x 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
/f. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S 
 
 CHIP BASKET; 
 
 CHOICE SELECTIONS 
 
 LECTURES, ESSAYS, ADDRESSES, EDITORIALS, AND 
 PUBLIC AND SOCIAL CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR. 
 
 COMPILED AND EDITED BY 
 
 H. A. TAYLOR. 
 
 HUDSON, WI S. 
 STAR AND TIMES PRINTING HOUSE, 
 
 1874. 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 H. A. TAYLOR & CO., 
 in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
\I814 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 \ 
 
 TO ALL THOSE WHO 
 RECOGNIZE THE GOOD, CHERISH THE TRUE, 
 
 AND 
 
 ADMIRE THE BEAUTIFUL, 
 
 THIS 
 
 LITTLE VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
 M367925 
 
INDEX 
 
 DEDICATION, 3 
 
 INTRODUCTION, - 7 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR, ------- 9 
 
 MARGARET FULLER A LECTURE, - - - - 19 
 
 THE CHIP BASKET, 43 
 
 MIRAGE, - . - - - _ _ __ -45 
 
 LOST MOTION, _._ 49 
 
 To A BOY EDITOR, ------- 51 
 
 A NIGHT IN A LIGHTHOUSE, ----- 57 
 
 THE NIGHT TRAIN, - 59 
 
 "POOR CARLOTTA!" ---_.-_ 61 
 THE TYPE AND THE TYPOS, - - - - - 63 
 WINTER, _--_-____ 67 
 
 DEATH OF WEDDED LOVE, 71 
 
 THE NEW YEAR, - 73 
 
 GETTING WELL, 75 
 
 ROBERT BURNS, - 77 
 
 VENTRILOQUISM, - - - 81 
 
 A FAMILIAR EPISTLE, - - - _ _ 83 
 
 RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS, ______ 89 
 
 DEC. 2, 1859, -_-.____ 91 
 
 AN IDEAL POEM, 92 
 
 CHICAGO, --_--..__ 93 
 
 THANKSGIVING 1862, 97 
 
 SOCIAL CORRESPONDENCE, - - - ... 99 
 
 Two PICTURES, - - 121 
 
 FISHING, AND OTHER THINGS, 125 
 
 A HUMAN RUIN, - - 130 
 
 A POEM, -----..-_ 131 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 FOURTH OF JULY ORATION, ------ 137 
 
 CHAMBER SCENE, _______ 145 
 
 ALL S RIGHT, ________ 146 
 
 WHAT I KNOW ABOUT STAMMERING, - - - 147 
 
 THE NEWSPAPER, 153 
 
 AGRICULTURE, - - - - - - - -159 
 
 A PREFATORY LETTER, 163 
 
 TOOTH PULLING, _______ 165 
 
 To 167 
 
 HORACE GREELEY, -.-._.. 168 
 
 THE TIN-PAIL BRIGADE, 171 
 
 LINES WRITTEN ON READING LINCOLN S INAUGURAL 
 ADDRESS, ________ 173 
 
 REASON AND RELIGION, 175 
 
 DISCOVERERS, 176 
 
 BLIGHT AND BLOOM, - - - - - -179 
 
 RADICALISM, ________ 183 
 
 LOOKS UPWARD TO GOD, 184 
 
 INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE UPON LIFE, - - - 185 
 
 TRUE FRIENDS, 187 
 
 ART, - - - - - - _,_ _ _ 189 
 
 To DESDEMONA, _______ 190 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF PRINCIPLE, 191 
 
 THE BANNER, 192 
 
 THE WANING YEAR, 193 
 
 THE BLACK CROOK, 196 
 
 CHRISTMAS AND CHRISTMAS GIVING, - 197 
 
 LOAFERISM is DEATH, ______ 199 
 
 TRAIN AND CHRISTIANITY, 203 
 
 "ALL RIGHT," 208 
 
 GRAVES AND GRAVEYARDS, 211 
 
 THE HOLIDAYS, 214 
 
 SOCIOLOGY, 217 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE publication of this volume was not undertaken with 
 the expectation that it would fill any especial place in 
 the realm of Letters, nor that it would ever be very widely 
 introduced into the libraries of the general reading public. 
 It has been issued in compliance with a prevailing sentiment, 
 among the many personal friends and literary admirers of 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR, that his writings are worthy preservation 
 in permanent form, and entitled to a distinction above that 
 accorded to the transitory newspaper literature of the day. 
 
 With these unambitious expectations, yet confident in this 
 belief, the contemplated publication of this little volume was 
 announced. I have been alike gratified and surprised at the 
 general expression of satisfaction given that such a book 
 was to be issued, and at the great number of orders already 
 received for it. 
 
 In the compilation of this volume there has been no 
 attempt at any systematic arrangement of subjects, modi 
 fication of ideas, or changes of phraseology. Although many 
 of the articles it contains were written in the hurry always 
 incident to the duties of the editor of a daily paper, and 
 would, no doubt, have been more polished and pungent had 
 the writer bestowed longer time upon them ; yet we give them 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mainly as found, with the occasional changes made necessary 
 where only a portion of an article is selected. 
 
 The greatest embarrassment met with in compiling this 
 work, has been to select from the great mass of materials 
 before me such articles and extracts as most distinctly bear 
 the impress of the wonderful genius, and give the clearest 
 conception of the noble impulses and settled convictions of 
 the writer. 
 
 I have gathered up but a few " chips " from among many 
 all hewn out by the skilled hand of a master builder. But 
 the " basket" is full, and I send it forth knowing it will carry 
 good cheer and blessing to some homes and hearts, and, I 
 trust, to many. H. A. T. 
 
 HUDSON, Wis., February, 1874. 
 
LUTE A. TAYLOR. 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR was born in Norfolk, St. Lawrence 
 county, New York, September I4th, 1835. His father 
 died when Lute was but eight years of age, leaving his mo 
 ther, with a family of five children, in destitute circumstances. 
 He was, therefore, from his early boyhood, compelled to a life 
 of toil. He earned with his own hands the means to support 
 himself, and to acquire a thorough academical education. 
 He very early gave evidence of excellent literary taste and 
 abilities. 
 
 In the fall of 1856 he moved to River Falls, Pierce county, 
 Wisconsin, and in June of the following year he issued the 
 initial number of his first newspaper the "River Falls 
 Journal." In the spring of 1861 he removed the "Journal" 
 office to Prescott, Wis., where, until 1869, he published the 
 "Prescott Journal." In August, 1869, he entered upon a 
 broader field of journalism, becoming one of the publishers 
 and the editor-in-chief of the La Crosse " Morning Leader." 
 This position he filled until a few months prior to his death. 
 In his career as an editor he was distinguished by a keen 
 wit, a bright and vigorous style, and great range of subjects. 
 His fame was justly high, and his ability was well known 
 and appreciated by a wide circle of readers. 
 
 Mr. Taylor was appointed Assistant Assessor of Internal 
 Revenue, on the organization of that bureau of service, and 
 very soon after, on the ist of January, 1864, he received the 
 
16 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 appointment as Assessor of the Sixth Congressional District 
 of Wisconsin, and continued in that office until its abolition, 
 in the spring of 1873. On the designation of La Crosse 
 as a port of entry, in the summer of 1873, Mr. Taylor was 
 appointed surveyor of the port, which position he held at the 
 time of his death. 
 
 Mr. Taylor died at his home in La Crosse, Wis., of con 
 gestion of the lungs, after an illness of a week, on the nth 
 day of November, 1873. 
 
 It is surely an easy task to praise a friend, but to praise 
 him wisely is not easy. There are a great many who loved 
 Lute A. Taylor looking on as I write, and their affection for 
 him will make them severe critics. They will hardly let the 
 right intention excuse poor work. Nevertheless, as he was 
 generous himself, it may be hoped that his friends are gener 
 ous also, and that they will read " the lines between the lines," 
 and so fulfill that which is lacking in this attempt. 
 
 The most of those who will read these words knew him 
 by thought, if not by sight. He had a wide acquaintance, as 
 the sorrow at his death has made known. It seems that 
 those who did know him nearly, were apt to speak of him to 
 others. 
 
 There are people whom you meet and forget instantly, 
 who speak, and no one listens people with the minus sign 
 nothing to give. If you remember them at all, it is that 
 they have borrowed something. Lute Taylor had life, and 
 that abundantly ; threw off light and heat like a sun. Men 
 remembered that they had met him, and his sayings did not 
 pass away. " His presence was a festival." He lifted one 
 out of a low mood on to rising ground. Men caught courage 
 and good cheer by contact with him. He reconciled one to 
 being human. " Bright is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou 
 comest to visit us ! " said the Chief of the Illinois to Pere 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. ti 
 
 Marquette. Our friend had this power to brighten a dull 
 landscape, to let the light in and chase away the shadows. 
 Nature made him a welcome guest in the homes and hearts 
 of men. 
 
 The evening of his lecture, perhaps, was stormy, and the 
 people gathered together might have been wet outside and 
 gloomy within. He cured all that in five minutes. It was 
 something like what was done at the wedding at Cana of 
 Galilee. He began with a benediction ; there was a color 
 and " bead " in what he said that restored the circulation. 
 Men with blank faces, rayless of expression since childhood, 
 felt the blood coming to the Surface, and began to look hu 
 man with laughter and tears. It was worth a good deal to 
 see this smiting of the rock and to find that it was moist at 
 the center. 
 
 Taylor was a natural man, sinless of the self-conscious 
 ness that murders so many. He lost himself in the theme 
 of his discourse, and in the melody he chanted was able to 
 put his purpose above himself. It is a rare gift ; without it 
 there is no easy attitude, or free, brave stroke possible. I think 
 that Taylor saved more of his childhood than most men 
 was not spoiled- by life. If he failed to learn our prudence, 
 he also neglected to acquire our suspicion and miserable 
 doubt of all the good we see. He died without making this 
 grievous gain that costs us a good deal to get, and makes us 
 sorry to keep. Taylor was one of those who, when they die, 
 make the world seem thinly inhabited. He was not as other 
 men are. The majority of all who have lived to middle age 
 have declared that there was no use in it that life was a 
 barren errand, no gain in doing it, except weariness. Perhaps 
 they all started with a purpose to pick berries for market, 
 but before noon they looked in the pail, and had so few, 
 that they concluded that they might as well eat them, and 
 
12 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 did it, and so have gone home ashamed. Thoreau says that 
 " the boy gathers materials for a temple, and then, when he is 
 thirty, concludes to build a woodshed." We are, most of us, 
 acquainted with that boy. We shall see him putting his head 
 on his hand, and thinking of his childish purpose the beauty 
 of it, and, alas ! the vanity of it. That he should ever have 
 thought to have kept a sentiment in such a world as this ! 
 Then he ceases to grow, and begins to wither and to shrink. 
 
 " In his heai t is the wind of Autumn, 
 And the first fall of the snow." 
 
 There are signs that navigation is about to close. The 
 generous impulse and ready belief of youth are being fro 
 zen in; the fire is going out. Once in a while the Rachel 
 within lifts up a lament for the slain children of hope, but 
 more and more faintly"; there are plenty of worldly maxims to 
 hush her with. 
 
 But there was one among us who had not made this fail 
 ure and fall. Our friend had kept his heart. " Blessed are 
 they that hear the joyful sound." Taylor had an ear for it, 
 detected it, where we hear only the doleful. How quick was 
 his recognition, how prompt his praise of anything good in 
 the work of his fellows ! 
 
 In a little book called "Back-Log Studies," there is a 
 pleasant picture. It is a day of winter storm ; wild snow 
 drifts blown against the windows of the cellar kitchen of a 
 farm house. A boy sits in the chimney-corner reading about 
 Burgoyne and the Indian wars. "John," says the mother, 
 "you ll burn your head to a crisp in that heat." But John 
 does not hear. He is storming the plains of Abraham just 
 now. "Johnny, dear, bring in a stick of wood." How can 
 Johnny bring in wood when he is in that defile with Braddock, 
 and the Indians are popping at him from behind every tree? 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. . 13 
 
 The childhood of Taylor was in the days of the back 
 log, the forestick, and the tallow candle. Days of the stage 
 driver, and of Walter Scott s novels. There was little to read, 
 and that little was good. Luke s " Lives of Saints," and Plu 
 tarch s " Lives of Heroes." I think something of the charm 
 of his manner, and quaintness of his speech, was due to these 
 early associations. He was old-fashioned. The memory of 
 the old stories read in the firelight was very bright in him, 
 and gave his conversation the glow of the early time, when 
 we did not have to import a man from Switzerland, in order 
 to possess one who had " no time to make money." 
 
 I believe that the impediment in his speech was a blessing 
 to it delayed it, as the drawing of a bow delays the arrow. 
 It was as a clam ; when the sentence broke over, it fell in 
 power of volume to turn the wheel of the mill, and in beauty 
 of spray to please the eye of the miller. 
 
 I believe that if you "improve" the trout brook, by pick 
 ing the rocks out of its bed, and by straightening its channel, 
 you will be sorry. Let every man glory in his infirmities. 
 Hindrances help the kitemaker knows it, and God knows 
 it, and makes his men according, giving them weights to 
 carry. 
 
 I do not know that I can prove to a stranger and an un 
 believer that Taylor was a man of genius. I believe that all 
 who knew him felt that he was. The work that some men 
 are permitted to do is greater than they are. We trace the 
 works of Shakspeare back to the poor player, and cannot so 
 account for them. And again, some men are greater than 
 their work ; what they do is only a sign. Taylor was never 
 brought into action. There were reserves in him that were 
 never called to the front. He died, leaving a mass of unfin 
 ished business. He thought that life was a long summer day. 
 It was not, for him, even a short winter day. Who thought 
 
14 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 that he would be called at noon? So with him, the morning 
 was used in doing chores, in going on necessary errands; 
 perhaps he was gone longer than was necessary; also, in 
 chatting with the neighbors who dropped in, the time flew 
 by, and the day for him was done. 
 
 We miss the master; he is gone, leaving few designs 
 drawn on the trestle-board. We believe they were drawn in 
 his mind, and that he had the power and will to build accord 
 ing to them, and make his works his witnesses. 
 
 It is not easy to enter on a literary career easy enough, 
 if fortunate, to continue it. We must do some things before 
 we can sit down to a task that is done on such long time as 
 one s first literary work. 
 
 The question of "bread" does come in. Burns must 
 plow the daisy under, and then, if he has time, he can lift it 
 up to bloom in a poem immortal an unfading flower of a 
 not transient summer. 
 
 I take little stock in the present blessing said to be dis 
 guised in poverty. It may work out something for us 
 hereafter, but in the life that now is, it is a good deal of a 
 curse. It consumes the days of youth, and postpones the 
 task that has no money in it to the days that may come, and 
 find us in no mood for working worthily, or past all work, 
 dead under the snow. 
 
 If we were assured a reasonably long life, we could, per 
 haps, afford to spend thirty or forty years in fighting, and 
 slaying, and burying past all resurrection the wolf at the 
 door, and then go in, and still have time to do the thing we 
 want to do. 
 
 As it is, the life is worn away in getting a living, and 
 there is little or nothing over. The miller has taken the grist 
 for toll. The fate that sets Burns to plowing is as an Indian 
 who makes an arrow-head out of a diamond. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 15 
 
 The man of whom I am writing had no complaint of this 
 kind to make. I make it for him. He bided his time earned 
 a book, and looked into it, and laid it down, to go to work at 
 anything that offered ; cut his own way, made his own clear 
 ing. So it is that there is so little of what he has done in the 
 line of his genius. His common conversation was evidence 
 enough of the unwrought wealth that lay under. What was 
 carelessly tossed up on the surface was a sufficient sign. 
 
 He was thoroughly human, and so had faults. But, if 
 the flaws had all been ground down, and ground out, he 
 would still be of rare size. His faults were of the kind that 
 make us sorry and not angry. With great gifts come great 
 dangers. Lute Taylor was not what he ought to have been ; 
 but when you told him so, it was no news to him ; it was a 
 thought familiar enough. Some men need a logical argument 
 to convince them that they are sinners. They are so prudent 
 and sly in concealing their sin from others that they forget 
 where it is themselves. Taylor was not of that kindred ; 
 never numbed and discouraged his conscience by disputing 
 its voice, but confessed judgment. 
 
 An extract from Carlyle s words, concerning another, ex 
 presses the truth of him : " Who is called the man after God s 
 own heart? David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins 
 enough ; there was no want of sin, and, therefore, unbelievers 
 sneer, and ask, Is this your man according to God s heart? 
 The sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What 
 are faults, what are the outward details of a life, if the inner 
 secret of it, the remorse, temptations, the often baffled, never 
 ended struggle of it, be forgotten ? David s life and history, 
 as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider the truest 
 emblem ever given us of a man s moral progress and warfare 
 here below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faith 
 ful struggle of an earnest human soul toward what is good 
 
16 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 and best. Struggle often baffled sore baffled, driven as into 
 entire wreck ! Yet a struggle never ended ever with tears, 
 repentance, true, unconquerable purpose begun anew." 
 
 There is, O reader! sin, and sin: we must distinguish be 
 tween the sin of impulse, the outward stain, and that which 
 dyes the soul in the grain. The outcast girl of the street is 
 forgiven. The whip of cords is braided for the respectable 
 trader who has an office in the temple. Envy, malice, un- 
 charity these are of the brood who gnaw from within out 
 leave the man hollow to the whitewash. Of this generation 
 of serpents, the heart of Lute Taylor knew nothing. 
 
 We must make the distinction, for it is wide. Richard 
 Yates, in his last speech, after alluding to the way sundry 
 Christian statesmen once had of using him, and his infirmity 
 to point a moral, and then calling attention to the late 
 appearance of the names of these brethren in the " little 
 memorandum book " of Oakes Ames, said: " My friends and 
 neighbors, I want you to remember that if my hand does 
 tremble, it is clean." 
 
 Nature forbids some people to be generous in judgment ; 
 but there is always a chance for an attempt to be just. 
 There s a choice in sinners. We rather have the prodigal 
 son for a neighbor than his elder brother. And I judge 
 from the parable that we agree with Christ. Let us look 
 at one another " at our best," and believe that so we shall 
 all appear at our last. 
 
 The face of Lute Taylor is before me as I write. None 
 more kindly under the sun. Children believed in it, and old 
 men. You can t deceive instinct and experience both. You 
 can t wear a good face thirty-eight years without the help of 
 a good heart. The lines are graven from within. There is 
 no beauty at that age, except the beauty of thought. The 
 fashion that it wears reveals the taste of the spirit. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 17 
 
 "Thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," sings Long 
 fellow. It seems so. The chief book of Taylor s childhood 
 in his last days again took its place. Being asked, "What 
 shall I read to you ? " he answered, " Something from Paul. 
 I want something that has meat in it." And so was read to 
 him that wonderful fifteenth chapter of Paul s first letter to 
 the Corinthians. 
 
 With these words for his company rod and staff to com 
 fort him in his journey through the valley of the shadow of 
 death we have, in sorrow and hope, bidden him " ADIEU," 
 and "TILL WE MEET AGAIN." 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP -BASKET, 
 
 A LECTURE. 
 
 MARGARET FULLER. 
 
MARGARET FULLER. 
 
 MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI is the most 
 noteworthy and remarkable woman whom 
 America has produced. Without scepter, or crown 
 or throne, she was still a queen. Into whatever 
 circle she came, she was its central figure; always 
 the inspiring teacher, the wise counselor, the faith 
 ful friend. It is now but twenty years since the 
 remorseless waves of the Atlantic swallowed up all 
 of her that was mortal, yet she already wears the 
 luster of an historic name. Her pictures do not line 
 our albums, nor hang upon our parlor walls, yet her 
 influence is wide and widening and her fame is 
 assured. 
 
 Women sometimes win an enduring place in his 
 tory, and are welcomed into the warm regard and 
 affection of the world, simply because they are the 
 wives of eminent men. It is doing no discredit to 
 the honorable name of Martha Washington to say, 
 that in almost every American town there are women 
 who, in natural endowment and variety of achieve 
 ment, are her equals at least. It was the relation 
 in which she stood to the great man who is the cen 
 tral figure of our early history, that has made her 
 
22 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 name a household word wherever the English lan 
 guage is spoken, and, with a few notable exceptions, 
 it is to a similar cause that other well known Ameri 
 can women owe their prominence. 
 
 It was not thus with Margaret Fuller. She rose 
 to her position of eminence by the unaided force 
 of her own great achievement. She ruled in her 
 own right, and there was none to dispute her title to 
 the queendom ; and the fact that her life and history 
 may not be familiar to the mass of her countrymen 
 and countrywomen, detracts nothing from the splen 
 dor of her genius, and will only retard, but not 
 defeat, its final recognition. 
 
 There are thoughts which are germinal thoughts ; 
 there are minds whose conceptions are so large, 
 and whose logic is so severe, that they must be 
 interpreted into common phrase before they are 
 universally accepted and understood. Thus the 
 beauties of Solomon s Song, or the almost equally 
 divine sonnets of Shakspeare, are often unrecognized 
 until they dribble out to us, one beauty at a time, 
 in the verse of lesser poets. So the great writers 
 upon political economy reach the people mainly as 
 their ideas are retailed out in articles of the news 
 paper press. 
 
 It is, fortunately, not necessary to the enjoyment 
 of thoughts or fancies that we should know to whom 
 we are indebted for them. In the sweet summer 
 time the air of city courts and country lanes is 
 musical with the^ songs of love, and the enjoyment 
 of the singers is no less perfect and complete be- 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 23 
 
 cause they do not know from whence the sentiment 
 and the melody have come. In this manner the 
 songs of Burns fill all the earth, and, in like manner, 
 the thoughts of Margaret Fuller inspire and control 
 very many who do not know to whom they owe their 
 impulse and their inspiration. 
 
 The time of her advent marked a new era in 
 American life and literature. She was one of those 
 who gave to scholarship a broader culture ; to specu 
 lation, freer play ; to philosophy, a bolder range ; to 
 religion, a firmer faith. The sermons of Channing 
 and Clarke, the essays of Emerson, the romance of 
 Hawthorne, and the editorials of Greeley, were alike 
 colored by contact with her masterful mind. 
 
 Great as she was in the domain of intellect, her 
 mind did not dwarf her heart. Always the true, 
 noble, loving woman, seeking truth at whatever 
 sacrifice, and accepting it at whatever cost, in her 
 work of severe self-culture she never forgot the 
 struggles of others, or neglected to reach them a 
 helping hand. How broad and catholic her sym 
 pathies were, may be inferred from the following 
 passage, taken from one of her earlier poems : 
 
 "Happy are all who reach that crystal sh&re, 
 
 And bathe in heavenly day ; 
 Happiest are they who high the banner bore, 
 
 To marshal others on the way ; 
 Or waited for them, fainting and wayworn 
 
 By burthens overborne." 
 
 I apprehend that in this day of universal suffrage 
 this day of deification of the people when nu- 
 
24 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 merical majority is made the test of truth, and 
 success the criterion of merit, that it will do us 
 good to turn from the contemplation of the dead 
 level of the masses, and lift our eyes to meet the 
 radiance of some surpassing life. We need to cool 
 our admiration of majorities by a little devout and 
 reverent hero worship. " Vox populi vox Dei " is one 
 of the most subtle forms of falsehood with which 
 the devil ever calmed the fervor of noble aspiration 
 or choked the utterance of struggling truth. The 
 voice of the people is not the voice of God, unless 
 it be a Godlike people who speak. That voice is 
 more often audible to us only when echoed back 
 from the understanding hearts of the saints and 
 sages of the time only when translated into the 
 lives and words of such rare and gifted souls as she 
 of whom I speak to you. 
 
 It is necessarily the lot of most of us to be en 
 gaged in other than intellectual pursuits. We are 
 not brought by our daily walk into contact with 
 sages and poets ; we win our bread from an earth 
 whose mysteries are not open to us ; our daily inter 
 course is more likely to stifle than encourage the 
 sparks of love and faith in our breasts, and so there 
 is the more necessity that we keep alive within us 
 the conviction of the divinity of our origin and the 
 possibilities of our future by a reverent study of the 
 words and deeds of those who have lived on the 
 mountain heights of human experience, and faced 
 two worlds at once. 
 
 Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridgeport, Mass., 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 25 
 
 in 1 8 10. Her father was educated at Harvard, and 
 was a lawyer and a politician. She speaks of him 
 as being largely endowed with that sagacious energy 
 which New England society was so well fitted to 
 develop. The great object of his ambition was to 
 hold an honored place among his fellow men, and 
 provide a comfortable and pleasant home for his 
 family. 
 
 Of her mother she says : " She was one of those 
 fair and flower-like natures which sometimes spring 
 up beside the most dusty highways of life a 
 creature not to be shaped into a merely useful 
 instrument, but bound by one law to the blue sky, 
 the dew, and the frolic birds. Of all persons I have 
 ever known, she had in her most of the angelic 
 of that spontaneous love for every living thing for 
 man and beast and tree, which restores the golden 
 age." 
 
 Margaret early gave proof of her wonderful power. 
 Her father was proud of her, and stimulated her 
 mind to over-work. At six years of age she read 
 Latin with ease. As she thoroughly understood the 
 mechanism of the language, she was required to 
 give the thought in the briefest and best arranged 
 language possible. Thus her mind was early trained 
 to work with clearness and precision ; but this forcing 
 process told fearfully on her health. The poetic, 
 dreaming element, strong in every child, was doubly 
 strong in her, and she became the victim of nervous 
 ness, and the whole state of her being was painfully 
 active and intense. It was a wonder to the family 
 
that she was never willing to go to bed, but, using 
 her own language, "they did not know that as 
 soon as the light Was taken away she seemed to see 
 colossal faces advancing slowly towards her, the eyes 
 dilating, and each feature swelling loathsomely as 
 they came, till at last, when they were about to close 
 upon her, she started up with a shriek, which drove 
 them away, but only to return when she lay down 
 again. They did not know that when she went to 
 sleep it was to dream of horses trampling over her, 
 and to wake in fright, as she had just read in her 
 Virgil, of being among trees that dropped with 
 blood, where she walked and walked, and could not 
 get out, while the blood became a pool and plashed 
 over her feet, and soon she dreamed it would reach 
 her lips. No wonder the child arose and walked in 
 her sleep, moaning, over the house, till once they 
 came and waked her; and when she told what she 
 had been dreaming of, her father sharply told her 
 to leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would 
 be crazy, never dreaming that he was himself the 
 cause of all these horrors of the night." 
 
 But these spectral illusions wore away ; the tone 
 of her mind became more healthy, and study ceased 
 to be task work. 
 
 When fifteen years of age, she gives the following 
 account of her studies : 
 
 " I rise a little before five, walk an hour, and then 
 practice on the piano until seven, when we break 
 fast. Next I read French Sismondi s Literature 
 of the South of Europe till eight; then two or 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 27 
 
 three lectures in Brown s Philosophy. About half- 
 past nine I go to Mr. Parker s school and study 
 Greek till twelve, when, school being dismissed, I 
 recite, go home and practice again until dinner, at 
 two. Sometimes, if the conversation is very agree 
 able, I lounge for half-an-hour over the dessert, 
 though rarely so lavish of time. Then, when I can, 
 I read two hours in Italian, but I am often inter 
 rupted. At six I walk, or take a drive. Before 
 going to bed, I play or sing for half-an-hour or so, 
 to make all sleepy, and, about eleven, retire to write 
 a little while in my journal, or a series of character 
 istics, which I am fitting up according to advice. 
 Thus, you see, I am learning Greek and making 
 acquaintance with metaphysics and French and 
 Italian literature." 
 
 At twenty years of age, she was again in Cam 
 bridge, and beneath the shadows of venerable 
 Harvard. She was gladly welcomed into equal 
 companionship with the strongest thought and ripest 
 culture of the day. She had wealth and wisdom to 
 give as well as to receive. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It is not necessary to dwell upon the details of 
 her life, which, until her visit to Europe, was barren 
 of exciting interest, as the lives of scholars and 
 thinkers usually are. 
 
 Her occupation was divided between teaching, 
 writing for the press the New York "Tribune" 
 mainly and authorship ; but, wherever placed, she 
 was an intellectual magnet, drawing to herself all 
 
28 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 that was rare in culture and rich in intellectual en 
 dowment. 
 
 She combined the splendor of power and the 
 possession of intellect with the grace of youth and 
 the charm of womanhood, and was at once a per 
 sonal impulse and an intellectual inspiration in the 
 lives of such men as Clarke, Channing, Ripley, 
 Greeley and Emerson. 
 
 It was in conversation that her mind found freest 
 play and most congenial occupation. James Free 
 man Clarke says : 
 
 " She did many things well, but nothing so well 
 as she talked. For some reason or other she could 
 never deliver herself in print as she did with her lips. 
 Her conversation I have seldom heard equaled. 
 Though remarkably fluent and select, it was nei 
 ther fluency nor choice diction, nor wit nor senti 
 ment, that gave it its peculiar power ; but accuracy 
 of statement, keen discrimination, and a certain 
 weight of judgment, which contrasted strongly and 
 charmingly with the youth and sex of the speaker." 
 
 Emerson says of her evening conversations, when 
 she was a visitor at his house : 
 
 "They interested me in every manner; talent, 
 memory, wit, stern introspection, poetic play, re 
 ligion, the finest personal feeling, the aspects of the 
 future ; each followed each in full activity, and left 
 me, I remember, enriched, and somewhat astonished 
 by the gifts of my guest. Her topics were numerous, 
 but the cardinal points of poetry, love and religion, 
 were never far off." 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 29 
 
 -* 
 
 Possessed of this wonderful magnetic power, able 
 to startle, charm or convince at will, it is no wonder 
 that her friends were warmly attached to her, and 
 she to them. So tender was her affection that she 
 made her friends souls her own, and, like a guardian 
 genius, identified herself with their fortunes. She 
 was everywhere a welcome guest. Her arrival was a 
 holiday, and so was her abode. With her broad web 
 of relations to so many noble friends, she seemed like 
 the queen of some parliament of love, who carried 
 the key to all confidences, and to whom every ques 
 tion was finally referred ; and yet there was so much 
 of intellectual aim and activity breathed through 
 her alliances, as to give a dignity to them all. Chan- 
 ning says of her : " She was indeed the friend. This 
 was her vocation. Into whatever home she entered, 
 she brought a benediction of truth, justice, tolerance 
 and honor. She knew, if not by experience, then 
 by no questionable intuition, how to interpret the 
 inner life of every man and woman, and by inter 
 preting she could soothe and strengthen. To 
 associates, her presence seemed to touch even com 
 mon scenes and daily cares with splendor, as when, 
 through the scud of a rain-storm, sunbeams break 
 from serene blue openings, crowning familiar things 
 with glory. To sustain the intimate personal rela 
 tions which she did to so many representative men 
 of her time, was a higher privilege than has ever 
 fallen to the lot of any other American woman. 
 
 " There are many people who talk as if there were 
 but two extremes of relation which woman can. sus- 
 
30 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 tain to man. She must be a pretty, tricky, artful 
 creature, beguiling him of his reason, taking him 
 captive through his senses, the panderer to his 
 pleasures, at once his tyrant and his slave ; or she 
 must arm herself against him, accuse him, abuse 
 him, as at once the sole author of her wrongs, the 
 source of all her miseries. The fair, open land be 
 tween the serene and sacred land of friendship, 
 where men and women may meet in human sym 
 pathy, in kindred pursuits, in wide thoughts and in 
 beneficent action, we hear constantly spoken of as 
 a debatable, if not an impossible, meeting-ground. 
 It, doubtless, is for the people who express this 
 opinion, but it never has been, and never will be, 
 for those men and women who recognize and revere 
 in each other the equal human nature which each 
 receive from God. Always man needs woman to be 
 his friend. He needs her clearer vision, her subtler 
 insight, her swifter thought, her winged soul, her 
 pure and tender heart. Always woman needs man 
 to be her friend. She needs the vigor of his pur 
 pose, the ardor of his will, his calmer judgment, his 
 braver force of action, his reverence and his devo 
 tion. Thus the mystic bond of sex, which binds 
 one half the universe in counterpart and balance to 
 the other, gives even to the friendship of man and 
 woman its finest charm, enabling each, only through 
 the other, to preserve the perfect equipoise of intel 
 lect and soul. Such a friend was Margaret Fuller 
 to the men who still speak her name with reverent 
 tenderness," 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 31 
 
 As a writer, she was critical rather than creative. 
 Her published works are, " Summer on the Lakes," 
 "Papers on Literature and Art," "Woman in the 
 Nineteenth Century," and more valuable, perhaps, 
 than either of these, the extracts from her journals 
 and letters, which her biographers have preserved. 
 Her last and greatest work perished irrevocably in 
 the wreck which closed her earthly career ; but some 
 idea of its fire and force can be gathered from pas 
 sages in her letters from Italy, which are preserved 
 and presented in her memoirs. 
 
 Her " Papers on Literature and Art " are among 
 the most valuable contributions to American criti 
 cism. Her review of Longfellow s poems startled, 
 if it did not convince, the world of letters ; and no 
 one has ever dissected the nature and stated the 
 effect of Byron s poems, with so clear an insight and 
 so truthful a discrimination, as she has done. It is 
 especially interesting to note the estimation in which 
 Margaret Fuller held the author of " Childe Harold," 
 and the rank among poets to which she assigns him. 
 
 Byron s life was both a tragedy and a farce. He 
 was essentially an actor. A vein of insincerity per 
 vades all his poems. His thin mask of levity does 
 not hide the skepticism which lies uneasy and sor 
 rowful beneath it ; nor when his misanthropic fit is 
 on does his sorrow strike us as very earnest and 
 real. He would have us believe that his richest 
 wines were powdered with the dust of graves; yet 
 he frequently took more of that wine than was good 
 for him. It was in the winter of 1814, while dis- 
 
32 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 robing after balls, haunted, i-n all probability, by 
 eyes in whose light he was happy enough, that he 
 wrote his " Lara," and pictured death as 
 
 "That sleep the loveliest, since it dreams the least." 
 
 This was meant to take away the reader s breath, 
 and, no doubt, after penning it, Byron betook him 
 self to bed with a sense of supreme cleverness ; yet, 
 contrasted with Shakspeare s far-out-looking and 
 thought-heavy lines, where death is represented by 
 the same image, it glitters like tinsel instead of shin 
 ing like gold. 
 
 Margaret Fuller speaks of Byron s poems as his 
 torically valuable as records of that strange malady, 
 that sickness of the soul, which cankers so visibly 
 the rose of youth. This sickness of feeling finds 
 its highest water-mark in him. He has lived through 
 this experience for us has shown that the natural 
 fruits of indulgence in such a temper are not to be 
 desired ; and, as grief loses half its fascination when 
 we find that others have endured the same and lived 
 through it, so, she thinks the evil has been greatly 
 lessened since he has so fully illustrated it. This is 
 but a bold exhibit of what she states with logical 
 exactness and convincing force. 
 
 As an illustration of the clearness of her thought 
 and the felicity of her expression, I give her defini 
 tion of an epic, as contrasted with an occasional 
 poem : 
 
 " An epic, a drama, must have a fixed form in the 
 mind of the poet from the first, and copious draughts 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 33 
 
 of ambrosia, quaffed in the heaven of thought ; soft, 
 fanning gales, and bright light from the outward 
 world, give muscle and bloom that is, give life to 
 the skeleton. But occasional poems must be moods, 
 and a mood cannot have a form fixed and perfect, 
 any more than a wave of the sea." 
 
 Margaret Fuller was a radical. I like that word 
 radical. It stirs the blood like a challenge to arms. 
 The radicals are the trumpeters of truth. They 
 people the picket lines of progress. Margaret Ful 
 ler, I repeat, was a radical not a blind iconoclast, 
 ruthlessly attacking cherished forms and customs 
 which have crystallized into laws, but a wise prophet, 
 who, seeing a fairer future beckoning to us, patiently 
 but persistently strove to clasp its outstretched hands. 
 She did not believe that customs and laws were set 
 up as barriers to progress, but rather that they are 
 tents of a night upon the camping-ground of life, to 
 be struck whenever truth puts the bugle to her lips 
 and sounds an advance. Wrong, though rooted in 
 antiquity and fortified by innumerable precedents, 
 gained no homage from her ; but right found her a 
 faithful follower, however few its followers might be. 
 She clearly discerned the injustice of social and the 
 iniquity of political life, and the fire of her indigna 
 tion burned fiercely against oppression and villainy 
 in every form. We must remember that many of 
 the asperities of law have been softened in the last 
 twenty-five years; that when she talked and wrote 
 the sphere of woman was much more restricted than 
 now; that slavery then defiled the land with its 
 3 
 
34 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 presence, burdened it with its sin, and darkened it 
 with the gloom of threatened disaster. 
 
 None saw the magnitude of legally organized 
 cruelty more clearly than she ; none had a firmer 
 faith that the day of deliverance would come. She 
 saw, with the poet, 
 
 "Right forever on the scaffold, 
 Wrong forever on the throne." 
 
 but she believed, with him, 
 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim un 
 known 
 
 Standeth GOD, within the shadow, keeping watch above his 
 own. 
 
 The movement called, for want of a better name, 
 the Woman s Rights movement, found one of its 
 pioneers and its most powerful champions in her. 
 She threw down the gauntlet with an air of knightly 
 defiance. Almost alone in her convictions, she 
 startled timidity and shocked conservatism by ex 
 claiming of women, " Let them be sea captains, if 
 they will." Her "Woman in the Nineteenth Cen 
 tury "is the most powerful plea which has ever been 
 made for putting woman on a par, politically, with 
 man, and it required a good deal of valor to stand 
 unmoved amid the shower of public squibs and pri 
 vate sneers called out by her demand. Now it is 
 getting fashionable to espouse this cause; she de 
 fended it in its despised infancy. 
 
 More than a quarter of a century ago she wrote : 
 " Let man trust woman entirely, and give her every 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 35 
 
 privilege already acquired for himself elective fran 
 chise, tenure of property, and liberty to speak in 
 public assemblies. Nature has pointed out her 
 ordinary sphere by the circumstances of her physical 
 existence. If here and there the gods send their 
 missives through women as through men, let them 
 speak without remonstrance. * * * 
 
 Neither let men fear to lose their domestic deities. 
 Woman is born for love, and it is impossible to keep 
 her from seeking it. Man should deserve her love 
 as an inheritance, rather than seize and guard it like 
 a prey." 
 
 Others may have felt as keenly as she the injustice 
 to woman, imbedded in our social polity and ideas, 
 but there was no other one so fitted by thought, by 
 culture, by position, and by fearlessness, to discuss 
 the subject thoroughly and present the argument in 
 its amplest proportions. Much that has been accom 
 plished in enlarging the sphere and increasing the 
 opportunities of women, is justly due to her initial 
 labors ; and now, when the time seems to be ap 
 proaching when woman will be called upon calmly 
 and authoritatively to decide for herself whether the 
 ballot is too rude and perilous a weapon for her 
 delicate hand, the words of Margaret Fuller will be 
 consulted, not more deferentially, but far more 
 widely, than they have hitherto been. 
 
 Candor compels me to confess that while I can 
 not break the force of her logic upon this subject, 
 neither can I accept all of its conclusions. And, I 
 believe, that in later years, when a husband wore her 
 
36 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 wifely love as a jewel, and her low lullaby stilled 
 the clamor of her baby boy, there was then wrought 
 in her philosophy something of the change which 
 was wrought in Tennyson s " Princess," when love, 
 the magician, touched her with his all-conquering 
 wand. 
 
 A woman without religion is a star without radi 
 ance a flower without perfume. It is interesting, 
 therefore, to note the religious character of Margaret 
 Fuller. 
 
 I think I have never read of a person more pro 
 foundly religious than she. Her journals, her letters 
 and her life are full of humility, piety and prayer. 
 The fact that she was the intimate friend of Emer 
 son, that she was closely connected with the move 
 ments of the Transcendentalists in New England 
 that for two years she edited the " Dial," the organ 
 of that party led a good many good orthodox 
 people to doubt the soundness of Her religious ex 
 perience. A transcendentalist she was, in the full 
 meaning of the word. Her religion did indeed 
 transcend the religion of commoner and meaner 
 minds. She was a "pilgrim from the idolatrous 
 world of creeds and rituals, to the temple of the 
 living God in the soul." "The peaceful benediction 
 of heaven sounded forth to her in flowers and stars ; 
 in the poetry, art and heroism of all ages ; in the 
 aspirations of her own spirit, and in the budding 
 promise of the time." That religion which looks 
 reverently to God, and lovingly upon man that 
 religion which cares for the temporal as well as the 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 37 
 
 eternal good of our fellows that religion which 
 permeates every path of life, and sheds a sacred 
 light on every duty that religion which knows the 
 sorrow that ever springs from earth and feels the 
 consolation which descends to meet it from above 
 that religion which walks the ways of life in close 
 companionship with the invisible form of one like 
 unto the Son of Man; that religion was Margaret 
 Fuller s. Horace Greeley says of her : " I never 
 met another being in whom the aspiring hope of 
 immortality was so strengthened into profoundest 
 conviction. She did not believe in a future and un 
 ending state of existence she knew it, and lived in 
 the full splendor of its dawning light." 
 
 In the spring of 1846, rich in experiences, rich 
 in culture, and rich in friends, heralded by her 
 reputation as a scholar and writer, Margaret de 
 parted for Europe. She was cordially received in 
 England, and found ready access to such society as 
 that of Wordsworth, DeQuincy, Dr. Chalmers, Car- 
 lyle, Mary Howitt, Joanna Baillie, and others like 
 them. Here, too, she first met Joseph Mazzini, the 
 Washington of Italy, and here began that acquaint 
 ance which, amidst the subsequent storms of the 
 Italian revolution, ripened into congenial confidence 
 and sacred trust. 
 
 In December she went to Paris, where the best 
 literary society was open to her, and she became the 
 friend of George Sand and Berenger. Here she 
 had frequent opportunities of hearing the great 
 actress, Rachel, and her criticisms are almost as 
 
38 
 
 grand as a tragedy. She says of Rachel s eye : " It 
 was magnificent to see the dark cloud give out such 
 sparks, each one fit to deal a separate death." 
 
 In May, 1847, she went to Rome. She was warmly 
 welcomed by the distinguished Americans resident 
 there, and found easy access to the best native 
 society. 
 
 Here a new world opened to her. From infancy 
 the Roman character had been the object of her 
 admiration. Rome was to her a magic word. The 
 Roman was an emperor. The dignity of command, 
 the inflexible purpose of will, was stamped upon him. 
 
 Here in the most obscure places the spirits of the 
 mighty dead crowded upon her ; here the old kings, 
 the consuls, the emperors, the warriors of eagle eye 
 and remorseless beak returned to her ; the toga-clad 
 procession swept across the scene ; innumerable 
 temples glittered, and the Via Sacra swarmed with 
 triumphal life once more. Here, too, a new world 
 of love opened to her, and she found that 
 
 "Tradition, snowy-bearded, leaned 
 On romance, ever young." 
 
 Going, one evening, with a party of friends, to 
 attend vespers at St. Peter s, at the close of the ser 
 vice she became separated from her companions. 
 After anxiously seeking for them some time, she was 
 accosted by a young Italian, who politely asked if he 
 could assist her. Failing to find her friends, he went 
 to call a cab, but they had all departed, and he ac 
 companied her home. That courtly stranger was 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 39 
 
 OSSOLI, and, a short time after, Margaret became his 
 bride. Ossoli was of princely lineage, his family 
 being one of the oldest in Rome. Himself a Liberal, 
 his brothers were in the papal service. His father 
 was dead, and the estate was unsettled. Ossoli 
 wished to keep the marriage a secret until his affairs 
 were arranged, lest the fact of his union with a Prot 
 estant should deprive him of his property. 
 
 Margaret, some time after, removed to Rieti, where 
 she became a mother. Of her child, the boy Angelo, 
 it would be almost profane to repeat her words of 
 praise. Of Ossoli, she says, " He is capable of the 
 sacred love the love passing that of woman. He 
 has shown it to his father, to Rome and to me." 
 
 Meanwhile the war-cloud broke, and the revolution 
 of 1848 arrested the attention of the world. Of 
 that lost struggle of Italy, she might not merely say, 
 with the Grattan of Ireland s kindred effort half a 
 century earlier, " I stood by its cradle I followed 
 its hearse," but she might fairly claim to hav been 
 a portion of its incitement, its animation, its inform 
 ing soul. Her husband was an officer in the Repub 
 lican army, and she bore more than a woman s part 
 in its conflicts and its perils. Whether in council 
 chamber with the chiefs, or in hospital wards with 
 the dying,- she was always helpful, untiring, resolute 
 and brave ; and when at last, through the perfidy of 
 a traitorous government, the dearest hopes of the 
 people were drowned in blood, there was no heart 
 more lofty in its defiance, no voice more eloquent in 
 its exposure of the villainy, than her own. 
 
40 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 Weary in spirit, with the deep disappointments of 
 the past year weighing heavily upon her, she spent 
 the winter of 1849-50 in Florence. Here she was 
 surrounded by a pleasant circle of American and 
 English friends, and the last months of her Italian 
 life were cheered by all the light that the presence 
 of husband and boy and the companionship of gifted 
 and noble natures could afford. 
 
 Here she wrote of Mazzini : " Mazzini is immor 
 tally dear to me a thousand times dearer for all 
 the trial I saw made of him at Rome dearer for 
 all that he suffered. Many of his brave friends per 
 ished there. We who, less worthy, survive, would 
 fain make up for the loss by our increased devotion 
 to him the purest, the most disinterested of patri 
 ots, the most affectionate of brothers." 
 
 Beneath the ruins of the Roman Republic many 
 private fortunes were swallowed up; and among 
 them was Ossoli s, and he and Margaret decided to 
 come to America. 
 
 Many motives conspired to draw Margaret back 
 to her native land. There was heart-weariness at 
 the great reaction in Europe, desire of publishing 
 her history of Italy the fruit of her maturest 
 thought to the best advantage, and thereby doing 
 justice to great principles and brave men, and the 
 desire to be once more with youthful associates and 
 family friends. 
 
 On the i yth of May, 1850, they embarked on the 
 ship Elizabeth. 
 
 She trusted soon to greet loved ones on these 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 4* 
 
 western shores. Alas! she knew not that another 
 way was opened for her 
 
 "To God s Eden-land, unknown." 
 
 The captain of the vessel was a model New 
 England sailor, calm, courteous, brave; and his 
 young wife, who was with him, was a lady, gentle 
 and refined. 
 
 They had been at sea but a short time when the 
 captain died of a malignant fever. Margaret s boy 
 also sickened, but at length recovered, and sobered 
 and saddened they could again hope, and enjoy the 
 beauty of sea and sky. Margaret comforts the sor 
 rowing widow, puts the last touches to her book on 
 Italy, and sings and^ plays with her happy boy. 
 
 At noon on the i8th of July, the Elizabeth was 
 off the Jersey coast, and the officer in command 
 promised the passengers he would land them at New 
 York in the morning. The weather was thick, the 
 breeze strengthened into a tempest, the vessel made 
 way with a rapidity no one dreamed of, and about 
 4 o clock in the morning, she struck Fire Island 
 beach, off the shore of Long Island. 
 
 I will not attempt to excite your feelings by a de 
 scription of the awful scene which followed. The 
 captain s widow and a few of the sailors were saved; 
 but the chivalric husband, the excelling wife and the 
 promising boy were swallowed up by the hungry sea. 
 When last seen, Margaret was sitting at the foot of 
 the foremast, still clad in her nightdress, with her 
 hair fallen loose about her shoulders. 
 
42 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 A great wave swept over the ship. It was over 
 
 that communion face to face with death ! It was 
 
 over and the prayer was granted, that "Ossoli, 
 
 Angelo and I may go together, and that the anguish 
 
 may be brief." 
 
 This, then, O noble woman ! was thy. welcome 
 home. Instead of the clasp of affection and the 
 kiss of love instead of high hopes realized and 
 large ambitions filled, there was an idle lifeboat, a 
 howling hurricane and a pitiless sea. 
 
 Truly, "He maketh darkness his pavilion round 
 about him dark waters and thick clouds of the 
 skies." 
 
 But, though those clouds were tempest-torn and 
 black with death, we may yet fain believe that their 
 tops were golden in the sun, and through their broken 
 rifts we can almost see the splendor shining, and 
 hear a voice descending, saying with angelic accents, 
 "ALL is LOST ; BUT ALL is WON." 
 
THE CHIP BASKET. 
 
 [The most interesting department of Lute Taylor s paper, 
 and the one in which he took the greatest pride, and loved 
 most to labor, was his "Chip Basket." Here is what he said 
 when he set it out for the first time, and asked his readers to 
 assist in filling it, and test the flavor of its good cheer :] 
 
 are not useless. The hewer cleaves them 
 off, thinking only of the timber which assumed 
 desired form by their removal, and the chopper 
 thoughtlessly spins them from his gleaming axe 
 yet they have a value of their own. There is bless 
 ing and brightness in them. They glow cheerily in 
 comfortable homes, and bring warmth to shivering 
 squalor s scanty hearth. 
 
 Here we shall endeavor, week by week, to pick 
 up the chips which the writers toss off at their toil, 
 and make a pleasant warmth around which our 
 readers will love to gather. 
 
 Pleasant paragraphs, little poems, bits of sentiment, 
 reverie, philosophy, and speculation fruits gathered 
 from spice islands, passed in the sea of reading 
 these will be gathered here, to be enjoyed, we trust, 
 by those who read. 
 
 Every newspaper reader knows there are favorite 
 paragraphs which he meets with continually. They 
 
44 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 lead a curious, wandering life, sometimes going 
 abroad triumphantly on the broad pages of a metro 
 politan paper, with an editorial preface, like a herald, 
 to announce their presence, and again nestling unre 
 marked in the narrow columns of some obscure and 
 struggling sheet. Their authorship may be forgotten, 
 their history unknown, but their life is assured. 
 Broad and catholic in feeling, they depend on 
 neither time nor place for interest, but speak to the 
 universal heart of -man. The melody of the breeze 
 and the light of the stars, the beauty of day and the 
 grandeur of night are in them, and they pass sentinel 
 editors unchallenged, and keep their place in news- 
 . paper columns by inherent right. Many such we 
 hope to gather and present in due season. 
 
 And the Chip Basket is wide, and will never be 
 full. Our friends are invited to assist in the gath 
 ering. Around it will be the flavor of good cheer, 
 of healthy sentiment, of kindly feeling, of a humor 
 that may sparkle but will not sting. 
 
 RELIGION is the final center of repose, the goal to 
 which all things tend, apart from which man is a 
 shadow, his very existence a riddle, and the stu 
 pendous scenes of nature which surround him as 
 unmeaning as the leaves which the sibyl scattered 
 in the wind. 
 
 MEDITATION is to life what ballast is to a ship 
 to go safe and steady we must sometimes stop and 
 think. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 45 
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 [Extract from a letter to a friend.] 
 
 In the days long ago, Frank, when you and I sat 
 on hard benches at the district school house, wig 
 gling on our seats like the fat worms which we 
 impaled on our fish-hooks in the holidays in those 
 days when we studied Olney, we were taught that 
 mirage was located on the great deserts. You re 
 member how our boyish wonder was excited by the 
 story of the travelers in the desert, weary, worn, 
 seeking vainly for the saving spring, tortured beyond 
 endurance by the hellish agonies of burning thirst, 
 and how to their longing eyes there would sometimes 
 come a vision beautiful as Paradise, a vision of cool 
 ing waters, of greenness and umbrage, and their 
 eyes were lighted with new hope, and their weary 
 feet strengthened with new vigor, as they pushed on 
 toward the promised relief. But the taunting vision 
 eludes their search, the mocking, impalpable oasis 
 flees imperceptibly before them, and at last the cruel 
 conviction is forced upon them that the pleasing 
 picture is a phantom and the horrid thirst burns 
 fiercer, and the heart sinks in a deeper despair. This 
 is mirage. 
 
 But the geographer forgot to tell us, what is equally 
 true that more mirage hangs deceitfully about 
 political capitals than desert travelers ever saw. The 
 hopes which cluster around these places are none 
 the less high, the pursuit is none the less careful and 
 
46 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 intent, the disappointment is none the less bitter, the 
 despair is none the less crushing and complete. 
 
 A man with compelling purpose, with tireless brain 
 and an honorable ambition, fixes his heart on a de 
 sired place. Month after month and year after year 
 he toils with indomitable perseverance, and unflag 
 ging zeal. At length the looked-for time arrives. 
 Hopeful, almost exultant, he is sanguine of success, 
 but a line from the executive, or the silent fall of 
 bits of paper, and the prize struggled for with manly 
 strength, coveted with intense desire, eludes his 
 grasp, and the burning sands press not more piti 
 lessly the blistered feet of the desert traveler than 
 the world looks pitilessly upon the disappointment 
 which has thwarted the cherished purpose of his 
 life. 
 
 But not to political life alone does mirage lend its 
 deceptive arts. The business man is often its victim ; 
 and over all the sky of youth it hangs its rosy colors, 
 its pleasing tints, its glowing pictures of coming joys. 
 The maiden, in the beauty and purity of a dawning 
 womanhood, looks forward to a happy life of love, 
 but 
 
 "The cloud lands still before her lay, 
 The mirage looms across her way;" 
 
 and the boy, eager for manhood, with its toils and 
 triumphs, looks forward to a goal which he may 
 never reach a prize he may never win. 
 
 Blessed are they whose undoubting faith survives 
 all disappointments, and from before whose hopeful 
 eyes the mirage never fades away. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 47 
 
 But when we look, Frank, to the rest beyond, 
 where faith shall find its fulfillment, hope its fruition, 
 and love its reward when we look over to that 
 other shore of life perhaps wishing to be there, 
 yet shrinking from the passage when a vision of 
 the loveliness of that land cools the fever, and calms 
 the strife of our daily lives, can it be that the beauty 
 which beckons us, and the smiling joys which reach 
 out welcoming hands, are like the fair delusions here 
 a mirage and a cheat ? 
 
 I do not believe it ; and trusting that you, my boy, 
 may* find, at last, that the mirage of life here is but 
 a reflection from the reality of life hereafter, I am 
 very truly yours. 
 
 A NICKNAME. The man who has won a nick 
 name and wears it gracefully, has the elements of 
 popularity about him. The same instinct which 
 leads a mother to apply diminutive phrases of en 
 dearment to her little ones is a universal instinct, 
 one which we never outgrow, and which continually 
 manifests itself in our form of addressing or speak 
 ing of those we love, trust or admire. 
 
 The man who is known in his village or neighbor 
 hood as "Uncle" is never a cold, crabbed or selfish 
 character. He is sure to have a generous heart, and 
 wear a cheerful smile - there is integrity in him 
 which men trust, and warmth around him which 
 little children love to gather, and the term is a title 
 of honor more to be desired than that of "honor 
 able." 
 
48 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 FAT. He is grand, stupendous, magnificent, sub 
 lime. In his imposing presence, in the great shadow 
 of his rotund form, we are humility itself. 
 
 He is bigness personified. 
 
 He says his size and weight are a little unhandy. 
 In sultry weather he feels too warm. 
 
 He used to walk up the steps into his office, but 
 it has become too dangerous. At present he is 
 brought from his house on a dray, lifted into the 
 office with a derrick, and handled during the day 
 with a cant-hook. 
 
 He was elected alderman. His ward is entitled 
 to but three, and the other two have resigned. 
 
 He is taxed as real estate. The city assessor re 
 cently had him surveyed and platted, and he figured 
 up six forties and several out-lots. 
 
 He is very large. 
 
 His wife has to get a new marriage certificate 
 every little while, in order to keep her title to him 
 perfect, and we fear she may be guilty of bigamy in 
 being married to so much of mankind. 
 
 He really is fat. 
 
 He is growing rapidly. 
 
 THERE is no traveler equal to a good newspaper 
 paragraph. Dr. Livingstone is not a circumstance 
 in comparison. It gets lost and found, gets killed 
 and revived, has its head taken off and a head put 
 on, goes farther and often fares worse than any ad 
 venturer since the return of the heroes from the 
 siege of Troy. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET 49 
 
 LOST MOTION. 
 
 A few days since we were talking with a skillful 
 workman about repairing a large, valuable and com 
 plex piece of machinery. The practised eye of the 
 quiet worker in iron readily discovered the causes of 
 the defects of the great machine, and he expressed 
 his perfect ability to remove them. Among other 
 things, he said that the " lost motion must be taken 
 up." 
 
 After the business was over we fell to thinking of 
 his words, and wondering if most men and women 
 like deranged machinery did not need to have 
 lost motion taken up. The young man, starting in 
 life with correct habits and good resolutions, yields 
 step by step to the fascinations of indulgence and 
 the seductions of sin, until every one sees that his 
 moral powers have lost motion, which sadly needs 
 to be taken up. 
 
 The man of middle life, whose trained and expe 
 rienced powers are left to relax in idleness, or are 
 used only for trifling, selfish, or unworthy purposes, 
 has lost motion, and falls fearfully short of accom 
 plishing the good which by nature he was fitted to 
 do. The woman who, moving queen-like amid luxu 
 rious surroundings, or creating and sharing the com 
 forts of a modest home, permits that home to be the 
 boundary of her sympathies and care, and centers 
 all her thought upon her own adornment, her pleas 
 ure, or her pride, unmindful of the pleading voices 
 4 
 
50 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 of the poor, of the varied and innumerable forms 
 which want and woe are constantly assuming, and 
 which forever hem us in she has lost motion in 
 life, and, beautiful and radiant as she may be, falls 
 far short of being the earthly angel which it is her 
 privilege and duty to become. When we descend 
 to lower grades of life, when blear-eyed vice and 
 angry-visaged crime skulk in darkness, or deface the 
 day, we find sights sadder still ruins awful and 
 complete. 
 
 The paralyzed conscience, the infirm will, and the 
 unfeeling heart, are all indications of lost motion 
 in life. Churches and chapels, lecture rooms and 
 schools are workshops to which poor humanity re 
 pairs for the betterment of its condition the resto 
 ration of the motion lost. How effective these 
 agencies are, how many leave the church or chapel 
 with feelings freshened, with conscience quickened, 
 with faith strengthened, with purpose invigorated,, 
 and all the beauty and power and tension of life 
 restored, it is not our purpose to inquire now. 
 
 GIT AND GUMPTION. There are certain quali 
 ties of mind and character which, " down east," are 
 described by the expressivevwords "git" and "gump 
 tion" " Git," we take it, means a certain irresistible 
 promptness and energy ; and " gumption " a peculiar 
 winning tact, something even better than industry 
 and surer than genius. When "git" and "gump 
 tion " are combined the result is certain success. 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 51 
 
 TO A BOY EDITOR. 
 
 [The following is a letter written to Victor Welch, of 
 Madison, Wisconsin, who, at the time the letter was written 
 was under ten years of age, yet published a small paper at 
 his father s residence :] 
 
 MASTER VICTOR JOHN WELCH : 
 
 A visit to the office of the "Home Diary," and 
 the perusal of its files a valued present from your 
 father has given me the ambition to write a letter 
 for its pages, and thus join the choice circle of your 
 contributors. 
 
 A printing office in a gentleman s private residence, 
 with an editor whose years are expressed by a single 
 figure, is at least an anomaly ; but, in future years, 
 when your pleased eye shall look over the pages of 
 the " Diary," you will find, that although small in di 
 mensions, in sprightliness of fancy, in incisive thought, 
 in pungent criticism, it fairly rivals more ambitious 
 sheets. 
 
 The types are wonderful things, Victor, and if, in 
 learning to form them into lines and marshal them 
 into columns, you also learn to use that wonderful 
 instrument of power, the English language, with 
 ease and accuracy and vigor, you will find that your 
 father has given you a better " start in life " than if 
 he had endowed you with stocks and bonds, or made 
 you the owner of vast estates. Your name appears 
 as editor of a paper at an age when a less favored 
 
52 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 boy would perhaps feel the first promptings of am 
 bition to secure this distinction. In maturer years 
 you will more fully appreciate this honor, and will 
 perhaps translate into fact what is now a pleasing 
 fiction. 
 
 In my boyhood I often stood on the wharves of 
 one of our seaboard cities and saw the great ships 
 depart for far-off lands, and as they boldly stood out 
 upon the waste of waters, I wondered whether the 
 cruel, roaring, hungry sea would swallow them up, 
 or whether, after many months, they would return, 
 bringing wealth to their possessors, and happiness to 
 waiting hearts. Just so, Victor, does a thoughtful 
 man regard a boy who is playing on the margin of 
 that sea of life across which he must boldly steer. 
 
 "It may be that the gulfs will wash him down, 
 It may be he will reach the Happy Isles." 
 
 None make the voyage in unbroken sunshine. 
 Storms will come, my boy, but Will and Work are 
 faithful pilots, and will bring you safely through. 
 
 In the years of your manhood, which is to come, 
 you will find that great hopes will die, great faiths 
 will be wrecked, great loves will be misdirected and 
 misplaced. But you will also find that man is not 
 the powerless slave of nature or passion ; if he cannot 
 imperatively rule, he can, at least, partially control 
 them both. The sun goes down, but we light our 
 lamps and make a circle of brightness in the wide- 
 surrounding and close-pressing night ; and so, when 
 the death of a great hope or the wrecking of a great 
 
53 
 
 faith darken s life with love s eclipse, we may yet 
 make it comfortable and serene by the aid of smaller 
 joys, of lesser faiths, of homely duties faithfully per 
 formed. 
 
 It is easy to be advisory, Victor, and if this letter 
 is didactic in its character, it will be but the common 
 fault of men when writing to the young. 
 
 Your parents and teachers will impress on you the 
 necessity of forming correct habits, but it is desirable 
 that you early appreciate the almost omnipotent 
 power of a habit when once it has obtained control 
 of a man. I was once riding on a train of cars over 
 a long reach of level prairie. Standing on the front 
 platform of the rear car, the train running as if furies 
 fed its fires, I noticed with surprise that the coupling 
 which joined this car to the next was slack, and the 
 car itself actually pushing on those before it. Only 
 at intervals would the iron links straighten and the 
 car feel the force of the ponderous engine which 
 drew the train. You see, Victor, the car had got a 
 habit of running it had gathered momentum, and 
 the same force which had put it in motion would have 
 been powerless to arrest its course. Now, habit is 
 simply momentum in a given direction of life. Its 
 beginnings are slight, but its gathered, cumulative 
 strength is almost beyond conception or belief. No 
 rule can measure its force, no calculus determine its 
 limit, no law control its power. It is a strong, impe 
 rious giant. It binds its victims with chains softer 
 than silk, but stronger than steel. Impalpable, un 
 seen, its power can fitly be compared to that invisible 
 
54 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 law of gravitation which binds the universe of God 
 together, and controls the courses of the wandering 
 worlds. One may well be awed in the presence of 
 such power, and if you can but feebly estimate its 
 strength, you will not need be admonished to be 
 careful what habits you form. 
 
 As you grow older, Victor, you will be surprised 
 at the paltry nature of the topics which engross 
 many men s thoughts and fill their speech. The 
 husks on which the Prodigal Son had nearly starved, 
 were opulence itself compared to the mental pabulum 
 on which so many fill their dwarfed, distorted minds. 
 The small talk, the neighborhood gossip, the retailing 
 of rumors, the rehearsal of unimportant events, the 
 surmises and the speculations about other people s 
 plans and purposes these absorb the mental life of 
 very many, and are at once the indication and the 
 cause of barrenness of soul and poverty of mind. 
 To the small things of your own life, and the lives 
 of those with whom you live, give careful attention, 
 for they are the friction in the machinery of life, but 
 let the deluge of small talk which will surround you 
 be as powerless to arrest your attention or disturb 
 your repose, as the hail beating against closed blinds, 
 is impotent to invade the security of the room 
 within. 
 
 Another thing you will remember, Victor, that 
 character is the most valuable part of a man. It is 
 richer than wealth, better than brilliancy, grander 
 than intellect. It is the besetting sin of youth to 
 worship mere intellectual power. You will guard 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 55 
 
 against the fascination of this fault. A firmly estab 
 lished character is the only sure base on which a 
 noble superstructure can be reared. Great intel 
 lectual brilliancy or power, divorced from moral 
 worth, is like a marble shaft resting on shifting sand 
 in the first tempest it will be overthrown, and lie 
 soiled upon the earth above which it should rise. 
 History and your own observation will teach you 
 that the lives of many of the most highly gifted are 
 valuable only as beacon lights to warn others of the 
 ruin in which they have been engulfed. A man 
 without character often achieves a seeming success, 
 but his triumph is transitory. Like the ungodly man 
 mentioned in Scripture, "Yet a little while and he 
 shall be clean gone ; thou shalt look after his place, 
 and he shall be away." A man with compelling brain, 
 with generous impulse and ready sympathy, with no 
 taint of meanness soiling his life, no canker of deceit 
 festering in his soul, whose convictions have crys 
 tallized into character, whose frank and fearless eye 
 beams a benediction on all of beauty and truth, and 
 flashes scorn on all of falsehood and pretense such 
 a man is the " noblest work of God." 
 
 That you, Victor, may become such a man, each 
 day conferring blessing and enjoying content, until 
 the last day shall come, and you pass to the " other 
 side of life," where 
 
 "Quiet reigns, and brings to brain and breast 
 The benediction of unbroken rest," 
 
 is the sincere wish of your friend. 
 
56 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 WOMAN S RIGHTS. Philosophers will some day 
 be called upon to decide why it is that the cause of 
 "Woman s Rights," which drags so painfully in the 
 old and thickly-settled East, has won its only signal 
 victories in the West. We lack the courage, even if 
 we had the ability, to offer any suggestions toward 
 the solution of this question. We know, of course, 
 that the light-minded and unreflecting would say 
 that it is because in the East the women outnumber 
 the men, while in the West that position is reversed ; 
 but we are too well disciplined to say anything of 
 the kind for that sort of statement implies too 
 grossly that the divinest half of creation is only 
 fully appreciated when it makes itself very scarce. 
 The weasel shall be entrapped in deep slumber 
 before our cautious pen assumes the guilt of such 
 villainy ! But the fact remains, and some day it will 
 puzzle the wiseacres. 
 
 OLD LETTERS. Reader, have you a package of 
 letters from friends carefully tied with ribbon, or 
 safely laid in a private drawer. They are like a row 
 of tombstones in " God s Acre," marking the place 
 where friends have been laid. They are dead now. 
 The soul passed out of them as you read them first, 
 and when you occasionally look over them now it is 
 for the same reason that you look at the picture of a 
 dead friend to call up more vividly the memories 
 of the past. As the life of those letters passed into 
 our own, so shall our lives one day pass into a greater 
 one. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 57 
 
 A NIGHT IN A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 Years ago we were familiar with the murmuring 
 of the sea, listened entranced to its wondrous voices, 
 but it had been long since its music had been our 
 lullaby and we had slept with its waters all around 
 us. The sensation was almost novel and entirely 
 delightful ; we could not help thinking that we had 
 some connection with the great light in the tower, and 
 the safety which it gave to the sailors who passed by. 
 
 The sea has strange, multitudinous voices for those 
 who have ears to hear. Sometimes it has a cry of 
 pain, like it were a caged monster chafing at the 
 bounds which confine it, and reaching out angrily to 
 seize its prey; and again its tones are soft and se 
 ductive as the voices of the fabled sirens, and its 
 retreating waves woo to their embrace with no inti 
 mation that their returning grasp is relentless as 
 death. Sometimes the waves will thunder in a 
 grand, joyful, and triumphant chorus, as if an om 
 nipotent hand measured their flow into harmony 
 with the melodies of infinite thought and the move 
 ments of limitless worlds ; and again in fantastic and 
 playful mood they will dance as lightly as the feet of 
 Mirth, and sing as gayly as the lips of Love. 
 
 We seemed again to hear the sea in all these 
 moods, and remembering the recent great storm, 
 and the evidences of it which were all around us, 
 the thought of its terror clung close to us, and in 
 our fancy the wrecks drifted slowly by, 
 
58 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 " the gurgling cry 
 
 Of the strong swimmer in his agony" 
 
 fell upon our ears, and the drowned men came gliding 
 in procession before us, each spectral form now rising 
 on the crested wave and now dipping below it. 
 
 The thoughts became too heavy, and with sym 
 pathy for those who mourned the desolations which 
 shipwreck had made, and with thankfulness that such 
 sorrows had not invaded our life, we dismissed the 
 specters called up by fancy, and closing our ears to 
 the ceaseless voice of many waters, we slept soundly 
 in the lighthouse at Racine. 
 
 RAILROAD RIDING, even with pleasant compan 
 ions, is tedious, unless one thinks, or rather reveries, 
 if that word can be used as a verb. It is so natural 
 for one to think that the train he is riding on is the 
 important train of that day. But if he stops to 
 think, he knows that all over the broad land, every 
 hour of the day and night, the great trains are shoot 
 ing across States, as the shuttle shoots across the 
 loom, each filled with the same eager, expectant 
 throng. Each car-load is a small edition of the 
 great, surging, restless world. Some gaily intent on 
 pleasure ; some on errands of business and gain ; 
 some with hearts breaking with sorrow, hastening to 
 comfort the dying, or bury the dead ; some on mis 
 sions of mercy ; some in the service of crime ; some 
 hearts bright with climbing hopes which reach the 
 heavens ; some dark with despair which shudderingly 
 recoils from hell. 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 59 
 
 THE NIGHT TRAIN. 
 
 There is something weird and almost ghostly 
 about the shrieking passage of the night train over 
 the long, level miles. Through the black night it 
 goes, waking the stillness with its roar, and startling 
 the darkness with the gleam of its rushing headlight, 
 while its colored lanterns in the rear twinkle a hasty 
 good-bye. It comes like a startling apparition it 
 goes like a dream of delirium, leaving one in wonder 
 and amaze. 
 
 Within the train the sight is equally suggestive. 
 Here are the employes faithful at their post, and the 
 conductor moves about with ever watchful eye. 
 Here is weariness, languor, and unconsciousness in 
 every form. The strong man has forgotten his 
 strength, and uneasily sits or lies in crumpled con 
 dition. The worn mother wearily tends her restless 
 child, and snatches brief bits of sleep as the lazy 
 hours creep slowly by. Here all is impatient waiting, 
 discomfort and unrest ; but back in the luxurious 
 sleeping-car the unconscious inmates are wrapped 
 in undisturbed repose, and unheeded by them the 
 great train rushes on its way. 
 
 By and by the morning comes. Some with light 
 hearts awake to feel its brightening touch rest like a 
 benediction upon them. Others awake with aching 
 heads and weary frames to face again the deep dis 
 appointment and the carking cares from which sleep 
 
60 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 had brought them only slight respite, and so all go 
 on their several ways. 
 
 In the great journey of life there is a night train 
 also. We shall all take it sometime. It is like the 
 other of which we have written, in that there will be 
 careful attendants around. The conductor on this 
 tram is the physician, who gives to us his constant, 
 watchful care, while nurses and friends watch over 
 us, obeying every order as the brakesmen watch 
 and control the movements of the rapid car. Here, 
 too, are some tossing in the delirium of fever, writhing 
 in the gripe of unrelaxing pain while others, blest 
 with unconsciousness, speed swiftly on to the jour 
 ney s end. 
 
 To all these, also, the morning cometh ; and they 
 shall wake, like those others of whom we have writ 
 ten, as the night found them some racked with 
 remorse and scarred with sin others bright with 
 the splendors of unspeakable joy. When that night 
 comes to us, may our passage be peaceful, our morn 
 ing be unclouded day. 
 
 THE shining crystal snow is nothing but dark 
 water purified by frost ; and so the saintly souls we 
 sometimes meet are only our common human nature 
 sanctified by sorrow and sweetened by faith. 
 
 A MAN may be successful as a loafer, and invest 
 less capital and brains than are required to succeed 
 in any other profession. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 61 
 
 "POOR CARLOTTA!" 
 
 On the 1 9th of June, in the city of Queretaro, in 
 the fair sunlight of a beautiful day, guarded by 
 legions of soldiers, and surrounded by a vast popu 
 lace, a young and gallant gentleman was shot to 
 death. He was of princely lineage, and his unshrink 
 ing courage and noble mien well became his royal 
 birth and blood. 
 
 Standing there in the awful moment which was to 
 divide two worlds, his thoughts were not of hopes 
 ruined, of honors lost, of ambitions crushed or con 
 fidence betrayed, but of the beautiful and devoted 
 wife whose gracious ways and womanly gentleness 
 and resistless beauty had been the crowning glory 
 of his happier life, the sweetest solace of his mis 
 fortune, who had crossed the seas in his behalf, only 
 to be repulsed in despair he thought of her, and 
 his last words were "POOR CARLOTTA !" 
 
 For this will Maximilian be remembered. Not 
 for his royal blood, but for that touch of nature 
 which makes the whole world kin. There is not in 
 history any dying words of saint or hero which 
 appeal more tenderly to the universal heart of man 
 than these. 
 
 We do not mourn over Maximilian s death, for 
 execution for state offenses does not necessarily 
 imply any stain upon personal honor. His faults 
 were those of birth and inheritance. His virtues, 
 his bravery, his tenderness* were of that rare and 
 
62 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 noble quality which forever receive the worship of 
 woman and the admiration of man. 
 
 "POOR CARLOTTA!" However misguided in his 
 ambitions or his acts, those words, with their re 
 deeming associations, will crown him with the flowers 
 of affection and the laurel of fame. This is one of 
 the tragic facts of life, which eclipse all possible 
 fiction. The romance of " Romeo and Juliet " does 
 not equal in tearful and tender interest the story of 
 Maximilian and Carlotta. 
 
 "POOR CARLOTTA !" The words are historic for- 
 evermore. Side by side the brave young prince and 
 his beautiful wife will walk together, grandly but 
 mournfully, through the pages of future history 
 through all the years of coming time. 
 
 MINNEHAHA is not a "big thing," though it is one 
 of the most curious and delightfully charming things 
 on record. The water falls because it can t help it. 
 The stream being small, and venturing to the edge 
 of the precipice, of course the force of gravitation 
 takes it down. It is natural, very. It flows music 
 ally along, like any other modest and merry stream, 
 until, without warning of any kind, it suddenly finds 
 itself on the dizzy brink, and in an even sheet about 
 thirty-five or forty feet in width, it goes shivering 
 and sparkling over, and shimmers and gurgles and 
 gleams, and tosses out its white arms, and flings its 
 silvery spray, and wreaths itself into fantastic forms, 
 until, at last, having fallen, probably, about eighty 
 feet, it gathers itself together and hurries away. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 63 
 
 THE TYPE AND THE TYPOS. 
 
 The two most fascinating sounds, not human, to 
 which I have ever listened, are the click of the tele 
 graph and the click of the types. There is a tie of 
 consanguinity between these sounds a family rela 
 tionship of birth, and a similarity of service in the 
 things themselves. Each serves the highest master 
 Mind; each is engaged in the noblest occupation 
 the diffusion of ideas and intelligence. 
 
 As the music of the violin is an incentive to dancing, 
 so is the music of types rapidly falling into a " stick " 
 an aid to thought. Many very brilliant newspaper 
 articles have been "set up" at the "case," without 
 having been previously written, and in our experience 
 we have often found that when we had an extra 
 amount of writing to do, we could do it more easily 
 and more rapidly to leave the carpeted sanctum and 
 the cushioned chair, and sit at a bare table in the 
 "composing room," where we could catch the infec 
 tion of the industry around us. 
 
 Of the types themselves we never weary. They 
 are the civilizers a dictionary reduced to its lowest 
 denomination. They look dull enough, but all the 
 glorious possibilities that the human heart can hope 
 for are in their possession you have but to learn 
 the secret they so closely keep. If one but knew 
 how to properly pick out and arrange those little 
 pieces of metal, princely fortune and immortal fame 
 would be his reward. It took but a handful to make 
 
64 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 the "Heathen Chinee," yet that handful made the 
 name of Bret Harte a household word, and placed 
 ducats at his disposal. There are plenty of possi 
 bilities left in them yet. There are finer strains 
 there than poet has ever sung; there is keener wit, 
 more tearful pathos, more persuasive prayer than 
 tongue has uttered, or ear has heard. Get it out if 
 you can. They are patient of delay. 
 
 It is interesting to trace the analogy between these 
 types and the mind which is their master. A locked 
 "form "gives no more indication to the unpracticed 
 eye of the satire that may be sparkling, or the sorrow 
 that may be sobbing through it, than an impassive 
 face gives of the thought which may be moving in 
 the brain. And again, as the life of a man is often 
 quickened, his soul strengthened, and his energy in 
 creased by stress of adverse circumstances, so it is 
 only a " tight squeeze " which reveals the life within 
 the types. The baptism of ink must descend upon 
 them, and the strong arms of the press must embrace 
 them before the life that is in them is made manifest. 
 
 The " typos " are as interesting as the types. The 
 printer has been well called "the adjutant of thought." 
 He is more than a mechanic, although much of his 
 labor is mechanical. The faithful, conscientious, 
 pains-taking printer is deserving of an honor that he 
 rarely receives. Quite often he is the superior in 
 intelligence of the writer whose " copy " comes into his 
 hands, and it is owing to his judgment and care that 
 the writer makes so presentable an appearance in 
 print. Standing silently at his case, busy with hand 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 65 
 
 and brain, the " copy " that comes to him is a minia 
 ture panorama of the multitudinous life of the world. 
 A jest, a murder, a speech, a song, a funeral, or a 
 dance, each is chronicled and forgotten, just as they 
 are briefly commented on and forgotten by the busy 
 world outside. 
 
 Among " typos " there is a fellowship closer than 
 among any other artisans. To belong to the " craft " 
 is a passport to the sympathy of all. The needy 
 printer can always find a " case " which his more 
 favored brother typo will relinquish to him for a 
 time, or he will receive a donation by asking for it. 
 No printer, whether deserving or not, goes empty- 
 handed from the office where his needs are known. 
 These needy printers are frequently the veriest " dead 
 beats " in existence. As the faithful, careful printer 
 is one of the most honorable of the great army 
 which swells the ranks of labor, so the " tramp " is 
 one of the most useless and degraded of loafers. In 
 being this, he but obeys a general law that law 
 which makes a vile woman viler than a man can be, 
 because she stoops from a higher elevation. But we 
 have not time to pursue the subject. To all the 
 toilers at the case we reach out a friendly hand, and 
 hope that when their life "proofs " are revised by the 
 Master s eye, there will be found no " outs " of virtue 
 or "doublets" of vice. 
 
 THE way a man spends Sunday is a pretty good 
 indication of how he will spend the remainder of 
 the week. 
 
 5 
 
66 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 THE COUNTY FAIR. A County Fair, like death, 
 or politics, is a great leveler. All meet on equal 
 terms the dapper gent and the hard-handed son 
 of toil, the elegant lady and her humbler country 
 cousin, the fastidious and the vulgar, the man of 
 bowels and the man of brains, the white-haired and 
 aged infirm and the red-cheeked, rollicking boys, all 
 meet on a level and wonder at the pumpkins and 
 admire the pictures; praise the address of the 
 speaker and the trappings of the fancy team; are 
 delighted with the music of the band, and eloquent 
 over the enormous proportions of a yearling calf; 
 applaud the graceful carriage of the lady equestrian, 
 and linger admiringly around the pen of a beautiful 
 Suffolk shoat, now talk interjections, with wondrous 
 exclamation points between, as they examine a deli 
 cate sample of embroidery, and then almost affec 
 tionately caress a huge melon, a blood beet, or a jar 
 of plum jam. And then when the fair is over, and 
 the roads leading countryward are filled with return 
 ing teams, each load throws out talk as a fountain 
 jets out spray, and for a day or two following the 
 whole country is sown thick with gossip growing out 
 of incidents connected with THE FAIR. 
 
 A TROUT is an embodied poem the expression 
 of God s finest thought of beauty of form, grace of 
 motion and elegance of attire. 
 
 PROGRESS moves forward by two springs men 
 and events. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 67 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Winter is an institution especially in this north 
 ern climate. It comes late in the fall, and stays till 
 the weather is so warm it can t very well stay any 
 longer. This year it has come like an attack of the 
 rheumatics, or a caller before breakfast mighty 
 sudden and unexpected. The smile of the Indian 
 Summer had scarcely faded from the hillsides, when 
 the surly wintry wind came blustering over them, 
 and made the bare treetops creak with pain, and 
 dashed a snow-shower all over the garments of re 
 treating autumn. It was no sportive frolic of the 
 elements, but a genuine blast from the Winter King 
 "a nipping and an eager air" that stung the 
 mouth which breathed it ; while the mercury, which 
 for months had been reposing at figures of comfort 
 able elevation, suddenly betook itself to the base 
 ment of its tubular tenement, and ran down to an 
 alarmingly low figure below nothing. 
 
 And now, my friend who holds this paper, (you 
 are not in much of a hurry, are you ?) supposing we 
 have a little talk about winter. Cold is a very solemn 
 thing. It is cruel, remorseless there is death in 
 its touch. We have got to battle for life till summer 
 suns shine on us again. Did you ever think of it 
 that this Jack Frost, who paints your windows with 
 such delicate tracery, who clothes the whole land 
 scape with jewelry which gleams and flashes in the 
 morning sun that this same sparkling fellow is 
 
68 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 more cruel and unrelenting, more pitiless than any 
 ghoul or demon, or giant Bluebeard who affrighted 
 your infancy ? Perhaps you are a mother, holding 
 your little babe full of rich and vigorous life. Divest 
 it of its warm garments and place it under the clear 
 sky of this beautiful night, and Jack Frost will sting 
 it with icy pains till the soul is tortured out of the 
 body and the warm child is frozen clay. And then, 
 who knows but the wintry forces may increase, and the 
 air become so full of frost that to breathe it shall be 
 death, and furs and fires shall be of no avail, and we 
 all be frozen stiff and stark, standing in the streets 
 sitting in the houses motionless, dead ; who knows ? 
 Winter, too, takes away many of our pleasures. 
 We will instance but one the pleasure of going to 
 bed when weary and rising when refreshed. A con 
 templative and philosophical mind can find but few 
 pleasures equal to that of going to bed in the summer 
 season. What a kindness in the touch of the de 
 licious evening air ! What a sense of roominess in 
 the spacious bed ! What a glorious chance for the 
 legs to push round and get acquainted with each 
 other ! In the daytime a fellow s legs, cased up in cloth 
 and boot-tops, are kept in perfect isolation and know 
 scarcely anything of each other ; but at night they are 
 introduced to each other, and learn that they are 
 fellow-pilgrims, traveling through life together. And 
 in the morning what a luxury to get up ! You can 
 dress at your ease, and bathe if you wish, with no 
 disagreeable chills running over you, but a sweet 
 sense of secure and untroubled comfort. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 69 
 
 But in the winter ugh! You hang around the 
 stove long after you ought to go to bed, and finally 
 start off feeling that you have a disagreeable duty to 
 perform. You undress with frantic energy a shud 
 der a desperate plunge ; a spasm a series of 
 smaller convulsions and you go to sleep just to 
 dodge a feeling of discomfort. In the morning it is 
 the same struggle over again. The thought of getting 
 up brings a contortion to your face, and when im 
 pelled to it by necessity, or the thought of coffee for 
 breakfast, you push yourself out with a sullen des 
 peration, draw on a few indispensable articles, and 
 rush for the nearest stove in indecent haste and in 
 almost immodest attire. 
 
 For an unseen, impalpable thing, cold is about as 
 certain a reality as there is in existence. It coffins 
 up the lively streams, chills the bosom of the blos 
 soming earth, and raises the price of cord wood. It 
 puts a glow of health, a flush of beauty and rushing 
 blood, upon the cheek of the delicate maiden wrap 
 ped in furs; and a look that is almost like agony 
 a wan, thin, pinched, despairing look upon the 
 faces of the shivering, tattered, and comfortless poor. 
 
 No art can elude this keen searcher. It nestles 
 in the corners of the cheeriest room, as twilight lin 
 gers all the summer day in the thick boughs of a 
 dark old pine. The roaring fire drives it back for a 
 time, but, let the glow subside, and it comes back 
 and chills to death the very embers. It pinches 
 everybody s ears nestles in the daintiest slipper, 
 and crawls into the stoutest boot. No mortal power 
 
70 
 
 can vanquish it, and only when the vast forces of 
 Nature give it battle, and the summer suns pour on 
 the world their flood of warmth, does it relinquish 
 its grasp ; and then it is not conquered, only baffled, 
 and retreats to its strongholds in the icy North, leav 
 ing pickets in shady and sequestered places, and soon 
 sweeps down on us again, impalpable as a thought, 
 and dowered with a strength of which thought can 
 not conceive. 
 
 Yet let us not be too hard upon this rough old 
 winter. His hoary locks and glistening beard entitle 
 him to a thought of kindness yet. Nature is full of 
 wise and beneficent compensations, and winter gives 
 us much for what is taken away. The long, quiet, 
 cozy evenings, when the fire burns brightly, and the 
 shadows dance upon the wall, and the fresh papers 
 are on the table, and the leaves of the new book or 
 magazine are waiting to be cut, and the sense of 
 discomfort without gives added blessing to the sense 
 of security within what hours are these for thought, 
 for reading, for happy social converse ! How the 
 heart grows, and is filled with a kinder love and a 
 holier humanity! With what resistless eloquence 
 come the pleading voices of the suffering poor, the 
 sorrow-stricken, the unfortunate ! 
 
 THERE is a thread in our thought as there is 
 a pulse in our heart; he who can hold the one 
 knows how to think; and he who can move the 
 other, knows how to feel. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 71 
 
 DEATH OF WEDDED LOVE. 
 
 We have all seen the trees die in the summer time. 
 But the tree, with its whispering leaves and swinging 
 limbs, its greenness, its umbrage, where shadows lie 
 hidden all the day, does not die all at once. First a 
 dimness creeps over its brightness, next a leaf here 
 and there sickens and pales, then a whole bough 
 feels the palseying touch of coming death, and finally 
 the feeble signs of sickly life, visible here and there, 
 all disappear, and the dead trunk holds out its strip 
 ped, stark limbs, a melancholy ruin. Just so does 
 wedded love sometimes die. Wedded love, girdled 
 by the blessing of friends, hallowed by the sanction 
 of God, rosy with present joys, and radiant with 
 future hopes it dies not all at once. A hasty word 
 casts a shadow upon it, and the shadow darkens with 
 the sharp reply. A little thoughtlessness miscon 
 strued, a little unintentional neglect deemed real, a 
 little word misinterpreted through such small ave 
 nues the devil of discord gains admittance to the 
 heart, and then welcomes in all his infernal progeny. 
 The presence of something malicious is felt, but 
 not acknowledged; love becomes reticent, confidence 
 is chilled, and noiselessly but surely the work of sepa 
 ration goes on, until the twain are left as isolated as 
 the pyramids nothing left of the union but its 
 legal form the dead trunk of the tree whose 
 branches once tossed in the bright sunlight, and 
 whose sheltering leaves trembled with the music of 
 singing birds. 
 
)2 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 A GOOD "TAVERN." The tavern itself is a 
 
 big thing." Whether viewed from the office, bar, 
 billiard-room, parlors, dining-hall or chambers, it is 
 somewhat stupendous. The ceilings are lofty 
 likewise the bill for a week s board, extras included. 
 As a candidate for the nomination for circuit judge 
 of this district once said of the City Hotel at Hud 
 son, " the rooms are carpeted, and you don t have to 
 come down stairs to wash." 
 
 A daily paper is published by the , called the 
 
 "Bill of Fare." There are two editions morning 
 and noon. It is furnished to guests gratuitously, 
 and is distributed by newsboys who are girls 
 mainly. Many choice selections are made from this 
 paper. Much more might be said in praise of this 
 tavern, but time faileth us. It is an excellent place 
 to be in. 
 
 BOOKS. A good book is the most appropriate 
 gift that friendship can make. It never changes, it 
 never grows unfashionable or old. It is soured by 
 no neglect, is jealous of no rival, but always its clean, 
 clear pages are ready to amuse, interest or instruct. 
 The voice that speaks the thought ma y change or 
 grow still forever, the heart that prompted the kindly 
 and cheering word may grow cold and forgetful, but 
 the page that mirrors it is changeless, faithful, im 
 mortal. The Book that records the incarnation of 
 Divine Love is God s best gift toman, and the books 
 which are filled with kindly thought and generous 
 sympathy are the best gifts of friend to friend. 
 
THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 Many of our readers are the same to whom we 
 have sent greeting so many times before. Many 
 of those early readers are now past all earthly hear 
 ing, and the same types which conveyed them 
 greeting have recorded their departure. 
 
 Could we but write their real lives to-day the 
 history of their hearts could we but catch and 
 imprison in words the impalpable life of the soul 
 the happy fancies and the delicious dreams which 
 tantalized them with the vague hope of something 
 better than they had known, remote but longed 
 for possibilities which drift through the dreaming 
 thought as fleecy cloudlets drift through the far-off 
 summer heaven; or could we picture the sorrow, 
 the regret, the disappointment, the unrest that em 
 bitter life, or the black remorse that darkens it like 
 a dream of hell ; could we but thus picture even 
 the commonest life, the passion of romance would 
 pale in the presence of the more passionate reality. 
 But the journalist deals only with outward facts and 
 symbols, and real life remains unwritten and gene 
 rally unknown. 
 
 The thought that some of those around us who 
 now look out upon this glorious earth, and drink in 
 its life-giving airs, and feed upon its beauty, will, 
 on another New Year, lie buried in its bosom, is a 
 natural thought. It intrudes itself upon us, and will 
 not be put away, for it is true. The richness and 
 
74 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 fullness of life as surely suggest the coming stillness 
 and darkness, as the shadows are sure to nestle 
 among the leaves in the rich heart of the summer 
 day. The spectre confronts us not alone in the 
 closet, but he walks beside us in the brightest day, 
 and intrudes upon our happiest moments. 
 
 GENIUS AND POVERTY. It is one of the myste 
 ries of our life that genius, that noblest gift of God 
 to man is nourished by poverty. Its greatest works 
 have been achieved by the sorrowing ones of the 
 world in tears and despair. Not in the brilliant 
 saloon, furnished with every comfort and elegance; 
 not in the library, well fitted, softly carpeted, and 
 looking out upon a smooth green lawn, or a broad 
 expanse of scenery; not in ease and competence, is 
 genius born and nurtured but more frequently in 
 adversity and destitution, amidst the harassing cares 
 of a straitened household, in bare and fireless gar 
 rets, with the noise of squalid children, in the midst 
 of the turbulence of domestic contentions, and in 
 the deep gloom of uncheered despair, is genius 
 born and reared. This is its birthplace, and in 
 scenes like these, unpropitious, repulsive, wretched, 
 have men labored, studied and trained themselves, 
 until they have at last emanated out of the gloom 
 of that obscurity the shining lights of their times 
 become the companions of kings, the guides and 
 teachers of their kind and exercised an influence 
 upon the thought of the world amounting to a spe 
 cies of intellectual legislation. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 7$ 
 
 GETTING WELL. 
 
 Sickness brings a share of blessing with it. What 
 stores of human love and sympathy it reveals. What 
 constant affectionate care is ours. What kindly 
 greetings from friends and associates. This very 
 loosening of our hold on life calls out such wealth 
 of human sympathy, that life seems richer than be 
 fore. Then it teaches us humility. Our absence is 
 scarcely noticed or felt. From the noisy, wrestling 
 world without, we are separated as completely as if 
 the moss were on our tombstones, yet our place is 
 filled, and all moves on without us; so we learn 
 that when at last we shall sink forever beneath the 
 waves of the sea of life, there will be but a ripple, 
 and the current will move steadily on. On a sick 
 bed the sober truth comes home with startling 
 emphasis, that 
 
 "The gay will laugh 
 
 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
 Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
 His favorite phantom." 
 
 But we started to write about getting well. There 
 is a luxury in getting well that cannot be told. To 
 feel that the links binding you to life are surely 
 strengthening ; to be a little stronger in the feet ; to 
 take the first unassisted step ; to be an hour longer 
 from the pillow ; to sit once more with the family 
 circle; to venture into the open air and feel the 
 
76 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 better for it yet all the while to be a little tremu 
 lous with fear: this is getting well. It is to the 
 frame something as spring is to reviving nature 
 when we are not quite sure it has done snowing; 
 not sure but a narrow breadth of winter a "re 
 lapse," you know lies between us and the full 
 blossoming violet and snowdrop. One feels a new 
 life tingling in his veins, and it seems as if this 
 wondrous machinery of his was just set in motion. 
 The faces of acquaintances, too, wear a strange 
 look, and only by degrees do they grow familiar. 
 
 But a weakness in the arm, a trembling of the 
 hand, and a dizziness of the brain, warn us to close 
 this article, lest the fatigue of writing interfere with 
 our own getting well. 
 
 THE TOILET OF DEATH. The love of dress is 
 instinctive. With the child it is a passion, with the 
 woman a pleasure, with the man a manly pride. It 
 is necessary and right to give due attention to our 
 apparel, and bestow befitting care upon our personal 
 appearance. 
 
 But the time will come when we shall not make 
 our own choice of clothing our own hands will not 
 arrange it, nor our eyes take note of its appearance. 
 The child will take no delight in the beauty which 
 adorns the body; the woman will not perceive the 
 texture, color, or arrangement of her garments, and 
 the man s closed eyes will take no heed of his comely 
 apparel. It is when the toilet of death shall be made. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 77 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 Probably around no other name, not divine, has ^ 
 poesy twined so many wreaths; over no other has 
 oratory pronounced so many and so graceful eulo 
 gies; about no other does love cling with such 
 tenacious hold, as about and around the name of 
 Robert Burns. Scotland was his birthplace, but the 
 heart of the world is his home. 
 
 If one wants to know how royal is song how 
 every gift and power dwarfs in its kingly presence, 
 let him ken Robert Burns. He has lifted a pro 
 vincial dialect into universal knowledge and inter 
 pretation. He has made the wild Scottish heather 
 a house-plant, blooming by every fireside where 
 literature finds welcome or love itself a home. Who 
 knows who was king when Robert Burns was an 
 exciseman ? Who knows who were the lords, and 
 the chancellors, and the generals, and the admirals, 
 when he was treading in the furrow of his plow and 
 watching the daisy curl beneath it? Who knows 
 of their birthdays? Who forgets his? What he 
 touched, of his age, will be immortal. Tarn O Shan- 
 ter s hold on remembrance is as secure as Caesar s 
 or Napoleon s. " Highland Mary " will be enshrined 
 forever in the world s heart as the true ideal of a 
 maiden gentle, loving and pure, as sweetly, but 
 less sadly, than Ophelia, she will glide through all 
 the centuries to come a vision of beauty, grace 
 and love. 
 
78 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 Burns, the smart plowman from Ayreshire, the 
 rhymster, who excited after a while the mild curi 
 osity of the literateurs of his time, dined one day, by 
 sort of special favor, at Lord Munboddo s, with Dr. 
 Blair, Dugald Stewart, Henry McKenzie and the 
 rest. They came into the presence of the wonder 
 ful rustic thoughtlessly enough, and now they cannot 
 return if they would. They are defrauded of obliv 
 ion, and must forever attend him as satellites the 
 sun, or courtiers the king. 
 
 His very follies endear him to us, for we know how 
 sincerely, sorrowfully repentant he was. He does 
 not shine upon us with spotless splendor, in awful 
 isolation, but walks our daily ways, shares our com 
 mon thoughts, enters our open homes, loves, hopes, 
 prays, sins and suffers like us all. If his follies were 
 conspicuous, his nature was large. Small souls need 
 small restraints. A man may carry a few drops of 
 water in a pint cup on a smooth path safely, but 
 to bear a brimming bucket over mountain ways, 
 through storm and night, and never spill one drop, 
 is what no man, not even Burns, could do. From 
 his life, as well as from his lines, we learn the great 
 lesson that 
 
 " We partly may compute wliat s done, 
 But know not what s resisted." 
 
 All over the world his birthdays -are celebrated, 
 and his name kept in loving remembrance, but no 
 florid eulogy or stately verse will pay him a finer 
 tribute or more truthfully delineate his crowning 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 79 
 
 excellency, than Alice Gary has done years ago, in 
 words simple as his own : 
 
 " A lover of the beautiful, 
 
 In Nature s sweet evangels ; 
 For his great heart was worshipful 
 For men, and maids, and angels." 
 
 THERE are trees, like the butternut, which impov 
 erish the ground upon which they grow, but the 
 olive tree enriches the very soil upon which it feeds. 
 So there are natures as unlike in effect as these 
 some cold, selfish and absorbing, which chill and 
 impoverish every one with whom they come in con 
 tact. Others, radiant, affluent souls, who enrich life 
 by their very presence, whose smiles are full of bless 
 ing, and whose touch has balm and healing in it, like 
 the touch of Him of Nazareth. Squalid poverty is 
 not so pitiable and barren as the selfish heart, while 
 wealth has no largess like that with which God dowers 
 the broad and sunny soul. Be like the olive from 
 whose kindly boughs blessing and benison descends. 
 
 TO-DAY there is no scholastic seclusion so pro 
 found that the allied voice and action of this mighty 
 living age may not perpetually penetrate it. To-day 
 the workshop has become clairvoyant. The plow 
 and the loom are in magnetic communication with 
 the loftiest social centres. The last results of the 
 most exquisite culture of the world in all its depart 
 ments, are within reach of the lowest haunt, where 
 latent genius and refinement await their summons. 
 
8o LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 INFLUENCE is to man what flavor is to fruit, or 
 fragrance to a flower. It does not develop strength 
 or determine character, but it is the measure of his 
 interior richness and worth, and as the blossom can 
 not tell what becomes of the odor which is wafted 
 away from it by every wind, so no man knows the 
 limit of that influence which constantly and imper 
 ceptibly escapes from his daily life, and goes out far 
 beyond his conscious knowledge or remotest thought. 
 There are noxious weeds and fragrance-laden flowers 
 in the world of mind as in that of matter. Truly 
 blessed are they who walk the way of life as the 
 Saviour of mankind once walked our earth, filling 
 all the airs about them with the aroma which is so 
 subtilly distilled from kindly deeds, helpful words 
 and unselfish lives. 
 
 ENJOYING RELIGION. We are tired of hearing 
 people tell about enjoying religion, or mourning be 
 cause they do not enjoy religion. Religion was not 
 intended to be enjoyed. Theoretically, it is abstract 
 truth, like Euclid s propositions; practically, it is 
 merely correct living. The object of religion is not 
 to be enjoyed, but to enable people to enjoy life, and 
 arm them with faith to meet that which lies beyond. 
 It is a means, not an end ; and people who are long 
 ing after enjoyment of religion are very apt to divorce 
 it from its proper influence in. mellowing the asperities 
 of life, and prompting to kindness, charity and love. 
 
 NATURE is a creditor who accepts no protest. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. Si 
 
 VENTRILOQUISM. 
 
 [A local notice from the Prescott "Journal" in 1867.] 
 
 Professor Sands gave semi-scientific, magical and 
 diabolical entertainments here on Tuesday and 
 Wednesday evenings last. He had full audiences, 
 and entertained them well. Some of his tricks were 
 performed with a skill we never saw equaled. But 
 the sharpest and best trick he performed was in 
 inducing nineteen or twenty-three fools, one of whom 
 was us, to pay one dollar each to learn how to per 
 form ten tricks of magic and ventriloquism. We 
 learned them ; oh, yes. They were easy, and when 
 we had learned how, we could perform them so- 
 easy just as easy as a boy who has taken one 
 lesson on a violin can play like Ole Bull, or a girl, 
 after her first dancing lesson, move like Fanny 
 Elsler. 
 
 But we learned ventriloquism good. It some 
 times troubling us to talk where we are, we wanted 
 to know how to talk where we ain t. We can do it. 
 We can "throw our voice " muchly. We have tried 
 it thusly : We are the proprietor of a bovine cow. 
 She don t seem to know her master s crib as well as 
 the Biblical ass did his. She isn t disposed to be 
 regular to her meals and milking. This eccentricity 
 was sometimes annoying. It is so no more. We 
 step to the door and ventriloquise her. We throw 
 our voice a mile or so to her favorite haunts and 
 6 
 
82 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 win her home. We would not take ten cents for 
 this useful and wonderful power of ventriloquism. 
 We will impart it to our friends for a reasonable 
 remuneration. We like Professor Sands, and hope 
 he will rent a house and come here to live. 
 
 THE practice of asceticism in religious matters is, 
 happily, fast passing away. The dogma so com 
 monly accepted even a few years ago that self- 
 denial is a thing commendable in itself and for its 
 own sake ; that the mere fact that an emotion or a 
 practice is pleasing, affords sufficient proof that it is 
 sinful and should be repressed, is one of the few 
 remaining shreds of the now tattered robe in which 
 superstition once clothed the radiant form of religion 
 itself. We cannot inject virtue into the soul by 
 drawing the blood from the veins. It is from the 
 regulation of desire, not from its crucifixion, that 
 virtue grows strong ; and warm-blooded, large- 
 hearted, strong-passioned men and women, who 
 guide aright the current of their lives, but do not 
 check its strong impetuous flow, are fitter creatures 
 for the uses of life and the service of God, than the 
 pale, passionless human plants out of whom a too 
 rigid discipline has crushed the bloom of earth 
 without infusing the hues of heaven. 
 
 THERE are men so penurious that if an angel 
 should visit them and stay to dinner, the cost of the 
 meal would detract from the warmth of the welcome. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 83 
 
 A FAMILIAR EPISTLE. 
 
 Now, Joe, I am taking it easy in shirt sleeves and 
 slippers, with a cozy fire and a few capital cigars, 
 and this letter will be a sort of random, helter-skelter 
 concern, written a good deal as a pig makes a forced 
 journey in all directions and so I direct it to you 
 individually, that its semi-personal character may 
 nick off the wire-edge of any unkindly criticism. 
 
 You are indebted for this epistle, dear Joe, to a 
 tremendous snow-storm which has been howling 
 around here until it is liable to indictment as a pub 
 lic nuisance. And I may as well remark that during 
 my stay in this State snow-storms have been disgust 
 ingly common. There is an old saying that snow is 
 the poor man s fertilizer at least that is what it 
 means, though the word used in the proverb is sug 
 gestive of a ranker odor and a more filthy appear 
 ance than we ascribe to the cleanly snow. Admitting 
 the proverb to be true, it grieves me to think how 
 much of this fertilizer has been wasted here this 
 season. Millions of bushels have drifted away into 
 uncultured places, simply because the farmers were 
 too shiftless to build fences high enough to contain it. 
 
 [NOTE. Will professed agriculturists please call 
 attention to this fearful waste of a productive agency?] 
 
 Did you ever think, my dear Joe, what a powerful 
 thing this snow is? You see the broad, feathery 
 flakes, pure, soft and yielding, falling silently and 
 slowly, touching the earth as tenderly and lovingly 
 
84 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 as a mother kisses her child, and it seems a type of 
 harmless purity. But by-and-by the snow-clouds 
 thicken and darken, the cold hardens the feathery 
 flakes into biting crystals, and the wind moans and 
 shrieks and roars like some fabled demon in an agony 
 of torture, while hour after hour the snow-shower falls 
 in a blinding tempest, and every living thing seeks 
 shelter from the fury of its rage. And when the storm 
 is over, there it lies, massed into vast drifts against 
 which horses rear and plunge in vain, and the hiss 
 ing locomotive, with its fiery strength, reaches into 
 it to retreat, baffled, beaten and, not to put too 
 fine a point upon it, these huge snow-drifts keep 
 cattle away from drink, boys and girls away from 
 school, and men and women away from the neigh 
 bors, church, store and post-office. 
 
 [NOTE. Right here, Joe, I may as well note the 
 fact that the most harmless appearing things have 
 the largest share of latent power and fury in them. 
 The fleecy cloud in the summer heaven looks so far 
 off, intangible and pure, that we might fancy it the 
 mere exhalation of a passing angel, but the lightning, 
 which touches but to wither, lies in its bosom. It is 
 not the man "bearded like a pard," rough and blus 
 tering, whom it is dangerous to offend, but the quiet 
 fellow who utters no threat, gives no premonition of 
 anger, except the changing light in the eye, where 
 fixed resolve is burning. .And then we all know, 
 either by observation or testimony, that the mildest- 
 mannered, purring, pussy-cat kind of women are the 
 most fearful when on the "rampage."] 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 85 
 
 But, to come back to the railway train: what a 
 thing of mystery and beauty and power is the engine 
 itself I mean one of those ponderous, royal fel 
 lows, whose driving wheels move with consciousness 
 of almost limitless power, and the arm which connects 
 them plays as if it felt omnipotence was in its stroke. 
 It is more marvelous than the human brain in one 
 respect, for labor does not wear away its vital force. 
 The play of those steel arms is tireless, and its on 
 ward rush never falters from fatigue. And then, 
 how kind and tractable a monster it is ! At the will 
 of its master, it will repose in perfect quiet while the 
 gentle lady alights from the car, and then, at a touch 
 or too, it flames and shrieks, and rushes over dizzy 
 heights and through gaping gorges as if hell was in 
 its heart s and it was fleeing from mad avengers. Did 
 you ever think, ^oe, while riding in a rail-car, that 
 you were as much at the mercy of the engineer as if 
 he held a loaded rifle to your breast? Let him 
 but touch here and there, and your trip would be a 
 " through " one, for you would fly past the station 
 where death stands ever, passing from one world to 
 another. I sometimes compare an engine to the 
 human brain. The working of a large brain, guided 
 by wisdom and principle, is beneficent, -like the 
 power of a locomotive, when rightly controlled ; but 
 an essentially bad man with brain power is as dan 
 gerous as an engine fired and running with no direct 
 ing hand. 
 
 By the way, Joe, I think it is not long since you 
 were back from the State of your adoption to the 
 
86 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 State of your nativity, as I now am. How much 
 seems strange, Joe, dwindled, as if we were viewing 
 things through the small end of a telescope. The 
 old stone schoolhouse, where I learned to " speak," 
 and " compose," seems to have " run into the ground " 
 several feet. The church, with which is connected 
 my earliest remembrance of sermons and sabbath- 
 schools, and which seemed so vast an edifice to my 
 wondering youth, is now a very modest-sized and 
 rather mean-looking building, while the steeple, which 
 rose to so dizzy a height, is not now so lofty by far, and 
 it is leaning sadly askew, as if the devil were tugging 
 to pull it down, that it might no longer point the 
 way to heaven. And then those distances across 
 the flats, from house to house, or hill to hill is it 
 the longer reaches we have traveled over since 
 which makes seem so short now what was such a 
 weary length in the years agone ? And when we 
 meet local great men, whose riches or beetling brows 
 awed our boyhood, how we find our wonder and tim 
 idity gone. How old it makes one feel to ferret out 
 his quondam schoolmates, and find them filling re 
 sponsible stations, grappling with life s earnest work, 
 and see lovely women who have gone into life-com 
 panionship with them, and find the little diamond 
 types of humanity 
 
 " Feeble promises of future men" 
 
 lying around loose most anywhere. But there is 
 another thing, dear Joe, which makes your corre 
 spondent feel older than all this it is to meet some 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 87 
 
 one whom you remember as a pretty little girl in 
 pantalets and short dresses, to whom you used to 
 give candy and primers when you were a young 
 man, and be introduced to her, and be received with 
 an easy lady-like grace, and find yourself in the pres 
 ence of beauty and culture, quoting Tennyson, and 
 talking about "Great Expectations," and you invite 
 her to a ride, a concert or a party. Ah ! Joe, this 
 makes one feel very old indeed he looks for gray 
 hairs, and wonders if he is not becoming venerable. 
 But, Joe, let us change the subject before it gets 
 too solemn. 
 
 This being the 4th of March, I am reminded that 
 for just -one year Mr. Lincoln has been President of 
 the Un-tied States. Let us hope that before the next 
 anniversary of his inauguration, we may transfer the 
 letters to their original place, and call him President 
 of the United States. 
 
 You may have heard of an affair down in Ten 
 nessee, where a movement was set on Foote which 
 resulted in giving an extensive land Grant to the 
 rebels in the vicinity of Fort Donelson. There was 
 Western blood and brain and muscle there, Joe. You 
 have read, perhaps, of the rejoicings with which the 
 news was received the shouting, the display of 
 banners, and the thunder of the guns. Somehow, 
 Joe, I could not halloo much. I kept thinking of 
 the thousands of poor fellows who were lying stark 
 and stiff severed by canon ball, riddled by rifle 
 shot, torn by bursting sjiell, and trampled under foot 
 in the deadly charge. Lying there, grimmed with 
 
powder and besmeared with blood, their ears are 
 forever deaf to the exulting shout of victory. Of 
 course the cause is worth the sacrifice, but I can re 
 joice better by-and-by, when the wounded have 
 recovered, and time has partially soothed the sorrow 
 for the dead. You have read, Joe, of that company 
 which went into battle nearly a hundred strong, out 
 of which but seven came back unscathed. No doubt 
 they were mainly good fellows generous, hopeful, 
 strong loving life as you and I do, and they had 
 mothers, wives, sisters, and many, perhaps, 
 
 " A neai er one 
 Still, and a dearer one 
 Yet, than all other. " 
 
 And they shall welcome their coming no more ! How 
 will the days seem darkened to them, and life be 
 burdened with the weight of an almost crushing sor 
 row ! It is easy for us, safe at home, to talk of duty 
 and honor and glory and liberty and law and the 
 flag, and its being "sweet to die for one s country;" 
 but still the shock of battle may well blanch the 
 cheek and sadden the heart of the thinking and 
 compassionate. The hearts which bleed are not 
 those alone which are pierced by remorseless bay 
 onet or murderous ball. They are scattered in 
 humble homes all over a continent, and the wound 
 is no less painful because unseen. 
 
 No MAN ever professed to contemn women until 
 he was conscious of their contempt. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS. 
 
 There have been several instances, recently, in 
 which clergymen deflected from the strict line of 
 manly and ministerial propriety, and each instance 
 has been seized upon by the rapacious reporters of 
 sensation sheets, and magnified into an importance 
 totally disproportionate to the offense. We do not 
 so much care for this as for the covert sneers at 
 religion itself which are introduced into these arti 
 cles the inference drawn that because of these 
 transgressions the Christian religion is impotent and 
 powerless to restrain the passions and purify the life. 
 
 This habit of judging a cause by the exceptional 
 case of one of its professed followers is not confined 
 to reporters alone, but it is unjust, illogical and ab 
 surd. It is also true that people generally expect 
 too great results to follow from a public profession 
 of a Christian faith and practice. They demand of 
 every " member of the church " a uniform piety and 
 an equally blameless life. Now, in the nature of 
 things, this expectation cannot be realized. Religion 
 is simply a certain power a moral force and its 
 effect upon any person is limited, and determined to 
 a great extent by the character of the person upon 
 whom it acts. To the man or woman of genial and 
 sunny spirit, of frank and generous and noble nature, 
 religion adds a grace almost divine in its unmatched 
 beauty; but upon the man or woman with a natu 
 rally sour and cynical disposition, with coarse, un- 
 
90 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 comfortable manners and perverted instincts, the 
 same power of religion acts only as a restraint 
 mitigating what else were altogether unlovely into a 
 condition of comparative tolerableness. If you apply 
 an equal amount of sugar to a dish of strawberries 
 and a plate of salad, the taste of the two will not be 
 similar, and so the same influence of the Christian re 
 ligion applied to totally dissimilar characters cannot 
 produce similar results. If one is not a professing 
 Christian, let him at least be reasonable in his criti 
 cisms of those who are. 
 
 OUR lives are complex. Cooperation is the neces 
 sity of our being. It is the first lesson taught us 
 for no person was ever born without the presence 
 and cooperation of another person of maturer 
 years and in the important and intensely personal 
 matter of marriage, the cooperation and consent of 
 another person of the opposite sex is absolutely 
 essential. The thread of life, even with the most 
 self-reliant, is not a single, separate strand, but it is 
 twined and interwoven with many others. Number 
 less and unknown hands are laboring to supply our 
 wants or minister to our pleasures. The Celestials 
 pick the tea whose fragrance we sip, and laughing 
 girls beyond the sea gather the grapes whose rich 
 blood shall sparkle in the light of our homes. Not 
 till we reach the close of life shall we be beyond the 
 need, as beyond the reach, of human sympathy and 
 aid. In that supreme, momentous moment, we are 
 for the first time in our existence ALONE. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 91 
 
 DEC. 2, 1859. 
 
 [The following lines were written the day John Brown was hung, 
 Dec. 2, 1859.] 
 
 There s a sadness stealing o er us, there s a hush in all the 
 
 air ; 
 There are eyes grown red with weeping, there are strong 
 
 hearts bowed in prayer ; 
 And the patriot s cheek is burning with the crimson blush 
 
 of shame, 
 While the whole broad land is thrilling to the mention of 
 
 ONE NAME. 
 
 Old John Brown swings from the gallows so Christ hung 
 
 upon the tree 
 Freedom s noblest son is strangled in the proud "land of the 
 
 free." 
 But the cross is shrined in holy hearts and worshiped by the 
 
 good ; 
 So the gibbet shall be glorious with sacrificial blood. 
 
 O brothers! are we dying? Have our souls put out their 
 
 fires? 
 Have we hearts of men within us ? Have we Freedom s large 
 
 desires ? 
 
 Shall we sneak into our closets, and mumble out our prayers, 
 While a hero s dying gasp is burdening all the airs? 
 
 Dare we stand in glorious sunlight, and look up to God s pure 
 
 heaven, 
 And no stern, indignant protest from our deepest souls be 
 
 given ? 
 
92 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 Let us wake from idle dreaming wake from all unworthy 
 
 care! 
 Fill our hearts with manly purpose match our action to our 
 
 prayer ! 
 
 Let us think of John Brown s swinging from the gallows into 
 
 heaven ; 
 
 Till a portion of his manhood to our puny souls be given 
 Till the holy fires of liberty our frigid hearts shall swell 
 Till we hate this damned oppression with the bitter hate of 
 
 hell. 
 
 But a glorious morn shall break upon the night of our de 
 spair ; 
 
 Justice will not sleep forever, nor Gcd be deaf to prayer ; 
 Angels rolled away the stone where Christ glorified did lay, 
 And the sepulchre of slavery shall be luminous with day. 
 
 And when dawns that glorious future, and we ve wiped away 
 
 our shame, 
 
 John Brown, despite his errors, shall wear an honored -name ; 
 And eloquence shall warm its speech, and poesies shall play 
 Round the soldier-guarded gibbet, where the old man dies 
 
 to-day. 
 
 AN IDEAL POEM. 
 
 A poem should be round and perfect as a star, 
 
 And full of beauty, with truth beaming ; 
 No vicious thought or ugly phrase should mar 
 
 But, like spring flowers in meadows gleaming, 
 It should shine out in brightness and in splendor, 
 
 And be as holy, pure and fair, 
 As full of light and love, and tender 
 
 As a fair girl s eyes, or a saint s sweet prayer. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 93 
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 [Extracts from a letter to the St. Paul " Pioneer."] 
 
 I like Chicago. Chicago is a large city. I have 
 noticed there are always many people in a large city. 
 A city don t do well without them. Some of your 
 readers may not have been to Chicago. Shall I tell 
 them about it ? 
 
 There are many groceries here, where they sell 
 tea, codfish, whisky, flour, molasses, saleratus and 
 such things, and other groceries where they sell 
 cloth, women s clothes, and fancy feminine " fixins " 
 generally. Field, Leiter & Co. have of the latter. 
 It is in cube form a block long, a block high, and 
 a block thick. It is bigger than a barn, and tall as 
 a light-house. There are more than forty clerks in 
 it some of the male persuasion, and some of the 
 female sex and every one of them is as slick as a 
 spit-curl on the side of a school-marm s face. 
 
 There are shows here theatres, where girls, with 
 out very much clothes on, will whirl around till a 
 fellow is dizzy looking at them ; and then stand on 
 one leg, like a hen. Then all the fellows clap their 
 hands, and the girl, she does the same thing again. 
 It is fun ; but I don t think I would like to marry 
 one of them girls that jumps about as handy as a 
 flea, would you, Mr. Editor? I don t think they 
 would be real careful mothers-in-law, do you ? Miss 
 Olive Logan insinuates, you know, that well that 
 
94 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 they, that is, some of them, might be mothers out of 
 law, but this may be because she couldn t get used 
 to standing on one toe as long as they do. Jealousy 
 prompts cruel words sometimes. Then there is a 
 good show Wood s museum where there are 
 birds, monkeys, wax-works and the moral drama. 
 There is to be seen the dead skeleton of a big snake 
 that aint alive now. The snake is a whopper, or 
 was when he was on earth. It takes two to look 
 him all over, one to begin at each end and look till 
 they meet. He is as long as a board fence. A crow 
 bar would be just a fair sized tooth-pick for him, 
 and he could put you in his ear and not feel it. I 
 am glad he is dead. 
 
 There are lots of ships here, and horse-cars, but 
 the horses don t ride on them, though, and the 
 water-works. I must tell you about the water-works. 
 They are a big thing. Much water is used in Chi 
 cago. Fastidious people sometimes wash in it. 
 Chicago has first-class water now, and plenty of it. 
 She has built a tunnel two miles long, and tapped 
 Lake Michigan that distance from the shore. The 
 water runs down to the home station, and is then 
 lifted up high by steam-engines and distributed over 
 the city. The hoisting of it up is a good deal like 
 work. There are three steam-engines, of 400,000 
 horse-power each, used in pumping up the water, 
 and they are now preparing to put in a new large 
 one. I like to see those engines work. Anybody 
 would. Clean, polished, shining monsters, they seem 
 to take a conscious pride in their performance, and 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 95 
 
 the tireless movement of their mighty arms seems 
 almost as resistless as the will of God. But they cost 
 scrips, these piles of polished machinery and throb 
 bing life do ; and with that regard for economy which 
 has always characterized me, I think I have discov 
 ered a plan by which this work can be done at a 
 nearly nominal expense, I only wonder that Chicago, 
 with her accredited "git" and "gumption," has not 
 adopted my plan before. I will explain privately to 
 you. My plan is this : At the shore end of the 
 tunnel build a large tank or reservoir, put two first- 
 class whales in it, and let them spout the water up. 
 Simple, isn t it ? and feasible, too, and cheap. You 
 see the whales would furnish their own clothes and 
 lodging, and all the oil they would need for lights 
 to work nights by, and the city would really be out 
 nothing but their board. Whales have always been 
 in the water elevating business, so this would be 
 right in their line. They would work and think it 
 was fun just as a boy sometimes, but not most 
 always, does and there is no good reason why 
 their sportive instinct should not be turned to prac 
 tical use. Their willingness to do a fellow a good 
 turn is proven by the fact that several years ago one 
 of them gave a preacher man named Jonah cabin 
 passage for a three days trip, and never even asked 
 to punch his ticket at meal time, and didn t charge 
 him half fare, but treated him like a first-class dead 
 head, and wouldn t take a cent. 
 
 I am confident of the final success of my plan, 
 
96 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 but the prejudice of people against innovations may 
 retard its operation for some time yet. 
 
 Speaking of water makes me think that Chicago, 
 like St. Paul, has a river, only not so much so. 
 Rivers most always run by large cities ; they seem to 
 like to, some way. But this is a brigandish sort of 
 river, black, foul and murky, and in the dark night 
 it steals sullenly through the city, like a prowling 
 fiend. Sometimes drunken men stumble into it, and 
 awake from their stupor in another world; and 
 sometimes fair and beautiful girls, whose lives have 
 been clouded with sin, and upon whom the intoler 
 able burden of remorse and despair presses with a 
 crushing weight, seeks its dark depths as a refuge 
 bury their griefs and shame let us hope their sin 
 also in its bosom, and so, shudderingly, pass from 
 the scorn and cruelty of life into the presence of 
 infinite pity and boundless love. 
 
 There is a Board of Trade here, made up of mer 
 chant men and bliffers. Sometimes they sell what 
 they haven t got, and don t have money enough to 
 get it, and then their occupation is gone almost 
 immediately. And there are meeting-houses lots 
 of them. Country people call them churches, but 
 preaching rinks is the fashionable name. Some of 
 these rinks are big and splendid, and people that go 
 in them worship in a highly elegant manner. The 
 music is better than in Brignoli s recent operas here, 
 and the preacher men pitch into each other some 
 times, and their "mills" are reported by the enter 
 prising local papers here. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 97 
 
 There are taverns here, no end of them hardly, 
 and some of the quiet looking fellows that keep the 
 books can beat Sheridan on a charge. 
 
 But I can t finish this letter. It is too hot. The 
 mercury is clear up in the attic of its tubular tene 
 ment. I have " peeled " successive garments, till I 
 should blush to meet a marble goddess, and so, 
 sweating, but serene, I remain, yours truly. 
 
 THANKSGIVING 1862. 
 
 Great Father of all tribes of men! 
 
 Thou Sovereign over all 
 To thee our willing knees we bend, 
 
 Before thee gladly fall. 
 
 We give thee thanks, O Sovereign King, 
 
 For blessings from thy hand ; 
 O may thy presence light our way, 
 
 Thy smile illume our land. 
 
 Though war s mailed hand is red with blood, 
 And earth groans with the slain, 
 
 From seeming ill shall spring the good, 
 Nor life be lost in vain. 
 
 For where our starry banner waves 
 
 Our armies fight for thee ; 
 And though the path lead over graves, 
 
 The goal is LIBERTY. 
 
98 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 THERE is no grace more becoming a man, no 
 attribute more essential to the perfect development 
 of his manhood, than humanity. Religion may add 
 dignity to the lustre of this endowment, and reck 
 less living may do much to mar its beauty ; but this 
 jewel, whether set in the fitting accompaniment of 
 blameless living, or gleaming out from a disordered 
 life, like virgin gold amid worthless dirt, still has an 
 intrinsic worth which adorns and enriches its pos 
 sessor. 
 
 By humanity we do not mean alone that natural 
 impulse of the heart which prompts us to relieve 
 physical want or suffering when presented to us, but 
 also that more delicate sensibility which appreciates 
 mental as well as physical conditions that thought 
 ful and far-out-looking sympathy, which recognizes 
 the suffering we do not see ; that condition of mind 
 in which its possessor, himself sitting securely in com 
 fort and ease, still hears in undertones the weary 
 cry of the world s suffering ones, and strives, not 
 alone to relieve isolated cases of suffering, but to 
 lift up classes and peoples into more hopeful and 
 happy life. This is the true glory of man. Human 
 ity like this, careful of small things, yet reaching 
 towards large results, takes on the nobility of that 
 charity which religion places first among the virtues, 
 and the man who cherishes it in his heart has a 
 royalty within him which he can no more hide than 
 a prince can disguise his native bearing beneath the 
 vestures of a clown. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 99 
 
 SOCIAL CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Mr. Taylor had a very extensive social corre 
 spondence, embracing not only a large number of 
 relatives, but a wide circle of other friends, most of 
 whom were persons of literary tastes and habits, 
 and among the number several who have won high 
 distinction in the literary world. This volume fur 
 nishes space for only a few selections from Mr. Tay 
 lor s social correspondence, but these cover a long 
 series of years, running from the school days of his 
 early boyhood, nearly up to the time of his death. 
 
 The following are letters to a cousin. The first 
 was written when he was but seventeen years of age, 
 while he was at work in the stone quarries at Ma- 
 lone, N. Y. It bears date May 23, 1852 : 
 
 DEAR COUSIN: 
 
 No wonder Ik Marvel said, " blessed be letters." He didn t 
 mean a short business scrawl, nor a freezingly polite and ele 
 gant one, prim as a young miss s new bonnet, without any 
 sentiment or soul in it ; no, he meant a free, dashing, easy, 
 chatty letter, full of trust, truthfulness and affection, one that 
 was coined in the heart and not in the head ; in short, just 
 such an one as I received from you two weeks ago. 
 
 Now, Mellie, are not such letters worth having? How 
 much wider the world soems, how much better life seems, 
 how the soul enlarges, and the affections deepen while read 
 ing letters that come fresh from the heart. * * * I am 
 glad you were so well pleased with the poems I sent you. 
 Thanks for the urgent invitation to make you a visit. I tell 
 you, Mellie, I had planned a visit to you when I returned 
 
ioo LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 home, and thought much of the pleasure it would be, of the 
 warm, hearty grasp of your hand, and, perhaps, give you a 
 a k (excuse me, Mellie, no use in dodging) a kiss, and 
 receive a much better one, besides seeing the other whole 
 house full of cousins. But the return of our folks from the 
 west changes all my plans, and now I cannot tell when I 
 shall see you. 
 
 * You say you have read " Dream Life." Wasn t it a treat, 
 though ? I believe that " Dream Life " will do more good in 
 the world than all the sermons of many Christian preachers 
 who have grown gray in their sacred office. 
 
 Now, Mellie, write soon ; I cannot afford to wear out my 
 boots running to the office in vain. Good bye. 
 
 Your aft . Cousin, LUTE 
 
 MIDDLEBURY, May 2Qth, 33. 
 DEAR COUSIN MELLIE: 
 
 Here I am, in the good town of Middlebury ; its gray old 
 college staring me in the face ; the famed" green mountains " 
 rear themselves around me, their proud tops half hidden by 
 the light mist which, driven from the valleys, clings around 
 their summits, as if reluctant to float on heavenward ; the 
 rich fields are smiling in the sunlight, and the bob-o-link 
 is trilling his song as merrily as if there was no such thing 
 as heart desolation in the world. You will probably wonder 
 at my dating from M., but the " thread of true love " is not 
 the only one that does not run straight and smooth, and we 
 are continually reminded, 
 
 11 There s a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 School closed three weeks ago last Friday. Mrs. W. was 
 taken sick. Last Sabbath they discovered that her lungs 
 were diseased. Monday counsel was called, and pronounced 
 her case very critical. Monday night she failed very fast, and 
 Tuesday, about twelve o clock, she died. She was perfectly 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. ioi 
 
 aware of her condition, and talked freely and calmly about 
 it. Her death was easy and peaceful just as the taper 
 burns to the socket nickers expires. The death-bed 
 scene was very impressive to me. When they saw that she 
 was sinking, I called in the minister and a few neighbors. 
 When we entered the room she was lost to consciousness 
 had already entered the dim, mysterious realm, where the 
 golden light of heaven meets and mingles with the dark 
 shadows of earth. We knelt in prayer, and in a short, earn 
 est petition, the man of God commended her to the Saviour, 
 and prayed that her departing spirit might be received where 
 there is " fullness of joy forevermore." Oh, Mellie, how are 
 we taught the evanescence of all things earthly ! How are 
 we admonished that 
 
 u Life is but shadows save a promise given 
 That lights the future with a fadeless ray," 
 
 and when we see the earnest, the hopeful and the young 
 dropping away from the dusty path of life, how fitting seems 
 the blessed entreaty 
 
 " Come, touch the scepter win a hope in heaven, 
 Come, turn thy spirit from the world away." 
 
 Mrs. W. has always treated me with marked kindness, and 
 I have been in her society so much for the last six months, 
 and enjoyed it so well, that her death seems more like a 
 dream than a reality. There are dark spots on the sun of 
 life, Mellie, but let us pray for each other that we may so 
 live that we may at last be received into that bright world 
 where 
 
 11 Each tie 
 Of pure affection shall be knit again." 
 
 I was very much pleased with your comparison of our 
 characters, till you made the exception in my favor. Pooh, 
 Mellie, you didn t mean to flatter me, I know, but you are a 
 little mistaken as to my abilities. You know every neighbor- 
 
IO2 
 
 hood, and almost every family, has some " wondrous child," 
 who is to " bring the flown muses back to men." I suppose 
 I have been so unfortunate as to be deemed one of that class. 
 What I might do I know not, but I never have accomplished 
 anything, either in study or writing, above mediocrity. Dur 
 ing the past six or eight months I have read a good deal of 
 our best English literature, and while I have enjoyed a great 
 deal of pleasure in reading it, I have been enabled to see 
 plainly my thrice diminished inferiority. I have lately been 
 into the prose works of Coleridge. They are a rich mine of 
 thought. One feels, on laying down the book, as if he had 
 been carried to some high eminence, where the soul breathed 
 in its native air. I never got at the wealth of Burns till 
 lately. His melodies flow as free and artless, as sweet and 
 charming, as the bird songs. My love for Willis " grows 
 with my growth." His earlier poems I like the best. There 
 is a tenderness a delicacy a fragrance a truthfulness 
 about them which is truly bewitching. While they glitter 
 with beauty like a polished diamond, they are still the reposi 
 tories of his true heart-life, and they will be read as long as 
 poesy is loved and admired. 
 
 The scenery around the mountains here is grand. The 
 breezes give one new life and vigor. I never enjoyed the 
 spring so much before. It seems as if I should love to give 
 myself up to its sweet influences ; " commune with Nature in 
 her visible forms," and learn lessons of gratitude and thanks 
 giving to the great Author of all. What a beautiful figure 
 that is which represents heaven as an eternal spring ! 
 
 Your coz., LUTE. 
 
 Under date of May 12, 1855, he writes, in refer 
 ence to abandoning the idea of attending college, as 
 follows : 
 
 You say you wish to know my plans. My whole stock of 
 plans at present are these to write a little, eat, and go to 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 103 
 
 bed. The idea of going to college I have pretty much given 
 up. There are evils in life about as bad as ignorance, and 
 one of these is to be everlastingly in debt a calamity. which, 
 with heaven s help, shall never overtake me. I have neither 
 grace nor genius enough so that I could conscientiously re 
 ceive aid from any benevolent society, and so the by-laws of my 
 constitution seem to preclude my going to college. Long 
 fellow, in " Hyperion," says, " The setting of a great hope is 
 like the setting of the sun." But, you know, when the sun 
 sets the stars come coyly out, and so I may find many quiet 
 joys and wayside pleasures from which a college life would 
 shut me out. But the sun of my hope has not wholly set, 
 though its disc has dipped sadly below the horizon. 
 
 SABBATH, 5 O CLOCK, P. M. 
 DEAR MELLIE: 
 
 I wish you were here this afternoon. It is not always we 
 feel like visiting, but if you were here now I know we would 
 have a quiet, pleasant and cousinly chat. 
 
 You made a little apology for writing in a spirit somewhat 
 sad. No need of it, dear cousin. For myself, I never intend 
 to fish with 
 
 " The fool s bait melancholy, 
 For the gudgeon opinion," 
 
 but the cloud and the sunshine alternate in the summer 
 heaven ; and so, sometimes, the clouds will dim the sunshine 
 in the happiest heart. I do truly believe that Sorrow is holier 
 than joy, and tears lie nearer the heart than smiles. I know 
 that the letters which I most carefully preserve and oftenest 
 re-read are not those which sparkle with wit, but those which 
 dim the eye and awaken serious thought. I like to receive 
 letters from you, cousin, written in every mood of mind, be 
 cause they give me the assurance that you have a whole-hearted 
 sympathy with me, and, I trust, I have the same with you. 
 To most of my correspondents I reveal only one phase of. 
 character, but to you I write in all moods. 
 
104 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 I frequently have such doubts and fears as you relate. I 
 hardly know what to think of my spiritual state. I know I 
 have a love to God for his goodness, ye t I have little of the 
 spirit of devotion. Faith often is weak, and painted visions 
 bf sin have a strange charm, and I feel a mysterious power 
 tempting me to shake oft all restraint and lead a life of wild 
 and reckless freedom. The set phrases of theology appear to 
 trie dead and Unmeaning. I have bothered my brain too 
 riiuch with metaphysical reasoning with speculation on 
 things " beyond the reaches of the soul." My belief in creeds 
 is shaken, but I still hold firmly to the belief that the name 
 of Christ is the only one given under heaven among men 
 whereby we may be saved. This afternoon the minister took 
 for his text, " Come unto me, ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." I looked for a description of 
 the felt wants of the soul of those yearnings for something 
 higher and holier of that strange unrest we often feel; 
 and then, I thought, the love of Christ and the rest of heaven 
 would be shown in words of lyrical power and beauty which 
 would lure the weary, wandering soul to Calvary, while the 
 choir, I thought, would surely close with that sweet hymn of 
 Moore s, " Come, ye disconsolate," etc. But the sermon was 
 logical, and the music noisy and heartless, and I came away 
 dissatisfied, but, perhaps, all the fault was with myself. 
 
 Ah, cousin, the way of life will sometimes look dark and 
 uncertain, but we must walk forward with what faith we 
 may have. 
 
 " It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, 
 It may be we shall reach the happy isles." 
 
 I have been reading " Bertha and Lilly ; or, the Parsonage 
 at Beech Glen," by Mrs. Oakes Smith. The style is pure and 
 musical ; the thought fresh, strong and elevating. It is writ 
 ten in earnestness, and deals some strong blows at existing 
 practices in social and religious life. There are a few things 
 which I do not like, but, as a whole, I value it highly. It 
 draws character in clear and vigorous lines ; it deals more 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 105 
 
 with inner than with outward experiences, and is admirably 
 fitted to awaken thought upon those things which most con 
 cern us as immortal beings. Bertha is a calm, intellectual} 
 spiritual woman, with that divine intuition which sees truth 
 however hidden, and the moral courage to 
 
 " Dare all things which she knows to be right." 
 
 She has a soul filled with poetry and passion, but she sits a 
 queen over it, and its desires and loves are holy. 
 
 I send you a little scrap of rhyme, not because I value it 
 much, or suppose you will, but friends are apt to be indulgent 
 critics. It came without calling, one Sabbath evening, and so 
 I took a pencil and jotted it down, just to treat it hand 
 somely, as I would any guest. As I grow older I enjoy 
 poetry with a keener relish, and, as I have a truer perception 
 of what poetry is, I make fewer rhymes ; indeed, I have done 
 making poetry. Your cousin, 
 
 LUTE. 
 
 MADRID, Aug. iqth, 33. 
 DEAR COUSIN MELLIE: 
 
 Will you never write to me again? Do the duties of life 
 press so closely on you you can find no time to use the pen? 
 Did you not know you promised, when you went away, to 
 answer some of my letters? I believe, if I want to hear 
 from my friends, I shall have to go to Oregon, or somewhere 
 eTse. If you do not write before long, I will come (or go, 
 rather,) to Canton, to see what the matter is. To-day I felt 
 a strange unrest. I was going to take Byron, and lose my 
 self in the wild, rushing current of his verse ; but I knew I 
 was not in the right state of mind to go to him, so I over 
 came the temptation, and got a package of letters of yours 
 and others, and, need I say, I spent a pleasant and profitable 
 
 hour in their perusal. Dear L ! she seems dearer to me 
 
 now than ever, for she has passed the Stygian stream, and 
 entered the " bright city of our God." How true it is, 
 
io6 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 * We know not of love s might 
 Till death has robed, with soft and solemn light, 
 The image We enshrine." 
 
 Her quiet and serene trust in the Heavenly Father while 
 stepping from the shore of life into the wide, unknown future, 
 has given me more of faith than could all the reasoning of 
 theologians. I see her to-night as I did the morning when 
 I last saw her in life. She sat in the rocking-chair during 
 family devotion, and well I remember the expression of her 
 countenance as she joined you in singing the hymn, 
 
 " Father, whate er of earthly bliss," etc. 
 
 As the hymn was being sung, I thought the petition for "a 
 calm and thankful heart " was answered, and I have often 
 since thought how surely did his presence " crown her jour- 
 ney s end." I have never since listened to that hymn but, in 
 fancy, I have seen her pale, sweet face, and heard her low 
 voice mingle in the strain. Do you, Mellie, feel certain that 
 there is a better world a heaven where loved ones live in 
 very truth? At times I feel a full conviction this is so, but, 
 again, doubts will come that there is any intelligent life be 
 yond the tomb. I know better, but I have not faith enough 
 to drive the devil away. 
 
 Is it unkind in me, Mellie, to call up to your mind thoughts 
 that dim the eye and sadden the heart. If so, forgive me. 
 But you will not think so. If the dead live, and we are to 
 live with them, why not talk and think of them as we do of 
 other friends separated from us. I believe one of the great 
 joys of heaven will be the opportunity for friends to hold 
 free and unrestrained communion with each other. To-night 
 I have felt kind love for many friends, and longed to sit by 
 their side, and quietly and pleasantly hold heart communion 
 with them. But when we meet we shall be soiled with the 
 sweat and dust of worldly life ; we shall chat about the insig 
 nificant things of the present, and thoughts that in quiet hours 
 plead for utterance will be forgotten. How rare it is here 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 107 
 
 On the earth that two kindred spirits meet in that high sphere 
 of friendship, where, without restraint, the heart can speak of 
 its hopes and fears, its wants and desires, its visions of beauty, 
 its vague yearnings for the good unattained. But I must, 
 write no more now, lest I grow gloomy, and I am determined 
 to cut the acquaintance of the blues. So good night, cousin, 
 and God grant that 
 
 " We may walk this world 
 Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 
 And go through those dark gates across the wild 
 That no man knows." 
 
 Your cousin, 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR. 
 
 MADRID, SABBATH, P. M., Aug. 26th, 55. 
 MY DEAREST COUSIN : 
 
 Many thanks to you for your last letter. Oh, cousin, how 
 
 such words of kindness, of confidence and trust lift the soul 
 
 into a better atmosphere and make life more bearable! You 
 
 ask Mellie that I will not think any the less of you for show- 
 
 ing me some passages of your inner life. O no ; I feel assured 
 
 that the better we understand each other, the broader will be 
 
 our ground of sympathy. Forgive me, cousin, for my words 
 
 of indifference at parting with you. I was sorry the moment 
 
 the words had passed my lips. The thought of repelling any 
 
 flattery on your part never entered my mind. Never, even 
 
 in thought, have I accused you oi flattery; though sometimes 
 
 I have thought you overrated my abilities. I felt sad to see 
 
 you drive away, for I felt that, probably, our paths in life 
 
 would be widely separated, and that I might soon lose even 
 
 your occasional companionship. I do not think I am very 
 
 reserved or cold in language when with friends I love and 
 
 trust, but I have an antipathy to expressing feeling before 
 
 others, and so my words often give the lie to my thought. It 
 
 may be a weakness, and I think it is, but you must set down 
 
 to its account any unmeaning or indifferent words I may ever 
 
io8 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 speak to you. I suppose, Mellie, if I was a philosopher, I 
 should prove that as excessive joy is often shown by tears, 
 and the most crushing grief finds vent in hollow laughter, so 
 the truest and deepest love, despairing to truly interpret 
 itself in affectionate speech, throws out light words of indiffer 
 ence or jest. 
 
 But I must tell you some good news. I have got four 
 new books: "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," in two 
 volumes ; her " Woman in the Nineteenth Century," and " The 
 Blithedale Romance," by Hawthorne. Mother thought I was 
 a little foolish to get them, but she does not understand my 
 case. Books are a necessary adjunct of my life. I do not 
 look upon the reading of books as the end of life, but as a 
 means to enable one to understand the right end of life, and 
 as helps to fulfill it. By nature I am not a thinker. The 
 necessities of my being do not compel me into thought. 
 Without the aid of books I should sink into an animal, and 
 I feel that is a thing to be shunned. The past year, which I 
 have spent at home, has been very pleasant and profitable for 
 my heart, but my head has been a loser. A few fancies like 
 the "Chamber Scene" have been almost its only tenants. 
 The fact is, if one labors in the earth his thoughts will be 
 earthy. Shakspeare is right where he says one s nature 
 
 11 Is subdued 
 To what it works in, like the dyer s hand." 
 
 For this reason, I believe the farmer the business man 
 
 has urgent need of those books which serve to quicken and 
 keep alive the ethereal spirit within him. The memoirs of 
 Margaret Fuller have done more for me than any other book 
 I ever read, excepting, of course, the Book of God. She has 
 taught me, more than any other, " to open the deeper foun 
 tains of the soul, to regard life here as the prophetic entrance 
 to immortality, to develop the spirit towards perfection." I 
 feel I am a slow learner, yet my reverence for the teacher is 
 none the less. Were I a Catholic, she would be my chosen 
 
 saint. 
 
109 
 
 Sept. 2d. I have been at home to-day with the children. 
 I have been reading most of the time, and it has been a calm 
 and blessed day. I suppose we ought to go to church ; but, 
 after all, I do not think I get as much good as by staying at 
 home. Amid the waving of fans, the rustling of ribbons and 
 silks, the snoring of the sleepers, and the idle or satisfied 
 look of the men or women cased in Sunday clothes, my 
 thought does not so easily take hold of the high views of life 
 as when alone. We have been reading the "Blithedale Ro 
 mance " evenings. When I first read this book it interested 
 and excited me the most, I think, of any book I ever read, and 
 my interest was but little diminished on the second reading. 
 
 I could see the thoughts took hold of L , for his prayer 
 
 at evening worship had a clearer aim a greater breadth and 
 earnestness. I judge of the activity of a person s inner life 
 much by their prayers. If there is new and rich experience 
 in the heart, it must give birth to new and meaning words. 
 But with the most who pray, does not one stereotyped form 
 of expression last them through life? 
 
 But, to return to Hawthorne. I believe he has a hearty 
 love for purity and truth, but his keen eye detects moral de 
 formity, and with steady, unflinching hand, he lays it bare, 
 not in bitterness, but in sorrow. Sometimes he lays aside 
 the probe and pruning-knife, walks with us in the scenes of 
 nature, and indulges in pleasantry and humor. But I do not 
 think he will ever be read by the multitude. His works have 
 not enough of sensuousness in them. But he will be read by 
 the connoisseur of human passion, by the student of char 
 acter, by those interested in a spiritual life, who will yet 
 follow out thoughts which may lead them to doubt things 
 they had been taught to believe. 
 
 I have such a cold I cannot spare my hand from my nose 
 Jong enough to write more. .Yours, 
 
 LUTE. 
 
no LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 RIVER FALLS, Wis., June sjd, 1860. 
 DEAR COUSIN MELLIE: 
 
 Like Daniel Webster, you " still live." Well, Mellie, I am 
 glad to hear it. I have a recollection of formerly correspond 
 ing with you indeed, in hunting over my manuscript treas 
 ures, this afternoon, I saw a number of letters which I am 
 positive were in your handwriting. I also think I have a 
 recollection of seeing you some time in years gone by. I 
 think I went with you once to the "hill country" called 
 Pierrepont, one autumn day, and sat beside the grave of one 
 who had formerly sat often with you ; and, returning, we 
 stopped at a place, and I brought away a little case, (which 
 lies in my secretary, within reach of me now,) which always 
 reminds me of you. 
 
 But really, dear Mellie, I am glad you have written once 
 more to me. I have been expecting to write to you for a long 
 time, but have not done it. I write very few letters, except 
 what my business compels me to, and I have nearly lost, if I 
 ever had, the art of doing it. But I do not suppose you want 
 a nice letter from me a kind of Lute-letter will suit you 
 better, I know. I supposed you were owing me a letter, but 
 perhaps not. 
 
 Say, Mellie, what do you think of this world? I have an 
 idea that it is quite well adapted for the residence of just 
 such persons as you and I. With strawberry shortcakes and 
 good cigars, and a good, dear mother to keep me in clean 
 linen and good advice, I feel very well reconciled to life. 
 
 I want to see you, Mellie, and become acquainted with you 
 in the character of Mrs. and mother. What are you, Mellie? 
 A girl still? or a patient, thoughtful, woman? or a delightful 
 combination of both? Probably Charlie would say the latter, 
 but I would not give a five-cent paper of chewing-tobacco for 
 his opinion on the subject. What do you think of Tom 
 Moore s " Lalla Rookh" now? What of the novelists? What 
 of all the rose-colored dreams of boys and girls, your own 
 former achievements in that line included? Isn t marriage a 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. Ill 
 
 terrible alchemist, at whose touch all these fair and fanciful 
 combinations of things dreamed of and hoped for, crumble 
 and lie charred and dead in the crucible? Understand, now, 
 I believe in married folks loving of course I do but I 
 want to know whether love warmed by Hymen s torch is like 
 that kindled by Cupid. Is it a patient kind of Christian 
 "putting up" with things? or is it the genuine "seventh 
 heaven in a glance," tempest in a teapot, etc.? An early 
 answer is desired. 
 
 But about that little, dear, diminutive edition of humanity, 
 who doubtless makes you so much trouble and gives you so 
 much joy I am glad she has learned that I am "mamma s 
 cousin. Well, you give that little one a kiss for me, and don t 
 (as I know you will be apt to) tell her that I am a great and 
 good man, but tell her I am a jolly fellow, and like to play 
 with the little girls, and tell them stories, and stand them on 
 their heads, and give them primers and candies, and so on 
 and so forth. 
 
 But I have to go away, and must stop. Please write soon, 
 dear cousin, and believe me 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 LUTE. 
 
 PRESCOTT, June ist, 1865. 
 DEAR COUSIN MELLIE: 
 
 I suppose, Mellie, I am one of the happiest fellows in this 
 world in fact, I don t see why I should not be. The 
 ambitions, the vague desires, the feverish unrest which boys 
 of any spirit always feel, have quieted down, and I am just a 
 happy, contented, jovial fellow. 
 
 I shall not startle the world any, if I can help it and I 
 am pretty sure I can. For my wife and I I simply pray 
 
 "Touch us gently, gentle Time ! 
 
 Let us float adown life s stream 
 Gently, as we sometimes float 
 In a quiet dream." 
 
Ii2 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 You, Mellie, would enjoy such a life, I know. Work 
 enough, but of an agreeable kind; leisure, books, music, 
 friends, rest. I believe you will be so fixed one of these days ; 
 but the trouble is, life is short, and is fast going. 
 
 Summer opens to-day with marvelous beauty. It is the 
 day of mourning for the great man gone, and the almost 
 Sabbath stillness is broken only by the magnificent steamer 
 which is just rounding up to the levee. A nation solemnly 
 mourns to-day and sets its seal of approbation on the official 
 life and private character of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 " A martyr to the cause of man ! 
 His blood is Freedom s eucharist, 
 And in the world s great hero-list 
 His name shall lead the van." 
 
 How strange it is that many good men will be such fools. 
 To-day the scholars in all our public schools met together, 
 and there was singing, prayer, and talk about Abraham Lin 
 coln. The talk was almost all sheer nons&nse and ridiculous 
 lies. Abraham Lincoln was represented as a model boy, who 
 never swore, or played in the dirt, or cried for bread and 
 butter, or chewed tobacco, or licked another boy, or ran 
 away, or did anything else that boys like to do ; and the idea 
 was held out that every boy there might be President if he 
 would be like him. How ridiculous ! Half those children 
 know that Andy Johnson was President, and that he and half 
 our other Presidents were drunk sometimes. Such namby- 
 pamby talk does not deceive half the children even, and those 
 who do believe it now as they grow older will see that it was 
 all false that it takes brain and work and power to win 
 position, and that immoral habits, unless exceedingly gross, 
 are no bar to high official standing. Integrity, ability and 
 capacity are wanted to manage public affairs, and the skeptic 
 is as apt to have these as the churchman. 
 
 Then there were over one hundred little girls there, and a 
 good man and great fool talked to them how when they 
 grew up to be young women they should never marry or have 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 113 
 
 anything to do with a young man who chewed tobacco, 
 smoked cigars, played cards, or drank beer. Wasn t that 
 silly? I should have been an old bachelor under that admin 
 istration of affairs, surely. I do all these things, and yet my 
 wife thinks and says I am the best husband in the world 
 and I believe her. Well, I didn t mean to rattle on this way 
 a model letter this will be. Yours always, 
 
 LUTE. 
 
 The following are extracts from letters to a young 
 lady friend : 
 
 LA CROSSE, Oct. 8th, 1872. 
 MY DEAR M : 
 
 Have you got entirely out of patience with me for neglect 
 ing to write you ? Have you " admitted " (entirely to yourself) 
 that Lute Taylor is not the gentleman you supposed him to 
 be ? Have you vowed, in silence, to let him go many weeks 
 or months without another welcome letter from you ? 
 
 Ah, my dear girl, if you have done all and several of these 
 things, I pray you to reconsider. Your letters have been 
 gladly welcomed and greatly enjoyed by me. I have thought 
 of you perhaps more than a married man should think of an 
 interesting and talented young lady. To all this, I am willing, 
 
 Miss M , to make oath before any notary public who has 
 
 a seal, or any magistrate, officer or judge who is legally quali 
 fied to receive solemn evidence. 
 
 Why, then, you indignantly ask, have you not written to 
 me, when you knew I was among strangers and would highly 
 prize a letter? 
 
 My dear girl, when will you learn to have patience, and 
 not interrupt a person when he is making a statement? I fear 
 you do not fully comprehend the great benevolence and self- 
 abnegation of my nature. You know that there is no diviner 
 act than forgiveness. It is exalting, ennobling. I am anxious 
 to have you as noble as possible. You must have occasion to. 
 8, 
 
ii4 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 forgive. It is education. You can now forgive me, and thus 
 I will be an humble instrument in promoting your greatest 
 good. 
 
 Oct. i?tk. Well, now, this is something of a recess, is it 
 not? Broke oft imperatively then a few days absence, a 
 few days sickness, the inexorable claims of business, the una 
 voidable claims of politics, and the numerous claims of social 
 courtesy, and well, here I am at 7 A. M., and nothing mortal 
 can get audience of me until I have finished, enveloped, di 
 rected this letter, and placed it in the mailing-box. 
 
 When this confounded election excitement is over, you will 
 find me a more reliable correspondent. This letter I don t 
 count anything, for it does not amount to anything; but"by- 
 and-by " I will atone for it, and until then believe me 
 Your friend, 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR. 
 
 LA CROSSE, Sunday, Sept. 8th, 1872. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND: 
 . Your very welcome letter came Friday morning. 
 
 I have never read a letter from you with greater pleasure 
 than this one. You were a trifle " blue," my glad-hearted, 
 exuberant-spirited girl ; and do you know that when we have 
 the " blues " we tell the truth, and we write only to those with 
 whom the invisible ties of mutual liking and natural compan 
 ionship are strong ? And so your letter conferred a pleasure 
 and conveyed a compliment. 
 
 Of course I know you have the "blues" seasons of de 
 pression occasionally. They are the penalty of intense 
 spiritual life and rich intellectual endowment. The pendulum 
 which swings high in one arc of the circle vibrates to as high 
 an opposing place, and so high as the singing soul sits on the 
 fancy-lighted mount of hope and joy, so low must it darkly 
 descend into valleys of cruel doubt and almost shuddering 
 despair. It is the law of compensation, you know The 
 giddy girls of your rural neighborhood know nothing of the 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 115 
 
 fine ecstacy of your inspired hours, but neither is it possible 
 for them to feel the sharp pain, the exquisite agony which will 
 sometimes torture you in dumb hours of doubt and distrust. 
 Genius, power, breadth of vision, intensity of feeling, quick 
 and sensitive perception these are glorious gifts, but they are 
 regal, and imperative also. Such splendid guests cannot be 
 lightly entertained. But if such life is not a boon, then anni 
 hilation would be the goal of happiness. 
 
 Very truly your friend, 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR. 
 
 LA CROSSE, August i8th, 1872. 
 MY DEAR Miss M : 
 
 Your pleasant letter, with photo, inclosed, came yesterday 
 morning, and, for once, I will not let procrastination steal 
 away the time for answering it. 
 
 I am glad that, in epistolary matters, you find it "more 
 blessed to give than to receive," and are willing to write me 
 six letters for one in return. But, my dear girl, I shall not 
 allow you to do it. No lady whom I like can have all the 
 talking to herself when I am around. But I am glad you are 
 not exacting, and will not resent any apparent neglect on my 
 part. 
 
 Do you know that I am very glad that our brief personal 
 acquaintance is ripening into mutual friendship and esteem. 
 Knowledge is increased, experience enlarged, and life enriched 
 with every worthy new friend. Men and women are the 
 flower of earthly life, and superior to all the attractions that 
 even affluent Nature can offer. To learn one of these well is 
 more and better than to learn a new language or visit a 
 foreign clime. And so, I prize my life as richer since you 
 have come within its horizon, and become one of the small 
 but cherished company who share its thought, encourage its 
 toil, and awaken its love. 
 
 Many thanks for the photo. It is a charming picture, and 
 I think a good likeness. I expected to ask you for one, but 
 
n6 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 had not, as I think I am probably the most timid and modest, 
 if not bashful, gentleman of your acquaintance. 
 
 Do not work too hard, do not let the fever of fancy burn 
 up the rich blood of life. And you will not. Youth is prodi 
 gal of wealth ; but coming days will inevitably teach you to 
 carefully gather the harvest of thought, and only offer what is 
 worthiest and best. 
 
 It is the bane of active newspaper writing that one has 
 no time to improve ; but you will never be connected with a 
 paper so as to feel this tyrannous pressure. 
 
 But good-bye for the present. Remember that, among 
 all your friends, none feel more joy in your success, or more 
 faith in your future, than LUTE. 
 
 The following extracts are from letters to a for 
 mer correspondent of Mr. Taylor s paper, who wrote 
 over the signature of "Belle." 
 
 PRESCOTT, Wis., April 27 th, 1868. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND Miss BELLE: 
 
 Have you about made up your mind that I was not intend 
 ing t answer your two very welcome little letters? Well, 
 that just shows how the best of women will be mistaken 
 sometimes. Their intuitions, rapid as lightning, outrunning 
 the processes of reasoning, are generally unerring as logic, 
 but not always so. 
 
 I warrant, Miss Belle, that it never occurred to you that 
 my long delay is the most convincing proof of the sincerity 
 and strength of my friendship. But you will admit it now, I 
 know. You know that if I should receive a pleasant note 
 from a pleasant lady, of whose good opinion I was careless, 
 that I should hasten to answer it. Courtesy, and every in 
 stinct of a gentleman, would prompt to this. But with a friend, 
 you know a real friend whose confidence we hold by n<5 un 
 certain tenure how different it is ! One does not have to be 
 punctilious, he presumes on the friendship, and shows the 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 117 
 
 strength of his confidence by the amount of his presumption 
 He sins with impunity, because he knows he is sure of for 
 giveness. You will thus see, friend Belle (what, come to 
 reflect, you must have seen before), that my delay in writing 
 has been only a delicate avowal of a feeling for you such as I 
 would have if I had been lucky enough to have been your 
 cousin, or, in some other way, been made sure of a permanent 
 place in your kind remembrance. [Just here let me say it 
 will not be necessary for you to acquaint me with your feel 
 ings in a similar manner.] 
 
 But again, Miss Belle, some way I have been terribly busy 
 about nothing for several months, away much of the time ; 
 and when I had time to write, it seemed as if my mind was 
 too dull to write to you. You never have been a business 
 man, have you ? Well, don t be. It is terribly irksome much 
 of the time. I came down to my office to-night to write busi 
 ness letters, but such employment seems like profaning the 
 sweet, sacred beauty of the night. I was disgusted with it ; 
 and so I write to you, a sort of grace before meal, a 
 placid morning prayer before the sharp struggles of the day. 
 
 But I must begin writing this letter. Let us be very 
 proper, and commence on the conventional topic the 
 weather. Our Spring, making fair and early promise, has 
 been very slow to fulfill her pledge. The bluffs are yet brown 
 and bare, and the grass only just tinges the fields with its green. 
 The robin has just come to-day, and the few early flowers 
 "come in such questionable shape" that I have hardly dared 
 to speak to them. You, I know, are in the full flowering of 
 greenness and beauty, Spring wearing for weeks the finest 
 attire her wardrobe supplies. Yet I doubt if to-day your 
 eyes have feasted on much greater beauty than mine. I 
 watched the sunset, and the brilliant combinations and deli 
 cate shadings of color for a half-hour after, until I felt exhila 
 rated and intoxicated with beauty, and the blood sprang warm 
 to my cheek, as if the life and vigor of rare wine was in its 
 flow. Lake and river were hushed, still, translucent, a 
 
n8 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET". 
 
 thin, impalpable, glory-lit haze brooding over them, like a 
 gossamer veil on the face of a bride, the heaven above 
 seeming to stoop to kiss the heaven below, save where the red 
 glory of the descending sun, reflected from low-lying clouds, 
 glowed on the waters in colors as rich as the purple stain 
 which a lover s clinging kiss leaves on the lips of his maid. 
 
 I just now think, Belle, of several things I would like to 
 write to you about ; bvit those " business " letters must be 
 attended to. Sincerely your friend, 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR. 
 
 P. S. If you have not read Owen Meredith s "Lucille," 
 do not lose an opportunity to do so. It is a pretty ripe 
 poem, no "Leaves of Grass." LUTE. 
 
 Under date of June 20, 1868, in speaking of 
 friends, he says of his mother: 
 
 Mother is quite smart, but yet I know she must be near- 
 ing the close of life ; and she seems dearer to me as she 
 draws nearer to the " other shore." She will leave mourners 
 here, but she will find friends there. 
 
 LA CROSSE, Wis., July 20, 1869. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND BELLE: 
 
 What are you going to do about it I mean about my 
 totally inexcusable neglect (as it seems to you) to write to 
 you? What have you done with me? Am I blotted out of 
 your book of remembrance erased from your list of corre 
 spondents totally non est expunged obliterated gone? 
 
 Begging your pardon, Miss Belle, I don t believe any such 
 thing. When you have thought of my remissness at all, it 
 has been simply to regard it as a kind of mystery like the 
 relation between free-will and fore-ordination, something 
 that would come out all right, and be satisfactorily explained 
 sometime. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 119 
 
 Now, let me explain the reasons of my delay. 
 1st. I delayed, without any reason, until I was ashamed of 
 myself, and then I did not want to write until I could write a 
 good letter, and I have waited in vain for that time, until I 
 give it up. 
 
 2d. It is so pleasing to be forgiven by a pleasant lady 
 friend to say "Peccavi" and be absolved. You may for 
 give me, Miss Belle, I assume that you will, and I feel bet 
 ter already. 
 
 3d. The practice of forgiveness is very wholesome. It is 
 not only of itself one of the first-class virtues, but it strength 
 ens and adorns all the others ; and, with a friendly care for 
 the beauty and symmetry of your character, I have given you 
 the opportunity to forgive me. 
 
 There! Am I reinstated now in your good graces, 
 placed again on the old footing of easy and informal com 
 panionship? Thank you ; I thought you would excuse me. 
 
 You have read " Gates Ajar." of course. What do you 
 think of it? I think it is remarkable not a mere pleasing, 
 ephemeral book ; but profound, logical, true. I believe that, 
 as "Uncle Tom s Cabin" touched the national heart, 
 awakened the national conscience, and gave a mighty im 
 pulse to that political action which has revolutionized the 
 South, and blotted out slavery, so will this book go far to 
 awaken new and better trains of thought, and revolutionize 
 the commonly-accepted ideas of heaven, or, rather, give an 
 idea where there was none before. I believe in its theories, 
 always have, though I never gave my thought tangible 
 shape, never tried to reason on the matter, as this book 
 does. I have often insisted, to the surprise and almost hor 
 ror of the " Deacon Quirks," that, if I ever got to heaven, I 
 should be an editor or reporter on the Daily Celestial Sun. 
 
 am sure of it now. I shall send the book to L . She will 
 
 enjoy and believe it. Do you know L is one of the best 
 
 women in the world? The most valued compliment I ever 
 had was that I was a good deal like her. Well, I think I am 
 
120 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 the same kind of a Christian that she is ; but she is a great 
 deal better one of the kind than I am. 
 
 Well, I must close. I think this is long enough for an 
 apologetic letter. Very truly your friend, 
 
 LUTE A. TAYLOR. 
 
 LA CROSSE, June 4th, /<?//. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND BELLE : 
 
 Now, that man who is with you need not take any umbrage 
 at the possessive pronoun. You know it is used in a limited 
 sense, but he can t rob me of any part of the small possession 
 I have in you not if I can help it. It might be as well to 
 let him know this at the outset. 
 
 Your letter, Belle, brought me the first news that you had 
 exchanged the Miss for the Mrs. ceased an integral exist 
 ence and become a member of a firm. How did you think I 
 would know it? I no more look at the marriage notices in 
 the papers than you do at the calls for ward caucuses, or the 
 quotations of Pacific Mail. 
 
 So, dear Belle, my congratulations come late, but heartfelt 
 and sincere. Most heartily do I hope that reality may surpass 
 expectation, and the promise of trustful love find full verifica 
 tion in the facts of daily life. I do not believe that your 
 husband, or any man, is good enough to call you wife, though 
 I certainly have a high regard for him from the fact that he 
 is your husband. Honestly, Belle, don t you think that the 
 highest compliment a woman can pay a man is to marry him ? 
 But I send you hearty greeting. You know what Tennyson 
 says in the "Princess ": 
 
 " Not like to like, but like in difference, etc. 
 Well, that is what I say to you. 
 
 Appointing you my proxy to introduce me to " Novy," as 
 you so pleasantly introduced him to me in your delightful let 
 ters, and furthermore, and finally, warning you of displeasure, 
 if not disaster, if in your new life you drop me from your list 
 of correspondents, I am Yours affectionately, LUTE. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 121 
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 A few years ago, we were one of a party riding by 
 stage from this city to Viroqua a tedious journey at 
 this season, at best but its tedium was relieved by 
 pleasant companions, and by the occasional magnifi 
 cent stretches of scenery which almost rivals the 
 Green Mountains of Vermont, or the unexcelled 
 views which continually delight the eye about Har 
 per s Ferry, and thence westward along the line of 
 the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. When near our 
 journey s close, a sight more pleasing than any we 
 had met delighted our eyes. 
 
 We passed a party of comfortable appearing folk. 
 Among them was a young woman, probably about 
 twenty-five years of age. She was a brunette, with 
 fresh complexion, dark hair and eyes, and held in 
 her arms a babe which looked laughingly from be 
 neath its protecting hood. But the mother seemed 
 even more happy than the child. She appeared to 
 hold up the beautiful babe as a challenge to all 
 passers to share her joy and pride in its possession. 
 We all noticed and commented upon this sweet spec 
 tacle of joyful mother and happy child. Of cours e, 
 some pleasantry, or wit, or compliment from her 
 companions might have brightened her features at 
 that moment, but her look of sweet satisfaction and 
 beaming pleasure seemed as if it dwelt there con 
 tinually as if the sacred joy and pride of maternity 
 so filled her heart that it swam in light in her eyes, 
 
122 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 and rippled in smiles upon her face. It was a pleas 
 ant picture more pleasant for being real and 
 each of us who witnessed it will cherish it as a 
 " thing of beauty and a joy forever." 
 This is one picture. 
 
 The next morning we saw its counterpart. It was 
 early when we started on our return. The vehicle 
 itself improvised for the occasion in place of the 
 regular stage was open and ill-supplied, with two 
 narrow seats facing each other, without the remotest 
 suggestion of comfort, coziness or warmth. The 
 keen wind cut through our own abundant clothing, 
 as we stopped to take in- another passenger. She 
 came. Great heavens! What an apparition of 
 woe ! It seemed as if direst poverty, utter ignorance 
 and absolute lunacy combined could alone suffice to 
 make a human being so utterly miserable and woe 
 begone as she. A woman of forty or forty-five years 
 of age, with heavy shoes, a worn calico dress, and 
 evidently little under-clothing, a thin, miserable, 
 cotton shawl, a light worsted hood this was all 
 her protection against the biting blast. Her hands 
 were bare, and unkempt hair straggled over her 
 sunken eyes and desolate face, which wore that 
 mottled, lifeless hue which is the most touching 
 evidence of extremest suffering and want. A few 
 worthless rags in a coarse bag, tossed in after her, 
 was her only baggage no, not all, for here comes 
 a little box; there is a smell of fresh paint on it, and 
 it is of that shape and form that are never fashioned 
 except to enclose the dead. We knew by the hungry 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 123 
 
 look with which she devoured it that this was hers, 
 and crowding it under the narrow seat, we went rat 
 tling away. 
 
 Of course it took but a short time to recover from 
 our stupor of amazement, and, with the assistance 
 of the kind-hearted driver, wrap her up in tolerable 
 comfort. The straggling, almost incredulous smile 
 of gratitude with which she received a pair of warm 
 woolen gloves was something better to remember 
 than the smile with which beauty receives her jewels, 
 or wealth the luxuries which wealth can alone con 
 fer. The poor creature could speak but a few words 
 of English, but we learned that she was entirely des 
 titute of money, that she was traveling from Prairie 
 du Chien to Buffalo county, and that on the preced 
 ing evening the child was taken from her arms, on 
 the arrival of the stage at Viroqua, dead dead 
 without her knowledge of the fact. One needed 
 not to be told that it had been dying since its birth, 
 that inadequate food and clothing had combined to 
 sap its little life, which finally yielded to the cold 
 wind of a winter night, and somewhere on the 
 dreary road, unnoticed and unknown, drifted out 
 into the great unseen. Yesterday nestling close to 
 her for warmth to-day in the pine box under the 
 seat. One can bear to look on the fine agony of a 
 strong, sensitive, cultured nature, for the very strength 
 which gives intensity to suffering will bring solace in 
 due time; but here was wretchedness weak, un 
 reasoning, helpless and dumb. 
 
 And so we rode all the day, facing this picture of 
 
124 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 want and despair and the little charity coffin. Look 
 ing at this, she would sometimes reach under her 
 wrappings, and get out her worn soiled apron, and 
 (with true womanly instinct turning it to the wrong 
 side) wipe the half-frozen tears from her withered 
 cheeks. 
 
 The luxury of tears, the divine sorrow of maternal 
 love, was all that was left her. We could not help 
 believing that the little one was better to-day than 
 yesterday, better in the coffin than suffering and 
 shivering in the mother s arms, but yet her grief 
 could be assuaged by no such consolation as this. 
 It might be that the only light of her life had gone 
 out, that those thin wasted hands were the only ones 
 that caressed her cheeks, those little pinched lips 
 the only ones that touched hers in tenderness and 
 love. Desolate ! Desolate ! In her seemed verified 
 the full force of that pregnant passage of Scripture, 
 "without hope in the world 
 
 And so the two pictures happy mother and hag 
 gard wretch smiling babe and coffined clay 
 sunny joy and shivering desolation stand before 
 us in startling antithesis, and, thus strangely mated, 
 must remain in the close keeping of memory forever. 
 
 POEMS whether in prose or verse are simply 
 open letters. No one ever writes a really good thing 
 without, in thought at least, writing it to somebody. 
 
 IT is dreadful easy to be a fool a man can be 
 one and not know it. 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET 125 
 
 FISHING, AND OTHER THINGS. 
 
 BEAR TRAP LAKE, POLK Co., Wis., 
 
 June 1 2th, 1860. 
 DEAR JOURNAL : 
 
 Is there room for anything in print but wars and 
 rumors of wars ? Will matters of State and sensa 
 tion dispatches, and wonder points, and military 
 movements, and leaded leaders, make way for a 
 garrulous article, drifting along over the paper, as 
 aimless as a boat without steersman drifts before the 
 capricious wind? 
 
 Sitting in this log cabin, looking out upon the 
 water broken by the light wind into sparkling jets 
 of silver upon the forest trees, with coloring so rich 
 that they seem to sparkle with the light of intelli 
 gence, and swaying with a seemingly conscious nod, 
 as if their matutinal salutations were not over; lis 
 tening to the varied but not discordant bird-notes, 
 coming like morning hymns from hundreds, yes 
 thousands, of swelling throats; seeing no throng of 
 human life, hearing no hum of human labor ; I can 
 hardly realize that the great world without is awed 
 into solemnity by the tragic events of the day 
 that all our own wide land is a drill ground for 
 armies, and already loving hearts are sorrowing for 
 the slain. 
 
 Looking at the baggy style of my clothing, its 
 somewhat dirty and a good deal dilapidated con 
 dition ; fishing down a long crane-necked bottle for 
 
126 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 a little muddy ink, I can hardly believe that writing 
 is with me a business, and "copy" and "proof- 
 sheets " familiar terms. 
 
 You float over the placid lake, fringed with its 
 setting of dark pines, and its shallows rocking on 
 their surface the broad-leaved lily, with its almost 
 miraculous beauty, and it seems like the dawn of 
 creation, for the touch of time has not marred its 
 perfect beauty. You lie under the shadow of the 
 trees and listen to the pufof rivulets in the woods, 
 to the bird s note lessening in the languid air, to the 
 thousand sounds of varied life which fill the forest 
 with a low delicious murmur, and then a breeze 
 sweeps, like the motion of an unseen hand, through 
 the leafy greenness the foliage shimmers and 
 lightly sways, and you feel 
 
 " A divine 
 
 Breath of the summer, full of coquetry, 
 Happy and light and loving as a kiss 
 Upon the eyelids from the woman you love." 
 
 FROGS. 
 
 But what have frogs to do with fishing? you ask. 
 A vast deal, my sapient friend. You might as well 
 try to have a wedding without a woman as to try to 
 catch a bass or pickerel without a frog the thing 
 can t be done in any approved and decent fashion. 
 
 Now, many worthy people have an unworthy preju 
 dice against frogs which should be dispelled. Being 
 as intimate with them as we have been, watching 
 eagerly for them by the side of ponds, holding them 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 127 
 
 tenderly in the hand, thrusting vest and trowsers 
 pockets full of them, occasionally getting a small one 
 mixed with the tobacco and smoking him in our 
 meerschaum, we have come to a tender and loving 
 appreciation of their excellence and merit. As dress 
 is always a matter of interest, just look at the cos 
 tume of the frog a genuine hunter s, green as the 
 grasses, scrupulously neat, and changing the whole 
 suit two or three times a year. Then what a voice 
 they have ! What concerts they give by moonlight ! 
 Then, again, a " fellow-feeling makes us wondrous 
 kind," and a frog is very like a man. What a human 
 leg he has ! How nearly its formation and appear 
 ance is like our own ! Then, .who has not seen men 
 with frog-like look bald-pated, short-necked, puffy- 
 cheeked and wide mouthed ? Such men are not 
 apt to rule in political conventions, but they make 
 excellent fathers-in-law. Pardon us, reader, if we 
 linger lovingly around the frog. As we have impaled 
 him on our hook, we have taken lessons in the manly, 
 heroic virtues. There is nothing sublime in the con 
 duct of a young, dashing, frivolous fellow, who has 
 never seen grief. He squirms like a snake, and 
 when you stick him on the bearded steel, he kicks 
 like a devil and whines like a cross child ; but take 
 an old russet chap, who has lived out eighteen of 
 his twenty years, and braved the hardships of the 
 wilderness, and incurred the responsibilities of the 
 father of a numerous family: when you seize him, 
 he gives a desperate struggle, and then resigns him 
 self to inevitable fate. As the barbed hook passes 
 
128 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 through him, not a moan of complaint, but a look 
 of heroic endurance and stoical resignation. But 
 enough of frogs ; let us talk about 
 
 FISHING. 
 
 Your hook is nicely baited, the boat rocks gently 
 on the waters beside the sheltered shore, and you 
 are waiting for a bite. In the interval of expecta 
 tion you descant on the lovely qualities of your frog, 
 and wonder that sensible fish can resist an induce 
 ment so tempting. Soon you feel the snap of the 
 line and the tremor of the pole, and your strength 
 doubled by excitement ; you tug till a row of black 
 spears shows above the water. Then how he strug 
 gles ! careening on one broad side and then on the 
 other, till at last you bring him in "out of the wet." 
 A pretty good bass ! About five pounds ! Another 
 interval of suspense. By and by you feel a " symp 
 tom;" a moment. of eager interest it is a bite! 
 the line moves slowly against the wind you know 
 -your style, and, rising to your feet, give him line 
 now you draw gods ! he is hooked ! What a 
 moment of ecstacy ! how the supple, pliant pole 
 bends under the pressure ! now his white belly 
 gleams in the water as he comes slowly up the 
 devil ! you have slackened line a little the strug 
 gling fish has turned his head from you, and 
 whi-z-z-z-z-z goes your line around the bow of the 
 boat - 1 you drop the pole and, seizing the line, draw 
 in, hand over hand, with eager speed he is safely 
 hooked, and, cavernous mouth wide open, he comes 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 1 29 
 
 in out of the drink. You leisurely fix your bait, 
 take a fresh chew of tobacco, ask the fellow next 
 you if he saw how you did it, and toss out again. 
 
 AN INCIDENT. 
 
 A pleasing incident occurred one day which is 
 worth narrating. As the bateau was drifting lei 
 surely along, we discovered, on the opposite shore, a 
 wannegan or punt, containing two ladies. Shade of 
 Venus ! Here was a schoolma am ! White dress and 
 blue basque on Bear Trap! What an illustration 
 of the aggressive power of common schools ! The 
 school house and the Indian camp within sight of 
 each other ! I never before so realized the pictur- 
 esqueness of border life as when I saw the advancing 
 pickets of education, with all its attendant amenities 
 and arts, thus challenging the retreating sentinels of 
 savage life. The position is one to be proud of. 
 Boys, pass the glasses. Let us drink to the health 
 of the maid on Bear Trap to the peace of the 
 schoolma ams who basted us in our boyhood to 
 the success of the common school to the glory of 
 American institutions generally ! 
 
 DEWDROPS come in silence and in the night. We 
 sometimes think they are tears which the watching 
 angels in pity shed over human sorrow or sin. 
 
 FUN is cousin to Common Sense. They live 
 pleasantly together, and none but fools try to divorce 
 them. 
 
 9 
 
130 LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 
 
 A HUMAN RUIN. 
 
 Any ruin is sad ; a human ruin is saddest of all. 
 Whoever or whatever struggles for life and sinks 
 down battling bravely until engulfed by utter ruin, 
 moves our profoundest sympathy. The plant, 
 scorched beyond endurance by summer heats and 
 slowly yielding up its feeble life, touches our sym 
 pathy as if it were a sentient thing. The foundered 
 ship, struggling in tumultuous billows or breaking 
 against rocky shores, whose staunch timbers and 
 strong planks maintain to the last the ineffectual 
 struggle with wind and wave, seems to us to be ani 
 mated by a human spirit, and its destruction calls 
 out a sorrow as if it were a human being, with love 
 of life and strength of will. The consumptive per 
 son, in whom the citadel of life has already been 
 taken by insidious disease, and whose strong will 
 matches itself against death, and resolutely scorns 
 to own defeat, though fading color tells of fading 
 strength, calls out a sympathy painful in its intensity 
 a sympathy intensified by our yearning desire to 
 aid the sufferer in the unequal struggle, and our 
 litter inability to give effectual help. 
 
 Such wreck of health such ruin of womanly 
 beauty or manly strength moves us to grief and 
 saddens us with tears ; but deeper, darker, more pro 
 foundly miserable and utterly desolate is the specta 
 cle of a strong man yielding to the mastery of drink 
 the gradual loss of self-respect, the decay of the 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 131 
 
 moral sentiments, the growing paralysis of the will ; 
 until at last, utterly indifferent or defiantly reckless, 
 he staggers through the dark door of death, with dis 
 grace behind him and retribution before. 
 
 Not with one wild leap does any man go down 
 this fearful abyss of sin and shame. The end is 
 reached only after innumerable resolutions have 
 been made and broken. It is a retreat in which 
 the victim makes many a brave effort to withstand 
 the demon who is pushing him on, and when at last 
 disarmed of noble purpose, without the will to resist, 
 or the ability to comprehend his disgrace, he sinks 
 into utter and irremediable sottishness, and drifts 
 almost unconsciously to his doom, it is the saddest 
 sight in the whole universe of God. 
 
 A POEM. 
 
 [Extract from a poem read at a festival of the Franklin Club, River 
 Falls, Wisconsin, in 1858.] 
 
 The soul that lives must daily grow ; 
 Like Noah s dove, its thoughts will go 
 Out wandering, intent to know. 
 
 We live to learn we live to glean 
 Some truth from every shifting scene, 
 And Winter s snow, and Summer s green, 
 
 And play of light, and song of birds, 
 And waving grain, and feeding herds, 
 And sweetest melodies of words. 
 
132 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 And girlhood s laughter, ringing clear, 
 
 And sorrow s sob and pity s tear, 
 
 And dead friends cold upon the bier, 
 
 All things that soul or sense has caught, 
 With meanings rich and deep are fraught, 
 And furnish food for constant thought. 
 
 We open books, by use grown dear, 
 And the long centuries disappear, 
 As the far Past seems pressing near. 
 
 The beauteous queens of high romance, 
 Turn on us their impassioned glance, 
 And leave us in a willing trance. 
 
 The martyrs, sages, heroes old, 
 
 Whom love of truth or fame made bold, 
 
 Gleam on us from sepulchral mold ; 
 
 And poets of the bygone days 
 Seem ever rising from their graves 
 To charm us with melodious lays. 
 ******** 
 Then give us truth that shuns no light, 
 While thought and toil their power unite 
 To clothe the soul with conquering might. 
 
 Thus, wisely living, day by day, 
 
 Our minds shall broaden, and our fancies may 
 
 Have wider scope and freer play. 
 
 Take hold of Nature s perfect plan, 
 And rightly estimate and scan 
 The life-work of an earnest man. 
 
 And, rising from this earthly sod, 
 Tread the bright path by sages trod, 
 Whose goal is only found in God. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 1^33 
 
 A DISCURSIVE EPISTLE. 
 
 [Extracts from a letter to Frank Daggett.] 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS, IND., July 7, 1868. 
 MY DEAR BOY : 
 
 How does your robust form feel generally, with 
 the thermometer indicating 98 degrees in the shade ? 
 Are you playful and happy as usual, or does the 
 exuberance of life which generally distils from your 
 speech and pen now exude at every pore, and leave 
 you as uninteresting as common mortals ? An early 
 answer is requested. 
 
 But, seriously, the weather is very warm. I en 
 joy a continual bath in the perspiration of my own 
 body, the only annoyance being that linen must be 
 changed each twenty minutes in order to present a 
 comely appearance. Now, twenty minutes is hardly 
 long enough for a chambermaid to do the work of a 
 room, and the maid who has charge of room 104, 
 Bates House, in this goodly prairie city, is no excep 
 tion to the rule. I have interrupted her while pursu 
 ing her ordinary avocations, and, when reprimanded, 
 have boldly told her that a dry shirt I would have 
 in spite of all the chambermaids in the house. If 
 she had not been a charitable girl, and my face had 
 not been a displayed advertisement of honest inten 
 tions, I fear I should have been reported at the office 
 and persuaded to leave the house before the train 
 left which I am going on. 
 
134 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 But, to be serious, Frank, how do thin fellows get 
 along this weather? You and I have generous 
 frames through which to distribute the heat, and a 
 broad surface from which to pass it off but those 
 thin, hatchet-faced, narrow-chested, slim-bodied, 
 light-legged fellows, why, they must feel like a coal 
 in a blacksmith s forge, like a bit of burned steak, 
 or a muffin overdone. 
 
 How did you spend "The Fourth," my boy? I 
 was in Chicago, and made up my mind that that 
 city is more patriotic than pious. Never on a Sun 
 day have I seen it so completely deserted as on the 
 afternoon of the Fourth. The business houses were 
 closed, the streets were empty and still, the people 
 trying to keep cool indoors, or away in God s green 
 temples the shadowy groves. 
 
 But in the evening the streets were thronged with 
 people in holiday attire, and the night glowed and 
 shone and sparkled with all manner of fireworks, 
 from the great lurid fires glowing fearfully against 
 the sky, to the solitary rocket, which, speeding like 
 a bullet, into the darkness above, falls back wasted 
 like a human soul which, having plumed its wing 
 to mount to heaven and search out the mysteries of 
 the Infinite, returns weary, baffled, and worn from 
 its fruitless toil. I could not persuade myself to go 
 inside the heated walls of the theater, and so I wan 
 dered idly about the city, viewing its splendor arfd 
 its squalor, its wealth and its want past the marble 
 temples of trade past the palatial residences of 
 the rich, past the cozy, comfortable homes, out into 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 135 
 
 the suburbs where in hot, close, crowded, fester 
 ing tenement houses, women and little children 
 breathe an air that is poison and live a life that is 
 death where gaunt poverty and grim despair form 
 a fellowship of misery, and from their loathsome 
 union is born crime, with its glaring visage and heart 
 of hell. 
 
 Give me the mountain and the prairie, the river and 
 the wood, the voice of passing winds, the sight of 
 growing things, the scent of flowers and the song of 
 birds give me God s green earth, for I like it better 
 than the places man has built. I believe a life which 
 brings one into daily contact with the substratum of 
 a city populace tends to make him a materialist 
 learns him to look at people as only another form of 
 animals, who live their brief life, perform their little 
 labor, and pass into the nothingness from which they 
 came. Philosophy and religion teach that a single 
 soul, an isolated human life, is priceless, outweighing 
 in value all material wealth ; and yet, when we look 
 at the ignorant, unthinking, vicious, degraded and 
 damnable mob which swells the census of the cities, 
 it is almost impossible to believe that the Son of God 
 died for such, that gems of value are hidden in such 
 worthless caskets, or that a future better than the 
 present can ever dawn upon them. Yet it will not do 
 to cast away faith in the loving paternity of God. 
 
 " How would it make the weight and wonder less 
 
 If, lifted from immortal shoulders down, 
 The world were cast on seas of emptiness, 
 
 Mid realms without a crown." , 
 
136 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 I am a serious lad, my boy, and, riding much on 
 the cars lately, I have thought how much the trip 
 on a train is like the journey of life. The incoming 
 passengers, who burst in upon us at the way-stations, 
 are the births which keep full the stream of life; 
 while those who depart are quickly lost to sight and 
 thought, as we shall be when we step off into the 
 darkness which envelops all the world. The engine 
 represents the human passions, which are the motive 
 power of life ; the engineer is law, which guides and 
 controls ; the brakemen are the magistrates and offi 
 cers who watch over and protect our persons and 
 property, and the conductor is the parson, who di 
 rects us on the journey and acquaints us with our 
 destination. To finish the similitude, many go wrong 
 in life, and many go wrong on the train. 
 
 With almost unimagined speed the world rolls 
 along its measured track among the stars. Soon 
 our station will be reached. We shall step off into 
 eternal silence, and invisible Charon will ferry us 
 over the Stygian wave. There is no baggage-master 
 on that craft, my boy. Our checks must be surren 
 dered before our spirit feet shall tread its ghostly 
 deck, and so do not encumber yourself on the jour 
 ney with things that must be left behind at its close. 
 Thus, like many another, covering my own deficien 
 cies with a word of admonition to a friend, I am 
 
 Yours fraternally. 
 
 WILL and WORK are higher trumps than genius 
 and luck, in the game of life. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 137 
 
 FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 
 
 [The following short extracts are from a Fourth of July 
 oration delivered at Winona, Minnesota, in 1872.] 
 
 * * * It is a matter for congratulation that 
 our fathers chose this particular season of the year 
 for the enunciation of their Declaration of Inde 
 pendence. Longest days, midway between seed 
 time and harvest. On each side the months slope 
 down. All the luxuriance, the superb and sensuous 
 beauty of nature greets us now, and contributes to 
 our rejoicing. 
 
 * * * We may as well understand the fact 
 that the old-fashioned Fourth of July has passed 
 away, never to return again. It belongs to history. 
 It is as much a part of the past as the battle of 
 Brandywine, or the surrender of Burgoyne. Twelve 
 years ago there was an awe in the sight of a cannon, 
 a glory in the waving of a flag or the beating of a 
 drum, and a novelty in the appearance of a regiment 
 in arms. There was a charm of remoteness about 
 these things. They moved before us as the actors 
 move in a play. Since then they have become sadly 
 but proudly familiar. The gaudy show has been 
 made a stern reality. The cannon have thundered 
 the menace of death ; the drums have beat the sol 
 emn death-march ; the gay banners have been torn 
 by hissing balls, and the brave regiments have swept 
 in shattered columns over fields that were lost. We 
 
138 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 cannot now invest the Fourth of July with its ancient 
 reverence. We have handled the sacred things until 
 they have become common and familiar. The heroes 
 of the Revolution do not loom so grandly before our 
 mental vision, for we find their living peers and equals 
 wherever we turn. 
 
 As the advent of the Christian dispensation broad 
 ened the old, local, Jewish Sabbath into a universal 
 day of worship, recreation and rest, so has the logic 
 of events broadened this Fourth of July, which at 
 first commemorated only the successful revolt of a 
 few colonies, into a festal day of freedom, and made 
 the very words a menace to oppression and an inspi 
 ration and hope to the oppressed. 
 
 The Fourth of July is the Nation s birthday, and 
 it has probably occurred to all of you that the im 
 portance of a birthday is greatly in proportion to 
 the age of the individual. It is a great event when 
 the babe has completed its first twelve months of 
 existence. The youth who has not attained his 
 majority, thinks the years creep along with snail-like 
 pace, and looks forward to his birthdays with never- 
 failing interest , but to the man immersed in business 
 they pass by almost unheeded ; while the dimmed 
 vision of the aged hardly discovers them, as the 
 crowded, shortened years flit by. 
 
 What the years are to the man the centuries are 
 to the world, and we have not yet passed the first 
 century mile-stone on the journey of national life. 
 It is only by comparison that we can appreciate how 
 young, as a nation, we are. Away to the north, on 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 139 
 
 the banks of Lake St. Croix, lives a man* who is 
 older than the Fourth of July. His step is still 
 reasonably firm; the light from his eye still gleams 
 out from beneath the thin lashes which shade it; 
 his memory is still tenacious ; his enjoyment of the 
 society of friends is fresh and keen; yet he is ten 
 years older than the Fourth of July was born ten 
 years before the Declaration of Independence was 
 signed ten years before "The Fourth" was taken 
 out from among other days, glorified, and made for 
 ever memorable. This man voted for Washington 
 for the Presidency, and, holding him by the hand, 
 looking into his wrinkled face, listening to his voice, 
 you feel how young this country is. Four generations 
 like him would reach back and clasp hands with 
 that first emigrant to the western world Christo 
 pher Columbus. 
 
 I sometimes think we do not give sufficient honor 
 to Columbus. It is true that he was spared many 
 things which fall to the lot of later emigrants. He 
 had to " declare his intention " to the natives, but 
 he did not take out his naturalization papers; was 
 not implored to go to caucuses, or join a campaign 
 club; he never ran for office and was beat, nor 
 hurrahed over favorable election returns, nor lost 
 his money on an unsuccessful candidate, nor was on 
 the finance committee of a Fourth of July celebra 
 tion. But though spared all this, his honors do not 
 match his merit. 
 
 Looking back at him through the misty years, he 
 
 * David Stiles, who died in 1873, at the age of 107. 
 
140 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 seems to us more like one of the demigods of myth 
 ology than like an actual living man a hero of 
 history. The world has never witnessed a sublimer 
 spectacle, a grander pilgrimage, than that of this 
 wonderful man, this princely vagrant and royal 
 beggar, burdened with ideas too large for the world s 
 acceptance, wandering from court to court with his 
 visionary, ridiculous and absurd ideas of a new 
 world, and begging for the means to enable him to 
 find it, until at last a foolish queen gave him the 
 necessary aid, and, with a fearful and superstitious 
 crew, he started on the long voyage across the va 
 cant ocean. The vacant ocean ! Just think of it ! 
 Now it is white with the sails of every craft, from 
 the shapely yacht to the stately ship, while the great 
 steamers, with clouds of smoke trailing like black 
 pennons in their rear, shoot from the shore of one 
 continent to the shore of another, as a weaver s 
 shuttle flies across his loom. But then all was va 
 cant ; the sun rode out of the wide waste of waters, 
 swung over the broad arch of heaven, and dipped 
 again in the boundless blue, and looked upon no 
 living human thing. The storms stirred the great 
 ocean into thunderous tumult, but no human ear 
 listened to the grand diapason of the sea; no eye 
 saw its climbing billows and yawning depths; no 
 heart shuddered at its threatening peril. The sea- 
 birds skimmed its surface, the fishes sported in its 
 waters, the great tides rose and fell, the sunlight 
 slept upon its broad expanse; but all was vacant, 
 unused and unknown. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 141 
 
 So, too, this great continent was a wilderness, 
 ripening for future use, where human life was savage, 
 and all which we deem desirable was unknown. 
 
 * * * But let the procession of years pass by 
 until you come down within the memory of living 
 men, and even this vast west was a solitude, unpeo 
 pled, save by wild beasts and men scarcely less wild 
 than they. The rivers flowed unvexed by the fret 
 ting wheels of commerce. On the broad prairies 
 the flowers bloomed and died, with none to note 
 their beauty ; and the luxuriant grasses ripened in 
 summer airs, rotted and enriched a" soil on which 
 no harvest waved. The forest trees, untouched by 
 deadly ax, grew old and died, and their successors 
 lifted their mighty trunks in air, like towering col 
 umns of great cathedrals, and along their high, 
 leaf-woven domes the soft winds rippled, in their 
 verdurous arches the birds sang, and from their 
 mossy floors flowers sent up their praise in perpet 
 ual fragrance and perfume. 
 
 Now, how changed ! Man has laid his hand upon 
 the mighty forces of nature and subjugated them to 
 his will. Seeming impossibilities have been realized, 
 and the most startling wonders are the every-day 
 facts of our lives. Harvests ripen in the fields; 
 villages cluster in the valleys ; cities sit queen-like 
 beside the lakes and rivers ; mines give up their 
 hoarded wealth ; spindles turn, and shuttles leap, 
 and hammers thunder in mills and manufactories; 
 the steamers come and go ; the rushing trains sweep 
 across broad States, making far-sundered people 
 
142 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 near and familiar ; the lightning leaps responsive to 
 our touch, and becomes a swift, invisible messenger, 
 conveying our words with the rapidity of thought 
 itself; while, better than all, school-houses dot all 
 the land, and, from every hillside and in every 
 valley, church spires point to heaven. Distance is 
 annihilated, time is stayed, opportunities are ^ en 
 larged. During the past year mail service has been 
 put by this government on 8,000 miles of newly 
 constructed railway, and nearly 12,000 miles have 
 been built. 
 
 But, great as have been the triumphs of labor and 
 the growth of material interests, greater still have 
 been the triumph of moral forces and the growth of 
 ideas. The ideas of the fathers of the Republic 
 have become living facts ; their theories have crys 
 tallized into laws. Freedom no longer sits in sorrow, 
 weeping over the atrocities committed in her name, 
 but, throned in regal state, wielding the sceptre of 
 law and armed with the word of power, her will is 
 imperative and her dictum obeyed. 
 
 Everywhere progress has been made. Thought 
 has been quickened, aspirations elevated, philosophy 
 broadened, theology liberalized, and life enlarged. 
 We have to-day all the conditions of free and pros 
 perous national life. 
 
 The question of moment to us is, how shall we 
 preserve these conditions for ourselves, and transmit 
 them to those who come after us ? In schools is our 
 safety, is the almost universal response. I know the 
 great value of schools ; I would multiply their num- 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 143 
 
 ber, improve their character, and increase their 
 efficacy. Politically speaking, there is virtue in a 
 spelling-book, and the multiplication table is a means 
 of grace. Yet, we must remember, that educated 
 villainy is more dangerous than honest ignorance. 
 The men who plotted the last great treason against 
 the country were men of learning, polished in the 
 arts which schools impart, and armed with the 
 strength which they give. Many of them had been 
 wards of the nation, trained in her schools, and 
 honored in her service, yet they basely stung the 
 hand that had blessed them, and stabbed at the life 
 of their benefactor. 
 
 More men fail from want of character than from 
 want of intellect. It is the vices outside of law 
 which are sapping our national life. Personal ex 
 travagance and love of show and effect drive thou 
 sands delirious with care. Licentiousness blasts the 
 beauty of social life, and blights soul and body with 
 the mildew of hell. Intemperance seizes its victims 
 and drags them from comfort and respectability to 
 poverty and the degradation of loaferdom, and then 
 sends them groping through dark delirium to the 
 doors of death. 
 
 We fear no foreign foe. Our danger is from our 
 selves. It lies in the evils I have pointed out; it 
 lies even more in the multiplicity of offices and the 
 mad ambition to hold them ; it lies in that unhal 
 lowed avarice which uses official position for the 
 purpose of personal gain ; in the decay of that nice 
 
144 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 sense of honor which fears the commission of wrong 
 more than its exposure. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 I am free to confess that I devoutly believe there 
 is sufficient virtue in the country to insure a pros 
 perous and healthy national life. I see a future 
 stretching out before us radiant with promise and 
 rich in every possible blessing. I believe God has 
 a great work for this nation to do; that here the 
 problem of government by the people is to be 
 wrought out, and that in his providence we are des 
 tined to be a teacher and an exemplar to the nations 
 of the earth. 
 
 We, Mr. President, may not live to see the full 
 fruition of our hopes, but those who come after us 
 will find here a government strong in the affections 
 of the people a land where freedom shall reign, 
 where law shall issue its unbought edicts, where 
 Justice shall hold her scales with steady hand, where 
 Honor shall lift her unstained brow; a land which 
 shall be the realization of the pat-riot s hope and the 
 Christian s prayer; a land where the flag shall be 
 the symbol of freedom, as the cross is the sign of 
 faith, and whose benign influences, flowing forth to 
 farthest limits, shall make the Fourth of July a 
 sacramental day to all peoples in all lands. 
 
 EPITAPHS are like circus bills there is more in 
 the bill than is ever performed. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 145 
 
 CHAMBER SCENE. 
 
 Slowly the darkness rolled away, 
 Folded back by the fingers of day, 
 As in sweet sleep the maiden lay. 
 
 The rarest beauty was her dower ; 
 She slept, unconscious of its power, 
 As fair as Eve in her Eden bower. 
 
 The fringed lids were closed above 
 
 Dark hazel eyes, brimful of love, 
 
 Which might have moved Olympian Jove. 
 
 The pillows swelled on either side 
 Her rosy cheeks, as if to hide 
 Her beauty, but in vain they tried. 
 
 Her warm breath with her tresses played, 
 Which, all unkempt, around her strayed, 
 While one fair hand uncovered laid. 
 
 The snow-white coverlet rose and fell 
 Responsive to her bosom s swell, 
 And mimicked every motion well. 
 
 Now birds their morning music made 
 Mid light and song awoke the maid ; 
 She rose, and robed herself, and prayed. 
 
 Then rising reverent from her knees, 
 Unclasped the shutters, and the breeze, 
 That sported with the flowers and trees, 
 
 Came coyly in and kissed the maid, 
 And lightly with those tresses played, 
 That hung so stilly while she prayed. 
 10 
 
146 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 Oh, she did seem surpassing fair, 
 And every breath of morning air 
 Was hallowed by her whispered prayer. 
 
 Thank God that not in heaven alone 
 Are pure and loving spirits known ! 
 E en here they bow before his throne. 
 
 And many a wild and wayward one, 
 Who else in erring paths had run, 
 By such pure souls to heaven is won. . 
 
 ALL S RIGHT. 
 
 (.Flagmen were stationed at every road crossing, and every half-mile 
 showing the American flag -a signal that all was right. -Extract from 
 an account of Lincoln s journey to Washington.} 
 
 Look, where the faithful sentries stand, 
 
 Beside the level bars, 
 Each bearing in his trusty hand 
 
 Our banner s stripes and stars. 
 
 The nation s chief doth ride to-day, 
 
 Her hope is passing there ; 
 And love encircles all the way 
 
 With keen and watchful care. 
 
 As eager eyes run o er the track, 
 
 The stars gleam on the sight ; 
 Each signal star is flashing back 
 
 The welcome, " All is right !" 
 
 "All s right!" where shine those sacred stars 
 
 Our chieftain s safety s sure ; 
 And when his hand that banner bears, 
 
 ALL S RIGHT ! " it is secure. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 147 
 
 .WHAT I KNOW ABOUT STAM 
 MERING. 
 
 [From a letter to the Milwaukee " Sentinel."] 
 
 The success of Mr. Greeley,in writing a book on 
 what he knows about farming, has emboldened me 
 to write a newspaper article on what I know about 
 stammering. I am confident that I am much better 
 informed on my subject than Mr. Greeley upon his, 
 for he has entirely failed in his efforts to raise dried 
 apples from the seed, while I have never failed, when 
 called upon, to stammer to the satisfaction of private 
 friends or public assemblies. Sometimes it has re 
 quired extra exertion for me to fill the measure of 
 expectation, and give as great an amount of English, 
 disjointed in a different manner from that in which 
 Webster or Worcester disjoints it, as was expected 
 of me in a given time, yet I have never failed to 
 meet a reasonable demand. 
 
 [N. B. I will qualify that statement by admit 
 ting that, sometimes, at political meetings, when the 
 Democrats called me out in preference to other 
 Republicans, because they thought I would say less 
 against them than anyone else, I have surprised 
 them by dropping the customary repetition of my 
 pronunciation, and made all the counts against them 
 possible in the time given me.] 
 
 Stammering is an art which but comparatively 
 few people possess. I am the more surprised at 
 
148 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 this, because it can be acquired without interfering 
 with any regular business, and, usually, practice will 
 make one perfect. I have known young boys who 
 were very strong stammerers indeed, and young men, 
 who have been with me, by strict attention and using 
 all their spare time, have made very creditable pro 
 gress, and in a few weeks compelled me to check 
 them, lest they should become my equals or supe 
 riors in the art. 
 
 Its advantages may not be apparent at first, but 
 they will be admitted when attention is directed to 
 them. 
 
 First. It gives one prominence, singularity, no 
 toriety, or whatever name you choose to call it by, 
 and everyone likes to be prominent, separate and 
 distinct from his fellows. Who does not remember 
 some stupid play-fellow of his boyhood who stam 
 mered, and who is remembered for that fact, and 
 that alone ? But for this he would have been rubbed 
 out of your memory, as a sum is rubbed off from 
 the blackboard ; but now he sticks, as the gashes in 
 that board, cut by stony seams in the chalk, stick. 
 An unregenerate Democratic editor, heated by par 
 tisan prejudice, once said that stuttering gave me 
 all the little notoriety and small consequent influence 
 which I possessed. I reflected upon the remark, and 
 was suprised to see how truthful it was, considering 
 the unreliable source from which it came. 
 
 Second. Stammering excuses people from many 
 things. When I was a schoolboy, and became hope 
 lessly lost in the conjugation of the Greek verb 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 149 
 
 tupto) a severe contraction of the face, a judicious 
 movement of the under jaw, and a sort of appealing 
 look in the eyes, as if I knew but could not tell, 
 would cause even the stern old professor to bend 
 on me a look of sympathy and regret, and nod to 
 the next to finish my exercise, so that, without know 
 ing anything, especially about my text-books, I was 
 always marked high on examination days. This 
 was a great advantage to me, and gave me that lei 
 sure for outdoor exercise which young students so 
 much need. In the autumn it also enabled me to 
 make great progress in the study of pomology in 
 the many orchards in the country adjacent, and 
 fellow-students became fond of me, and loved to 
 frequent my room. It is a noble thing to have one s 
 fellows fond of him. 
 
 In the spring of 1853 I was attending school in 
 North Bridgewater, Mass. Returning home from 
 Abington on foot one afternoon, I met a man, who 
 stopped me to inquire the way to the town from 
 which I had just come. The fellow stammered fear 
 fully. I began to laugh at first, then, divining his 
 wish, started to give him the desired information, 
 and began to stammer myself. 
 
 " D n you, do-nt you m-m-moc-mock me." 
 
 " I ai-n t m-moc-mo-mocking you." 
 
 The oath was repeated, and his brawny fist was 
 shook so close to my eyes that I could not see be 
 yond it very well, and his face fairly flamed with 
 rage. He was a horny-handed delegate, a good deal 
 larger than I was, and I resorted to diplomacy instead 
 
150 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 of war. I finally convinced him of my integrity, 
 and we sat down by the roadside and had as com 
 fortable a social time as Artemus Ward s mother 
 and Betsey Jane s mother used to have boiling soap 
 together. 
 
 In the summer of 1857 I was publishing the "Jour 
 nal " at River Falls in this State, and then, and for 
 some years after, there was in that town a delegation 
 of as active and reliable stammerers as I have ever 
 known. There were five of us. First, there was 
 Wm. J. McMasters, then foreman of the " Journal," 
 now one of the editors and proprietors of the Lake 
 City (Minn.) "Leader," and then, as now, one of 
 the purest, kindliest and best men whom I have ever 
 known. Mac did not seem to like to stammer. 
 There was an apologetic air about his performance, 
 as if asking pardon for annoying his hearers. Mac 
 was the best foreman I ever had, because it was 
 known that the editor stammered ; and whenever I 
 was away, and Mac was in charge, he could fill the 
 whole bill. Then there was Mr. D. H. Levings, 
 now resident there. I have known him from boy 
 hood, and have no hesitation in vouching for him as 
 a " star " stammerer. In conversation he works 
 everything about his face but his voice, and does 
 everything but talk. He has a wonderful facility 
 of distorting his features while wrestling with words, 
 and is a perfect success as what the theatre people 
 call a "muggist." He looks mad when stammering, 
 but he is not. It is his way. Mr. Henry K. White 
 was also a very competent and steady stammerer. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 151 
 
 He put less emotion into the business than the 
 others, but he was more even and reliable, and 
 could always be depended on to work very hard 
 in order to say a very little. 
 
 Many amusing incidents occurred among us, but 
 I will relate but one. 
 
 In 1859 Mr. Levings was director of the school 
 district, and I was clerk. One day in the early 
 autumn, when I was particularly busy in my office, 
 a young man named George W. Witherell came to 
 me and wished to engage to teach the school during 
 the coming winter. I did not like his appearance, 
 and had no idea of hiring him, and so told him he 
 had better see the director. He asked me to accom 
 pany him, but I excused myself on account of my 
 urgent business. He persisted in his request, until 
 I was fairly obliged to comply, and, in no very good 
 humor, I started with him for Mr. Levings house, 
 about one-third of a mile distant. I had been show 
 ing him some of my best specimens of stammering, 
 and, when near the house, I remarked that he might 
 have observed that I had a hesitation in my speech. 
 He said he had observed it. I told him I was 
 afflicted that way, but Mr. Levings was a very rapid 
 talker, and between us we averaged good time. We 
 found him painting his house; he came down the 
 ladder, and I introduced him, making fearful work 
 of the job. 
 
 "Mr. Le-Le-Levings, 1-let me ac-ac-ac let me 
 ac-acquaint you with Mr. W-Wi-With with Mr. 
 With-With-Witherell." 
 
152 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 Levings looked at him, then looked at me, and 
 began : 
 
 " Wh-wh-wh-m&z/ na-a-a-ame did you sa-a-a-ay?" 
 
 He wrestled fearfully with that first word "what." 
 The contortions of his face were frightful to With- 
 erell and amusing to me. Mr. Witherell did not get 
 the school. I think he was resigned ; I don t think 
 he wanted it very much after we had stopped talk 
 ing to him ; but I had my revenge on him for taking 
 me from my work. 
 
 For myself, within the year past, the habit of 
 stammering has nearly forsaken me. I have taken 
 no special pains to secure this result, and hardly 
 know whether to rejoice at it or not. I shall try to 
 retain enough of the habit to " sample " it when de 
 sired, though I should not indulge in its habitual 
 use. 
 
 The years work their slow but certain changes, 
 and man ripens for the grave as leaves and fruit do 
 for their fall. The weakest leaves fall first, and it 
 may be that this habit, the least essential of what is 
 personal to myself, is thus the first to pass away 
 the first indication of that coming change, which, in 
 God s own time, will bear us all over to that other 
 life where no stammering tongues are found, but 
 where language is music, life is thought, and law is 
 love. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 153 
 
 THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 [Extracts from an address delivered before the Convention 
 of the Minnesota Editors and Publishers Association, held 
 at St. Paul, June 4, 1870.] 
 
 There are some things from which the freshness 
 never fades away out of which the wonder never 
 dies. Day by day we may stand beside a telegraph 
 operator, but the mystery of his performance never 
 becomes clear, and the sensation of surprise is always 
 fresh and keen. 
 
 Just so the newspaper is a constantly recurring 
 miracle whose wonder never wears away. Whether 
 lying carefully folded in the office, or invitingly open 
 upon the table ; whether wrapping cheese and cod 
 fish, or thrown discarded into the street to scare 
 horses and be trampled on, it is always invested 
 with a strange kind of awe. 
 
 The newspaper! Look at it. It seems empty 
 and vacant, perhaps. " Nothing in the paper," you 
 say; yet read, and you will find it an open letter 
 from very many people whom you have never known. 
 
 One offers you this commodity, and another that ; 
 one happy man sends you notice of his wedding, 
 another sorrowfully informs you of a death. Look 
 over its contents closely its news items, its list of 
 accidents, of fires, of crimes see how sudden 
 wealth has surprised some, and sudden poverty sad 
 dened others. Is it in war time? look at the list 
 of killed and wounded ; see who has been promoted 
 
154 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 and who disgraced ; take into your mind the import 
 of the consequence of all these things, and you will 
 find that you hold in your hand " the ends of myriad 
 invisible, electric conductors along which tremble 
 the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes and de 
 spairs of as many men and women," all as sensitive 
 to pleasure or pain as yourself. 
 
 Here you have the lore of the scholar and the 
 wisdom of the sage. Here the divine preaches, the 
 poet sings, and the partisan lies. Here the states 
 man proclaims his principles and the auctioneer 
 offers his wares. Here the Cardiff giant and Minnie 
 Warren are put side by side, and one is as long as 
 the other. Here is the result of the antiquarian s 
 research, and through the very next column throbs 
 a truthful tale of present love, passion and romance. 
 Here the Old and the New are brought into con 
 trast. Here 
 
 " Tradition, snowy-bearded, leans 
 On Romance, ever young." 
 
 This is but a feeble portrayal of what a newspaper 
 is ; let us now see how it is made. 
 
 Come with me to the office. We will pass that 
 pile of paper. Yet, stop ; pick up a sheet of it. We 
 cannot wait to explain the curious process of its 
 manufacture, yet that clean and spotless sheet is the 
 purified product of rags and filth. The fibre which 
 forms its texture may have been stripped from Egyp 
 tian mummies ; it may have come from city streets, 
 or from great garrets in country homes ; it may have 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 155 
 
 wrapped the luxurious form of beauty, or been the 
 scanty covering of want ; but whether from the robes 
 of a queen or the rags of a harlot, it gives no clue 
 now to its former condition. Like a sanctified soul, 
 it is ready for a new life. 
 
 We will pass the editorial room. Its occupants 
 are busy. There are papers from far and near ; let 
 ters from widely scattered correspondents ; telegraph 
 dispatches, intelligence in every form ; and from this 
 mass is to be selected what is of most interest and 
 importance, to make a paper to-day. Let the editors 
 work. 
 
 Come into the composing room. We have the 
 foreman s permission grudgingly given. Do you 
 hear it? "Click! click! click!" What is that? Why, 
 that is the music Progress marches to. Come here, 
 to this "case." Look at that multitude of little 
 boxes, filled with pieces of metal. What are they ? 
 They are the civilizers they are THE TYPES. * * 
 
 But the paper is being made. The types, one by 
 one, have been picked up by nimble fingers, and 
 placed in proper position. Every error has been 
 corrected. Every punctuation point is in its place. 
 The scattered " columns " are massed together ; the 
 "form," or page, is securely "locked up," and sent 
 to the press room. 
 
 Let us go there. Here is where the wondrous 
 transformation is wrought ; here matter becomes the 
 exponent of mind. The " forms" are properly placed. 
 The great press slowly moves; its arms are reaching 
 for their strong embrace. 
 
156 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 " Stop the press ! " 
 
 The giant rests again. There is an error of state 
 ment to be corrected, or an objectionable article to 
 be withdrawn. The types are taken out and borne 
 away corpses of a dead thought. 
 
 Look now, again, at that mass of type dead ! inert 
 as the earth you tread on. But see, the white sheet 
 has fallen upon their upturned faces the touch of 
 the Press has baptized them the life that was in 
 them has passed upon paper, and the new creation 
 is pregnant with thought ; a thing with a soul, for it 
 can move the souls of men. That sheet, so blank be 
 fore, is a living power now. A change has passed 
 over it, as marvelous as if, in an instant, the unwrit 
 ten face of the boy should put on the furrows of age, 
 the lines of care, the impress of manhood s experi 
 ence, thought and toil. 
 
 Thus the paper is born, and goes out into the 
 world. No messenger can overtake it. Its utterance 
 is unalterable now. It may be explained, but not 
 erased. The printed word can no more be recalled 
 than the departed spirit can be wooed back to the 
 cold body which it has left. 
 
 Here, now, we have it the newspaper ! Wonder 
 ful product of brain and toil ! One would think it 
 should be dearly bought and highly prized; and yet 
 it is the cheapest thing in the world. Five cents will 
 buy it. One or two dollars will bring it to your 
 home every week in the year. And yet, strange to 
 say, there are men "too poor to take a newspaper!" 
 They can pay five cents for a glass of beer, or fifteen 
 
LUTE TAYLORS CHIP BASKET. 157 
 
 cents for a beverage of unknown composition, called 
 a "cocktail;" they can pay fifty cents for a circus 
 ticket, or a dollar for the theatre, yet they are too 
 poor to buy a newspaper ! a newspaper, which is a 
 ticket of admission to that great Globe Theatre, 
 whose dramas are written by God himself, " whose 
 scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtains are rung 
 down by Death ! " * * * * 
 
 IF there is one lesson which life teaches more 
 plainly than any other, it is the subordination of 
 individual to general interest. Humanity is large ; 
 a single life, even the largest, is small. Engrossed 
 with our daily duties, pressed by cares, and weighed 
 down by exacting obligations, we often fancy that 
 our life and labor is a very necessary and important 
 thing. Yet a little reflection will show us that the 
 world easily adjusts itself to its losses and life whirls 
 on the rapid eddies and rushes in strong currents, 
 and the express wagon jostling against the hearse, 
 the black plumes threading the gay and busy crowd, 
 who scarcely note their passage, or think that soon 
 the same offices must be performed for them. 
 
 The sea smiles no less brightly in the sunlight 
 because a dark and ghastly wreck lies hidden be 
 neath its shining surface, and so the smile of life is 
 scarcely saddened, or its hues robbed of their bright 
 ness, because of the awful shadow of death, which 
 is its constant attendant. Humanity is large ; indi 
 vidual life is small. 
 
158 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 A BRILLIANT WEDDING. Such is the caption of 
 the article before us ; and then there is a description 
 of the attire and appearance of the bride, as minute 
 in regard to her "points," as an article in Wilkes 
 Spirit, about the "points" of a favorite of the turf; 
 and a list of the bridesmaids is given, and how they 
 were dressed ; and the trappings of the altar, and the 
 dignified grace of the clergyman, the brilliant music, 
 and the flowers, and the delighted and distinguished 
 guests, and the -; yes, there was a bridegroom; and 
 perhaps he loved his wife ; and possibly, in spite of 
 all this glare and glitter, she loves him. We hope so. 
 We read of such weddings often or rather, we 
 see the announcements and omit the reading. And 
 as we see them we wonder wonder whether love 
 thrives best under the glare of such publicity 
 wonder whether the splendor of the ceremony is 
 matched by the trustfulness of feeling and the purity 
 of heart which alone give to marriage vows their 
 sacredness, and assure a future of ever increasing 
 love and devotedness. We wonder whether the 
 country maiden, whose love grows as the violet does 
 blushing at its own wealth, and shrinking timidly 
 from exposure, whether she is not happier in the 
 quiet possession of her great treasure, than are the 
 darlings of fortune, whose loves are blazoned to the 
 world. Is the quiet contentment of simple life really 
 preferable to the splendor of fashion and the show of 
 wealth ? Is the rose that blossoms in natural beauty 
 sweeter than art s painted flowers? We sometimes 
 think so. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 159 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 [The following is a beautiful, quaint and humorous preface 
 to a very practical address delivered at an Agricultural Fair.] 
 
 The Fair is the flowering time of the year. It is 
 the Festival of Labor. Here industry exhibits its 
 reward, Mechanism displays its triumphs, and Art 
 receives her crown. All the long year the wondrous 
 alchemy of nature has been patient at its subtle 
 work, perfecting the results which we witness now. 
 Winter snows have fertilized brown tilth and grassy 
 sod; summer suns have led the springing stalk to 
 its full stature, and hardened the milky berry into 
 golden grain and ripened ear ; Spring has flung out 
 her blossoms with prodigal profusion, and Autumn, 
 with pride, collects the ripened fruit, grown ruddy 
 in Summer s fiery mould. 
 
 This is the season of fruition, and the Fair is a 
 large and generous " Harvest Home," where each, 
 in an honorable spirit of emulation, competes for 
 supremacy in a field where the competition itself is 
 of far greater value than the prize bestowed. Here 
 is the romance of Labor. The best of the field, the 
 first of the flock, the most skillful work of the hands, 
 is exhibited here ; and giving an added charm to 
 all, is the social intercourse, so general, free and un 
 restricted upon every holiday of this kind. Other 
 festivals are local or personal in their significance, 
 and narrow in their scope ; this is broad as the ne- 
 
160 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 cessities of man, and appeals to universal human 
 nature s daily needs. 
 
 It has been said, in praise of agriculture, that it 
 was "the primal occupation of man." According to 
 sacred authority, this is true ; but according to the 
 same authority, the primal man was not a signal suc- 
 cess as an agriculturist. No man ever had a better 
 start in the world than Mr. Adam. He inherited an 
 estate of unexampled extent ; it was furnished with 
 a large variety and number of stock ; his orchard 
 was filled with fruit of rare excellence, which had 
 not cost him a tithe of the trouble and care which 
 our fruit growers experience in bringing their favor 
 ites to perfection ; he had no line fences to keep up ; 
 no highway tax to work out ; no shiftless neighbors 
 to borrow his tools and neglect to return them ; no 
 politics to distract his attention ; no corner grocery 
 or club house, to engage his time and capture his 
 cash : no speculators to contend against in the way 
 of prices; and no Charles Reade to beguile him 
 with the " Terrible Temptation " of an exciting and 
 worthless romance, and yet he was not happy. 
 His farm was overrun with weeds and thistles, and 
 he finally lost his homestead, and was turned out 
 bankrupt, to preempt on the barrens like a "poor 
 white" on an exhausted "clearing," in the pine 
 woods of the Carolinas. 
 
 Notwithstanding this inauspicious beginning, agri 
 culture rallied from its first disgrace ; the pages of 
 history, sacred and profane, are aglow with its praise, 
 and poetry has ever found it an inspiring theme. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 161 
 
 Following the line of sacred story, we find that 
 when Capt. Noah, at the close of a very memorable 
 cruise, left the sea, and walked forth upon the puri 
 fied earth, he " began to be an husbandman." He 
 seems also to have had the taste of a horticulturist, 
 for he " planted him a vineyard," and went into the 
 manufacture of wine; and here we grieve to say, 
 that like many other men who have since been in 
 the same business, he partook too freely of his own 
 production. 
 
 Close following after, come the days of the Patri 
 archs ; and the history of the world gives us no pic 
 tures more stately and grand than those of these 
 nomadic chiefs, whose wealth was in flocks and 
 herds, and whose titles to power were their own 
 kingly attributes; nor has language ever told a 
 sweeter story than that of royal-born Rebekah fill 
 ing her pitcher at the well, and hastening, with 
 gracious hospitality, to press its coolness to the 
 stranger s lips. 
 
 All the early history of the world is redolent with 
 the flavor of the fields. But, passing over many 
 characters which stand out bold and prominent, I 
 can merely allude to Prince Joseph, an ingenious 
 youth of the royal family of Israel. The pet child of 
 a wealthy father, and the envy of less favored breth 
 ren, in his musings in the fields he formed a charac 
 ter whose robust virtue delivered him from the servi 
 tude of Pleasure, and in later life he developed a 
 faculty for financiering which enabled him to assist 
 his impoverished relatives, and gave him a lasting 
 ii 
 
162 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 fame. He became one of the heaviest corn brokers 
 on record, and if not a veritable " bull " in the mar 
 ket, he used a remarkable u corner " greatly to his 
 advantage, and like many men in later days, became 
 immensely wealthy by means of a government 
 contract. 
 
 Farther down the track of time, we find the touch 
 ing tale of the Moabitish damsel, filial Ruth. We 
 see her, with modest mien and downcast eye, glean 
 ing the barley stalks ; and mark her pleased surprise 
 at the kindness which finds and the love which fol 
 lows her, and we love to remember that this poor, 
 dutiful, early widowed harvest girl, who shyly sat 
 beside the reapers, and shared their frugal fare, be 
 came the wife of princely Boaz, and the grandmother 
 of that great Hebrew bard and king whose songs 
 to-day make music in every sanctuary, and melody 
 in every Christian heart. 
 
 IN a great, tumultuous assembly, when the one man 
 whom all are expecting approaches, all tumult ceases, 
 all sounds are hushed. So in the still night watches, 
 when the hum of traffic and the din of toil has 
 ceased, and the weird and wondrous beauty of nature 
 sleeps in silence, seen only by the mild moon and the 
 sentinel stars, heaven stoops low to earth, and God 
 visits the world. Then there is worship in the very 
 air. The stones repeat their silent sermons the 
 leafy boughs sway in unwritten melodies, and the 
 unvexed waters murmer musically to the shores. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 163 
 
 A PREFATORY LETTER. 
 
 MY DEAR JOE i 
 
 This chip-basket is, or it should be, like an easy, 
 gossiping letter to a friend. Do not you and every 
 one else, often meet with pleasant passages which 
 you wish to read to some one, and have quaint fan 
 cies flit across your thought, which you would like 
 to imprison in words and write them to a friend ? 
 Well, this "Chip-Basket" is a collection of such 
 fancies and such passages, and I, in thought, will 
 send them to you, for your friendliness for myself 
 will blunt the sharp edge of any criticism which 
 another might indulge in. And if, occasionally, 
 some thought should seem to demand a more elabo 
 rate statement than a " chip " could give room for, I 
 can write it down here, and be as garrulous as I 
 please. 
 
 And as I write now the waning hours of the 
 week drawing us close to the imaginary line which 
 separates secular from sacred time I think of 
 another line, another boundary, which is not imagin 
 ary, but most solemnly real, towards which we are 
 ever drawing near. It is the line which separates not 
 only two countries, but two states of existence from 
 each other, and from beyond which comes back to 
 us no friendly greeting from those who have " gone 
 before." 
 
 You know, Joe, that the traveler, in passing from 
 one country to another, is often met at the boundary 
 
164 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 line by an officer, who strictly searches all his effects, 
 to see that nothing contraband, or forbidden, is 
 carried into the country to which he goes. How 
 closely are guarded the boundaries of European 
 kingdoms and empires ; how the revenue officers 
 guard the long line which separates the United 
 States from the Dominion of Canada, to see that 
 nothing is "smuggled" over; and in the late war, 
 how searching the scrutiny and how constant the 
 care that nothing " contraband " should pass to the 
 hostile lines. The smuggler, the spy, and even the 
 incautious traveler, are often loaded with treasures 
 they would not carry if they knew they must be sur 
 rendered. Sometimes they pass undetected ; some 
 times the law enforces its penalty. 
 
 But that other boundary line to which I have 
 alluded, is guarded with a vigilance that never ceases 
 with a vision that is never dim an intelligence 
 that never errs a faithfulness that never fails. No 
 mistakes are made; no wrongdoer passes unde 
 tected. That sleepless sentinel is the Angel of 
 Death. No illusion cheats his eye. All deceit and 
 subterfuge and hypocrisy stand revealed before him, 
 and the man is simply the man himself. Virtue and 
 honor, and love, and truth, and gentle charities, and 
 Christian deeds, they are passed by the shadowy 
 guard with an approving smile; but the ill-gotten 
 gains of an unhallowed life are indignantly wrenched 
 away, and their possessor held for impartial trial and 
 inexorable doom. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 165 
 
 TOOTH PULLING. 
 
 [The following was an impromptu speech made at a con 
 vention of the State Dental Association of Wisconsin, held in 
 La Crosse in 1870:] 
 
 M-MR. P-PRESIDENT AND G-G-GENTLEMEN : 
 
 I have n-noticed in the p-papers that the " tooth 
 pullers " of the State were to meet in council here 
 at this t-time ; b-but I had no desire for an intro 
 duction to their f-fraternity, and no e-expectation of 
 being p-present at any of your s-sessions, until, 
 t-through your urgent invitation, M-mr. President, 
 and your reassuring terms, by which you quieted 
 my nervous a-apprehension, I was induced to come 
 in and hear the discussion of t-to-night. My 1-love 
 for your profession is not " greater than the love of 
 w-woman," and if you, gentlemen, are of the same 
 cloth as the d-dentist I first had an i-introductien to 
 p-professionally, I should hope you would move a 
 speedy and early adjournment, and depart from the 
 city ! I was more confiding when I met that d-dent 
 ist than I think I am now. He was one of those 
 f-fellows who s-seem to h-have a " roving commis 
 sion " c-came to the place where I resided, and 
 t-took a great deal of interest in me from the start. 
 He was a brother m-mason, too, and secured my 
 young affections. He w-wanted to look at my m- 
 mouth, and, in a moment of w-weakness, I 1-let him. 
 Up to that t-time I thought my m-mouth was all 
 
166 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 right as good a one as I wanted. But he found 
 only d-dire disaster there! One tooth I must let 
 him pull, and at once, or ir-irretrievable ruin would 
 be the consequence. I h-hesitated and you know 
 what becomes of those who hesitate. He seemed a 
 messenger sent just at that time to save my health 
 from impending r-ruin. He was, of course, a supe 
 rior d-dentist, for I had it from his own lips. 
 
 And then came out the strange instruments, more 
 d-diverse in appearance than what Peter saw let 
 down in a sheet and all formed, it seemed, for the 
 especial purpose of saving my health from r-ruin. 
 He used those instruments. I had a consciousness 
 at the time. I th-think he e-explored the nerve, 
 and whatever else was in that tooth. And then he 
 brought out g-gold, and then he punched it into 
 the tooth by the foot and by the yard, until I felt I 
 had a bank of deposit "on which I could draw for 
 almost any "rainy day." 
 
 With bright visions I went to bed that night, but 
 not to sleep. There was something worse than his 
 instruments gn-gnawing at that tooth. I tried differ 
 ent combinations and m-modifications of these, but 
 I c-continued unhappy. In the morning I sought 
 my dental friend, but he was not. He had gone on 
 his mission to bless humanity in other p-parts. It 
 were well thus. 
 
 I have no memorandum detailing exactly what I 
 did that day ; I d-didn t forget that tooth ! In the 
 afternoon I anxiously sought the services of a sur 
 geon who p-pulled teeth, and urgently requested him 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 167 
 
 to remove that tooth with or without the head. I 
 cannot describe his operation. I know h-he took 
 hold of it. I felt him. He p-pulled, and I p-pulled. 
 As a man of truth, I would say it didn t hurt, but 
 the astronomical observations I m-made at the time 
 were varied and extensive. When he got tired of 
 pulling, I put up my hand to let him rest. At the 
 third t-trial I remember there was a decided change 
 in the sensation ; t-there was a deep-seated convul 
 sive effort produced on my system which reminded 
 me of m-many I could not recall, and the tooth came 
 out ! But I have st-stuttered ever since ! 
 
 TO 
 
 Fair maid, although I dare not hope 
 
 That thou of me art dreaming, 
 Although thine eyes may not with love 
 
 On me be fondly beaming ; 
 Though I may have no power to wake 
 
 Thy heart with wild emotion, 
 Nor hear thy low voice breathe to me 
 
 The vows of deep devotion ; 
 
 Yet loyalty to highest art 
 
 Sees beauty, where er shining, 
 And, with a reverent eye and heart, 
 
 Adores without repining ; 
 And so, fair maid, I gaze on thee, 
 
 And deem it no slight blessing 
 That I thy winning charms may see, 
 
 Though ne er dream of possessing- 
 
i68 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 To say that Mr. Greeley had faults, is but to 
 say that he was human. But whatever they were, 
 his^ almost tragic death is the sublimest expiation 
 which a noble soul could make, and has given con 
 vincing proof, if any were needed, of the purity of 
 the motives which governed his life. 
 
 Mr. Greeley is equally great whether viewed as a 
 journalist or as a man. He lifted journalism to a 
 more beneficent position than it had ever occupied 
 before. He made the " Tribune " not only a pur 
 veyor of news and advocate of a party, but a great 
 educator and moral force. " His remarkable power, 
 when traced back to its main source, will be found 
 to have consisted chiefly in that vigorous earnest 
 ness of belief which held him to the strenuous 
 advocacy of measures which he thought conducive 
 to the public welfare, whether they were temporarily 
 popular or not. Journalism may perhaps gain more 
 success as a mercantile speculation by other methods; 
 but it can be respected as a great moral and political 
 force only in the hands of men who have the talents, 
 foresight and moral earnestness which fit them to 
 guide public opinion. It is in this sense that Mr. 
 Greeley was our first journalist, and nobody can 
 successfully dispute his rank, any more than Mr. 
 Bennett s could be contested in the kind that seeks 
 to float on the current instead of directing its course. 
 The one did meet to render our American journals 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 169 
 
 great vehicles of news, the other to make them con 
 trolling organs of opinion." - 
 
 To this work he carried all the intense zeal of a 
 propagandist. He was resistless in his advocacy of 
 principles, although sometimes faulty in his methods 
 of securing their fruits. He reached conscience, de 
 stroyed prejudice, and popularized conviction with 
 equal success. " His rise from the printing-office to 
 the editorial peerage, where he sat crowned and 
 glorious in well-won laurels; his spotless private 
 worth ; his temperance, simplicity, and candor ; his 
 Franklin precepts for young and old; his love for 
 his kindred and his friends ; his war against slavery ; 
 his fight for exceptionless education and equality; 
 his protest against legislative and municipal cor 
 ruption ; and his staunch championship of the rights 
 of labor; these are his titles of nobility, self-se 
 cured, brighter, and more enduring than if conferred 
 by a college of kings." 
 
 Now, the man himself comes into view the real 
 Horace Greeley " with his great active brain and 
 tender heart, his grand hatred of wrong and charity 
 for the wrong-doer, his tireless benevolence, and his 
 unceasing labor for all that elevates humanity." His 
 fame is immortal, for he linked his labor to immortal 
 things. His life was given to crush the wrong, to 
 defend the right, to educate the ignorant, to purify 
 the vicious, to aid the weak, to uplift the lowly, to 
 free the slave. The familiar " H. G." became a sign 
 of almost cabalistic meaning, and it glowed on the 
 pages of the u Tribune " an impulse and an inspira- 
 
170 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 tion to all noble struggling toilers for the right, as the 
 cross shone on the banners of Constantine to cheer 
 and strengthen the defenders of the church. Pass 
 ing now into the August Presence, none will doubt 
 that he has received the approving welcome, " Inas 
 much as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
 these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 
 
 THAT man is truly thoughtful and humane whose 
 sympathies are not confined to the circle of his own 
 kindred, friends or acquaintance, but who, sitting 
 securely in his own happy home, knows that wild 
 hearts are throbbing in despair, sorrowful souls are 
 suffering in silence, and pinched, wasting lives are 
 weary in the struggle with want, in the great world 
 outside his door. Through the full harmonies of 
 his peaceful life there come ever to his ear the dis 
 cords of sin and suffering in the great passion-tossed, 
 tumultuous world. As a retired sea captain, spending 
 the evening of life in some quiet inland home, hears, 
 on stormy nights, the tumult of the sea, and feels a 
 thrill of sympathy for the toiling ship and the brave 
 men struggling to avert disaster and death ; so the 
 man who has felt the bufferings of fortune, or knows 
 by observation how want and woe are the unvary 
 ing attendants of many who throng the paths of 
 life, feels his heart go out in warm and active sym 
 pathy for all the poor and unfortunate among his 
 fellow men. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 171 
 
 THE TIN-PAIL BRIGADE. 
 
 A few mornings ago we were in Milwaukee, and 
 at an early hour walked from the depot to the New- 
 hall House. Early as it was, we had hardly ever 
 before seen those familiar streets so thronged with 
 pedestrians. We met the " tin-pail brigade " on their 
 way to the entrenchments of labor. 
 
 These streets, which a few hours later would throb 
 with the pulse of business activity, were nearly silent 
 now, except where the hurrying laborers thronged 
 the sidewalks, each carrying his ration for the day 
 in the little tin pail. An hour later and these men 
 would be invisible hidden in shops and forges and 
 manufactories, where all the long day they would 
 toil, many of them for barely enough to supply them 
 selves and those dependent upon them with the 
 most absolute necessaries- of life. 
 
 We thought we could read a great deal of the 
 home life of each in the passing glance we gave as 
 they went hurrying by. Here was one whose cloth 
 ing was ragged and neglected, and on his face a hard, 
 dissatisfied expression. It was easy to see there 
 was no hope in his heart that he went to his 
 task as if it were a penalty imposed for crime, and 
 that no pleasant and loving home life cheered him 
 at the evening, and lifted from his heart the clouds 
 that darkened his life. Jt is a terrible thing when 
 the home of the poor lacks love, the only agency 
 
i? 2 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 which can lighten its burdens and make it hopeful 
 and happy. 
 
 Beside .him walks another no better, but much 
 cleanlier clad, and the broad patches of his blue 
 overalls are cleanly put on and not fringed with rag- 
 ged edges. He has a home you can see that 
 and, humble as it may be, there is a woman who is 
 a confidant as well as a wife, and together they plan 
 how to use their little means and increase their scanty 
 store of comforts. They have ambition, and ambi 
 tion to improve one s condition never fails to give 
 force to character, and something of dignity and 
 worth to life. 
 
 Here is a boy, too, not yet out of his teens, but 
 there is something cheery about his countenance 
 which shows that hope has issued him some drafts 
 upon the future, and the thought of some good he 
 is struggling for takes the bitterness from his life of 
 toil. So the world goes each heart lighted by 
 some hope, as each home is lighted by a lamp of- its 
 own. 
 
 When we pass along the great business thorough 
 fares, and see the stately blocks rearing high their 
 fronts adorned with elaborate and artistic workman 
 ship, we do not think of the great strong blocks lying 
 hidden in basement and foundation walls, upon which 
 the weight of the whole superstructure securely rests. 
 Just so does labor underlie the whole system of 
 commercial and business life, and wherever are the 
 homes of opulence and th< palaces of trade, there, 
 close by, are the scanty dwellings tenanted by the 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 173 
 
 numerous families of the "tin-pail brigade." To 
 narrow the distance between these extremes to 
 give capital the encouragement and protection to 
 which it is entitled, and upon which its existence de 
 pends, and at the same time give to labor the best 
 remuneration, the broadest field and the amplest op 
 portunity possible, is the one great problem which 
 the government has to solve to-day. 
 
 LINES 
 
 WRITTEN ON READING LINCOLN S INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 On stormy seas our good ship sails, 
 The breakers gleam along the shore; 
 
 She feels the breath of threat ning gales, 
 And quivers in the tempest s roar. 
 
 Now is our hour of utmost need 
 
 We watch each strained and bending mast, 
 
 And saddened hearts in pity plead, 
 " God save her till the peril s past." 
 
 But he who rules her deck to-day 
 Is stout of heart and firm of hand, 
 
 And, mid the madd ning tempest s play, 
 Stands calm, courageous, fearless, grand. 
 
 Thank God ! the hour has found the man, 
 The night shall broaden into day ; 
 
 Our land shall stand in Freedom s van, 
 And Order reign, Und Law have sway. 
 
174 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 LIGHT. What a wonderful thing is Light, which 
 flows in upon us each morning as fresh as if new 
 created, and steals away at night as slowly and 
 regretfully as if that parting beam was its last! 
 What a cheery philosopher is light! always look 
 ing on the bright side of things, and bringing life 
 and bloom wherever it goes. And what an artist it 
 is! How it revels in the gorgeousness and delights 
 in the delicacy of color ! What a glory it throws on 
 valley and hillside! How it stoops to deck the 
 smallest flower with beauty, and searches out all 
 penetrable nooks and corners and throws the smile 
 of its gladness in upon them! How it lingers on 
 the cheek of youth, tinging it with a bloom no 
 painter can copy, and then the daring artist 
 how it steals up to Beauty s lips, and leaves a crim 
 son line on their very verge ! 
 
 BY the way, reader, did you ever reflect that a man 
 or woman never gets over the childish fear of the 
 dark ? Reason and resolution may do much to con 
 trol it, but fragments of our childish fears and super 
 stitions cling to our stoutest manhood, just as at 
 brightest noon shreds and patches of the night linger 
 in shadow beneath the boughs of the thick-leaved 
 trees. The darkness which hems in the day seems 
 to be linked by mysterious influence to the darkness 
 which circumscribes our lives, and vague fears, 
 shadowy forebodings, ill -denned, unshapen fancies 
 oppress us then, which we laugh at in the skeptical 
 light of day. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 175 
 
 REASON AND RELIGION. 
 
 We have no sympathy with that rigid, purblind 
 righteousness which clothes itself in an impenetrable 
 conservatism which clings, with obstinate tenacity, 
 to old beliefs which believes every innovation on 
 the established order of things to be of the devil, and 
 so shuts its ears against all discussion. We are not 
 to be frightened from the discussion of any import 
 ant subject by the cry that the devil is one of the 
 chief debaters. We remember that our blessed 
 Saviour was accused as a blasphemer and Sabbath- 
 breaker by the religionists of his day. We remem 
 ber that all true progress in science and religion has 
 been pointed out by those who were deemed foolish 
 or mad, and that the great benefactors of mankind 
 have been greeted with calumny and contempt. 
 Speech, discussion is the wind that is to winnow the 
 chaff from the wheat ; and error cannot be confined 
 in darkness, and rendered innocuous, but it must 
 be vanquished in open combat, under the broad 
 daylight of heaven. 
 
 For ourself, we have no craving desire to get a 
 sight into the spiritual world. If there is any spirit 
 who wishes to communicate to us anything important 
 or beneficial, we should be most happy to pay him 
 respectful attention ; but we regard the practice and 
 precepts of Christ as not only a safe, but sufficient 
 law of life, a law which, if obeyed, will bring bless 
 ing here, and added blessing hereafter. 
 
176 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 We are not so ready to deify reason as some are. 
 We have an idea that faith is not to be despised. 
 Reason should be our guide in all matters which lie 
 within its province ; but religion has mysteries which 
 the human mind cannot fathom. Reason and Reli 
 gion never contradict each other; they run on in 
 closest unity and most perfect harmony, until religion 
 passes beyond the ken of reason, and there reason 
 should merge into faith, even as the early light of 
 morning melts into the splendors of broadening day. 
 WE speak of Columbus as the Great Discoverer, 
 forgetful that all around us are discoverers greater 
 than he. He widened the horizon of the world for 
 the people of his day, and for those who have suc 
 ceeded them ; but the process of discovery has been 
 continually going on, until now the clear eye of Sci 
 ence reaches to the centre of the earth, disclosing 
 hidden treasures and mysteries, and successfully 
 searches the far-off heavens, for stars and constella 
 tions unknown before. 
 
 Art has supplemented Nature with manifold won 
 ders. Invention has reinforced the strength and 
 increased the power of man, until the world of Co 
 lumbus time is but an infant beside its manly stature 
 of to-day. Into this wider world every human being 
 comes in perfect ignorance, and Life is but a Voy 
 age of Discovery among its countless wonders. 
 
 Just watch the growing intellect of your child. 
 The first blind gropings of mental activity are fol 
 lowed by that busy baby-life which is satisfied by 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 177 
 
 nursery toys. Soon the increasing stature of the 
 little one is fitted for outdoor recreations, and ac 
 quaintance with the ever increasing circle of com 
 panionship begins. What ardor and enthusiasm in 
 the youthful discoverer now! How the larger 
 thoughts, the new ideas, throng to the receptive 
 mind ! Every night shuts down upon a wider hori 
 zon ; every morning beckons to new experiences and 
 untrodden paths. Daily you can mark the mental 
 growth, and gladly note the joy of new discovery 
 the enlarging life the outreaching mind. 
 
 We are all but children of a larger growth, sur 
 rounded by outlying, undiscovered realms. Through 
 these we grope from day to day. The farther our 
 vision reaches, the more we see beyond, just as the 
 sailor knows that, beyond the limit of the seeming 
 horizon that shuts him in, the waters are rolling in 
 wild waves, or sleeping idly in the sun. Every day 
 increases our knowledge and ripens our experience. 
 Gulfs of unexpected faithlessness or hate yawn be 
 fore us, and new loves and friendships join the pro 
 cession of our lives. 
 
 Every night we are moored for a few hours by the 
 shores of Sleep, and with the break of every morn we 
 sail again upon the trackless sea of Time, piloting 
 our course as best we may towards the Wealth that 
 gleams in the distance the Truth that shines se 
 renely on the far horizon the Beautiful, which 
 allures us with uplifted brow, persuasive smile and 
 beckoning hand. Voyagers and discoverers are 
 
 we all. 
 
 12 
 
178 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 GOD never forgets anything. All his works, from 
 the creation of a world to the tinting of a leaf, are 
 finished perfect. 
 
 Did you ever stand under a full-boughed, heavy- 
 foliaged tree in summer-time, and pluck one of its 
 myriad leaves and examine its delicate tracery, its 
 coloring, the very perfection of its finished beauty, 
 and then think of the countless number of such 
 leaves, of the mighty forests whose luxuriant growth 
 covers so much of the world, and reflect that among 
 them all there is not a leaf unfinished each per 
 fect in its form and color ? 
 
 And did you ever pick a flower, either from cult 
 ured garden or by way-side walk, enjoy its odor and 
 bless its beauty, and stop to think how all the wide 
 earth blossoms with such fragrant beauty, and no 
 flower of them all forgotten the same careful hand 
 filling each glowing heart with perfume and coloring 
 every leaf with care ? 
 
 When we think of this Omniscience, of this never- 
 failing care, we feel something of the attributes of 
 that Power unseen, yet ever present; untouched, 
 yet always felt who gives to the violet its color, to 
 the rose its fragrance, who tints with beauty the 
 tiniest leaf, and yet whose hand controls the planets 
 in their courses, and whose fiat rules the counties? 
 worlds. 
 
 IT is a fine thing to be able to ripen without shriv 
 eling; to reach the calmness of age, and still keep 
 the warm heart and ready sympathy of youth. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 179 
 
 BLIGHT AND BLOOM. 
 
 Never, in the history of the world, has there been 
 a time when the terrible blight of life, home, happi 
 ness and possessions has descended upon vast num 
 bers of people in such sudden and swift destruction 
 as recently in our own Northwest, and never has 
 there been a time when heroic fortitude and sweet 
 and gracious charity have bloomed with a beauty so 
 inspiring and glorious as now. Paradise was lost 
 anew in the awful maelstrom of flame ; Paradise was 
 regained again in a vision of the millions of treasure 
 spontaneously poured into the lap of suffering want, 
 and the tens of thousands of feet all over the civil 
 ized world hastening with swift emulation in the 
 work of mercy and fraternal human love. One 
 picture is as if hell had burst its bounds, and ran in 
 unchecked riot for a time; the next as if pitying 
 heaven had touched every heart with the divine im 
 pulse to relieve the suffering and repair the loss. 
 
 It is impossible for words to portray either the 
 darkness of the disaster or the brightness of the re 
 lief. The most eloquent description can no more 
 picture the concentrated horror of the destruction 
 of Chicago than a child s exclamation of wonder at 
 a single star can portray the dazzling splendors of 
 the countless suns and systems which fill the unex 
 plored and unimagined boundaries of the universe 
 of God. Looking back now at those blackened 
 wastes and colossal ruins, they seem even more 
 
180 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 mournful and impressive than when we wandered 
 through streets filled with the flying ashes of homes, 
 or clambered over the broken fragments of palaces 
 of trade, through which malignant flames still darted 
 their destroying tongues and hissed with scorching 
 breath. Here the dread vision of the Apocalypse 
 was realized the very rocks had melted with fer 
 vent heat, and the treasures of art, the accumulations 
 of industry, the gains of commerce, were all rolled 
 together like a scroll, and heaped in one irremedia 
 ble ruin. There has been no scene of similar deso 
 lation since the ark rested on Ararat, and the dove 
 winged her weary way over a submerged world. 
 
 But if here was loss in gigantic form, and 3, horror 
 concentrated as never known before, in our own 
 State was a desolation spreading over a broader area 
 and marked by scenes more sickening and suffering 
 more intense. Such a wave of hell as broke upon 
 doomed Peshtigo, and spread in fiery ruin over the 
 adjacent country, has not been known since God s 
 vengeance blotted Sodom and Gomorrah from 
 existence. Who can conceive the surprise, the 
 struggle, the agony, the despair, the awfulness of the 
 situation and the powerlessness of the victims ? Men 
 in their strength, women in their beauty, new-born 
 babes in their sv/addling clothes, lovers in each 
 other s arms, corpses in their shrouds, and the cof 
 fined dead ready for the tomb, became flame and 
 ashes in the twinkling of an eye, while others baf 
 fling the destroyer for a time, were at last caught in 
 his terrible grasp, and strangled in his embrace or 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 181 
 
 left writhing in an agony to which death would be 
 welcome relief. 
 
 From such a picture it is sweet relief to turn to 
 that sun-burst of sympathy which has illumined the 
 world, and gilded our poor humanity with a glory 
 unrecognized and unknown before. Then we found 
 to what noble uses the telegraph and railroad might 
 be put. Everywhere the lightning spoke the story 
 of suffering and ruin, and brought back the response 
 of sympathy and aid, and in every city and along 
 every line of railway the great engines seemed to 
 nerve themselves for a race to the aid of the house 
 less and hungry fugitives from flame. All ordinary 
 feelings and interests were submerged in the one 
 intense desire to render aid to those so suddenly 
 stricken with overwhelming loss. No thought of 
 church, creed or condition divided the force of feel 
 ing which filled every heart and found expression on 
 every tongue. It was a new revelation of " good 
 will to men" a sublime translation of the gospel 
 of Him who taught that it was more blessed to give 
 than to receive, and who said that " Inasmuch as 
 you have done it unto these, my brethren, you have 
 done it unto me." 
 
 The response everywhere was so prompt, the re 
 lief so abundant, and the sympathy so sincere, that 
 it seems useless to point out single instances, but 
 one was so large that it well deserves mention. 
 
 At the first news of the calamity, the Erie Rail 
 road made up a New York train, and sent its many 
 agents and employe s through the city gathering sup- 
 
1 82 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 plies. A few hours accomplished the work, and 
 while this was doing, President Gould performed a 
 work unequaled in the history of railroad manage 
 ment. All along the line his orders flew that the 
 relief train had the right of way. And so it started, 
 with relays of engines provided, and orders to make 
 not less than forty miles an hour. Such a trip was 
 never known before. The great freight trains sought 
 the safety of side-tracks. The lightning expresses, 
 with their mails and treasure, with passengers hurry 
 ing to meet business appointments, or intent on rec 
 reation all stood still waiting for the passage of 
 this unexpected train. Trade checked its impatience, 
 pleasure forgot its disappointment, while mercy sped 
 on, supplied with more than royal munificence and 
 hastening with unimagined speed. It was a glorious 
 thing to do. 
 
 So the one picture relieves the other. While the 
 world is poorer to-day by millions of treasure and 
 hundreds of lives, it is richer in the discovery of its 
 own heroic qualities and saintly charities, and the 
 conviction must come home with redoubled force to 
 us all that, however poor and barren our individual 
 lives may be, Humanity is heroic, affluent, large and 
 warm. 
 
 DRESS is to a woman what binding is to a book 
 it may greatly improve the appearance, but cannot 
 give increased value to the worth or worthlessness 
 of that which it adorns. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 183 
 
 RADICALISM. 
 
 The mass of timid and doubtful men, the men who 
 were sure the Rebellion never could be subdued, the 
 men who look on progress as necessary disaster, and 
 to whom a hoary error is more sacred than a living 
 truth, look on Radicalism as though it meant " chaos 
 come again," and Radicals as though they were sac 
 rilegious vandals wantonly plundering the Temple 
 of Liberty. To their dim vision a Radical is a de 
 stroyer whereas he is only the true renewer and 
 builder. 
 
 You go through a street in a great city, and you 
 see the workmen tearing down a building which has 
 stood long and answered a useful purpose. What 
 waste ! What criminal destruction of property ! you 
 say. Not so. The old building is removed, the 
 rubbish is cleared away, and a new, spacious and 
 beautiful edifice is raised in its place. 
 
 Now, constitutions and laws are the house a nation 
 lives in, the clothes it wears, and if there is growth 
 in the people there must be change in the laws. 
 Their spirit may not change, but their form must 
 just as the boy may wear the same kind of cloth 
 after he becomes a man, but it must be cut by a 
 larger pattern. 
 
 The Radical is not the vandal who sacks and de 
 stroys with no object but ruin; he is the wise builder 
 who removes the old, which has been outgrown, and 
 replaces in its stead the new, which is adapted to 
 
184 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 present need. In the fever and flush of a political 
 revolution, like that of the few years past, much that 
 is crude and unwise may be suggested by too enthu 
 siastic leaders, but the people are pretty sure to act 
 with a wise moderation, in the spirit of true Radi 
 calism. 
 
 Radicalism is the synonym of all that is wise, 
 heroic and humane in the American politics of 
 to-day. 
 
 LOOKS UPWARD TO GOD. 
 
 [I turn then to the American people, and to that God who has never 
 forsaken them. Extract from Lincoln s speech at Columbus, Ohio. ] 
 
 There s a storm in the land threat ning wide desolation, 
 There s a must ring of men, and a firing of blood ; 
 
 But trust fills our hearts, for the hope of the nation, 
 The chief of our choosing, looks upward to God. 
 
 In the virtue of man and the blessings of heaven, 
 His faith rests unshaken, his heart knows no fear , 
 
 For that God who the boon of our freedom has given, 
 Will shine through our darkness, and smile on us here. 
 
 Then treason may mock cursed sons of the nation 
 May stab at the hand that has given them food ; 
 
 But the ark of our freedom stands firm and unshaken, 
 For the chief of our choosing looks upward to God. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 185 
 
 INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE 
 UPON LIFE. 
 
 The fable of the " living tree, Igdrasil, with the me 
 lodious, prophetic wavings of its world-wide boughs, 
 deep-rooted as Hela," has died out ; but in its place 
 we have the accomplished fact of the Printing Press, 
 with wider influence than fable ever foreshadowed, 
 with power more potent than Pagan philosophy ever 
 dreamed of. 
 
 Much as is accorded to the press, men do not yet 
 fully appreciate the controlling influence which Lit 
 erature has upon Life. 
 
 Burke appreciated it when he said there were 
 three estates in Parliament, but in the reporters 
 gallery there sat a fourth estate more important far 
 than they all. 
 
 Mr. Southey understood it. " Literature will take 
 care of itself," said Mr. Pitt, when applied to for 
 some help for Burns. "Yes," added Mr. Southey, 
 " it will take care of itself, and of you, too, if you do 
 not look to it." 
 
 Carlyle saw its growing prospective power, when, 
 thirty years ago, he proclaimed in his brave, reso 
 nant speech, " I say of all priesthoods, aristocracies, 
 governing classes at present extant in the world, 
 there is no class comparable for importance to that 
 priesthood of the writers of books." 
 
 The art of writing and of printing, which is a 
 sequence to it, is really the most wonderful thing 
 
i86 
 
 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 m the world. Books are the soul of actions, the 
 nly audible, articulate voice of the accomplished 
 facts of the past. The men of antiquity are dead 
 their fleets and armies have disappeared, their cities 
 are rums, their temples are dust-yet all these exist 
 in magic preservation in the books they have be 
 queathed to us, and their names and their deeds are 
 as familiar to us as the events of yesterday. And 
 these papers and books- the mass of printed matter 
 which we call Literature - are really the teacher, 
 guide and law-giver of the world to-day. 
 
 You may judge a man more truly by the books 
 and papers which he reads than by the company 
 which he keeps for his associates are often in a 
 manner forced upon him, but his reading is the re 
 sult of choice and the man who chooses a certain 
 class of books and papers unconsciously becomes 
 more colored with their views, more rooted in their 
 opinions, the mind becoming 
 
 " Subdued to what it works in, 
 Like the dyer s hand." 
 
 We have not space to specify the various proofs 
 of the controlling influence of Literature. We can 
 only state undeniable general truths. All the life 
 and feeling of the young girl, fascinated by some 
 glowing love romance, is colored and shaped by the 
 page she reads. If it is false and weak and foolish, 
 she will be false and weak and foolish too ; but if it 
 is true and tender and inspiring, then something of 
 its truth and tenderness and inspiration will grow 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 187 
 
 into her soul and become part of her very self. The 
 boy who reads of deeds of manliness, of bravery ^ 
 and noble daring, feels the spirit of emulation grow 
 within him, and the seed is planted which will bring 
 forth fruit of heroic endeavor and exalted life. 
 
 TRUE FRIENDS. 
 
 MY DEAR JOE : 
 
 Did you ever think how transitory most of the 
 friendships of life are how very slight the tie that 
 binds us even to those whose company we enjoy, 
 and whose pleasure we would promote ? How easily 
 change of place or circumstance crowds out the old 
 occupants of the heart and welcomes new ones in ! 
 We are surrounded with pleasant people, their 
 society fills a large place in our lives, their respect 
 and esteem is highly valued, we are glad to receive 
 and render favors; but let us be removed from 
 them but a short distance, just so that the orbits of 
 our daily life do not intersect each other, and some 
 how they fade imperceptibly but surely away, just 
 as the mist fades or the closing day darkens. 
 
 And the dead they whose life, while living, 
 seemed a necessity to our own, and whose death was 
 like an eclipse of all our joyous being how easily 
 we become accustomed to their absence, and daily 
 duties and new-found loves bridge over the awful 
 chasm and fill the gloomy chaos which their depart 
 ure made. 
 
i88 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 But some friendships live; some loves take such 
 ^ deep hold upon the heart that 
 
 Time but the impression stronger makes, 
 As streams their channels deeper wear." 
 
 Did you ever go into some rich old picture gallery, 
 Joe, where the walls were hung with glowing master 
 pieces of nature and life grandeur to awe the soul, 
 and beauty to delight the eye, and where the ceilings 
 were illuminated by the hand of genius and radiant 
 with the very smile and triumph of art? Those pict 
 ures come and go. Where you find a favorite to-day 
 a new-comer will hang to-morrow; but the frescoed 
 miracles of art stay steadfast in their place. No 
 change disturbs them, but there they remain, grow 
 ing ripe and mellow with age. 
 
 Just so it is with the heart. Many pleasant occu 
 pants come and go, but there are those who stay, like 
 the frescoes on the walls and are an integral portion 
 of the heart itself. He who has such friends whose 
 memory is a picture gallery, where in frescoed beauty 
 smile the faces of unfading love is rich indeed, 
 rich in goods that cannot be purchased in the mar 
 ket, and whose value does not fluctuate with the 
 price of gold. That you and I, Joe, may have such 
 friends, and deserve them, is the wish of LUTE. 
 
 A DOCTOR is continually standing upon the con 
 fines of existence welcoming the new-comer, bid 
 ding farewell to the goer-away. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 189 
 
 ART. 
 
 There is a great deal of humbug about what is 
 called Art. It is regarded as " nice," and for its sake 
 the fashionable lady endures an opera which she 
 cannot comprehend, and the school miss works im 
 possible animals in stunning colors. Men will crowd 
 a theatre to see the representation of Medea a 
 roused, passionate woman and applaud the mimic 
 representation with delight, when very likely many 
 of them, if at home, could witness the reality itself 
 without the expense of buying a ticket. Look at 
 pictures. A short time ago we were all enthusiastic 
 over Prang s chromos of ducks and chickens. How 
 foolish to purchase the picture, when we could buy 
 the live chicken for less money, which would be at 
 least fully as "natural" as the picture, and, after 
 having admired its beauty, we could broil its body 
 and gratify the taste with its delicate flavor, thus 
 making it serve a useful as well as aesthetic purpose ! 
 like the South Sea Islander, who patiently listens 
 while the missionary strives to enlighten his benighted 
 mind, and then coolly carves and cooks the preacher 
 and appeases his hunger with the savory joints. Just 
 now Correggio s " Magdalen " is a great favorite. 
 The picture is rich, voluptuous, fascinating. But 
 we suppose there are very many fully as beautiful 
 and finely formed young women alive to-day yet 
 their friends would hardly advise them to adopt the 
 scanty costume and abandon of manner which is ad- 
 
190 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 mired in Magdalen, who probably was not a very 
 nice, fastidious girl. Look at landscape paintings. 
 People will go into ecstacies over an impossible land 
 scape hanging on a parlor wall, who are blind to the 
 wondrous exhibitions of nature around them, and 
 never lift their sleepy eyes to that wondrous picture 
 gallery, the sky, which God s mighty hand fills day 
 and night with forms and colors of ever-changing 
 glory and gloom. Art is valuable only as an incen 
 tive to observe, and a help to appreciate nature. It 
 should be a means, not an end the priestess in the 
 temple service, not the goddess to whom adoration 
 is given. 
 
 TO DESDEMONA. 
 
 Thou bright creation of the poet s mind! 
 
 In thee did his great soul express 
 
 Its fairest type of female loveliness. 
 
 In thee all feelings pure, refined, 
 
 Do dwell. Each inmost thought of thine 
 
 Is holy as a saint s rapt dream of heaven, 
 
 While every outward charm to thee is given. 
 
 As timid buds blush coyly into bloom, 
 
 So do thy modest virtues show their worth ; 
 
 And as the full flower sheds a rich perfume, 
 
 So doth thy presence beautify the earth. 
 
 Oh, winning Teacher ! Thou didst well fulfill 
 
 Life s holy mission, and though dark thy fate, 
 
 Yet from thy pure life will we still 
 
 Learn to love virtue for its own dear sake. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 191 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF PRINCIPLE. 
 
 [Written upon the occasion of the dissolution of the Ameri 
 can Anti-Slavery Society.] 
 
 The world has seldom witnessed a more imposing 
 sight than the grand military review at Washington 
 at the close of the late war. The victorious veterans 
 of the army of the Republic, bronzed by sun and 
 battered by fight, swept in triumphal procession past 
 the pleased eyes of chiefs and civilians, and brave 
 men paid them heartfelt homage, and lovely women 
 gilded the glory of their achievements with the 
 brightness of beauty s smiles. The sight was grand 
 and inspiring, and when that mighty army so sud 
 denly melted away the resistless soldiers becoming 
 quiet, peaceful citizens once more the world looked 
 on in wonder, and marveled at the flexibility of our 
 national life, and at the almost miraculous complete 
 ness of the change. 
 
 But there was another "muster out," a few days 
 since, no less full of significance. It lacked the 
 pomp and circumstance of the Washington review 
 its soldiers wore no uniform, but they were vete 
 rans none the less. It was the dissolution of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society. That society has 
 been engaged in a forty years war, and there were 
 veterans at the final muster out who had been among 
 the earliest enlistments. 
 
 In its infancy, the members of that society en- 
 
192 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 dured contumely and hate, they were the objects of 
 reproach and scorn, they suffered personal indignity 
 and were exposed to personal danger. Unseduced 
 by the blandishments of social position, and unal- 
 lured by the temptations of political power, they 
 followed where duty led, as grandly as Israel fol 
 lowed the cloudy pillar and the flaming guide far 
 they knew that, as of old, God was in the van, and 
 his people would not suffer loss. 
 
 By-and-by conviction came to the multitude, truth 
 was triumphant, and tardy honor kissed the veterans 
 brows. They lay off their armor now, for the victory 
 is complete, the work is done. 
 
 THE BANNER. 
 
 [Written on the occasion of the presentation of a prize banner by the 
 State to Pierce county, Wis.. for the best display of farm products at the 
 State fair-1 
 
 Thou wast not won on bloody field, 
 
 Where murderous hosts in conflict meet ; 
 
 But where the long broad furrows yield 
 Their yellow wealth of ripened wheat. 
 
 Now Honor sits on Labor s brow, 
 
 The golden days return again ; 
 And Science fair shall guide the plow 
 
 Which turns the brown tilth of the plain. 
 
 Peace hath her victories, and the land 
 
 Which honors thus her sons of toil 
 Shall never want a willing hand 
 
 To guard or till her fruitful soil. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 193 
 
 THE WANING YEAR. 
 
 " The year growing ancient, 
 Not yet on Summer s death, nor on the birth 
 Of trembling Winter." 
 
 Shaks. Winter s Tale. 
 
 Autumn is the season of fruition, recompense, re 
 ward. Spring is the time of promise ; Summer, of 
 busy fulfillment ; Autumn, of ripened, perfected full 
 ness and possession. In Autumn nature pays the 
 bills which have been drawn upon her through the 
 year, and decks herself with lavish expenditure and 
 more than royal pomp and beauty. 
 
 June is full of fragrance and subtle beauty, but 
 October is ripe, sensuous, glowing, imperial. On 
 these warm, hazy days, when the sunlight kisses but 
 does not scorch, when the very streams seem to 
 meditate as they murmer along, when wood-crowned 
 bluff and hillside glow with every imaginable color, 
 and the soft haze, like the veil of a bride, heightens 
 the beauty which it half conceals, on such days 
 the lost Eden seems restored again, the old poetic 
 traditions of mythology revive, and wood and field 
 and spring and glen are sanctified by the presence 
 of attendant deities who whisper their secrets into 
 willing ears. It is a "liberal education" to be 
 abroad at such a time, providing only one has the 
 eye to see the unexcelled and ever-shifting panorama 
 of beauty, and the heart to treasure up its wonderful 
 revelations. 
 
 13 
 
194 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 One fact cannot fail to interest the observer, and 
 that is the uniformity of the " fall fashions " for bird 
 or beast or field or tree. The prairie chicken, which 
 peers at you from the tall grass, is the same color as 
 it; the partridge, which scurries away through the 
 thick underbrush, is scarcely distinguishable from 
 the foliage which covers its flight ; and even the chip 
 munk, which chippers at the base of the great bluff, 
 wears in his own striped coat the colors of the oak, 
 the maple and the sumach which glow so gorgeously 
 above him. 
 
 One views, too, with an admiration which deepens 
 into awe, the perfection everywhere manifest. No 
 mistakes or incompleteness here. That great Power 
 for whom innumerable temples are built, to whom 
 perpetual prayer and praise ascends, and who holds 
 uncounted worlds in his keeping, does not neglect 
 the fashioning of the most slender stem, or the tint 
 ing of the tiniest leaf. 
 
 A SHORT time ago we were one of a small party 
 which visited a beautiful cemetery lying in the lap of 
 majestic mounds, and looking out upon a fair city 
 and a broad reach of prairie and river. Nature had 
 made this a lovely spot, and art had added to its 
 attractions. The sunlight lay warm upon shapely 
 evergreens and carefully tended flowers, and the 
 spot looked indeed like a place of rest, where, " after 
 life s fitful fever," one might sleep sweetly and well. 
 
 Winding around and up the stately bluffs were 
 carriage ways of easy grade, and, terrace above ter- 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 195 
 
 race, bank above bank, rose the pillared massive 
 monuments, or gleamed the humbler marble slabs. 
 But more affecting than the most costly memorial 
 which wealth had placed over the last resting place 
 of its loved, were the frequent little mounds, newly 
 made, which told where a mother had laid her child 
 down in the embrace of that kindly Earth which is 
 mother of us all. And then we thought that these 
 sun-warmed, flower-fringed banks of earth were 
 banks indeed, banks where we deposit our choicest 
 treasures, and in whose silent vaults they shall safely 
 lie until the resurrection morn. And the mothers 
 who silently bore their darlings here we could not 
 think of them as impoverished and bereft, but rather 
 as the royal possessors of blessed memories and of 
 treasures deposited, safe from all possible disaster or 
 loss, which should be returned to them in heaven. 
 The balance of the bank-book is not so sure an 
 index of garnered wealth as are the little mounds 
 which break the graveyard sod into billows of green. 
 O, better the mound and the marble than the living 
 death which blights but does not kill. Better the 
 sexton and the bell, than the slow decay of honor, 
 the loss of love, the sunset of hope, and the darken 
 ing eclipse of life. The cemetery is not a synonym 
 for sadness, nor the grave so dreadful as a stranded, 
 rotting soul. Not all that marble covers was laid 
 down in faith and love and tears, but we know the 
 little mounds cover only what was precious, pure 
 and fair. 
 
196 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 THE BLACK CROOK. Its plot is moral. Fiends 
 and fairies struggle for the possession of a noble 
 human soul, and the fiends get badly euchred. This 
 is excellent, and gives a man s good resolutions a 
 healthy jog. 
 
 Its pictures, sometimes called scenery, are very 
 gorgeous and glowing, and have an excellent moral. 
 Hell is a fearful ugly place, and the abodes of the 
 fairies, or spirits of good, shine with splendor, like a 
 row of tin pans in the summer sun. The wicked 
 old Black Crook is toasted like a muffin on Zamiel s 
 trident, and the virtuous Rpdolph has a good time 
 of it with Stalacta and the rest of the girls. In 
 brief, the pictures forcibly portray the sinfulness of 
 sin, and the blessedness of being good. 
 
 Its ballet has been supposed to be somewhat de 
 moralizing. It is not. It is as proper as a girl s 
 recess at a district school in the summer time. The 
 dresses of the dam sels are uselessly long, for the 
 lower limbs shown on the stage are no more seduc 
 tive than the legs of Rus. Hunger s pianos, or the 
 legs turned out by a lathe machine. This can be 
 relied on. 
 
 The Black Crook may be slightly seductive as 
 performed in New York, but I am proud to call 
 attention to the superior morality of the West, and 
 the tribute which Mammon pays to the virtues of 
 St. Paul, in that in deference to the pure and healthy 
 tastes of her people, this play, as presented to them, 
 is shorn of all appearance of evil, and is exalted 
 into a great moral and almost evangelical agency. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 197 
 
 CHRISTMAS AND CHRISTMAS 
 GIVING. 
 
 What ! Write about Christmas; that is an old sub 
 ject to say anything fresh or interesting about. Yes, 
 it is an old subject not old as the world, but only 
 old as He whose divine nature and transcendent 
 work makes him hailed as the Saviour of the world. 
 There are things older than Christmas which yet 
 have the grace of youth and the freshness of a first 
 experience in them. The morning, which breaks in 
 light and wakes a world with impalpable touch, is 
 older than Christmas, yet its beauty is fresh as when 
 its beams first lit the abysses of chaos, and struggled 
 through the misty shrouds of ancient night. The 
 summer showers, which ride on sunbeams to the 
 happy earth and steal in vapor back to the parent 
 skies, are now as fresh as when flower or grass first 
 brightened at their touch. That wondrous and 
 inimitable artist, Frost, who covers in a few hours 
 whole landscapes with a tracery more delicate, a 
 finish more perfect than tiny brush of painter dare 
 to emulate, he is older than the hills he crowns with 
 snows, or the brooks whose babbling voice he stills. 
 No, Christmas really is not so very old, after all. 
 It is an after- thought of time one of the improve 
 ments of these later progressive days. Love, now and 
 forever to be symbolized by a child, was old before 
 the Star of Bethlehem blessed the earth with its re 
 joicing rays. The mother looked inio the sweet face 
 
198 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 of her babe, the youth walked with beating heart 
 beside the blushing maid, filial love tended rever 
 ently upon decrepit age long before Mary sang her 
 low lullaby to the infant Jesus, or the wise men fol 
 lowed the star which led to where he lay. Moses, 
 rocked by the reedy Nile, and watched by faithful 
 love ; Ruth, following the reapers with modest mien 
 and downcast eyes ; Esther, clad with the purple of 
 power, yet linked with unabating love to the lowly 
 people of her race shall we forget or cease to listen 
 with rapt admiration to the simple annals of their 
 lives ? and yet they all antedate Christmas by long 
 centuries of years. 
 
 No, the story of Christmas is new and ever will 
 be, for it is in the very essence of all things noble 
 and loving and pure that they laugh at time and 
 wear the coronal of youth forever. And what so 
 noble as the life whose beginning Christmas com 
 memorates? what so loving as that spirit which 
 has mellowed the asperities of life, and made one 
 birthday a universal festival ? what so pure as the 
 doctrines of the Great Teacher who gathered into one 
 grand sheaf all the worthy maxims of morality and 
 rules of religion which had been taught by saint or 
 sage before him, and glorified them with a new splen 
 dor, and infused into them a breadth, a power, hith 
 erto unapproachable and unknown ? 
 
 It is fitting that Christmas should be a day of 
 gifts a holiday indeed. It should be the world s 
 vacation from care, its festival of hope and joy. We 
 are taught that divine beneficence found its highest 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 199 
 
 expression in the gift to the world of Him whom 
 this day commemorates; so let the Christmas trees 
 blossom with beauty, let the Christmas carols break 
 into melody, and let happy childhood run riot in a 
 joy whose meaning and explanation shall come to 
 them in riper years. 
 
 LOAFERISM IS DEATH. 
 
 " What is a man, 
 
 If his chief good and market of his time 
 Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more." 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Start not, reader, it is true. Loaferism is death 
 death of the most dismal and dangerous kind. 
 There are more kinds of death than one. There is 
 the death of the body, when sad farewells are spoken, 
 when eyelids droop over sightless eyes, and pale lips 
 close over voiceless mouths, when in silence and mid 
 sorrow the stern agony is endured, and the light and 
 warmth of life is exchanged for " the shroud, the 
 pall, the breathless darkness, and the narrow house." 
 This death alone is inevitable. But as sunlight often 
 gilds the mountain s top, around whose lower sides 
 dark clouds are drifting, so is there a land of light 
 and blessedness lying somewhere in the " Great Un 
 known." But there is a death or torpor of the mind, 
 a death of kindly affection, a death of generous trust 
 and ennobling faith, a death of fixed purpose and 
 
200 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 noble endeavor which lead to a brightness beyond. 
 Here is a, business man, alive to the musical chimes 
 of silver and gold, keen to detect the means of pecu 
 niary gain. In his eager, untiring labor for wealth, 
 he has forgotten the wealth of affection, the world of 
 intellectual enjoyment which lies around him. The 
 heart is dead, but a portion of his intellect is sharp 
 ened into unnatural life. Here is the ignorant day- 
 laborer. He knows nothing of the wealth of science, 
 the lore of history, or the charms of poetry. His 
 mind is all uncultured and inert. But he is not 
 wholly dead. His heart is alive. He loves his wife 
 and joys in the sweet presence of his children, and 
 labors cheerfully for their support. Here is another 
 whose course in life is fitful and changing as April 
 skies. He has no fixed purpose. He goes on like a 
 sail-vessel driven here and there by every wind, and 
 often becalmed instead of moving steadily onward 
 like a steamer breasting every opposing wave, and 
 dashing aside obstacles as the steamer at every pulse- 
 beat of its fiery heart dashes aside the spray. Some 
 part of his manhood is dead. He has no faith in the 
 omnipotence of work, no just conception of his dig- 
 nity as man, no worthy goal in view, and so his course 
 is vacillating and uncertain. 
 
 The loafer has suffered the triple death of heart, 
 mind and purpose. He cannot love any one worthily, 
 for love makes us self-distrustful, it awakens desire 
 for nobler life, it inspires to work. He cannot even 
 be a good friend, for his nature is too sluggish to 
 perceive and meet the delicate requirements of 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 2OI 
 
 friendship. His mind is dead, except that baser 
 part which gives expression to passion and appetite. 
 The dignity of man, the divinity of knowledge, the 
 desirableness of self-culture, the unmeasured worth 
 of the soul all these inspiring thoughts are lost to 
 him. O loafer! thou art a miserable being. Thy 
 life is aimless as the beast s. Thou wilt gaze on life 
 with an eye as dull as that of the ox who looks on, a 
 beautiful landscape. 
 
 Young man, would you be a loafer ? It is a small 
 task. " Facilis descensus Averni est" "The way to 
 hell (or loaferism, about the same thing,) is easy." 
 You have only to hate to work, to neglect to culti 
 vate your mind, to acquire a passion for playing all 
 kinds of games and telling all kinds of stories, to 
 allow yourself to hang around public places, and the 
 thing is done. You are defunct, dead and worthless, 
 and you bear about your own epitaph, written unmis 
 takably plain Loafer ! 
 
 A FEW days ago, just as the sun was rising, in the 
 stillness of the beautiful morning we heard the rura- 
 ble and roar of a great train leaving the depot. 
 Turning our eyes that way, we found the train itself 
 concealed from view, but its progress was marked by 
 the great bursts of smoke which constantly rose from 
 the engine, marking the changing position and pro 
 gress of the train. Never before have we seen such 
 a trailing banner, full a mile in length, as that engine 
 bore through the clear thin air of that wintry morn. 
 Rolling out in great black billows, it would widen 
 
202 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 and whiten, unroll and spread, and pile up in fan 
 tastic shapes, only to unroll again and take on other 
 shapes more fantastic still, still rising higher and 
 growing more impalpable and clear, until at last it 
 melted imperceptibly away, swallowed up by the 
 surrounding air. 
 
 Looking at this wonderful, ever-shifting and ever- 
 whitening panorama, we thought how like it was to 
 the memory which a good man leaves behind him. 
 Seen in the present, his life, at best, is full of imper 
 fections, veined with black lines of selfishness, am 
 bition or greed but, as the years pass away, these 
 fade out in the mellow light of time ; we think and 
 speak of them no more, and so at last his memory 
 comes to be purified of all stain, and is ever after 
 an inspiration for goodness and truth to all who 
 think upon it ; and the man himself, according to 
 his position and influence, is enshrined in the love 
 of friends and relatives, or taken into the world s 
 wide heart, is canonized as a saint and made a po 
 tent power forevermore. Happy they, be they hum 
 ble or famous, who leave such memories behind ! 
 
 FANCY is merely Fact coquetting a little with 
 Falsehood. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 203 
 
 TRAIN AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 [From an editorial reviewing a lecture by George Francis 
 Train, so far as it alluded to the Christian religion.] 
 
 The Christian religion, as the abiding faith and 
 the last enduring hope of all civilized mankind, is in 
 no danger from Mr. Train. What the deep and rev 
 erent skepticism of Spinoza, the monumental learn 
 ing of Hobbes, the wit of Voltaire, the bitterness 
 and malignity of Paine and the logic of Taylor have 
 vainly assailed, will receive no detriment from the 
 assaults of a man whose highest claims to public 
 attention are found in the fact that his impudence 
 and egotism render his ignorance amusing. 
 
 We do not mean to deny to Mr. Train the posses 
 sion of an incisive wit, a vivacious and brilliant 
 intelligence, and what has been aptly called "vast 
 and varied misinformation," but his attempts to ex 
 plain the origin of Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster and 
 Mahomet disclosed such utter ignorance of the sub 
 ject as to create amazement even in the minds of 
 his warmest admirers. 
 
 As already intimated, there was nothing original 
 in Mr. Train s onslaught upon Christianity. It was 
 a sickly revival of old stock quotations and Joe Mil- 
 lerisms on the subject, which civilization has lived 
 down which the intelligence of the age, in har 
 mony with its spiritual needs and resentments, has 
 long since banished among the obscenities. 
 
204 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 But while there is no danger to the body of Chris 
 tian theology and the Christian institutions of the 
 land, from such puny efforts as these, there is danger 
 that thoughtless persons, like some who applauded 
 the other evening, beguiled into hero-worship by the 
 wit and " smartness " of the speaker, may have their 
 faith unsettled. For a man who has been reared in 
 the shadow of the church, who has found in its 
 teachings alone the answer to his questionings of 
 the hereafter for such a man to be brought to ask 
 that awful question, " Art thou he that should come, 
 or look we for another?" and to go away doubting 
 and unsatisfied, is the mournfullest thing that can 
 befall a soul upon earth. 
 
 A religion a belief in the fixed relations of all 
 men to a universal divine government, and in a fu 
 ture state where imperishable souls will fulfill a des 
 tiny determined by their conduct in this is as 
 much a natural constituent of the human mind as 
 will, memory or understanding, and the want of such 
 belief as monstrous and abnormal as a condition of 
 idiocy. Nothing proves this more clearly than the 
 avidity with which men in all ages have embraced 
 the impostures brought to them in the name of re 
 ligion. Many of these impostures, like Mahometan- 
 ism, have sustained polities and systems of govern 
 ment and forms of partial civilization for centuries. 
 But in every case where they have not been dis 
 carded by the intelligence of the peoples holding 
 them they have been discredited by the manifest 
 superiority of other systems rising above them. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 205 
 
 Eighteen centuries ago many such systems had per 
 ished, and their traditions were scattered through the 
 silly fables of barbarism. The Greeks, and the Ro 
 mans after them, had reasoned Jupiter out of exist 
 ence, and while some of their wise men were at 
 tempting to make to themselves a new God out of 
 philosophy, the masses were nocking in obedience 
 to the uncontrollable instinct, around the impure 
 altars of Phoenician and Egyptian divinities. Vice 
 and ignorance on the one hand, and mere intellectual 
 license on the other, rooted out the pristine virtues 
 and the old faith of the people, and were preparing 
 the way for the downfall of the ancient civilization. 
 It was the age when skepticism stood ready to join 
 hands with depravity. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the Christian relil 
 gion which came in this Providential period, and in 
 spite of fire and sword and persecution, in spite of 
 the poverty, obscurity and weakness of its origina 
 tors and adherents, fastened itself upon the times, 
 intercepted the calamity, and preserved the world 
 from barbarism. And from that period down to the 
 present, it has been the founder of laws, the nurse of 
 the arts, the forerunner and pioneer of the only form 
 of civilization which promises the redemption of all 
 men to higher and nobler life. And not only has it 
 proved itself the great organizer of society and gov 
 ernment, but in its influence upon individuals, in 
 mitigating and soothing the asperities of existence, 
 and lifting spiritual aspirations into definite assur 
 ance, it has shown itself the indispensable support 
 
206 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 of that humanity which is more important than gov 
 ernment *and more enduring than society. Every 
 good thing which is known to modern man, every 
 social ordinance and public institution to whose care 1 , 
 as to an ark of safety, he commits his children, his 
 country and his hopes, is involved, for good or evil, 
 with the fate of the Christian system; and every 
 thrust and stab at the integrity of that system is a 
 blow at civil order and social safety. 
 
 What shall we have in its place when it is stricken 
 down ? Where is the philosophy, the code of merely 
 human ethics without divine sanction, with power to 
 dominate and unify the intellect of all men in its 
 support, and restrain their lusts within those limits 
 where alone civilization is possible? Is it in the 
 twaddle of George Francis Train? the airy refine 
 ments of Emerson? the mysticism of Hegel and- 
 Fichte ? But every man who has succeeded in stifling 
 the cry of his heart for supernatural aid may as 
 sume his equality with the greatest of these, and 
 reject the authority of each in his turn, and estab 
 lish a code of ethics for himself. The intellectual 
 perversities and delusions which must inevitably 
 follow from such confusion of ideas and systems 
 would very quickly demonstrate their own absurdity 
 and perish, but in their fall might drag down to de 
 struction the whole fabric of civil society. 
 
 Are those who applauded Mr. Train s speech the 
 other evening prepared for the change ? We think 
 not. Let them be satisfied (as who is not ?) of the 
 deficiencies and imperfections of the church, and 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 207 
 
 the misdeeds of many professing Christians yet 
 they will see, upon examination, that faulty as it is, 
 its faults are in its administration and not in its 
 origin or principles ; that, faulty as it is, there is on 
 earth for the soul of man no other refuge and no 
 other hope. 
 
 We have penned these words, not as professing 
 Christians, nor as men worthy either in character or 
 conduct to stand for so great a cause, but from the 
 standpoint of men of the world who would not will 
 ingly see destroyed the only existing guarantee of 
 progress and civilization, and who, if they have not 
 the grace to choose the better part themselves, yet 
 cannot endure that all sacred things should be 
 scoffed at in public places in a Christian land, by a 
 man who boasts of his ignorance in those branches 
 of learning most needed in order to judge of them, 
 and whose most conspicuous trait is inability to com 
 prehend that which he sneers at. 
 
208 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 "ALL RIGHT." 
 
 There are some little phrases which occupy the 
 same place in the coinage of words that dimes and 
 sixpences do in the coinage of money. They are 
 freely passed back and forth in the interchange of 
 thought, and every one shares in their possession 
 Among these is the phrase "All right." Young 
 America meets his fellow in the street, and accosts 
 him with the customary "How d ye do?" "All 
 right," is the ready response. The merchant 
 :ountmg the change for an article just sold, blandly 
 assures the purchaser that it is "all right." You 
 ask the steamboat clerk about your state-room, or 
 the porter about your baggage, and receive the con 
 soling assurance- "All right." A friend shows 
 you a note bearing your signature, which he has just 
 purchased. You glance at it, and, with the most 
 perfect sang-froid, remark "All right." The train 
 is filled with anxious and impatient passengers, the 
 engine hisses and groans like a demon in pain, and 
 its fiery heart seems to throb with anger at the de 
 lay, yet it stands motionless, waiting for the conduc 
 tor s signal that "all s right." A short time ago we 
 were driving along, and as we were going down a 
 hill at rather a reckless speed, a sudden turn brought 
 us into close proximity to another carriage loaded 
 with ladies and gentlemen. A light shadow of fear 
 and apprehension clouded the fair faces of the 
 ladies, but as we whirled past, the hubs of the car- 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 209 
 
 * 
 
 riages merely giving each other a friendly rub, a 
 jolly, rollicking, good-natured looking fellow, whose 
 Young America hat sat jauntily on his head, pleas 
 antly informed us that everything was "all right." 
 We had scarcely anything in our head but the end 
 of a cigar, and its mild influence induced a musing 
 mood and so we fell to thinking whether our jolly 
 fellow had told the truth when he said "all right." 
 Did he realize the breadth and comprehensiveness 
 of that phrase ? Was it " all right " with him ? Were 
 his thoughts and actions toward that sweet-faced 
 girl by his side " all right ?" Was his conduct toward 
 her that of manly honesty and noble reverence ? 
 Were his thoughts chastened and ennobled by gazing 
 on her beauty, or was he toying with her to pass an 
 idle hour, watching with pleasure his power to call 
 the color to her cheek, and criminally waking up 
 emotions and feelings which must flow forth unmet ? 
 In his relations toward the world was he " all right?" 
 Did he harbor no feelings of anger or resentment 
 toward any one ? Was the " golden rule " the law 
 of his life, or was he selfish in his aims and purposes, 
 pushing his way to his desired goal, regardless of the 
 rights, the interests or the feelings of others ? In his 
 relations to himself was he "all right?" Was he vio 
 lating no law of his physical being ? Was he always* 
 true to his better judgment and noblest impulse ? 
 Had the possibility of human culture, of a manly 
 and noble growth of soul, occurred to him? Was 
 his mind enriched and strengthened by calm reflec 
 tion, by careful observation, by communion with the 
 
2io LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 great souls of the present and of past ages? Was 
 his eye trained to see the beauty that greets us with 
 all its freshness on each succeeding day ? Did he 
 rightly appreciate and enjoy 
 
 " The glory of the sunset skies, 
 The tenderer beauty of the dawn?" 
 
 In his relations to the Great Maker of all was he 
 "all right?" Was his whole soul permeated with a 
 deep feeling of reverence and adoration as he looked 
 up to the Giver of all good ? Had he learned to 
 " look through Nature up to Nature s God ? " Did he 
 
 " Love all virtue, like the light, 
 Dear to the soul as sunshine to the eye?" 
 
 In fact, was he, as he jocularly assured us, " all 
 right?" And, thinking of him, we naturally inquired 
 if with ourself it was "all right. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 211 
 
 GRAVES AND GRAVEYARDS. 
 
 There is no way in which a refined and cultivated 
 taste more appropriately shows itself than in adorn 
 ing and beautifying the dwellings of the dead. The 
 ancient Egyptians gave but little care to their earthly 
 houses, but they spent years of toil and employed 
 the highest artistic skill upon their tombs. There is 
 a philosophy in this. We love to think of the dead 
 as crowned with immortal beauty, as wearing the 
 bloom and possessing the vigor of eternal youth. 
 We forget the foibles and faults which might have 
 been theirs, but the remembrance of their virtues 
 and kindnesses dwells ever with us. And the spot 
 where they are laid should be beautiful to the eye, 
 be adorned by the hand of affection, that all our 
 thoughts of the dead may be elevating, pure and 
 pleasant. Then, too, a graveyard, if tastily kept, is 
 always a place of resort, not only for those who have 
 heart-treasures buried in its bosom, but for the 
 stranger who may be "within our gates." Is it not 
 fitting, then, that the graveyard should be made at 
 tractive, that its location should be pleasant, that it 
 should be adorned by art, that flowers and beautiful 
 shrubbery should spring from the soil where lie the 
 "dear departed" so that to one gazing upon the 
 scene, death should be robbed of some of its asperi 
 ties, and, as he thinks of the time when his cheek 
 shall be colorless and his eyes closed forever, he will 
 
212 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 be enabled to look with quiet resignation, with sub 
 dued and chastened pleasure, 
 
 " Into the great Unknown, 
 Into the silent land ?" 
 
 Notwithstanding the sneers of the skeptic, the 
 heartless philosophy of the stoic, and the faith of 
 the Christian, death is an event almost universally 
 dreaded. It is not the agony of dissolving nature 
 which we fear, but it is the sense of that mystery 
 which shrouds our exit from this world and entrance 
 upon another. Even he who trustingly confides in 
 the Scriptural revelations of a future world, is awed 
 and startled by the very grandeur of those revela 
 tions, and he passes into the portal of death with that 
 trembling hesitation with which a peasant would 
 enter the palace of a king. 
 
 But it is in our power to rob death of many of its 
 unnatural terrors. The graveyard should be made 
 so attractive as to become a pleasant place of resort, 
 and so gradually the idea of death will become do 
 mesticated in our minds, the " better land " will 
 become more familiar to our thought, and the con 
 viction will live more constantly within us that we 
 "are passing through nature to eternity." We have 
 passed many pleasant hours in graveyards. As we 
 now write there are touching and beautiful scenes 
 and some sad and sorrowful ones which memory 
 brings vividly to mind. But it would protract our 
 article too far to relate them. 
 
 Yet we cannot close without enriching our page 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 213 
 
 with a passage from Shakspeare, a passage which 
 has elicited the admiration and touched the feelings 
 of thousands, a passage which will command the 
 praise and call forth the sympathy of men and women 
 as long as genius shall be prized, and the heart be 
 moved by the tear of sorrow and the sob of grief 
 the burial of Ophelia. 
 
 Ophelia needs no eulogy. To know that Hamlet 
 loved her is a sufficient guaranty that she possessed 
 all sweet and maidenly qualities. Yet, thinking of 
 her burial, we love to think of her life, of her filial 
 obedience, of her maidenly love, of her sweet praise 
 of the loved one, of her touching lament over his sup 
 posed madness, of the last sad scene when, "chant 
 ing snatches of old tunes," she sank to "muddy 
 death." We think of Hamlet too of the thoughts 
 and emotions which must have crowded upon him 
 as he talked with the grave-diggers, soliloquized over 
 the skull of "poor Yorick," and watched that form 
 laid in the grave in which had been garnered up all 
 his youthful loves. 
 
 The reluctant priest has performed the obsequies. 
 She has had 
 
 " The maiden strewment, and the bringing home 
 Of bell and burial." 
 
 When Laertes asks : 
 
 Must then no more be done? 
 Priest. No more be done : 
 We should profane the service of the dead 
 
214 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 To sing a requiem, and such rest to her 
 As to peace-parted souls. 
 
 Laer. Lay her i the earth ; 
 And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
 May violets spring ! I tell thee, churlish priest, 
 A minist ring angel shall my sister be 
 When thou liest howling. 
 
 Ham. What, the fair Ophelia ! 
 
 Queen. (Scattering flowers?) 
 Sweets to the sweet : Farewell ! 
 I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet s wife; 
 I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, 
 And not have strewed thy grave." 
 
 THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 The week intervening between Christmas and 
 New Year s is the week of gladness, joy and fruitage. 
 The blessings which the year has borne, the good it 
 has wrought, finds expression in Christmas gifts and 
 New Year s presents, and the love which proffers 
 these, and the thankfulness which accepts them, is 
 more to be valued than the gifts themselves. 
 
 Love is to the life of the soul what electricity is 
 to the world of matter an unseen, all-pervading 
 and almost almighty force. With it life blossoms 
 into beauty, and is fragrant with mystic meanings 
 and rich in noble uses. Without it life is dead as a 
 sapless trunk, cold as a corpse. 
 
 But love cannot always run on its sweet errands. 
 Daily duties, stern necessities, the imperative de- 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 213 
 
 mands of life, often confront it. Limited means 
 make it impossible to translate the generous thought 
 into equally munificent action. And so, as the year 
 stores her warmth and light, her flavor and lustrous 
 beauty into the ripening fruit and drops it in autumn, 
 mellow, sweet and golden, into waiting hands, so love 
 garners its gifts until the Christmas ushers in the 
 week of joy and thankfulness, and then proudly 
 places them in expectant hands, and reads its re 
 ward in the light of eyes sparkling with pleasure, or 
 dimmed with a happiness which forces tears. The 
 holidays are the harvest-time of human love. 
 
 Now, too, we "post the books " not the ledgers 
 alone, but the account current of our lives and 
 see whether we are drifting toward yawning gulfs of 
 sin, or rising with purer purpose toward nobler life. 
 Of course one day is like another, and our division 
 of time merely an arbitrary one, but yet in the fu 
 ture, as in the past, the advent of the New Year 
 will continue to symbolize the youth of the world, 
 the perennial joy of creation, the immortal spirit 
 that, amid the ravages of death and decay and care 
 and sorrow, still pursues its course to its celestial 
 destiny. 
 
2i6 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 AN EDITOR AND HIS PAPER. A newspaper is not 
 a person, but it is considerably more than a thing. 
 It has a separate existence, an identity distinct from 
 that of its editor or publisher, though its life is very 
 closely connected with the brain of the one and the 
 pocket of the other. It may be an object of love 
 and respect, or of hatred and detestation. The re 
 lation between an editor and his paper is something 
 which neither Webster nor Worcester has fully de 
 fined. The paper is not the editor, though it demands 
 his care and absorbs his thought, hanging on to him 
 like a poor relation, as dependent as a participle on 
 its parent verb. It interprets his ideas, and reflects 
 his life is a sort of errand boy, carrying his 
 thoughts, and has, moreover, a wise reticence, 
 never communicating anything concerning its editor 
 except ,what he wills to have known. The editor 
 may be a harum-scarum fellow,, with many little flaws 
 on the surface of his daily life, but the paper is 
 sober, staid, redolent with virtues, and solemn under 
 the weight of "leaded " articles. And so the editor 
 grows to love his paper. Demanding his constant 
 care, taxing his most patient thought, it becomes the 
 object of his love and the absorbent of his life. 
 
LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 217 
 
 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 We merely chronicle the fact. At Piqua, Ohio, 
 one Thomas Wise courted and said he would marry 
 Mary Macher. He backed out of his promise 
 and engaged himself to another young woman. 
 Last Sunday, with this guilt upon him, he went to 
 the Catholic church ; also to the same church went 
 Mary, and took a seat immediately behind Thomas. 
 After she had smoothed out the folds of her dress, 
 she took a horse-pistol out of her muff, placed the 
 muzzle against Thomas back and fired, blowing a 
 hole through his lungs. Thomas is not expected to 
 recover. " But was there no ?" No, it don t ap 
 pear that there was anything of that kind at all. 
 Mary seems to have been as chaste as an icicle on 
 the eaves of Diana s woodshed, and Thomas as free 
 from all carnal sin as a graven image. 
 
 There is not much to be said about it. It all 
 comes from the law of progress. A woman s right 
 to homicide the man who has been too much al 
 lured by her charms has been so frequently af 
 firmed by courts and juries that it may be consid 
 ered a part of the common law of the country. But 
 to scorn her for the allurements of some hated rival 
 this is a far greater outrage to sensitive woman 
 hood, and progress demands that it be placed among 
 the capital crimes also. This, at least, seems to have 
 been Miss Mary s view of it when she pursued 
 
2i 8 LUTE TAYLOR S CHIP BASKET. 
 
 Thomas into the sanctuary and slew him at the foot 
 of the altar. 
 
 The circle of social ideas and requirements within 
 which a man s life may be considered safe is be 
 coming fearfully narrowed. The Mary Harris case 
 we were not disposed to complain of for, notwith 
 standing we thought the alleged offender in that case 
 should have been tried before he was executed, still 
 the moral of the case had no terrors for the young 
 man of "correct habits." But push this Ohio case 
 to its logical results, and where does the man of the 
 period stand ? He may enlarge his litany, and cry 
 out, "From raging females and horse pistols in 
 church, Good Lord deliver me ! " He may fly to 
 the horns of the altar, and cling to them for safety. 
 In vain he shall be made to feel that "Hell hath 
 no fury like a woman scorned." 
 
 The upshot of it all will be, we suppose, to make 
 social intercourse between ladies and gentlemen im 
 possible. In the present condition of the law of 
 homicide we are not sure but that would be best.