the part of the French; when Desaix, consulted by
Bonaparte, looked at his watch, and said, " The battle is
completely lost, but it is only two o'clock, and we shall
have time to gain another." He then made his famous
and fatal cavalry-charge, and won the field. It was from
a noble appreciation of this quality of persistency, that,
when the battle of Cannae was lost, and Hannibal was
measuring by bushels the rings of the fallen Roman
knights, the Senate of Rome voted thanks to the defeated
general, Consul Terentius Varro, for not having despaired
of the republic.
Thus armed at all points, incapable of being either
surprised or exhausted, courage achieves results which
seem miraculous. It is an element of inspiration, something superadded and incalculable, when all the other
forces are exhausted. When we consider how really
formidable becomes the humblest of quadrupeds, cat or
rat, when it grows mad and desperate and throws all




48           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
personal fear behind, it is clear that there must be a reserved power in human daring which defies computation
and equalizes the most fearful odds. Take one man, mad
with excitement or intoxication, place him with his back
to the wall, a knife in his hand, and the fire of utter frenzy
in his eyes,- and who, among the thousand bystanders,
dares make the first attempt to disarm him?  Desperate
courage makes one a majority. Baron Trenck nearly
escaped from the fortress of Glatz at noonday, snatching
a sword from an officer, passing all the sentinels with a
sudden rush, and almost effecting his retreat to the mountains; "which incident will prove," he says, "that adventurous and even rash daring will render the most
improbable undertakings successful, and that desperate
attempts may often make a general more fortunate and
famous than the wisest and best-concerted plans."
It is this miraculous quality which helps to explain the
extraordinary victories of history: as where the army of
Lucullus at Tigranocerta Flew one hundred thousand barbarians with the loss of only a hundred men, - or where
Cortds conquered Mexico with six hundred foot and sixteen horse. The astounding narratives in the chivalry
romances, where the historian risks his Palmerin or Amadis as readily against twenty giants as one, secure of
bringing him safely through, - or the corresponding
modern marvels of Alexandre Dumas, - seem scarcely
exaggerations of actual events.  A Portuguese, at the
siege of Goa, inserted a burning match in a cask of gunpowder, then grasped it in his arms, and, crying to his
companions, " Stand aside, I bear my own and many
men's lives," threw it among the enemy, of whom a hundred were killed by the explosion, the bearer being left
unhurt. John Haring, on a Flemish dike, held a thou



PHYSICAL COURAGE.                  49
sand men at bay, saved his army, and finally escaped
uninjured. And the motto of Bayard, Vires agminis
unus habet, was given him after singly defending a bridge
against two hundred Spaniards. Such men appear to
bear charmed lives, and to be identical with the laws of
Fate. " What a soldier, what a Roman, was thy father,
my young bride! How could they who never saw him
have discoursed so rightly upon virtue?"
From popular want of faith in these infinite resources
of daring, it is a common thing for persons of eminent
courage to be stigmatized as rash. This has been strikingly the case, for instance, in modern times, with the
Marquis of Wellesley and Sir Charles Napier. When
the Duke of Wellington was in the Peninsula in 1810,
the City of London addressed the throne, protesting
against the bestowal of "honorable distinctions upon a
general who had thus far exhibited, with equal rashness
and ostentation, nothing but an useless valor."
But if bravery is liable to exist in excess, on the one
side, it is a comfort to think that it is capable of cultivation, where deficient. There may be a few persons born
absolutely without the power of courage, as without the
susceptibility to music, —but very few; and, no doubt,
the elements of daring, like those of musical perception,
can be developed in almost all. Once rouse the enthusiasm of the will, and courage can be systematically disciplined.  Emerson's maxim  gives the best regimen:
"Always do what you are afraid to do."  If your lot is
laid amid scenes of peace, then carry the maxim into the
arts of peace. Are you afraid to swim that river? then
swim it. Are you afraid to leap that fence? then leap
it. Do you shrink from the dizzy height of yonder
magnificent pine? then climb it, and " throw down the
3                           D




50           PHYSICAL COURAGE.
top," as they do in the forests of Maine. Goethe cured
himself of dizziness by ascending the lofty stagings of the
Frankfort carpenters.  Nothing is insignificant that is
great enough to alarm you. If you cannot think of a
grizzly bear without a shudder, then it is almost worth
your while to travel to the Rocky Mountains in order to
encounter the reality. It is said that Van Amburgh attributed all his power over animals to the similar rule
given him by his mother in his boyhood, -" If anything
frightens you, walk up and face it." Applying this
maxim boldly, he soon satisfied himself that man possessed a natural power of control over all animals, if he
dared to exercise it. He said that every animal divined
by unerring instinct the existence of fear in his ruler,
and a moment's indecision might cost one's life.  On
being asked, what he should do, if he found himself in
the desert, face to face with a lion, he answered, "If I
wished for certain death, I should turn and run away."
Physical courage may be educated; but it must be
trained for its own sake. We say again, it must not be
left to moral courage to include it, for the two faculties
have different elements, - and what God has joined,
human inconsistency may put asunder. The disjunction
is easy to explain. Many men, when committed on the
right side of any question, get credit for a "moral courage," which is, in their case, only an intense egotism,
isolating them from all demand for human sympathy. In
the best cause, they prefer to belong to a party conveniently small, and, on the slightest indications of popular approbation, begin to suspect themselves of compromise.  The abstract martyrdom  of unpopularity is
therefore clear gain to them; but when it comes to the
rack and the thumbscrew, the revolver and the bowie



PHYSICAL COURAGE.                  51
knife, the same habitual egotism makes them cowards.
These men are annoying in themselves, and still worse
because they throw discredit on the noble and unselfish
reformers with whom they are identified in position.
But even among this higher class there are differences
of temperament, and it costs one man an effort to face
the brute argument of the slung-shot, while another's
fortitude is not seriously tested till it comes to facing the
newspaper editors.
These are but a few aspects of a rich and endless
theme, depicted more by examples than analysis, accords
ing to the saying of Sidney, that Alexander received
more bravery of mind by the example of Achilles than
by hearing the definition of fortitude. If the illustrations
have seemed to be drawn too profusely from the records
of battles, it is to be remembered, that, even if war be
not the best nurse of heroisms, it is their best historian.
The chase, for instance, though perhaps as prolific in
deeds of daring as the camp, has found few Cummings
and Gerards for annalists, and the more trivial aim of the
pursuit diminishes the permanence of its records. The
sublime fortitude of hospitals, the bravery shown in infected cities, the fearlessness of firemen and of sailors,
these belong to those times of peace which have as yet
few historians. But the deep foundations and instincts
of courage are the same wherever exhibited, and it matters little whence the illustrations come. Doubtless, for
every great deed ever narrated, there were a hundred
greater ones untold; and the noblest valor of the world
may sleep unrecorded, like the heroes before Homer.
But there are things which, once written, the world
does not willingly let die; embalmed in enthusiasm,
borne down on the unconquerable instincts of child



52           PHYSICAL COURA GE.
hood, they become imperishable and eternal. We need
not travel to visit the graves of the heroes: they are
become a part of the common air; their line is gone out
to all generations. Shakespeares are but their servants;
no change of time or degradation of circumstance can
debar us from  their lesson.  The fascination which
every one finds in the simplest narrative of daring is
the sufficient testimony to its priceless and permanent
worth.  Human existence finds its range expanded,
when Demosthenes describes Philip of Macedon, his
enemy: "I saw this Philip, with whom we disputed for
empire.  I saw him, though covered with wounds, his
eye struck out, his collar-bone broken, maimed in his
hands, maimed in his feet, still resolutely rush into the
midst of dangers, ready to deliver up to Fortune any
part of his body she might require, provided he might
live honorably and gloriously with the rest." Would
it not be shameful, that war should leave us such
memories as these, and peace bequeath us only money
and repose? True, "peace hath her victories, no less
renowned than war." No less! but they should be
infinitely greater.  Esto miles pacificus, "Be the soldier of peace," was the priestly benediction of mediseval
knights; and the aspirations of humaner ages should
lead us into heroisms which Plutarch never portrayed,
and of which Bayard and Sidney only prophesied, but
died without the sight.




A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.








A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.
Y.ES, my dear Dolorosus, I commiserate you. I
regard your case, perhaps, with even sadder emotions than that excellent family-physician who has been
sounding its depths these four years with a golden plummet, and has never yet touched bottom.  From those
generous confidences which, in common with most of
your personal acquaintances, I daily share, I am satisfied
that no description can do justice to your physical
disintegration, unless it be the wreck of matter and
the crush of worlds with which Mr. Addison winds up
Cato's Soliloquy.  So far as I can ascertain, there is
not an organ of your internal structure which is in its
right place, at present, or which could perform any particular service, if it were there.   In the extensive
library of medical almanacs and circulars which I find
daily deposited by travelling agents at my front door,
among all the agonizing vignettes of diseases which adorn
their covers, and which Irish Bridget daily studies with
inexperienced enjoyment in the front entry, there is no
case which seems to afford a parallel to yours. I found
it stated in one of these works, the other day, that there
is iron enough in the blood of twenty-four men to make
a broadsword; but I am satisfied that it would be imp




56      A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
possible to extract enough from the veins of yourself
and your whole family to construct a crochet-needle
for your eldest daughter. And I am quite confident,
that, if all the four hundred muscles of your present
body were twisted together by a rope-maker, they would
not furnish that patient young laborer with a needleful
of thread.
You are undoubtedly, as you claim, a martyr to Dyspepsia; or if you prefer any other technical name for
your disease or diseases, I will acquiesce in any, except,
perhaps, the word " Neurology," which I must regard as
foreign to etymological science, if not to medical. Your
case, you think, is hard. I should think it would be.
Yet I am impressed by it, I must admit, as was our
adopted fellow-citizen by the contemplation of Niagara.
He. you remember, when pressed to admire the eternal
plunge of the falling water, could only inquire, with
serene acquiescence in natural laws, "And what's to
hinder?"  I confess myself moved to similar reflections
by your disease and its history. My dear Dolorosus,
can you acquaint me with any reason, in the heavens
above or on the earth beneath, why you should not have
dyspepsia?
My thoughts involuntarily wander back to that golden
period, five years ago, when I spent one night and day
beneath your hospitable roof.  I arrived, I remember,
late in the evening. The bedroom to which you kindly
conducted me, after a light but wholesome supper of
doughnuts and cheese, was pleasing in respect to furniture, but questionable in regard to physiology. The
house was not more than twenty years old, and the chamber must therefore have been aired within that distance
of time, but not, I should have judged, more recently.




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.               57
Perhaps its close, oppressive atmosphere could not have
been analyzed into as many separate odors as Coleridge
distinguished in Cologne, -but I could easily identify
aromatic vinegar, damp straw, lemons, and dyed silk
gowns. And, as each of the windows was carefully
nailed down, there were no obvious means of obtaining
fresh air, save that ventilator said to be used by an eminent
lady in railway-cars, — the human elbow. The lower
bed was of straw, the upper of feathers, whose extreme
heat kept me awake for a portion of the night, and whose
abundant fluffy exhalations suggested incipient asthma
during another portion. On rising from these rather unrefreshing slumbers, I performed my morning ablutions
with the aid of some three teacupsful of dusty water, —
for the pitcher probably held that quantity, —availing
myself, also, of something which hung over an elegant
towel-horse, and which, though I at first took it for a
child's handkerchief, proved on inspection to be " Chamber Towel, No. 1."
I remember, as I entered the breakfast-room, a vague
steam as of frying sausages, which, creeping in from the
neighboring kitchen, obscured in some degree the five
white faces of your wife and children. The breakfasttable was amply covered, for you were always what is
termed by judicious housewives "a good provider."  I
remember how the beefsteak (for the sausages were especially destined for your two youngest Dolorosi, who were
just recovering from the measles, and needed something
light and palatable) vanished in large rectangular masses
within your throat, drawn downward in amaelstrom of
coffee; —only that the original whirlpool is, I believe,
now proved to have been imaginary; — "that cup was
a fiction, but this is reality." The resources of the house
3*




58      A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
also afforded certain very hot biscuits or breadcakes, in a
high state of saleratus;- indeed, it must have been from
association with these, that certain yellow streaks in Mr.
Ruskin's drawing of the rock, at the Athenaeum, awakened in me such an immediate sense of indigestion; -
also fried potatoes, baked beans, mince-pie, and pickles.
The children partook of these dainties largely, but without undue waste of time. They lingered at table precisely eight minutes before setting out for school; though
we, absorbed in conversation, remained at least ten; after which we instantly hastened to your counting-room,
where you, without a moment's delay, absorbed yourself
in your ledger, while I flirted languidly with the " Daily
Advertiser."
You bent over your desk the whole morning, occasionally having anxious consultations with certain sickly
men whom I supposed to be superannuated bookkeepers,
in impoverished circumstances, and rather pallid from the
want of nutritious food. One of them, dressed in rusty
black, with a flabby white neckcloth, I took for an exclergyman; he was absorbed in the last number of the
" Independent," though I observed, at length, that he was
only studying the list of failures, a department to which,
as it struck me, he himself peculiarly appertained. All
of these, I afterwards ascertained from your office-boy,
were eminent capitalists; something had gone wrong in
the market, — not in the meat-market, as I should have
supposed from their appearance, but in the money-market. I believe that there was some sudden fall in the
price of indigo. I know you looked exceedingly blue as
we walked home to dinner.
Dinner was ready the instant we opened the front
door. I expected as much; I knew the pale, speechless




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.               59
woman who sat at the head of your table would make
sure of punctuality, if she died for it. We took our seats
without a word. Your eldest girl, Angelina, aged ten.
one of those premature little grown women who have
learned from the cradle that man is born to eat pastry
and woman to make it, postponed her small repast till an
indefinite future, and sat meekly ready to attend upon our
wants. Nathaniel, a thin boy of eight, also partook but
slightly, having impaired his appetite, his mother suspected, by a copious luncheon of cold baked beans and
vinegar, on his return from school. The two youngest
(twins) had relapsed to their couches soon after breakfast,
in consequence of excess of sausage.
You were quite agreeable in conversation, I remember,
after the first onset of appetite was checked. You gave
me your whole theory of the indigo crisis, with minute
details, statistical and geographical, of the financial condition and supposed present location of your principal absconding debtors. This served for what is called, at public
dinners, the intellectual feast; while the carnal appetite
was satisfied with fried pork, more and tougher beefsteak,
strong coffee, cucumbers, potatoes, and a good deal' of
gravy. For dessert, (at which point Nathaniel regained
his appetite,) we had mince-pie, apple-pie, and lemon-pie,
the latter being a structure of a two-story description, an
additional staging of crust being somehow inserted between upper and under. We lingered long at that noon
meal, - fifteen minutes, at the very least; for you hospitably said that you did not have these little social festivals
very often, - owing to frequent illness in the family, and
other causes, - and must make the most of it.
I did not see much of you during that afternoon; it
was a magnificent day, and I said, that, being a visitor, I




60    A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.
would look about and see the new buildings. The truth
was, I felt a sneaking desire to witness the match-game
on the Common, between the Union Base-Ball Club, No.
1, of Ward Eleven, and the Excelsiors of Smithville. I
remember that you looked a little dissatisfied, when I
came into the counting-room, and rather shook your head
over my narrative (perhaps too impassioned) of the events
of the game. "Those young fellows," said you, "may
not all be shiftless, dissipated characters yet,- but see
what it comes to! They a'n't content with wasting their
time, -they kill it, sir, actually kill it!" When I thought
of the manly figures and handsome, eager faces of my
friends of the " Union" and the "Excelsior," — the Excelsiors won by ten tallies, I should say, the return match
to come off at Smithville the next month, - and then
looked at the meagre form and wan countenance of their
critic, I thought to myself, " Dolorosus, my boy, you are
killing something besides Time, if you only knew it."
However, indigo had risen againy and your spirits also.
As we walked home, you gave me a precise exhibit of
your income and expenditures for the last five years, and
a prospective sketch of the same for the next ten; winding up with an incidental delineation of the importance,
to a man of business, of a good pew in some respectable
place of worship. We found Mrs. D., as usual, ready at
the table; we partook of pound-cake (or pound-and-a-half,
I should say) and sundry hot cups of a very Cisatlantic
beverage, called by the Chinese epithet of tea, - and went,
immediately after, to a prayer-meeting. The church or
chapel was much crowded, and there was a certain something in the atmosphere which seemed to disqualify my
faculties from comprehending a single word that was
spoken. It certainly was not that the ventilators were




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.              61
closed, for there were none. The minister occasionally
requested that the windows might be let down a little, and
the deacons invariably closed them again when he looked
the other way. At intervals, females were carried out,
in a motionless condition, - not, as it appeared, from conviction of sin, but from faintness. You sat, absorbed in
thought, with your eyes closed, and seemed not to observe
them. I remember that you were very much shocked
when I suggested that the breath of an average sinner
exhausted atmospheric air at the rate of a hogshead an
hour, and asked you how much allowance the laws of the
universe made for the lungs of church-members? I do
not recall your precise words, but I remember that I
finally found it expedient, as I was to leave for home in
the early train, to spend that night at the neighboring
hotel, where I indulged, on an excellent mattress, in a
slumber so profound, that it seemed next morning as if I
ought, as Dick Swiveller suggested to the single gentleman, to pay for a double-bedded room.
Well, that is all over now. You have given up business, from ill health, and exhibit a ripe old age, possibly a
little over-ripe, at thirty-five. Your dreams of the forthcoming ten years have not been exactly fulfilled; you
have not precisely retired on a competency, because the
competency retired from you. Indeed, the suddenness
with which your physician compelled you to close up
your business left it closed rather imperfectly, so that
most of the profits are found to have leaked out. You
are economizing rather strictly, just now, in respect to
everything but doctors' bills. The maternal Dolorosa is
boarding somewhere in the country, where the children
certainly will not have more indigestible food than they
had at home, and may get less of it in quantity, - to say




62.      A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
nothing of more air and exercise to aid digestion. They
are not, however, in perfect condition. The twins are
just getting up from scarlet fever; Nathaniel has been
advised to leave school for a time; and something is
thought to be the matter with Angelina's back. Meanwhile, you are haunting water-cures, experimenting on
life-pills, holding private conferences with medical electricians, and thinking of a trip to the Bermudas.
You are learning, through all this, the sagest maxims
of resignation, and trying to apply them. " Life is hard,
but short," you say; "Providence is inscrutable; we
must submit to its mysterious decrees." Would it not be
better, my dear Dolorosus, to say instead, " Life is noble
and immortal; God is good; we must obey his plain
laws, or accept the beneficent penalties "? The rise and
fall of health are no more accidental than the rise and fall
of indigo; and it is the duty of those concerned in either
commodity to keep their eyes open, and learn the business intelligently. Of the three proverbial desiderata, it
is as easy to be healthy as to. be wealthy, and much easier
than to be wise, except so far as health and wisdom mean
the same thing. After health, indeed, the other necessaries of life are very simple, and easily obtained; — with
moderate desires, regular employment, a loving home,
correct theology, the right politics, and a year's subscription to the "Atlantic Monthly," I have no doubt that life,
in this planet, may be as happy as in any other of the
solar system, not excepting Neptune and the fifty-five
asteroids.
You are possibly aware, my dear Dolorosus, - for I
remember that you were destined by your parents for the
physician of your native seaside village, until you found a
more congenial avocation in curing mackerel, - that the




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.               63
ancient medals represented the goddess Hygeia with a
serpent three times as large as that carried by ZEsculaplius, to denote the superiority of hygiene to medicine,
prevention to cure.  To seek health as you are now
seeking it, regarding every new physician as if he were
Pandora, and carried hope at the bottom of his medicinechest, is really rather unpromising. This perpetual self,
inspection of yours, registering your pulse thrice a day, as;
if it were a thermometer and you an observer for the 
Smithsonian, —these long consultations with the other'
patients in the dreary parlor of the infirmary, the morning devoted to debates on the nervous system, the afternoon to meditations on the stomach, and the evening to
soliloquies on the spine, —will do you no good. The*
more you know, under these circumstances, the worse it
will be for you. You will become like Boerhaave's hypo —
chondriacal student, who, after every lecture, believed
himself to be the victim of the particular disease just
expounded. We may even think too much about health,.
- and certainly too much about illness. I solemnly be —
lieve that the very best thing that could be done for you
at this moment, you unfortunate individual, would be to
buy you a saddle-horse and a revolver, and start you tomorrow for the Rocky Mountains, with distinct instructions to treat any man as a Border Ruffian who should
venture to allude to the subject of disease in your presence.
But I cannot venture to hope that you will do anythingso reasonable. The fascinations of your present life are
too overwhelming; when an invalid once begins to enjoy
the contemplation of his own woes, as you appear to do,.
it is all over with him. Besides, you urge, and perhaps
justly, that your case has already gone too far, for so




64       A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
rough a tonic. What, then, can I do for you? Mledicine I cannot offer; for even your respectable familyphysician occasionally hints that you need something different from that. I suspect that all rational advice for
you may be summed up in one prescription: Reverse instantly all the habits of your previous physical existence,
and there may be some chance for you. But perhaps I
had better enter more into detail.
Do not think that I am going to recur to the painful
themes of doughnuts and diet. I fear my hints, already
given, on those subjects, may wound the sensitive nature
of Mrs. D., who suffers now such utter martyrdom from
your condition that I cannot bring myself to heap further
coals of fire on her head, even though the coals' be taken
from: her own very ineffectual cooking-stove. Let me
dwell rather on points where you have exclusive jurisdiction, and can live wisely or foolishly, at your pleasure.
It does not depend on you, perhaps, whether you shall
eat bread or saleratus, meat or sole-leather; but it certainly does depend upon yourself whether you shall wash
yourself daily. I do not wish to be personal, but I verily
believe, O companion of my childhood! that, until you
began to dabble in Hydropathy, you had not bestowed a
sincere ablution upon your entire person since the epoch
when, twenty years ago, we took our last plunge together,
off Titcomb's wharf, in our native village. That in your
well-furnished house there are no hydraulic privileges beyond pint water-pitchers, I know from anxious personal
inspection. I know that you have spent an occasional
week at the sea-shore during the summer, and that many
people prefer to do up their cleanliness for the year during these excursions; indeed, you yourself have mentioned
to me, at such times, with some enthusiasm, your daily sea



A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.              65
bath. But I have been privately assured, by the other
boarders, that the bath in question always consisted of
putting on a neat bathing-dress and sitting awhile on a
rock among the sea-weed, like an insane merman, with
the highest waves submerging only your knees, while the
younger Dolorosi splashed and gambolled in safe shallows
behind you. Even that is better than nothing, but -
Soul of Mohammed! - is that called bathing? Verily,
we are, as the Turks declare, a nation of " dirty Franks,"
if this be the accepted definition.
Can it be possible that you really hold with the oncecelebrated Mr. Walker, " The Original," as he was deservedly called, who maintained that, by a correct diet,
the system became self-purifying, through an active exhalation which repelled impurity, - so that, while walking
on dusty roads, his feet, and even his stockings, remained
free from dust? " By way of experiment, I did not wash
my face for a week; nor did any one see, nor I feel, the
difference." My deluded friend, it is a fatal error. Mr.
Walker, the Original, may have been inwardly a saint
and a sage, but it is impossible that his familiar society
could have been desirable, even to fools or sinners.
Rather recall, from your early explorations in Lempriere's Dictionary, how Medea renewed the youth of
Pelias by simply cutting him to pieces and boiling him;
whereon my Lord Bacon justly remarks, that " there may
be some boiling required in the matter, but the cutting to
pieces is not needful." If you find that the water-cure
agrees with your constitution, I rejoice in it; I should
think it would; but, I implore you, do not leave it all
behind you when you leave the institution. When you
return to your family, use your very first dollars for buying a sponge and a tin-hat, for each member of the
E




66       A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
household; and bring up the children to lead decent
lives.
Then, again, consider the fact that our lungs were created to consume oxygen. I suppose that never in your
life, Dolorosus, did those breathing organs of yours inhale
more than one half the quantity of air that they were intended to take in, - to say nothing of its quality. Yet
one would think, that, in the present high prices of food,
you would make the most of the only thing you can put
into your mouth gratis. Here is Nature constantly urging on us an unexceptionable atmosphere forty miles high,
- for if a pressure of fourteen pounds to the square inch
is not to be called urging, what is? - and yet we not only
neglect, but resist the favor.  Our children commonly
learn to spell much better than they ever learn to breathe,
because much more attention is paid to the former department of culture. Indeed, the materials are better provided; spelling-books are abundant; but we scarcely
allow them time, in the intervals of school, to seek fresh
air out of doors, and we sedulously exclude it from our
houses and school-rooms. Is it not possible to impress
upon your mind the changes which "modern improvements " are bringing upon us? In times past, if a gentleman finished the evening with a quiet cigar in his
parlor, (a practice I deprecate, and introduce only for
purposes of scientific illustration,) not a trace of it ever
lingered to annoy his wife at the breakfast-table; showing
that the draft up the open chimney had wholly disposed
of it, the entire atmosphere of the room having been
changed during the night. Now, on the other hand,
every whiff lingers persistently beside the domestic altar,
and betrays to the youngest child, next day, the parental
weakness. For the sake of family example, Dolorosus,




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.               67
correct this state of things, and put in a ventilator. Our
natures will not adapt themselves to this abstinence from
fresh air, until Providence shall fit us up with new bodies,
having no lungs in them. Did you ever hear of Dr. Lyne,
the eccentric Irish physician? Dr. Lyne held that no
house was wholesome, unless a dog could get in under
every door and a bird fly out at every window. He even
went so far as to build his house with the usual number
of windows, and no glass in the sashes; he lived in that
house for fifty years, reared a large family there, and no
death ever occurred in it. He himself died away from
home, of small-pox, at eighty; his son immediately glazed
all the windows of the house, and several of the family
died within the first year of the alteration. The story
sounds apocryphal, I own, though I did not get it from
Sir Jonah Barrington, but somewhere in the scarcely less
amusing pages of Sir John Sinclair. I will not advise
you, my unfortunate sufferer, to break every pane of glass
in your domicile, though I have no doubt that Nathaniel
and his boy-companions would enter with enthusiasm into
the process; I am not fond of extremes; but you certainly
might go so far as to take the nails out of my bedroom
windows, and yet keep a good deal this side the Lyne.
I hardly dare go on to speak of exercise, lest I should
share the reproach of that ancient rhetorician who, — as
related by Plutarch, in his Aphorisms, - after delivering
an oration in praise of Hercules, was startled by the
satirical inquiry from his audience, whether any one had
ever dispraised Hercules. As with Hercules, so with the
physical activity he represents,- no one dispraises, if
few practise it. Even the disagreement of doctors has
brought out but little scepticism on this point.  Cardan,
it is true, in his treatise, " Plantae cur Animalibus diu



68       A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
turniores," maintained that trees lived longer than men
because they never stirred from their places. Exercise,
he held, increases transpiration; transpiration shortens
life; to live long, then, we need only remain perfectly
still. Lord Bacon fell in with this fancy, and advised
" oily unctions," to prevent perspiration.  Maupertuis
went farther, and proposed to keep the body covered
with pitch for this purpose: conceive, Dolorosus, of
spending threescore years and ten in a garment of tar,
without even the ornament of feathers, sitting tranquilly
in our chairs, waiting for longevity! In more recent
times, I can remember only Dr. Darwin as an advocate
of sedentary living. He attempted to show its advantages by the healthy longevity attained by quiet old ladies
in country-towns. But this is questioned by his critic,
Dr. Beddoes, who admits the longevity, but denies the
healthiness; he maintains that the old ladies are taking
some new medicine every day, - at least, if they have a
physician who understands his business.
Now I will not maintain, with Frederick the Great,
that all our systems of education are wrong, because they
aim to make men students or clerks, whereas the mere
shape of the body shows (so thought King Frederick)
that we are primarily designed for postilions, and should
spend most of our lives on horseback. But it is very
certain that all the physical universe takes the side of
health and activity, wooing us forth into Nature, imploring us hourly, and in unsuspected ways, to receive her
blessed breath into body and soul, and share in her eternal youth. For this are summer and winter, seed-time
and harvest, given; for this do violet and bloodroot come,
and gentian and witch-hazel go; for this do changing
sunsets make yon path between the pines a gateway into




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.               69
heaven; for this does day shut us down within the loneliness of its dome of light, and night, lifting it, make us
free of the vast fellowship of stars; for this do pale
meteors wander nightly, soft as wind-blown blossoms,
down the air; for this do silent snows transform the
winter woods to feathery things, that seem too light to
linger, and yet too vast to take their flight; for this does
all the fair creation answer to every dream or mood of
man, so that we receive but what we give; — all is offered to us, to call us from our books and our trade, and
summon us into Nature's health and joy. To study, with
the artist, the least of her beauties, - to explore, with the
man of science, the smallest of her wonders, - or even
simply to wander among her exhaustless resources, like a
child, needing no interest unborrowed from the eye, —
this feeds body and brain and heart and soul together.
But I see that your attention is wandering a little, Dolorosus, and perhaps I ought not to be surprised. I think
I hear you respond, impatiently, in general terms, that
you are not "sentimental." I admit it; never within
my memory did you err on that side. You also hint that
you never did care much about weeds or bugs. The
phrases are not scientific, but the opinion is intelligible.
Perhaps my ardor has carried me too fast for my audience. While it would be a pleasure, no doubt, to see you
transformed into an artist or a savant, yet that is scarcely
to be expected, and, if attained, might not be quite
enough. The studies of the naturalist, exclusively pursued, may tend to make a man too conscious and critical,
— patronizing Nature, instead of enjoying her.  He
may even grow morbidly sensitive, like Buffon, who became so impressed with the delicacy and mystery of the,
human organization, that he was afraid to stoop even to




70       A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
pick up his own pen, when dropped, but called a servant
to restore it. The artist, also, becomes often narrowed
and petty, and regards the universe as a sort of factory,
arranged to turn out good bits of color for him. Something is needed to make us more free and unconscious, in
our out-door lives, than these too wise individuals; and
that something is best to be found in athletic sports. It
was a genuine impulse which led Sir Humphrey Davy to
care more for fishing than even for chemistry, and made
Byron prouder of his'swimming than of " Childe Harold,"
and induced Sir Robert Walpole always to open his
gamekeeper's letters first, and his diplomatic correspondence afterwards.  Athletic sports are "boyish," are
they? Then they are precisely what we want. We
Americans certainly do not have much boyhood under
the age of twenty, and we must take it afterwards or not
at all.
Who can describe the unspeakable refreshment for an
overworked brain, of laying aside all cares, and surrendering one's self to simple bodily activity? Laying them
aside! I retract the expression; they slip off unnoticed.
You cannot embark care in your wherry; there is no
room for the odious freight. Care refuses to sit behind
the horseman, despite the Latin sentence; you leave it
among your garments when you plunge into the river, it
rolls away from the rolling cricket-ball, the first whirl in
the gymnasium disposes of it, and you are left free, as
boys and birds are free.  If athletic -amusements did
nothing for the body, they would still be medicine for the
soul. Nay, it is Plato who says that exercise will almost
cure a guilty conscience, - and can we be indifferent to
this, my fellow-sinner?
Why will you persist in urging that you "cannot




A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.               71
afford" these indulgences, as you call them? They are
not indulgences, - they are.necessaries. Charge them,
in your private account-book, under the heads of food
and clothing, and as a substitute for your present enormous items under the head of medicine. 0 mistaken
economist! can you afford the cessation of labor and the
ceaseless drugging and douching of your last few years?
Did not all your large experience in the retail business
teach you the comparative value of the ounce of prevention and the pound of cure? Are not fresh air and cold.
water to be had cheap? and is not good bread less costly
than cake and pies?  Is not the gymnasium a more.
economical institution than the hospital? and is not a pair
of skates a good investment, if it aids you to elude the
grasp of the apothecary?  Is the cow Pepsin, on the
whole, a more frugal hobby to ride than a good saddlehorse? Besides, if you insist upon pecuniary economy,.
do begin by economizing on the exercise which you pay
others for taking in your stead, - on the corn and pears
which you buy in the market, instead of removing to a
suburban house and raising them yourself, - and in the
reluctant silver you pay the Irishman who splits yourwood. / Or if, suddenly reversing your line of argument,
you plead that this would impoverish the Irishman, you
can at least treat him as you do the organ-grinder, and
pay him an extra fee to go on to your next neighbor.
Dolorosus, there is something very noble, if you could
but discover it, in a perfect human body. In spite of all
our bemoaning, the physical structure of man displays
its due power and beauty when we consent to give it a
fair chance. On the cheek of every healthy child that
plays in the street, though clouded by all the dirt that
ever incrusted a young O'Brien or M'Cafferty, there is a




72       A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
glory of color such as no artist ever painted. I can take
you to-morrow into a circus or a gymnasium, and show
you limbs and attitudes which are worth more study than
the Apollo or the AntinoUs, because they are life, not
marble. How noble were Horatio Greenough's meditations, in presence of the despised circus-rider!  "I
worship, when I see this brittle form borne at full speed
on the back of a fiery horse, yet dancing as on the quiet
ground, and smiling in conscious safety."
I admit that this view, like every other, may be carried
to excess. We can hardly expect to correct our past
neglect of bodily training, without falling into reactions
and extremes in the process. There is our friend Jones,
for instance, "the Englishman," as the boys on the Common
call him, from his cheery portliness of aspect. He is the
man who insisted on keeping the telegraph-office open
until 2 A. M., to hear whether Morrissey or the Benicia
Boy won the prize-fight. I cannot say much for his personal conformity to his own theories at present, for he is
growing rather too stout; but he likes vicarious exercise,
and is doing something for the next generation, even if
he does make the club laugh, sometimes, by advancing
theories of training which the lower circumference of his
-own waistcoat does not seem to justify. But Charley,
his eldest, can ride, shoot, and speak the truth, like an
ancient Persian; he is the best boxer in college, and is
now known to have gone to Canada incog., during the
vacation, under the immediate supervision of Morris, the
teacher of sparring, to see that same fight. It is true
that the youth blushes, now, whenever that trip is alluded
to; and when he was cross-questioned by his pet sister
Kate, (Kate Coventry she delights to be called,) as to
whether it was n't " splendid," he hastily told her that




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.               73
she did n't know what she was talking about, (which was
undoubtedly true,) - and that he wished he did n't,
either.  The truth is, that Charley, with his honest,
boyish face, must have been singularly out of place
among that brutal circle; and there is little doubt that
he retired from the company before the set-to was fairly
begun, and that respectable old Morris went with him.
But, at any rate, they are a noble-looking family, and
well brought up. Charley, with all his pugilism, stands
fair for a part at Commencement, they say; and if
you could have seen little Kate teaching her big cousin to skate backwards, at Jamaica Pond, last February, it would have reminded you of the pretty scene
of the little cadet attitudinizing before the great Formes,
in "Figaro."  The whole family incline in the same
direction; even Laura, the elder sister, who is attending
a course of lectures on Hygiene, and just at present sits motionless for half an hour before every meal
for her stomach's sake, and again a whole hour afterwards for her often (imaginary) infirmities, - even Laura
is a perfect Hebe in health and bloom, and saved herself
and her little sister when the boat upset, last summer, at
Dove Harbor, -while the two young men who were
with them had much ado to secure their own elegant persons, without rendering much aid to the girls. And when
I think, Dolorosus, of this splendid animal vigor of the
race of Jones, and then call to mind the melancholy
countenances of your forlorn little offspring, I really
think that it would, on the whole, be unsafe to trust you
with that revolver; you might be tempted to damage.
yourself or somebody else with it, before departing for
the Rocky Mountains.
Do not think me heartless for what I say, or assume
4




74       A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.
that, because I happen to be healthy myself, I have no
mercy for ill-health in others. There are invalids who
are objects of sympathy indeed, guiltless heirs of ancestral disease, or victims of parental folly or sin, - those
whose lives are early blighted by maladies that seem as
causeless as they are cureless, - or those with whom the
world has dealt so cruelly that all their delicate nature is
like sweet bells jangled, - or those whose powers of life
are all exhausted by unnoticed labors and unseen cares, -
or those prematurely old with duties and dangers, heroes
of thought and action, whose very names evoke the passion
and the pride of a hundred thousand hearts. There is a
tottering feebleness of old age, also, nobler than any
prime of strength; we all know aged men who are floating on, in stately serenity, towards their last harbor, like
Turner's Old Temmraire, with quiet tides around them,
and the blessed sunset bathing in loveliness all their
dying day. Let human love do its gracious work upon
all these; let angelic hands of women wait upon their
lightest needs, and every voice of salutation be tuned
to such a sweetness as if it whispered beside a dying
mother's bed.
But you, Dolorosus, -you, to whom God gave youth
and health, and who might have kept them, the one long
and the other perchance always, but who never loved
them, nor reverenced them, nor cherished them, only
coined them into money till they were all gone, and even
the ill-gotten treasure fell from your debilitated hands, -
you, who shunned the sunshine as if it were sin, and
called all innocent recreation time wasted, —you, who
stayed under ground in your gold-mine, like the sightless
fishes of the Mammoth Cave, till you were as blind and
unjoyous as they, - what plea have you to make, what




A LETTER  TO A DYSPEPTIC.              75
shelter to claim, except that charity which suffereth long
and is kind? We will strive not to withhold it; while
there is life, there is hope. At forty, it is said, every
man is a fool or a physician. We will wait and see which
vocation you select as your own, for the broken remnant
of your days.








THE
MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
A SECOND EPISTLE TO DOLOROSUS.








THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
SO you are already mending, my dear fellow? Can
it be that my modest epistle has done so much service? Are you like those invalids in Central Africa,
who, when the medicine itself is not accessible, straightway swallow the written prescription as a substitute,
inwardly digest it, and recover? No, — I think you
have tested the actual materia medica recommended. I
hear of you from all directions, walking up hills in the
mornings and down hills in the afternoons,i skimming
round in wherries like a rather unsteady water-spider,
blistering your hands upon gymnastic bars, receiving
severe contusions on your nose from cricket-balls, shaking
up and down on hard trotting-horses, and making the
most startling innovations in respect to eating, sleeping,
and bathing. Like all our countrymen, you are plunging
from one extreme to the other. Undoubtedly, you will
soon make yourself sick again; but your present extreme
is the safer of the two. Time works many miracles; it
has made Louis Napoleon espouse the cause of liberty,
and it may yet make you reasonable.
After all, that advice of mine, which is thought to have
benefited you so greatly, was simply that which Dr.
Abernethy used to give his patients: " Don't come to me,




80  THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
— go buy a skipping-rope."  If you can only guard
against excesses, and keep the skipping-rope in operation,
there are yet hopes for you. Only remember that it is
equally important to preserve health as to attain it, and
it needs much the same regimen. Do not be like that
Lord Russell in Spence's Anecdotes, who only went hunting for the sake of an appetite, and who, the moment he
felt any sensation of vitality in the epigastrium, used to
turn short round, exclaiming, "I have found it!" and
ride home from the finest chase. It was the same Lord
Russell, by the way, who, when he met a beggar and was
implored to give him something, because he was almost
famished with hunger, called him a happy dog, and envied
him too much to relieve him. From some recent remarks
of your boarding-house hostess, my friend, I am led to
suppose that you are now almost as well off, in point of
appetite, as if you were a beggar; and I wish to keep
you so.
How much the spirits rise with health! A family of
children is a very different sight to a healthy man and to
a dyspeptic. What pleasure you now take in yours!
You are going to live more in their manner and for their
sakes, henceforward, you tell me. You are to enter upon
business again, but in a more moderate way; you are to
live in a pleasant little suburban cottage, with fresh air, a
horse-railroad, and good schools. For I am not surprised
to find that your interest in your offspring, like that of
most American parents, culminates in the school-room.
This important matter you have neglected long enough,
you think, while you were foolishly absorbed in making
money for them. Now they shall have money enough,
to be sure, but wisdom in superabundance. Angelina
shall walk in silk attire, and knowledge have to spare.




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 81
To which school shall you send her? you ask me, withi
something of the old careworn expression, pulling six
different prospectuses from your pocket. Put them away,
Dolorosus; I know the needs of Apgelina, and I can answer instantly. Send the girl, for the present at least, to
that school whose daily hours of session are the shortest,
and whose recess-times and vacations are of the most.
formidable length.
No, anxious parent, I am not joking. I am more anx —
ious for your children than you are. On the faith of an.
ex-teacher and ex-school-committee-man, -for what re —
spectable middle-aged American man but has passed.
through both these spheres of uncomfortable usefulness?
- I am terribly in earnest. Upon this implied thesis, —
that the merit of an American school, at least so far as,
Angelina is concerned, is in inverse ratio to the time.
given to study, - I will lay down incontrovertible reasonings.
Sir Walter Scott, according to Carlyle, was the only
perfectly healthy literary man who ever lived, - in fact,
the one suitable text, he says, for a sermon on health.
You may wonder, Dolorosus, what Sir Walter Scott has
to do with Angelina, except to supply her with novelreading, and with passages for impassioned recitation, at
the twilight hour, from " The Lady of the Lake."  But
that same Scott has left one remark on record which may
yet save the lives and reasons of greater men than himself, more gifted women (if that were possible) than Angelina, if we can only accept it with the deference to
which that same healthiness of his entitles it. He gave
it as his deliberate opinion, in conversation with Basil'
Hall, that five and a half hours form the limit of healthfulmental labor for a mature person. "This I reckon very,
4*                         F




82  THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
good work for a man," he said, - adding, " I can very
seldom reach six hours a day; and I reckon that what is
written after five or six hours' hard mental labor is not
good for much."  This he said in the fulness of his magnificent strength, and when he was producing, with astounding rapidity, those pages of delight over which every
new generation still hangs enchanted.
He did not mean, of course, that this was the maximum
of possible mental labor, but only of wise and desirable
labor. In later life, driven by terrible pecuniary anxieties, he himself worked more than this. Southey, his
contemporary, worked far harder, - writing, in 1814, "I
cannot get through more than at present, unless I give
up sleep, or the little exercise I take (walking a mile and
back, after breakfast); and, that hour excepted, and my
meals, (barely the meals, for I remain not one minute
after them,) the pen or the book is always in my hand."
Our own time and country afford a yet more astonishing
instance. Theodore Parker, to my certain knowledge,
has often spent in his study from twelve to seventeen
hours daily, for weeks together. But the result in all
these cases has sadly proved the supremacy of the laws
which were defied; and the nobler the victim, the more
tremendous the warning retribution.
Let us return, then, from the practice of Scott's ruined
days to the principles of his sound ones. Supposing his
estimate to be correct, and five and a half hours to be a
reasonable limit for the day's work of a mature intellect,
it is evident that even this must be altogether too much
for an immature one. " To suppose the youthful brain,"
says the recent admirable report, by Dr. Ray, of the
Providence Insane Hospital, " to be capable of an amount
of work which is considered an ample allowance to an




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 83
adult brain, is simply absurd, and the attempt to carry
this fully into effect must necessarily be dangerous to the
health and efficacy of the organ." It would be wrong,
therefore, to deduct less than a half-hour from Scott's
estimate, for even the oldest pupils in our highest schools;
leaving five hours as the limit of real mental effort for
them, and reducing this, for all younger pupils, very
much farther.
It is vain to suggest, at this point, that the application
of Scott's estimate is not fair, because the mental labor
of our schools is different in quality from his, and therefore less exhausting.  It differs only in being more
exhausting. To the robust and affluent mind of the
novelist, composition was not, of itself, exceedingly fatiguing; we know this from his own testimony; he was
able, moreover, to select his own subject, keep his own
hours, and arrange all his own conditions of labor. And
on the other hand, when we consider what energy and
genius have for years been brought to bear upon the perfecting of our educational methods, —how thoroughly
our best schools are now graded and systematized, until
each day's lessons become a Procrustes-bed to which all
must fit themselves,- how stimulating the apparatus of
prizes and applauses, how crushing the penalties of reproof and degradation, - when we reflect, that it is the
ideal of every school to concentrate the whole faculties
of every scholar upon each lesson and each recitation
from beginning to end, and that anything short of this is
considered partial failure, - it is not exaggeration to say,
that the daily tension of brain demanded of children in
our best schools is altogether severer than that upon
which Scott based his estimate.  But Scott is not the
only authority in the case; let us ask the physiologists.




84  THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
So said Horace IMann, before us, in the days when the
Massachusetts school system was in process of formation.
He asked the physiologists, in 1840, and in his next Report printed the answers of three of the most eminent.
The late Dr. Woodward, of Worcester, promptly said,
that children under eight should never be confined more
than one hour at a time, nor more than four hours a day;
and that, if any child showed alarming symptoms of precocity, it should be taken from school altogether. Dr.
James Jackson, of Boston, allowed the children four hours'
schooling in winter and five in summer, but only one hour
at a time, and heartily expressed his " detestation of the
practice of giving young children lessons to learn at
home." Dr. S. G. Howe, reasoning elaborately on the
whole subject, said, that children under eight should not
be confined more than half an hour at a time, — " by following which rule, with long recesses, they can study four
hours daily"; children between eight and fourteen should
not be confined more than three quarters of an hour at a
time, having the last quarter of each hour for exercise in
the playground; - and he allowed six hours of school in
winter, or seven in summer, solely on condition of this
deduction of twenty-five per cent for recesses.
Indeed, the one thing about which doctors do not disagree is the destructive effect of premature or excessive
mental labor. I can quote you medical authority for and
against every maxim of dietetics beyond the very simplest; but I defy you- to find one man who ever begged,
borrowed, or stole the title of M. D., and yet abused those
two honorary letters by asserting, under their cover, that
a child could safely study as much as a man, or that a
man could safely study more than six hours a day. Most
of the intelligent men in the profession would probably




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 85
admit, with Scott, that even that is too large an allowance
in maturity for vigorous work of the brain.
Taking, then, five hours as the reasonable daily limit
of mental effort for children of eight to fourteen years,
and one hour as the longest time of continuous confinement, (it was a standing rule of the Jesuits, by the way,
that no pupil should study more than two hours without
relaxation,) the important question now recurs, To what
school shall we send Angelina?
Shall we send her, for instance, to Dothegirls' Hall?
At that seminary of useful knowledge, I find by careful
inquiry that the daily performance is as follows, at least
in summer. The pupils rise at or before five, A. M.; at
any rate, they study from five to seven, two hours. From
seven to eight they breakfast. From eight to two they
are in the school-room, six consecutive hours. From two
to three they dine. From three to five they are "allowed" to walk or take other exercise, — that is, if it is
pleasant weather, and if they feel the spirit for it, and
if the time is not all used up in sewing, writing letters,
school politics, and all the small miscellaneous duties of
existence, for which no other moment is provided during
day or night. From five to six they study; from six to
seven comes the tea-table; from  seven to nine study
again; then bed and (at least for the stupid ones) sleep.
Eleven solid hours of study each day, Dolorosus!
Eight for sleep, three for meals, two during which outdoor exercise is "I allowed."  There is no mistake about
this statement; I wish there were. I have not imagined
it; who could have done so, short of Milton and Dante,
who were versed in the exploration of kindred regions of
torment? But as I cannot expect the general public to
believe the statement, even if you do, —and as this letter,




86  THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
like my previous one, may accidentally find its way into
print, - and as I cannot refer to those who have personally attended the school, since they probably die off too
fast to be summoned as witnesses, - I will come down
to a rather milder statement, and see if you will believe
that.
Shall we send her, then, to the famous New York
school of Mrs. Destructive? This is recently noticed as
follows in the "Household Journal": -"Of this most
admirable school, for faithful and well-bred system of
education, we have long intended to speak approvingly;
but in the following extract from the circular the truth is
more expressively given:'From  September to April
the time of rising is a quarter before seven o'clock, and
from April to July half an hour earlier; then breakfast;
after which, from eight to nine o'clock, study, -the school
opening at nine o'clock, with reading the Scriptures and
prayer. From nine until half past twelve, the recitations
succeed one another, with occasional short intervals of
rest. From half past twelve to one, recreation and lunch.
From one to three o'clock, at which hour the school closes,
the studies are exclusively in the French language...
From three to four o'clock in the winter, but later in the
summer, exercise in the open air. There are also opportunities for exercise several times in the day, at short
intervals, which cannot'easily be explained. From a
quarter past four to five o'clock, study; then dinner, and
soon after tea. From seven to nine, two hours of study;
immediately after which all retire for the night, and lights
in the sleeping apartments must be extinguished at half
past nine."' You have summed up the total already,
Dolorosus; I see it on your lips;- nine hours and a
quarter of study, and one solitary hour for exercise, not




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 87
counting those inexplicable "short intervals which cannot
easily be explained "!
You will be pleased to hear that I have had an opportunity of witnessing the brilliant results of Mrs. Destructive's system, in the case of my charming little neighbor,
Fanny Carroll. She has lately returned from a stay of
one year under that fashionable roof. In most respects, I
was assured, the results of the school were all that could
be desired.; the mother informed me, with delight, that
the child now spoke French like an angel from Paris, and
handled her silver fork like a seraph from the skies.
You may well suppose that I hastened to call upon her;
for the gay little creature was always a great pet of mine,
and I always quoted her with delight, as a proof that
bloom and strength were not monopolized by English
girls. In the parlor I found the mother closeted with the
family physician. Soon, Fanny, aged sixteen, glided in,
— a pale spectre, exquisite in costume, unexceptionable
in manners, looking in all respects like an exceedingly
used-up belle of five-and-twenty. " What were you just
saying that some of my Fanny's symptoms were, doctor?"
asked the languid mother, as if longing for a second taste
of some dainty morsel. The courteous physician dropped
them into her eager palm, like sugar-plums, one by one:."Vertigo, headache, neuralgic pains, and general debility."
The mother sighed once genteelly at me, and then again,
quite sincerely, to herself; —but I never yet saw an
habitual invalid who did not seem to take a secret satisfaction in finding her child to be a chip of the old block,
though both block and chip be decayed. However, nothing is now said of Miss Carroll's returning to school; and
the other day I actually saw her dashing through the lane
on the family pony, with a tinge of the old brightness in




88 THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
her cheeks. I ventured to inquire of her, soon after, if
she had finished her education; and she replied, with a
slight tinge of satire, that she studied regularly every
day, at various "short intervals, which could not easily
be explained."
Five hours a day the safe limit for study, Dolorosus,
and these terrible schools quietly put into their programmes nine, ten, eleven hours; and the deluded parents think they have out-manceuvred the laws of Nature,
and made a better bargain with Time. But these are
private, exclusive schools, you may say, for especially
favored children. We cannot afford to have most of the
rising generation murdered so expensively; and in our
public schools, at least, one thinks there may be some
relaxation of this tremendous strain. Besides, physiological reformers had the making of our public system. "A
man without high health," said Horace Mann, "is as much
at war with Nature as a guilty soul is at war with the
spirit of God." Look first at our Normal Schools, therefore, and see how finely their theory, also, presents this
same lofty view.
"Those who have had much to do with students, especially with the female portion," said a Normal School Report a few years since, "well know the sort of martyrspirit that extensively prevails,- how ready they often
are to sacrifice everything for the sake of a good lesson,
- how false are their notions of true economy in mental
labor,..... sacrificing their physical natures most unscrupulously to their intellectual. Indeed, so strong had
this passion for abuse become [in this institution], that no
study of the laws of the physical organization, no warning,
no painful experiences of their own or of their associates,
were sufficient to overcome their readiness for self-sacri



THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 89
fie." And it appears, that, in consequence of this state
of things, circulars were sent to all boarding-houses in the
village, laying down stringent rules to prevent the young
ladies from exceeding the prescribed amount of study.
Now turn from theory to practice. What was this
" prescribed amount of study" which these desperate
young females persisted in exceeding, in this model
school? It began with an hour's study before daylight
(in winter), -a thing most ruinous to eyesight, as multitudes have found to their cost. Then from eight to half
past two, from four to half past five, from seven to nine,
- with one or two slight recesses. Ten hours and three
quarters daily, Dolorosus! as surely as you are a living
sinner, and as surely as the Board of Education who
framed that programme were sinners likewise. I believe
that some Normal Schools have learned more moderation
now; but I know also what forlorn wrecks of womanhood
have been strewed along their melancholy history, thus
far; and at what incalculable cost their successes have
been purchased.
But it is premature to contemplate this form of martyrdom for Angelina, who has to run the gantlet of our common schools and high schools first. Let us consider her
prospects in these, carrying with us that blessed maxim,
five hours' study a day,-" Nature loves the number
five," as Emerson judiciously remarks, —for our aegis
against the wiles of schoolmasters.
The year 1854 is memorable for a bomb-shell then
thrown into the midst of the triumphant school system
of Boston, in the form of a solemn protest by the city
physician against the ruinous manner in which the children were overworked.  Fact, feeling, and physiology
were brought to bear, with much tact and energy, and




90 THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
the one special point of assault was the practice of imposing out-of-school studies, beyond the habitual six hours of
session. A committee of inquiry was appointed. They
interrogated the grammar-school teachers. The innocent
and unsuspecting teachers were amazed at the suggestion
of any excess. Most of them promptly replied, in writing, that " they had never heard of any complaints on this
subject from parents or guardians "; that "most of the
masters were watchful upon the matter "; that " none of
them pressed out-of-school studies "; while " the general
opinion appeared to be, that a moderate amount of out-ofschool study was both necessary for the prescribed course
of study and wholesome in its influence on character and
habits." They suggested that " commonly the ill health
that might exist arose from other causes than excessive
study"; one attributed it to the use of confectionery,
another to fashionable parties, another to the occasional
practice of " chewing pitch," — anything, everything, rather than admit that American children of fourteen could
possibly be damaged by working only two hours a day
more than Walter Scott.
However, the committee thought differently. At any
rate, they fancied that they had more immediate control
over the school-hours than they could exercise over the
propensity of young girls for confectionery, or over the
improprieties of small boys who, yet immature for tobacco,
touched pitch and were defiled. So by their influence
was passed that immortal Section 7 of Chapter V. of
the School Regulations, - the Magna Charta of childish
liberty, so far as it goes, and the only safeguard which
renders it prudent to rear a family within the limits of
Boston: -
" In assigning lessons to boys to be studied out of




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 91
school-hours, the instructors shall not assign a longer lesson than a boy of good capacity can acquire by an hour's
study; but no out-of-school lessons shall be assigned to
girls, nor shall the lessons to be studied in school be so
long as to require a scholar of ordinary capacity to study
out of school in order to learn them."
It appears that since that epoch this rule has "generally " been observed, " though many of the teachers would
prefer a different practice."  "The rule is regarded by
some as an uncomfortable restriction, which without adequate reason (!) retards the progress of pupils."  "A
majority of our teachers would consider the permission
to assign lessons for study at home to be a decided advantage and privilege." So say the later reports of the committee.
Fortunately for Angelina and the junior members of
the house of Dolorosus, you are not now directly dependent upon Boston regulations. I mention them only because
they represent a contest which is inevitable in every large
town in the United States where the public-school system
is sufficiently perfected to be dangerous. It is simply the
question, whether children can bear more brain-work than
men can. Physiology, speaking through my humble voice,
(the personification may remind you of the days when men
began poems with " Inoculation, heavenly maid! ") shrieks
loudly for five hours as the utmost limit, and four hours as
far more reasonable than six. But even the comparatively
moderate " friends of education " still claim the contrary.
Mr. Bishop, the worthy Superintendent of Schools in Boston, says, (Report, 1855,) "The time daily allotted to
studies may very properly be extended to seven hours a
day for young persons over fifteen years of age"; and the
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, in his




92  THE MURDER OF THE INN7OCENTS.
recent volume, seems to think it a great concession to limit
the period, even for younger pupils, to six.
And we must not forget, that, frame regulations as we
may, the tendency will always be to overrun them. In
the report of the Boston sub-committee to which I have
referred, it was expressly admitted that the restrictions
recommended " would not alone remedy the evil, or do
much toward it; there would still be much, and with the
ambitious too much, studying out of school."  They
ascribed the real difficulty "to the general arrangements of our schools, and to the strong pressure from
various causes urging the pupils to intense application
and the masters to encourage it," and said that this
"could only be met by some general changes introduced by general legislation." Some few of the masters had previously admitted the same thing: "The
pressure from without, the expectations of the, committee, the wishes of the parents, the ambition of the pupils,
and an exacting public sentiment, do tend to stimulate
many to excessive application, both in and out of school."
This admits the same fact, in a different form. If these
children have half their vitality taken out of them by premature and excessive brain-work, it makes no difference
whether it is done in the form of direct taxation or of
indirect, - whether they are compelled to it by authority
or allured into it by excitement and emulation. If a
horse breaks a bloodvessel by running too hard, it is no
matter whether he was goaded by whip and spur, or ingeniously coaxed by the Hibernian method of a lock of
hay tied six inches before his nose. The method is
nothing,-it is the pace which kills. Probably the fact
is, that for every extra hour directly required by the
teacher, another is indirectly extorted in addition by the




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 93
general stimulus of the school. The best scholars put on
the added hour, because they are the best, - and the inferior scholars, because they are not the best. In either
case the excess is destructive in its tendency, and the only
refuge for individuals is to be found in a combination of
fortunate dulness with happy indifference to shame. But
is it desirable, my friend, to construct our school system on
such a basis that safety and health shall be monopolized
by the stupid and the shameless?
Is this magnificent system of public instruction, the
glory of the world, to turn out merely a vast machine for
public destruction? Look at it! as now arranged, committees are responsible to the public, teachers to committees, pupils to teachers, —all pledged to extract a
maximum  crop from  childish brains.  It is the same
system of middle-men which for years ruined the Irish
peasantry, with nobody ostensibly to blame. Each is
responsible to the authority next above him for a certain
amount, and must get it out of the victim next below him.
Constant improvements in machinery perfect and expedite
the work; improved gauges and meters (in the form of
examinations) compute the comparative yield to a nicety,
and allow no evasion. The child cannot spare an hour,
for he must keep up with the other children; the teacher
dares not relax, for he must keep up with the other
schools; the committees must only stimulate, not check,
for the eyes of the editors are upon them, and the municipal glory is at stake: every one of these, from highest
to lowest, has his appointed place in the tread-mill, and
must keep step with the rest; and only once a year, at
the summer vacation, the vast machine stops, and the
poor remains of childish brain and body are taken out
and handed to anxious parents (like you, Dolorosus): —




94  THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
"Here, most worthy tax-payer, is the dilapidated residue
of your beloved Angelina; take her to the sea-shore for
a few weeks, and make the most of her."
Do not you know that foreigners, coming from the
contemplation of races less precociously intellectual, see
the danger we are in, if we do not? I was struck by
the sudden disappointment of an enthusiastic English
teacher (Mr. Calthrop), who visited the New York
schools the other day and got a little behind the scenes.
"If I wanted a stranger to believe that the Millennium
was not far off," he said, " I would take him to some of
those grand ward-schools in New York, where able heads
are trained by the thousand. I spent four or five days
in doing little else than going through these truly wonderful schools. I stayed more than three hours in one of
them, wondering at all I saw, admiring the stately order,
the unbroken discipline of the whole arrangements, and
the wonderful quickness and intelligence of the scholars.
That same evening I went to see a friend, whose daughter, a child of thirteen, was at one of these schools. I
examined her, and found that the little girl could hold
her own with many of larger growth.'Did she go to
school to-day?' asked I.'No,' was the answer,'she
has not been for some time, as she was beginning to get
quite a serious curvature of the spine; so now she goes
regularly to a gymnastic doctor.'"
I am sure that we have all had the same experience.
How exciting it was, last year, to be sure, to see Angelina at the grammar-school examination, multiplying
mentally 351,426 by 236,145, and announcing the result
in two minutes and thirteen seconds as 82,987,492,770!
I remember how you stood trembling as she staggered
under the monstrous load, and how your cheek hung out




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 95
the red flag of parental exultation when she came out
safe. But when I looked at her colorless visage, sharp
features, and shiny, consumptive skin, I groaned inwardly.
It seemed as if that crop of figures, like the innumerable
florets of the whiteweed, now overspreading your paternal farm, were exhausting the last atoms of vitality from
a shallow soil. What a pity it is that the Deity gave to
these children of ours bodies as well as brains! How
it interferes with thorough instruction in the languages
and the sciences! You remember the negro-trader in
" Uncle Tom," who sighs for a lot of negroes specially
constructed for his convenience, with the souls left out?
Could not some of our school-committees take measures
to secure the companion set, possessing merely the brains,
and with the troublesome bodies conveniently omitted?
The truth is, that we Americans, having overcome all
other obstacles to the universal education of the people,
have thought to overcome even the limitations imposed
by the laws of Nature; and so we were going triumphantly on, when the ruined health of our children suddenly brought us to a stand. Now we suddenly discover,
that, in the absence of Inquisitions, and other unpleasant
Old-World tortures, our school-houses have taken their
place. We have outgrown war, we think; and yet we
have not outgrown a form of contest which is undeniably
more sanguinary, since one half the community actually
die, under present arrangements, before they are old
enough to see a battle-field, - that is, before the age of
eighteen. It is an actual fact, that, if you can only keep
Angelina alive up to that birthday, even if she be an
ignoramus, she will at least have accomplished the feat of
surviving half her contemporaries.  Can there be no
Peace Society to check this terrific carnage? Dolorosus,




96  THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
rather than have a child of mine die, as I have recently
heard of a child's dying, insane from sheer overwork, and
raving of algebra, I would have her come no nearer to
the splendors of science than the man in the French play,
who brings away from school only the general impression
that two and two make five for a creditor and three for a
debtor.
De Quincey wrote a treatise on " Murder considered
as one of the Fine Arts," and it is certainly the fine art
which receives most attention in our schools. "So far
as the body is concerned," said Horace Mann of these
institutions, "they provide for all the natural tendencies to physical ease and inactivity as carefully as though
paleness and languor, muscular enervation and debility,
were held to be constituent elements in national beauty."
With this denial of the body on one side, with this
tremendous stimulus of brain on the other, and with a
delicate and nervous national organization to begin with,
the result is inevitable. Boys hold out better than girls,
partly because they are not so docile in school, partly
because they are allowed to be more active out of it,
and so have more recuperative power. But who has not
seen some delicate girl, after five consecutive hours spent
over French and Latin and Algebra, come home to
swallow an indigestible dinner, and straightway settle
down again to spend literally every waking hour out of
the twenty-four in study, save those scanty meal-times,
protracting the labor, it may be, far into the night, till
the weary eyes close unwillingly over the slate or the
lexicon, - then to bed, to be vexed by troubled dreams,
instead of being wrapt in the sunny slumber of childhood,
- waking unrefreshed, to be reproached by parents and
friends with the nervous irritability which this detestable
routine has created?




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 97
For I aver that parents are more exacting than even
teachers. It is outrageous to heap it all upon the pedagogues, as if they were the only apostolical successors
of him whom Charles Lamb lauded, " the much calumniated good King Herod."  Indeed, teachers have no
objection to educating the bodies of their small subjects,
if they can only be as well paid for it as for educating
their intellects. But, until recently, they have never
been allowed to put the bodies into the bill. And as
charity begins at home, even in a physiological- sense,and as their own children's bodies required bread and
butter,- they naturally postponed all regard for the
physical education of their pupils until the thing acquired
a marketable value. Now that the change is taking
place, every schoolmaster in the land gladly adapts himself to it, and hastens to insert in his advertisement,
".Especial attention given to physical education." But
what good does this do, so long as parents are not willing
that time enough should be deducted from the ordinary
tasks to make the athletic apparatus available, - so long
as it is regarded as a merit in pupils to take time from
their plays and give it to extra studies, - so long as we
exult over an inactive and studious child, as Dr. Beattie
did over his, that "exploits of strength, dexterity, and
speed "to him no vanity or joy could bring," and then
almost die of despair, like Dr. Beattie, because such a
child dies before us? With girls it is far worse. " Girls,
during childhood, are liable to "no diseases distinct from
those of boys," says Salzmann, "except the disease of
education."  What mother can one find in decent society,
I ask you, who is not delighted to have her little girl
devote even Wednesday and Saturday afternoons to additional tasks in drawing or music, rather than run the
5                          G




98  THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
risk of having her make a noise somewhere, or possibly
even soil her dress? Papa himself will far more readily
appropriate ten dollars to this additional confinement, than
five to the gymnasium or the riding-school. And so,
beset with snares on every hand, the poor little welleducated thing can only pray the prayer recorded of a
despairing child, brought up in the best society, —that
she might " die and go to heaven and play with the Irish
children on Saturday afternoons."
And the Sunday schools co-operate with the week-day
seminaries in the pious work of destruction. Dolorosus,
are all your small neighbors hard at work in committing
to memory Scripture texts for a wager, -I have an impression, however, that they call it a prize, - consisting
of one Bible?  In my circle of society the excitement
runs high. At any tea-drinking, you may hear the ladies
discussing the comparative points and prospects of their
various little Ellens and Harriets, with shrill eagerness;
while their husbands, on the other side of the room, are
debating the merits of Ethan Allen and Flora Temple,
the famous trotting-horses, who are soon expected to try
their speed on our " Agricultural Ground." Each horse,
and each girl, appears to have enthusiastic backers, though
the Sunday-school excitement has the advantage of lasting longer. From inquiry, I find the state of the field to
be about as follows: — Fanny Hastings, who won the
prize last year, is not to be entered for it again; she
damaged her memory by the process, her teacher tells
me, so that she can now scarcely fix the simplest lesson
in her mind. Carry Blake had got up to five thousand
verses, but had such terrible headaches that her mother
compelled her to stop, some weeks ago; the texts have
all vanished from her brain, but the headache unfortu



THE.MURDER  OF  THE  INNOCENTS.  99
nately still lingers. Nelly Sanborn has reached six thousand, although her anxious father long since tried to buy
her off by offering her a new Bible twice as handsome as
the prize one: but what did she care for that? she said;
she had handsome Bibles already, but she had no intention of being beaten by Ella Prentiss. Poor child, we
see no chance for her; for Ella has it all her own way;
she has made up a score of seven thousand one hundred
texts, and it is only three days to the fatal Sunday. Between ourselves, I think Nelly does her work more fairly;
for Ella has a marvellous ingenuity in picking out easy
verses, like Jack Horner's plums, and valuing every
sacred sentence, not by its subject, but by its shortness.
Still, she is bound to win.
" How is her health this summer? " I asked her mother, the other day.
" Well, her verses weigh on her," said the good woman,
solemnly.
And here I pledge you my word, Dolorosus, that to
every one of these statements I might append, - as Miss
Edgeworth does to every particularly tough story, —
"N. B. This is a fact."  I will only add, that our Sunday-school Superintendent, who is a physician, told me
that he had as strong objections to the whole thing as I
could have; but that it was no use talking; all the other
schools did it, and ours must; emulation was the order
of the day. " Besides," he added, with that sort of cheerful hopelessness peculiar to his profession, "the boys
never trouble themselves about it; and as for the girls,.
they would probably lose their health very soon, at any
rate, and may as well devote it to a sacred cause."
Do not misunderstand me. The aim in this case is a
good one, just as the aim in week-day schools is a good




100 THE MURDER OF, THE INNOCENTS.
one, - to communicate valuable knowledge and develop
the powers of the mind. The defect in policy, in both
cases, appears to be, that it totally defeats its own aim,
-renders the employments hateful that should be delightful, and sacrifices health and joy without any adequate
equivalent. All excess defeats itself. As a grown man
can work more in ten hours than in fifteen, taking a series
of days together, so a child can make more substantial
mental progress in five hours daily than in ten. Your
child's mind is not an earthen jar, to be filled by pouring
into it; it is a delicate plant, to be wisely and healthfully
reared; and your wife might as well attempt to enrich
her mignonette-bed by laying a Greek Lexicon upon it,
as try to cultivate that young nature by a top-dressing
of Encyclopaedias. I use the word on high authority.
" Courage, my boy! " wrote Lord Chatham to his son,
"only the Encyclopaedia to learn! "- and the cruel diseases of a lifetime repaid Pitt for the forcing. I do not
object to the severest quality of study for boys or girls;
- while their brains work, let them work in earnest.
But I do object to this immoderate and terrific quantity.
Cut down every school, public and private, to five hours'
total work per diem for the oldest children, and four for
the younger ones, and they will accomplish more in the
end than you ever saw them do in six or seven. Only
give little enough at a time, and some freshness to do it
with, and you may, if you like; send Angelina to any
school, and put her through the whole programme of the'last educational prospectus sent to me,-" Philology,
Pantology, Orthology, Aristology, and Linguistics."
For what is the end to be desired? Is it to exhibit a
prodigy, or'to rear a noble and symmetrical specimen
of a human being.? Because Socrates taught that a boy




THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 101
who has learned to speak is not too small for.the sciences,
because Tiberius delivered his father's funeral oration
it the age of nine, and Marcus Aurelius put on the philosophic gown at twelve, and Cicero wrote a treatise on
the art of speaking at thirteen, - because Lipsius is said
to have composed a work the day he was born, meaning,
say the commentators) that he began a new life at the age
of ten, - because the learned Licetus, who was brought
into the world so feeble as to be baked up to maturity in
an oven, sent forth from that receptacle, like a loaf of
bread, a treatise called " Gonopsychanthropologia," - is
it, therefore, indispensably necessary, Dolorosus, that all
your pale little offspring shall imitate them-?  Spare
these innocents! it is not their fault that they are your
children, -so do not visit it upon them  so severely.
Turn, Angelina, ever dear, and out of a little childish
recreation we will yet extract a great deal of maturer
wisdom for you, if we can only bring this deluded parent
to his senses.
To change the sweet privilege of childhood into weary
days and restless nights, —to darken its pure associations, which for many are the sole light that ever brings
them back from sin and despair to the heaven of their
infancy, - to banish those reveries of innocent fancy
which even noisy boyhood knows, and which are the appointed guardians of its purity before conscience wakes,
- to abolish its moments of priceless idleness, saturated
with sunshine, blissful, aimless moments, when - every angel is near, - to bring insanity, once the terrible prerogative of maturer life, down into the summer region of
childhood, with blight and ruin; - all this is the work of
our folly, Dolorosus, of our miserable ambition to have
our unconscious little ones begin, in their very infancy;




102 THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
the race of desperate ambition, which has, we admit, exhausted prematurely the lives of their parents.
The worst danger of it is, that the moral is written at
the end of the fable, not the beginning. The organization
in youth is so dangerously elastic, that the result of these
intellectual excesses is not seen until years after. When
some young girl incurs spinal disease for life from some
slight fall which she ought not to have felt for an hour, or
some business-man breaks down in the prime of his years
from some trifling over-anxiety which should have left no
trace behind, the popular verdict may be, "IMysterious
Providence"; but the wiser observer sees the retribution
for the folly of those misspent days which enfeebled the
childish constitution, instead of ripening it. One of the
most admirable passages in the Report of Dr. Ray, already
mentioned, is that in which he explains, that, though hard
study at school is rarely the immediate cause of insanity,
it is the most frequent of its ulterior causes, except heredt
itary tendencies. "It diminishes the conservative power
of the animal economy to such a degree, that attacks of
disease, which otherwise would have passed off safely,
destroy life almost before danger is anticipated. Every
intelligent physician understands, that, other things being
equal, the chances of recovery are far less in the studious,
highly intellectual child than in one of an opposite description. The immediate mischief may have seemed slight,
but the brain is left in a condition of peculiar impressibility, which renders it morbidly sensitive to every adverse influence."
Indeed, here is precisely the weakness of our whole
national training thus far, — brilliant immediate results,
instead of wise delays. The life of the average American
is a very hasty breakfast, a magnificent luncheon, a dys



TIHE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS. 103
peptic dinner, and no supper. Our masculine energy is,
like our feminine beauty, bright and evanescent. As enthusiastic travellers inform us that there are in every
American village a dozen girls of sixteen who are prettier than any English hamlet of the same size can produce, so the same village undoubtedly possesses a dozen
very young men who, tried by the same standard, are
"smarter" than their English compeers. Inquire again
fifteen years after, when the Englishmen and Englishwomen are reported to be just in their prime, and, lo!
those lovely girls are sallow old women, and the boys are
worn-out men, - with fire left in them, it may be, but
fuel gone, - retired from active business, very likely, and
merely waiting for consumption to carry them off, as one
waits for the omnibus.
To say that this should be amended is to say little.
Either it must be amended, or the American race fails;
-there is no middle ground. If we fail, (which I do
not expect, I assure you,) we fail disastrously. If we
succeed, if we bring up our vital and muscular developments into due proportion with our nervous energy, we
shall have a race of men and women such as the world
never saw. Dolorosus, when in the course of human
events you are next invited to give a Fourth-of-July
Oration, grasp at the opportunity, and take for your subject " Health." Tell your audience, when you rise to the
accustomed flowers of rhetoric as the day wears on, that
Health is the central luminary, of which all the stars that
spangle the proud flag of our common country are but
satellites; and close with a hint to the plumed emblem of
our nation, (pointing to the stuffed one which will probably be exhibited on the platform,) that she should not
henceforward confine her energies to the hatching of




104 TIIE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.
short-lived eaglets, but endeavor rather to educate a few
full-grown birds.
As I take it, Nature said, some years since, — "Thus
far the English is my best race; but we have had Englishmen enough; now for another turning of the globe,
and a further novelty. We need something with a little
more buoyancy than the Englishman; let us lighten the
structure even at some peril in the process. Put in one
drop more of nervous fluid and make the American."
With that drop, a new range of promise opened on the
human race, and a lighter, finer, more highly organized
type of mankind was born. But the promise must be fulfilled through unequalled dangers. With the new drop
came new intoxication, new ardors, passions, ambitions,
hopes, reactions, and despairs,- more daring, more invention, more disease, more insanity, - forgetfulness, at
first, of the old, wholesome traditions of living, recklessness of sin and saleratus, loss of refreshing sleep and of
the power of play. To surmount all this, we have got to
fight the good fight, I assure you, Dolorosus. Nature is
yet pledged to produce that finer type, and if we miss it,
she will leave us to decay, like our predecessors, - whirl
the globe over once more, and choose a new place for a
new experiment.




BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION.








BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION.
~ -
IN the interior of the island of Borneo there has been
found a certain race of wild creatures, of which kindred varieties have been discovered in the Philippine
Islands, in Terra del Fuego, and in Southern Africa.
They walk usually almost erect upon two legs, and in
that attitude measure about four feet in height; they are
dari, wrinkled, and hairy; they construct no habitations,
form no families, scarcely associate together, sleep in trees
or in caves, feed on snakes and vermin, on ants and ants'
eggs, on mice, and on each other; they cannot be tamed,
nor forced to any labor; and they are hunted and shot
among the trees, like the great gorillas, of which they are
a stunted copy. When they are captured alive, one finds,
with surprise, that their uncouth jabbering sounds like
articulate language; they turn up a human face to gaze
upon their captor; the females show instincts of modesty;
and, in fine, these wretched beings are Men.
Men, "created in God's image," born immortal and
capable of progress, and so differing from Socrates and
Shakespeare only in degree. It is but a sliding scale from
this melancholy debasement up to the most regal condition of humanity. A traceable line of affinity hunites these
outcast children with the renowned historic races of the




108  BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION.
world: the Assyrian, the Egyptian, the Ethiopian, the
Jew, - the beautiful Greek, the strong Roman, the keen
Arab, the passionate Italian, the stately Spaniard, the sad
Portuguese, the brilliant Frenchman, the frank Northman,
the wise German, the firm Englishman, and that last-born
heir of Time, the American, inventor of many new things,
but himself, by his temperament, the greatest novelty of
all, — the American, with his cold, clear eye, his skin
made of ice, and his veins filled with lava.
Who shall define what makes the essential difference
between those lowest and these loftiest types? Not color;
for the most degraded races seem never to be the blackest,
and the builders of the Pyramids were far darker than the
dwellers in the Aleutian Islands. Not unmixed purity of
blood; since the Circassians, the purest type of the supreme
Caucasian race, have given nothing to history but the courage of their men and the degradation of their.women. Not
religion; for enlightened nations have arisen under each
great historic faith, while even Christianity has its Abyssinia and Arkansas. Not climate; for each quarter of the
globe has witnessed both extremes. We can only say that
there is an inexplicable step in progress, which we call
civilization; it is the development of mankind into a sufficient maturity of strength to keep the peace and organize
institutions; it is the arrival of literature and art; it is the
lion and the lamb beginning to lie down together, without
having, as some one has said, the lamb inside of the lion.
There are innumerable aspects of this great transformation; but there is one, in special, which has been continually ignored or evaded. In the midst of our civilization,
there is a latent distrust of civilization. We are never
weary of proclaiming the enormous gain it has brought to
manners, to morals, and to intellect; but there is a wide



BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.    109
spread impression that the benefit is purchased by a corresponding physical decay. This alarm has had its best
statement from Emerson. "Society never advances. It
recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.....
What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing,
thinking American, with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of
exchange in his pocket, and the naked New-Zealander,
whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, and the undivided twentieth part of a shed to sleep under! But compare the health of the two men, and you shall see that his
aboriginal strength the white man has lost. If the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad-axe, and
in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you
struck the blow into soft pitch; and the same blow shall
send the white man to his grave."
Were this true, the fact would be fatal. Man is a progressive being, only on condition that he begin at the
beginning. He can afford to wait centuries for a brain,
but he cannot subsist a second without a body. If civilization sacrifice the physical thus hopelessly to the mental,
and barbarism merely sacrifice the mental to the physical,
then barbarism is unquestionably the better thing, so far
as it goes, because it provides the essential preliminary
conditions. Barbarism is a one-story log-hut, a poor thing,
but better than nothing; while such a civilization would be
simply a second story, with a first story too weak to sustain
it, a magnificent sky-parlor, with all heaven in view from
the upper windows, but with the whole family coming
down in a crash presently, through a fatal neglect of the
basement. In such a view, an American Indian or a
Kaffir warrior may be a wholesome object, good for something already, and for much more when he gets a brain
built on. But when one sees a bookworm in his library,




110   BARBARISM  AND CIVILIZATION.
an anxious merchant-prince in his counting-room, tottering feebly about, his thin underpinning scarcely able to
support what he has already crammed into that heavy
brain of his, and he still piling in more, - one feels dis.
posed to cry out, "Unsafe passing here! Stand from
under!"
Sydney Smith, in his " Moral Philosophy," has also put
strongly this case of physiological despair. " Nothing can
be plainer than that a life of society is unfavorable to all
the animal powers of men.... A Choctaw could run
from here to Oxford without stopping. I go in the mailcoach; and the time the savage has employed in learning
to run so fast I have employed in learning something
useful. It would not only be useless in me to run like
a Choctaw, but foolish and disgraceful." But one may
well suppose, that, if the jovial divine had kept himself in
training for this disgraceful lost art of running, his diary
might not have recorded the habit of lying two hours in
bed in the morning, " dawdling and doubting," as he says,
or the fact of his having "passed the whole day in an
unpleasant state of body, produced by laziness "; and he
might not have been compelled to invent for himself that
amazing rheumatic armor, - a pair of tin boots, a tin
collar, a tin helmet, and a tin shoulder-of-mutton over
each of his natural shoulders, all duly filled with boiling
water, and worn in patience by the sedentary Sydney.
It is also to be remembered that this statement was
made in 1805, when England and Germany were both
waking up to a revival of physical training, - if we may
trust Sir John Sinclair in the one case, and Salzmann
in the other, — such as America is experiencing, now.
Many years afterwards, Sydney Smith wrote to his
brother, that "a working senator should lead the life




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.   111
of an athlete." But supposing the fact still true, that an
average red man can run, and an average white man
cannot, - who does not see that it is the debility, not the
performance, which is discreditable? Setting aside the
substantial advantages of strength and activity, there is a
melancholy loss of self-respect in buying cultivation for
the brain by resigning the proper vigor of the body.
Let men say what they please, they all demand a life
which shall be whole and sound throughout, and there is
a drawback upon all gifts that are paid for in infirmities.
There is no thorough satisfaction in art or intellect, if we
yet feel ashamed before the Indian because we cannot
run, and before the South-Sea Islander because we cannot swim. Give us a total culture, and a success without
any discount of shame. After all, one feels a certain
justice in Warburton's story of the Guinea trader, in
Spence's Anecdotes. Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey
Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader,
came in. " Nephew," said Sir Godfrey, " you have the
honor of seeing the two greatest men in the world."  " I
don't know how great you may be," said the Guinea-man,
"but I don't like your looks; I have often bought a man,
much better than both of you together, all muscles and
bones, for ten guineas."
Fortunately for the hopes of man, the alarm is unfounded. The advance of accurate knowledge dispels it.
Civilization is cultivation, whole cultivation; and even in
its present imperfect state, it not only permits physical
training, but promotes it. The traditional glory of the
savage body is yielding before medical statistics: it is becoming evident that the average barbarian, observed from
the cradle to the grave, does not know enough and is not
rich enough to keep his body in its highest condition, but,




112    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
on the contrary, is small and sickly and short-lived and
weak, compared with the man of civilization. The great
athletes of the world have been civilized; the long-lived
men have been civilized; the powerful armies have been
civilized; and the average of life, health, size, and
strength is highest to-day among those races where
knowledge and wealth and comfort are most widely
spread.  And yet, by the common lamentation, one
would suppose that all civilization is a slow suicide of
the race, and that refinement and culture are to leave
man at last in a condition like that of the little cherubs
on old tombstones, all head and wings.
It must be owned that the delusion has all the superstitions of history in its favor, and only the facts against it.
If we may trust tradition, the race has undoubtedly been
tapering down from century to century since the Creation,
so that the original Adam must have been more than
twice the size of the Webster statue. However far back
we go, admiring memory looks farther. Homer and Virgil never let their hero throw a stone without reminding
us that modern heroes only live in glass houses, to have
stones thrown at them. Lucretius and Juvenal chant the
same lament. Xenophon, mourning the march of luxury
among the Persians, says that modern effeminacy has
reached such a pitch, that men have even devised coverings for their fingers, called gloves. Herodotus narrates,
that, when Cambyses sent ambassadors to the Macrobians,
they asked what the Persians had to eat, and how long
they commonly lived. He was told that they sometimes
attained the age of eighty, and that they ate a mass of
crushed grain, which they termed bread. On this, they
said that it was no wonder if the Persians died young,
when they partook of such rubbish, and that probably




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.   113
they would not survive even so long, but for the wine
they drank; while the Macrobians lived on flesh and
milk, and survived one hundred and twenty years.
But, unfortunately, there were no Life Insurance Companies among the Macrobians, and therefore nothing to,
bring down this formidable average to a reliable scheduler
- such as accurately informs every modern man howlong he may live honestly, without defrauding either his
relict or his insurers.  We know, moreover, precisely:
what Dr. Windship can lift, at any given date, and what
the rest of us cannot; but Homer and Virgil never
weighed the stones which their heroes threw, nor even
the words in which they described the process. It is a
matter of certainty that all great exploits are severely
tested by Fairbanks's scales and stop-watches. It is wonderful how many persons, in the remoter districts, assure
the newspaper-editors of their ability to lift twelve hundred pounds; and many a young oarsman can prove to
you that he has pulled his mile faster than Ward or
Clark, if you will only let him give his own guess at time
and distance.
It is easy, therefore, to trace the origin of these exaggerations. Those old navigators, for instance, who saw
so many fine things which were not to be seen, how
should they help peopling the barbarous realms with
races of giants? Job Hartop, who three times observed
a merman rise above water to his waist, near the Bermudas, - Harris, who endured such terrific cold in the
Antarctics, that once, perilously blowing his nose with
his fingers, it flew into the fire and was seen no more,Knyvett, who, in the same regions, pulled off his frozen
stockings, and his toes with them, but had them replaced
by the ship's surgeon, - of course these men saw giants,
Hl




114    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
and it is only a matter for gratitude that they vouchsafed
us dwarfs also, to keep up some remains of self-respect
in us. In Magellan's Straits, for instance, they saw, on
one side, from three to four thousand pygmies with mouths
from ear to ear; while on the other shore they saw giants
whose footsteps were four times as large as an Englishman's,- which was a strong expression, considering that
the Englishman's footstep had already reached round the
globe.
The only way to test these earlier observations is by
later ones. For instance, in the year 1772, a Dutchman
named Roggewein discovered Easter Island. His expedition had cost the government a good deal, and he had
to bring home his money's worth of discoveries. Accordingly, his islanders were all giants,  twice as tall, he
said, as the tallest of the Europeans; " they measured,
one with another, the height of twelve feet; so that we
could easily, - who will not wonder at it? - without
stooping, have passed between the legs of these sons of
Goliah. According to their height, so is their thickness."
Moreover, he " puts down nothing but the real truth, and
upon the nicest inspection," and, to exhibit this caution,
warns us that it would be wrong to rate the women of
those regions as high as the men, they being, as he pityingly owns, "commonly not above ten or eleven feet."
Sweet young creatures they must have appeared, belle
and steeple in one. And it was certainly a great disappointment to Captain Cook, when, on visiting the same
island, fifty years later, he could not find man or woman
more than six feet tall. Thus ended the tale of this Flying Dutchman.
Thus lamentably have the inhabitants of Patagonia
been also dwindling, though there, if anywhere, still lies




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZA HION.    115
the Cape of Bad Hope for the apostles of human degeneracy. Pigafetta originally estimated them at twelve
feet. In the time of Commodore Byron, they had already
grown downward; yet he said of them that they were
" enormous goblins," seven feet high, every one of them.
One of his officers, however, writing an independent narrative, seemed to think this a needless concession; he admits, indeed, that the women were not, perhaps, more than
seven feet, or seven and a half, or, it might be, eight,
"but the men were, for the most part, about nine feet
high, and very often more." Lieutenant Cumming, he
said, being but six feet two, appeared a mere pygmy
among them. But it seems, that, in after-times, on some
one's questioning this diminutive lieutenant as to the actual size of these enormous goblins, the veteran frankly
confessed, that, "had it been anywhere else but in Patagonia, he should have called them good sturdy savages,
and thought no more on't."
But, these facts apart, there are certain general truths
which look ominous for the reputation of the physique of
savage tribes.
First, they cannot keep the race alive, they are always
tending to decay. When first encountered by civilization, they usually tell stories of their own decline in
numbers, and after that the downward movement is accelerated. They are poor, ignorant, improvident, oppressed
by others' violence, or exhausted by their own; war kills
them, infanticide and abortion cut them off before they
reach the age of war, pestilences sweep them away, whole
tribes perish by famine and small-pox. Under the stern
climate of the Esquimaux and the soft skies of Tahiti, the
same decline is seen. Parkman estimates that in 1763
the whole number of Indians east of the Mississippi was




116    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
but ten thousand, and they were already mourning their
own decay. Travellers seldom visit a savage country
without remarking on the scarcity of aged people and of
young children. Lewis and Clarke, Mackenzie, Alexander Henry, observed this among Indian tribes never before visited by white men; Dr. Kane remarked it among
the Esquimaux, D'Azara among the Indians of South
America, and many travellers in the South-Sea Island.
and even in Africa, though the black man apparently
takes more readily to civilization than any other race, and
then develops a terrible vitality, as American politicians
find to their cost.
Meanwhile, the hardships which thus decimate the
tribe toughen the survivors, and sometimes give them an
vppaent advantage over civilized meh. The savages
whom one encounters are necessarily the picked men of
the race, and the observer takes no census of the multitudes who have perished in the process. Civilization
keeps alive, in every generation, large numbers who
would otherwise die prematurely. These millions of invalids do not owe to civilization their diseases, but their
lives. It is painful that your sick friend should live on
Cherry Pectoral; but if he had been born in barbarism,
he would neither have had it to drink nor survived to
drink it.
And again, it is now satisfactorily demonstrated that
these picked survivors of savage life are commonly suffering under the same diseases with their civilized compeers,
and show less vital power to resist them. In barbarous
nations every foreigner is taken for a physician, and the
first demand is for medicines; if not the right medicines,
then the wrong ones; if no medicines are at hand, the
written prescription, administered internally, is sometimes




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.    117
found a desirable restorative. The earliest missionaries
to the South-Sea Islands found ulcers and dropsy and
humpbacks there before them. The English Bishop of
New Zealand, landing on a lone islet where no ship had
ever touched, found the whole population prostrate with
influenza. Lewis and Clarke, the first explorers of the
Rocky Mountains, found Indian warriors ill with fever
and dysentery, rheumatism and paralysis, and Indian
women in hysterics. "The toothache," said Roger Williams of the New England tribes, "is the only paine
which will force their stoute hearts to cry"; even the
Indian women, he says, never cry as he has heard "some
of their men in this paine "; but Lewis and Clarke found
whole tribes who had abolished this source of tears in the
civilized manner, by having no teeth left. We complain
of our weak eyes as a result of civilized habits, and
Tennyson, in " Locksley Hall," wishes his children bred
in some savage land, "not with blinded eyesight poring
over miserable books." But savage life seems more injurious to the organs of vision than even the type of a cheap
edition; for the most vigorous barbarians - on the prairies, in Southern archipelagos, on African deserts - suffer
more from different forms of ophthalmia than from any
other disease; without knowing the alphabet, they have
worse eyes than if they were professors, and have not
even the melancholy consolation of spectacles.
Again, the savage cannot, as a general rule, endure
transplantation, - he cannot thrive in the country of the
civilized man; whereas the latter, with time for training,
can equal or excel him in strength and endurance on his
own ground. As it is known that the human race generally can endure a greater variety of climate than the
hardiest of the lower animals, so it is with the man of




118    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
civilization, when compared with the barbarian. Kane,
when he had once learned how to live in the Esquimaux
country, lived better than the Esquimaux themselves;
and he says expressly, that "their powers of resistance
are no greater than those of well-trained voyagers from
other lands." Richardson, Parkyns, Johnstone, give it as
their opinion, that the European, once acclimated, bears
the heat of the African deserts better than the native
negro. "These Christians are devils," say the Arabs;
"they can endure both cold and heat."  What are the
Bedouins to the Zouaves, who unquestionably would be
as formidable in Lapland as in Algiers? Nay, in the
very climates where the natives are fading away, the civilized foreigner multiplies; thus, the strong New-Zealanders do not average two children to a family, while
the households of the English colonists are larger than
at home, — which is saying a good deal.
Most formidable of all is the absence of all recuperative power in the savage who rejects civilization. No
effort of will improves his condition; he sees his race
dying out, and he can only drink and forget it. But the
civilized man has an immense capacity for self-restoration; he can make mistakes and correct them again, sin
and repent, sink and rise. Instinct can only prevent;
science can cure in one generation, and prevent in the
next. It is known that some twenty years ago a thrill of
horror shot through all Anglo-Saxondom at the reported
physical condition of the operatives in English mines and
factories. It is not so generally known, that, by a recent
statement of the medical inspector of factories, there is
declared to have been a most astounding renovation of
female health in such establishments throughout all England since that time, - the simple result of sanitary laws.




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.    119
What science has done science can do. Everybody knows
which symptom of American physical decline is habitually
quoted as most alarming; one seldom sees a dentist who
does not despair of the republic. Yet this calamity is
nothing new; the elder branch of our race has been
through that epidemic, and outlived it. In the robust
days of Queen Bess, the teeth of the court ladies were
habitually so black and decayed, that foreigners used constantly to ask if Englishwomen ate nothing but sugar.
Hentzner, who visited the country in 1697, speaks of the
same calamity as common among the English of all classes.
Two centuries and a half have removed the stigma, - improved physical habits have put fresh pearls between the
lips of all England now; and there seems no reason why
we Americans may not yet be healthy, in spite of our
teeth.
Thus much for general considerations; let us come now
to more specific tests, beginning with the comparison of
size. The armor of the knights of the Middle Ages is too
small for their modern descendants: Hamilton Smith
records that two Englishmen of average dimensions found
no suit large enough to fit them in the great collection of
Sir Samuel Meyrick. The Oriental sabre will not admit
the English hand, nor the bracelet of the Kaffir warrior the
English arm. The swords found in Roman tumuli have
handles inconveniently small; and the great mediaeval
two-handed sword is now supposed to have been used
only for one or two blows at the first onset, and then exchanged for a smaller one. The statements given by
Homer, Aristotle, and Vitruvius represent six feet as a
high standard for full-grown men; and the irrefutable
evidence of the ancient door-ways, bedsteads, and tombs
proves the average size of the race to have certainly not




120    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
diminished in modern days. The gigantic bones have all
turned out to be animal remains; even the skeleton twenty-five feet high and ten feet broad, which one savant
wrote a book called " Gigantosteologia" to prove human,
and another, a counter-argument, called " Gigantomachia,"
to prove animal, - neither of the philosophers taking the
trouble to draw a single fragment of the fossil. The
enormous savage races have turned out, as has been
shown, to be travellers' tales, - even the Patagonians
being brought down to an average of five feet ten inches,
and being, moreover, only a part of a race, the Abipones,
of which the other families are smaller. Indeed, we can
all learn by our own experience how irresistible is the
tendency of the imagination to attribute vast proportions
to all hardy and warlike tribes. Most persons fancy the
Scottish Highlanders, for instance, to have been a race of
giants; yet Charles Edward was said to be taller than
any man in his Highland army, and his height was but
five feet nine. We have the same impression in regard
to our own Aborigines. Yet, when first, upon the prairies
of Nebraska, I came in sight of a tribe of genuine, unadulterated Indians, with no possession on earth but a bow
and arrow and a bear-skin, - bare-skin in a double sense,
I might add, - my instinctive exclamation was, " What
race of dwarfs is this?"  They were the descendants of
the glorious Pawnees of Cooper, the heroes of every boy's
imagination; yet, excepting the three chiefs, who were
noble-looking men of six feet in height, the tallest of the
tribe could not have measured five feet six inches.
The most careful investigations give the same results
in respect to physical strength. Early travellers among
our Indians, as Hearne and Mackenzie, and early missionaries to the South-Sea Islands, as Ellis, report athletic




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.   121
contests'in which the natives could not equal the better-fed, better-clothed, better-trained Europeans. When
the French savans, Peron, Regnier, Ransonnet, carried
their dynamometers to the islands of the Indian Ocean,
they found with surprise that an average English sailor
was forty-two per cent stronger, and an average Frenchman thirty per cent stronger, than the strongest island
tribe they visited. Even in comparing different European
races, it is undeniable that bodily strength goes with the
highest civilization. It is recorded in Robert Stephenson's Life, that, when the English "navvies" were employed upon the Paris and Boulogne Railway, they used
spades and barrows just twice the size of those employed
by their Continental rivals, and were regularly paid
double.  Quetelet's experiments with the dynamometer
on university students showed the same results: first
ranked the Englishman, then the Frenchman, then the
Belgian, then the Russian, then the Southern European;
for those races of Southern Europe which once ruled the
Eastern and the Western worlds by physical and mental
power have lost in strength as they have paused in civilization, and the easy victories of our armies in Mexico
show us the result.
It is impossible to deny that the observations on this
subject are yet very imperfect; and the only thing to be
claimed is, that they all point one way. So far as absolute statistical tables go, the above-named French observations have till recently stood almost alone, and have
been the main reliance. The just criticism has, however,
been made, that the subjects of these experiments were
the inhabitants of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land,
by no means the strongest instances on the side of barbarism. It is, therefore, fortunate that the French tables
6




122    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
have now been superseded by some more important comparisons, accurately made by A. S. Thomson, M. D.,
Surgeon of the Fifty-Eighth Regiment of the British
Army, and printed in the seventeenth volume of the
Journal of the London Statistical Society.
The observations were made in New Zealand, -Dr.
Thomson being stationed there with his regiment, and
being charged with the duty of vaccinating all natives
employed by the government. The islanders thus used
for experiment were to some extent picked men, as none
but able-bodied persons would have been selected for
employ, and as they were, moreover, (he states,) accustomed to lifting burdens, and better-fed than the majority
of their countrymen. The New Zealand race, as a whole,
is certainly a very favorable type of barbarism, having
but just emerged from an utterly savage condition, having
been cannibals within one generation, and being the very
identical people among whom were recorded those wonderful cures of flesh-wounds to which Emerson has referred.
Cook and all other navigators have praised their robust
physical aspect, and they undoubtedly, with the Fijians
and the Tongans, stand at the head of all island races.
They are admitted to surpass our American Indians, as
well as the Kaffirs and the Joloffs, probably the finest
African races; and an accurate comparison between NewZealanders and Anglo-Saxons will, therefore, approach as
near to an experimentum crucis as any single set of observations can. The following tables have been carefully
prepared from those of Dr. Thomson, with the addition of
some scanty facts from other sources, - scanty, because,
as Quetelet indignantly observes, less pains have as yet
been taken to measure accurately the physical powers of
man than those of any machine he has constructed or any
animal he has tamed.




BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION.  123
TABLE.
HEIGHT.            No. measured.   Average.
New-Zealanders.                         147    5 feet 63 inches.
Students at Edinburgh.              800     5 "  7 1   "
Class of 1860. Cambridge (Mass.).    106      5 "  7    "
Students at Cambridge (Eng.).        80     5 "  8    "
WEIGHT.
New-Zealanders...       146     140 pounds.
Soldiers 58th Regiment...   1778     142   "
Class of 1860. Cambridge (Mass.).       106    142k  "
Students at Cambridge (Eng.)..    80    143   "
Men weighed at Boston (U. S.) Mechanics'
Fair, 1860....  4369      146   "
Englishmen (Dr. Thomson)..      2648     148   "
Cambridge, Eng. (a newspaper statement)          151   "
Revolutionary officers at West Point, August
10, 1778, given in "Milledulcia," p. 273  11    226'
AREA OF CHEST.
New-Zealanders.                        151    35.36 inches.
Soldiers 58th Regiment.. 628    35.71   "
STRENGTH IN LIFTING.
New-Zealanders..                         31     367 pounds.
Students at Edinburgh, aged 25.. -      416   "
Soldiers 58th Regiment...     33    422   "
NOTE. - The range of strength among the New-Zealanders was from
250 pounds to 420 pounds; among the soldiers, from 350 pounds to
504 pounds.
But it is the test of longevity which exhibits the greatest triumph for civilization, because here the life-insurance
tables furnish ample, though comparatively recent statistics. Of course, in legendary ages all lives were of
enormous length; and the Hindoos in their sacred books
attribute to their progenitors a career of forty million
years or thereabouts, - what may safely be termed a ripe
old age; for if a man were still unripe after celebrating
his forty-millionth birthday, he might as well give it up.
But from the beginning of accurate statistics we know
that the duration of life in any nation is a fair index of




124    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
its progress in civilization. Quetelet gives statistics, more
or less reliable, from every nation of Northern Europe,
showing a gain of ten to twenty-five per cent during the
last century. Where the tables are most carefully prepared, the result is least equivocal. Thus, in Geneva,
where accurate registers have been kept for three hundred years, it seems that from 1560 to 1600 the average
lifetime of the citizens was twenty-one years and two
months; in the next century, twenty-five years and nine
months; in the century following, thirty-two years and
nine months; and in the year 1833, forty years and five
months; thus nearly doubling the average age of man in
Geneva within those three centuries of social progress.
In France, it is estimated, that, in spite of revolutions
and Napoleons, human life has been gaining at the rate
of two months a year for nearly a century. By a manuscript of the fourteenth century, moreover, it is shown
that the rate of mortality in Paris was then one in sixteen, - one person dying annually to every sixteen of the
inhabitants. It is now one in thirty-two, —a gain of a
hundred per cent in five hundred years. In England the
progress has been far more rapid. The rate of mortality
in 1690 was one in thirty-three; in 1780 it was one in
forty; and it stands now at one in sixty, - the healthiest
condition in Europe, —while in half-barbarous Russia
the rate of mortality is one in twenty-seven. It would
be easy to multiply these statistics to any extent; but
they all point one way, and no medical statistician now
pretends to oppose the dictum of Hufeland, that " a certain degree of culture is physically necessary for man,
and promotes duration of life."
The simple result is, that the civilized man is physically
superior to the barbarian. There is now no evidence that




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.   125
there exists in any part of the world a savage race who,
taken as a whole, surpass or even equal the Anglo-Saxon
type in average physical condition; as there is also none
aiiong whom the President elect of the United States
and the Commander-in-chief of his armies would not be
regarded as remarkably tall men, and Dr. Windship as a
remarkably strong one. "It is now well known," says
Prichard, "that all savage races have less muscular
power than civilized men." Johnstone in Northern Afric.ea, and Cumming in Southern Africa, could find no one
to equal them in strength of arm. At the Sandwich
Islands, Ellis records, that, "when a boat manned by
English seamen and a canoe with natives left the shore
together, the canoe would uniformly leave the boat behind, but they would soon relax, while the seamen, pulling steadily on, would pass them, but, if the voyage took
three hours, would invariably reach the destination first."
Certain races may have been regularly trained by position and necessity in certain particular arts, — as Sandwich-Islanders in swimming, and our Indians in running,
- and may naturally surpass the average skill of those
who are comparatively out of practice in that speciality;
yet it is remarkable that their greatest feats even in these
ways never seem to surpass those achieved by picked
specimens of civilization. The best Indian runners could
only equal Lewis and Clarke's men, and Indians have
been repeatedly beaten in prize-races within the last few
years; while the most remarkable aquatic feat on record
is probably that of Mr. Atkins of Liverpool, who recently
dived to a depth of two hundred and thirty feet, reappearing above water in one minute and eleven seconds.
In the wilderness and on the prairies we find a frequent impression that cultivation and refinement must




1126    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
weaken the race. Not at all; they simply domesticate it.
Domestication is not weakness. A strong hand does not
become less muscular under a kid glove; and a man who
is a hero in a red shirt will also be a hero in a white one.
Civilization, imperfect as it is, has already procured for
us better food, better air, and better behavior; it gives us
physical training on system; and its mental training, by
refining the nervous organization, makes the same quantity of muscular power go much farther. The young
English ensigns and lieutenants, who at Waterloo (in the
words of Wellington) " rushed to meet death as if it were
a game of cricket," were the fruit of civilization. They
were representatives, indeed, of the aristocracy of their
nation; and here, where the aim of all institutions is to
make the whole nation an aristocracy, we must plan to
secure the same splendid physical superiority on a grander
scale. It is in our power,'by using even very moderately
for this purpose our magnificent machinery of common
schools, to give to the physical side of civilization an advantage which it has possessed nowhere else, not even ill
England or Germany. It is not yet time to suggest detailed plans on this subject, since the public mind is not
yet fully awake even to the demand. When the time
comes, the necessary provisions can be made easily, - at
least, as regards boys; for the physical training of girls
is a far more difficult problem. The organization is more
delicate and complicated, the embarrassments greater, the
observations less carefully made, the successes fewer, the
failures far more disastrous. Any intelligent and robust
man may undertake the physical training of fifty boys,
however delicate their organization, with a reasonable
hope of rearing nearly all of them, by easy and obvious
methods, into a vigorous maturity; but what wise man or




BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.    127
woman can expect anything like the same proportion of
-success, at present, with fifty American girls?
This is the most momentous health-problem with which
we have to deal, - to secure the proper physical advantages of civilization for American women. Without this
there can be no lasting progress. The Sandwich Island
proverb says, —
"If strong be the frame of the mother,
Her son shall make laws for the people."
But in this country it is scarcely an exaggeration to
say that every man grows to maturity surrounded by a
circle of invalid female relatives, that he later finds himself the husband of an invalid wife and the parent of
invalid daughters, and that he comes at last to regard
invalidism, as Michelet coolly declares, the normal condition of that sex, - as if the Almighty did not know
how to create a woman.  This, of course, spreads a
gloom over life. When I look at the morning throng of
school-girls in summer, hurrying through every street, with
fresh, young faces, and vesture of lilies, duly curled and
straw-hatted and booted, and turned off as patterns of
perfection by proud mammas,- it is not sad to me to
think that all this young beauty must one day fade and
die, for there are spheres of life beyond this earth, I
know, and the soul is good to endure through more than
one; —the sadness is in the unnatural nearness of the
decay, to foresee the living death of disease that is waiting close at hand for so many, to know how terrible a
proportion of those fair children are walking unconsciously into a weary, wretched, powerless, joyless, useless
maturity. Among the myriad triumphs of advancing
civilization, there seems but one formidable danger, and
that is here.




128    BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.
It cannot be doubted, however, that the peril will pass
by, with advancing knowledge.  In proportion to our
national recklessness of danger is the promptness with
which remedial measures are adopted, when they at last
become indispensable. In the mean time, we must look
for proofs of the physical resources of woman into foreign,
and even into savage lands. When an American mother
tells me with pride, as occasionally happens, that her
daughter can walk two miles and back without great fatigue, the very boast seems a tragedy; but when one
reads that Oberea, queen of the Sandwich Islands, lifted
Captain Wallis over a marsh as easily as if he had been
a little child, there is a slight sense of consolation. Brunhilde, in the "iNibelungen," binds her offending lover
with her girdle and slings him up to the wall. Cymburga, wife of Duke Ernest of Austria, could crack nuts
between her fingers, and drive nails into a wall with her
thumb; - whether she ever got her husband under it, is
not recorded. Let me preserve from oblivion the renown
of my Lady Butterfield, who, about the year 1700, at
Wanstead, in Essex, (England,) thus advertised: —
"_This is to give notice to my honored masters and ladies
and loving friends, that my Lady Butterfield gives a
challenge to ride a horse, or leap a horse, or run afoot,
or hollo, with any woman in England seven years younger, but not a day older, because I won't undervalue myself, being now 74 years of age." Nor should be left
unrecorded the high-born Scottish damsel whose tradition
still remains at the Castle of Huntingtower, in Scotland,
where two adjacent pinnacles still mark the Maiden's
Leap. She sprang from battlement to battlement, a distance of nine feet and four inches, and eloped with her
lover. Were a young lady to go through one of our vil



BARBARISM  AND  CIVILIZATION.    129
lages in a series of leaps like that, and were she to require her lovers to follow in her footsteps, it is to be
feared that she would die single.
Yet the transplanted race which has in two centuries
stepped from Delft Haven to San Francisco has no reason to be ashamed of its physical achievements, the more
especially as it has found time on the way for one feat of
labor and endurance which may be matched without fear
against any historic deed. When civilization took possession of this continent, it found one vast coating of
almost unbroken forest overspreading it from shore to
prairie. To make room for civilization, that forest must
go. What were Indians, however deadly,- what starvation, however imminent, - what pestilence, however
lurking, - to a solid obstacle like this? No mere courage could cope with it, no mere subtlety, no mere skill,
no Yankee ingenuity, no labor-saving machine with head
for hands; but only firm, unwearying, bodily muscle to
every stroke. Tree by tree, in two centuries, the forest
has been felled. What were the Pyramids to that?
History does not record another athletic feat so astonishing.
But there yet lingers upon this continent a forest of
moral evil more formidable, a barrier denser and darker,
a Dismal Swamp of inhumanity, a barbarism upon the
soil, before which civilization has thus far been compelled
to pause, —happy, if it could even check its spread.
Checked at last, there comes from it a cry as if the light
of day had turned to darkness, - when the truth simply
is, that darkness is being mastered and surrounded by the
light of day. Is it a good thing to " extend the area of
fireedom" by pillaging some feeble Mexico? and does
the phrase become a bad one only when it means the
6*                         I




130    BARBARISMI AND  CIVILIZATION.
peaceful progress of constitutional liberty within our own
borders? The phrases which oppression teaches become
the watchwords of freedom at last, and the triumph of
Civilization over Barbarism is the only Manifest Destiny
of America.




GYMNASTICS.








GYMNASTICS.
S0 your zeal for physical training begins to wane a
little, my friend?  I thought it would, in your particular case, because it began too ardently and was concentrated too exclusively on your one hobby of pedestrianism. Just now you are literally under the weather.
It is the equinoctial storm. No matter, you say; did not
Olmsted foot it over all England under an umbrella?
did not Wordsworth regularly walk every guest round
Windermere, the day after arrival, rain or shine?  So,
the day before yesterday, you did your four miles out, on
the Northern turnpike, and returned splashed to the
waist; and yesterday you walked three miles out, on the
Southern turnpike, and came back soaked to the knees.
To-day the storm is slightly increasing, but you are dry
thus far, and wish to remain so; exercise is a humbug;
you will give it all up, and go to the Chess-Club. Don't
go to the Chess-Club; come with me to the Gymnasium.
Chess may be all very well to tax with tough problems
a brain otherwise inert, to vary a monotonous day with
small events, to keep one awake during a sleepy evening,
and to arouse a whole family next morning for the adjustment over the breakfast-table of that momentous
state-question, whether the red-king should have castled




134               GYMNASTICS.
at the fiftieth move or not till the fifty-first. But for an
average American man, who leaves his place of business
at nightfall with his head a mere furnace of red-hot brains
and his body a pile of burnt-out cinders, utterly exhausted
in the daily effort to put ten dollars more of distance between his posterity and the poor-house, - for such a one
to kindle up afresh after office-hours for a complicated
chess-problem seems much as if a wood-sawyer, worn out
with his week's work, should decide to order in his sawhorse on Saturday evening, and saw for fun. Surely we
have little enough recreation at any rate, and, pray, let
us make that little unintellectual. True, something can
be said in favor of chess, - inasmuch as no money can
be made out of it; but even this is not enough. For
this once, lock your brains into your safe, at nightfall,
with your other valuables; don't go to the Chess-Club;
come with me to the Gymnasium.
Ten leaps up a steep, worn-out stairway, through a
blind entry to another stairway, and yet another, and we
emerge suddenly upon the floor of a large lighted room,
a mere human machine-shop of busy motion, where
Indian clubs are whirling, dumb-bells pounding, swings
vibrating, and arms and legs flying in all manner of unexpected directions. Henderson sits with his big proportions quietly rested against the weight-boxes, pulling with
monotonous vigor at the fifty-pound weights, — "the
Stationary Engine" the boys call him.  For a contrast,
Draper is floating up and down between the parallel bars
with such an airy lightness, that you think he must have
hung up his body in the dressing-room, and is exercising
only in his arms and clothes. Parsons is swinging in the
rings, rising to the ceiling before and behind; up and
down he goes, whirling over and over, converting himself




GYMNASTICS.                  135
into a mere tumbler-pigeon, yet still bound by the long,
steady vibration of the human pendulum.  Another is
running a race with him, if sitting in the swing be running; and still another is accompanying their motion,
clinging to the trapeze. Hayes, meanwhile, is spinning
on the horizontal bar, now backward, now forward, twenty times without stopping, pinioned through his bent arms,
like a Fakir on his iron. See how many different ways
of ascending a vertical pole these boys are devising! —
one climbs with hands and legs, another with hands only,
another is crawling up on all-fours in Fiji fashion, while
another is pegging his way up by inserting pegs in holes
a foot apart, - you will see him sway and tremble yet,
before he reaches the ceiling. Others are at work with
a spring-board and leaping-cord; higher and higher the
cord is moved, one by one the competitors step aside
defeated, till the field is left to a single champion, who,
like an India-rubber ball, goes on rebounding till he
seems likely to disappear through the chimney, like a
Ravel. Some sturdy young visitors, farmers by their
looks, are trying their strength, with various success, at
the,sixty-pound dumb-bell, when some quiet fellow, a
clerk or a tailor, walks modestly to the hundred-pound
weight, and up it goes as steadily as if the laws of gravitation had suddenly shifted their course, and worked
upward instead of down.  Lest, however, they should
suddenly resume their original bias, let us cross to the
dressing-room, and, while you are assuming flannel shirt
or complete gymnastic suit, as you may prefer, let us
consider the merits of the Gymnasium.
Do not say that the public is growing tired of hearing
about physical training. You might as well speak of
being surfeited with the sight of apple-blossoms, or bored




136               G YMNA S TICS.
with roses, - for these athletic exercises are, to a healthy
person, just as good and refreshing. Of course, any one
-becomes insupportable who talks all the time of this subject, or of any other; but it is the man who fatigues you,
-not the theme. Any person becomes morbid and tedious
whose whole existence is absorbed in any one thing, be it
playing or praying. Queen Elizabeth, after admiring a
gentleman's dancing, refused to look at the dancing-master, who did it better. "Nay," quoth her bluff Majesty,
-'t is his business, - I'11 none of him." Professionals
grow tiresome. Books are good,- so is a boat; but a
librarian and a ferryman, though useful to take you where
you wish to go, are not necessarily enlivening as companions. The annals of " Boxiana" and " Pedestriana"
and " The Cricket-Field" are as pathetic records of
monomania as the bibliographical works of Mr. Thomas
Dibdin. Margaret Fuller said truly, that we all delight
in gossip, and differ only in the department of gossip we
individually prefer; but a monotony of gossip soon grows
tedious, be the theme horses or octavos.
Not one tenth-part of the requisite amount has yet
been said of athletic exercises as a prescription for this
community. There was a time when they were not even
practised generally among American boys, if we may
trust the foreign travellers of a half-century ago, and they
are but just being raised into respectability among American men. Motley says of one of his Flemish heroes,
that "he would as soon have foregone his daily tennis as
his religious exercises," - as if ball-playing w6re then the
necessary pivot of a great man's day. Some such pivot
of physical enjoyment we must have, for no other race in
the world needs it so much. Through the immense inventive capacity of our people, mechanical avocations are




GYMNASTICS.                  137
becoming almost as sedentary and intellectual as the pro —
fessions. Among Americans, all hand-work is constantly
being transmuted into brain-work; Napoleon's wish is:
being fulfilled, that all trades should become arts; theintellect gains, but the body suffers, and needs some otherform of physical activity to restore the equilibrium. As
machinery becomes perfected, all the coarser tasks are
constantly being handed over to the German or Irish
immigrant, —not because the American cannot do the
particular thing required, but because he is promoted to,
something more intellectual.  Thus transformed to a.
mental laborer, he must somehow supply the bodily deficiency. If this is true even of mechanics, it is of course
true of the merchant, the student, and, the professional
man. The general statement recently made by Lewes,
in England, certainly holds not less in America: "It is
rare to meet with good digestion among the artisans of the
brain, no matter how careful they may be in food and
general habits. The great majority of our literary and
professional men could echo the testimony of Washington
Irving, if they would only indorse his wise conclusion:
"_My own case is a proof how one really loses by overwriting one's self and keeping too intent upon a sedentary occupation. I attribute all my present indisposition,
which is losing me time, spirits, everything, to two fits of
close application and neglect of all exercise while I was
at Paris. I am convinced that he who devotes two hours
each day to vigorous exercise will'eventually gain those
two and a couple more into the-bargain."
Indeed, there is something involved in the matter far
beyond any merely physical necessity. All our natures
need something more than mere bodily exertion; they
need bodily enjoyment. There is, or ought to be, in all




138              GYMNASTICS.
of us a touch of untamed gypsy nature, which should be
trained, not crushed.  We need, in the very midst of
civilization, something which gives a little of the zest of
savage life; and athletic exercises furnish the means.
The young man who is caught down the bay in a sudden
storm, alone in his boat, with wind and tide against him,
has all the sensations of a Norway sea-king, - sensations
thoroughly uncomfortable, if you please, but for the thrill
and glow they bring. Swim out after a storm at Dove
Harbor, topping the low crests, diving through the high
ones, and you feel yourself as veritable a South-Sea
Islander as if you were to dine that day on missionary
instead of mutton. Tramp, for a whole day, across hill,
marsh, and pasture, with gun, rod, or whatever the excuse may be, and camp where you find yourself at evening, and you are as essentially an Indian on the Blue
Hills as among the Rocky Mountains. Less depends
upon circumstances than we fancy, and more upon our
personal temperament and will. All the enjoyments of
Browning's "Saul," those "wild joys of living" which
make us happy with their freshness as we read of them,
are within the reach of all, and make us happier still
when enacted. Every one, in proportion as he develops
his own physical resources, puts himself in harmony
with the universe, and contributes something to it; even
as Mr. Pecksniff, exulting in his digestive machinery,
felt a pious delight after dinner in the thought that this
wonderful apparatus was wound up and going.
A young person can no more have too much love of
adventure than a mill can have too much water-power;
only it needs to be worked, not wasted. Physical exercises give to energy and daring a legitimate channel,
supply the place of war, gambling, licentiousness, high



GYMNASTICS.                  139
way-robbery, and office-seeking.  De Quincey, in like
manner, says that Wordsworth made pedestrianism a
substitute for wine and spirits; and Emerson thinks the
force of rude periods "can rarely be compensated in
tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn
from occupations as hardy as war."  The animal energy
cannot and ought not to be suppressed; if debarred
from its natural channel, it will force for itself unnatural
ones. A vigorous life of the senses not only does not
tend to sensuality in the objectionable sense, but it helps
to avert it. Health finds joy in mere existence; daily
breath and daily bread suffice. This innocent enjoyment
lost, the normal desires seek abnormal satisfactions. The
most brutal prize-fighter is compelled to recognize the
connection between purity and vigor, and becomes virtuous when he goes into training, as the heroes of old
observed chastity, in hopes of conquering at the Olympic
Games.  The very word ascetic comes from a Greek
word signifying the preparatory exercises of an athlete.
There are spiritual diseases which coil poisonously among
distorted instincts and disordered nerves, and one would
be generally safer in standing sponsor for the soul of the
gymnast than of the dyspeptic.
Of course, the demand of our nature is not always
for continuous exertion. One does not always seek that
"rough exercise " which Sir John Sinclair asserts to be
"the darlifig idol of the English." There are delicious
languors, Neapolitan reposes, Creole siestas, "long days
and solid banks of flowers." But it is the birthright of
the man of the temperate zones to alternate these voluptuous delights with more heroic ones, and sweeten the
reverie by the toil. So far as they go, the enjoyments
of the healthy body are as innocent and as ardent as




140               GYMNASTICS.
those of the soul. As there is no ground of comparison,
so there is no ground of antagonism. How compare a
sonata and a sea-bath, or measure the Sistine Madonna
against a gallop across country?  The best thanksgiving for each is to enjoy the other also, and educate
the mind to ampler nobleness. After all, the best verdict on athletic exercises was that of the great Sully,
when he said, "I was always of the same opinion with
Henry IV. concerning them: he often asserted that they
were the most solid foundation, not only of discipline
and other military virtues, but also of those noble sentiments and that elevation of mind which give one nature
superiority over another."
We are now ready, perhaps, to come to the question,
How are these athletic enjoyments to be obtained? The
first and easiest answer is, By taking a long walk every
day. - If people would actually do this, instead of forever
talking about doing it, the object might be gained.  To
be sure, there are various defects in this form of exercise. It is not a play, to begin with, and therefore does
not withdraw the mind from its daily cares; the anxious
man recurs to his problems on the way; and each mile,
in that case, brings fresh weariness to brain as well as
body.  Moreover, there are, according to Dr. Gran,
"three distinct groups of muscles which are almost totally
neglected where walking alone is resorted to, and which
consequently exist only in a crippled state, although they
are of the utmost importance, and each stands in cldse
rapport with a number of other functions of the greatest necessity to health and life." These he afterwards
classifies as the muscles of the shoulders and chest, having a bearing on the lungs, - the abdominal muscles,
bearing on the corresponding organs, - and the spinal




GYMNASIYCS.                   141
muscles, which are closely connected with the whole
nervous system.
But the greatest practical difficulty is, that walking,
being the least concentrated form of exercise, requires a
larger appropriation of time than most persons are willing
to give. Taken liberally, and in connection with exercises which are more concentrated and have more play
about them, it is of great value, and, indeed, indispensable. But so far as I have seen, instead of these other
pursuits taking the place of pedestrianism, they commonly
create a taste for it; so that, when the sweet spring days
come round, you will see our afternoon gymnastic class
begin to scatter literally to the four winds; or they look
in for a moment, on their way home from the woods,
their hands filled and scented with long wreaths of the
trailing arbutus.
But the gymnasium is the normal type of all muscular
exercise, - the only form of it which is impartial- and
comprehensive, which has something for everybody, which
is available at all seasons, through all weathers, in all latitudes. All other provisions are limited: you cannot row
in winter nor skate in summer, spite of parlor-skates and
ice-boats; ball-playing requires comrades; riding takes
money; everything needs.daylight: but the gymnasium
is always accessible. Then it is the only thing which
trains the whole body. Military drill makes one prompt,
patient, erect, accurate, still, strong. Rowing takes one
set of muscles and stretches them through and through,
till you feel yourself turning into one long spiral spring
from finger-tips to toes. In cricket or base-ball, a player
runs, strikes, watches, catches, throws, must learn quickness of hand and eye, must learn endurance also. Yet,
no matter which of these may be your special hobby, you




142              GYMNASTICS.
must, if you wish to use all the days and all the muscles,
seek the gymnasium at last.
The history of modern gymnastic exercises is easily
written: it is proper to say modern, - for, so far as
apparatus goes, the ancient gymnasiums seem to have
had scarcely anything in common with our own. The
first institution on the modern plan was founded at Schnepfenthal, near Gotha, in Germany, in 1785, by Salzmann,
a clergyman and the principal of a boys' school. After
eight years of experience, his assistant, Gutsmuths, wrote
a book upon the subject, which was translated into English, and published at London in 1799 and at Philadelphia
in 1800, under the name of " Salzmann's Gymnastics."
No similar institution seems to have existed in either
country, however, till those established by Voelckers, in
London, in 1824, and by Dr. Follen, at Cambridge, Mass.,
in 1826. Both were largely patronized at first, and died
out at last. The best account of Voelckers's establishment will be found in Hone's " Every-Day Book"; its
plan seems to have been' unexceptionable.  But Dr.
James Johnson, writing his "Economy of Health" ten
years after, declared that these German exercises had
proved "better adapted to the Spartan youth than to the
pallid sons of pampered cits, the dandies of the desk, and
the squalid tenants of attics and factories," and also adds
the epitaph, " This ultra-gymnastic enthusiast did much
injury to an important branch of hygiene by carrying it to
excess, and consequently by causing its desuetude." And
Dr. Jarvis, in his " Practical Physiology," declares from
personal recollection that the result of the American
experiment was "general failure."
Accordingly, the English, who are reputed kings in all
physical exercises, have undoubtedly been far surpassed




GYMNASTICS.                  143
by the Germans, and even by the French, in gymnastics.
The writer of the excellent little " Handbook for Gymnastics," George Forrest, M. A., testifies strongly to this
deficiency. "It is curious that we English, who possess
perhaps the finest and strongest figures of all European
nations, should leave ourselves so undeveloped bodily.
There is not one man in a hundred who can even raise
his toes to a level with his hands, when suspended by the
latter members; and yet to do so is at the very beginning
of gymnastic exercises. We, as a rule, are strong in the
arms and legs, but weak across the loins and back, and
are apparently devoid of that beautiful set of muscles that
run round the entire waist, and show to such advantage
in the ancient statues. Indeed, at a bathing-place, I can
pick out every gymnast merely by the development of
those muscles," - a statement, by the way, which has a
good deal of truth in it.
It is the Germans and the military portion of the
French nation, chiefly, who have developed gymnastic
exercises to their present elaboration, while the working
out of their curative applications was chiefly due to Ling,
a Swede. In the German manuals, such, for instance,
as Eiselen's "Turniibungen," are to be found nearly all
the stock exercises of our institutions. Until within a few.
years, American skill has added nothing to these, except
through the medium of the circus; but the present revival
of athletic exercises is rapidly placing American gymnasts
in advance of the Turners, both in the feats performed and
in the style of doing them. Never yet have I succeeded
in seeing a thoroughly light and graceful German gymnast,
while again and again I have seen Americans who carried
into their severest exercise such an airy, floating elegance
of motion, that all the beauty of Greek sculpture appeared.




144               GYMNASTICS.
to return again, and it seemed as if plastic art might once
more make its studio in the gymnasium.
The apparatus is not costly. Any handful of young
men in the smallest country village, with a very few dollars and a little mechanical skill, can put up in any old
shed or shoe-shop a few simple articles of machinery,
which will, through many a winter evening, vary the
monotony of the cigar and the grocery-bench by an endless variety of manly competitions. Fifteen cents will
bring by mail from the publishers of the "Atlantic"
Forrest's little sixpenny " Handbook," which gives a
sufficient number of exercises to form an introduction
to all others; and a gymnasium is thus easily established.
This is just the method of the simple and sensible Ger
mans, who never wait for elegant upholstery. A pair
of plain parallel bars, a movable vaulting-bar, a wooden
horse, a spring-board, an old mattress to break the fall,
a few settees where sweethearts and wives may sit with
their knitting as spectators, and there is a Turnhalle complete, - to be henceforward filled, two or three nights in
every week, with cheery German faces, jokes, laughs,
gutturals, and gambols.
But this suggests that you are being kept too long in
the anteroom.  Let me act as cicerone through this
modest gymnastic hall of ours. You will better appreciate all this oddly-shaped apparatus, if I tell you in
advance, as a connoisseur does in his picture-gallery,
precisely what you are expected to think of each particular article.
You will notice, however, that a part of the gymnastic
class are exercising without apparatus, in a series of
rather grotesque movements which supple and prepare
the body for more muscular feats: these are calisthenic




GYMNAS TICS.                 145
exercises. Such are being at last introduced, thanks to
Dr. Lewis and others, into our common schools. At the
word of command, as swiftly as a conjurer twists his
puzzle-paper, these living forms are shifted from one odd
resemblance to another, at which it is quite lawful to,
laugh, especially if those laugh who win. A series of'
wind-mills,- a group of inflated balloons,- a flock ofgeese all asleep on one leg, - a circle of ballet-dancers,.
just poised to begin, - a band of patriots just kneeling to,
take an oath upon their country's altar,- a senate of
tailors, -a file of soldiers,- a whole parish of Shaker
worshippers, - a Japanese embassy performing Ko-tow:
these all in turn come like shadows, so depart. This
complicated attitudinizing forms the preliminary to the
gymnastic hour. But now come and look at some of the
apparatus.
Here is a row of Indian clubs, or sceptres, as they are
sometimes called, - tapering down from giants of fifteen,
pounds to dwarfs of four. Help yourself to a pair of
dwarfs, at first; grasp one in each hand, by the handle;,
swing one of them round your head quietly, dropping the
point behind as far as possible, - then the other, - and;
so swing them alternately some twenty times. Now do,
the same back-handed, bending the wrist outward, and
carrying the club behind the head first. lNow swing them
both together, crossing them in front, and then the- same
back-handed; then the same without crossing, and this
again backward, which you will find much harder. Place
them on the ground gently after each set of processes.
Now, can you hold, them out horizontally at arm's length,
forward and then sideways? Your arms quiver and
quiver, and down come the clubs thumping at last.
Take them presently in a different and more difficult'
7                          J




146               GYMNASTICS..
[manner, holding each club with the point erect instead
of hanging down; it tries your wrists, you will find, to
manipulate them so, yet all the most graceful exercises
have this for a basis. Soon you will gain the mastery of
heavier implements than you begin with, and will understand how yonder slight youth has learned to handle his
two heavy clubs in complex curves that seem to you inexplicable, tracing in the air a device as swift and tangled
as that woven by a swarm of gossamer flies above a brook,
in the sultry stillness of the summer noon.
This row of masses of iron, laid regularly in order of
size, so as to resemble something between a musical instrument and a gridiron, consists of dumb-bells weighing:
from four pounds to a hundred. These playthings, suited
to a variety of capacities, have experienced a revival offavor within a few years, and the range of exercises with
them has been greatly increased. The use of very heavy
ones is, so far as I can find, a peculiarly American hobby,
though not originating with Dr. Windship. Even he, at
the beginning of his exhibitions, used those weighing only
ninety-eight pounds; and it was considered an astonishing
feat, when, a little earlier, Mr. Richard Montgomery used
to "put up" a dumb-bell weighing one hundred and one
pounds. A good many persons, in different parts of the
country, now handle one hundred and twenty-five, and
Dr. Windship has got much farther on. There is, of
course, a knack in using these little articles, as in every
other feat, yet it takes good extensor muscles to get beyond the fifties, The easiest way of elevating the weight
is to swing it up from between the knees; or it may be
thrown up from the shoulder, with a simultaneous jerk of
the whole body; but the only way of doing it handsomely
is to put it up from the shoulder with the arm alone,




GYMNASTICS.                 147
without bending the knee, though you may bend the body
as much as you please. Dr. Windship now puts up one
hundred and forty-one pounds in this manner, and by the
aid of a jerk can elevate one hundred and eighty with
one arm. This particular movement with dumb-bells is
most practised, as affording a test of strength; but there
are many other ways of using them, all exceedingly invigorating, and all safe enough, unless the weight employed be too great, which it is very apt to be. Indeed,
there is so much danger of this, that at Cambridge it has
been deemed best to exclude all beyond seventy pounds.
Nevertheless, the dumb-bell remains the one available
form of home or office exercise: it is a whole athletic
apparatus packed up in the smallest space; it is gymnastic pemmican. With one fifty-pound dumb-bell, or a pair
of half that size, —or more or less, according to his
strength and habits, - -a man may exercise nearly every
muscle in his body in half an hour, if he has sufficient ingenuity in positions. If it were one's fortune to be sent
to prison, - and the access to such retirement is growing
more and more facile in many regions of our common
country, - one would certainly wish to carry a dumb-bell
with him, precisely as Dr. Johnson carried an arithmetic
in his pocket on his tour to the Hebrides, as containing
the greatest amount of nutriment in the compactest form.
Apparatus for lifting is not yet introduced into most
gymnasiums, in spite of the recommendations of the Roxbury Hercules: beside the fear of straining, there is the
cumbrous weight and cost of iron apparatus, while, for
some reason or-other, no cheap and accurate dynamome..
ter has yet come into the market. Running and jumping,
also, have as yet been too much neglected in our institutions, or practised spasmodically rather than systemati



148              GYMNASTICS.
cally. It is singular how little pains have been taken to
ascertain definitely what a man can do with his body, -
far less, as Quetelet has observed, than in regard to any
animal which man has tamed, or any machine which he
has invented. It is stated, for instance, in Walker's
"Manly Exercises," that six feet is the maximum of a
high leap, with a run, - and certainly one never finds in
the newspapers a record of anything higher; yet it is the
English tradition, that Ireland, of Yorkshire, could clear
a string raised fourteen feet, and that he once kicked a
bladder at sixteen. No spring-board would explain a
difference so astounding. In the same way, Walker fixes
the limit of a long leap without a run at fourteen feet,
and with a run at twenty-two, - both being large estimates; and Thackeray makes his young Virginian jump
twenty-one feet and three inches, crediting George Washington with a foot more. Yet the ancient epitaph of
Phayllus the Crotonian claimed for him nothing less than
fifty-five feet on an inclined plane. Certainly the story
must have taken a leap also.
These ladders, aspiring indefinitely into the air, like
Piranesi's stairways, are called technically peak-ladders;
and dear banished T. S. K., who' always was puzzled to
know why 5Mount Washington kept up such a pique
against the sky, would have found his joke fit these ladders with great precision, so frequent the disappointment
they create. But try them, and see what trivial appendages one's legs may become, - since the feet are not intended to touch these polished rounds. Walk up backward
on the under side, hand over hand, then forward; then go
up again, omitting every other round; then aspire to the
third round, if you will. Next grasp a round with both
hands, give a slight swing of the body, let go, and grasp




G YMNA STICS.               149
the round above with both, and so on upward; then the
same, omitting one round, or more, if you can, and come
down in the same way. Can you walk up on one hand?
It is not an easy thing, but a first-class gymnast will do
it, - and Dr. Windship does it, taking only every third
round. Fancy a one-armed and legless hodman ascending the under side of a ladder to the roof, and reflect on
the conveniences of gymnastic habits.
Here is a wooden horse; on this noble animal the Germans say that not less than three hundred distinct feats
can be performed. Bring yonder spring-board, and we
will try a few. Grasp these low pommels and vault over
the horse, first to the right, then again to the left; then
with one hand each way. Now spring to the top and
stand; now spring between the hands forward, now backward; now take a good impetus, spread your feet far
apart, and leap over it, letting go the hands. Grasp the
pommels again and throw a somerset over it, - coming
down on your feet, if the Fates permit. Now vault up
and sit upon the horse, at one end, knees the same side;
now grasp the pommels and whirl yourself round till you
sit at the other end, facing the other way. Now spring
up and bestride it; whirl round till you bestride it the
other way, at the other end; do it once again, and, letting
go your hand, seat yourself in the saddle. Now push
away the spring-board and repeat every feat without its
aid. Next, take a run and spring upon the end of the
horse astride; then walk over, supporting yourself on
your hands alone, the legs not touching; then backward,
the same. It will be hard to balance yourself at first,
and you will careen uneasily one way or the other; no
matter, you will get over it somehow. Lastly, mount once
more, kneel in the saddle, and leap to the ground. It




150              GYMNASTICS.
appears at first ridiculously impracticable, the knees seem
glued to their position, and it looks as if one would fall
inevitably on his face; but falling is hardly possible.
Any novice can do it, if he will only have faith. You
shall learn to do it from the horizontal bar presently,
where it looks much more formidable.
But first-you must learn some simpler exercises on this
horizontal bar: you observe that it is made movable, and
may be placed as low as your knee, or higher than your
hand can reach. This bar is only five inches in circumference; but it is remarkably strong and springy, and therefore we hope secure, though for some exercises our boys
prefer to substitute a larger one. Try and vault it, first
to the right, then to the left, as you did with the horse;
try first with one hand, then see how high you can vault
with both. Now vault it between your hands, forward
and backward: the latter will baffle you, unless you have
brought an unusual stock of India-rubber in your frame,
to begin with. Raise it higher and higher, till you can
vault it no longer. Now spring up on the bar, resting
on your palms, and vault over from that position with a
swing of your body, without touching the ground; when
you have once managed this, you can vault as high as
you can reach: double-vaulting this is called. Now put
the bar higher than your head; grasp it with your hands,
and draw yourself up till you look over it; repeat this a
good many times: capital practice this, as is usually said
of things particularly tiresome. Take hold of the bar
again, and with a good spring from the ground try to curl
your body over it, feet foremost. At first, in all probability, your legs will go angling in the air convulsively,
and come down with nothing caught; but erelong we
shall see you dispense with the spring from the ground




GYMNASTICS.                  151
and go whirling over and over, as if the bar were the
axle of a wheel and your legs the spokes. Now spring
upon the bar, supporting yourself on your palms, as before; put your hands a little farther apart, with the
thumbs forward, then suddenly bring up your knees on
the bar and let your whole body go over forward: you
will not fall, if your hands have a good grasp. Try it
again with your feet outside your hands, instead of between them; then once again flinging your body off from
the bar and describing a long curve with it, arms stiff:
this is called the Giant's Swing. Now hang to the bar
by the knees,-by both knees; do not try it yet with
one; then seize the bar with your hands and thrust the
legs still farther and farther forward, pulling with your
arms at the same time, till you find yourself sitting unaccountably on the bar itself. This our boys cheerfully
denominate " skinning the cat," because the sensations it
suggests, on a first experiment, are supposed to resemble
those of pussy with her skin drawn over her head; but,
after a few experiments, it seems like stroking the fur in
the right direction, and grows rather pleasant.
Try now the parallel bars, the most invigorating appal.
ratus: of the: gymnasium, and in its beginnings " accessible to the meanest capacity," since there are scarcely any
who cannot support themselves by the hands on the bars.
and not very many who cannot walk a few steps upon the
palms, at the first trial. Soon you will learn to swing
along these bars in long surges of motion, forward and
backward; to go through them, in a series of springs from
the hand only, without a jerk of the knees; to turn round
and round between them, going forward or backward all
the while; to vault over them and under them in complicated ways; to turn somersets in them and across them;




152              GYMNASTICS.
to roll over and over on them as a porpoise seems to roll
in the sea. Then come the " low-standing" exercises, the
grasshopper style of business; supporting yourself now
with arms not straight, but bent at the elbow, you shall
learn to raise and lower your body, and to hold or swing
yourself as lightly in that position as if you had not felt
pinioned and paralyzed hopelessly at the first trial; and
whole new systems of muscles shall seem to shoot out
from your shoulder-blades to enable you to do what you
could not have dreamed of-doing before. These bars are'magical, — they are conduits of power; you cannot touch
them, you cannot rest your weight on them in the slightest
degree, without causing strength to flow into your body as
naturally and irresistibly as water into the aqueduct-pipe
when you turn it on. Do you but give the opportunity,
and, every pulsation of blood from your heart is pledged
for the rest.
These exercises, and such as these, are among the elementary lessons of gymnastic training. Practise these
thoroughly and patiently, and you will in time attain evolutions more complicated, and, if you wish, more perilous.
Neglect these, to grasp at random after everything which
you see others doing, and you will fail like a bookkeeper
who is weak in the multiplication-table. The older you
begin, the more gradual the preparation must be. A
respectable middle-aged citizen, bent on improving his
physique, goes into a gymnasium, and sees slight, smoothfaced boys going gayly through a series of exercises
which show their bodies to be a triumph, not a drag, and
he is assured that the same might be the case with him.
Off goes the coat of our enthusiast, and in he plunges; he
gripes a heavy dumb-bell and strains one shoulder, hauls
at a weight-box and strains the other, vaults the bar and




GYMNASTICS.                  153
bruises his knee, swings in the rings once or twice till his
hand slips and he falls to the floor. No matter, he thinks
the cause demands sacrifices; but he subsides, for the
next fifteen minutes, into more moderate exercises, which
he still makes immoderate by his awkward way of doing
them. Nevertheless, he goes home, cheerful under difficulties, and will try again to-morrow. To-morrow finds
him stiff, lame, and wretched; he cannot lift his arm to
his face to shave, nor lower it sufficiently to pull his boots
on; his little daughter must help him with his shoes, and
the indignant wife of his bosom must put on his hat, with
that ineffectual one-sidedness to which alone the bestregulated female mind can attain, in this difficult part of
costuming. His sorrows increase as the day passes; the
gymnasium alone can relieve them, but his soul shudders
at the remedy; and he can conceive of nothing so absurd
as a second gymnastic lesson, except a first one. But had
he been wise enough to place himself under an experienced adviser at the very beginning, he would have
been put through a few simple movements which would
have sent him home glowing and refreshed, and fancying
himself half-way back to boyhood again; the slight ache
and weariness of next day would have been cured by
next day's exercise; and after six months' patience, by a
progress almost imperceptible, he would have found himself, in respect to strength and activity, a transformed
man.
Most of these discomforts, of course, are spared to boys;
their frames are more elastic, and less liable to ache and
strain. They learn gymnastics, as they learn everything
else, more readily than their elders. Begin with a boy
early enough, and if he be of a suitable temperament, he
can learn in the gymnasium all the feats usually seen in
7*




'154              GYMNASTICS.
the: circus-ring, and could even acquire more difficult
ones, if it were worth his while to try them. This is true
even of the air-somersets and hand-springs which are not
so commonly cultivated by gymnasts; but it is especially
true of all exercises with apparatus. It is astonishing
how readily our classes pick up any novelty brought into
town by a strolling company, - holding the body out horizontally from an upright pole, or hanging by the back of
the head, or touching the head to the heels, though this
last is oftener tried than accomplished. They may be
seen practising these antics, at all spare moments, for
-weeks, until some later hobby drives them away. From
Blondin downwards, the public feats derive a large part
of their wonder from the imposing height in the air at
which they are done. Many a young man who can swing
himself more than his own length on the horizontal lad.
der at the gymnasium has yet shuddered at Pe'chelle perilkuse of the Hanlons; and I noticed that even the simplest
of their performances, such as holding by one hand, or
hanging by the knees, seemed perfectly terrific when
done at a height of twenty or thirty feet in the air, even
to those who had done them a hundred times at a lower
level. It was the nerve that was astounding, not the
strength or skill; but the eye found it hard to draw the
distinction. So when a gymnastic friend of mine, crossing the ocean lately, amused himself with hanging by one
leg to the mizzen-topmast-stay, the boldest sailors shuddered, though the feat itself was nothing, save to the
imagination.
Indeed, it is almost imnpossible for an inexperienced
spectator to form the slightest opinion as to the comparative difficulty or danger of different exercises, since it is
the test of merit to make the hardest things look easy.




GYMNASTICS.                  155
Moreover, there may be a distinction between two feats
almost imperceptible to the eye,- a change, for instance,
in the position of the hands on a bar, - which may at
once transform the thing from a trifle to a wonder. An
unpractised eye can no more appreciate the difficulty of a
gymnastic exercise by seeing it executed, than an inexperienced ear can judge of the perplexities of a piece of
music by hearing it played.
The first effect of gymnastic exercise is almost always
to increase the size of the arms and the chest; and newcomers may commonly be known by their frequent recourse to the tape-measure. The average increase among
the students of Harvard University during the first three
months of the gymnasium was nearly two inches in the
chest, more than one inch in the upper arm, and more
than half an inch in the fore-arm. This was far beyond
what the unassisted growth of their age would account
for; and the increase is always very marked for a time,
especially with thin persons. In those of fuller habit the
loss of flesh may counterbalance the gain in muscle, so
that size and weight remain the same; and in all cases
the increase stops after a time, and the subsequent change
is rather in texture than in volume. Mere size is no index of strength: Dr. Windship is scarcely larger or
heavier now than when he had not half his present
powers.
In the vigor gained by exercise there is nothing false
or morbid; it is as reliable as hereditary strength, except
that it is more easily relaxed by indolent habits. No
doubt it is aggravating to see some robust, lazy giant
come into the gymnasium for the first time, and by hereditary muscle shoulder a dumb-bell which all your training
has not taught you to handle. No matter; it is by com



156              GYMNA STICS.
paring yourself with yourself that the estimate is to be
made. As the writing-master exhibits with triumph to
each departing pupil the uncouth copy which he wrote on
entering, so it will be enough to you, if you can appreciate your present powers with your original inabilities.
When you first joined the gymnastic class, you could not
climb yonder smooth mast, even with all your limbs
brought into service; now you can do it with your hands
alone. When you came, you could not possibly, when
hanging by your hands to the horizontal bar, raise your
feet as high as your head,- nor could you, with any
amount of spring from the ground, curl your body over
the bar itself; and now you can hang at arm's length and
fling yourself over it a dozen times in succession. At
first, if you lowered yourself with bent elbows between
the parallel bars, you could not by any manoeuvre get up
again, but sank to the ground a hopeless wreck; now you
can raise and lower yourself an indefinite number of
times. As for the weights and clubs and dumb-bells, you
feel as if there must be some jugglery about them,they have grown so much lighter than they used to be.
It is you who have gained a double set of muscles to
every limb; that is all. Strike out from the shoulder
with your clenched band; once your arm was loose-jointed and shaky; now it is firm and tense, and begins to feel
like a natural arm. Moreover, strength and suppleness
have grown together; you have not stiffened by becoming stronger, but find yourself more flexible. When you
first came here, you could not touch your fingers to the
ground without bending the knees, and now you can
place your knuckles on the floor; then you could scarcely
bend yourself backward, and now you can lay the back of
your head in a chair, or walk, without crouching forward,




GYMNASTICS.                  157
under a bar less than three feet from the ground. You
have found, indeed, that almost every feat is done originally by sheer strength, and then by agility, requiring very
little expenditure of force after the precise motion is hit
upon; at first labor, puffing, and a red face, - afterwards
ease and the graces.
To a person who begins after the age of thirty or thereabouts, the increase of strength and suppleness, of course,
comes more slowly; yet it comes as surely, and perhaps
it is a more permanent acquisition, less easily lost again,
than in the softer frame of early youth.  There is no
doubt that men of sixty have experienced a decided gain
in strength and health by beginning gymnastic exercises
even at that age, as Socrates learned to dance at seventy;
and if they have practised similar exercises all their
lives, so much is added to their chance of preserving
physical youthfulness to the last. Jerome and Gabriel
Ravel are reported to have spent near threescore years
on the planet which their winged feet have so lightly
trod; and who will dare to say how many winters have
passed over the head of the still young and graceful
Papanti?
Dr. Windship's most important experience is, that
strength is to a certain extent identical with health, so
that every increase in muscular development is an actual
protection against diseaser: Americans, who are ashamed
to confess to doing the most innocent thing for the sake
of mere enjoyment, must be cajoled into every form of
exercise under the plea of health. Joining, the other
day, in a children's dance, I was amused by a solemn parent who turned to me, in the midst of a Virginia reel, -
he still conscientious, though breathless, - and asked if I
did not consider dancing to be, on the whole, a healthy




158              GYMNASTICS.
exercise? Well, the gymnasium is healthy; but the less
you dwell on that fact, the better, after you have once
entered it. If it does you good, you will enjoy it; and
if you enjoy it, it will do you good. With body, as with
soul, the highest experience merges duty in pleasure.
The better one's condition is, the less one has to think
about growing better, and the more unconsciously one's
natural instincts guide the right way. When ill, we eat
to support life; when well, we eat because the food tastes
good. It is a merit of the gymnasium, that, when properly taken, it makes one forget to think about health or
anything else that is troublesome; " a man remembereth
neither sorrow nor debt"; cares must be left outside, be
they physical or metaphysical, like canes at the door of a
museum.
No doubt, to some it grows tedious. It shares this
objection with all means of exercise. To be an American is to hunger for novelty; and all instruments and
appliances, especially, require constant modification: we
are dissatisfied with last winter's skates, with the old boat,
and with the family pony. So the zealot finds the gymnasium insufficient long before he has learned half the
moves. To some temperaments it becomes a treadmill,
and that, strangely enough, to diametrically opposite temperaments. A lethargic youth, requiring great effort to
keep himself awake between the exercises, thinks the
gymnasium slow, because he is; while an eager, impetuous young fellow, exasperated because he cannot in a
fortnight draw himself up by one hand, finds the same
trouble there as elsewhere, that the laws of Nature are
not fast enough for his inclinations.  No one without
energy, no one without patience, can find permanent interest in a gymnasium; but with these qualities, and a




GYMNASTICS.                  159
modest willingness to live and learn, I do not see why
one should ever grow tired of the moderate use of its
apparatus.  For one, I really never enter it without
exhilaration, or leave it without a momentary regret:
there are always certain special new things on the
docket for trial; and when those are settled, there will
be something more.  It is amazing what a variety
of interest can be extracted from those few bits of
wood and rope and iron. There is always somebody
in advance, some- "man on horseback" on a wooden
horse, some India-rubber hero, some slight and powerful
fellow who does with ease what you fail to do with toil,
some terrible Dr. Windship with an ever-waxing dumbbell. The interest becomes semi-professional. A good
gymnast enjoys going into a new and well-appointed
establishment, precisely as a sailor enjoys a well-rigged
ship; every rope and spar is scanned with intelligent interest; "we know the forest round us as seamen know
the sea." The pupils talk gymnasium as some men talk
horse. A particularly smooth and flexible horizontal
pole, a desirable pair of parallel bars, a remarkably elastic spring-board, — these are matters of personal pride,
and described from city to city with loving enthusiasm.
The gymnastic apostle rises to eloquence in proportion to
the height of the hand-swings, and points his climax to
match the peak-ladders.
An objection frequently made to the gymnasium, and
especially by anxious parents, is the supposed danger of
accident. But this peril is obviously inseparable from all
physical activity. If a man never leaves his house, the
chances undoubtedly are, that he will never break his leg
on the sidewalk; but if he is always to stay in the house,
he might as well have no legs at all. Certainly we incur




160               GYMNASTICS.
danger every time we go outside the front-door; but to
remain always on the inside would prove the greatest
danger of the whole. When a man slips in the street
and dislocates his arm, we do not warn him against walking, but against carelessness. When a man is thrown
from his horse and gratifies the surgeons by a beautiful
case of compound fracture, we do not advise him to avoid
a riding-school, but to go to one. Trivial accidents are
not uncommon in the gymnasium, severe ones are rare,
fatal ones almost unheard of, —which is far more than
can be said of riding, driving, hunting, boating, skating, or
even sliding down hill on a sled. Learning gymnastics is
like learning to swim,- you incur a small temporary risk
for the sake of acquiring powers that will lessen your risks
in the end. Your increased strength and agility will carry
you past many unseen perils hereafter, and the invigorated
tone of your system will make accidents less important, if
they happen. Some trifling sprain causes lameness for
life, some slight blow brings on wasting disease, to a person whose health is merely negative, not positive, - while
a well-trained frame throws it off in twenty-four hours.
It is almost proverbial of the gymnasium, that it cures its
own wounds.
A minor objection is, that these exercises are not performed in the open air. In summer, however, they may
be, and in winter and in stormy weather it is better that
they should not be. Extreme cold is not favorable to
them; it braces, but stiffens; and the bars and ropes
become slippery and even dangerous. In Germany it
is common to have a double set of apparatus, out-doors
and in-doors; and this would always be desirable, but for
the increased expense. Moreover, the -gymnasium should
be taken in addition to out-door exercise, giving, for in



GYMNASTICS.                  161
stance, an hour a day to each, one for training, the other
for oxygen. I know promising gymnasts whose pallid
complexions show that their blood is not worthy of their
muscle, and they will break down. But these cases are
rare, for the reason already hinted, - that nothing gives
so good an appetite for out-door life as this in-door activity.
It alternates admirably with skating, and seduces irresistibly into walking or rowing when spring arrives.
My young friend Silverspoon, indeed, thinks that a
good trot on a fast horse is worth all the gymnastics in
the world. But I learn, on inquiry, that my young
friend's mother is constantly imploring him to ride in
order to air her horses. It is a beautiful parental trait;
but for those born horseless, what an economical substitute is the wooden quadruped of the gymnasium! Our
Autocrat has well said, that the livery-stable horse is " a
profligate animal"; and I do not wonder that the Centaurs of old should be suspected of having originated
spurious coin. Undoubtedly it was to pay for the hire
of their own hoofs.
For young men in cities, too, the facilities for exercise
are limited not only by money, but by time. They must
commonly take it after dark. It is in every way a blessing, when the gymnasium divides their evenings with the
concert, the book, or the public meeting. Then there is
no time left, and small temptation, for pleasures less pure.
It gives an innocent answer to that first demand for evening excitement which perils the soul of the homeless boy
in the seductive city. The companions whom he meets
at the gymnasium are not the ones whose pursuits of later
nocturnal hours will entice him to sin. The honest fatigue
of his exercises calls for honest rest. It is the nervous
exhaustion of a sedentary, frivolous, or joyless life which
x




162               GYMNASTICS.
madly tries to restore itself by the other nervous exhaustion of debauchery. It is an old prescription, -
"Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit,
Abstinuit venere et tino."
There is another class of critics whose cant is simply
can't, and who, being unable or unwilling to surrender
themselves to these simple sources of enjoyment, are
grandiloquent upon the dignity of manhood, and the
absurdity of full-grown men in playing monkey-tricks
with their bodies. Full-grown men? There is not a
person in the world who can afford to be a " full-grown
man" through all the twenty-four hours. There is not
one who does not need, more than he needs his dinner, to
have habitually one hour in the day when he throws himself with boyish eagerness into interests as simple as those
of boys. No church or state, no science or art, can feed
us all the time; some morsels there must be of simpler
diet, some moments of unadulterated play. But dignity?
Alas for that poor soul whose dignity must be "preserved,"
-  preserved in the right culinary sense, as fruits which
are growing dubious in their natural state are sealed up
in jars to make their acidity presentable! "There's
beggary in the love that can be reckoned," and degradation in the dignity that has to be preserved. Simplicity
is the only dignity. If one has not the genuine article,
no affluence of starch, no snow-drift of white-linen decency, will furnish any substitute. If one has it, he will
retain it, whether he stand on his head or his heels.
Nothing is really undignified but affectation or conceit;
and for the total extinction and annihilation of every vestige of these, there are few things so effectual as athletic
exercises.
Still another objection is that of the medical men, that




GYMNASTICS.                  163
the gymnasium, as commonly used, is not a specific prescription for the special disease of the patient. But set —
ting aside the claims of the system of applied gymnastics,.
which Ling and his followers have so elaborated, it is'
enough to answer, that the one great fundamental disorder of. all Americans is simply nervous exhaustion, and.
that for this the gymnasium can never be misdirected,.
though it may be used to excess. Of course one can no,
more cure overwork of brain by overwork of body, than,
one can restore a wasted candle by lighting it at the other
end. But by subtracting an hour a day from the present
amount of purely intellectual fatigue, and inserting that
quantum of bodily fatigue in its place, you begin an immediate change in your conditions of life. Moreover, the
great object is not merely to get well, but to keep well.
The exhaustion of overwork can almost always be cured.
by a water-cure, or by a voyage, which is a salt-water
cure; but the problem is, how to make the whole voyage
of life perpetually self-curative. Without this, there is
perpetual dissatisfaction and chronic failure. Emerson
well says, C" Each class fixes its eye on the advantages it
has not, - the refined on rude strength, the democrat on
birth and breeding." This is the aim of the gymnasium,
to give to the refined this rude strength, or its better substitute, refined strength. It is something to secure to the
student or the clerk the strong muscles, hearty appetite,
and sound sleep of the sailor and the ploughman, - to
enable him, if need be, to out-row the fisherman, and outrun the mountaineer, and lift more than his porter, and toremember headache and dyspepsia only as he recalls the
primeval whooping-cough of his childhood. I am one of
those who think that the Autocrat rides his hobby of the
pavements a little too far; but it is useless to deny, that,




164               GYMNASTICS.
within the last few years of gymnasiums and boat-clubs,
the city has been gaining on the country in physical
development. Here in our town we had all the city and
college boys assembled in July to see the regattas, and all
the country-boys in September to see the thousand-dollar
base-ball match; and it was impossible to deny, whatever
one's theories, that the guests of the regatta showed the
finer physique.
The secret is, that, though the country offers to farmers
more oxygen than is accessible to anybody in the city,
yet not all dwellers in the country are farmers, and even
this favored class suffer from other causes, being usually
the very last to receive those lessons of food and clothing
and bathing and ventilation which have their origin in
cities. Physical training is not a mechanical, but a vital
process: no bricks without straw; no good physique without good materials and conditions. The farmer knows,
that, to rear a premium colt or calf, he must oversee every
morsel that it eats, every motion it makes, every breath
it draws, — must guard against over-work and under-work,
cold and heat, wet and dry. He remembers it for the
quadrupeds, but he forgets it for his children, his wife, and
himself: so his cattle deserve a premium, and his family
does not.
Neglect is the danger of the country; the peril of the
city is in living too fast. All mental excitement acts as a
stimulant, and, like all stimulants, debilitates when taken
in excess.  This explains the unnatural strength and
agility of the insane, always followed by prostration; and
even moderate cerebral excitement produces similar results, so far as it goes. Quetelet discovered that sometimes after lecturing, or other special intellectual action,
he could perform gymnastic feats impossible to him at




GYMNASTICS.                   165
other times. The fact is unquestionable; and it is also
certain that an extreme in this direction has precisely the
contrary effect, and is fatal to the physical condition. One
may spring up from a task of moderate mental labor with
a sense of freedom, like a bow let loose; but after an immoderate task one feels like the same bow too long bent,
flaccid, nerveless, all the elasticity gone. Such fatigue is
far more overwhelming than any mere physical exhaustion. I have lounged into the gymnasium, after an afternoon's skating, supposing myself quite tired, and have
found myself in excellent condition; and I have gone in
after an hour or two of some specially concentrated anxiety or thought, without being aware that the body was at
all fatigued, and found it good for nothing. Such experiences are invaluable; all the libraries cannot so illustrate
the supremacy of immaterial forces. Thought, passion,
purpose, expectation, absorbed attention even, all feed
upon the body's powers; let them act one atom too intensely, or one moment too long, and this wondrous physical organization finds itself drained of its forces to support them. It does not seem strange that strong men
should have died by a single ecstasy of emotion too convulsive, when we bear within us this tremendous engine
whose slightest pulsation so throbs in every fibre of our
frame.
The relation between mental culture and physical powers is a subject of the greatest interest, as yet but little
touched, because so few of our physiologists have been
practical gymnasts. ]Nothing is more striking than the
tendency of all athletic exercises, when brought to perfection, to eliminate mere brute bulk from the competition, and give the palm to more subtile qualities, agility,
quickness, a good eye, a ready hand, - in short, superior




166               G YMNA STICS.
fineness of organization. Any clown can learn the military manual exercise; but it needs brain-power to drill
with the Zouaves. Even a prize-fight tests strength less
than activity and " science." The game of base-ball, as
played in our boyhood, was a simple, robust, straightforward contest, where the hardest hitter was the best man;
but it is every year becoming perfected into a sleight-ofhand, like cricket; mere strength is now almost valueless
in playing it, and it calls rather for the qualities of the
billiard-player. In the last champion-match at Worcester, nearly the whole time was consumed in skilful feints
-and parryings, and it took five days to make fifty runs.
And these same characteristics mark gymnastic exercises
above all; men of great natural strength are very apt to
be too slow and clumsy for them, and the most difficult
feats are usually done by persons of comparatively delicate physique and a certain artistic organization. It is
this predominance of the nervous temperament which is
yet destined to make American gymnasts the foremost in
the world....
Indeed, the gymnasium is as good a place for the study
of human nature as any. The perpetual analogy of mind
and body can be appreciated only where both are trained
with equal system. In both departments the great prizes
are not won by the most astounding special powers, but
by a certain harmonious adaptation. There is a physical
tact, as there is a mental tact. Every process is accomplished by using just the right stress at just the right moment; but no two persons are alike in the length of time
required for these little discoveries. Gymnastic genius
lies in gaining at the first trial what will cost weeks of
perseverance to those less happily gifted. And as the
close, elastic costume which is worn by the gymnast, or




GYMNASTICS.                  167
should be worn, allows no merit or defect of figure to be
concealed, so the close contact of emulation exhibits all
the varieties of temperament. One is made indolent by
success, and another is made ardent; one is discouraged
by failure, and another aroused by it; one does everything best the first time and slackens ever after, while
another always begins at the bottom and always climbs to
the top.
One of the most enjoyable things in these mimic emulations is this absolute genuineness in their gradations of
success. In the great world outside, there is no immediate and absolute test for merit. There are cliques and
puffings and jealousies, quarrels of authors, tricks of trade,
caucusing in politics, hypocrisy among the deacons. We
distrust the value of others' successes, they distrust ours,
and we all sometimes distrust our own. There are those
who believe in Shakespeare, and those who believe in Tupper. All merit is measured by sliding scales, and each
has his own theory of the sliding. In a dozen centuries
it will all come right, no doubt. In the mean time there
is vanity in one half the world, and vexation of spirit in
the other half, and each man joins each half in turn. But
once enter the charmed gate of the gymnasium, and you
leave shams behind. Though you be saint or sage, no
matter, the inexorable laws of gravitation are around you.
If you flinch, you fail; if you slip, you fall. That bar,
that rope, that weight, shall test you absolutely. Can you
handle it, it is well; but if not, stand aside for him who
can. You may have every other gift and grace, it counts
for nothing; he, not you, is the man for the hour. The
code of Spanish aristocracy is slight and flexible compared with this rigid precedence. It is Emerson's Astraea; each registers himself, and there is no appeal. No




168              GYMLVASTICS.
use to kick and struggle, no use to apologize; do not say
that to-night you are tired, last night you felt ill. These
excuses may serve for a day, but no longer. A slight
margin is allowed for moods and variations, but it is not
great after all. One revels in this Palace of Truth:
defeat itself is a satisfaction, before a tribunal of such
absolute justice.
This contributes to that healthful ardor with which, in
these exercises, a man forgets the things which are behind and presses forward to fresh achievements. This
perpetually saves from vanity; for everything seems a
trifle, when you have once attained to it. The aim
which yesterday filled your whole gymnastic horizon you
overtake and pass as a boat passes a buoy: until passed,
it was an absorbing goal; when passed, a mere speck in
the distance. Yesterday you could swing yourself three
rounds upon the horizontal ladder; to-day, after weeks
of effort, you have suddenly attained to the fourth, and
instantly all that long laborious effort vanishes, to be
formed again between you and the fifth round: five, five
is the only goal for heroic labor to-day; and when five is
attained, there will be six, and so on while the Arabic
numerals hold out. A childish aim, no doubt; but is not
this what we all recognize as the privilege of childhood,
to obtain exaggerated enjoyment from little things?
When you have come to the really difficult feats of the
gymnasium, - when you have conquered the "barber's
curl" and the "peg-pole," —when you can draw yourself-up by one arm, and perform the " giant's swing " over
and over, without changing hands, and vault the horizontal bar as high as you can reach it, - when you can vault
across the high parallel bars between your hands backward, or walk through them on your palms with your




GYMNASTICS.                  169
feet in the vicinity of the ceiling, - then you will reap
the reward of your past labors, and may begin to call
yourself a gymnast.
It is pleasant to think, that, so great is the,variety
of exercises in the gymnasium, even physical deficiencies
and deformities do not wholly exclude from its benefits.
I have seen an invalid girl, so lame from childhood that
she could not stand without support, whose general health
had been restored, and her bust and arms made a study
for a sculptor, by means of gymnastics. Nay, there are
odd compensations of Nature by which even exceptional
formations may turn to account in athletic exercises. A
squinting eye is a treasure to a boxer, a left-handed batter is a prize in a cricketing eleven, and one of the best
gymnasts in Chicago is an individual with a wooden leg,
which he takes off at the commencement of affairs, thus
economizing weight and stowage, and performing achievements impossible except to unipeds.
In the enthusiasm created by this emulation, there is
necessarily some danger of excess. Dr. Windship approves of exercising only every other day in the gymnasium; but as most persons take their work in a more
diluted form than his, they can afford to repeat it daily,
unless warned by headache or languor that they are exceeding their allowance. There is no good in excess;
our constitutions cannot be hurried. The law is universal, that exercise strengthens as long as nutrition balances
it, but afterwards wastes the very forces it should increase.
We cannot make bricks faster than Nature supplies us
with straw.
It is one good evidence of the increasing interest in
these exercises, that the American gymnasiums built
during the past year or two have far surpassed all their
8




170               GYMNASTICS.
predecessors in size and completeness, and have probably
no superiors in the world. The Seventh Regiment Gymnasium in New York, just opened by Mr. Abner  S.
Brady, is one hundred and eighty feet by fifty-two, in its
main hall, and thirty-five feet in height, with nearly a
thousand pupils. The beautiful hall of the Metropolitan
Gymnasium, in Chicago, measures one hundred and eight
feet by eighty, and is twenty feet high at the sides, with
a dome in the centre, forty feet high, and the same in
diameter. Next to these probably rank the new gymnasium at Cincinnati, the Tremont Gymnasium at Boston,
and the Bunker Hill Gymnasium at Charlestown, all recently opened. Of college institutions the most complete
are probably those at Cambridge and New Haven, - the
former being eighty-five feet by fifty, and the latter one
hundred feet by fifty, in external dimensions. The arrangements for instruction are rather more systematic at
Harvard, but Yale has several valuable articles of apparatus - as the rack-bars and the series of rings - which
have hardly made their appearance, as yet, in Massachusetts, though considered indispensable in New York
institutions.
Gymnastic exercises are as yet but very sparingly introduced into our seminaries, primary or professional,
though a great change is already beginning. Until lately
all our educational plans have assumed man to be a
merely sedentary being; we have employed teachers of
music and drawing to go from school to school to teach
those elegant arts, but have had none to teach the art
of health. Accordingly, the pupils have exhibited more
complex curves in their spines than they could possibly
portray on the blackboard, and acquired such discords
in their nervous systems as would have utterly disgraced




GYMNA S TICS.                171
their singing. It is something to have got beyond the
period when active sports were actually prohibited. I
remember when there was but one boat owned by a Cambridge student, and that was soon reported to have
been suppressed by the Faculty, on the plea that there
was a college law against a student's keeping domestic
animals, and a boat was a domestic animal within the
meaning of the statute. Manual labor was thought less
reprehensible; but schools on this basis have never yet
proved satisfactory, because either the hands or the brains
have always come off second-best from the effort to combine: it is a law of Nature, that after a hard day's work
one does not need more work, but play. ZBut in many of
the German common schools one or two hours are given
daily to gymnastic exercises with apparatus, with sometimes the addition of Wednesday or Saturday afternoon;
and this was the result, as appears from Gutsmuth's book,
of precisely the same popular reaction against a purely
intellectual system which is visible in our community
now. In the French military school at Joinville, the
degree of Bachelor of Agility is formally conferred; but
Horace Mann's remark still holds good, that it is seldom
thought necessary to train men's bodies for any purpose
except to destroy those of other men. However, in view
of the present wise policy of our leading colleges, we
shall have to stop croaking before long, especially as
enthusiastic alumni already begin to fancy a visible improvement in the physique of graduating classes on
Commencement Day.
It would be unpardonable, in this connection, not to
speak a good word for the favorite hobby of the day, -
Dr. Lewis, and his system of gymnastics, or, more properly, of calisthenics. Dr. Windship had done all that was




172               GYMNASTICS.
needed in apostleship of severe exercises, and there was
wanting some man with a milder hobby, perfectly safe for
a lady to drive. The Fates provided that man, also, in
Dr. Lewis,- so hale and hearty, so profoundly confident
in the omnipotence of his own methods and the uselessness
of all others, with such a ready invention, and such an
inundation of animal spirits that he could flood any company, no matter how starched or listless, with an unbounded appetite for ball-games and bean-games. How
long it will last in the hands of others than the projector
remains to be seen, especially as some of his feats are
more exhausting than average gymnastics; but, in the
mean time, it,is just what is wanted for multitudes of
persons who find or fancy the real gymnasium to be
unsuited to them. It will especially render, service to
female pupils, so far as they practise it; for the accustomed gymnastic exercises seem never yet to have been
rendered attractive to them, on any large scale, and with
any permanency. Girls, no doubt, learn as readily as
boys to row, to skate, and to swim, - any muscular inferiority being perhaps counterbalanced in swimming by
their greater physical buoyancy, in skating by their
dancing-school experience, and in rowing by their musiclessons enabling them more promptly to fall into regular
time, - though these suggestions may all be fancies rather
than facts. The same points help them, perhaps, in the
lighter calisthenic exercises; but when they come to the
apparatus, one seldom sees a girl who takes hold like a
boy: it, perhaps, requires a certain ready capital of
muscle, at the outset, which they have not at command,
and which it is tedious to acquire afterwards. Yet there
seem to be some cases, as with the classes of Mrs. Molineaux at Cambridge, where a good deal of gymnastic




GYMNASTICS.                  173
enthusiasm is created among female pupils, and it may
be, after all, that the deficiency lies thus far in the
teachers.
Experience is already showing that the advantages of
school-gymnasiums go deeper than was at first supposed.
It is not to be the whole object of American education to
create scholars or idealists, but to produce persons of a
solid strength, - persons who, to use the most expressive
Western phrase that ever was coined into five monosyllables, "will do to tie to"; whereas to most of us it
would be absurd to tie anything but the Scriptural millstone. In the military school of Brienne, the only report
appended to the name of the little Napoleon Bonaparte
was " Very healthy"; and it is precisely his class of boys
for whom there is least place in a purely intellectual institution. A child of immense animal activity and unlimited observing faculties, personally acquainted with every
man, child, horse, dog, in the township, - intimate in the
families of oriole and grasshopper, pickerel and turtle, -
quick of hand and eye, — in short, born for practical
leadership and victory, - such a boy finds no provision
for him in most of our seminaries, and must, by his constitution, be either truant or torment. The theory of the
institution ignores such aptitudes as his, and recognizes
no merits save those of some small sedentary linguist or
mathematician, - a blessing to his teacher, but an object
of watchful anxiety to the family physician, and whose
career is endangering not only his health, but his humility. Introduce now some athletic exercises as a regular
part of the school-drill, instantly the rogue finds his legitimate sphere, and leads the class; he is no longer an
outcast, no longer has to look beyond the school for companions and appreciation; while, on the other hand, the




174               GYMNASTICS.
youthful pedant, no longer monopolizing superiority, is
brought down to a proper level. Presently comes along
some finer fellow than either, who cultivates all his faculties, and is equally good at spring-board and blackboard;
and straightway, since every child wishes to be a Crichton, the whole school tries for the combination of merits,
and the grade of the juvenile community is perceptibly
raised.
What is true of childhood is true of manhood also.
What a shame it is that even Kingsley should fall into
the cant of deploring maturity as a misfortune, and declaring that our freshest pleasures come " before the age
of fourteen "! Health is perpetual youth, - that is, a
state of positive health.  Merely negative health, the
mere keeping out of the hospital for a series of years, is
not health. Health is to feel the body a luxury, as every
vigorous child does, — as the bird does when it shoots
and quivers through the air, not flying for the sake of the
goal, but for the sake of the flight,- as the dog does
when he scours madly across the meadow, or plunges into
the muddy blissfulness of the stream. But neither dog
nor bird nor child enjoys his cup of physical happiness -
let the dull or the worldly say what they will - with a
felicity so cordial as the educated palate of conscious
manhood. To " feel one's life in every limb," this is the
secret bliss of which all forms of athletic exercise are
merely varying disguises; and it is absurd to say that we
cannot possess this when character is mature, but only
when it is half developed. As the flower is better than
the bud, so should the fruit be better than the flower.
We need more examples of a mode of living which
shall not alone be a success in view of some ulterior object, but which shall be, in its nobleness and healthfulness,




GYMNASTICS.                 175
successful every moment as it passes on.  Navigating
a wholly new temperament through history, this American race must of course form its own methods and take
nothing at second-hand; but the same triumphant combination of bodily and mental training which made human
life beautiful in Greece, strong in Rome, simple and joyous in Germany, truthful and brave in England, must yet
be moulded to a higher quality amid this varying climate
and on these low shores. The regions of the world most
garlanded with glory and romance, Attica, Provence,
Scotland, were originally more barren than Massachusetts; and there is yet possible for' us such an harmonious
mingling of refinement and vigor, that we may more than
fulfil the world's expectation, and may become classic to
ourselves.








A NEW COUNTERBLAST.
8*          L








A NEW COUNTERBLAST.
"He that taketh tobacco saith he cannot leave it, it doth bewitch
him." - KING JAMES'S Counterblast to Tobacco.
AMERICA  is especially responsible to the whole
world for tobacco, since the two are twin-sisters,
born to the globe in a day.l The sailors first sent on
shore by Columbus came back with news of a new continent and a new condiment. There was solid land, and
there was a novel perfume, which rolled in clouds from
the lips of the natives. The fame of the two great discoveries instantly began to overspread the world; but the
smoke travelled fastest, as is its nature. There are many
races which have not yet heard of America: there are
very few which have not yet tasted of tobacco. A plant
which was originally the amusement of a few savage tribes
has become in a few centuries the fancied necessary of life
to the most enlightened nations of the earth, and it is
probable that there is nothing cultivated by man which is
now so universally employed.
And the plant owes this width of celebrity to a combination of natural qualities so remarkable as to yield great
diversities of good and evil fame. It was first heralded
as a medical panacea, " the most sovereign and precious
weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man,"
and was seldom mentioned, in the sixteenth century,




180        A NEW  COUNTERBLAST.
without some reverential epithet. It was a plant divine,
a canonized vegetable. Each nation had its own pious
name to bestow upon it. The French called it herbe
sainte, herbe sacree, herbe propre a tous maux, panacee
antarctique, - the Italians, herba santa croce, - the
Germans, heilig wundkraut. Botanists soberly classified
it as herba panacea and herba sancta, and Gerard in his
" Herbal" fixed its name finally as sana sancta Indorum,
by which title it commonly appears in the professional
recipes of the time. Spenser, in his " Fairie Queene,"
bids the lovely Belphcebe gather it as " divine tobacco,"
and Lilly the Euphuist calls it "our holy herb Nicotian,"
ranking it between violets and honey. It was cultivated
in France for medicinal purposes solely, for half a century before any one there used it for pleasure, and till
within the last hundred years it was familiarly prescribed,
all over Europe, for asthma, gout, catarrh, consumption,
headache; and, in short, was credited with curing more
diseases than even the eighty-seven which Dr. Shew now
charges it with producing.
So vast were the results of all this sanitary enthusiasm,
that the use of tobacco in Europe probably reached its
climax in a century or two, and has since rather diminished than increased, in proportion to the population. It
probably appeared in England in 1586, being first used
in the Indian fashion, by handing one pipe from man to
man throughout the company; the medium of communication being a silver tube for the higher classes, and a
straw and walnut-shell for the baser sort. Paul Hentzner, who travelled in England in 1598, and Monsieur
Misson, who wrote precisely a century later, note almost
in the same words "a perpetual use of tobacco"; and
the latter suspects that this is what makes " the generality




A NEW COUNTERBLAST.                 181
of Englishmen so taciturn, so thoughtful, and so melancholy." In Queen Elizabeth's time, the ladies of the
court " would not scruple to blow a pipe together very
socially." In 1614 it was asserted that tobacco was sold
openly in more than seven thousand places in London,
some of these being already attended by that patient Indian who still stands seductive at tobacconists' doors. It
was also estimated that the annual receipts of these establishments amounted to more than three hundred thousand
pounds. Elegant ladies had their pictures painted, at
least one in 1650 did, with pipe and box in hand. Rochefort, a rather apocryphal French traveller in 1672, reported it to be the general custom in English homes to
set pipes on the table in the evening for the females as
well as males of the family, and to provide children's
luncheon-baskets with a well-filled pipe, to be smoked at
school, under the directing eye of the master. In 1703,
Lawrence Spooner wrote that " the sin of the kingdom
in the intemperate use of tobacco swelleth and increaseth
so daily, that I can compare it to nothing but the waters
of Noah, that swelled fifteen cubits above the highest
mountains." The deluge reached its height in England
- so thinks the amusing and indefatigable Mr. Fairholt,
author of " Tobacco and its Associations "- in the reign
of Queen Anne.  Steele, in the "Spectator," (1711,)
describes the snuff-box as a rival to the fan among ladies; and Goldsmith pictures the belles at Bath as entering the water in full bathing costume, each provided with
a small floating basket, to hold a snuff-box, a kerchief,
and a nosegay. And finally, in 1797, Dr. Clarke complains of the handing about of the snuff-box in churches
during worship, "to the great scandal of religious people," - adding, that kneeling in prayer was prevented by




182        A NEW COUNTERBLAST.
the large quantity of saliva ejected in all directions. In
view of such formidable statements as these, it is hardly
possible to believe that the present generation surpasses
or even equals the past in the consumption of tobacco.
And all this sudden popularity was in spite of a vast
persecution which sought to unite all Europe against this
indulgence, in the seventeenth century. In Russia, its
use was punishable with amputation of the nose; in
Berne, it ranked next to adultery among offences-; Sandys, the traveller, saw a Turk led through the streets of
Constantinople mounted backward on an ass with a tobacco-pipe thrust through his nose. Pope Urban VIII,
in 1624, excommunicated those who should use it in
churches, and Innocent XII., in 1690, echoed the same
anathema. Yet within a few years afterwards travellers
reported that same free use of snuff in'Romish worship
which still astonishes spectators. To see a priest, during
the momentous ceremonial of High Mass, enliven the
occasion by a voluptuous pinch, is a sight even more astonishing, though perhaps less disagreeable, than the wellused spittoon which decorates so many Protestant pulpits.
But the Protestant pulpits did their full share in fighting the habit, for a time at least. Among the Puritans,
no man could use tobacco publicly, on penalty of a fine
of two and sixpence, or in a private dwelling, if strangers
were present; and no two could use it together. That
iron pipe of Miles Standish, still preserved at Plymouth,
must have been smoked in solitude, or not at all. This
strictness was gradually relaxed, however, as the clergy
took up the habit of smoking; and I have seen an old
painting, on the panels of an ancient parsonage in Newburyport, representing a jovial circle of portly divines
sitting pipe in hand around a table, with the Latin motto,




A NEW COUNTERBLAST.                 183
"In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things
charity." Apparently the tobacco was one of the essentials, since there was unity respecting that.  Furthermore, Captain Underhill, hero of the Pequot War, boasted
to the saints of having received his assurance of salvation
"while enjoying a pipe of that good creature, tobacco,"
"since when he had never doubted it, though he should
fall into sin." But it is melancholy to relate that this
fall did presently take place, in a very flagrant manner,
and brought discredit upon -tobacco conversions, as being
liable to end in smoke.
Indeed, some of the most royal wills that ever lived in
the world have measured themselves against the tobaccoplant and been defeated. Charles I. attempted to banish
it, and in return the soldiers of Cromwell puffed their
smoke contemptuously in his face, as he sat a prisoner in
the guard-chamber.  Cromwell himself undertook it, and
Evelyn says that the troopers smoked in triumph at his
funeral. Wellington tried it, and the artists caricatured
him on a pipe's head with a soldier behind him defying
with a whiff that imperial nose. Louis Napoleon is said
to be now attempting it, and probably finds his subjects
more ready to surrender the freedom of the press than
of the pipe.
The more recent efforts against tobacco, like most
arguments in which morals and physiology are mingled,
have lost much of their effect through exaggeration. On
both sides there has been enlisted much loose statement,
with some bad logic. It is, for instance, unreasonable to
hold up the tobacco-plant to general indignation because
Linnmus classed it with the natural order Luridwe,
since he attributed the luridness only to the color of those
plants, not to their character. It is absurd to denounce




184        A NEW  CO UNTERBLA ST.
it as belonging to the poisonous nightshade tribe, when
the potato and the tomato also appertain to that perilous
domestic circle. It is hardly fair even to complain of it
for yielding a poisonous oil, when these two virtuous
plants - to say nothing of the peach and the almondwill, under sufficient chemical provocation, do the same
thing. Two drops of nicotine will, indeed, kill a rabbit;
but so, it is said, will two drops of solanine. Great are
the resources of chemistry, and a well-regulated scientific
mind can detect something deadly almost anywhere.
Nor is it safe to assume, as many do, that tobacco predisposes very powerfully to more dangerous dissipations.
The non-smoking Saxons were probably far more intemperate in drinking than the modern English; and Lane,
the best authority, points out that wine is now far less
used by the Orientals than at the time of the "Arabian
Nights," when tobacco had not been introduced. And in
respect to yet more perilous sensual excesses, tobacco is
now admitted, both by friends and foes, to be quite as
much a sedative as a stimulant.
The point of objection on the ground of inordinate expense is doubtless better taken, and can be met only by
substantial proof that the enormous outlay is a wise one.
Tobacco may be "the anodyne of poverty," as somebody
has said, but it certainly promotes poverty. This narcotic
lulls to sleep all pecuniary economy. Every pipe may
not, indeed, cost so much as that jewelled one seen by
Dibdin in Vienna, which was valued at a thousand
pounds; or even as the German meerschaum which was
passed from mouth to mouth through a whole regiment
of soldiers till it was colored to perfection, having never
been allowed to cool, - a bill of one hundred pounds being ultimately rendered for the tobacco consumed. But




A NEW  COUNTERBLAST.                185
how heedlessly men squander money on this pet luxury!
By the report of the English University Commissioners,
some ten years ago, a student's annual tobacco-bill often
amounts to forty pounds. Dr. Solly puts thirty pounds
as the lowest annual expenditure of an English smoker,
and knows many who spend one hundred and twenty
pounds, and one three hundred pounds a year, on tobacco
alone. In this country the facts are hard to obtain, but
many a man smokes twelve four-cent cigars a day, and
many a man four twelve-cent cigars, - spending in either
case about half a dollar a day and not far from two hundred dollars per annum. An industrious mechanic earns
his two dollars and fifty cents a day, or a clerk his eight
hundred dollars a year, spends a quarter of it on tobacco,
and the rest on his wife, children, and miscellaneous expenses.
But the impotency which marks some of the stock arguments against tobacco extends to most of those in favor
of it. My friend assures me that every one needs some
narcotic, that the American brain is too active, and that
the influence of tobacco is quieting, - great is the enjoymaent of a comfortable pipe after dinner. I grant, on
observing him at that period, that it appears so. But I
also observe, that, when the placid hour has passed away,
his nervous system is more susceptible, his hand more
tremulous, his temper more irritable on slight occasions,
than during the days when the comfortable pipe chances
to be omitted. The only effect of the narcotic appears,
therefore, to be a demand for another narcotic; and there
seems no decided advantage over the life of the birds and
bees, who appear to keep their nervous systems in tolerably healthy condition with no narcotic at all.
The argument drawn from a comparison of races is no




186        A NEW  COUNTERBLAST.
better. Germans are vigorous and Turks are long-lived,
and they are all great smokers. But certainly the Germans do not appear so vivacious, nor the Turks so energetic, as to afford triumphant demonstrations in behalf of
the sacred weed. Moreover, the Eastern tobacco is as
much milder than ours, as are the Continental wines than
even those semi-alcoholic mixtures which prevail at scrupulous communion-tables, And as for German health,
Dr. Schneider declares, in the London " Lancet," that it
is because of smoke that all his educated countrymen
wear spectacles, that an immense amount of consumption
is produced in Germany by tobacco, and that English
insurance companies are proverbially cautious in insuring
German lives. Dr. Carlyon gives much the same as his
observation in Holland. These facts may be overstated,
but they are at least as good as those which they answer.
Not much better is the excuse alleged in the social and
genial influences of tobacco. It certainly seems a singular way of opening the lips for conversation by closing
them on a pipe-stem, and it would rather appear as if
Fate designed to gag the smokers and let the non-smokers
talk.  But supposing it otherwise, does it not mark a
condition of extreme juvenility in our social development,
if no resources of intellect can enable a half-dozen intelligent men to be agreeable to each other, without applying the forcing process, by turning the room into an
imperfectly organized chimney? Brilliant women can be
brilliant without either wine or tobacco, and Napoleon
always maintained that without an admixture of feminine
wit conversation grew tame. Are all male beings so
much stupider by nature than the other sex, that men require stimulants and narcotics to make them mutually
endurable?




A NEW  COUNTERBLA ST.               187
And as the conversational superiorities of woman disprove the supposed social inspirations of tobacco, so do
her more refined perceptions yet more emphatically pronounce its doom. Though belles of the less mature
description, eulogistic of sophomores, may stoutly profess
that they dote on the Virginian perfume, yet cultivated
womanhood barely tolerates the choicest tobacco-smoke,
even in its freshness, and utterly recoils from the stale
suggestions of yesterday. By whatever enthusiasm misled, she finds something abhorrent in the very nature
of the thing. In vain did loyal Frenchmen baptize the
weed as the queen's own favorite, Herba Catherinw Medicae; it is easier to admit that Catherine de' Medici was
not feminine than that tobacco is. Man also recognizes
the antagonism; there is scarcely a husband in America
who would not be converted from smoking, if his wife
resolutely demanded her right of moiety in the cigar-box.
No Lady Mary, no loveliest Marquise, could make snufftaking beauty otherwise than repugnant to this generar
tion. Rustic females who habitually chew even pitch or
spruce-gum are rendered thereby so repulsive that the
fancy refuses to pursue the horror farther and imagine it
tobacco; and all the charms of the veil and the fan can
scarcely reconcile the most fumacious American to the
cigarrito of the Spanish fair. How strange seems Parton's picture of General Jackson puffing his long clay
pipe on one side of the fireplace and Mrs. Jackson puffing
hers on the other! No doubt, to the heart of the chivalrous backwoodsman those smoke-dried lips were yet the
altar of early passion,- as that rather ungrammatical
tongue was still the music of the spheres; but the unattractiveness of that conjugal counterblast is Nature's own
protest against smoking.




188        A NEW COUNTERBLAST.
The use of tobacco must, therefore, be held to mark
a rather coarse and childish epoch in our civilization, if
nothing worse. Its most ardent admirer hardly paints it
into his picture of the Golden Age. It is difficult to associate it with one's fancies of the noblest manhood, and
Miss Muloch reasonably defies the human imagination to
portray Shakespeare or Dante with pipe in mouth. Goethe
detested it; so did Napoleon, save in the form of snuff,
which he apparently used on Talleyrand's principle, that
diplomacy was impossible without it. Bacon said, " Tobacco-smoking is a secret delight, serving only to steal
away men's brains."  Newton abstained from  it: the
contrary is often claimed, but thus says his biographer,
Brewster, - saying that " he would make no necessities
to himself." Franklin says he never used it, and never
met with one of its votaries who advised him to follow
the example. John Quincy Adams used it in early youth,
and after thirty years of abstinence said, that, if every
one would try abstinence for three months, it would annihilate the practice, and add five years to the average'length of human life.
In attempting to go beyond these general charges of
waste and foolishness, and to examine the physiological
results of the use of tobacco, one is met by the contradictions and perplexities which haunt all such inquiries.
Doctors, of course, disagree, and the special cases cited
triumphantly by either side are ruled out as exceptional
by the other. It is like the question of the precise degree of injury done by alcoholic drinks. To-day's newspaper writes the eulogy of A. B., who recently died at
the age of ninety-nine, without ever tasting ardent spirits;
to-morrow's will add the epitaph of C. D., aged one hundred, who has imbibed a quart of rum a day since reach



A NEW COUNTERBLAST.                 189
ing the age of indiscretion; and yet, after all, both editors;
have to admit that the drinking usages of society are
growing decidedly more decent. It is the same with the
tobacco argument. Individual cases prove nothing either
way; there is such a range of vital vigor in different;
individuals, that one may withstand a life of error, and:
another perish in spite of prudence. The question is of
the general tendency. It is not enough to know that Dr-.
Parr smoked twenty pipes in an evening, and lived to be
seventy-eight; that Thomas Hobbes smoked thirteen, and
survived to ninety-two; that Brissiac of Trieste died at
one hundred and sixteen, with a pipe in his mouth; and:
that Henry Hartz of Schleswig used tobacco steadily
from the age of sixteen to one hundred and forty-two;
nor would any accumulation of such healthy old sinners
prove anything satisfactory. It seems rather overwhelming, to be sure, when Mr. Fairholt assures us that his
respected father "died at the age of seventy-two: he
had been twelve hours a day in a tobacco-manufactory
for nearly fifty years; and he both smoked and chewed,
while busy in the labors of the workshop, sometimes in a
dense cloud of steam from drying the damp tobacco over
the stoves; and his health and appetite were perfect to
the day of his death: he was a model of muscular and
stomachic energy; in which his son, who neither smokes,
snuffs, nor chews, by no means rivals him." But until
we know precisely what capital of health the venerable
tobacconist inherited from his fathers, and in what condition he transmitted it to his sons, the statement certainly
has two edges.
For there are facts equally notorious on the other side..
It is not denied that it is found necessary to exclude tobacco, as a general rule, from insane asylums, or that it




190        A NEW  COUNTERBLAST.
produces, in extreme cases, among perfectly sober persons, effects akin to delirium tremens. Nor is it denied
that terrible local diseases follow it, — as, for instance,,cancer of the mouth, which has become, according to the
eminent surgeon, Brouisson, the disease most dreaded in
the French hospitals. He has performed sixty-eight operations for this, within fourteen years, in the Hospital
"St. Eloi, and traces it entirely to the use of tobacco.:Such facts are chiefly valuable as showing the tendency
-of the thing. Where the evils of -excess are so glaring,'the advantages of even moderate use are questionable.
Where weak persons are made insane, there is room for
suspicion that the strong may suffer unconsciously. You'may say that the victims must have been constitutionally'nervous; but where is the native-born American who is
not?
In France and England the recent inquiries into the
effects of tobacco seem to have been a little more systematic than our own. In the former country, the newspapers state, the attention of the Emperor was called to the
fact that those pupils of the Polytechnic School who used
this indulgence were decidedly inferior in average attainments to the rest. This is stated to have led to its prohibition in the school, and to the forming of an anti-tobacco
organization, which is said to be making great progress
in France. I cannot, however, obtain from any of our
medical libraries any satisfactory information as to the
French agitation, and am led by private advices to believe
that even these general statements are hardly trustworthy.
The recent English discussions are, however, more easy
of access.
"The Great Tobacco Question," as the controversy in
England was called, originated in a Clinical Lecture on




A NE W  COUNTERIBLAST.              191
Paralysis, by Mr. Solly, Surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital, which was published in the "Lancet," December
13, 1856.  He incidentally spoke of tobacco as an important source of this disease, and went on to say: "I
know of no single vice which does so much harm  as
smoking. It is a snare and a delusion. It soothes the
excited nervous system at the time, to render it more irritable and feeble ultimately. It is like opium in this respect; and if you want to know all the wretchedness
which this drug can produce, you should read the'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater."' This statement
was presently echoed by J. Ranald Martin, an eminent
surgeon, "whose Eastern experience rendered his opinion of immense value," and who used language almost
identical with that of Mr. Solly:   "I can state of my
own observation, that the miseries, mental and bodily,
which I have witnessed from the abuse of cigar-smoking,
far exceed anything detailed in the' Confessions of an
Opium-Eater."'
This led off a controversy, which continued for several
months, in the columns of the (" Lancet," - a controversy
conducted in a wonderfully good-natured spirit, considering that more than fifty physicians took part in it, and
that these were almost equally divided. The debate took
a wide range, and some interesting' facts were elicited:
as that Lord Raglan, General Markham, and Admirals
Dundas and Napier always abandoned tobacco from the
moment when they were ordered on actual service; that
nine tenths of the first-class men at the Universities were
non-smokers; that two Indian chiefs told Power, the
actor, that "those' Indians who smoked gave; out soonest
in the chase"; and so on. There were also American
examples, rather loosely gathered  thus, a remark of the




192        A  NEW  COUNTERBLAST.
venerable Dr. Waterhouse, made many years ago, was
cited as the contemporary opinion of "the Medical Professor in Harvard University"; also it was mentioned, as
an acknowledged fact, that the American physique was
rapidly deteriorating because of tobacco, and that coroners' verdicts were constantly being thus pronounced on
American youths: "Died of excessive smoking."  On
the other hand, that eminent citizen of our Union, General Thomas Thumb, was about that time professionally
examined in London, and his verdict on tobacco was
quoted to be, that it was "one of his chief comforts ";
also mention was made of a hapless quack who announced himself as coming from Boston, and who, to
keep up the Yankee reputation, issued a combined advertisement of " medical advice gratis " and " prime cigars."
But these stray American instances were of course
quite outnumbered by the English, and there is scarcely
an ill which was not in this controversy charged upon
tobacco by its enemies, nor a physical or moral benefit
which was not claimed for it by its friends. According
to these, it prevents dissension and dyspncea, inflammationand insanity, saves the waste of tissue and of time, blunts
the edge of grief, and lightens pain. " No man was ever
in a passion with a pipe in his mouth." There are more
female lunatics chiefly because the fumigatory education
of the fair sex has been neglected. Yet it is important
to notice that these same advocates almost outdo its opponents in admitting its liability to misuse, and the perilous
consequences. " The injurious effects of excessive smoking," -" there is no more pitiable object than the inveterate smoker," - " sedentary life is incompatible with
smoking," - highly pernicious, - general debility, -
secretions all wrong,- cerebral softening, - partial pa



A NEW  COUNTERBLAST.                193
ralysis, — trembling of the -hand, - enervation and de-:pression, - great irritability, — neuralgia, - narcotism of
the heart: this Chamber of Horrors forms a part of the
very Temple of Tobacco, as builded, not by foes, but by
worshippers. "All men of observation and experience,"
-they admit, "must be able to point to instances of disease
and derangement from the abuse of this luxury."  Yet
they advocate it, as the same men advocate intoxicating
drinks; not meeting the question, in either case, whether
it be wise, or even generous, for the strong to continue an
indulgence which is thus confessedly ruinous to the weak.
The controversy had its course, and ended, like most
controversies, without establishing anything. The editor
of the "Lancet," to be sure, summed up the evidence
very fairly, and it is worth while to quote him: "It is
almost unnecessary to make a separate inquiry into the
pathological conditions which follow upon excessive smoking. Abundant evidence has been adduced of the gigantic evils which attend the abuse of itobacco. Let it be
granted at once that there is such a thing as moderate
smoking, and let it be admitted that we cannot:accuse tobacco of being guilty of the whole of Cullen's' Nosology'; it still remains that there is a long catalogue of
frightful penalties attached to its abuse." He then proceeds to consider what is to be called abuse: as, for
instance, smoking more than!one or two cigars or pipes
daily, - smoking too early in the day or too early in life,
- and in general, the use of tobacco by those with whom
it does -not agree, — which rather reminds one of the
early temperance pledges, which bound a man to drink
no more rum than he found to be good for him. But the
Chief Justice of the Medical Court finally instructs his
jury of-readers that young men should give up a dubious
9                          M




194        A NEW COUNTERBLAST.
pleasure for a certain good, and abandon tobacco altogether: " Shun the habit of smoking as you would shun
self-destruction. As you value your physical and moral
well-being, avoid a habit which for you can offer no advantage to compare with the dangers you incur."
Yet, after all, neither he nor his witnesses seem fairly
to have hit upon what seem to this present writer the
two incontrovertible arguments against tobacco; one being drawn from theory, and the other from practice.
First, as to the theory of the thing. The laws of Nature
warn every man who uses tobacco for the first time, that
he is dealing with a poison. Nobody denies this attribute
of the plant; it is " a narcotic poison of the most active
class." It is not merely that a poison can by chemical
process be extracted from it, but it is a poison in its simplest form. Its mere application to the skin has often
produced uncontrollable nausea and prostration. Children have in several cases been killed by the mere application of tobacco ointment to the head. Soldiers have
simulated sickness by placing it beneath the armpits, -
though in most cases our regiments would probably consider this a mistaken application of the treasure. Tobacco, then, is simply and absolutely a poison.
Now to say that a substance is a poison, is not to say
that it inevitably kills; it may be apparently innocuous,
if not incidentally beneficial. King Mithridates, it is
said, learned habitually to consume these dangerous commodities; and the scarcely less mythical Du Chaillu,
after the fatigues of his gorilla warfare, found decided
benefit from two ounces of arsenic. But to say that a
substance is a poison, is to say at least that it is a noxious
drug, - that it is a medicine, not an aliment, - that its
effects are pathological, not physiological,- an& -that its




A NEW COUNTERBLAST.                 195
use should therefore be exceptional, not habitual. Not
tending to the preservation of a normal state, but at best
to the correction of some abnormal one, its whole value,
if it have any, lies in the rarity of its application. To
apply a powerful drug at a certain hour every day, is like
a schoolmaster's whipping his pupil at a certain hour
every day: the victim may become inured, but undoubtedly the specific value of the remedy must vanish with
the repetition.
Thus much would be true, were it proved that tobacco
is in some cases apparently beneficial. No drug is beneficial, when constantly employed. But, furthermore, if
not beneficial, it then is injurious. As Dr. Holmes has
so forcibly expounded, every medicine is in itself hurtful.
All noxious agents, according to him, cost a patient, on
an average, five per cent of his vital power; that is,
twenty- times as much would kill him. It is believed
that they are sometimes indirectly useful; it is known
that they are always directly hurtful. That is, I have a
neighbor on one side who takes tobacco to cure his dyspepsia, and a neighbor on the other side who takes blue
pill for his infirmities generally. The profit of the opera,
tion may be sure or doubtful; the outlay is certain, and
to be deducted in any event. I have no doubt, my dear
Madam, that your interesting son has learned to smoke,
as he states, in order to check that very distressing toothache which so hindered his studies; but I sincerely think
it would be better to have the affliction removed by a
dentist at a cost of fifty cents, than by a drug at an expense of five per cent of vital power.
Fortunately, when it comes to the practical test, the
whole position is conceded to our hands, and the very devotees of -tobacco are false to their idol. It is not merely




1.96        A NEW  COUNTERBLAST.
that the most fumigatory parent dissuades his sons from
the practice; but there is a more remarkable instance.
If any two classes can be singled out in the community.-as the largest habitual consumers of tobacco, it must be.the college students and the the city "roughs" or "rowdies," or whatever the latest slang name is, - for these
roysterers, like oysters, incline to names with an r in.
Now the "rough," when brought to a physical climax,
becomes the prize-highter; and the college student is seen
in his highest condition as the prize-oarsman; and both
these representative men, under such circumstances of'ambition, straightway abandon tobacco. Such a conces-.sion, from such a quarter, is worth all the denunciations
of good Mr. Trask. Appeal, O anxious mother! from
Philip smoking to Philip training. What your progeny
will not do for any considerations of ethics or economy, -
to save his sisters' olfactories or the atmosphere of the
family altar, - that he does unflinchingly at one word
from the stroke-oar or the commodore. In so doing, he
surrenders every inch of the ground, and owns unequivo*
cally that he is in better condition without tobacco. The
old traditions of training are in some other respects being
softened-: strawberries are no longer contraband, and the
last agonies of thirst are no longer a part of the prescription; but training and tobacco are still incompatible.
There is not a regatta or a prize-fight in which the betting would not be seriously affected by the discovery that
either party used the beguiling weed.
The argument is irresistible, — or rather, it is not so
much an argument as a plea of guilty under the indictment. The prime devotees of tobacco voluntarily abstain
from it, like Lord Raglan and Admiral Napier, when they
wish to be in their best condition.  But are we-ever, any




A'NEW  CO UN TERBLAST.               197
of us, in too good condition?  Have all the sanitary conventions yet succeeded in detecting one man, in our highpressure America, who finds himself too well.? If a mani
goes into training for the: mimic contest, why not for the,
actual one?  If he needs steady nerves' and a cool' head
for the play of life,- and even prize-fighting is called
"sporting," - why not for its earnest?- ~:ere we are' all'
croaking that we are not in the, health in; which our, twentieth birthday found us, and yet we will not condescend
to, the wise abstinence which even  twenty practises.
Moderate training is simply a rational and healthful life.
So palpable is this, that there is strong reason to believe that: the increased attention to physical training is
operating against tobacco. If we may- trust- literature, as
has. been shown, its! use is not now so! great as formerly, in
spite of the vague: guesses of alarmists. " It is: estimated,"
says. Mr. Coles-,' that the consumption of tobacco in this
country is eight times as great as in France and three
times as: great as in England, in proportion, to the- population"; but there is nothing in the world more uncertain
than "It: is: estimated."  It is frequently estimated, for
instance, that nine out of ten of our' college studentsi use
tobacco; and yet, by the statistics of the last graduating
class at Cambridge, it appears that: it is used by only
thirty-one out of seventy-six. I am  satisfied that the'
extent of the practice is often exaggerated.  In a gymnastic club of young men, for instance, where I have had
opportunity to take the statistics, it is found that less than
one quarter use it, though there has never been any agitation or discussion of the matter. These things indicate
that it can no longer be claimed, as Moliere asserted two
centuries ago, that he who lives without tobacco is not
worthy to live.




198        A NEW COUNTERBLAST.
And as there has been some exaggeration in describing
the extent to which Tobacco is King, so there has doubtless been some overstatement as to the cruelty of his despotism. Enough, however, remains to condemn him.
The present writer, at least, has the firmest conviction,
from personal observation and experience, that the imagined benefits' of tobacco-using (which have never,
perhaps, been better stated than in an essay which
appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, in August, 1860) are
ordinarily an illusion, and its evils a far more solid reality,
- that it stimulates only to enervate, soothes only to depress, - that it neither permanently calms the nerves nor
softens the temper nor enlightens the brain, but that in
the end its tendencies are precisely the opposites of these,
beside the undoubted incidental objections of costliness
and uncleanness. When men can find any other instance
of a poisonous drug which is suitable for daily consumption, they will be more consistent in using this. When
it is admitted to be innocuous to those who are training
for athletic feats, it may be possible to suppose it beneficial
to those who are out of training. Meanwhile there seems
no ground for its supporters except that to which the
famous Robert Hall was reduced, as he says, by " the
Society of Doctors of Divinity." He sent a message to
Dr. Clarke, in return for a pamphlet against tobacco, that
he could not possibly refute his arguments and could not
possibly give up smoking.




THE HEALTH OF OUR GIRLS.








THE HEALTH OF OUR GIRLS.
AMONG the lower animals, so far as the facts, have
been noticed, there seems no great ihequality, as to:
strength or endurance, between the sexes.  In. migratory
tribes, as of birds or, buffaloes, the males are not observed'
to slacken or shorten their journeys from any gallant deference: to- female weakness, nor, arez the' females. found to:
perish: disproportionately through exhaustion. It is the.
English experience, that among coursing-dogs! and racehorses there is no serious sexual inequality.   EIian s-ays?
that Semiramis did not: exult when in the chase: she captured a lion, but was proud when sie took a; lioness; the
dangers of the feat being far greater.  Hunters as will:
ingly encounter the male as the female of most savages
beasts; and if an adventurous fowler, plundering an
eagle's nest, has his eyes' assaulted by; the parent-bird, it;
is no matter whether the discourtesy proceeds, from the.
gentIeman or the lady of the. household.
Passing to the ranks of humanity, it is. the general' rule,that, wherever the physical nature has, a fair: chance, thea
woman shows no extreme deficiency- of endurance or:
strength.. Even the sentimental physiology of Michelet
is compelled to' own that his elaborate theories of lovely'
invalidism, have no application to the peasantawomen of
941.




202      THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.
France, that is, to nineteen twentieths of the population.
Among human beings, the disparities of race and training
far outweigh those of sex. The sedentary philosopher,
turning from his demonstration of the hopeless inferiority
of woman, finds with dismay that his Irish or negro handmaiden can lift a heavy coal-hod more easily than he.
And while the dream is vanishing of the superiority of
savage races on every other point, it still remains unquestionable that in every distinctive attribute of physical
womanhood the barbarian has the advantage.
The truth is, that in all countries female health and
strength go with peasant habits. In Italy, for instance,
About says, that, of all useful animals, the woman is the
one that the Roman peasant employs with the most profit.
"' She makes the bread and the cake of Turkish corn;
she spins, she weaves, she sews; she goes every day
three miles for wood and a mile for water; she carries on
her head the load of a mule; she toils from sunrise to
sunset without resisting or even complaining. The children, which she brings forth in great numbers, and which
she nurses herself, are a great resource; from the age
of four years they can be employed in guarding other
animals."
Beside this may be placed the experience of Moffat,
the African missionary, who, seeing a party of native
women engaged in their usual labor of house-building, and
just ready to put the roof on, suggested that some of the
men.who stood by should lend a hand. It was received
with general laughter; but Mahuto, the queen, declared
that the plan, though hopeless of execution, was in itself a
good one, and that men, though excused from lighter
labors, ought to take an equal share in the severer, —
adding, that she wished the missionaries would give their
husbands medicine and make them work.




THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.             203.
The health of educated womanhood in the differenti
European nations seems to depend mainly upon the degree of conformity to these rustic habits of air and exer —
cise. In Italy, Spain, Portugal, the women of the upperclasses lead secluded and unhealthy lives, and hence theirphysical condition is not superior to our own. In the,
Northern nations, women of refinement do more to emulate the active habits of the peasantry, - only substituting.
out-door relaxations for out-door toil,- and so they share
their -health. This is especially the case in England,
which accordingly seems to furnish the representative,
types of vigorous womanhood. " The nervous system of
the female sex in England seems to be of a much strongermould than that of other nations," says Dr. Merei, a medical practitioner of English and Continental experience.
"They bear a degree of irritation in their- systems, without the issue of fits, which in other races is not so easily
tolerated." So Professor Tyndall, watching female pedestrianism  among the Alps, exults in his countrywomen:
"The contrast in regard to energy between the maidens'
of the British Isles and those of the Continent and of
America is astonishing."  When Catlin's Indians first
walked the streets of London, they reported with wonder
that they had seen many handsome squaws holding to the
arms of men, "and they did not look sick either"; — a
remark which no complimentary savage was ever heard
to make in any Cisatlantic metropolis.
There is undoubtedly an impression in this country that
the English vigor is bought at some sacrifice, -that it
implies a nervous organization less fine and artistic, features and limbs more rudely moulded, and something more
coarse and peasant-like in the whole average texture..
Making all due allowance for national vanity, it is yet




204      THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.
easy to see that superiority may be had more cheaply by
lowering the plane, of attainment. The physique of a
healthy day-laborer is a thing of inferior mould to the
physiqgue of a healthy artist, Muscular power needs also.
nervous: power, to, bring out. its, finest quality. Lightness
and grace are not incompatible with vigor, but are its
crowning illustration. Apollo is above Hercules; Hebe
and Diana are winged, not weighty. The physiologist
must never forget that Nature is, aiming at a, keener aad
subtiler: temperament in framing the; American, - as beneath our, drier atmosphere the whole scale of sounds andhues and odors is tuned to a higher key,.- and that for
us an. equal state of health may yet produce a higher. type
of humanity. To make up the arrears of past neglect,
therefore, is a matter of absolute necessity, if we wish this
experiment of national temperament to have any chance;
since rude health, however obtuse, will. in the. end overmatch? disease, however finely strung.,
But the. fact must always be kept in mind, that. the
whole problem  of female health, is most closely intertwined with, that of social conditions. The Anglo-Saxon
organization is being modified not only in America, but
also, in England, with, the: changing:  habits: of the people.
In the days of' Henry-r VIII. it was ", a: wyve'as, occupation.
to- winnow all manner of cornes, to, make malte,. to wash
and, ironyng, to make hay, shere corne, and, in time, of
nede to help her husband fill, the, muchpayne, drive the,
plough, load hay,, corne, and such other,. and go or ride to
the market to sell butter, cheese, egges, chekyns, capons,
hens, pigs) geese, and all manner of comes."  But now
there is. everywhere complaint of the. growing delicacy
and fragility of the: English: female. population, even ia
rural regins;. and' the king, of sanitary reformers, Edwin.




THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.             205
Chadwick, has lately made this complaint:the subject of
a special report before the National Association. He
assumes, as a matter settled by medical authority, that
the proportin. of mothers who can suckle their children
is decidedly diminishing among the upper and middle
classes, that deaths from childbirth are eight times as
great among these classes as among the peasantry and
that spinal distortion, hysteria, and painful disorders are
on the increase. Nine tenths of the evil he attributes to
the long hours of school study, and to the neglect of
physical exercises for girls.
This shows that the symptoms of ill-health among
women are not a matter of climate:only, but indicate a
change in social conditions, producing a change of personal habits. It is something which -reaches all; for the
*standard of health in the farm-houses is with us no higher
~than in the cities.'It is something which, unless removed,'stands as a bar to any substantial progress ifn civilization.
It is a mere mockery for the millionnaire to create galleries
of Art, bringing from Italy a Venus on. canvas or a stone
Dianna, if meanwhile a lovelier bloom than ever artist
painted is fading from his own child's cheek, and a firmer.vigor than that of marble is vanishing from her enfeebled
arms. What use to found colleges for girls whom even
the high-school breaks down, or to induct them into new
industrial pursuits when they have not strength to stand
behind a counter? How appeal to any woman to enlarge
her thoughts'beyond the mere drudgery of the household,
when she "dies daily" beneath the exhaustion of'even
that?
And the perplexity lies beyond the disease, -in the
perils involved even in'the remedy. No person can be
long conversant with physical training, without learning




206      THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.
to shrink from the responsibility of the health of girls.
The panacea for boyish health is commonly simple, even
in delicate cases. Removal from books, if necessary, and
the substitution of farm-life, —with good food, pure air,
dogs, horses, oxen, hens, rabbits, - and fresh or salt water
within walking distance. Secure these conditions, and
then let him alone; he will not hurt himself. Nor will,
during mere childhood, his little sister experience anything but benefit, under the same circumstances. But at
the epoch of womanhood, precisely when the constitution
should be acquiring robust strength, her perils begin; she
then needs not merely to be allured to exertion, but to be
protected against over-exertion; experience shows that
she cannot be turned loose, cannot be safely left with boyish freedom to take her fill of running, rowing, riding,
swimming, skating, - because life-long injury may be the
penalty of a single excess. This necessity for caution
cannot be the normal condition, for such caution cannot
be exerted for the female peasant or savage, but it seems
the necessary condition for American young women. It
is a fact not to be ignored, that some of the strongest and
most athletic girls among us have lost their health and
become invalids for years, simply by being allowed to live
the robust, careless, indiscreet life on which boys thrive
so wonderfully. It is fatal, if they do too little, and disastrous, if they do too much; and between these two
opposing perils the process of steering is so difficult, that
the majority of parents end in letting go the helm and
leaving the fragile vessel to steer itself.
Everything that follows in these pages must therefore
be construed in the light of this admitted difficulty.  The
health of boys is a matter not hard to treat, on purely
physiological grounds; but in dealing with that of girls




THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.              207
caution is necessary. Yet, after all, the perplexities can
only obscure the details of the prescription, while the main
substance is unquestionable. Nowhere in the universe,
save in improved habits, can we ever find health for our
girls. Special delicacy in the conditions of the problem
only implies more sedulous care in the solution. The
great laws of exercise, of respiration, of digestion, are
essentially the same for all human beings; and greater
sensitiveness in the patient should not relax, but only
stimulate, our efforts after cure. And the unquestionable
fact that there are among us, after the worst is said, large
numbers of robust and healthy women, should keep up
our courage until we can apply their standard to the
whole sex.
In presence of an evil so great, it is inevitable that
there should be some fantastic theories of cure. But extremes are quite pardonable, where it is so important to
explore all the sources of danger. Special ills should
have special assailants, at whatever risk of exaggeration.
As water-cures and vegetarian boarding-houses are the
necessary defence of humanity against dirt and overeating, so is the most ungainly Bloomer that ever drifted
on bare poles across the continent a providential protest
against the fashion-plates. It is probable, that, on the
whole, there is a gradual amelioration* in female costume.
These hooded water-proof cloaks, equalizing all womankind, — these thick soles and heavy heels, proclaiming
themselves with such masculine emphasis on the pavement, -these priceless india-rubber boots, emancipating
all juvenile femineity from the terrors of mud and snow,all these indicate an approaching era of good sense; for
they are the requisite machinery of air, exercise, and
health, so far as they go.




208   THE HEALTH OF OUR GIRLS.
The weight of skirts and the,constraints of corsets are
still properly made the theme of indignant declamation.
Yet let us be just. It is impossible to make costume the
prime culprit, when we recall what robust generations
have been reared beneath the:same formidable panoply.
For instance, it;seems as if no woman could habitually
walk uninjured with a weight of twelve pounds of skirts
suspended at her hips, - Dr. Coale is responsible for the
statistics, —  and as if salvation must therefore lie in
shoulder-straps. Yet the practice cannot be sheer sui-,cide, when the Dutch peasant-girl plods bloomingly
through her daily duties beneath a dozen successive
involucres of flannel. So in regard to tight lacing, no
one can doubt its ill effects, since even a man's loose gar-:ments are known to diminish by one fourth his capacity
for respiration. Yet inspect in the shop-windows (where
the facts of female costume are obtruded too pertinaciously:for the public to remain in ignorance) the light and flexible corsets of these days, and then contemplate at Pilgrim
Hall in Plymouth the stout buckram,stays that once in~cased the stouter heart of Alice Bradford. Those, again,
were to those of a still:earlier epoch as leather to chain-armor. The Countess of Buchan was confined in an iron
cage for life for assisting to crown Robert the Bruce, but
-her only loss by the incarceration was that her iron cage,ceased to be portable.
Passing from costume, it must be noticed that there are
many physical evils which the American woman shares
with the other sex, but which bear with far greater severity on her finer organization. There is improper food, for
instance. The fried or salted meat, the heavy bread, the
perennial pork, the disastrous mince-pies of our farmers'
houses, are sometimes pardoned by Nature to the men of




THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.             209
the family, in consideration of twelve or more hours of
out-door labor. For the more sedentary and delicate
daughter there is no such atonement, and she vibrates
between dyspepsia and starvation. The only locality in
America where I have ever found the farming population
living habitually on wholesome diet is the Quaker region
in Eastern Pennsylvania, and I have never seen anywhere
else such a healthy race of women. Yet here, again, it is
not safe to be hasty, or to lay the whole responsibility
upon the kitchen, when we recall the astounding diet on
which healthy Englishwomen subsisted two centuries ago.
Consider, for instance, the housekeeping of the Duke of
Northumberland. "My lord and lady have for breakfast,
at seven o'clock, a quart of beer, as much wine, two pieces
of-salt fish, six red herring, four white ones, and a dish of
sprats." Digestive resources which could entertain this
bill of fare might safely be trusted to travel in America.
The educational excesses of our schools, also, though
shared by both sexes, tell much more formidably upon
girls, in proportion as they are keener students, more submissive pupils, and are given to studying their lessons at
recess-time, instead of shouting and racing in the open air.
They are also easily coerced into devoting Wednesday and
Saturday afternoons to the added atrocity of music-lessons,
and in general, but for the recent blessed innovation of
skating, would undoubtedly submit to having every atom
of air and exercise eliminated from their lives. It is rare
to find an American mother who habitually ranks physical
vigor first, in rearing her daughters, and intellectual culture only second; indeed, they are commonly satisfied
with a merely negative condition of health. The girl is
considered to be well, if she is not too ill to go to school;
and she therefore lives from hand to mouth, as respects




210      THE HEALTII  OF OUR GIRLS.
her. constitution, and lays up nothing for emergencies.
From this, negative condition proceeds her inability to
endure accidents which to an active boy would be trivial.
Who, ever hears of a boy's incurring a lame knee for a
year by slipping on the ice, or spinal disease for a lifetime
by a fall from a sled? And if a girl has not enough of
surplus vitality to overcome such trifles as these, how is
she fitted to meet the coming fatigues.of wife and mother?
These. are important, if superficial, suggestions; but
there are other considerations which go deeper. I take
the, special provocatives of disease among American
women to be in great part social. The one marked
step achieved thus far by our civilization appears to be
the abolition of the peasant class, among the native-born,
and the elevation of the mass of women to the social zone
of music-lessons and silk gowns. This implies the disappearance of field-labor for women, and, unfortunately, of
that, rustic health also which in other countries is a standing. exemplar for all classes. Wherever the majority of
women: work in the fields, the privileged minority are
constantly reminded that they also hold their health by
the tenure of some substituted activity.  With us, all
women, have been relieved from out-door labor, -- and
are being sacrificed in the process, until they learn to
supply its. place.  Except the graceful and vanishing
pursuit of hop-picking, there is in New  England no
agricultural labor in which women can be said, to be
habitually engaged. Most persons never saw an American woman. making hay,. unless in, the highly imaginative
cantata of "The Hay-Makers"; and Dolly the: DairyMaid is becoming to our children as purely ideal a being
as Cinderella. We thus lose not only the immediate
effect, but the indirect example, of these out-door toils.




THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.              211
This influence of the social transition bears upon all
women: there is another which especially touches wives;
and mothers. In. European countries, the aim at anything like gentility implies keeping one or more domestics,
to perform household labors; but: in our Free States every
family aims at gentility, while not one in five keeps a
domestic. The aim is not a foolish one, though follies
may accompany it, —for the average ambition of our
people includes a certain amount of refined cultivation;
— it is only that the process is exhausting. Every
woman must have a best-parlor with hair-cloth furniture
and a photograph.-book; she must have a piano, or some
cheaper substitute; her little girls must have embroidered
skirts and much mathematical knowledge; her husband
must have two, or even three, hot meals every day of his
life; and yet her house must be in perfect order early in
the afternoon, and she prepared to go out and pay calls,
with a black-silk dress and a card-case. In the evening
she will go to a concert or a lecture, and then, at the end
of all, she will very pQssibly sit up after midnight with
her sewing-machine, doing extra shop-work to pay for
little Ella's music-lessons. All this every "capable" NewEngland woman will do, or die. She. does it, and dies;:
and then we are astonished that her vital energy gives
out sooner than that of an Irishwoman in a shanty, with
no ambition on earth but to supply her young Patricks
with adequate potatoes.
Now it is useless to attempt to set back.the great social
flood.  The New-England housekeeper will never be
killed by idleness, at any rate; and if she. is exposed to
the opposite danger, we must fit her for it, that is all.
There is reason to be hopeful; the human race as a
whole is tending upward, even physically, and if we




212-     THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.
cannot make our girls healthy quite yet, we shall learn;to do it by and by. Meanwhile we must hold hard to:the conviction, that not merely decent health, but even a,high physical training, is a thing thoroughly practicable
for both sexes. If a young girl can tire out her partner
in the dance, if a delicate wife can carry her baby twice
as long as her athletic husband, (for certainly there is
nothing in the gymnasium more amazing than the mother's
left arm,) then it is evident that the female frame contains
muscular power, or its equivalent, though it may take
music or maternity to bring it out. But other inducements have proved sufficient, and the results do not admit
of question. The Oriental bayaderes, for instance, are
trained from childhood as gymnasts: they carry heavy
jars on their heads, to improve strength, gait, and figure;
they'fly kites, to acquire " statuesque attitudes and graceful surprises "; they'must learn to lay the back of the
hand flat against the wrist, to partially bend the arm in
both directions at the elbow, and, inclining the whole person backward from the waist, to sweep the floor with the
hair. So, among ourselves, the great athletic resources
of the female frame are vindicated by —every equestrian
goddess of the circus, every pet of the ballet. Those airy
nymphs:have been educated for their vocation by an
amount of physical fatigue which their dandy admirers
may well prefer to contemplate through the safe remoteness of an opera-glass. Dr. Gardner, of New York, has
lately contributed very important professional observations
upon this class of his patients; he describes their physique
as infinitely superior to that of ordinary women, wonderfully adapting them, not only to the extraordinary, but to
the common perils of their sex, "with that happy union
of power and pliability most'to be desired."  "Their




THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.             213
occupation demands in its daily study and subsequent
practice an amount of long-continued muscular energy
of the severest character, little recognized or understood
by the community"; and his description of their habitual
immunity in the ordeals of womanhood reminds one of
the descriptions of savage tribes. But it is really a singular retribution for our prolonged offences against the
body, when our saints are thus compelled to take their
models from the reputed sinners, — prize-fighters being
propounded as missionaries for the men, and operadancers for the women.
Are we literally to infer, then, that dancing must be
the primary prescription? It would not be a bad one.
It was an invaluable hint of Hippocrates, that the secondbest remedy is better than the best, if the patient likes it
best. Beyond all other merits of the remedy in question
is this crowning advantage, that the patient likes it. Has
any form of exercise ever yet been invented which a
young girl would not leave for dancing? " Women, it is
well known," says Jean Paul, "cannot run, but only
dance, and every one could more easily reach a given
point by dancing than by walking." It is practised in
this country under immense disadvantages: first, because
of late hours and heated rooms; and secondly, because
some of the current dances seem equally questionable to
the mamma and the physiologist.  But it is doubtful
whether any possible gymnastic arrangement for a highschool would be on the whole so provocative of wholesome exercise as a special hall for dancing, thoroughly
ventilated, and provided with piano and spring-floor.
The spontaneous festivals of every recess-time would
then rival those German public-rooms, where it is said
you may see a whole company waltzing like teetotums,




214      THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.
with the windows wide open, at four o'clock in the afternoon.
Skating is dancing in another form; both aim at flying,
and skating comes nearest to success. The triumph of
this art has been so astonishing, in the universality of its
introduction among our girls within the short space of
four winters, that it is hardly necessary to speak of it,
except to deduce the hope that other out-door enjoyments,
equally within the reach of girls, may be as easily popularized.
For any form of locomotion less winged than skating
and dancing, the feet of American girls have hitherto
seemed somehow unfitted by Nature. There is every
abstract reason why they should love walking, on this
side the Atlantic: there is plenty of room for it, the continent is large; the exercise, moreover, brightens the eye
and purifies the complexion, — so the physiologists declare; so that an English chemist classifies red cheeks as
being merely oxygen in another form, and advises young
ladies who wish for a pair to seek them where the roses
get them, out of doors, - upon which an impertinent
damsel writes to ask "Punch" if they might not as well
carry the imitation of the roses a little farther, and remiiain in their beds all the time?  But it is a lamentable
fact, that walking, for the mere love of it, is a rare habit
among our young women, and rarer probably in the
country than in the city; it is uncommon to hear of one
who walks habitually as much as two miles a day. There
are, of course, many exceptional instances: I know
maidens who love steep paths and mountain rains, like
Wordsworth's Louisa, and I have even heard of eight
young ladies who walked from Andover to Boston, twenty4three miles, in six hours, and of two in Ohio who did




THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.              215
forty-five miles in two days. Moreover, with our impulsive temperaments, a special object will always operate
as a strong a'llurement. A confectioner's shop, for instance. A camp somewhere in the suburbs, with dressparades, and available lieutenants.  A new article of
dress. a real ermine cape may be counted as good for
three miles a day, for the season. A dearest friend within pedestrian distance: so that it would seem well t6
plant a circle of delightful families just in the outskirts
of every town, merely to serve'as magnets. Indeed; sX
desperate has the emergency become, that one might Stake
even ladies' hoops to be a secret device of Nature to
secure more exercise for the occupants by compelling
them thus to make the circuit of each other, as the two
fat noblemen at the French court vindicated themselves
from  the charge of indolence by declaring'that each
promenaded twice round his friend every morning.
In view of this distaste for pedestrian exercise, it seems
strange that the present revival of athletic exercises has
not yet reached to horsemanship, the traditional type of
all noble training, chkvalerie, chivalry. Certainly it is not
for the want of horse-flesh, for.never perhaps'was so
much of that costly commodity owned in this community;
yet in New England you shall find private individuals
who keep a half-dozen horses each, and livery-stabl-es
possessing fifty, and never a proper saddle-horse among
them. In some countries, riding does half the work of
physical training, for both sexes; Sir Walter Scott, when
at Abbotsford, never omitted his daily ride, and took his
little daughter with him, from the time she could sit on
horseback; but what New-England man, in purchasing a
steed, selects with a view to a side-saddle? This seems
a sad result of the wheel-maker's trade, and one grudges




216      THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.
St. Willegis the wheel on, his coat-of-arms, if it has thus
served to tame down freeborn men and women to the
slouching and indolent practice of driving, - a practice
in which the human figure appears at such disadvantage,
that one can hardly wonder at Horace Walpole's coachman, who had laid up a small fortune by driving the
maids-of-honor, and left it all to his son upon condition
that he never should take a maid-of-honor for his wife.
An exercise to which girls take almost as naturally as
to dancing is that of rowing, an accomplishment thoroughly feminine, learned with great facility, and on the whole
safer than most other sports. Yet until within a few
years no one thought of it in connection with women,
unless with semi-mythical beings, like Ellen Douglas or
Grace Darling. Even now it is chiefly a city accomplishment, and you rarely find at rural or sea-side places a
village damsel who has ever handled an oar. But once
having acquired the art, girls will readily fatigue themselves with its practice, unsolicited, careless of tan and
freckles. At Dove Harbor it is far easier at any time to
induce the young ladies to row for two hours, than to
walk in the beautiful wood-paths for fifteen minutes; —'the walking tires them. No matter; for a special exercise the rowing is the most valuable of the two, and furnishes just what the dancing-school omits. Unfortunately,
the element of water is not quite a universal possession,
and no one can train Naiads on dry land.
One of the merits of boating is that it suggests indirectly the attendant accomplishment of swimming, and
this is something of such priceless importance that no
trouble can be too great for its acquisition. Parents are
uneasy until their children are vaccinated, and yet leave
them to incur a risk as great and almost as easily averted.




THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.              217
The barbarian mother, who, lowering her baby into the
water by her girdle, teaches it to swim ere it can walk, is
before us in this duty. Swimming, moreover, is not one
of those arts in which a little learning is a dangerous
thing; on the contrary, a little may be as useful in an
emergency as a great deal, if it gives those few moments
of self-possession amid danger which will commonly keep
a person from drowning until assistance comes. Women
are naturally as well fitted for swimming as men, since
specific buoyancy is here more than a match for strength;
but effort is often needed to secure for them those opportunities of instruction and practice which the unrestrained
wanderings of boys secure for them so easily. For this
purpose, swimming-schools for ladies are now established
in many places, at home and abroad; and the newspapers
have lately chronicled a swimming-match at a girl's school
in Berlin, where thirty-three competitors were entered for
the prize, — and another among titled ladies in Paris,
where each fashionable swimmer was allowed the use of
the left hand only, the right hand sustaining an open parasol. Our own waters have, it may be, exhibited spectacles as graceful, though less known to fame. Never
may I forget the bevy of bright maidens who under my
pilotage buffeted on many a summer's day the surges of
Cape Ann, learning a wholly new delight in trusting the
buoyancy of the kind old ocean and the vigor of their own
fair arms. AAh, my pupils, some of you have since been
a prince's partners in the ball-room; but in those days,
among the dancing waves, it was King Neptune who
placed on you his crown.
Other out-door habits depend upon the personal tastes
of the individual, in certain directions, and are best cultivated by educating these. If a young girl is born and
10




2s$   TTHE HEAL TH  OF OUR GIRLS.
bred with a love of any branch of natural history or of
horticulture, happy is she; for the mere unconscious
interest of the pursuit is an added lease of life to her. It
is the same with all branches of Art whose pursuit leads
into the open air. Rosa Bonheur, with her wanderings
among mountains and pastures, alternating with the vigorous work of the studio, needed no other appliances for
health. The same'advantages come to many, in spite of
delinquent mothers, in the bracing habits of household
labor, at least where mechanical improvements have not
rendered it too easy. Improved cooking-stoves -and Mrs.
Cornelius have made the culinary art such a path of roses
that it is hardly now included in early training, but deferred till after matrimony. Yet bread-making in wellventilated kitchens and sweeping in open-windowed rooms
are calisthenics so bracing that one grudges them to the
Irish maidens, whose round and comely'arms betray so
much less need:of their tonic influence than the Shrunken
muscles exhibited so freely by our short-sleeved belles.
Perhaps even well-developed arms are not so essential
to female beauty as erectness of figure, a trait on which
our low school-desks have made sad havoc. The only
sure panacea for round shoulders in boys appears to be
the military drill, and Miss Mitford records that in her
youth it was the custom in girls' schools to'apply the
same remedy. Dr. Lewis relies greatly on the carrying
of moderate weights upon a padded wooden cap which he
has devised for this purpose; and certainly the straightest
female figure with which I am acquainted - aged seventyfour - is said to have been formed by the youthful habit
of pacing the floor for half an hour daily, with a book upon
-the head, under rigid maternal discipline. Another traditional method is to insist that the damsel shall sit erect,




THE HEALTH  OF OUR1  GIRLS.            219
without leaning against the chair, for a certain number of
hours daily; and Sir Walter Scott says that his mother,.in her eightieth year, took as much care to avoid giving
any support to her back as if she had been still under the,stern eye of Mrs. Ogilvie, her early teacher. Such simple
methods may not be enough to check diseased curvatures
or inequalities when already formed: these are best met
by Ling's system of medical gymnastics, or "movementcure," as applied by Dr. Lewis, Dr. Taylor, and others.
The ordinary gymnastic apparatus has also been employed extensively by women, and that very successfully,
wherever the exercises have been systematically organized, with agreeable classes and competent teachers. If
the gymnasium often fails to initerest girls as much as
boys, it is probably from deficiency in these respects, -
and also because the female pupils, beginning on a lower
plane of strength, do not command so great a variety of
exercises, and so tire of the affair more readily. But
hundreds, if not thousands, of American women have
practised in these institutions during the last ten years,
single establishments in large cities having sometimes
several hundred pupils, - and many have attained a high
degree of skill in climbing, vaulting, swinging, and the
like; nor can I find that any undue proportion of accidents has occurred. Wherever Dr. Lewis's methods have
been introduced, important advantages have followed. He
has invented an astonishing variety of games and wellstudied movements,  with the lightest and cheapest apparatus, balls, bags, rings, wands, wooden dumb-bells,
small clubs, and other instrumentalities, - which are all
gracefully and effectually used by his classes, to the
sound of music, and in a way to spare the weakest when
lightly administered, or to fatigue the strongest when




220     THE HEALTH  OF OUR GIRLS.
applied in force. Being adapted for united use by both
sexes, they make more thorough appeal to the social element than the ordinary gymnastics; and evening classes,
to meet several evenings in a week, have proved exceedingly popular in some of our towns. These exercises do
not require fixed apparatus or a special hall. For this
and other reasons they are peculiarly adapted for use in
schools, and it would be well if they could be regularly
taught in our normal institutions. Dr. Lewis himself is
now training regular teachers to carry on the same good
work, and his movement is undoubtedly the most important single step yet taken for the physical education of
American women.
There is withal a variety of agreeable minor exercises,
dating back farther than gymnastic professors, which must
not be omitted. Archery, still in fashion in England, has
never fairly taken root among us, and seems almost hopeless: the clubs formed for its promotion die out almost as
speedily as cricket-clubs, and leave no trace behind;
though this may not always be. Bowling and billiards
are, however, practised by lady amateurs, just so far as
they find opportunity, which is not very far; desirable
public or private facilities being obtainable by few only,
except at the summer watering-places. Battledoor-andshuttlecock seems likely to come again into favor, and
that under eminent auspices: Dr. Windship holding it in
high esteem, as occupying the mind while employing
every part of the body, harmonizing the muscular system, giving quickness to eye and hand, and improving
the balancing power. The English, who systematize all
amusements so much more than we, have developed this
simple entertainment into several different games, arduous
and complicated as their games of ball. The mere multi



THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.             221
plication of the missiles also lends an additional stimulus,
and the statistics of success in this way appear almost
fabulous. A zealous English battledoorean informs me
that the highest sQores yet recorded in the game are as
follows: five thousand strokes for a single shuttlecock,
five hundred when employing two, one hundred and fifty
with three, and fifty-two when four airy messengers are
kept flying simultaneously.
It may seem trivial to urge upon rational beings the use
of a shuttlecock as a duty; but this is surely better than
that one's health should become a thing as perishable, and
fly away as easily. There is no danger that our educational systems will soon grow too careless of intellect and
too careful of health. Reforms, whether in physiology or
in smaller things, move slowly, when prejudice or habit
bars the way. Paris is the head-quarters of medical science; yet in Paris, to this day, the poor babies in the great
hospital of La Maternite are so tortured in tight swathings
that not a limb can move. Progress is not in proportion
to the amount of scientific knowledge on deposit in any
country, but to the extent of its diffusion. No nation in
the world grapples with its own evils so promptly as ours.
It is but a few years since there was a general croaking
about the physical deterioration of young men in our
cities, - and now already the cities and the colleges are
beginning to lead the rural districts in this respect. The
guaranty of reform in American female health is to be
found in the growing popular conviction that reform is
needed. The community is tired of the reproaches of
foreigners, and of the more serious evils of homes desolated by disease, and lives turned to tragedies. Morbid
anatomy has long enough served as a type of feminine
loveliness; our polite society has long enough been a




222      THE HEALTH  OF OUR  GIRLS.
series. of so'ires of incurables. Health is coming into
fashion. A mercantile parent lately told me that already
in his town, if a girl could vault a five-barred gate, her
prospects for a husband were considermed to be improved
ten per cent; and ever one knows: that there is no meter
of public sentiment so infallible as the stock-market. Now
that the country is becoming safe, we must again turn our
attention to the health of our girls. Unless they are
healthy, the country is not safe.  Nowhere can. their
physical condition be so, important as in a republic.. The
utmost attention was. paid to the bodily training of Victoria, because she was to be a queen and the mother of
kings. By the theory of our government, however imperfectly applied: as yet, this is the precise position of every
American girl. Voltaire said that the fate of nations had
often depended on the gout of a. prime-minister; and the
fate of our institutions may hang on the precise temperament which our nest President shall have inherited from
his mother.




APRIL DAYS.








APRIL DAYS.
" Can trouble dwell'with April days?"
In Memoriam.
N our methodical New-Enigland life, we still recognize
some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign
themselves to being decently happy in June.  They
accept June.  They compliment its weather.  They
complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend
them in'the city; and they complain of the later months
as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren seacoast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls;
most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the
rest away. It is time to chant a hymn of more liberal
gratitude.
There are no days in the whole round year more delicious than those which often come to us in the latter half
of April. On these days one goes forth in the morning,
and finds an Italian warmth brooding over all the hills,
taking visible shape in a glistening mist of silvered azure,
with which mingles the smoke from many bonfires. The
sun trembles in his own soft rays, till one understands
the old English tradition, that he dances on Easter-Day.
Swimming in a sea of glory, the tops of the hills look
nearer than their bases, and their glistening watercourses
seem close to the eye, as is their liberated murmur to the
10*                        o




226               APRIL DAYS.
ear. All across this broad intervale the teams are ploughing. The grass in the meadow seems all to have grown
green since yesterday. The blackbirds jangle in the oak,
the robin is perched upon the elm, the song-sparrow on
the hazel, and the bluebird on the apple-tree. There
rises a hawk and sails slowly, the stateliest of airy things,:a floating dream of long and languid summer-hours.
But as yet, though there is warmth enough for a sense
~of luxury, there is coolness enough for exertion. No
tropics can offer such a burst of joy; indeed, no zone
much warmer than our Northern States can offer a
-genuine spring. There can be none where there is no'winter, and the monotone of the seasons is broken only
by wearisome rains. Vegetation and birds being distributed over the year, there is no burst of verdure nor
of song. But with us, as the buds are swelling, the'birds are arriving; they are building their nests almost
simultaneously; and in all the Southern year there is no
such rapture of beauty and of melody as here marks
every morning from the last of April onward.
But days even earlier than these in April have a
charm, - even days that seem raw and rainy, when the
sky is dull and a bequest of March-wind lingers, chasing
the squirrel from the tree and the children from the
meadows. There is a fascination in walking through
these bare early woods, - there is such a pause of preparation, winter's work is so cleanly and thoroughly done.
Everything'is taken down and put away; throughout the
leafy arcades the branches show no remnant of last year,
save a few twisted leaves of oak and beech, a few empty
seed-vessels of the tardy witch-hazel, and a few gnawed
nutshells dropped coquettishly by the squirrels into the
crevices of the bark. All else is bare, but prophetic:




APRIL DAYS.                  227
buds everywhere, the whole splendor of the coming summer concentrated in those hard little knobs on every
bough; and clinging here and there among them, a
brown, papery chrysalis, from which shall yet wave the
superb wings of the Luna moth. An occasional shower
patters on the dry leaves, but it does not silence the robin
on the outskirts of the wood: indeed, he sings louder
than ever during rain, though the song-sparrow and the
bluebird are silent.
Then comes the sweetness of the nights in latter April.
There is as yet no evening-primrose to open suddenly, no
cistus to drop its petals; but the May-flower knows the
hour, and becomes more fragrant in the darkness, so that
one can then often find it in the woods without aid from
the eye.  The pleasant night-sounds are begun; the
hylas are uttering their shrill peep from the meadows,
mingled soon with hoarser toads, who take to the water
at this season to deposit their spawn. The tree-toads
soon join them; but one listens in vain for bullfrogs, or
katydids, or grasshoppers, or whippoorwills, or crickets:
we must wait for most of these until the delicious June.
The earliest familiar token of the coming season is the
expansion of the stiff catkins of the alder into soft, drooping tresses. These are so sensitive, that, if you pluck
them at almost any time during the winter, a few days'
sunshine will make them open in a vase of water, and
thus they eagerly yield to every moment of April warmth.
The blossom of the birch is more delicate, that of the
willow more showy, but the alders come first. They
cluster and dance everywhere upon the bare boughs
above the watercourses; the blackness of the buds is
softened into rich brown and yellow; and as this graceful
creature thus comes waving into the spring, it is pleasant




228               APRIL DA YS.
to remember that the Norse Eddas fabled the first woman
to have,been named Embla, because she was created
from an alder-bough.
The first wild-flower of the spring is like land after
sea. The two which, throughout the Northern Atlantic
States, divide this interest, are the IEpigcea repens (Mayflower, ground-laurel, or trailing-arbutus) and the Hepatica triloba (liverleaf, liverwort, or blue anemone). Of
these two, the latter is perhaps more immediately exciting
on first discovery; because it is an annual, not a perennial,
does not, like the epigmea, exhibit its buds all winter, but
opens its blue eyes almost as soon as it emerges from the
ground. Without the rich and delicious odor of its compeer, it has an inexpressibly fresh and earthy scent, that
seems to bring all the promise of the blessed season with
it;  indeed, that clod of fresh turf with the inhalation of
which Lord Bacon delighted to begin the day must undoubtedly have been full of the roots of our little hepatica.
Its- healthy sweetness belongs to the opening year, like
Chaucer's poetry; and one thinks that anything more
potent and voluptuous would be less enchanting - until
one turns to the May-flower. Then comes a richer fascination for the senses. To pick the May-flower is like
following in the footsteps of some spendthrift army which
has scattered the contents of its treasure-chest among
beds of scented moss.  The fingers sink in the soft,
mnoist verdure, and make at each instant some superb discovery unawares; again and again, straying carelessly,
they clutch some new treasure; and, indeed, all is linked
together in bright necklaces by secret threads beneath the
surface, and where you grasp at one, you hold many.
The hands go wandering over the moss as over the keys
of a piano, and bring forth odors for melodies. The




APRIL DA YS.                   229
lovely creatures twine and nestle and lay their glowing
faces to the very earth beneath withered leaves, and
what seemed mere barrenness becomes fresh and fragrant
beauty.  So great is the charm  of the pursuit, that the
epiga3a isg really the wild-flower for which our countrypeople have a hearty passion. Every village child knows
its best haunts, and watches for it eagerly in the spring;
boys wreathe their hats with it, girls twine it in their
hair, and the cottage-windows are filled with its beauty.
In collecting these early flowers, one finds or' fancies
singular natural affinities. I flatter myself with being
able always to discover hepatica, if there is any within
reach, for I was brought'up with it (" Cockatoo he know
me very well-")'; but other persons, who were'brought up
with May-flower, and remember searching for it- wi-th their
almost baby-fingers, can find that better.'The most remarkable'instance of these natural affinities was in' the
case of L. T. and his double anemones.' L. had always" a
gift for wild-flowers, and used often to bring to Cambridge
the largest white anemones that ever were seen, from a
certain spe cial hill in Watertown; they were not only
magnificent in size and whiteness, but had that-'exquisite
blue on the outside of the petals, as if the sky had behti
down in ecstasy at last over its'darlings, and left visible
kisses there.'But'even this success was not enoughi; and
one day he came with something yet choicer. It'was a
rue-leaved anemone (A. thalictroides); and,' if you will
believe it, each one of the three white flowers was double;
not merely with that multiplicity of petals'in the disk
which is common with this species, but technically and
horticulturally double, like the double-flowering almond
or cherry, -with the most exquisitely delicate little
petals, like- fairy lace-work.  He had three specimens,



230               APRIL DAYS.
gave one to the Autocrat of Botany, who said it was almost or quite unexampled, and another to me. As the
man in the fable says of the chameleon, -" I have it yet,
and can produce it."
Now comes the marvel. The next winter L. went to
New York for a year, and wrote to me, as spring drew
near, with solemn charge to visit his favorite haunt and
find another specimen. Armed with this letter of introduction, I sought the spot, and tramped through and
through its leafy corridors. Beautiful wood-anemones I
found, to be sure, trembling on their fragile stems, deserving -all their pretty names, - Wind-flower, Easter-flower,
Pasque-flower, and homoeopathic Pulsatilla; rue-leaved
anemones I found also, rising taller and straighter and
firmer in stem, with the whorl of leaves a little higher up
on the stalk than one fancies it ought to be, as if there
were a supposed danger that the flowers would lose their
balance, and as if the leaves must be all ready to catch
them. These I found, but the special wonder was not
there for me. Then I wrote to L. that he must evidently
come himself and search; or that, perhaps, as Sir Thomas
Browne avers that " smoke doth follow the fairest," so his
little treasures had followed him towards New York.
Judge of my surprise, when, on opening his next letter,
out dropped, from those folds of metropolitan paper, a
veritable double anemone. He had just been out to
Hoboken, or some such place, to spend an afternoon, and,
of course, his pets were there to meet him; and from that
day to this, I have never heard of the thing. happening to
any one else.
May-Day is never allowed to pass in this community
without profuse lamentations over the tardiness of our
spring as compared with that of England and the poets.




APRIL DAYS.                  231
Yet it is easy to exaggerate this difference. Even so
*good an observer as Wilson Flagg is betrayed into saying
that the epigoaa and hepatica " seldom make their appear-.ance until after the middle of April" in Massachusetts,
and that "it is not unusual for the whole month of April
to pass away without producing more than two or three
species of wild-flowers." But I have formerly found the
hepatica in bloom at Mount Auburn, for three successive
years, on the twenty-seventh of March; and it has since
been found in Worcester on the seventeenth, and in Danvers on the twelfth. The May-flower is usually as early,
though the more gradual expansion of the buds renders it
less easy to give dates. And there are nearly twenty
species which I have noted, for five or six years together,
as found always before May-Day, and which may therefore be properly assigned to April. The list includes
bloodroot, cowslip, houstonia, saxifrage, dandelion, chickweed, cinquefoil, strawberry, mouse-ear, bellwort, dog'stooth violet, five species of violet proper, and two of
anemone. These are all common flowers, and easily observed; and the catalogue might be increased by rare
ones, as the white corydalis, the smaller yellow violet
(V. rotundifolia), and the claytonia or spring-beauty.
But in England the crocus and the snowdrop - neither
being probably an indigenous flower, since neither is mentioned by Chaucer- usually open before the first of
March; indeed, the snowdrop was formerly known by the
yet more fanciful name of "Fair Maid of February."
Chaucer's daisy comes equally early; and March brings
daffodils, narcissi, violets, daisies, jonquils, hyacinths, and
marsh-marigolds. This is altogether in advance of our
season, so far as the wild-flowers give evidence,- though
snowdrops are sometimes found in February even here.




232              APRIL DAYS.
But, on the other hand, it would appear that, though a
larger number of birds winter in England than in Massachusetts, yet the return of those which migrate is actually
earlier among us. From journals kept during. sixty years
in England,. and an abstract of which is printed in Hone's
"Every-Day Book," it appears that only two birds of
passage revisit England before the fifteenth of April, and
only thirteen more before the first of May; while with
us the song-sparrow, the blue-bird, and the red-wing appear about the first of March, and quite a number more
by the middle of April. This is a peculiarity of the
English spring which I have never seen explained or
even mentioned.
After the epigaea and the hepatica have opened, there
is a slight pause among the wild-flowers,.- these two
forming a distinct prologue for their annual drama, as the
brilliant witch-hazel in October brings up its separate
epilogue.  The truth is, Nature attitudinizes a little,
liking to make a neat finish with everything, and then
to begin again with eclat. Flowers seem  spontaneous
things enough, but there is evidently a secret marshalling
among them, that all may be brought out with due effect.
As the country-people.say that so long as any snow is
left on the ground more snow may be expected, it must
all vanish simultaneously at last,- so every seeker of
spring-flowers has observed how accurately they seem to
move in platoons, with little straggling. Each species
seems to burst upon us with a united impulse; you may
search for them day after day in vain, but the day when
you find one specimen the spell is broken and you find
twenty. By the end of April all the margins of the great
poem of the woods are illuminated with these exquisite
vignettes.




APRIL DAYS.                  233
Most of the early flowers either come before the full
unfolding of their leaves, or else have inconspicuous ones.
Yet Nature always provides for her bouquets the due
proportion of green. The verdant and graceful sprays of
the wild raspberry are unfolded very early, long before
its time of flowering. Over the meadows spread the
regular Chinese-pagodas of the equisetum (horsetail or
scouring-rush), and the rich coarse vegetation of the
veratrum,'or American hellebore. In moist copses'the
ferns and osmundas begin to uncurl in April, opening
their soft coils of spongy verdure, coated with woolly
down, from which the humming-bird steals the lining
of her nest.,
The early blossoms represent the aboriginal epoch of
our history: the bloodroot and the May-flower are older
than the white man, older perchance' than the red man;
they alone are the true Native Americans. Of the later
wild plants, many of the most common are foreign importations. In our sycophancy we attach grandeur to the
name exotic: we call aristocratic garden-flowers by that
epithet; yet they are no more exotic than the, humbler
companions they brought with them, which have become
naturalized. The dandelion, the buttercup, chickweed,
celandine, mullein, burdock, yarrow, whiteweed, nightshade, and most of the thistles, - these are importations.
Miles Standish never crushed these with his heavy heel
as he strode forth to give battle to the savages; they
never kissed the daintier foot of Priscilla, the Puritan
maiden. It is noticeable that these are all of rather
coarser texture than our indigenous flowers; the children
instinctively recognize this, and are apt to omit'them,
when gathering the more delicate native blossoms of the
woods.




:234              APRIL DAYS.
There is something touching in the gradual retirement
before civilization of these fragile aborigines. They do
not wait for the actual brute contact of red bricks and
curbstones, but they feel the danger miles away. The
Indians called the low plantain "the white man's footstep"; and these shy creatures gradually disappear, the
moment the red man gets beyond their hearing. Bigelow's delightful " Florula Bostoniensis" is becoming a
series of epitaphs. Too well we know it, - those of -us
who in happy Cambridge childhood often gathered, almost
within a stone's throw of Professor Agassiz's new Museum,
the arethusa and the gentian, the cardinal-flower and the
gaudy rhexia, - we who remember the last secret hidingplace of the rhodora in West Cambridge, of the yellow
violet and the Viola debilis in Watertown, of the Gonvallaria trifolia near Fresh Pond, of the Hottonia beyond
Wellington's Hill, of the Cornus florida in West Roxbury, of the OClintonia and the dwarf ginseng in Brookline, - we who have found in its one chosen nook the
sacred Andromeda polyfolia of Linnoeus. Now vanished
almost or wholly from city suburbs, these fragile creatures
still linger in more rural parts of Massachusetts; but they
are doomed everywhere, unconsciously, yet irresistibly;
while others still more shy, as the Linnwea, the yellow
Cypripedium, the early pink Azalea, and the delicate
white Corydalis or "Dutchman's breeches," are being
chased into the very recesses of the Green and the White
Mountains. The relics of the Indian tribes are supported
by the Legislature at Martha's Vineyard, while these precursors of the Indian are dying unfriended away.
And with these receding plants go also the special
insects which haunt them. Who that knew that pure
enthusiast, Dr. Harris, but remembers the accustomed




APRIL DAYS.                   235
lamentations of the entomologist over the departure of
these winged companions of his lifetime? Not the benevolent Mr. John Beeson more tenderly mourns the decay
of the Indians, than he the exodus of these more delicate
native tribes. In a letter which I happened to receive
from him a short time previous to his death, he thus
renewed the lament: "I mourn for the loss of many of
the beautiful plants and insects that were once found in
this vicinity.  Clethra, Rhodora, Sanguinaria, Viola debilis, Viola acuta, Dracemna borealis, Rhexia, Cypripedium, Corallorhiza verna, Orchis spectabilis, with others
of less note, have been rooted out by the so-called hand
of improvement.  C'icindela rugifrons, Helluo preeusta,
Sphceroderus stenostomus, Blethisa quadricollis (Americana mi), Carabus, Horia  (which for several years
occurred in profusion on the sands beyond Mount Auburn), with others, have entirely disappeared from their
former haunts, driven away, or exterminated perhaps, by
the changes effected therein. There may still remain in
your vicinity some sequestered spots, congenial to these
and other rarities, which may reward the botanist and the
entomologist who will search them carefully. Perhaps
you may find there the pretty coccinella-shaped, silvermargined Omophron, or the still rarer Panagaius fasciatus, of which I once took two specimens on Wellington's
Hill, but have not seen it since." Is not this indeed
handling one's specimens "gently as if you loved them,"
as Isaak Walton bids the angler do with his worm?
There is this merit, at least, among the coarser crew of
imported flowers, that they bring their own proper names
with them, and we know precisely with whom we have to
deal. In speaking of our own native flowers, we must
either be careless and inaccurate, or else resort sometimes




236               APRIL DAYS.
to the Latin, in spite of the indignation -of friends. There
is something yet to be said on this point. In England,
where the old household and monkish names adhere, they
are sufficient for popular and poetic purposes, and the
familiar use of scientific names seems an affectation. But
here, where many native flowers have no popular names
at all, and others are called confessedly by wrong ones,where it really costs less trouble to use Latin names than
English,-the affectation seems the other way. Think of
the long list of wild-flowers where the Latin name is spontaneously used by all who speak of the flower: as, Arethusa, Aster, Cistus (" after the fall of the cistus-flower "),
Clematis, Clethra, Geranium, Iris, Lobelia, Rhodora,
Spiraea, Tiarella, Trientalis, and so on. Even those
formed from proper names (the worst possible system
of nomenclature) become tolerable at last, and we forget
the godfather in the more attractive namesake.  Are
those who pick the Houstonia to be supposed thereby to
indorse the Texan President?  Or are the deluded
damsels'who chew Cassia-buds to be regarded as swallowing the late Secretary of State? The names have
long since been made over to the flowers, and every
questionable aroma has vanished. When the person concerned happens to be a botanist, there is a peculiar fitness
in the association; the Linnaa, at least,;would not smell
so sweet by any other name.
In other cases the English name is a mere modification
of the Latin one, and our ideal associations have really a
scientific basis: as with Violet' Lily, Laurel,' Gentian,
Vervain. Indeed, our enthusiasm for vernacular names
is like that for Indian names of localities, one-sided: we
enumerate only the graceful ones, and ignore the rest.
It would be a pity to Latinize Touch-me-not, or Yarrow,




APRIL DAYS.                  237
or Gold-Thread, or Self-Heal, or Columbine, or BlueEyed-Grass, - though, to be sure, this last has an annoying way of shutting up its azure orbs the moment you
gather it, and you reach home with a bare, stiff blade,
which deserves no better name than Sisyrinchium anceps.
But in what respect is Cucumber-Root preferable to
Medeola, or Solomon's-Seal to Convallaria, or RockTripe to Umbilicaria, or Lousewort to Pedicularis?  In
other cases the merit is divided: Anemone may dispute
the prize of melody with Windflower, Campanula with
Harebell, Neottia with Ladies'-Tresses, Uvularia with
Bellwort and Strawbell, Potentilla with Cinquefoil, and
Sanguinaria with Bloodroot. Hepatica may be bad, but
Liverleaf is worse. The pretty name of May-flower is
not so popular, after all, as that of Trailing-Arbutus,
where the graceful and appropriate adjective redeems the
substantive, which happens to be Latin and incorrect at
the same time. It does seem a waste of time to say Chirysanthemum leucanthemum instead of Whiteweed; though,
if the long scientific name were an incantation to banish
the intruder, our farmers would gladly consent to adopt it.
But the- great advantage of a reasonable use of the
botanical name is,,that it does not deceive us. Our primrose is not the English primrose, any more than it was
our robin who tucked up the babes' in the wood; our
cowslip is -not, the English. cowslip, it is the English
marsh-marigold, -- Tennyson's -marsh-marigold.   The
pretty name of Azalea -means something definite; but
its rural name mof Honeysuckle confounds under that
name flowers, without even an external resemblance, -
Azalea, Diervilla, Lonicera, Aquilegia, -- just as every
bird which sings loud in deep woods is popularly denominated a thrush. The really rustic names of both plants




238               APRIL DAYS.
and animals are very few with us, - the different species
are many; and as we come to know them better and
love them more, we absolutely require some way to distinguish them from their half-sisters and second-cousins.
It is hopeless to try to create new popular epithets, or
even to revive those which are thoroughly obsolete.
Miss Cooper may strive in vain, with benevolent intent,
to christen her favorite spring blossoms "May-Wings"
and "Gay-Wings," and "Fringe-Cup" and "SquirrelCup," and'" Cool-Wort" and "Bead-Ruby"; there is
no conceivable reason why these should not be the familiar appellations, except the irresistible fact that they
are not. It is impossible to create a popular name: one
might as well attempt to invent a legend or compose a
ballad. N2ascitur, non fit.
As the spring comes on, and the densening outlines of
the elm give daily a new design for a Grecian urn, - its
hue first brown with blossoms, then emerald with leaves,
- we appreciate the vanishing beauty of the bare boughs.
In our favored temperate zone, the trees denude themselves each year, like the goddesses before Paris, that we
may see which unadorned loveliness is the fairest. Only
the unconquerable delicacy of the beech still keeps its
soft vestments about it: far into spring, when worn to
thin rags and tatters, they cling there still; and when
they fall, the new appear as by magic. It must be owned,
however, that the beech has good reasons for this prudishness, and possesses little beauty of figure; while the elms,
maples, chestnuts, walnuts, and even oaks, have not exhausted all their store of charms for us, until we have
seen them disrobed.  Only yonder magnificent pine-tree,
— that pitch-pine, nobler when seen in perfection than
white-pine, or Norwegian, or Norfolk-Islander,-  that




APRIL DAYS.                  239
pitch-pine, herself a grove, una nemus, holds her unchanging beauty throughout the year, like her halfbrother, the ocean, whose voice she shares; and only
marks the flowing of her annual tide of life by the new
verdure that yearly submerges all trace of last year's
ebb.
How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose
if there were no winter in our year! Sometimes in following up a watercourse among our hills, in the early
spring, one comes to a weird and desolate place, where
one huge wild grape-vine has wreathed its ragged arms
around a whole thicket and brought it to the ground, —
swarming to the tops of hemlocks, clenching a dozen
young maples at once and tugging them downward,
stretching its wizard black length across the underbrush,
into the earth and out again, wrenching up great stones
in its blind, aimless struggle. What a piece of chaos is
this! Yet come here again, two months hence, and you
shall find all this desolation clothed with beauty and with
fragrance, one vast bower of soft green leaves and graceful tendrils, while summer birds chirp and flutter amid
these sunny arches all the livelong day.
To the end of April, and often later, one still finds
remains of snow-banks in sheltered woods, especially
among evergreens; and this snow, like that upon high
mountains, has often become hardened by the repeated
thawing and freezing of the surface, till it is more impenetrable than ice. But the snow that falls during April
is usually what Vermonters call " sugar-snow," - falling
in the night and just whitening the surface for an hour
or two, and taking its name, not so much from its looks
as from the fact that it denotes the proper weather for
"sugaring," namely, cold nights and warm days. Our




240               APRIL. DA YS.
saccharine associations, however, remain so obstinately
tropical, that it seems almost impossible for the imagination to locate sugar in New-England trees; though it is
known that not the maple only, but the birch and the
walnut even, afford it in appreciable quantities.
Along our maritime rivers the people associate April,
not with " sugaring," but with " shadding."  The pretty
Amelanchier Canadensis of Gray - the Aronia of Whittier's song - is called Shad-bush or Shad-blow in Essex
County, from its connection with this season; and there
is a bird known as the Shad-spirit, which I take to be
identical with the flicker or golden-winged woodpecker,
whose note is still held to indicate the first day when the
fish ascend the river. Upon such slender wings flits our
New-England romance!
In April the creative process described by Thales is
repeated, and the world is renewed by water. The submerged creatures first feel the touch of spring, and many
an equivocal career, beginning in the ponds and brooks,
learns later to ignore this obscure beginning, and hops or
flutters in the dusty daylight. Early in March, before
the first male canker-moth appears on the elm-tree, the
whirlwig beetles have begun to play round the broken
edges of the ice, and the caddis-worms to crawl beneath
it; and soon come the water-skater (Gerris) and the
water-boatman (Notonecta). Turtles and newts are in
busy motion when the spring-birds are only just arriving.
Those gelatinous masses in yonder wayside pond are the
spawn of water-newts or tritons: in the clear transparent
jelly are imbedded, at regular intervals, little blackish
dots; these elongate rapidly, and show symptoms of head
and tail curled up in a spherical cell; the jelly is gradually absorbed for their nourishment, until on some fine




APRIL DA YS.                 241
morning each elongated dot gives one vigorous wriggle,
and claims thenceforward all the privileges attendant on
this dissolution of the union. The final privilege is often
that of being suddenly snapped up by a turtle or a snake:
for Nature brings forth her creatures liberally, especially
the aquatic ones, sacrifices nine tenths of them as food
for their larger cousins, and reserves only a handful to
propagate their race, on the same profuse scale, next
season.
It is surprising, in the midst of our Museums and
Scientific Schools, how little we yet know of the common
things around us. Our savans still confess their inability
to discriminate with certainty the egg or tadpole of a frog
from that of a toad; and it is strange that these hopping
creatures, which seem so unlike, should coincide so nearly
in their juvenile career, while the tritons and salamanders, which border so closely on each other in their
maturer state as sometimes to be hardly distinguishable,
yet choose different methods and different elements for
laying their eggs. The eggs of our salamanders or landlizards are deposited beneath the moss on some damp
rock, without any gelatinous envelope; they are but few
in number, and the anxious mamma may sometimes be
found coiled in a circle around them, like the symbolic
serpent of eternity.
The small number of birds yet present in early April
gives a better opportunity for careful study, - more especially if one goes armed with that best of fowling-pieces,
a small spy-glass: the best, - since how valueless for
purposes of observation is the bleeding, gasping, dying
body, compared with the fresh and living creature, as it
tilts, trembles, and warbles on the bough before you!
Observe that robin in the oak-tree's top: as he sits and
11                         P




242               APRIL DAYS.
sings, every one of the dozen different notes which he
flings down to you is accompanied by a separate flirt and
flutter of his whole body, and, as Thoreau says of the
squirrel, "each movement seems to imply a spectator."
Study that song-sparrow: why is it that he always goes
so ragged in spring, and -the bluebird so neat? is it that
the song-sparrow is a wild artist, absorbed in the composition of his lay, and oblivious of ordinary proprieties,
while the smooth bluebird and his ash-colored mate cultivate their delicate warble only as a domestic accomplishment, and are always nicely dressed before sitting down
to the piano? Then how exciting is the gradual arrival
of the birds in their summer plumage! to watch it is as
good as sitting at the window on Easter Sunday to
observe the new bonnets. Yonder, in that clump of
alders by the brook, is the delicious jargoning of the
first flock of yellow-birds; there are the little gentlemen
in black and yellow, and the little ladies in olive-brown;
"sweet, sweet, sweet" is the only word they say, and
often they will so lower their ceaseless warble, that,
though almost within reach, the little minstrels seem far
distant. There is the very earliest cat-bird, mimicking
the bobolink before the bobolink has come: what is the
history of his song, then? is it a reminiscence of last
year? or has the little coquette been practising it all
winter, in some gay Southern society, where cat-birds
and bobolinks grow intimate, just as Southern fashionables from different States may meet and sing duets at
Saratoga?  There sounds the sweet, low, long-continued
trill of the little hair-bird, or chipping-sparrow, a suggestion of insect sounds in sultry summer, and produced,
like them, with the aid of a slight fluttering of the wings
against the sides: by and by we shall sometimes hear




APRIL DAYS.                  243
that same delicate rhythm burst the silence of the June
midnights, and then, ceasing, make stillness more still.
Now watch that woodpecker, roving in ceaseless search,
travelling over fifty trees in an hour, running from top to
bottom of some small sycamore, pecking at every crevice,
pausing to dot a dozen inexplicable holes in a row upon
an apple-tree, but never once intermitting the low, querulous murmur of housekeeping anxiety: now she stops to
hammer with all her little life at some tough piece of
bark, strikes harder and harder blows, throws herself
back at last, flapping her wings furiously as she brings
down her whole strength again upon it; finally it yields,
and grub after grub goes down her throat, till she whets
her beak after the meal as a wild beast licks its claws,
and off on her pressing business once more.
It is no wonder that there is so little substantial enjoyment of Nature in the community, when we feed children
on grammars and dictionaries only, and take no pains to
train them to see that which is before their eyes. The
mass of the community have "summered and wintered"
the universe pretty regularly, one would think, for a good
many years; and yet nine persons out of ten in the town
or city, and two out of three even in the country, seriously
suppose, for instance, that the buds upon trees are formed
in the spring; they have had them within sight all winter, and never seen them. So people suppose, in good
faith, that a plant grows at the base of the stem, instead
of at the top: that is, if they see a young sapling in which
there is a crotch at five feet from the ground, they expect
to see it ten feet from the ground by and by, — confounding the growth of a tree with that of a man or animal.
But perhaps the best of us could hardly bear the system
of tests unconsciously laid down by a small child of my




244               APRIL DAYS.
acquaintance. The boy's father, a college-bred man, had
early chosen the better part, and employed his fine faculties in rearing laurels in his own beautiful nursery-gardens, instead of in the more arid soil of court-rooms or
state-houses. Of course the young human scion knew the
flowers by name before he knew his letters, and used their
symbols more readily; and after he got the command of
both, he was one day asked by his younger brother what
the word idiot meant, - for somebody in the parlor had
been saying that somebody else was an idiot. "Don't
you know? " quoth Ben, in his sweet voice: " an idiot is
a person who does n't know an arbor-vitae from a pine,he does n't know anything." When Ben grows up to
maturity, bearing such terrible definitions in his unshrinking hands, who of us will be safe?
The softer aspects of Nature, especially, require time
and culture before man can enjoy them. To rude races
her processes bring only terror, which is very slowly outgrown. Humboldt has best exhibited the scantiness of
finer natural perceptions in Greek and Roman literature,
in spite of the grand oceanic rhythm of Homer, and the
delicate water-coloring of the Greek Anthology and of
Horace. The Oriental and the Norse sacred books are
full of fresh and beautiful allusions; but the Greek saw
in Nature only a framework for Art, and the Roman only
a camping-ground for men. Even Virgil describes the
grotto of ZEneas merely as a " black grove" with " horrid shade," - "L Horrenti atrum nemus imminet umbra."
Wordsworth points out, that, even in English literature,
the " Windsor Forest " of Anne, Countess of Winchelsea,
was the first poem which represented Nature as a thing
to be consciously enjoyed; and as she was almost the first
English poetess, we might be tempted to think that we




APRIL DAYS.                  245
owe this appreciation, like some other good things, to
the participation of woman in literature. But, on the
other hand, it must be remembered that the voluminous
Duchess of Newcastle, in her "Ode on Melancholy,"
describes among the symbols of hopeless gloom "the still
moonshine night" and " a mill where rushing waters run
about," - the sweetest natural images. So woman has
not so much to claim, after all. In our own country, the
early explorers seemed to find only horror in its woods
and waterfalls. Josselyn, in 1672, could only describe
the summer splendor of the White Mountain region as
" dauntingly terrible, being full of rocky hills, as thick as
molehills in a meadow, and full of infinite thick woods."
Father Hennepin spoke of Niagara, in the narrative still
quoted in the guide-books, as a "'frightful cataract";
though perhaps his original French phrase was softer,
and hofiest John Adams could find no better name than
"horrid chasm" for the picturesque gulf at Egg Rock,
where he first saw the sea-anemone.
But we are lingering too long, perhaps, with this sweet
April of smiles and tears. It needs only to add, that all
her traditions are beautiful. Ovid says well, that she was
not named from aperire, to open, as some have thought,
but from  Aphrodite, goddess of beauty.  April holds
Easter-time, St. George's Day, and the Eve of St. Mark's.
She has not, like her sister May in Germany, been transformed to a verb and made a synonyme for joy, -" Deine
Seele maiet den triiben Herbst," - but April was believed
in early ages to have been the birth-time of the world.
According to Venerable Bede, the point was first accurately determined at a council held at Jerusalem about
A. D. 200, when, after much profound discussion, it was
finally decided that the world's birthday occurred on




246               APRIL DA YS.
Sunday, April 8th, -that is, at the vernal equinox and
the full moon. But April is certainly the birth-time of
the season, at least, if not of the planet. Its festivals are
older than Christianity, older than the memory of man.
No sad associations cling to it, as to the month of June,
in~ which month, says William  of Malmesbury, kings are
wont to go to war, -" Quando solent reges ad arma procedere," -but it holds the Holy Week, and it is the Holy
Month. And in April Shakespeare was born, and in
April he died..




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.








MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.
THE noontide of the summer day is past, when all
Nature slumbers, and when the ancients feared to
sing, lest the great god Pan should be awakened. Soft
changes, the gradual shifting of every shadow on every
leaf, begin to show the waning hours. Ineffectual thunder-storms have gathered and gone by, hopelessly defeated. The floating bridge is trembling and resounding
beneath the pressure of one heavy wagon, and the quiet
fishermen change their places to avoid the tiny ripple
that glides stealthily to their feet above the half-submerged planks. Down the glimmering lake there are
miles of silence and still waters and green shores, overhung with a multitudinous and scattered fleet of purple
and golden clouds, now furling their idle sails and drifting
away into the vast harbor of the South. Voices of birds,
hushed first by noon and then by possibilities of tempest,
cautiously begin once more, leading on the infinite melodies of the June afternoon. As the freshened air invites
them forth, so the smooth and stainless water summons
us. " Put your hand upon the oar," says Charon in the
old play to Bacchus, "and you shall hear the sweetest
songs." The doors of the boat-house swing softly open,
and the slender wherry, like a water-snake, steals silently
in the wake of the dispersing clouds.
11*




250         MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.
The woods are hazy, as if the warm sunbeams had
melted in among the interstices of the foliage and spread
a soft film throughout the whole. The sky seems to reflect the water, and the water the sky; both are roseate
with color, both are darkened with clouds, and between
them both, as the boat recedes, the floating bridge hangs
suspended, with its motionless fishermen and its moving
team. The wooded islands are poised upon the lake,
each belted with a paler tint of softer wave. The air
seems fine and palpitating; the drop of an oar in a distant
rowlock,. the sound of a. hammer on a dismantled boat,
pass into some region of mist and shadows, and: form a
metronome for delicious dreams.
Every summer I launch my boat to seek some realm
of enchantment beyond. all the sordidness and sorrow of
earth, and never yet did I fail to ripple with my prow at
least the outskirts of those magic waters. What spell has
fame or wealth to enrich this midday blessedness with a
joy the more? Yonder barefoot boy, as he drifts silently
in his punt beneath the drooping branches of yonder vineclad bank, has a bliss which no Astor can buy with.
money, no Seward conquer with votes, - which yet is no
monopoly of his, and to which time and experience only
add a more subtile and conscious charm. The rich years
were given us to increase, not to impair, these cheap fel'icities. Sad or sinful is the life of that man who finds
not the heavens bluer and the waves more musical in ma,
turity than in childhood. Time is a severe alembic of
youthful joys,, no doubt; we exhaust book after book, and
leave Shakespeare unopened; we grow fastidious in men
and women; all the rhetoric, all the logic, we fancy we
have heard before; we have seen the pictures, we have
listened to the symphonies: but what has been done by




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                251
all the art and literature of the world towards describing
one summer day? The most exhausting effort brings us
no nearer to it than to the blue sky which is its dome;
our words are shot up against it like arrows, and fall back
helpless. Literary amateurs go the tour of the globe to
renew their stock of materials, when they do not yet know
a bird or a bee or a blossom beside their homestead-door;
and in the hour of their greatest success they have not an
horizon to their life so large as that of yon boy in his
punt. All that is purchasable in the capitals of the world
is not to be weighed in comparison with the simple enjoyment that may be crowded into one hour of sunshine.
What can place or power do here? "Who could be
before me, though the palace of Caesar cracked and split
with emperors, while I, sitting in silence on a cliff of
Rhodes, watched the sun as he swung his golden censer
athwart the heavens?"
It is pleasant to observe a sort of confused and latent
recognition of all this in the instinctive sympathy which
is always rendered to any indication of out-door pursuits.
How cordially one sees the eyes of all travellers turn to
the man who enters the railroad-station with a fowlingpiece in hand, or the boy with water-lilies! There is a
momentary sensation of the freedom  of the woods, a
whiff of oxygen for the anxious money-changers. How
agreeably sounds the news- to all but his creditors -
that the lawyer or the merchant has locked his office-door
and gone fishing! The American temperament needs at
this moment nothing so much as that wholesome training
of semi-rural life which reared Hampden and Cromwell
to assume at one grasp the sovereignty of England, and
which has ever since served as the foundation of England's greatest ability. The best thoughts and purposes




252         MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.
seemed ordained to come to human beings beneath the
open sky, as the ancients fabled that Pan found the goddess Ceres when he was engaged in the chase, whom no
other of the gods could find when seeking seriously. The
little I have gained from colleges and libraries has certainly not worn so well as the little I learned in childhood
of the habits of plant, bird, and insect. That " weight
and sanity of thought," which Coleridge so finely makes
the crowning attribute of Wordsworth, is in no way so
well matured and cultivated as in the society of Nature.
There may be extremes and affectations, and Mary
Lamb declared that Wordsworth held it doubtful if a
dweller in towns had a soul to be saved. During the
various phases of transcendental idealism among ourselves, in the last twenty years, the love of Nature has
at times assumed an exaggerated and even a pathetic
aspect, in the morbid attempts of youths and maidens to
make it a substitute for vigorous thought and action, - a
lion endeavoring to dine on grass and green leaves. In
some cases this mental chlorosis reached such a height as
almost to nauseate one with Nature, when in the society
of the victims; and surfeited companions felt inclined to
rush to the treadmill immediately, or get chosen on the
Board of Selectmen, or plunge into any conceivable
drudgery, in order to feel that there was still work
enough in the universe to keep it sound and healthy.
But this, after all, was exceptional and transitory, and
our American life still needs, beyond all things else, the
more habitual cultivation of out-door habits.
Probably the direct ethical influence of natural objects
may be overrated. Nature is not didactic, but simply
healthy. She helps everything to its legitimate development, but applies no goads, and forces on us no sharp




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                253
distinctions.  Her wonderful calmness, refreshing the
whole soul, must aid both conscience and intellect in
the end, but sometimes lulls both temporarily, when
immediate issues are pending.  The waterfall cheers
and purifies infinitely, but it marks no moments, has
no reproaches for indolence, forces to no immediate decision, offers unbounded to-morrows, and the man of
action must tear himself away, when the time comes,
since the work will not be done for him. "The- natural
day is very calm, and will hardly reprove our indolence."
And yet the more bent any man is upon action, the
more profoundly he needs this very calmness of Nature
to preserve his equilibrium. The radical himself needs
nothing so much as fresh air. The world is called conservative; but it is far easier to impress a plausible
thought on the complaisance of others, than to retain an
unfaltering faith in it for ourselves.  The most dogged
reformer distrusts himself every little while, and says
inwardly, like Luther, " Art thou alone wise?"  So he
is compelled to exaggerate, in the effort to hold his own..
The community is bored by the conceit and egotism of
the innovators; so it is by that of poets and artists,
orators and statesmen; but if we knew how heavily
ballasted all these poor fellows need to be, to keep an
even keel amid so many conflicting tempests of blame
and praise, we should hardly reproach them. But the
simple enjoyments of out-door life, costing next to nothing, tend to equalize all vexations. What matter, if the
Governor removes you from office? he cannot remove
you from the lake; and if readers or customers will not
bite, the pickerel will. We must keep busy, of course.;yet we cannot transform the world except very slowly,.
and we can best preserve our patience in; the society




254          MY OU1T-DOOR  STUDY.
of Nature, who does her work almost as imperceptibly
as we.
And for literary training, especially, the influence of
natural beauty is simply priceless. Under the present
educational systems, we need grammars and languages
far less than a more thorough out-door experience. On
this flowery bank, on this ripple-marked shore, are the
true literary models. How many living authors have
ever attained to writing a single page which could be for
one moment compared, for the simplicity and grace of its
structure, with this green spray of wild woodbine or
yonder white wreath of blossoming clematis?  A finely
organized sentence should throb and palpitate like the
most delicate vibrations of the summer air. We talk of
literature as if it were a mere matter of rule and measurement, a series of processes long since brought to
mechanical perfection: but it would be less incorrect to
say that it all lies in the future; tried by the out-door
standard, there is as yet no literature, but only glimpses
and guideboards; no writer has yet succeeded in sustaining, through more than some single occasional sentence,
that fresh and perfect charm. If by the training of a
lifetime one could succeed in producing one continuous
page of perfect cadence, it would be a life well spent, and
such a literary artist would fall short of Nature's standard
in quantity only, not in quality.
It is one sign of our weakness, also, that we commonly
assume Nature to be a rather fragile and merely ornamental thing, and suited for a model of the graces only.
But her seductive softness is the last climax of magnificent strength. The same mathematical law winds the
leaves around the stem and the planets round the sun.
The same law  of crystallization rules the slight-knit




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                255
snow-flake and the hard foundations of the earth. The
thistle-down floats secure upon the same summer zephyrs
that are woven into the: tornado. The dew-drop holds
within its transparent cell the same electric fire which
charges the thunder-cloud.  In the softest tree or the
airiest waterfall, the fundamental lines are as lithe and
muscular as the crouching haunches of a leopard; and
without a pencil vigorous enough to render these, no mere
mass of foam or foliage, however exquisitely finished,
can tell the story. Lightness of touch is the crowning
test of power.
Yet Nature does not work by single spasms only.
That chestnut spray is not an isolated and exhaustive
effort of creative beauty: look upward and see its sisters
rise with pile above pile of fresh and stately verdure, till
tree meets sky in a dome of glorious blossom, the whole
as perfect as the parts, the least part as perfect as the
whole. Studying the details, it seems as if Nature were a
series of costly fragments with no coherency, - as if she
would never encourage us to do anything systematically,
- would tolerate no method but her own, and yet had
none of her own, - were as abrupt in her transitions
from oak to maple as the heroine who went into the
garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; while
yet there is no conceivable human logic so close and
inexorable as her connections. How rigid, how flexible
are, for instance, the laws of perspective! If one could
learn to make his statements as firm and unswerving as
the horizon-line, - his continuity of thought as marked,
yet as unbroken, as yonder soft gradations by which the
eye is lured upward from lake to wood, from wood to hill,
from hill:to heavens,- what more bracing tonic could
literary culture demand? As it is, Art misses the parts,
yet does not grasp the whole.




256          MY OUT-DOOR  STUDY.
Literature also learns from Nature the use of materials: either to select only the choicest and rarest, or to
transmute coarse to fine by skill in using. How perfect
is the delicacy with which the woods and fields are kept,
throughout the year! All these millions of living creatures born every season, and born to die; yet where are
the dead bodies?  We never see them. Buried beneath
the earth by tiny nightly sextons, sunk beneath the waters, dissolved into the air, or distilled again and again as
food for other organizations,'- all have had their swift
resurrection. Their existence blooms again in these violetpetals, glitters in the burnished beauty of these golden
beetles, or enriches the veery's song. It is only out of
doors that even death and decay become beautiful. The
model farm, the most luxurious house, have their regions
of unsightliness; but the fine chemistry of Nature is
constantly clearing away all its impurities before our
eyes, and yet so delicately that we never suspect the
process. The most exquisite work of literary art exhibits a certain crudeness and coarseness, when we turn
to it from  Nature,-  as the smallest cambric needle
appears rough and jagged, when compared through the
magnifier with the tapering fineness of the insect's sting.
Once separated from Nature, literature recedes into
metaphysics, or dwindles into novels. How ignoble seems
the current material of London literary life, for instance,
compared with the noble simplicity which, a half-century
ago, made the Lake Country an enchanted land forever!
Is it worth a voyage to England to sup with Thackeray
in the Pot Tavern?  Compare the "enormity of pleasure" which De Quincey says Wordsworth derived from
the simplest natural object, with the serious protest of
Wilkie Collins against the affectation of caring about




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                257
Nature at all.'"Is it not strange," says this most unhappy man, "to see how little real hold the objects of
the natural world amidst which we live can gain on our
hearts and minds? We go to Nature for comfort in joy,
and sympathy in trouble, only in books...... What
share have the attractions of Nature ever had in the
pleasurable or painful interests and emotions of ourselves
or our friends?..... There is surely a reason for this
want of inborn sympathy between the creature and. the
creation around it."
Leslie says of " the most original landscape-painter he
knew,' meaning Constable, that, whenever he sat down
in the fields to sketch, he endeavored to forget that he
had ever seen a picture. In literature this is easy, the
descriptions are so few and so faint. When Wordsworth
was fourteen, he stopped one day by the wayside to observe the dark outline of an oak against the western sky;
and he says that he was at that moment struck with " the
infinite variety of natural appearances which had been
unnoticed by the poets of any age or country," so far as
he was acquainted with them, and " made a resolution to
supply in some degree the deficiency."  He spent a long
life in studying and telling these beautiful wonders; and
yet, so vast is the sum of them, they seem almost as
undescribed as before, and men to be still as content with
vague or conventional representations. On this continent,
especially, people fancied that all must be tame and second-hand, everything long since duly analyzed and distributed andput up in appropriate quotations, and nothing left for us poor American children but a preoccupied
universe.  And yet Thoreau camps down by Walden,
Pond, and shows us that absolutely nothing in Nature has
ever yet been described, - not a bird nor a berry of the
Q




'258         MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.
woods, nor a drop of water, nor a spicula of ice, nor summer, nor winter, nor sun, nor star.
Indeed, no person can portray Nature from any slight
or transient acquaintance. A reporter cannot step out
between the sessions of a caucus and give a racy abstract
of the landscape.  It may consume the best hours of
many days to certify for one's self the simplest out-door
fact, but every such piece of knowledge is intellectually
worth the time. Even the driest and barest book of
Natural History is good and nutritious, so far as it goes,
if it represents genuine acquaintance; one can find summer in January by poring over the Latin catalogues of
Massachusetts plants and animals in Hitchcock's Report.
The most commonplace out-door society has the same
attraction. Every one of those old outlaws who haunt
our New-England ponds and marshes, water-soaked and
soakers of something else, - intimate with the pure fluid
in that familiarity which breeds contempt, — has yet a
wholesome side when you explore his knowledge of frost
and freshet pickerel and musk-rat, and is exceedingly
good company while you can keep him beyond scent of
the tavern. Any intelligent farmer's boy can give you
some narrative of out-door observation which, so far as it
goes, fulfils Milton's definition of poetry, " simple, sensuous, passionate." He may not write sonnets to the lake,
but he will walk miles to bathe in it; he may not notice
the sunsets, but he knows where to search for the blackbird's nest. How surprised the school-children looked,
to be sure, when the Doctor of Divinity from the city
tried to sentimentalize, in addressing them, about "the
bobolink in the woods"! They knew that the darling
of the meadow had no more personal acquaintance with
the woods than was exhibited by the preacher.




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                 259
But the preachers are not much worse than the authors. The prosaic Buckle, indeed, admits that the poets
have in all time been consummate observers, and that
their observations have been as valuable as those of the
men of science; and yet we look even to the poets for
very casual and occasional glimpses of Nature only, not
for any continuous reflection of her glory. Thus, Chaucer
is perfumed with early spring; Homer resounds like the
sea; in the Greek Anthology the sun always shines on
the fisherman's cottage by the beach; we associate the
Vishnu Purana with lakes and lotuses, Keats with nightingales in forest dim, while the long grass waving on the
lonely heath is the last memorial of the fading fame of
Ossian. Of course Shakespeare's omniscience included
all natural phenomena; but the rest, great or small, associate themselves with some special aspects, and not with
the daily atmosphere.  Coming to our own times, one
must quarrel with Ruskin as taking rather the artist's
view of Nature, selecting the available bits and dealing
rather patronizingly with the whole; and one is tempted to charge even Emerson, as he somewhere charges
Wordsworth, with not being of a temperament quite
liquid and musical enough to admit the full vibration
of the great harmonies.  The three human foster-children who have been taken nearest into Nature's bosom,
perhaps, - an odd triad, surely, for the whimsical nursing
mother to select, —are Wordsworth, Bettine Brentano,
and Thoreau. Is it yielding to an individual preference
too far to say, that there seems almost a generic difference between these three and any others, - however
wide be the specific differences among themselves, — to
say, that, after all, they in their several paths have attained to an habitual intimacy with Nature, and the rest
have not?




260          MY OUT-DOOR  STUDY.
Yet what wonderful achievements have some of the
fragmentary artists performed!  Some of Tennyson's
word-pictures, for instance, bear almost as much study
as the landscape. One afternoon, last spring, I had been
walking though a copse of young white birches,- their
leaves scarce yet apparent, -over a ground delicate with
wood-anemones, moist and mottled with dog's-tooth-violet
leaves, and spangled with the delicate clusters of that shy
creature, the Claytonia or Spring Beauty. All this was
floored with last year's faded foliage, giving a singular
bareness and whiteness to the foreground.  Suddenly,
as if entering a cavern, I stepped through the edge of
all this, into a dark little amphitheatre beneath a hemlock-grove, where the afternoon sunlight struck broadly
through the trees upon a tiny stream and a miniature
swamp, - this last being intensely and luridly green, yet
overlaid with the pale gray of last year's reeds, and absolutely flaming with the gayest yellow light from great
clumps of cowslips. The illumination seemed perfectly
weird and dazzling; the spirit of the place appeared live,
wild, fantastic, almost human. Now open your Tennyson: -
" And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows
gray."
Our cowslip is the English marsh-marigold.
History is a grander poetry, and it is often urged that
the features of Nature in America must seem tame because they have no legendary wreaths to decorate them.
It is perhaps hard for those of us who are untravelled to
appreciate how densely even the ruralities of Europe are
overgrown with this ivy of associations. Thus, it is fascinating to hear that the great French forests of Fontainebleau and St. Germain are full of historic trees, - the oak




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                 261
of Charlemagne, the oak of Clovis, of Queen Blanche, of
Henri Quatre, of Sully, - the alley of Richelieu, - the
rendezvous of St. Herem, - the star of Lamballe and of
the Princesses, a star being a point where several paths
or roads converge. It is said that every topographical
work upon these forests has turned out a history of the
French monarchy. Yet surely we lose nearly as much
as we gain by this subordination' of imperishable beauty
to the perishable memories of man. It may not be wholly
unfortunate, that, in the absence of those influences which
come to older nations from ruins and traditions, we must
go more directly to Nature. Art may either rest upon
other Art, or it may rest directly upon the original foundation; the one is easier, the other more valuable. Direct dependence on Nature leads to deeper thought, and
affords the promise of far fresher results. Why should I
wish to fix my study in Heidelberg Castle, when I possess
the unexhausted treasures of this out-door study here?
The walls of my study are of ever-changing verdure,
and its roof and floor of ever-varying blue. I never enter
it without a new heaven above and new thoughts below.
The lake has no lofty shores and no level ones, but a
series of undulating hills, fringed with woods from end to
end. The profaning axe may sometimes come near the
margin, and one may hear the whetting of the scythe;
but no cultivated land abuts upon the main lake, though
beyond the narrow woods there are here and there
glimpses of rye-fields that wave like rolling mist. Graceful islands rise from the quiet waters, - Grape Island,
Grass Island, Sharp Pine Island, and the rest, baptized
with simple names by departed generations of farmers,all wooded and bushy and trailing with festoonery of
vines. Here and there the banks are indented, and one




262          MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.
may pass beneath drooping chestnut-leaves and among
alder-branches into some secret sanctuary of stillness.
The emerald edges of these silent tarns are starred with
dandelions which have strayed here, one scarce knows
how, from their foreign home; the buck-bean perchance
grows in the water, or the Rhodora fixes here one of its
shy camping-places, or there are whole skies of lupine on
the sloping banks; - the cat-bird builds its nest beside
us, the yellow-bird above, the wood-thrush sings late and
the whippoorwill later, and sometimes the scarlet tanager
and his golden-haired bride send a gleam of the tropics
through these leafy aisles.
Sometimes I rest in a yet more secluded place amid
the waters, where a little wooded island holds a small
lagoon in the centre, just wide enough for the wherry
to turn round. The entrance lies between two hornbeam trees, which stand close to the brink, spreading
over it their thorn-like branches and their shining leaves.
Within there is perfect shelter; the island forms a high
circular bank, like a coral reef, and shuts out the wind
and the passing boats; the surface is paved with leaves
of lily and pond-weed, and the boughs above are full of
song. No matter what white caps may crest the blue
waters of the pond, which here widens out to its broadest
reach, there is always quiet here. A few oar-strokes
distant lies a dam or water-break, where the whole lake
is held under control by certain distant mills, towards
which a sluggish stream goes winding on through miles
of water-lilies. The old gray timbers of the dam are the
natural resort of every boy or boatman within their reach;
some come in pursuit of pickerel, some of turtles, some of
bullfrogs, some of lilies, some of bathing. It is a good
place for the last desideratum, and it is well to leave here




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                 263
the boat tethered to the vines which overhang the cove,
and perform a sacred and Oriental ablution beneath the
sunny afternoon.
O radiant and divine afternoon! The poets profusely
celebrate silver evenings and golden mornings; but what
floods on floods of beauty steep the earth and gladden it
in the first hours of day's decline! The exuberant rays
reflect and multiply themselves from every leaf and blade;
the cows lie upon the hillside, with their broad peaceful
backs painted into the landscape; the hum of insects,
" tiniest bells on the garment of silence," fills the air; the
gorgeous butterflies doze upon the thistle-blooms till they
almost fall from the petals; the air is full of warm fragrance from the wild-grape clusters; the grass is burning
hot beneath the naked feet in sunshine, and cool as water
in the shade. Diving from this overhanging beam, -
for Ovid evidently meant that Midas to be cured must
dive, --
" Subde caput, corpusque simul, simul elue crinem,"one finds as kindly a reception from the water as in
childish days, and as safe a shelter in the green dressingroom afterwards; and the patient wherry floats near by,
in readiness for a re-embarkation.
Here a word seems needed, unprofessionally and nontechnically, upon boats, - these being the sole seats provided for occupant or visitor in my out-door study. When
wherries first appeared in this peaceful inland community,
the novel proportions occasioned remark. Facetious bystanders inquired sarcastically whether that thing were
expected to carry more than one, - plainly implying by
labored emphasis that it would occasionally be seen ten,
anted by even less than that number. Transcendental
friends inquired, with more refined severity, if the propri



264          MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.
etor expected to meditate in that thing?  This doubt at
least seemed legitimate. Meditation seems to belong to
sailing rather than rowing; there is something so gentle
and unintrusive in gliding effortless beneath overhanging
branches and along the trailing edges of clematis thickets;
- what a privilege of fairy-land is this noiseless prow,
looking in and out of one flowery cove after another,
scarcely stirring the turtle from his log, and leaving no
wake behind! It seemed as if all the process of rowing
had too much noise and bluster, and as if the sharp slender wherry, in particular, were rather too pert and dapper
to win the confidence of the woods and waters. Time
has dispelled the fear. As I rest poised upon the oars
above some submerged shallow, diamonded with ripplebroken sunbeams, the fantastic Notonecta or water-boatman rests upon his oars below, and I see that his proportions anticipated the wherry, as honeycombs antedated
the problem of the hexagonal cell While one of us rests,
so does the other; and when one shoots away rapidly
above the water, the other does the same beneath. For
the time, as our motions seem the same, so with our
motives, —my enjoyment certainly not less, with the
conveniences of humanity thrown in.
But the sun is declining low. The club-boats are out,
and from island to island in the distance these shafts of
youthful life shoot swiftly across. There races some swift
Atalanta, with no apple to fall in her path but some soft
and spotted oak-apple from an overhanging tree; there
the Phantom, with a crew white and ghostlike in the
distance, glimmers in and out behind the headlands, while
yonder wherry glides lonely across the smooth expanse.
The voices of all these oarsmen are dim and almost inaudible, being so far away; but one would scarcely wish




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                 265
that distance should annihilate the ringing laughter of
these joyous girls, who come gliding, in a safe and heavy
boat, they and some blue dragon-flies together, around
yonder wooded point.
Many a summer afternoon have I rowed joyously with
these same maidens beneath these steep and garlanded
shores; many a time have they pulled the heavy four-oar,
with me as coxswain at the helm, — the said patient
steersman being ofttimes insulted by classical allusions
from rival boats, satirically comparing him to an indolent
Venus drawn by doves, while the oarswomen, in turn,
were likened to Minerva with her feet upon a tortoise.
Many were the disasters in the earlier days of feminine
training;-first of toilet,- straw hats blowing away,
hair coming down, hair-pins strewing the floor of the
boat, gloves commonly happening to be off at the precise
moment of starting, and trials of speed impaired by somebody's oar catching in somebody's dress-pocket. Then
the actual difficulties of handling the long and heavy oars,
- the first essays at feathering, with a complicated splash
of air and water, as when a wild duck, in rising, swims
and flies together, and uses neither element handsomely,
- the occasional pulling of a particularly vigorous stroke
through the atmosphere alone, and at other times the
compensating disappearance of nearly the whole oar beneath the liquid surface, as if some Uncle Kiihleborn had
grasped it, while our Undine by main strength tugged
it from the beguiling wave. But with what triumphant
abundance of merriment were these preliminary disasters
repaid, and how  soon outgrown! What "time" we
sometimes made, when nobody happened to be near with
a watch, and how successfully we tossed oars in saluting,
when the world looked on from a picnic! We had our
12




266. MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.
applauses, too. To be sure, owing to the age and dimensions of the original barge, we could not command such a
burst of enthusiasm as when the young men shot by us
in their race-boat; but then, as one of the girls justly
remarked, we remained longer in sight.
And many a day, since promotion to a swifter craft,
have they rowed with patient stroke down the lovely lake,
still attended by their guide, philosopher, and coxswain,
- along banks where herds of young birch-trees overspread the sloping valley, and ran down in a blaze of
sunshine to the rippling water, - or through the Narrows, where some breeze rocked the boat till trailing
shawls and ribbons were water-soaked, and the bold little
foam would even send a daring drop over the gunwale, to
play at ocean, - or to Davis's Cottage, where a whole
parterre of lupines bloomed to the water's edge, as if
relics of some ancient garden-bower of a forgotten race,
-or to the dam by Lily Pond, there to hunt among the
stones for snakes' eggs, each empty shell cut crosswise,
where the young creatures had made their first fierce bite
into the universe outside, - or to some island, where
white violets bloomed fragrant and lonely, separated by
relentless breadths of water from their shore-born sisters,
until mingled in their visitors' bouquets, - then up the
lake homeward again at nightfall, the boat all decked
with clematis, clethra, laurel, azalea, or water-lilies, while
purple sunset clouds turned forth their golden linings for
drapery above our heads, and then, unrolling, sent northward long roseate wreaths to outstrip our loitering speed,
and reach the floating bridge before us.
It is nightfall now. One by one the birds grow silent,
and the soft dragon-flies, children of the day, are fluttering noiselessly to their rest beneath the under sides of




MY OUT-DOOR STUDY.                 267
drooping leaves. From shadowy coves the evening air
is thrusting forth a thin film of mist to spread a white
floor above the waters. The gathering darkness deepens
the quiet of the lake, and bids us, at least for this time,
to forsake it. " De soir fontaines, de matin montaignes,"
says the old French proverb, - Morning for labor, evening for repose.








WATER-LILIES.








WATER-LILIES.
THE inconstant April mornings drop showers or sunbeams over the glistening lake, while far beneath
its surface a murky mass disengages itself from  the
muddy bottom, and rises slowly through the waves. The
tasselled alder-branches droop above it; the last year's
blackbird's nest swings over it in the grape-vine; the
newly-opened Hepaticas and Epigteas on the neighboring
bank peer down modestly to look for it; the water-skater
(Gerris) pauses on the surface near it, casting on the
shallow bottom the odd shadow of his feet, like three
pairs of boxing-gloves; the Notonecta, or water-boatman,
rows round and round it, sometimes on his breast, sometimes on his back; queer caddis-worms trail their selfmade homesteads of leaves or twigs beside it; the Dytiscus, dorbug of the water, blunders clumsily against it;
the tadpole wriggles his stupid way to it, and rests upon
it, meditating of future frogdom; the passing wild-duck
dives and nibbles at it; the mink and muskrat brush it
with their soft fur; the spotted turtle slides over it; the
slow larvae of gauzy dragon-flies cling sleepily to its sides
and await their change: all these fair or uncouth creatures feel, through the dim waves, the blessed longing of
spring; and yet not one of them dreams that within that




272              WA TER-LILIES.
murky mass there lies a treasure too white and beautiful
to be yet intrusted to the waves, and that for many a day
the bud must yearn toward the surface, before, aspiring
above it, as mortals to heaven, it meets the sunshine with
the answering beauty of the Water-Lily.
Days and weeks have passed away; the wild-duck has
flown onward, to dive for his luncheon in some remoter
lake; the tadpoles have made themselves legs, with which
they have vanished; the caddis-worms have sealed themselves up in their cylinders, and emerged again as winged
insects; the dragon-flies have crawled up the water-reeds,
and, clinging with heads upturned, have undergone the
change which symbolizes immortality; the world is transformed from spring to summer; the lily-buds are opened
into glossy leaf and radiant flower, and we have come for
the harvest.
We visitors lodged, last night, in the old English
phrase, "at the sign of the Oak and Star."  Wishing,
not, indeed, like the ancient magicians, to gather magic
berry and bud before sunrise, but at least to see these
treasures of the lake in their morning hour, we camped
last night on a little island, which one tall tree almost
covers with its branches, while a dense undergrowth of
young chestnuts and birches fills all the intervening space,
touching the water all around the circular, shelving shore.
Yesterday was hot, but the night was cool, and we kindled a gypsy fire of twigs, less for warmth than for
society. The first gleam made the dark, lonely islet into
a cheering home, turned the protecting tree to a starlit
roof, and the chestnut-sprays to illuminated walls. To
us, lying beneath their shelter, every fresh flickering of
the fire kindled the leaves into brightness and barished
into dark interstices the lake and sky; then the fire died




WA TER-LILIES.                273,
into embers, the leaves faded into solid darkness in their:
turn, and water and heavens showed light and close and
near, until fresh twigs caught fire and the blaze came up.
again.  Rising to look forth, at intervals, during the
peaceful hours, - for it is the worst feature of a nightout-doors, that sleeping seems such a waste of time,
we watched the hilly and wooded shores of the lake sink
into gloom and glimmer into dawn again, amid the low
plash of waters and the noises of the night.
Precisely at half past three, a song-sparrow above our
heads gave one liquid trill, so inexpressibly sudden and
delicious, that it seemed to set to music every atom of
freshness and fragrance that Nature held; then the spell
was broken, and the whole shore and lake were vocal
with song. Joining in this jubilee of morning, we were
early in motion; bathing and breakfast, though they
seemed indisputably in accordance with the instincts of
the Universe, yet did not detain us long, and we were
promptly on our way to Lily Pond. Will the reader
join us?
It is one of those summer days when a veil of mist
gradually burns away before the intense sunshine, and
the sultry morning only plays at coolness, and that with
its earliest visitors alone. But we are before the sunlight,
though not before the sunrise, and can watch the pretty
game of alternating mist and shine. Stray gleams of
glory lend their trailing magnificence to the tops of chestnut-trees, floating vapors raise the outlines of the hills
and make mystery of the wooded islands, and, as we glide
through the placid water, we can sing, with the Chorus
in the "Ion" of Euripides, "0 immense and brilliant
air, resound with our cries of joy!"
Almost every town has its Lily Pond, dear to boys
12*                        R




274               WA TER-LILIES.
and maidens, and partially equalizing, by its annual delights, the presence or absence of other geographical
advantages.  Ours is accessible from the larger lake only
by taking the skiff over a narrow embankment, which
protects our fairy-land by its presence, and eight distant
-factories by its dam. Once beyond it, we are in a realm
of dark Lethean water, utterly unlike the sunny depths
of the main lake. Hither the water-lilies have retreated,
to a domain of their own. In the bosom of these shallow
waves, there stand hundreds of submerged and dismasted
*roots, still upright, spreading their vast, uncouth limbs
like enormous spiders beneath the surface.  They are
remnants of border wars with the axe, vegetable Witheringtons, still fighting on their stumps, but gradually sinking into the soft ooze, and ready, perhaps, when a score
of centuries has piled two more strata of similar remains
in mud above them, to furnish foundations for a newer
New Orleans; that city having been lately discovered to
be thus supported.
The present decline in the manufacturing business is
clear revenue to the water-lilies, and these ponds are
higher than usual, because the idle mills do not draw them
off. But we may notice, in observing the shores, that peculiar charm of water, that, whether its quantity be greater
or less, its grace is the same; it makes its own boundary
in lake or river, and where its edge is, there seems the
natural and permanent margin. And the same natural
fitness, without reference to mere quantity, extends to its
flowery children. Before us lie islands and continents of
lilies, acres of charms, whole, vast, unbroken surfaces of
stainless whiteness. And yet, as we approach them, every
islanded cup that floats in lonely dignity, apart from the
multitude, appears as perfect in itself, couched in white




VWA TER-LILIES.                275
expanded perfection, its reflection taking a faint glory of
pink that is scarcely perceptible in the flower. As we
glide gently among them, the air grows fragrant, and a
stray breeze flaps the leaves, as if to welcome us. Each
floating flower becomes suddenly a ship at anchor, or
rather seems beating up against the summer wind, in a
regatta of blossoms.
Early as it is in the day, the greater part of the flowers
are already expanded. Indeed, that experience of Thoreau's, of watching them open in the first sunbeams, rank
by rank, is not easily obtained, unless perhaps in a narrow stream, where the beautiful slumberers are more
regularly marshalled. In our lake, at least, they open
irregularly, though rapidly. But, this morning, many
linger as buds, while others peer up, in half-expanded
beauty, beneath the lifted leaves, frolicsome as Pucks or
baby-nymphs. As you raise the leaf, in such cases, it is
impossible not to imagine that a pair of tiny hands have
upheld it, and that the pretty head will dip down again,
and disappear.  Others, again, have expanded all but the
inmost pair of white petals, and these spring apart at the
first touch of the finger on the stem. Some spread vast
vases of fragrance, six or seven inches in diameter, while
others are small and delicate, with petals like fine lacework. Smaller still, we sometimes pass a flotilla of
infant leaves, an inch in diameter. All these grow from
the dark water, - and the blacker it is, the fairer their
whiteness shows. But your eye follows the stem often
vainly into those sombre depths, and vainly seeks to
behold Sabrina fair, sitting with her twisted braids of
lilies, beneath the glassy, cool, but not translucent wave.
Do not start, when, in such an effort, only your own
dreamy face looks back upon you, beyond the gunwale




276             TWA TER-LILIES.
of the reflected boat, and you find that you float double,
self and shadow.
Let us rest our paddles, and look round us, while the
idle motion sways our light skiff onward, now half embayed among the lily-pads, now lazily gliding over intervening gulfs. There is a great deal going on in these
waters and their fringing woods and meadows. All the
summer long, the pond is bordered with successive walls
of flowers. In early spring emerge the yellow catkins of
the swamp-willow, first; then the long tassels of the graceful alders expand and droop, till they weep their yellow
dust upon the water; then come the birch-blossoms, more
tardily; then the downy leaves and white clusters of the
medlar or shad-bush (Amelanchier C'anadensis of Gray);
these dropping, the roseate chalices of the mountain-laurel
open; as they fade into melancholy brown, the sweet
Azalea uncloses; and before its last honeyed blossom has
trailed down, dying, from the stem, the more fragrant
Clethra starts out above, the button-bush thrusts forth its
merry face amid wild roses, and the Clematis waves its
sprays of beauty. Mingled with these grow, lower, the
spireas, white and pink, yellow touch-me-not, fresh white
arrowhead, bright blue vervain and skullcap, dull snakehead, gay monkey-flower, coarse eupatoriums, milkweeds,
golden-rods, asters, thistles, and a host beside. Beneath,
the brilliant scarlet cardinal-flower begins to palisade the
moist shores; and after its superb reflection has passed
away from the waters, the grotesque witch-hazel flares
out its narrow yellow petals amidst the October leaves,
and so ends the floral year. There is not a week during
all these months, when one cannot stand in the boat and
wreathe garlands of blossoms from the shores.
These all crowd around the brink, and watch, day and




WA TER-LILIES.                 277
night, the opening and closing of the water-lilies. Meanwhile, upon the waters, our queen keeps her chosen court,
nor can one of these mere land-loving blossoms touch
the hem of her garment. In truth, she bears no sister
near her throne. There is but this one species among
us, Nymphkea odorata. The beautiful little rose-colored
Nymphkea sanguinea, which once adorned the Botanic
Garden at Cambridge, was merely an occasional variety
of costume.  She has, indeed, an English half-sister,
Nymnphcea alba, less beautiful, less fragrant, but keeping
more fashionable hours,- not opening (according to Linnaes) till seven, nor closing till four. And she has a
humble cousin, the yellow Nuphar, who keeps commonly
aloof, as becomes a poor relation, though created from
the self-same mud, - a fact which Hawthorne has beautifully. moralized. The prouder Nelumbium, a secondcousin, lineal descendant of the sacred bean of Pythagoras, has fallen to an obscurer position, and dwells, like a
sturdy democrat, in the Far West.
But, undisturbed, the water-lily reigns on, with her
retinue around her. The tall pickerel-weed (Pontederia) is her gentleman-usher, gorgeous in blue and gold
through July, somewhat rusty in August. The watershield (Hydropeltis) is chief maid-of-honor; a high-born
lady she, not without royal blood indeed, but with rather
a bend sinister; not precisely beautiful, but very fastidious; encased over her whole person with a gelatinous
covering, literally a starched duenna. Sometimes she is
suspected of conspiring to drive her mistress from the
throne; for we have observed certain slow watercourses
where the leaves of the water-lily have been almost
wholly replaced, in a series of years, by the similar, but
smaller, leaves of the water-shield. More rarely seen is




278              WA TER-LILIES.
the slender Utricularia, a dainty maiden, whose light feet
scarce touch the water, - with the still more delicate
floating white Water-Ranunculus, and the shy Villarsia,
whose submerged flowers merely peep one day above
the surface and then close again forever.  Then there
are many humbler attendants, Potamogetons or pondweeds. And here float little emissaries from the dominions of land; for the fallen florets of the Viburnum drift
among the lily-pads, with mast-like stamens erect, sprinkling the water with a strange beauty, and cheating us
with the promise of a new aquatic flower.
These are the still life of this sequestered nook; but
it is in fact a crowded thoroughfare. No tropic jungle
more swarms with busy existence than these midsummer
waters and their bushy banks. The warm and humming
air is filled with insect sounds, ranging from the murmur
of invisible gnats and midges, to the impetuous whirring
of the great Libellulae, large almost as swallows, and
hawking high in air for their food.  Swift butterflies
glance by, moths flutter, flies buzz, grasshoppers and katydids pipe their shrill notes, sharp as the edges of the sunbeams. Busy bees go humming past, straight as arrows,
express-freight-trains from one blossoming copse to another.  Showy wasps of many species fume uselessly
about, in gallant uniforms, wasting an immense deal of
unnecessary anger on the sultry universe.  Graceful,
stingless Sphexes and Ichneumon-flies emulate their bustle,
without their weapons.  Delicate lady-birds come and
go to the milkweeds, spotted almost as regularly as if Nature had decided to number the species, like policemen
or hack-drivers, from one to twenty. Elegant little Lepturae fly with them, so gay and airy, they hardly seem
like beetles. Phryganeca (nes caddis-worms), lace-flies,




WA TER-LILIES.                279
and long-tailed Ephemerae flutter more heavily by. On
the large alder-flowers clings the superb Desmocerus palliatus, beautiful as a tropical insect, with his steel-blue
armor and his golden cloak (pallium) above his shoulders, grandest knight on this Field of the Cloth of Gold.
The countless fire-flies which spangled the evening mist
now only crawl sleepily, daylight creatures, with the
lustre buried in their milky bodies. More wholly children of night, the soft, luxurious Sphinxes (or hawkmoths) come not here; fine ladies of the insect world,
their home is among gardens and green-houses, late and
languid by day, but all night long upon the wing, dancing
in the air with unwearied muscles till long past midnight,
and supping on honey at last. They come not; but the
nobler butterflies soar above us, stoop a moment to the
water, and then with a few lazy wavings of their sumptuous wings float far over the oak-trees to the woods they
love.
All these hover near the water-lily; but its special
parasites are an enamelled beetle (Donacia metallica)
which keeps house permanently in the flower, and a few
smaller ones which tenant the surface of the leaves, —
larva, pupa, and perfect insect, forty feeding like one, and
each leading its whole earthly career on this floating
island of perishable verdure. The "beautiful blue damsel-flies" alight also in multitudes among them, so fearless that they perch with equal readiness on our boat or
paddle, and so various that two adjacent ponds will
sometimes be haunted by two distinct sets of species. In
the water, among the leaves, little shining whirlwigs
wheel round and round, fifty joining in the dance, till,
at the slightest alarm, they whirl away to some safer
ball-room, and renew the merriment. On every floating




280              WA TER-LILIES.
log, as we approach it, there is a convention of turtles,
sitting in calm debate, like mailed barons, till, as we draw
near, they plump into the water, and paddle away for
some subaqueous Runnymede.  Beneath, the shy and
stately pickerel vanishes at a glance, shoals of minnows
glide, black and bearded pouts frisk aimlessly, soft waternewts hang poised without motion, and slender pickerelfrogs cease occasionally their submerged croaking, and,
darting to the surface with swift vertical strokes, gulp a
mouthful of fresh air, and down again to renew the
moist soliloquy.
Time would fail us to tell of the feathered life around
us, - the blackbirds that build securely in these thickets,
the stray swallows that dip their wings in the quiet waters, and the kingfishers that still bring, as the ancients
fabled, halcyon days. Yonder stands, against the shore,
a bittern, motionless in that wreath of mist which makes
his long-legged person almost as dim as his far-off booming by night. There poises a hawk, before sweeping
down to some chosen bough in the dense forest; and
there fly a pair of blue-jays, screaming, from tree to tree.
As for wild quadrupeds, the race is almost passed away.
Far to the north, indeed, the great moose still browses on
the lily-pads, and the shy beaver nibbles them; but here
the few lingering four-footed creatures only haunt, but do
not graze upon, these floating pastures. Eyes more favored than ours may yet chance to spy an otter in this
still place; there by the shore are the small footprints of
a mink; that dark thing disappearing in the waters yonder, a soft mass of drowned fur, is a " musquash." Later
in the season, a mound of earth will be his winter dwelling-place; and those myriad muscle-shells at the water's
edge are the remnant of his banquets, - once banquets
for the Indians, too.




WA TER-LILIES.                281
But we must return to our lilies. There is no sense
of wealth like floating in this archipelago of white and
green. The emotions of avarice become almost demoralizing. Every flower bears a fragrant California in its
bosom, and you feel impoverished at the thought of leaving one behind. But after the first half-hour of eager
grasping, one becomes fastidious, rather avoids those on
which the wasps and flies have alighted, and seeks only
the stainless. But handle them tenderly, as if you loved
them. Do not grasp at the open flower as if it were a
peony or a hollyhock, for then it will come off, stalkless,
in your hand, and you will cast it blighted upon the
water; but coil your thumb and second finger affectionately around it, press the extended forefinger firmly to
the stem below, and, with one steady pull, you will secure
a long and delicate stalk, fit to twine around the graceful
head of your beloved, as the Hindoo goddess of beauty
encircled with a Lotus the brow of Rama.
Consider the lilies. All over our rural watercourses,
at midsummer, float these cups of snow. They are Nature's symbols of coolness. They suggest to us the white
garments of their Oriental worshippers. They come with
the white roses, and prepare the way for the white lilies
of the garden. The white doe of Rylstone and Andrew
MIarvell's fawn might fitly bathe amid their beauties.
Yonder steep bank slopes down to the lake-side, one solid
mass of pale pink laurel, but, once upon the water, a
purer tint prevails. The pink fades into a lingering flush,
and the white creature floats peerless, set in green without and gold within. That bright circle of stamens is the
very ring with which Doges once wedded the Adriatic;
Venice has lost it, but it dropped into the water-lily's
bosom, and there it rests forever. So perfect in form, so




282              WA TER-LILIES.
redundant in beauty, so delicate, so spotless, so fragrant,
- what presumptuous lover ever dared, in his most enamored hour, to liken his mistress to a water-lily? No
human Blanche or Lilian was ever so fair as that.
The water-lily comes of an ancient and sacred family
of white-robed priests. They assisted at the most momentous religious ceremonies, from the beginning of recorded time. The Egyptian Lotus was a sacred plant;
it was dedicated to Harpocrates and to the god Nofr
Atmoo, - Nofr meaning good, whence the name of our
yellow lily, Nuphar. But the true Egyptian flower was
Nymphcea Lotus, though Nyrmphea ccerulea, Moore's 4" blue
water-lilies," can be traced on the sculptures also. It was
cultivated in tanks in the gardens; it was the chief material for festal wreaths; a single bud hung over the
forehead of many a queenly dame; and the sculptures
represent the weary flowers as dropping from the heated
hands of belles, in the later hours of the' feast. Rock
softly on the waters, fair lilies! your Eastern kindred
have rocked on the stormier bosom of Cleopatra. The
Egyptian Lotus was, moreover, the emblem of the sacred
Nile, - as the Hindoo species, of the sacred Ganges; and
each was held the symbol of the creation of the world
from the waters. The sacred bull Apis was wreathed
with its garlands; there were niches for water, to place
it among tombs; it was carved in the capitals of columns;
it was represented on plates and vases; the sculptures
show it in many sacred uses, even as a burnt-offering;
Isis holds it; and the god Nilus still binds a wreath of
water-lilies around the throne of Memnon.
From Egypt the Lotus was carried to Assyria, and
Layard found it among fir-cones and honeysuckles on the
later sculptures of Nineveh. The Greeks dedicated it to




WA TER-LILIES.                283
the nymphs, whence the name Nymphkea. Nor did the
Romans disregard it, though the Lotus to which Ovid's
nymph Lotis was changed, servato nomine, was a tree,
and not a flower.  Still different a thing was the en
chanted stem of the Lotus-eaters of Herodotus, which
prosaic botanists have reduced to the Zizyphus Lotus
found by Mungo Park, translating also the yellow Lotusdust into a mere "farina, tasting like sweet gingerbread."
But in the Lotus of Hindostan we find our flower
again, and the Oriental sacred books are cool with waterlilies. Open the Vishnu Purana at any page, and it is a
Sortes Liliane. The orb of the earth is Lotus-shaped,
and is upborne by the tusks of Vesava, as if he had been
sporting in a lake where the leaves and blossoms float.
Brahma, first incarnation of Vishnu, creator of the world,
was born from a Lotus; so was Sri or Lakshmu, the
Hindoo Venus, goddess of beauty and prosperity, protectress of womanhood, whose worship guards the house from
all danger. " Seated on a full-blown Lotus, and holding
a Lotus in her hand, the goddess Sri, radiant with beauty,
rose from the waves." The Lotus is the chief ornament
of the subterranean Eden, Patala, and the holy mountain
Meru is thought to be shaped like its seed-vessel, larger
at summit than at base. When the heavenly Urvasi fled
from her earthly spouse, Puruvavas, he found her sporting
with four nymphs of heaven, in a lake beautified with the
Lotus. When the virtuous Prahlada was burned at the
stake, he cried to his cruel father, "The fire burneth me
not, and all around I behold the face of the sky, cool and
fragrant with beds of Lotus-flowers!" Above all, the
graceful history of the transformations of Krishna is
everywhere hung with these fresh chaplets. Every successive maiden whom the deity wooes is Lotus-eyed,




284              WA TER-LILIES.
Lotus-mouthed, or Lotus-cheeked, and the youthful hero
wears always a Lotus-wreath. Also " the clear sky was
bright with the autumnal moon, and the air fragrant with
the perfume of the wild water-lily, in whose buds the
clustering bees were murmuring their song."
Elsewhere we find fuller details. "In the primordial
state of the world, the rudimental universe, submerged in
water, reposed on the bosom of the Eternal. Brahma,
the architect of the world, poised on a Lotus-leaf, floated
upon the waters, and all that he was able to discern with
his eight eyes was water and darkness. Amid scenes so
ungenial and dismal, the god sank into a profound reverie, when he thus soliloquized:'Who am I?  Whence
am I?' In this state of abstraction Brahma continued
during the period of a century and a half of the gods,
without apparent benefit or a solution of his inquiries,a circumstance which caused him great uneasiness of
mind." It is a comfort, however, to know that subsequently a voice came to him, on which he rose, " seated
himself upon the Lotus in an attitude of contemplation,
and reflected upon the Eternal, who soon appeared to him
in the form of a man with a thousand heads," - a questionable exchange for his Lotus-solitude.
This is Brahminism; but the other great form of Oriental religion has carried the same fair symbol with it.
One of the Bibles of the Buddhists is named " The White
Lotus of the Good Law."  A pious Nepaulese bowed in
reverence before a vase of lilies which perfumed the
study of Sir William Jones. At sunset in Thibet, the
French missionaries tell us, every inhabitant of every
village prostrates himself in the public square, and the
holy invocation, "0, the gem in the Lotus!" goes murmuring over hill and valley, like the sound of many bees.




WVA TER-LILIES.               285
It is no unmeaning phrase, but an utterance of ardent
desire to be absorbed into that Brahma whose emblem is
the sacred flower.  This mystic formula or "mani" is
imprinted on the pavement of the streets, it floats on
flags from the temples, and the wealthy Buddhists maintain sculptor-missionaries, Old Mortalities of the waterlily, who, wandering to distant lands, carve the blessed
words upon cliff and stone.
Having got thus far into Orientalism, we can hardly
expect to get out again without some slight entanglement
in philology. Lily-pads. Whence pads? No other
leaf is identified with that singular monosyllable. Has
our floating Lotus-leaf any connection with padding, or
with a footpad? with the ambling pad of an abbot, or
a paddle, or a paddock, or a padlock? with many-domed
Padua proud, or with St. Patrick?  Is the name derived
from the Anglo-Saxon paad or petthian, or the Greek
rarlo? All the etymologists are silent; Tooke and
Richardson ignore the problem; and of the innumerable
pamphlets in the Worcester and Webster Controversy,
loading the tables of school-committee-men, not one ventures to grapple with the lily-pad.
But was there ever a philological trouble for which the
Sanscrit could not afford at least a conjectural cure? A
dictionary of that extremely venerable tongue is an ostrich's stomach, which can crack the hardest etymological
nut. The Sanscrit name for the Lotus is simply Padma.
The learned Brahmins call the Egyptian deities Padma
Devi, or Lotus-Gods; the second of the eighteen Hindoo
Puranas is styled the Padma Purana, because it treats
of the "epoch when the world was a golden Lotus"; and
the sacred incantation which goes murmuring through
Thibet is " Om mani padme houm." It would be singu



286              WTA TER-LILIES.
lar, if upon these delicate floating leaves a fragment of
our earliest vernacular has been borne down to us, so
that here the school-boy is more learned than the savans.
This lets us down easily to the more familiar uses of
this plant divine. By the Nile, in early days, the waterlily was good not merely for devotion, but for diet.
"From  the seeds of the Lotus," said Pliny, "the Egyptians make bread."  The Hindoos still eat the seeds,
roasted in sand; also the stalks and roots.  In South
America, from the seeds of the Victoria (Nymphaea Victoria, now Victoria Regia) a farina is made, preferred to
that of the finest wheat, - Bonpland even suggesting to
our reluctant imagination Victoria-pies. But the European species are used, so far as is reported, only in dyeing, and as food (if the truth be told) of swine. Our
own water-lily is rather more powerful in its uses; the
root contains tannin and gallic acid, and a decoction of it
"gives a black precipitate, with sulphate of iron."  It
graciously consents to become an astringent, and a styptic, and a poultice, and, banished from all other temples,
still lingers in those of }Esculapius.
The botanist also finds his special satisfactions in the
flower. It has some strange peculiarities of structure.
So loose is the internal distribution of its tissues, that it
was for some time held doubtful to which of the two
great vegetable divisions, exogenous or endogenous, it
belonged. Its petals, moreover, furnish the best example
of the gradual transition of petals into stamens,- illustrating that wonderful law of identity which is the great
discovery of modern science. Every child knows this
peculiarity of the water-lily, but the extent of it seems
to vary with season and locality, and sometimes one finds
a succession of flowers almost entirely free from this confusion of organs.




WA TER-LILIES.                 287
The reader may not care to learn that the order of
Nymphbeaceoe "differs from  Ranunculacem in the consolidation of its carpels, from Papaveracese in the placentation not being parietal, and from Nelumbiacese in
the want of a large truncated disc containing monospermous achenia"; but they may like to know that the
water-lily has relations on land, in all gradations of
society, from poppy to magnolia, and yet does not conform its habits precisely to those of any of them. Its
great black roots, sometimes as large as a man's arm,
form a network at the bottom  of the water.  Its stem
floats, an airy four-celled tube, adapting itself to the
depth, and stiff in shallows, like the stalk of the yellow
lily: and it contracts and curves downward when seedtime approaches. The leaves show beneath the magnifier
beautiful adaptations of structure.  They are not, like
those of land-plants, constructed with deep veins to receive the rain and conduct it to the stem, but are smooth
and glossy, and of even surface.  The leaves of landvegetation have also thousands of little breathing-pores,
principally on the under side: the apple-leaf, for instance,
has twenty-four thousand to a square inch.  But here
they are fewer; they are wholly on the upper side, and,
whereas in other cases they open or shut according to
the moisture of the atmosphere, here the greedy leaves,
secure of moisture, scarcely deign to close them. Nevertheless, even these give some recognition of hygrometric
necessities, and, though living on the water, and not
merely christened with dewdrops like other leaves) but
baptized by immersion all the time, they are yet known
to suffer in drought and to take pleasure in the rain.
Afterspeaking of the various kindred of the waterlily, it would be wrong to leave our fragrant subject with



288              WA TER-LILIES.
out due mention of its most magnificent, most lovely relative, at first claimed even as its twin sister, and classed
as a Nymphaea. I once lived near neighbor to a Victoria Regia. Nothing in the world of vegetable existence has such a human interest. The charm is not in
the mere size of the plant, which disappoints everybody,
as Niagara does, when tried by that sole standard. The
leaves of the Victoria, indeed, attain a diameter of six
feet; the largest flowers, of twenty-three inches, — four
times the size of the largest of our water-lilies. But it
is not the measurements of the Victoria, it is its life
which fascinates. It is not a thing merely of dimensions,
nor merely of beauty, but a creature of vitality and motion. Those vast leaves expand and change almost visibly. They have been known to grow half an inch an
hour, eight inches a day. Rising one day from the water,
a mere clenched mass of yellow prickles, a leaf is transformed the next day to a crimson salver, gorgeously
tinted on its upturned rim. Then it spreads into a raft
of green, armed with long thorns, and supported by a
framework of ribs and cross-pieces, an inch thick, and
so substantial, that the Brazil Indians, while gathering
the seed-vessels, place their young children on the leaves;
— yrupe, or water-platter, they call the accommodating
plant. But even these expanding leaves are not the
glory of the Victoria; the glory is in the opening of the
flower.
I have sometimes looked in, for a passing moment, at
the green-house, its dwelling-place, during the period of
flowering, - and then stayed for more than an hour,
unable to leave the fascinating scene. After the strange
flower-bud has reared its dark head from the placid tank,
moving it a little, uneasily, like some imprisoned water



WA TER-LILIES.                  289
creature, it pauses for a moment in a sort -of dumb despair. Then trembling again, and collecting all its powers, it thrusts open, with an indignant jerk, the rough
calyx-leaves, and the beautiful disrobing begins. The
firm, white, central cone, first so closely infolded, quivers
a little, and swiftly, before your eyes, the first of the
hundred petals detaches its delicate edges, and springs
back, opening towards the water, while its white reflection opens to meet it from below. Many moments of
repose follow, —you watch, —another petal trembles,
detaches, springs open, and is still. Then another, and
another, and another.  Each movement is so quiet, yet
so decided, so living, so human, that the radiant creature
seems a Musidora of the water, and you almost blush
with a sense of guilt, in gazing on that peerless privacy.
As petal by petal slowly opens, there still stands the central cone of snow, a glacier, an alp, a jungfrau, while
each avalanche of whiteness seems the last. Meanwhile
a strange rich odor fills the air, and Nature seems to
concentrate all fascinations and claim all senses for this
jubilee of her darling.
So pass the enchanted moments of the evening, till the
fair thing pauses at last, and remains for hours unchanged.
In the morning, one by one, those white petals close
again, shutting all their beauty in, and you watch through
the short sleep for the period of waking. Can this bright
transfigured creature appear again, in the same chaste
loveliness? Your fancy can scarcely trust it, fearing
some disastrous change; and your fancy is too true a
prophet. Come again, after the second day's opening,
and you start at the transformation which one hour has
secretly produced. Can this be the virgin Victoria, —
this thing of crimson passion, this pile of pink and yellow,
13                           B




290              WA TER-LILIES.
relaxed, expanded, voluptuous, lolling languidly upon the
water, never to rise again?  In this short time every
tint of every petal is transformed; it is gorgeous in
beauty, but it is "i Hebe turned to Magdalen."
Such is the Victoria Regia. But our rustic water-lily,
our innocent Nymphaea, never claiming such a hot-house
glory, never drooping into such a blush, blooms on placidly in the quiet waters, till she modestly folds her leaves
for the last time, and bows her head beneath the surface
forever. Next year she lives for us only in her children,
fair and pure as herself.
Nay, not alone in them, but also in memory. The
fair vision will not fade from us, though the paddle has
dipped its last crystal drop from the waves, and the boat
is drawn upon the shore. We may yet visit many lovely
and lonely places,- meadows thick with violet, or the
homes of the shy Rhodora, or those sloping forest-haunts
where the slight Linnsea hangs its twin-born heads, —
but no scene will linger on our vision like this annual
Feast of the Lilies. On scorching mountains, amid raw
prairie-winds, or upon the regal ocean, the white pageant
shall come back to memory again, with all the luxury of
summer heats, and all the fragrant coolness that can
relieve them. We shall fancy ourselves again among
these fleets of anchored lilies, - again, like Urvasi, sporting amid the Lake of Lotuses.
For that which is remembered is often more vivid than
that which is seen. The eye paints better in the presence,
the heart in the absence, of the object most dear. "He
who longs after beautiful Nature can best describe her,"
said Bettine; "he who is in the midst of her loveliness
can only lie down and enjoy." It enhances the truth of
the poet's verses, that he writes them in his study. Ab



WA TER-LILIES.                291
sence is the very air of passion, and all the best descrip.
tion is in memoriam. As with our human beloved, when
the graceful presence is with us, we cannot analyze or
describe, but merely possess, and only after its departure
can it be portrayed by our yearning desires; so is it with
Nature: only in losing her do we gain the power to describe -her, and we are introduced to Art, as we are to
Eternity, by the dropping away of our companions.








THE LIFE OF BIRDS.








THE LIFE OF BIRDS.
W EHEN one thinks of a bird, one fancies a soft,
swift, aimless, joyous thing, full of nervous energy and arrowy motions, - a song with wings. So remote from ours their mode of existence, they seem accidental exiles from an unknown globe, banished where
none can understand their language; and men only stare
at their darting, inexplicable ways, as at the gyrations of
the circus. Watch their little traits for hours, and it only
tantalizes curiosity. Every man's secret is penetrable,
if his neighbor be sharp-sighted. Dickens, for instance,
can take a poor condemned wretch, like Fagin, whose
emotions neither he nor his reader has experienced, and
can paint him in colors that seem made of the soul's own
atoms; so that each beholder feels as if he, personally,
had been the man. But this bird that hovers and alights
beside me, peers up at me, takes its food, then looks
again, attitudinizing, jerking, flirting its tail, with a thousand inquisitive and fantastic motions, - although I have
power to grasp it in my hand and crush its life out, yet I
cannot gain its secret thus, and the centre of its consciousness is really farther from mine than the remotest planetary orbit. "We do not steadily bear in mind," says
Darwin, with a noble scientific humility, " how profoundly




296          THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.
ignorant we are of the condition of existence of every
animal."
What " sympathetic penetration" can fathom the life,
for instance, of yonder mysterious, almost voiceless, Humming-Bird, smallest of feathery things, and loneliest,
whirring among birds, insect-like, and among insects,
bird-like, his path untraceable, his home unseen? An
image of airy motion, yet it sometimes seems as if there
were nothing joyous in him. He seems like some exiled
pygmy prince, banished, but still regal, and doomed to
wings. Did gems turn to flowers, flowers to feathers,
in that long-past dynasty of the Humming-Birds? It is
strange to come upon his tiny nest, in some gray and
tangled swamp, with this brilliant atom perched disconsolately near it, upon some mossy twig; it is like visiting
Cinderella among her ashes. And from Humming-Bird
to Eagle, the daily existence of every bird is a remote
and bewitching mystery.
Pythagoras has been charged, both before and since
the days of Malvolio, with holding that " the soul of our
grandam might haply inhabit a fowl," —that delinquent
men must revisit earth as women, and delinquent women
as birds. Malvolio thought nobly of the soul, and in no
way approved his opinion; but I remember that Harriet
Rohan, in her school-days, accepted this, her destiny, with
glee. " When I saw the Oriole," she wrote to me, " from
his nest among the plum-trees in the garden, sail over the
air and high above the Gothic arches of the elm, a stream
of flashing light, or watched him swinging silently on
pendent twigs, I did not dream how near akin we were.
Or when a Humming-Bird, a winged drop of gorgeous
sheen and gloss, a living gem, poising on his wings, thrust
his dark, slender, honey-seeking bill into the white blos



THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.                297
soms of a little bush beside my window, I should have
thought it no such bad thing to be a bird, even if one
next became a bat, like the colony in our eaves, that dart
and drop and skim and skurry, all the length of moonless
nights, in such ecstasies of dusky joy." Was this weird
creature, the bat, in very truth a bird, in some far primeval time? and does he fancy, in unquiet dreams at nightfall, that he is one still? I wonder whether he can enjoy
the winged brotherhood into which he has thrust himself,
- victim, perhaps, of some rash quadruped-ambition, -
an Icarus doomed forever not to fall.
I think, that, if required, on pain of death, to name
instantly the most perfect thing in the universe, I should
risk my fate on a bird's egg. There is, first, its exquisite
fragility of material, strong only by the mathematical
precision of that form so daintily moulded. There is its
absolute purity from external stain, since that thin barrier
remains impassable until the whole is in ruins, - a purity
recognized in the household proverb of " An apple, an
egg, and a nut." Then, its range of tints, so varied, so
subdued, and so beautiful, - whether of pure white, like
the Martin's, or pure green, like the Robin's, or dotted
and mottled into the loveliest of browns, like the Red
Thrush's, or aqua-marine, with stains of moss-agate, like
the Chipping-Sparrow's, or blotched with long weird inkmarks on a pale ground, like the Oriole's, as if it bore
inscribed some magic clew to the bird's darting flight and
pensile nest. Above all, the associations and predictions
of this little wonder, - that one may bear home between
his fingers all that winged splendor, all that celestial melody, coiled in mystery within these tiny walls!  Even the
chrysalis is less amazing, for its form always preserves
some trace, however fantastic, of the perfect insect, and
13*




298          THE LIFE OF BIRDS.
it is but moulting a skin; but this egg appears to the eye
like a separate unit from some other kingdom of Nature,
claiming more kindred with the very stones than with
feathery existence; and it is as if a pearl opened and an
angel sang.
The nest which is to contain these fair things is a wondrous study also, from the coarse masonry of the Robin
to the soft structure of the Humming-Bird, a baby-house
among nests. Among all created things, the birds come
nearest to man in their domesticity.. Their unions are
usually in pairs, and for life; and with them, unlike the
practice of most quadrupeds, the male labors for the
young. He chooses the locality of the nest, aids in its
construction, and fights for it, if needful. He sometimes
assists in hatching the eggs. He feeds the brood with
exhausting labor, like yonder Robin, whose winged picturesque day is spent in putting worms into insatiable
beaks, at the rate of one morsel in every three minutes.
He has to teach them to fly, as among the Swallows, or
even to hunt, as among the Hawks. His life is anchored
to his home. Yonder Oriole fills with light and melody
the thousand branches of a neighborhood; and yet the
centre for all this divergent splendor is always that one
drooping dome upon one chosen tree. This he helped to
build in May, confiscating cotton as if he were a Union
provost-marshal, and singing many songs, with his mouth
full of plunder; and there he watches over his household, all through the leafy June, perched often upon the
airy cradle-edge, and swaying with it in the summer
wind. And from this deep nest, after the pretty eggs
are hatched, will he and his mate extract every fragment
of the shell, leaving it, like all other nests, save those of
birds of prey, clean and pure, when the young are flown.




THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.               299
This they do chiefly from an instinct of delicacy; since
wood-birds are not wont to use the same nest a second
time, even if they rear several broods in a season.
The subdued tints and notes which almost always mark
the female sex, among birds, - unlike insects and human
beings, of which the female is often more showy than
the male,- seem designed to secure their safety while
sitting on the nest, while the brighter colors and louder
song of the male enable his domestic circle to detect his
whereabouts more easily. It is commonly noticed, in
the same way, that ground-birds have more neutral tints
than those which build out of reach. With the aid of
these advantages, it is astonishing how well these roving
creatures keep their secrets, and what sharp eyes are
needed to spy out their habitations, —while it always
seems as if the empty last-year's nests were very plenty.
Some, indeed, are very elaborately concealed, as of the
Golden-Crowned Thrush, called, for this reason, the
Oven-Bird, - the Meadow-Lark, with its burrowed gallery among the grass, - and the Kingfisher, which mines
four feet into the earth. But most of the rarer nests
would hardly be discovered, only that the maternal instinct seems sometimes so overloaded by Nature as to
defeat itself, and the bird flies and chirps in agony, when
she might pass unnoticed by keeping still. The most
marked exception which I have noticed is the Red
Thrush, which, in this respect, as in others, has the most
high-bred manners among all our birds: both male and
female sometimes flit in perfect silence through the
bushes, and show solicitude only in a sob which is scarcely audible.
Passing along the shore-path by our lake, one day in
June, I heard a great sound of scuffling and yelping before




300           THE LIFL  OF BIRDS.
me, as if dogs were hunting rabbits or woodchucks. On
approaching, I saw no sign of such disturbances, and
presently a Partridge came running at me through the
trees, with ruff and tail expanded, bill wide open, and
hissing like a Goose, - then turned suddenly, and with
ruff and tail furled, but with no pretence of lameness,
scudded off through the woods in a circle, - then at me
again fiercely, approaching within two yards, and spreading all her furbelows, to intimidate, as before, — then,
taking in sail, went off again, always at the same rate of
speed, yelping like an angry squirrel, squealing like a pig,
occasionally clucking like a hen, and, in general, so filling
the woods with bustle and disturbance that there seemed
no room for anything else. Quite overawed by the display, I stood watching her for some time, then entered
the underbrush, where the little invisible brood had been,
unceasingly piping, in their baby way. So motionless
were they, that, for all their noise, I stood with my feet
among them, for some minutes, without finding it possible
to detect them. When found and taken from the ground,
which they so closely resembled, they made no attempt to
escape; but when replaced, they presently ran away fast,
as if conscious that the first policy had failed, and that
their mother had retreated. Such is the summer life of
these little things; but come again in the fall, when the
wild autumnal winds go marching through the woods,
and a dozen pairs of strong wings will thrill like thunder
through the arches of the trees, as the full-grown brood
whirrs away around you.
Not only have we scarcely any species of birds which
are thoroughly and unquestionably identical with European species, but there are certain general variations of
habit. For instance, in regard to migration. This is,




THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.               301
of course, a universal instinct, since even tropical birds
migrate for short distances from the equator, so essential
to their existence do these wanderings seem. But in
New England, among birds as among men, the roving
habit seems unusually strong, and abodes are shifted very
rapidly. The whole number of species observed in Massachusetts is about the same as in England, - some three
hundred in all. But of this number, in England, about
a hundred habitually winter on the island, and half that
number even in the Hebrides, some birds actually breeding in Scotland during January and February, incredible
as it may seem. Their habits can, therefore, be observed
through a long period of the year; while with us the
bright army comes and encamps for a month or two and
then vanishes. You must attend their dress-parades,
while they last; for you will have but few opportunities,
and their domestic life must commonly be studied during
a few weeks of the season, or not at all.
Wonderful as the instinct of migration seems, it is not,
perhaps, so altogether amazing in itself as in some of its
attendant details. To a great extent, birds follow the
opening foliage northward, and flee from its fading, south;
they must keep near the food on which they live, and
secure due shelter for their eggs. Our earliest visitors
shrink from trusting the bare trees with their nests; the
Song-Sparrow seeks the ground; the Blue-Bird finds a
box or. a hole somewhere; the Red-Wing haunts the
marshy thickets, safer in spring than at any other season;
and even the sociable Robin prefers a pine-tree to an
apple-tree, if resolved to begin housekeeping prematurely.
The movements of birds are chiefly timed by the advance
of vegetation; and the thing most thoroughly surprising
about them is not the general fact of the change of lati



302           THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.
tude, but their accuracy in hitting the precise locality.
That the same Cat-Bird should find its way back, every
spring, to almost the same branch of yonder larch-tree, -
that is the thing astonishing to me. In England, a lame
Redstart was observed in the same garden for sixteen
successive years; and the astonishing precision of course
which enables some birds of small size to fly from Australia to New-Zealand in a day- probably the longest
single flight ever taken- is only a part of the same
mysterious instinct of direction.
In comparing modes of flight, the most surprising, of
course, is that of the Swallow tribe, remarkable not merely
for its velocity, but for the amazing boldness and instantaneousness of the angles it makes; so that eminent European mechanicians have speculated in vain upon the
methods used in its locomotion, and prizes have been
offered,- by mechanical exhibitions, to him who could best
explain it. With impetuous dash, they sweep through
our perilous streets, these wild hunters of the air, "so
near, and yet so far"; they bathe flying, and flying they
feed their young. In my immediate vicinity, the Chimney-Swallow is not now common, nor the Sand-Swallow;
but the Cliff-Swallow, that strange emigrant from the
Far West, the Barn-Swallow, and the white-breasted
species, are abundant, together with the Purple Martin.
I know no prettier sight than a bevy of these bright little
creatures, met from a dozen different farm-houses to picnic at a wayside pool, splashing and fluttering, with their
long wings expanded like butterflies, keeping poised by
a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet,
which scarcely touch the moist ground. You will seldom
see them actually perch on anything less airy than some
telegraphic wire; but when they do alight, each will




THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.               303
make chatter enough for a dozen, as if all the rushing
hurry of the wings had passed into the tongue.
Between the swiftness of the Swallow and the stateliness of the birds of prey, the whole range of bird-motion
seems included. The long wave of a Hawk's wings
seems almost to send a slow vibration through the atmosphere, tolling upon the eye as yon distant bell upon
the ear. I never was more impressed with the superior
dignity of these soarings than in observing a bloodless
contest in the air, last April. Standing beside a little
grove, on a rocky hillside, I heard Crows cawing near
by, and then a sound like great flies buzzing, which I
really attributed, for a moment, to some early insect.
Turning, I saw two Crows flapping their heavy wings
among the trees, and observed that they were teasing a
Hawk about as large as themselves, which was also on the
wing. Presently all three had risen above the branches,
and were circling higher and higher in a slow spiral.
The Crows kept constantly swooping at their enemy, with
the same angry buzz, one of the two taking decidedly
the lead. They seldom struck at him with their beaks,
but kept lumbering against him, and flapping him with
their wings, as if in a fruitless effort to capsize him;
while the Hawk kept carelessly eluding the assaults, now
inclining on one side, now on the other, with a stately
grace, never retaliating, but seeming rather to enjoy the
novel amusement, as if it were a skirmish in balloons.
During all this, indeed, he scarcely seemed once to
wave his wings; yet he soared steadily aloft, till the
Crows refused to follow, though already higher than I
ever saw Crows before, dim against the fleecy sky; then
the Hawk flew northward, but soon after he sailed over
us once again, with loud, scornful chirr, and they only
cawed, and left him undisturbed.




304           TIHE LIFE  OF BIRDS.
When we hear the tumult of music from these various
artists of the air, it seems as if the symphony never could
be analyzed into its different instruments.  But with
time and patience it is not so difficult; nor can we really
enjoy the performance, so long as it is only a confused
chorus to our ears. It is not merely the highest form
of animal language, but, in strictness of etymology, the
only form, if it be true, as is claimed, that no other animal employs its tongue, lingua, in producing sound. In
the Middle Ages, the song of birds was called their
Latin, as was any other foreign dialect. It was the old
German superstition, that any one who should eat the
heart of a bird would thenceforth comprehend its language; and one modern philologist of the same nation
(Masius declares) has so far studied the sounds produced
by domestic fowls as to announce a Goose-Lexicon. Dupont de Nemours asserted that he understood eleven words
of the Pigeon language, the same number of that of
Fowls, fourteen of the Cat tongue, twenty-two of that of
Cattle, thirty of that of Dogs, and the Raven language he
understood completely. But the ordinary observer seldom
attains farther than to comprehend some of the cries of
anxiety and fear around him, often so unlike the accustomed carol of the bird, — as the mew of the Cat-Bird,
the lamb-like bleating of the Veery and his impatient
yeoick, the chaip of the Meadow-Lark, the towyee of the
Chewink, the petulant psit and tsee of the Red-Winged
Blackbird, and the hoarse cooing of the Bobolink. And
with some of our most familiar birds the variety of notes
is so great as really to promise difficulties in the American department of the bird-lexicon. I have watched two
Song-Sparrows, perched near each other, in whom the
spy-glass could show not the slightest difference of mark




THE LIFE OF BIRDS.                   305
ing, even in the characteristic stains upon the breast, who
yet chanted to each other, for fifteen minutes, over and
over, two elaborate songs which had nothing in common.
I have observed a similar thing in two Wood-Sparrows,
with their sweet, distinct, accelerating lay; nor can I
find it stated that the difference is sexual. Who can
claim to have heard the whole song of the Robin? Taking shelter from a shower beneath an oak-tree, the other
day, I caught a few of the notes which one of those
cheery creatures, who love to sing in wet weather, tossed
down to me through the drops.
(Before noticing me,)              chirrup, cheerup;
(pausing in alarm, at my approach,)  che, che, che;
(broken presently by a thoughtful strain,)  caw, caw;
(then softer and more confiding,)  see, see, see;
(then the original note, in a whisper,)  chirrup, cheerup;
(often broken by a soft note,)     see, wee;
(and an odder one,)                squeal;
(and a mellow note,)               tweedle.
And all these were mingled with more complex combinations, and with half-imitations, as of the Blue-Bird,
so that it seemed almost impossible to doubt that there
was some specific meaning, to him and his peers, in
this endless vocabulary. Yet other birds, as quick-witted
as the Robins, possess but one or two chirping notes, to
which they seem unable to give more than the very
rudest variation of accent.
The controversy between the singing-birds of Europe
and America has had various phases and influential
disputants.  Buffon easily convinced himself that our
Thrushes had no songs, because the voices of all birds
grew harsh in savage countries, such as he naturally held
this continent to be. Audubon, on the other hand, relates that even in his childhood he was assured by his
T




306           THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.
father that the American songsters were the best, though
neither Americans nor Europeans could be convinced
of it. MacGillivray, the Scottish naturalist, reports that
Audubon himself, in conversation, arranged our vocalists
in the following order: — first, the Mocking-Bird, as unrivalled; then, the Wood-Thrush, Cat-Bird, and Red
Thrush; the Rose-Breasted, Pine, and Blue Grosbeak;
the Orchard and Golden Oriole; the Tawny and Hermit
Thrushes; several Finches, - Bachmann's, the WhiteCrowned, theIndigo, and the Nonpareil; and finally, the
Bobolink.
Among those birds of this list which frequent Massachusetts, Audubon might well put the Wood-Thrush at
the head. As I sat the other day in the deep woods
beside a black brook which dropped from stone to stone
beneath the shadow of our Rattlesnake Rocks, the air
seemed at first as silent above me as the earth below.
The buzz of summer sounds had not begun. Sometimes
a bee hummed by with a long swift thrill like a chord of
music; sometimes a breeze came resounding up the forest
like an approaching locomotive, and then died utterly
away. Then, at length, a Veery's delicious note rose in
a fountain of liquid melody from beneath me; and when
it was ended, the clear, calm, interrupted chant of the
Wood-Thrush fell like solemn water-drops from some
source above. I am acquainted with no sound in Nature
so sweet, so elevated, so serene. Flutes and flageolets
are Art's poor efforts to recall that softer sound. It is
simple, and seems all prelude; but the music to which it
is the overture belongs to other spheres. It might be the
Angelus of some lost convent. It might be the meditation
of some maiden-hermit, saying over to herself in solitude,
with recurrent tuneful pauses, the only song she knows.




THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.               307
Beside this soliloquy of seraphs, the carol of the Veery
seems a familiar and almost domestic thing; yet it is so
charming that Audubon must have designed to include it
among the Thrushes whose merits he proclaims.
But the range of musical perfection is a wide one;
and if the standard of excellence be that wondrous brilliancy and variety of execution suggested by the Mocking-Bird, then the palm belongs, among our New-England
songsters, to the Red Thrush, otherwise called the Mavis
or Brown. Thrasher. I have never heard the MockingBird sing at liberty; and while the caged bird may
surpass the Red Thrush in volume of voice and in
quaintness of direct imitation, he gives me no such
impression of depth and magnificence. I know not how
to describe the voluble and fantastic notes which fall like
pearls and diamonds from the beak of our Mavis, while
his stately attitudes and high-born bearing are in full
harmony with the song. I recall the steep, bare hillside,
and the two great boulders which guard the lonely grove,
where I first fully learned the wonder of this lay, as if I
had met Saint Cecilia there. A thoroughly happy song,
overflowing with life, it gives even its most familiar
phrases an air of gracious condescension, as when some
great violinist stoops to the " Carnival of Venice." The
Red Thrush does not, however, consent to any parrot-like
mimicry, though every note of wood or field — Oriole,
Bobolink, Crow, Jay, Robin, Whippoorwill - appears to
pass in veiled procession through the song.
Retain the execution of the Red Thrush, but hopelessly
impair his organ, and you have the Cat-Bird. This
accustomed visitor would seem a gifted vocalist, but for
the inevitable comparison between his thinner note and
the gushing melodies of the lordlier bird. Is it some




308           THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.
hopeless consciousness of this disadvantage which leads
him to pursue that peculiar habit of singing softly to himself very often, in a fancied seclusion? When other birds
are cheerily out-of-doors, on some bright morning of May
or June, one will often discover a solitary Cat-Bird sitting
concealed in the middle of a dense bush, and twittering
busily, in subdued rehearsal, the whole copious variety
of his lay, practising trills and preparing half-imitations,
which, at some other time, sitting on the topmost twig, he
shall hilariously seem to improvise before all the world.
Can it be that he is really in some slight disgrace with
Nature, with that demi-mourning garb of his, - and that
his feline cry of terror, which makes his opprobrium with
boys, is part of some hidden doom decreed?  No, the
lovely color of the eggs which his companion watches on
that laboriously builded staging of twigs shall vindicate
this familiar companion from any suspicion of original
sin. Indeed, it is well demonstrated by our American
oblogist, Dr. Brewer, that the eggs of the Cat-Bird affiliate him with the Robin and the Wood-Thrush, all three
being widely separated in this respect from the Red
Thrush. The Red Thrush builds on the ground, and has
mottled eggs; while the whole household establishment
of the Wood-Thrush is scarcely distinguishable from that
of the Robin, and the Cat-Bird differs chiefly in being
more of a carpenter and less of a mason.
The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, which Audubon places
so high on his list of minstrels, comes annually to one
region in this vicinity, but I am not sure of having heard
it. The young Pine Grosbeaks come to our woods in
winter, and have then but a subdued twitter. Every one
knows the Bobolink; and almost all recognize the Oriole,
by sight at least, even if unfamiliar with all the notes of




THtE LIFE  OF BIRDS.              309
his cheery and resounding song. The Red-Eyed Flycatcher, heard even more constantly, is less generally
identified by name; but his note sounds all day among
the elms of our streets, and seems a sort of piano-adaptation, popularized foXr the million, of the rich notes of the
Thrushes. He is not mentioned by Audubon among his
favorites, and has no right to complain of the exclusion.
Yet the birds which most endear summer are not necessarily the finest performers; and certainly there is none
whose note I could spare less easily than the little Chipping-Sparrow, called hereabouts the Hair-Bird. To lie
half awake on a warm morning in June, and hear that
soft insect-like chirp draw in and out with long melodious
pulsations, like the rising and falling of the hiuman breath,
condenses for my ear the whole luxury of summer. Later
in the day, among the multiplicity of noises, the chirping
becomes louder and more detached, losing that faint and
dream-like thrill.
The bird-notes which have the most familiar fascination
are perhaps simply those most intimately associated with
other rural things. This applies especially to the earliest
spring songsters. Listening to these delicious prophets
upon some of those still and moist days which slip in
between the rough winds of March, and fill our lives for
a moment with anticipated delights, it has seemed to me
that their varied notes were sent to symbolize all the
different elements of spring association. The Blue-Bird
seems to represent simply spring's faint, tremulous, liquid
sweetness, the Song-Sparrow its changing pulsations of
more positive and varied joy, and the Robin its cheery
and superabundant vitality. The later birds of the season, suggesting no such fine-drawn sensations, yet identify
themselves with their chosen haunts, so that we cannot




310           THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.
think of the one without the other. In the meadows, we
hear the languid and tender drawl of the Meadow-Lark,
- one of the most peculiar of notes, almost amounting to
affectation in its excess of laborious sweetness. When
we reach the thickets and wooded streams, there is no
affectation in the Maryland Yellow-Throat, that little
restless busybody, with his eternal which-is-it, which-is-it,
which-is-it, emphasizing each syllable at will, in despair
of response. Passing into the loftier woods, we find them
resounding with the loud proclamation of the GoldenCrowned Thrush, - scheat, scheat, scheat, scheat, - rising
and growing louder in a vigorous way that rather suggests some great Woodpecker than such a tiny thing.
And penetrating to some yet lonelier place, we find it
consecrated to that life-long sorrow, whatever it may be,
which is made immortal in the plaintive cadence of the
Pewee.
There is one favorite bird, - the Chewink, or GroundRobin, - which, I always fancied, must have been known
to Keats when he wrote those few words of perfect descriptiveness, -
"If an innocent bird
Before my heedless footsteps stirred and stirred
In littlejouzrneys."
What restless spirit is in this creature, that, while so shy
in its own personal habits, it yet watches every visitor
with a Paul-Pry curiosity, follows him in the woods, peers
out among the underbrush, scratches upon the leaves with
a pretty pretence of important business there, and presently, when disregarded, ascends some small tree and
begins to carol its monotonous song, as if there were no
such thing as man in the universe? There is something
irregular and fantastic in the coloring, also, of the Che



THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.               311
wink: unlike the generality of ground-birds, it is a showy
thing, with black, white, and bay intermingled, and it is
one of the most unmistakable of all our feathery creatures,
in its aspect and its ways.
Another of my favorites, perhaps from our sympathy
as to localities, since we meet freely every summer at
a favorite lake, is the King-Bird or Tyrant-Flycatcher.
The habits of royalty or tyranny I have never been able
to perceive, - only a democratic habit of resistance to,
tyrants; but this bird always impresses me as a perfectly
well-dressed and well-mannered person, who amid a very
talkative society prefers to listen, and shows his character by action only. So long as he sits silently on some
stake or bush in the neighborhood of his family circle,
you notice only his glossy black cap and the white feathers in his handsome tail; but let a Hawk or a Crow
come near, and you find that he is something more than
a mere lazy listener to the Bobolink: far up in the air,
determined to be thorough in his chastisements, you will
see him, with a comrade or two, driving the bulky intruder away into the distance, till you wonder how he
ever expects to find his own way back again. He speaks
with emphasis'on these occasions, and then reverts, more
sedately than ever, to his accustomed silence.
After all the great labors of Audubon and Wilson, it
is certain that the recent visible progress of American
ornithology has by no means equalled that of several
other departments of Natural History. The older books
are now out of print, and there is actually no popular
treatise on the subject to be had: a destitution singularly
contrasted with the variety of excellent botanical works
which the last twenty years have produced.  Nuttall's
fascinating volumes, and Brewer's edition of Wilson, are




S12           THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.,equally inaccessible; and the most valuable contributions
since their time, so far as I know, are that portion of Dr.
Brewer's work on eggs printed in the eleventh volume of
the " Smithsonian Contributions," and four admirable articles in the Atlantic Monthly.* But the most important
observations are locked up in the desks or exhibited in
the cabinets of private observers, who have little opportunity of comparing facts with other students, or with
reliable printed authorities. What do we know, for in
stance, of the local distribution of our birds?  I remember that in my latest conversation with Thoreau, last
December, he mentioned most remarkable facts in this
department, which had fallen under his unerring eyes.
The Hawk most common at Concord, the Red-Tailed
species, is not known near the sea-shore, twenty miles off,
- as at Boston or Plymouth. The White-Breasted Sparrow is rare in Concord; but the Ashburnham woods,
thirty miles away, are full of it. The Scarlet Tanager's
is the commonest note in Concord, except the Red-Eyed
Flycatcher's; yet one of the best field-ornithologists in
Boston had never heard it. The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak is seen not infrequently at Concord, though its nest
is rarely found; but in Minnesota Thoreau found it more
abundant than any other bird, far more so than the Robin.
But his most interesting statement, to my fancy, was, that,
during a stay of ten weeks on Monadnock, he found that
the Snow-Bird built its nest on the top of the mountain,
and probably never came down through the season. That
was its Arctic; and it would probably yet be found, he
* " Our Birds and their Ways" (December, 1857); " The SingingBirds and their Songs " (August, 1858); " The Birds of the Garden
and Orchard" (October, 1858); "The Birds of the Pasture and Forest" (December, 1858);- the first by J. Elliot Cabot, and the last
three by Wilson Flagg.




THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.               313
predicted, on Wachusett and other Massachusetts peaks.
It is known that the Snow-Bird, or "Snow-Flake," as it
is called in England, was reported by Audubon as having
only once been proved to build in the United States,
namely, among the White Mountains, though Wilson
found its nests among the Alleghanies; and in New England it used to be the rural belief that the Snow-Bird
and the Chipping-Sparrow were the same.
After July, most of our birds grow silent, and, but for
the insects, August would be almost the stillest month in
the year, — stiller than the winter, when the woods are
often vocal with the Crow, the Jay, and the Chickadee.
But with patient attention one may hear, even far into
the autumn, the accustomed notes. As I sat in my boat,
one sunny afternoon of last September, beneath the shady
western shore of our quiet lake, with the low sunlight
striking almost level across the wooded banks, it seemed
as if the last hoarded drops of summer's sweetness were
being poured over all the world. The air was full of
quiet sounds. Turtles rustled beside the brink and slid
into the water, - cows plashed in the shallows, - fishes
leaped from the placid depths, - a squirrel sobbed and
fretted on a neighboring stump, - a katydid across the
lake maintained its hard, dry croak, - the crickets chirped
pertinaciously, but with little fatigued pauses, as if glad
that their work was almost done, - the grasshoppers kept
up their continual chant, which seemed thoroughly melted
and amalgamated into the summer, as if it would go on
indefinitely, though the body of the little creature were
dried into dust. All this time the birds were silent and
invisible, as if they would take no more part in the symphony of the year. Then, seemingly by preconcerted
signal, they joined in: Crows cawed anxiously afar;
14




314           THE LIFE  OF BIRDS.
Jays screamed in the woods; a Partridge clucked to
its brood, like the gurgle of water from a bottle; a Kingfisher wound his rattle, more briefly than in spring, as if
we now knew all about it and the merest hint ought to
suffice; a Fish-Hawk flapped into the water, with a great
rude splash, and then flew heavily away; a flock of Wild
Ducks went southward overhead, and a smaller party
returned beneath them, flying low and anxiously, as if to
pick up some lost baggage; and, at last, a Loon laughed
loud from behind a distant island, and it was pleasant to
people these woods and waters with that wild shouting,
linking them with Katahdin Lake and Amperzand.
But the later the birds linger in the autumn, the more
their aspect differs from that of spring. In spring, they
come, jubilant, noisy, triumphant, from the South, the
winter conquered and the long journey done.  In autumn, they come timidly from the North, and, pausing
on their anxious retreat, lurk within the fading copses
and twitter snatches of song as fading. Others fly as
openly as ever, but gather in flocks, as the Robins, most
piteous of all birds at this season, - thin, faded, ragged,
their bold note sunk to a feeble quaver, and their manner
a mere caricature of that inexpressible military smartness
with which they held up their heads in May.
Yet I cannot really find anything sad even in November. When I think of the thrilling beauty of the season
past, the birds that came and went, the insects that took
up the choral song as the birds grew silent, the procession
of the flowers, the glory of autumn, - and when I think
that, this also ended, a new gallery of wonder is opening,
almost more beautiful, in the magnificence of frost and
snow, - there comes an impression of affluence and liberality in the universe which seasons of changeless and un



THE LIFE OF BIRDS.               315
eventful verdure would never give. The catkins already
formed on the alder, quite prepared to droop into April's
beauty, — the white edges of the May-flower's petals,
already visible through the bud, show in advance that
winter is but a slight and temporary retardation of the
life of Nature, and that the barrier which separates November from March is not really more solid than that
which parts the sunset from the sunrise.








THE
PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.








THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
IN Cuba there is a blossoming shrub whose multitudinous crimson flowers are so seductive to the humming-birds that they hover all day around it, buried in its
blossoms until petal and wing seem one. At first upright, the gorgeous bells droop downward, and fall unwithered to the ground, and are thence called by the
Creoles " Cupid's Tears." Fredrika Bremer relates that
daily she brought home handfuls of these blossoms to her
chamber, and nightly they all disappeared. One morning
she looked toward the wall of the apartment, and there,
in a long crimson line, the delicate flowers went ascending one by one to the ceiling, and passed from sight.
She found that each was borne laboriously onward by a
little colorless ant much smaller than itself: the bearer
was invisible, but the lovely burdens festooned the wall
with beauty.
To a watcher from the sky, the march of the flowers
of any zone across the year would seem as beautiful as
that West-Indian pageant. These frail creatures, rooted
where they stand, a part of the " still life " of Nature, yet
share her ceaseless motion. In the most sultry silence of
summer noons, the vital current is coursing with desperate
speed through the innumerable veins of every leaflet;




320 THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
and the apparent stillness, like the sleeping of a child's
top, is in truth the very ecstasy of perfected motion.
Not in the tropics only, but even in England, whence
most of our floral associations and traditions come, the
march of the flowers is in an endless circle, and, unlike our
experience, something is always in bloom. In the Northern United States, it is said, the active growth of most
plants is condensed into ten weeks, while in the mother
country the full activity is maintained through sixteen.
But even the English winter does not seem to be a winter, in the same sense as ours, appearing more like a
chilly and comfortless autumn. There is no month in the
year when some special plant does not bloom: the Coltsfoot there opens its fragrant flowers from December to
February; the yellow-flowered Hellebore, and its cousin,
the sacred Christmas Rose of Glastonbury, extend from
January to March; and the Snowdrop and Primrose
often come before the first of February. Something may
be gained, much lost, by that perennial succession; those
links, however slight, must make the floral period continuous to the imagination; while our year gives a pause
and an interval to its children, and after exhausted October has effloresced into Witch-Hazel, there is an absolute
reserve of blossom, until the Alders wave again.
No symbol could so well represent Nature's first yielding in spring-time as this blossoming of the Alder, this
drooping of the tresses of these tender things. Before
the frost is gone, and while the new-born season is yet too
weak to assert itself by actually uplifting anything, it can
at least let fall these blossoms, one by one, till they wave
defiance to the winter on a thousand boughs. How patiently they have waited! Men are perplexed with anxieties about their own immortality; but these catkins,




THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.  321
which hang, almost full-formed, above the ice all winter,
show no such solicitude, but when March wooes them
they are ready. Once relaxing, their pollen is so prompt'
to fall that it sprinkles your hand as you gather them.;
then, for one day, they are the perfection of grace upon'
your table, and next day they are weary and emaciated,
and their little contribution to the spring is done.
Then many eyes watch for the opening of the Mayflower, day by day, and a few for the Hepatica. So
marked and fantastic are the local preferences of all our
plants, that, with miles of woods and meadows open to:
their choice, each selects only some few spots for its accustomed abodes, and some one among them, all for its
very earliest blossoming. There is always some single
chosen nook, which you might almost cover with your
handkerchief, where each flower seems to bloom earliest,.
without variation, year by year. I know one such place
for Hepatica a mile northeast, — another for May-flower
two miles southwest; and each year the whimsical creature is in bloom on that little spot,. when not another
flower can be found open through the whole country
round. Accidental as the choice may appear, it is undoubtedly based on laws more eternal than the stars; yet
why all subtile influences conspire to bless that undistinguishable knoll no man can say.. Another and similar
puzzle offers itself in the distribution of the tints of flow —
ers, -in these two species among the rest. There are
certain localities, near by, where the Hepatica is all but
white, and others where the May-flower is sumptuous in
pink; yet it is not traceable to wet or dry, sun. or shadow,.
and no agricultural chemistry can disclose the secret. Is.
it by some Darwinian law of selection that the. white
Hepatica has utterly overpowered the blue, in our Cas14**                       U




322 THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
cade Woods, for instance, while yet in the very midst of
this pale plantation a single clump will sometimes bloom
with all heaven on its petals?  Why can one recognize
the Plymouth May-flower, as soon as seen, by its wondrous depth of color? Does it blush with triumph to see
how Nature has outwitted the Pilgrims, and even succeeded in preserving her deer like an English duke, still
maintaining the deepest woods in Massachusetts precisely
where those sturdy immigrants first began their clearings?
The Hepatica (called also Liverwort, Squirrel-Cup, or
Blue Anemone) has been found in Worcester as early as
March seventeenth, and in Danvers on March twelfth, —
dates which appear almost the extreme of credibility.
Our next wild-flower in this region is the Claytonia, or
Spring-Beauty, which is common in the Middle States,
but here found in only a few localities. It is the Indian
Miskodeed, and was said to have been left behind when
mighty Peboan, the Winter, was melted by the breath of
Spring. It is an exquisitely delicate little creature, bears
its blossoms in clusters, unlike most of the early species,
and opens in gradual succession each white and pinkveined bell. It grows in moist places on the sunny edges
of woods, and prolongs its shy career from about the
tenth of April until almost the end of May.
A week farther into April, and the Bloodroot opens, —
a name of guilt, and a type of innocence. This fresh and
lovely thing appears to concentrate all its stains within its
ensanguined root, that it may condense all purity in the
peculiar whiteness of its petals. It emerges from the
ground with each shy blossom wrapt in its own pale-green
leaf, then doffs the cloak and spreads its long petals round
a group of yellow stamens. The flower falls apart so
easily, that when in full bloom it will hardly bear trans



THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. 323
portation, but with a touch the stem stands naked, a bare
gold-tipped sceptre amid drifts of snow. And the contradiction of its hues seems carried into its habits. One of
the most shy of wild plants, easily banished from its locality by any invasion, it yet takes to the garden with unpardonable readiness, doubles its size, blossoms earlier, repudiates its love of water, and flaunts its great leaves in
the unnatural confinement, until it elbows out the exotics.
Its charm is gone, unless one find it in its native haunts,
beside some cascade which streams over rocks that are
dark with moisture, green with moss, and snowy with
white bubbles. Each spray of dripping feather-moss exudes a tiny torrent of its own, or braided with some tiny
neighbor, above the little water-fonts which sleep sunless
in ever-verdant caves. Sometimes along these emerald
canals there comes a sudden rush and hurry, as if some
anxious housekeeper upon the hill above were afraid that
things were not stirring fast enough,- and then again the
waving and sinuous lines of water are quieted to a serener
flow. The delicious red thrush and the busy little yellowthroat are not yet come to this their summer haunt; but
all day long the answering field-sparrows trill out their
sweet, shy, accelerating lay.
In the same localities with the Bloodroot, though some
days later, grows the Dog-Tooth Violet, -a name hopelessly inappropriate, but likely never to be changed.
These hardy and prolific creatures have also many localities of their own; for, though they do not acquiesce in
cultivation, like the sycophantic Bloodroot, yet they are
hard to banish from their native haunts, but linger after
the woods are cleared and the meadow drained.  The
bright flowers blaze back all the yellow light of noonday,
as the gay petals curl and spread themselves above their




324 THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
beds of mottled leaves; but it is always a disappointment
to gather them, for in-doors they miss the full ardor of
the sunbeams, and are apt to go to sleep and nod expressionless from the stalk.
And almost on the same day with this bright apparition
one may greet a multitude of concurrent visitors, arriving
so accurately together that it is almost a matter of accident which of the party shall first report himself. Perhaps the Dandelion should have the earliest place; indeed,
I once found it in Brookline on the seventh of April.
But it cannot ordinarily be expected before the twentieth,
in Eastern Massachusetts, and rather later in the interior;
while by the same date I have also found near Boston
the Cowslip or Marsh-Marigold, the Spring-Saxifrage, the
Anemones, the Violets, the Bellwort, the Houstonia, the
Cinquefoil, and the Strawberry-blossom. Varying, of
course, in different spots and years, the arrival of this
coterie is yet nearly simultaneous, and they may all be
expected hereabouts before May-day at the very latest.
After all, in spite of the croakers, this festival could not
have been much better timed, the delicate blossoms which
mark the period are usually in perfection on this day,
and it is not long before they are past their prime.
Some early plants which have now almost disappeared
from Eastern Massachusetts are still found near Worcester in the greatest abundance, — as the larger Yellow
Violet, the Red Trillium, the Dwarf Ginseng, the Clintonia or Wild Lily-of-the-Valley, and the pretty fringed
Polygala, which Miss Cooper christened "Gay-Wings."
Others again are now rare in this vicinity, and growing
rarer, though still abundant a hundred miles farther inland. In several bits of old swampy wood one may still
find, usually close together, the Hobble-Bush and the




THE PROCESSION  OF THE FLOWERS. 325
Painted Trillium, the Mitella, or Bishop's-Cap, and the
snowy Tiarella. Others again have entirely vanished
within ten years, and that in some cases without any adequate explanation. The dainty white Corydalis, profanely
called "Dutchman's Breeches," and the quaint woolly
Ledum, or Labrador Tea, have disappeared within that
time. The beautiful Linnea is still found annually, but
flowers no more; as is also the case, in all but one distant
locality, with the once abundant Rhododendron. Nothing
in Nature has for me a more fascinating interest than
these secret movements of vegetation, - the sweet blind
instinct with which flowers cling to old domains until absolutely compelled to forsake them. How touching is the
fact, now well known, that salt-water plants still flower
beside the Great Lakes, yet dreaming of the time when
those waters were briny as the sea! Nothing in the
demonstrations of Geology seems grander than the light
lately thrown by Professor Gray, from the analogies between the flora of Japan and of North America, upon the
successive epochs of heat which led the wandering flowers
along the Arctic lands, and of cold which isolated them
once more.'Yet doubtless these humble movements of
our local plants may be laying up results as important,
and may hereafter supply evidence of earth's changes
upon some smaller scale.
May expands to its prime of beauty; the summer birds
come with the fruit-blossoms, the gardens are deluged
with bloom, and the air with melody, while in the woods
the timid spring flowers fold themselves away in silence
and give place to a brighter splendor. On the margin of
some quiet swamp a myriad of bare twigs seem suddenly
overspread with purple butterflies, and we know that the
Rhodora is in bloom. Wordsworth never immortalized a




326 THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
flower more surely than Emerson this, and it needs no
weaker words; there is nothing else in which the change
from nakedness to beauty is so sudden, and when you
bring home the great mass of blossoms they appear all
ready to flutter away again from your hands and leave
you disenchanted.
At the same time the beautiful Cornel-tree is in perfection; startling as a tree of the tropics, it flaunts its great
flowers high up among the forest-branches, intermingling
its long slender twigs with theirs, and garnishing them
with alien blooms. It is very available for household
decoration, with its four great creamy petals,- flowers
they are not, but floral involucres, - each with a fantastic
curl and stain at its tip, as if the fire-flies had alighted on
them and scorched them; and yet I like it best as it peers
out in barbaric splendor from the delicate green of young
Maples. And beneath it grows often its more abundant
kinsman, the Dwarf Cornel, with the same four great
petals enveloping its floral cluster, but lingering low upon
the ground, - an herb whose blossoms mimic the statelier
tree.
The same rich creamy hue and texture show themselves in the Wild Calla, which grows at this season in
dark, sequestered water-courses, and sometimes well
rivals, in all but size, that superb whiteness out of a land
of darkness, the Ethiopic Calla of the conservatory. At
this season, too, we' seek another semi-aquatic rarity,
whose homely name cannot deprive it of a certain gardenlike elegance, the Buckbean. This is one of the shy
plants which yet grow in profusion within their own domain. I have found it of old in Cambridge, and then
upon the pleasant shallows of the Artichoke, that loveliest tributary of the Merrimack, and I have never seen




THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. 327
it where it occupied a patch more than a few yards
square, while yet within that space the multitudinous
spikes grow always tall and close, reminding one of hyacinths, when in perfection, but more delicate and beautiful. The only locality I know for it in this vicinity lies
seven miles away, where a little inlet from the lower
winding bays of Lake Quinsigamond goes stealing up
among a farmer's hay-fields, and there, close beside the
public road and in full view of the farm-house, this rare
creature fills the water. But to reach it we commonly
row down the lake to a sheltered lagoon, separated from
the main lake by a long island which is gradually forming
itself like the coral isles, growing each year denser with
alder thickets where the king-birds build; — there leave
the boat among the lily-leaves, and take a lane which
winds among the meadows and gives a fitting avenue for
the pretty thing we seek. But it is not safe to vary
many days from the twentieth of May, for the plant is
not long in perfection, and is past its prime when the
lower blossoms begin to wither on the stem.
But should we miss this delicate adjustment of time, it
is easy to console ourselves with bright armfuls of Lupine,
which bounteously flowers for six weeks along our lakeside, ranging from the twenty-third of May to the sixth
of July. The Lupine is one of our most travelled plants;
for, though never seen off the American continent, it
stretches to the Pacific, and is found upon the Arctic
coast. On these banks of Lake Quinsigamond it grows
in great families, and should be gathered in masses and
placed in a vase by itself; for it needs no relief from
other flowers, its own soft leaves afford background
enough, and though the white variety rarely occurs, yet
the varying tints of blue upon the same stalk are a per



328  THE PROCESSION  OF THE FLOWERS.
petual gratification to the eye. I know not why shaded
blues should be so beautiful in flowers, and yet avoided as
distasteful in ladies' fancy-work; but it is a mystery like
that which repudiates blue-and-green from all well-regulated costumes, while Nature yet evidently prefers it to
any other combination in her wardrobe.
Another constant ornament of the end of May is
the large pink Lady's-Slipper, or Moccason-Flower, the
"Cypripedium not due till to-morrow " which Emerson
attributes to the note-book of Thoreau, -- to-morrow, in
these parts, meaning about the twentieth of May. It belongs to the family of Orchids, a high-bred race, fastidious
in habits, sensitive as to abodes. Of the ten species
named as rarest among American endogenous plants by
Dr. Gray, in his valuable essay on the statistics of our
Northern Flora, all but one are Orchids. And even an
abundant species, like the present, retains the family
traits in its person, and never loses its high-born air and
its delicate veining. I know a grove where it can be
gathered by the hundreds within a half-acre, and yet I
never can divest myself of the feeling that each specimen
is a choice novelty. But the actual rarity occurs, at least
in this region, when one finds the smaller and more beautiful Yellow Moccason-Flower, -parviflorum, - which
accepts only our very choicest botanical locality, the
"Rattlesnake Ledge" on Tatessit Hill, —and may, for
aught I know, have been the very plant which Elsie
Venner laid upon her schoolmistress's desk.
June is an intermediate month between the spring and
summer flowers. Of the more delicate early blossoms,
the Dwarf Cornel, the Solomon's-Seal, and the Yellow
Violet still linger in the woods, but rapidly make way for
larger masses and more conspicuous hues. The meadows




THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. 329
are gorgeous with Clover, Buttercups, and Wild Geranium; but Nature is a little chary for a week or two,
maturing a more abundant show. Meanwhile one may
afford to take some pains to search for another rarity, almost disappearing from this region, —the lovely Pink
Azalea. It still grows plentifully in a few sequestered
places, selecting woody swamps to hide itself; and certainly no shrub suggests, when found, more tropical associations. Those great, nodding, airy, fragrant clusters,
tossing far above one's head their slender cups of honey,
seem scarcely to belong to our sober zone, any more than
the scarlet tanager which sometimes builds its nest beside
them. They appear bright exotics, which have wandered
into our woods, and seem too happy to feel any wish for
exit. And just as they fade, their humbler sister in white
begins to bloom, and carries on through the summer the
same intoxicating fragrance.
But when June is at its height, the sculptured chalices
of the Mountain Laurel begin to unfold, and th'enceforward, for more than a month, extends the reign of this
our woodland queen. I know not why one should sigh
after the blossoming gorges of the Himalaya, when our
forests are all so crowded with this glowing magnificence,
-rounding the tangled swamps into smoothness, lighting
up the underwoods, overtopping the pastures, lining the
rural lanes, and rearing its great pinkish masses till they
meet overhead. The color ranges from the purest white
to a perfect rose-pink, and there is an inexhaustible vegetable vigor about the whole thing, which puts to shame
those tenderer shrubs that shrink before the progress of
cultivation. There is the Rhododendron, for instance, a
plant of the same natural family with the Laurel and the
Azalea, and looking more robust and woody than either:




8330  THE PROCESSION  OF THE FLOWERS.
it once grew in many localities in this region, and still
lingers in a few, without consenting either to die or to
blossom, and there is only one remote place from which.any one now brings into our streets those large luxuriant
flowers, waving white above the dark green leaves, and
bearing "just a dream of sunset on their edges, and just
a breath from the green sea in their hearts." But the
Laurel, on the other hand, maintains its'ground, imperturbable and almost impassable, on every hillside, takes
no hints, suspects no danger, and nothing but the most
unmistakable onset from spade or axe can diminish its
profusion. Gathering it on the most lavish scale seems
only to serve as wholesome pruning; nor can I conceive
that the Indians, who once ruled over this whole county
from Wigwam Hill, could ever have found it more inconveniently abundant than now. We have perhaps no
single spot where it grows in such perfect picturesqueness
as at " The Laurels," on the Merrimack, just above Newburyport,- a whole hillside scooped out and the hollow
piled solidly with flowers, the pines curving around it
above, and the river encircling it below, on which your
boat glides along, and you look up through glimmering
arcades of bloom. But for the last half of June.it monopolizes everything in the Worcester woods,- no one picks
anything else; and it fades so slowly that I have found a
perfect blossom on the last day of July.
At the same time with this royalty of the woods, the
queen of the water ascends her throne, for a reign as undisputed and far more prolonged. The extremes of the
Water-Lily in this vicinity, so far as I have known, are
the eighteenth of June and the thirteenth of October, -
a longer range than belongs to any other conspicuous
wild-flower, unless we except the Dandelion and Hous



THE PROCESSION  OF THE FLOWERS. 331
tonia. It is not only the most fascinating of all flowers to
gather, but more available for decorative purposes than
almost any ether, if it can only be kept fresh. The best
method for this purpose, I believe, is to cut the stalk very
short before placing in the vase; then, at night, the lily
will close and the stalk curl upward; —refresh them by
changing the water, and in the morning the stalk will be
straight and the flower open.
From this time forth Summer has it all her own way.
After the first of July the yellow flowers begin to watch
the yellow fire-flies; Hawkweeds, Loosestrifes, Primroses
bloom, and the bushy Wild Indigo. The variety of hues
increases; delicate purple Orchises bloom in their chosen
haunts, and Wild Roses blush over hill and dale. On
peat-meadows the Adder's-Tongue Arethusa (now called
Pogonia) flowers profusely, with a faint, delicious perfume, - and its more elegant cousin, the Calopogon, by its
side. In this vicinity we miss the blue Harebell, the
identical harebell of Ellen Douglas, which I remember
waving its exquisite flowers along the banks of the Merrimack, and again at Brattleboro', below the cascade in the
village, where it has climbed the precipitous sides of old
buildings, and nods inaccessibly from their crevices, in
that picturesque spot, looking down on the hurrying river.
But with this exception, there is nothing wanting here of
the flowers of early summer.
The more closely one studies Nature, the finer her
adaptations grow. For instance, the change of seasons is
analogous to a change of zones, and summer assimilates
our vegetation to that of the tropics. In those lands, Humboldt has remarked, one misses the beauty of wild-flowers
in the grass, because the luxuriance of vegetation develops
everything into shrubs. The form and color are beauti



332 THIE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
ful, "but, being too high above the soil, they disturb that
harmonious proportion which characterizes the plants of
our European meadows. Nature has, in every zone,
stamped on the landscape the peculiar type of beauty
proper to the locality." But every midsummer reveals
the same tendency. In early spring, when all is bare,
and small objects are easily made prominent, the wildflowers are generally delicate. Later, when all verdure
is profusely expanded, these miniature strokes would be
lost, and, Nature then practises landscape-gardening in
large, lights up the copses with great masses of White
Alder, makes the roadsides gay with Aster and GoldenRod, and tops the tall coarse Meadow-Grass with nodding
Lilies and tufted Spiraea. One instinctively follows these
plain hints, and gathers bouquets sparingly in spring and
exuberantly in summer.
The use of wild-flowers for decorative purposes merits
a word in passing, for it is unquestionably a branch of
high art in favored hands. It is true that we are bidden,
on high authority, to love the wood-rose and leave it on
its stalk; but against this may be set the saying of Bettine, that " all flowers which are broken become immortal
in the sacrifice "; and certainly the secret harmonies of
these fair creatures are so marked and delicate that we do
not understand them till we try to group floral decorations
for ourselves. The most successful artists will not, for
instance, consent to put those together which do not grow
together; Nature understands her business, and distributes
her masses and backgrounds unerringly. Yonder soft and
feathery Meadow-Sweet longs to be combined with Wild
Roses: it yearns towards them in the field, and, after withering in the hand most readily, it revives in water as if to
be with them in the vase. In the same way the White




THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. 333
Spireea serves as natural background for the Field-Lilies.
These lilies, by the way, are the brightest adornment of
our meadows during the short period of their perfection.
We have two species: one slender, erect, solitary, scarlet,
looking up to heaven with all its blushes on; the other
clustered, drooping, pale-yellow. I never saw the former
in such profusion as last week, on the bare summit of
Wachusett. The granite ribs have there a thin covering
of crispest moss, spangled with the white starry blossoms
of the Mountain Cinquefoil; and as I lay and watched the
red lilies that waved their innumerable urns around me,
it needed but little imagination to see a thousand altars,
sending visible flames forever upward to the answering
sun.
August comes: the Thistles are out, beloved of butterflies; deeper and deeper tints, more passionate intensities
of color, prepare the way for the year's decline. A wealth
of gorgeous Golden-Rod waves over all the hills, and enriches every bouquet one gathers; its bright colors command the eye, and it is graceful as an elm. Fitly arranged,
it gives a bright relief to the superb beauty of the CardinalFlowers, the brilliant blue-purple of the Vervain, the pearlwhite of the Life-Everlasting, the delicate lilac of the
Monkey-Flower, the soft pink and white of the Spiraeas,
- for the white yet lingers, - all surrounded by trailing
wreaths of blossoming Clematis.
But the Cardinal-Flower is best seen by itself, and,
indeed, needs the surroundings of its native haunts to display its fullest beauty. Its favorite abode is along the
dank mossy stones of some black and winding brook,
shaded with overarching bushes, and running one long
stream of scarlet with these superb occupants. It seems
amazing how anything so brilliant can mature in such a




334 THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
darkness. When a ray of sunlight strays in upon it, the
wondrous creature seems to hover on the stalk, ready to
take flight, like some lost tropic bird. There is a spot
whence I have in ten minutes brought away as many as I
could hold in both arms, some bearing fifty blossoms on a
single stalk; and I could not believe that there was such
another mass of color in the world. Nothing cultivated is
comparable to them; and, with all the talent lately lavished on wild-flower painting, I have never seen the peculiar sheen of these petals in the least degree delineated.
It seems some new and separate tint, equally distinct from
scarlet and from crimson, a splendor for which there is as
yet no name, but only the reality.
It seems the signal of autumn, when September exhibits
the first Barrel-Gentian by the roadside; and there is a
pretty insect in the meadows —the MIourning-Cloak Moth
it might be called-which gives coincident warning. The
innumerable Asters mark this period with their varied and
wvide-spread beauty; the meadows are full of rose-colored
Polygala, of the white spiral spikes of the Ladies'-Tresses,
and of the fringed loveliness of the Gentian. This flower,
always unique and beautiful, opening its delicate eyelashes
every morning to the sunlight, closing them again each
night, has also a thoughtful charm about it as the last of
the year's especial darlings. It lingers long, each remaining blossom growing larger and more deep in color, as
with many other flowers; and after it there is nothing
for which to look forward, save the fantastic Witch-Hazel.
On the water, meanwhile, the last White Lilies are
sinking beneath the surface, the last gay Pickerel-Weed
is gone, though the rootless plants of the delicate BladderWort, spreading over acres of shallows, still impurple the
wide, smooth surface. Harriet Prescott says that some




THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. 335
souls are like the Water-Lilies, fixed, yet floating. But
others are like this graceful purple blossom, floating unfixed, kept in place only by its fellows around it, until
perhaps a breeze comes, and, breaking the accidental
cohesion, sweeps them all away.
The season reluctantly yields its reign, and over the
quiet autumnal landscape everywhere, even after the
glory of the trees is past, there are tints and fascinations
of minor beauty. Last October, for instance, in walking,
I found myself on a little knoll, looking northward. Overhead was a bower of climbing Waxwork, with its yellowish pods scarce disclosing their scarlet berries, — a wild
Grape-vine, with its fruit withered by the frost into still
purple raisins,- and yellow Beech-leaves, detaching
themselves with an effort audible to the ear. In the
foreground were blue Raspberry-stems, yet bearing greenish leaves,- pale-yellow  Witch-Hazel, almost leafless,
— purple Viburnum-berries, - the silky cocoons of the
Milkweed, - and, amid the underbrush, a few lingering
Asters and Golden-Rods, Ferns still green, and Maidenhair bleached white. In the background were hazy hills,
white Birches bare and snow-like, and a Maple half-way
up a sheltered hillside, one mass of canary-color, its
fallen leaves making an apparent reflection on the earth
at its foot, - and then a real reflection, fused into a glassy
light intenser than itself, upon the smooth, dark stream
below.
The beautiful disrobing suggested the persistent and
unconquerable delicacy of Nature, who shrinks from
nakedness and is always seeking to veil her graceful
boughs, - if not with leaves, then with feathery hoarfrost, ermined snow, or transparent icy armor.
But, after all, the fascination of summer lies not in any




336 THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS.
details, however perfect, but in the sense of total wealth
which summer gives. Wholly to enjoy this, one must
give one's self passively to it, and not expect to reproduce
it in words. We strive to picture heaven, when we are
barely at the threshold of the inconceivable beauty of
earth. Perhaps the truant boy who simply bathes himself in the lake and then basks in the sunshine, dimly conscious of the exquisite loveliness around him, is wiser,
because humbler, than is he who with presumptuous
phrases tries to utter it. There are multitudes of moments when the atmosphere is so surcharged with luxury
that every pore of the body becomes an ample gate for
sensation to flow in, and one has simply to sit still and be
filled. In after years the memory of books seems barren
or vanishing, compared with the immortal bequest of hours
like these. Other sources of illumination seem cisterns
only; these are fountains. They may not increase the
mere quantity of available thought, but they impart to it
a quality which is priceless. No man can measure what
a single hour with Nature may have contributed to the
moulding of his mind.  The influence is self-renewing,
and if for a long time it baffles expression by reason of
its fineness, so much the better in the end.
The soul is like a musical instrument: it is not enough
that it be framed for the very most delicate vibration, but
it must vibrate long and often before the fibres grow mellow to the finest waves of sympathy. I perceive that in
the veery's carolling, the clover's scent, the glistening of
the water, the waving wings of butterflies, the sunset tints,
the floating clouds, there are attainable infinitely more
subtile modulations of delight than I can yet reach the
sensibility to discriminate, much less describe. If, in
the simple process of writing, one, could physically impart




THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS. 337
to this page the fragrance of this spray of azalea beside
me, what a wonder would it seem!- and yet one ought
to be able, by the mere use of language, to supply to every
reader the total of that white, honeyed, trailing sweetness,
which summer insects haunt and the Spirit of the Universe
loves. The defect is not in language, but in men. There
is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as words,
— none so graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to
dream of combinations of syllables so delicious that all the
dawning and decay of summer cannot rival their perfection, nor winter's stainless white and azure match their
purity and their charm. To write them, were it possible,
would be to take rank with Nature; nor is there any
other method, even by music, for human art to reach so
high.
15                         v








SNOW.








S NOW.
A   LL through the long hours of yesterday the low
clouds hung close above our heads, to pour with
more unswerving aim their constant storm of sleet and
snow, — sometimes working in soft silence, sometimes
with impatient gusty breaths, but always busily at work.
Darkness brought no rest to these laborious warriors of
the air, but only fiercer strife: the wild winds rose; noisy
recruits, they howled beneath the eaves, or swept around
the walls, like hungry wolves, now here, now there, howling at opposite doors. Thus, through the anxious and
wakeful night, the storm went on. The household lay
vexed by broken dreams, with changing fancies of lost
children on solitary moors, of sleighs hopelessly overturned in drifted and pathless gorges, or of icy cordage
upon disabled vessels in Arctic seas; until a softer
warmth, as of sheltering snow-wreaths, lulled all into
deeper rest till morning.
And what a morning! The sun, a young conqueror,
sends in his glorious rays, like heralds, to rouse us for the
inspection of his trophies. The baffled foe, retiring, has
left far and near the high-heaped spoils behind. The
glittering plains own the new victor. Over all these level
and wide-swept meadows, over all these drifted, spotless




342                   SNOW.
slopes, he is proclaimed undisputed monarch. On the
wooded hillsides the startled shadows are in motion;
they flee like young fawns, bounding upward and downward over rock and dell, as through the long gleaming
arches the king comes marching to his throne. But
shade yet lingers undisturbed in the valleys, mingled
with timid smoke from household chimneys; blue as the
smoke, a gauzy haze is twined around the brow of every
distant hill; and the same soft azure confuses the outlines of the nearer trees, to whose branches snowy wreaths
are clinging, far up among the boughs, like strange new
flowers. Everywhere the unstained surface glistens in
the sunbeams. In the curves and wreaths and turrets of
the drifts a blue tinge nestles. The fresh pure sky answers to it; every cloud has vanished, save one or two
which linger near the horizon, pardoned offenders, seeming far too innocent for mischief, although their dark and
sullen brothers, banished ignominiously below the horizon's verge, may be plotting nameless treachery there.
The brook still flows visibly through the valley, and the
myriad rocks that check its course are all rounded with
fleecy surfaces, till they seem like flocks of tranquil sheep
that drink the shallow flood.
The day is one of moderate cold, but clear and bracing;
the air sparkles like the snow; everything seems dry and
resonant, like the wood of a violin. All sounds are musical,- the voices of children, the cooing of doves, the
crowing of cocks, the chopping of wood, the creaking of
country sleds, the sweet jangle of sleigh-bells. The snow
has fallen under a cold temperature, and the flakes are
perfectly crystallized; every shrub we pass bears wreaths
which glitter as gorgeously as the nebula in the constellation Perseus; but in another hour of sunshine every one




SNOW.                    343
of those fragile outlines will disappear, and the white surface glitter no longer with stars, but with star-dust. On
such a day, the universe seems to hold but three pure
tints, —blue, white, and green. The loveliness of the
universe seems simplified to its last extreme of refined
delicacy. That sensation we poor mortals often have, of
being just on the edge of infinite beauty, yet with always
a lingering film between, never presses down more closely
than on days like this. Everything seems perfectly prepared to satiate the soul with inexpressible felicity, if we
could only, by one infinitesimal step farther, reach the
mood to dwell in it.
Leaving behind us the sleighs and snow-shovels of the
street, we turn noiselessly toward the radiant margin of
the sunlit woods. The yellow willows on the causeway
burn like flame against the darker background, and will
burn on until they burst into April. Yonder pines and
hemlocks stand motionless and dark against the sky. The
statelier trees have already shaken all the snow from
their summits, but it still clothes the lower ones with a
white covering that looks solid as marble. Yet see how
lightly it escapes! — a slight gust shakes a single tree,
there is a Staub-bach for a moment, and the branches
stand free as in summer, a pyramid of green amid the
whiteness of the yet imprisoned forest. Each branch
raises itself when emancipated, thus changing the whole
outline of the growth; and the snow beneath is punctured
with a thousand little depressions, where the petty avalanches have just buried themselves and disappeared.
In crossing this white level, we have been tracking our
way across an invisible pond, which was alive last week
with five hundred skaters. Now there is a foot of snow
upon it, through which there is a boyish excitement in




344                   SNOW.
making the first path. Looking back upon our track, it
proves to be like all other human paths, straight in intention, but slightly devious in deed. We have gay companions on our way; for a breeze overtakes us, and a
hundred little simooms of drift whirl along beside us,
and whelm in miniature burial whole caravans of dry
leaves. Here, too, our track intersects with that of some
previous passer; he has but just gone on, judging by the
freshness of the trail, and we can study his character and
purposes. The large boots betoken a woodman or iceman; yet such a one would hardly have stepped so irresolutely where a little film of water has spread between
the ice and snow and given a look of insecurity; and here
again he has stopped to observe the wreaths on this pendent bough, and this snow-filled bird's-nest. And there
the footsteps of the lover of beauty turn abruptly to the
road again, and he vanishes from us forever.
As we wander on through the wood, all the labyrinths
of summer are buried beneath one white inviting pathway, and the pledge of perfect loneliness is given by the
unbroken surface of the all-revealing snow. There appears nothing living except a downy woodpecker, whirling round and round upon a young beech-stem, and a few
sparrows, plump with grass-seed and hurrying with jerking flight down the sunny glade. But the trees furnish
society enough. What a congress of ermined kings is
this circle of hemlocks, which stand, white in their soft
raiment, around the dais of this woodland pond! Are
they held here, like the sovereigns in the palace of the
Sleeping Beauty, till some mortal breaks their spell?
What sage counsels must be theirs, as they nod their
weary heads and whisper ghostly memories and old men's
tales to each other, while the red leaves dance on the




SNOW.                     345
snowy sward below, or a fox or squirrel steals hurriedly
through the wild and wintry night! Here and there is
some discrowned Lear, who has thrown off his regal
mantle, and stands in faded russet, misplaced among the
monarchs.
What a simple and stately hospitality is that of Nature
in winter! The season which the residents of cities think
an obstruction is in the country an extension of intercourse: it opens every forest from here to Labrador, free
of entrance; the most tangled thicket, the most treacherous marsh, becomes passable; and the lumberer or moosehunter, mounted on his snow-shoes, has the world before
him.  He says "good snow-shoeing," as we say "good
sleighing"; and it gives a sensation like a first visit to
the sea-side and the shipping, when one first sees exhibited for sale, in the streets of Bangor or Montreal, these
delicate Indian conveyances. It seems as if a new element were suddenly opened for travel, and all due facilities provided. One expects to go a little farther, and see
in the shop-windows, " Wings for sale, - gentlemen's and
ladies' sizes." The snow-shoe and the birch canoe, —
what other dying race ever left behind it two memorials
so perfect and so graceful.
The shadows thrown by the trees upon the snow are
blue and soft, sharply defined, and so contrasted with the
gleaming white as to appear narrower than the boughs
which cast them. There is something subtle and fantastic about these shadows. Here is a leafless larch-sapling,
eight feet high. The image of the lower boughs is traced
upon the snow, distinct and firm as cordage, while the
higher ones grow dimmer by fine gradations, until the
slender topmost twig is blurred, and almost effaced. Butthe denser upper spire of the young spruce by its side
15*




346                    SNOW.
throws almost as distinct a shadow as its base, and the.whole figure looks of a more solid texture, as if you
could feel it with your hand. More beautiful than either
is the fine image of this baby hemlock: each delicate
leaf droops above as delicate a copy, and here and there
the shadow and the substance kiss and frolic with each
other in the downy snow.
The larger larches have a different plaything: on the
bare branches, thickly studded with buds, cling airily the
small, light cones of last year's growth, each crowned with
a little ball of soft snow, four times taller than itself, -
save where some have drooped sideways, so that each
carries, poor weary Atlas, a sphere upon its back. Thus
the coy creatures play cup and ball, and one has lost its
plaything yonder, as the branch slightly stirs, and the
whole vanishes in a whirl of snow. Meanwhile a fragment of low arbor-vitce hedge, poor outpost of a neighboring plantation,.is. so covered and packed with solid drift,
inside and out, that it seems as if no power of sunshine
could ever steal in among its twigs and disentangle it.
In winter each separate object interests us; in summer,
the mass. Natural beauty in winter is a poor man's luxury, infinitely enhanced in quality by the diminution in
quantity. Winter, with fewer and simpler methods, yet
seems to give all her works a finish even more delicate
than that of summer, working, as Emerson says of English agriculture, with a pencil, instead of a plough. Or
rather, the ploughshare is but concealed; since a pithy
old English preacher has said that " the frost is God's
plough, which he drives through every inch of ground
in the world, opening each clod, and pulverizing the
whole."
Coming out upon a high hillside, more exposed to the




SNOW.                     347
direct fury of the sleet, we find Nature wearing a wilder
look. Every white-birch clump around us is bent divergingly to the ground, each white form prostrated in
mute despair upon the whiter bank. The bare, writhing
branches of yonder sombre oak-grove are steeped in
snow, and in the misty air they look so remote and foreign
that there is not a wild creature of the Norse mythology
who might not stalk from beneath their haunted branches.
Buried races, Teutons and Cimbri, might tramp solemnly
forth from those weird arcades. The soft pines on this
nearer knoll seem separated from them by ages and generations. On the farther hills spread woods of smaller
growth, like forests of spun glass, jewelry by the acre
provided for this coronation of winter.
We descend a steep bank, little pellets of snow rolling
hastily beside us, and leaving enamelled furrows behind.
Entering the sheltered and sunny glade, we are assailed
by a sudden warmth whose languor is almost oppressive.
Wherever the sun strikes upon the pines and hemlocks,
there is a household gleam which gives a more vivid
sensation than the diffused brilliancy of summer. The
sunbeams maintain a thousand secondary fires in the
reflection of light from every tree and stalk, for the preservation of animal life and ultimate melting of these accumulated drifts. Around each trunk or stone the snow
has melted and fallen back. It is a singular fact, established beyond doubt by science, that the snow is absolutely less influenced by the direct rays of the sun than
by these reflections. " If a blackened card is placed upon
the snow or ice in the sunshine, the frozen mass underneath it will be gradually thawed, while that by which it
is surrounded, though exposed to the full power of solar
heat, is but little disturbed. If, however, we reflect the




348                   SNOW.
sun's rays from a metal surface, an exactly contrary result takes place: the uncovered parts are the first to melt,
and the blackened card stands high above the surrounding portion." Look round upon this buried meadow, and
you will see emerging through the white surface a thousand stalks of grass, sedge, osmunda, golden-rod, mullein,
Saint-John's-wort, plaintain, and eupatorium, - an allied
army of the sun, keeping up a perpetual volley of innumerable rays upon the yielding snow.
It is their last dying service. We misplace our tenderness in winter, and look with pity upon the leafless
trees. But there is no tragedy in the trees: each is not
dead, but sleepeth; and each bears a future summer of
buds safe nestled on its bosom, as a mother reposes with
her baby at her breast. The same security of life pervades every woody shrub: the alder and the birch have
their catkins all ready for the first day of spring, and the
sweet-fern has even now filled with fragrance its folded
blossom. Winter is no such solid bar between season
and season as we fancy, but only a slight check and interruption: one may at any time produce these March blossoms by bringing the buds into the warm house; and the
petals of the May-flower sometimes show their pink and
white edges in autumn. But every grass-blade and flowerstalk is a mausoleum of vanished summer, itself crumbling
to dust, never to rise again. Each child of June, scarce
distinguishable in November against the background of
moss and rocks and bushes, is brought into final prominence in December by the white snow which imbeds it.
The delicate flakes collapse and fall back around it, but
retain their inexorable hold. Thus delicate is the action
of Nature, - a finger of air, and a grasp of iron.
We pass the old red foundry, banked in with snow and




SNOW.                     349
its low eaves draped with icicles, and come to the brook
which turns its resounding wheel. The musical motion
of the water seems almost unnatural amidst the general
stillness: brooks, like men, must keep themselves warm
by exercise. The overhanging rushes and alder-sprays,
weary of winter's sameness, have made for themselves
playthings, - each dangling a crystal knob of ice, which
sways gently in the water and gleams ruddy in the sunlight. As we approach the foaming cascade, the toys
become larger and more glittering, movable stalactites,
which the water tosses merrily upon their flexible stems.
The torrent pours down beneath an enamelled mask of
ice, wreathed and convoluted like a brain, and sparkling
with gorgeous glow. Tremulous motions and glimmerings go through the translucent veil, as if it throbbed with
the throbbing wave beneath. It holds in its mazes stray
bits of color, - scarlet berries, evergreen sprigs, blue
raspberry-stems, and sprays of yellow willow; glittering
necklaces and wreaths and tiaras of brilliant ice-work
cling and trail around its edges, and no regal palace shines
with such carcanets of jewels as this winter ball-room of
the dancing drops.
Above, the brook becomes a smooth black canal between two steep white banks; and the glassy water seems
momentarily stiffening into the solider blackness of ice.
Here and there thin films are already formed over it, and
are being constantly broken apart by the treacherous current; a flake a foot square is jerked away and goes sliding
beneath the slight transparent surface till it reappears below. The same thing, on a larger scale, helps to form the
mighty ice-pack of the Northern seas. Nothing except
ice is capable of combining, on the largest scale, bulk
with mobility, and this imparts a dignity to its motions




350                   SNOW.
even on the smallest scale. I do not believe that anything in Behring's Straits could impress me with a
grander sense of desolation or of power, than when in
boyhood I watched the ice break up in the winding channel of Charles River.
Amidst so much that seems like death, let us turn and
study the life. There is much more to be seen in winter
than most of us have ever noticed. Far in the North
the "moose-yards" are crowded and trampled, at this
season, and the wolf and the deer run noiselessly a deadly
race, as I have heard the hunters describe, upon the white
surface of the gleaming lake. But the pond beneath our
feet keeps its stores of life chiefly below its level plat.
form, as the bright fishes in the basket of yon heavybooted fisherman can tell. Yet the scattered tracks of
mink and muskrat beside the banks, of meadow-mice
around the hay-stacks, of squirrels under the trees, of
rabbits and partridges in the wood, show the warm life
that is beating unseen, beneath fur or feathers, close beside us. The chickadees are chattering merrily in the
upland grove, the blue-jays scream in the hemlock glade,
the snow-bird mates the snow with its whiteness, and the
robin contrasts with it his still ruddy breast. The weird
and impenetrable crows, most talkative of birds and most
uncommunicative, their very food at this season a mystery, are almost as numerous now as in summer. They
always seem like some race of banished goblins, doing
penance for some primeval and inscrutable transgression,
and if any bird have a history, it is they. In the Spanish
version of the tradition of King Arthur, it is said that he
fled from the weeping queens and the island valley of
Avilion in the form of a crow; and hence it is said in
" Don Quixote " that no Englishman will ever kill one.




SNOW.                     851
The traces of the insects in the winter are prophetic,from the delicate cocoon of some infinitesimal feathery
thing which hangs upon the dry, starry calyx of the aster,
to the large brown-paper parcel which hides in peasant
garb the costly beauty of some gorgeous moth. But the
hints of birds are retrospective. In each tree of this pasture, the very pasture where last spring we looked for
nests and found them not among the deceitful foliage, the
fragile.,domiciles now stand revealed. But where are the
birds that filled them? Could the airy creatures nurtured
in those nests have left permanently traced upon the air
behind them their own bright summer flight, the whole
atmosphere would be filled with interlacing lines and
curves of gorgeous coloring, the centre of all being this
forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow.
Among the many birds which winter here, and the
many insects which are called forth by a few days of
thaw, not a few must die of cold or of fatigue amid the
storms. Yet how few traces one sees of this mortality!
Provision is made for it. Yonder a dead wasp has fallen
on the snow, and the warmth of its body, or its power of
reflecting a few small rays of light, is melting its little
grave beneath it. With what a cleanly purity does
Nature strive to withdraw all unsightly objects into her
cemetery! Their own weight and lingering warmth take
them through air or water, snow or ice, to the level of the
earth, and there with spring comes an army of buryinginsects, Necrophagi, in a livery of red and black, to dig
a grave beneath every one, and not a sparrow falleth to
the ground without knowledge. The tiny remains thus
disappear from the surface, and the dry leaves are soon
spread above these Children in the Wood.
Thus varied and benignant are the aspects of winter on




352                   SNOW.
these sunny days. But it is impossible to claim this
weather as the only type of our winter climate. There
occasionally-come days which, though perfectly still and
serene, suggest more terror than any tempest, — terrible,
clear, glaring days of pitiless cold,- when the sun seems
powerless or only a brighter moon, when the windows
remain ground-glass at high noontide, and when, on going
out of doors, one is dazzled by the brightness, and fancies
for a moment that it cannot be so cold as has been reported, but presently discovers that the severity is only
more deadly for being so still. Exercise on such days
seems to produce no warmth; one's limbs appear ready
to break on any sudden motion, like icy boughs. Stagedrivers and draymen are transformed to mere human
buffaloes by their fur coats; the patient oxen are frostcovered; the horse that goes racing by waves a wreath.of steam  from  his tossing head.  On such days life
becomes a battle to all householders, the ordinary apparatus for defence is insufficient, and the price of caloric
is continual vigilance. In innumerable armies the frost
besieges the portal, creeps in beneath it and above it, and
on every latch and key-handle lodges an advanced guard
-of white rime. Leave the door ajar never so slightly,,and a chill creeps in cat-like; we are conscious by the
warmest fireside of the near vicinity of cold, its fingers
are feeling after us, and even if they do not clutch us, we
know that they are there. The sensations of such days
almost make us associate their clearness and whiteness
with something malignant and evil. Charles Lamb asserts of snow, " It glares too much for an innocent color,
methinks."  Why does popular mythology associate the
infernal regions with a high temperature instead of a low
one? El Aishi, the Arab writer, says of the bleak wind




SNOW.                      353
of the Desert, (so writes Richardson, the African traveller,) " The north wind blows with an intensity equalling
the cold of hell; language fails me to describe its rigorous
temperature." Some have thought that there is a similar.
allusion in the phrase, " weeping and gnashing of teeth,"'
- the teeth chattering from frost. Milton also enumerates
cold as one of the torments of the lost, —
"O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp ";
and one may sup full of horrors on the exceedingly cold
collation provided for the next world by the Norse
Edda.
But, after all, there are but few such terrific periods in
our Massachusetts winters, and the appointed exit from
their frigidity is usually through a snow-storm. After
a day of this severe sunshine there comes commonly
a darker day of cloud, still hard and forbidding, though
milder in promise, with a sky of lead, deepening near the
horizon into darker films of iron. Then, while all the
nerves of the universe seem rigid and tense, the first
reluctant flake steals slowly down, like a tear. In a few
hours the whole atmosphere begins to relax once more,
and in our astonishing climate very possibly the snow
changes to rain in twenty-four hours, and a thaw sets in.
It is not strange, therefore, that snow, which to Southern
races is typical of cold and terror, brings associations. of
warmth and shelter to the children of the North.
Snow, indeed, actually nourishes animal life.  It holds
in its bosom numerous animalcules: you may have a glass
of water, perfectly free from infusoria, which yet, after
your dissolving in it a handful of snow, will show itself
full of microscopic creatures, shrimp-like and swift; and.
the famous red snow of the Arctic regions is only ant
exhibition of the same property. It has sometimes been
w




85 4                  SNOW.
fancied that persons buried under the snow have received
sustenance through the pores of the skin, like reptiles
imbedded in rock. Elizabeth Woodcock lived eight days
beneath a snow-drift, in 1799, without eating a morsel;
and a Swiss family were buried beneath an avalanche, in
a manger, for five months, in 1755, with no food but a
trifling store of chestnuts and a small daily supply of
milk from a goat which was buried with them. In neither case was there extreme suffering from cold, and it is
unquestionable that the interior of a drift is far warmer
than the surface. On the 23d of December, 1860, at
9 P. M., I was surprised to observe drops falling from the
under side of a heavy bank of snow at the eaves, at a
distance from any chimney, while the mercury on the
same side was only fifteen degrees above zero, not having indeed risen above the point of freezing during the
whole day.
Dr. Kane pays ample tribute to these kindly properties. " Few of us at home can recognize the protecting
value of this warm coverlet of snow. No eider-down in
the cradle of an infant is tucked in more kindly than
the sleeping-dress of winter about this feeble flower-life.
The first warm snows of August and September, falling
on a thickly pleached carpet of grasses, heaths, and willows, enshrine the flowery growths which nestle round
them in a non-conducting air-chamber; and as each successive snow increases the thickness of the cover, we
have, before the intense cold of winter sets in, a light
cellular bed covered by drift, six, eight, or ten feet deep,
in which the plant retains its vitality...... I have found
in midwinter, in this high latitude of 78~ 50', the surface
so nearly moist as to be friable to the touch; and upon
the ice-floes, commencing with a surface-temperature of




SNO W.                    355
-30~, I found at two feet deep a temperature of — 8~,
at four feet +20, and at eight feet +26~.....  The
glacier which we became so familiar with afterwards at
Etah yields an uninterrupted stream throughout the year."
And he afterwards shows that even the varying texture
and quality of the snow deposited during the earlier and
later portions of the Arctic winter have their special
adaptations to the welfare of the vegetation they protect.
The process of crystallization seems a microcosm of
the universe. Radiata, mollusca, feathers, flowers, ferns,
mosses, palms, pines, grain-fields, leaves of cedar, chestnut, elm, acanthus: these and multitudes of other objects
are figured on your frosty window; on sixteen different
panes I have counted sixteen patterns strikingly distinct,
and it appeared like a show-case for the globe. What can
seem remoter relatives than the star, the star-fish, the starflower, and the starry snow-flake which clings this moment
to your sleeve? - yet some philosophers hold that one day
their law of existence will be found precisely the same.
The connection with the primeval star, especially, seems
far and fanciful enough, but there are yet unexplored
affinities between light and crystallization: some crystals
have a tendency to grow toward the light, and others
develop electricity and give out flashes of light during
their formation. Slight foundations for scientific fancies,
indeed, but slight is all our knowledge.
More than a hundred different figures of snow-flakes,
all regular and kaleidoscopic, have been drawn by Scoresby, Lowe, and Glaisher, and may be found pictured in the
encyclopedias and elsewhere, ranging from the simplest
stellar shapes to the most complicated ramifications. Professor Tyndall, in his delightful book on " The Glaciers of
the Alps," gives drawings of a few of these snow-blossoms,




356                   SNOW.
which he watched falling for hours, the whole air being
filled with them, and drifts of several inches being accumulated while he watched. "Let us imagine the eye
gifted with microscopic power sufficient to enable it to see
the molecules which composed these starry crystals; to
observe the solid nucleus formed and floating in the air;
to see it drawing towards it its allied atoms, and these
arranging themselves as if they moved to music, and ended
with rendering that music concrete." Thus do the Alpine
winds, like Orpheus, build their walls by harmony.
In some of these frost-flowers the rare and delicate
blossom of our wild Mitella diphylla is beautifully figured.
Snow-flakes have been also found in the form of regular
hexagons and other plane figures, as well as in cylinders
and spheres. As a general rule, the intenser the cold the
more perfect the formation, and the most perfect specimens are Arctic or Alpine in their locality. In this climate the snow seldom falls when the mercury is much
below zero; but the slightest atmospheric changes may
alter the whole condition of the deposit, and decide
whether it shall sparkle like Italian marble, or be deadwhite like the statuary marble of Vermont, - whether it
shall be a fine powder which can sift through wherever
dust can, or descend in large woolly masses, tossed like
mouthfuls to the hungry earth.
The most remarkable display of crystallization which I
have ever seen was on the 13th of January, 1859. There
had been three days of unusual cold, but during the night
the weather had moderated, and the mercury in the morning stood at +14~. About two inches of snow had fallen,
and the trees appeared densely coated with it. It proved,
on examination, that every twig had on the leeward side a
dense row of miniature fronds or fern-leaves executed in




SNOW.                    357
snow, with a sharply defined central nerve, or midrib, and
perfect ramification, tapering to a point, and varying in
length from half an inch to three inches. On every post,
every rail, and the corners of every building, the same
spectacle was seen; and where the snow had accumulated
in deep drifts, it was still made up of the ruins of these
fairy structures. The white, enamelled landscape was
beautiful, but a close view of the details was far more so.
The crystallizations were somewhat uniform in structure,
yet suggested a variety of natural objects, as feathermosses, birds' feathers, and the most delicate lace-corals,
but the predominant analogy was with ferns. Yet they
seemed to assume a sort of fantastic kindred with the
objects to which they adhered: thus, on the leaves of
spruce-trees and on delicate lichens they seemed like
reduplications of the original growth, and they made the
broad, flat leaves of the arbor-vitae fully twice as wide
as before. But this fringe was always on one side only,
except when gathered upon dangling fragments of spider's
web, or bits of stray thread: these they entirely encircled,
probably because these objects had twirled in the light
wind while the crystals were forming. Singular disguises
were produced: a bit of ragged rope appeared a piece of
twisted lace-work; a knot-hole in a board was adorned
with a deep antechamber of snowy wreaths; and the
frozen body of a hairy caterpillar became its own wellplumed hearse. The most peculiar circumstance was the
fact that single flakes never showed any regular crystallization: the magic was in the combination; the under sides
of rails and boards exhibited it as unequivocally as the
upper sides, indicating that the phenomenon was created
in the lower atmosphere, and was more akin to frost than
snow; and yet the largest snow-banks were composed of




358                   SNOW.
nothing else, and seemed like heaps of blanched ironfilings.
Interesting observations have been made on the relations between ice and snow. The difference seems to lie
only in the more or less compacted arrangement of the
frozen particles. Water and air, each being transparent
when separate, become opaque when intimately mingled;
the reason being that the inequalities of refraction break
up and scatter every ray of light. Thus, clouds cast a
shadow; so does steam; so does foam: and the same elements take a still denser texture when combined as snow.
Every snow-flake is permeated with minute airy chambers,
among which the light is bewildered and lost; while from
perfectly hard and transparent ice every trace of air disappears, and the transmission of light is unbroken. Yet that
same ice becomes white and opaque when pulverized, its
fragments being then intermingled with air again, -just
as colorless glass may be crushed into white powder. On
the other hand, Professor Tyndall has converted slabs of
snow to ice by regular pressure, and has shown that every
Alpine glacier begins as a snow-drift at its summit, and
ends in a transparent ice-cavern below. " The blue blocks
which span. the sources of the Arveiron were once powdery
snow upon the slopes of the Col du Geant."
The varied and wonderful shapes assumed by snow and
ice have been best portrayed, perhaps, by Dr. Kane in his
two works; but their resources of.color have been so explored by no one as by this same favored Professor Tyndall, among his Alps. It appears that the tints which in
temperate regions are seen feebly and occasionally, in hollows or angles of fresh drifts, become brilliant and constant
above the line of perpetual snow, and the higher the altitude the more lustrous the display. When a staff was




SNOW.                    359
struck into the new-fallen drift, the hollow seemed instantly to fill with a soft blue liquid, while the snow
adhering to the staff took a complementary color of
pinkish yellow, and on moving it up and down it was
hard to resist the impression that a pink flame was rising
and sinking in the hole. The little natural furrows in the
drifts appeared faintly blue, the ridges were gray, while
the parts most exposed to view seemed least illuminated,
and as if a light brown dust had been sprinkled over them.
The fresher the snow, the more marked the colors, and it
made no difference whether the sky were cloudless or
foggy. Thus was every white peak decked upon its brow
with this tiara of ineffable beauty.
The impression is very general that the average quantity of snow has greatly diminished in America; but it
must be remembered that very severe storms occur only
at considerable intervals, and the Puritans did not always,
as boys fancy, step out of the upper windows upon the
snow. In 1717, the ground was covered from ten to
twenty feet, indeed; but during January, 1861, the snow
was six feet on a level in many parts of Maine and New
Hampshire, and was probably drifted three times that
depth in particular spots. The greatest storm recorded
in England, I believe, is that of 1814, in'which for fortyeight hours the snow fell so furiously that drifts of sixteen,
twenty, and even twenty-four feet were recorded in various places. An inch an hour is thought to be the average
rate of deposit, though four inches are said to have fallen
during the severe storm of January 3d, 1859. When
thus intensified, the " beautiful meteor of the snow" begins to give a sensation of something formidable; and
when the mercury suddenly falls meanwhile, and the wind
rises, there are sometimes suggestions of such terror in a




360                   SNOW.
snow-storm as no summer thunders can rival. The brief
and singular tempest of February 7th, 1861, was a thing
to be forever remembered by those who saw it, as I did,
over a wide plain. The sky suddenly appeared to open
and let down whole solid snow-banks at once, which were
caught and torn to pieces by the ravenous winds, and the
traveller was instantaneously enveloped in a whirling
mass far denser than any fog; it was a tornado with
snow stirred into it. Standing in the middle of the road,
with houses close on every side, one could see absolutely
nothing in any direction, one could hear no sound but the
storm. Every landmark vanished, and it was no more
possible to guess the points of the compass than in midocean. It was easy to conceive of being bewildered and
overwhelmed within a rod of one's own door. The
tempest lasted only an hour; but if it had lasted a week,
we should have had such a storm as occurred on the
steppes of Kirgheez in Siberia, in 1827, destroying two
hundred and eighty thousand five hundred horses, thirty
thousand four hundred cattle, a million sheep, and ten
thousand camels, - or as " the thirteen drifty days," in
1620, which killed nine tenths of all the sheep in the
South of Scotland.  On Eskdale Moor, out of twenty
thousand only forty-five were left alive, and the shepherds
everywhere built up huge semicircular walls of the dead
creatures, to afford shelter to the living, till the gale
should end.  But the most remarkable narrative of a
snow-storm which I have ever seen was that written by
James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, in record of one
which took place January 24th, 1790.
James Hogg at this time belonged to a sort of literary
society of young shepherds, and had set out, the day
previous, to walk twenty miles over the hills to the place




SNOW.                    361
of meeting; but so formidable was the look of the sky
that he felt anxious for his sheep, and finally turned back
again. There was at that time only a slight fall of snow,
in thin flakes which seemed uncertain whether to go up
or down; the hills were covered with deep folds of frostfog, and in the valleys the same fog seemed dark, dense,
and as it were crushed together. An old shepherd, predicting a storm, bade him watch for a sudden opening
through this fog, and expect a wind from that quarter;
yet when he saw such an opening suddenly form at midnight, (having then reached his own home,) he thought it
all a delusion, as the weather had grown milder and a
thaw seemed setting in. He therefore went to bed, and
felt no more anxiety for his sheep; yet he lay awake in
spite of himself, and at two o'clock he heard the storm
begin. It smote the house suddenly, like a great peal
of thunder, - something utterly unlike any storm he had
ever before heard. On his rising and thrusting his bare
arm through a hole in the roof, it seemed precisely as if
he had thrust it into a snow-bank, so densely was the air
filled with falling and driving particles. He lay still for an
hour, while the house rocked with the tempest, hoping it
might prove only a hurricane; but as there was no abatement, he wakened his companion-shepherd, telling him
" it was come on such a night or morning as never blew
from the heavens." The other at once arose, and, opening the door of the shed where they slept, found a drift
as high as the farm-house already heaped between them
and its walls, a distance of only fourteen yards.  He
floundered through, Hogg soon following, and, finding all
the family up, they agreed that they must reach the sheep
as soon as possible, especially eight hundred ewes that
were in one lot together, at the farthest end of the farm.
16




362                   SNOW.
So, after family-prayers and breakfast, four of them
stuffed their pockets with bread and cheese, sewed their
plaids about them, tied down their hats, and, taking each
his staff, set out on their tremendous undertaking, two
hours before day.
Day dawned before they got three hundred yards from
the house.  They could not see each other, and kept
together with the greatest difficulty. They had to make
paths with their staves, rolled themselves over drifts
otherwise impassable, and every three or four minutes
had to hold their heads down between their knees to
recover breath. They went in single file, taking the lead
by turns. The master soon gave out, and was speechless
and semi-conscious for more than an hour, though he
afterwards recovered and held out with the rest. Two
of them lost their head-gear, and Hogg himself fell over
a high precipice; but they reached the flock at half past
ten. They found the ewes huddled together in a dense
body, under ten feet of snow,- packed so closely, that,
to the amazement of the shepherds, when they had extricated the first, the whole flock walked out one after another, in a body, through the hole.
How they got them home it is almost impossible to tell.
It was now noon, and they sometimes could see through
the storm for twenty yards, but they had only one momentary glimpse of the hills through all that terrible day.
Yet Hogg persisted in going by himself afterwards to
rescue some flocks of his own, barely escaping with life
from the expedition; his eyes were sealed up with the
storm, and he crossed a formidable torrent, without knowing it, on a wreath of snow.  Two of the others lost
themselves in a deep valley, and would have perished but
for being accidentally heard by a neighboring shepherd,




SNOW.                    363
who guided them home, where the female portion of the
family had abandoned all hope of ever seeing them again.
The next day was clear, with a cold wind, and they set
forth again at daybreak to seek the remainder of the
flock. The face of the country was perfectly transformed:
not a hill was the same, not a brook or lake could be recognized. Deep glens were filled in with snow, covering
the very tops of the trees; and over a hundred acres of
ground, under an average depth of six or eight feet, they
were to look for four or five hundred sheep.  The
attempt would have been hopeless but for a dog that
accompanied them: seeing their perplexity, he began
snuffing about, and.presently scratching in the snow at
a certain point, and then looking round at his master:
digging at this spot, they found a sheep beneath. And
so the dog led them all day, bounding eagerly from one
place to another, much faster than they could dig the
creatures out, so that he sometimes had twenty or thirty
holes marked beforehand. In this way, within a week,
they got out every sheep on the farm except four, these
last being buried under a mountain of snow fifty feet
deep, on the top of which the dog had marked their places
again and again. In every case the sheep proved to be
alive and warm, though half suffocated; on being taken
out, they usually bounded away swiftly, and then fell
helplessly in a few moments, overcome by the change
of atmosphere; some then died almost instantly, and
others were carried home and with difficulty preserved,
only about sixty being lost in all. Marvellous to tell,
the country-people unanimously agreed afterwards to
refer the whole terrific storm to some secret incantations
of poor Hogg's literary society aforesaid; it was generally~ maintained that a club of young dare-devils had




3'64                  SNOW.
raised the Fiend himself among them in the likeness of
a black dog, the night preceding the storm, and the young
students actually did not dare to show themselves at fairs
or at markets for a year afterwards.
Snow-scenes less exciting, but more wild and dreary,
may be found in Alexander Henry's Travels with the
Indians, in the last century. In the winter of 1776, for
instance, they wandered for many hundred miles over the
farthest northwestern prairies, where scarcely a white
man had before trodden. The snow lay from four to six
feet deep.  They went on snow-shoes, drawing their
stores on sleds. The mercury was sometimes — 32~; no
fire could keep them warm at night, and often they had
-no fire, being scarcely able to find wood enough to melt
the snow for drink. They lay beneath buffalo-skins and
the stripped bark of trees: a foot of snow sometimes fell
on them before morning. The sun rose at half past nine
and set at half past two. " The country was one uninterrupted plain, in many parts of which no wood, nor even
the smallest shrub, was to be seen: a frozen sea, of which
the little coppices were the islands. That behind which
we had encamped the night before soon sank in the horizon, and the eye had nothing left save only the sky and
snow." Fancy them encamped by night, seeking shelter
in a scanty grove from a wild tempest of snow; then suddenly charged upon by a herd of buffaloes, thronging in
from all sides of the wood to take shelter likewise, - the
dogs barking, the Indians firing, and still the bewildered
beasts rushing madly in, blinded by the storm, fearing the
guns within less than the fury without, crashing through
the trees, trampling over the tents, and falling about in
the deep and dreary snow! No other writer has ever
given us the full desolation of Indian winter-life. Whole




SNOW.                        365
families, Henry said, frequently perished together in such
storms.  No wonder that the aboriginal legends are full
of "-mighty Peboan, the Winter," and of Kabibonokka in
his lodge of snow-drifts.
The interest inspired by these simple narratives suggests the reflection, that literature, which has thus far
portrayed so few aspects of external Nature, has described
almost nothing of winter beauty. In English books,
especially, this season is simply forlorn and disagreeable,
dark and dismal.
" And foul and fierce
All winter drives along the darkened air."
" When dark December shrouds the transient day,
And stormy winds are howling in their ire,
Why com'st not thou?..... 0, haste to pay
The cordial visit sullen hours require! "
"Winter will oft at eve resume the breeze,
Chill the pale morn, and bid his driving blasts
Deform the day delightless."
" Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire,
With whom you might converse, and by the fire
Help waste the sullen day."
But our prevalent association with winter, in the Northern
United States, is with something white and dazzling and
brilliant; and it is time to paint our own pictures, and
cease to borrow these gloomy alien tints.  One must turn
eagerly every season to the few  glimpses of American
winter aspects: to Emerson's " Snow-Storm," every word
a sculpture; to the admirable storm  in " Margaret "; to
Thoreau's " Winter Walk," in the " Dial"; and to Lowell's " First Snow-Flake."' These are fresh and real pictures, which carry us back to the Greek Anthology, where
the herds come wandering down from the wooded moun



366                   SNOW.
tains, covered with snow, and to Homer's aged Ulysses,
his wise words falling like the snows of winter.
Let me add to this scanty gallery of snow-pictures the
quaint lore contained in one of the multitudinous sermons
of Increase Mather, printed in 1704, entitled " A Brief
Discourse concerning the Prayse due to God for His
Mercy in giving Snow like Wool."  One can fancy the
delight of the oppressed Puritan boys in the days of the
nineteenthlies, driven to the place of worship by the
tithing-men, and cooped up on the pulpit and gallery stairs
under charge of the constables, at hearing for once a discourse which they could understand, - snowballing spiritualized. This was not one of Emerson's terrible examples,-" the storm real, and the preacher only phenomenal"; but this setting of snow-drifts, which in our
winters lends such grace to every stern rock and rugged
tree, throws a charm even around the grim theology of
the Mathers. Three main propositions, seven subdivisions,
four applications, and four uses, but the wreaths and the
gracefulness are cast about them all, - while the wonderful commonplace-books of those days, which held everything, had accumulated scraps of winter learning which
cannot be spared from these less abstruse pages.
Beginning first at the foundation, the preacher must
prove, "Prop. I. That the Snow is fitly resembled to
Wool. Snow like Wool, sayes the Psalmist. And not
only the Sacred Writers, but others make use of this Comparison. The Grecians of old were wont to call the Snow
ERIODES HUDOR, Wooly Water, or wet Wool.  The
Latin word PFloccus signifies both a Lock of Wool and
a Flake of Snow, in that they resemble one another.
The aptness of the similitude appears in three things."
" 1. In respect of the Whiteness thereof."  "2. In re



SNOW.                    367
spect of Softness."  "3. In respect of that Warming
Vertue that does attend the Snow." [Here the reasoning
must not be omitted.] "Wool is warm. We say, As
warm as Wool. Woolen-cloth has a greater warmth than
other Cloathing has. The wool on Sheep keeps them
warm in the Winter season. So when the back of the
Ground is covered with Snow, it keeps it warm. Some
mention it as one of the wonders of the Snow, that tho'
it is itself cold, yet it makes the Earth warm. But Naturalists observe that there is a saline spirit in it, which is
hot, by means whereof Plants under the Snow are kept
from freezing. Ice under the Snow is sooner melted and
broken than other Ice. In some Northern Climates, the
wild barbarous People use to cover themselves over with
it to keep them warm. When the sharp Air has begun
to freeze a man's Limbs, Snow will bring heat into them
again. If persons Eat much Snow, or drink immoderately of Snow-water, it will burn their Bowels and make
them black. So that it has a warming vertue in it, and is
therefore fitly compared to Wool."
Snow has many merits. "In Lapland, where there is
little or no light of the sun in the depth of Winter, there
are great Snows continually on the ground, and by the
Light of that they are able to Travel from one place to
another...... At this day in some hot Countreys, they
have their Snow-cellars, where it is kept in Summer, and
if moderately used, is known to be both refreshing and
healthful. There are also Medicinal Vertues in the snow.
A late Learned Physician has found that a Salt extracted
out of snow is a sovereign Remedy against both putrid
and pestilential Feavors. Therefore Men should Praise
God, who giveth Snow like Wool." But there is an
account against the snow, also. "Not only the disease




368.                 SNOW.
called Bulimia, but others more fatal have come out of
the Snow. Geographers give us to understand that in
some Countries Vapours from the Snow have killed
multitudes in less than a Quarter of an Hour. Sometimes both Men and Beasts have been destroyed thereby.
Writers speak of no less than Forty Thousand men killed
by a great Snow in one Day."
It gives a touching sense of human sympathy, to find
that we may look at Orion and the Pleiades through the
grave eyes of a Puritan divine. "The Seven Stars are
the Summer Constellation: they bring on the spring and
summer; and Orion is a Winter Constellation, which is
attended with snow and cold, as at this Day....... Moreover, Late Philosophers by the help of the Microscope
have observed the wonderful Wisdom of God in the Figure of the Snow; each flake is usually of a Stellate Form,
and of six Angles of exact equal length from the Center.
It is like a little Star. A great man speaks of it with
admiration, that in a Body so familiar as the Snow is, no
Philosopher should for many Ages take notice of a thing
so obvious as the Figure of it. The learned Kepler, who
lived in this last Age, is acknowledged to be the first that
acquainted the world with the Sexangular Figure of the
Snow."
Then come the devout applications. "There is not a
Flake of Snow that falls on the Ground without the hand
of God, Mat. 10. 29. 30. Not a Sparrow falls to the
Ground, without the Will of your Heavenly Father, all
the Hairs of your head are numbred. So the Great
God has numbred all the Flakes of Snow that covers
the Earth. Altho' no man can number them, that God
that tells the number of the Stars has numbred them all...... We often see it, when the Ground is bare, if God




SNOW.                    369
speaks the word, the Earth is covered with snow in a few
Minutes' time. Here is the power of the Great God. If
all the Princes and Great Ones of the Earth should send
their Commands to the Clouds, not a Flake of snow would
come from thence."
Then follow the " uses," at last, - the little boys in the
congregation having grown uneasy long since, at hearing
so much theorizing about snow-drifts, with so little opportunity of personal practice. " Use I. If we should Praise
God for His giving Snow, surely then we ought to Praise
Him for Spiritual Blessings much more."  "Use II. We
should Humble our selves under the Hand of God, when
Snow in the season of it is witheld from us." " Use III.
Hence all Atheists will be left Eternally Inexcusable."
"Use IV. We should hence Learn to make a Spiritual
Improvement of the Snow." And then with a closing
volley of every text which figures under the head of,
"' Snow" in the Concordance, the discourse comes to an
end; and every liberated urchin goes home with his head
full of devout fancies of building a snow-fort, after sunset,
from which to propel consecrated missiles against imaginary or traditional Pequots.
And the patient reader, too long snow-bound, must be
liberated also. After the winters of deepest drifts the
spring often comes most suddenly; there is little frost in
the ground, and the liberated waters, free without the
expected freshet, are filtered into the earth, or climb on
ladders of sunbeams to the sky. The beautiful crystals
all melt away, and the places where they lay are silently
made ready to be submerged in new drifts of summer
ver ure. These also will be transmuted in their turn,
and so the eternal cycle of the season glides along.
Near my house there is a garden, beneath whose stately




370                    SNOW.
sycamores a fountain plays. Three sculptured girls lift
forever upward a chalice which distils unceasingly a fine
and plashing rain; in summer the spray holds the maidens
in a glittering veil, but winter takes the radiant drops and
slowly builds them up into a shroud of ice which creeps
gradually about the three slight figures: the feet vanish,
the waist is encircled, the head is covered, the piteous
uplifted arms disappear, as if each were a Vestal Virgin
entombed alive for her transgression. They vanishing
entirely, the fountain yet plays on unseen; all winter the
pile of ice grows larger, glittering organ-pipes of congelation add themselves outside, and by February a great
glacier is formed, at whose buried centre stand immovably the patient girls.  Spring comes at last, the fated
prince, to free with'glittering spear these enchanted beauties; the waning glacier, slowly receding, lies conquered
before their liberated feet; and still the fountain plays.
Who can despair before the iciest human life, when its
unconscious symbols are so beautiful?
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