i>/;s'K^iP3 - ' ^ i*aiCPS ^ F\/ : 'id -> O <* - ; O < A^^M^lA-' '^i h^(; V^d^b.-:* id^b-'. ^ ^jOt- t ^y- ^v.' ] s PRANK McALPINE. OGSB LIBRARY BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCHES, BY PEOF, Jj'BANK McALPINE. ILLUSTRATED. Sold by Subscription Only. CHICAGO AND PHILADELPHIA: ELLIOTT & BEEZLEY. 1886. ' COPYRIGHT. 1883, ff MANUFACTURED BY orr & BEEZLEY'S PUBLISHINO HOUSB, CHICAOO AND PHILADELPHIA, IlSTTKODUCTIOISr. M : ILTON has said: "A good book is the precious life- blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. " For our readers, we have tried to gather such selections only as are worthy to be " embalmed and treasured up. " If we have succeeded in avoiding anything like a text- book upon literature, we have carried out the plan of our work. If we have succeeded in gathering up selections that are worthy of being called treasures, we have accomplished the object that we had in view. Then if our book finds a warm place in the heart of the reading public, our most earnest desire will be fully gratified. Literature may be viewed as a mighty river taking its rise in the dim past and running parallel with the crystal stream of time. In tracing this river from its source to where it flows into the great ocean of the present, we enter the province of a text-book upon literature. We should view the tributaries from the different tongues of the world, their nature and the influence they have had upon the prog- ress and usefulness of the main channel. We should note this magnificent river pausing in classic Greece " to purify it- self and gain strength of wave for due occasion," and at Eome, Borne that sat on her seven hills and from her throne 4 INTBODUCTION. of glory ruled the world to receive the tributary that added vigorous grandeur to its flow. We should examine its trib- utaries from tongues that spoke on the banks of the Nile, and in India and China, and on the sacred plains of Judea ; from the thoughtful fields of Germany, central Europe and fash- ionable France, till finally it was swelled to almost boundless proportions and influence by that greatest of all tributaries, the one from the English tongue. But we have viewed the literary world as a bountiful har- vest from which to gather abundant stores of mental food. After having taken a careful survey of the entire field, sickle in hand, we have gone to the most fertile spots and gathered sheaves of the tallest, ripest and most perfect grain. As the judicious husbandman saves the best seed in anticipation of an improved and abundant harvest, so these sheaves of tall, ripe grain this "precious life-blood " of the "master-spirits" we have garnered up in TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. FRANK McAiPiNE. CONTENTS. ADVICE TO A WOULD-BE CRIMINAL Victor Hugo - 65 ADM!RATION OP GENIUS Lord Lytton 72 AT THE OPEN WINDOW B. F. Taylor - 75 AND SUCH A CHANGE - B. F. Taylor - 76 AUTUMN AT CONCORD, MASS. Hawthorne 175 AUTOCRAT OP THE BREAKFAST TABLE Holmes 218 ANGLO-SAXON INFLUENCES OF HOME - Geo. P. Marsh 881 ARIEL AMONG THE SHOALS, THE Cooper 845 ABORGINES OF AMERICA - Bancroft 362 BEAUTY Emerson 154 BUDS AND BIRD VOICES - - Hawthorne 170 BLIND PREACHER William Wirt 195 BALD-HEADED MAN, THE - Little Rock Gazette 355 CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR, A Dickens 27 CANDID MAN, THE - - Lord Lytton 128 CHANGES OF MATTER Yeomans 151 CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON - Jefferson 156 CHRISTIANITY Charles Phillips - 206 CHILDREN AND THEIR EDUCATION Horace Mann - 290 CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO His SON Chesterfield 392 DEATH OF LITTLE Jo Dickens - 30 DOG-DAYS - Gail Hamilton - 399 ELEONORA Edgar A. Poe 208 ENGLISH LANGUAGE Win. Mathews 215 EVENING WALK IN VIRGINIA - J. K. Pauldinr, 357 6 CONTENTS. ESCAPE OF HARRY BIBCH AND CAPTAIN - WHARTON - Cooper 384 FALL OF THE LEAF, THE Ruskin - 106 GRAVE, THE - Irving 43 GLASS OF COLD WATER, A J . B. O-ough - 68 GOOD MAN'S DAY, A Bishop Hall 228 GOODRICH JONES, JR., To J. Q. Holland 234 GENTLE HAND T. S. Arthur 341 How TOM SAWYER WHITEWASHED His FENCE Mark Twain - 36 HAPPINESS Cotton 55 HEART BENEATH A STONE, A Victor Hugo - 62 HOME T. S. Arthur 110 HAPPINESS IN SOLITUDE J. J. Rosseau 140 How CURIOUS IT is H. P. Shillaber - 148 HAPPINESS OF TEMPER - Goldsmith 316 HEAD-STONE, THE - Wilson 380 INDIAN SUMMER - B. F. Taylor 17 IN THE GARRET Knickerbocker 828 JOAN OF ARC Thomas DeQuincy 144 JERUSALEM Benj. Disraeli 222 LAST DAYS OF POMPEII Lord Lytton 123 LOVE OF LIFE AND AGE - Goldsmith - 138 LITTLE EVA Harriet B. Stowe 267 LILY'S BIDE - Judge Tour gee 281 LITTLE WOMAN, THE Dickens 310 LETTERS Mitchell - 313 MOTHER'S VACANT CHAIR Talmage 34 M^usic OF CHILD LAUGHTER THE 56 MUSING BY THE FIRE - B. F. Taylor 78 MARRIAGE Jeremy Taylor 192 TVTv ATrkTTTT^'R'ci "RTRT 1? 244 1TJ. I .ITJ. IJ 1 n Hi V O _U 1 15 A j .r,i MOCKING BIRD Alexander Wilson MW 246 MAXIMS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON - Washington 306 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE Victor Hugo - 60 OUR REVOLUTIONARY FATHERS Webster 50 CONTENTS. OLD-FASHIONED MOTHER, THE OMENS OLD CHURCHYARD, THE - OLD AGE ON EEVENGE - OLD AGE - ORDER IN NATURE - OF BEAUTY OUR OLD GRANDMOTHER OUR BURDEN OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, THE POETRY AND MYSTERY OF THE SEA PARADISE ON EARTH, A - PERSONALITY AND USES OF A LAUGH PRECIPICES OF THE ALPS - PARENTS PURITANS, THE POOR EICHARD PUTTING UP STOVES PLEA FOR THE ERRING, A PROGRESS OF SIN, THE PENN'S ADVICE TO His CHILDREN - PICTURES OF Swiss SCENERY AND OF THE CITY OF VENICE PLEDGE WITH WINE PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY PICTURES EURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND EURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN - EEBECCA'S DESCRIPTION OF THE SIEGP SCHOOLMASTER, THE SCENE AT THE NATURAL BRDDGE SKY, THE SPIDER AND THE BEE, THE - SPRING B. F. Taylor - 79 Sir Humphrey Davy 101 MacDonald - 109 Emerson - - 155 Samuel Johnson 180 Theo. Parker - 186 Yeoman s 190 Lord Bacon - 280 Anonymous - 318 Addison - - 323 Bret Harte - 338 Dr. Greenwood - 19 Victor Hugo - 59 Anonymous - 100 Muskin - 106 T. S. Arthur 113 T. B. Macaulay 149 Dr. Franklin 158 Anomyinous 160 Wm. Mathews - 177 Jeremy Taylor 190 Wm.-Penn - 203 B. Disraeli - 227 Anonymous - 270 Lord Bacon - 288 H. P. Shillaber - 305 Irving - - 44 H. W. Longfellow 90 Scott - 252 Verplauck - - 69 Burritt - 96 Ruskin - 107 Jonathan Swift 117 Hawthorne - 174 8 CONTENTS. SHAKESPEBE'S STYLE - Wm. Mathews 182 SKYLARK, THE ... Jeremy Tat/lor 194 SILENT FOBOES - Tyndall - 232 STUDIES - Lord Bacon 279 TBAMP, TBAMP, TBAMP J. G. Holland 241 Two EAOES OF MEN, THE Charles Lamb - 278 THOUGHTS ON VABIOUS SUBJECTS - Jonathan Swift 334 UNCLE TOM READS His TESTAMENT H. B. Ston-e - 268 VOICES OF THE DEAD - E. H. Chapin 376 WOBK ... - Thomas Carlyle 81 WELCOME TO LAFAYETTE - Edward Everett 208 WOBKS OF CBEATION, THE - Addison 260 WONDEBS OF AN ATOM - - Hunt 245 INDEX OF AUTHORS. ADDISON, JOSEPH. OUR BURDENS, THE WORKS OF CREATION, 260 ARTHUR, T. S. HOME, HO PARENTS, - GENTLE HAND, BACON, LORD. STUDIES, - 279 BEAUTY, PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY, BANCROFT, GEORGE. THE ABORIGINES OF AMERICA, 362 BURRITT, ELIHU. SCENE AT THE NATURAL BRIDGE, - 96 CARLISLE, THOMAS. WORK, 81 CHAPIN, E. H. VOICES OF THE DEAD, - 376 CHESTERFIELD, LORD. LETTERS TO HIS SON, - 392 10 INDEX OF AUTHORS. COOPER, J. FENIMORE. ARIEL AMONG THE SHOALS, - - 845 ESCAPE OF HABVEY BIRCH AND CAPTAIN WHARTON, - 884 COLTON, WALTER. HAPPINESS, - . . . - 55 DAVY, SIR HUMPHREY. OMENS, . . . . ioi DE QUINCY, THOMAS. JOAN OF ARC, - .... 144 DICKENS, CHAS. DEATH OF LITTLE Jo, ... 30 CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAB, - - - -27 THE LITTLE WOMAN, - ... 310 DISRAELI, BENJ. JERUSALEM, - ... 222 PICTURES OF Swiss SCENERY AND THE CITY OF VENICE, 227 EMERSON, RALPH W. BEAUTY, . . - 164 OLD AGE, . . - 165 EVERETT, EDWARD. WELCOME TO LAFAYETTE, . 202 FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN. POOR EICHARD, . . 158 GOUGH, J. B. A GLASS OF COLD WATER, - - - 68 GOLDSMITH, OLIVER. LOVE OF LIFE AND AGE, - .... 139 HAPPINESS OF TEMPER, . 316 GREENWOOD, DR. POETRY AND MYSTERY OF THE SEA, . - 19 INDEX OP AUTHOBS. If HALL, BISHOP. A GOOD MAN'S DAY, - . . . 28 HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL. AUTUMN AT CONCORD, MASS., - . . . 175 BUDS AND BIRD VOICES, - - , - 170 SPRING, - - - ... 174 HAETE, BRET. THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, ... 339 HAMILTON, GAIL, DOG-DAYS, . . . 397 HOLMES, 0. W. AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE, - . . 218 HOLLAND, J. G. To GOODRICH JONES, JR., ... 284 TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP, - ... 241 HUGO, VICTOR. ADVICE TO A WOULD-BE CRIMINAL, - - - 65 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, - - . . - 60 A HEART BENEATH A STONE, 62 A PARADISE ON EARTH, - - - - 59 HUNT, LEIGH. WONDERS OF AN ATOM, .... 04.5 IRVING, WASHINGTON. THE GRAVE, - - . . . " 43 RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND, - - - . .44 IN THE GARRET, , 32Q JEFFERSON, THOMAS. CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON, - - 156 JOHNSON, DR. SAMUEL. ON REVENGE, - . . jg 12 INDEX OF AUTHOES. LAMB, CHARLES. THE Two KACES OF MEN, - .... 278 LONGFELLOW, H. W. RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN, - * - 90 LYTTON, LORD BULWER. LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, - 123 THE CANDID MAN, . . , - 128 ADMIRATION OF GENIUS, ... 72 MANN, HORACE. CHILDREN AND THEIR -EDUCATION, - ... 290 MATHEWS, WM. ENGLISH LANGUAGE, - . 215 A PLEA FOR THE ERRING, - . . 'Ill SHAKESPERE'S STYLE, - . 1Q2 MACAULAY, T. B. THE PURITANS, - - . . 149 MACDONALD, GEO. THE OLD CHURCHYARD, . - 109 MARSH, GEO. P. ANGLO-SAXON INFLUENCES OF HOME, - 831 MITCHELL, DONALD G. LETTERS, . . . . 313 PARKER, THEODORE. OLD AGE, ..... 188 PAULDING, JAS. K. AN EVENING WALK IN VIRGINIA, - - 857 PENN, WM. PENN'S ADVICE TO His CHILDREN, . 203 PHILLIPS, CHARLES. CHRISTIANITY, - - 206 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 13 POE, EDGAR A. ELEONORA, - - 208 RUSKIN, JOHN. THE FALL OP THE LEAF, - - 106 THE SKY, - - 107 THE PRECIPICES, - - 106 ROSSEAU, J. J. HAPPINESS IN SOLITUDE, 140 SHLLLABER, H. P. PICTURES, 805 How CURIOUS IT is, - 148 STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER. LITTLE EVA, 267 UNCLE TOM BEADS HIS TESTAMENT, ,- 268 SCOTT, SIR WALTER. REBECCA'S DESCRIPTION OP THE SIEGE, - 252 SWIFT, JONATHAN. THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, - - 834 THE SPIDER AND BEE, - 117 TAYLOR, B. F. AT THE OPEN WINDOW, - - 75 INDIAN SUMMER, - 17 THE OLD-FASHIONED MOTHER, - 79 MUSING BY THE FIRE, - 78 AND SUCH A CHANGE, - 76 TWAIN, MARK. How TOM SAWYER WHITEWASHED HIS FENCE, - 86 TOURGEE, A. W. LILY'S RIDE, ..... 281 14 I1JDEX OF AUTHORS. TAYLOR, JEREMY. MARRIAGE, . 192 PROGRESS OF SIN, - . - 190 THE SKYLARK, - ^194 TALMAGE, T. DE WITT. MOTHER'S VACANT CHAIR, - ... 34 TYNDALL, JOHN. SILENT FORCES, ... 282 VERPLAUCK, THE SCHOOLMASTER, . - - 69 WIRT, WILLIAM. THE BLIND PREACHER, - 195 WEBSTER, DANIEL. OUR KEVOLUTIONARY FATHERS, - - - 50 WASHINGTON, GEORGE. MAXIMS, ... 306 WILSON, ALEXANDER. THE MOCKING BIRD, .... 246 THE HEAD -STONE, . . StiO YEOMAN, PROF. ORDER IN NATURE, ... 199 CHANGES OF MATTER, - . . - 151 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. CHARLES DICKENS, - - 24 WASHINGTON IRVING, - - .... 40 VICTOR HUGO, ... 57 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TAYLOR, - .... 73 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, - - 88 JOHN BUSKIN, . . 105 LORD LYTTON, . . L2i OLIVER GOLDSMITH, - . . 130 RALPH WALDO EMERSON, - . 152 NATHANIEL, HAWTHORNE, - - 168 DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, - 184 EDWARD EVERETT, . . . 200 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, - - - 216 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND, - 288 WALTER SCOTT, - - 249 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, - 265 HORACE MANN, . . 289 DONALD G. MITCHELL, - - . - 812 BRET HARTE, - ... 33(5 GEORGE BANCROFT, - . 860 Jfrxrm the hour xrf the intention ot printing, books, fl.ttlb n0i kings, toere to rule in the to0rli. SHeap0n0 frrrgeb in the mini, keen-ebgeb, anfc brighter than a 0un- beam, toere to zuppinnt the toxrrb an& the battte-axe. ^ookss ! U0ht-hxra0e0 built on the sea of time ! Jtooks ! bg toh00e 00rrerg the tohole pageantrg of the toxjrtb'e hi0- tcrrg mobes in 00lcmn pr0re00i0n before the ege0. Jfrom their page0 great 00ul0 100k J)0ton in all their graniieur, anoimmel) bg the fault0 anil f0Uie0 0f earthlp exi0tenre, time. TKEASTJRES FROM THE PROSE WORLD Indian Summer. The Year has paused to remember, and beautiful her memories are. She recalls the Spring; how soft the air! And the Summer; how deep and warm the sky ! And the harvest ; how pillar'd and golden the clouds ! And the rainbows and the sunsets ; how gor- geous are the woods! Indian Summer is nature's "sober, second thought," and to me, the sweetest of the thinking. A veil of golden gauze trails through the air;, the woods en deshabille, are gay with the hectic flushes of the Fall; and the bright sun, relenting, comes meekly back again, as if he would not go to Capricorn. He has a kindly look ; he no longer dazzles one's eyes out, but has a sunset softness in his face, and fairly blushes at the trick he meditated. Bound, red Sun ! rich ruby in the jewelry of God! it sets as big as the woods; and ten acres of forest, in the distance, are relieved upon the great disc a rare device upon a glorious medallion. The sweet south wind has come again, and breathes softly through the woods, till they rustle like a banner of crimson and gold; and waltzes gaily with the dead a 18 TEEASUKES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. leaves that strew the ground, and whirls them quite aw$y some- times, in its frolic, over the fields and the fences, and into the brook, in whose little eddies they loiter on the way, and never get "down to the sea" at all. Who wonders that, with this mirage of departed Summer in sight, the peach trees sometimes lose their reckoning, fancy Winter, pale fly-leaf in the book of Time, has somehow slipped out, and put forth their rosy blossoms only to be carried away, to-day or to-mor- row, by the blasts of November. And with the sun and the wind, here are the birds once more. A blue bird warbles near the house, as it used to do ; the sparrows are chirping in the bushes, and the wood-robins flicker like flakes of fire through the trees. Now and then a crimson or yellow leaf winnows its way slowly down through the smoky light, and " the sound of dropping nuts is heard " in the still woods. The brook that a little while ago stole along in the shadow, rippling softly round the boughs that trailed idly in its waters, now twinkles all the way, on its journey down to the lake. It is Saturday night of Nature and the Year "Their breathing moment on the bridge where Time Of light and darkness, forms an arch sublime." There is nothing more to be done ; everything is packed up ; the wardrobe of Spring and Summer is all folded in those little rus- set and rude cases, and laid away here and there, some in the earth, and some in the water, and lost, as we say, but after all, no more lost than is the little infant, when, laid upon a pillow it is rocked and swung, this way and that, in the arms of a careful mother. So the dying, smiling Year is all ready to go. "Aye, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath, When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near Its death. Winds of the sunny south! oh, still delay, In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age, released from care Journeying in long serenity, away. TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 19 "With such a bright, late quiet, would that I Might wear out life like thee, "mid bowers and brooks : And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, And music of kind voices ever nigh. And when my last sand twinkles in the glass, Pass silently from men as thou dost pass." Poetry and Mystery of the Sea. [Our Treasures would not be complete without the following beautifully sublime selection from the pen of Dr. Greenwood. Kind reader, if you love poetry and beauti- ful word pictures, you can never weary in reading the following:] "The sea is His, and He made it," cries the Psalmist of Israel, in one of those bursts of enthusiasm in which he so often expresses the whole of a vast subjrst by a few simple words. Whose else, indeed, could it be, and by 'shorn else could it have been made? Who else can heave its tides and appoint its bounds ? Who else can urge its mighty waves to madness with the breath and wings of the tempest, and then speak to it again in a master's accents and bid it be still? Who else could have peopled it with its countless inhabit- ants, and caused it to bring forth its various productions, and filled it from its deepest bed to its expanded surface, filled it from its cen- ter to its remotest shores, filled it to the brim with beauty, and mystery, and power? Majestic ocean! Glorious sea! No created being rules thee or made thee. What is there more sublime than the trackless, desert, all-sur- rounding, unfathomable sea? What is there more peacefully sublime than the calm, gentle-heaving, silent sea? What is there more terri- bly sublime than the angry, dashing, foaming sea? Power resist- less, overwhelming power is its attribute and its expression, whether in the careless, conscious grandeur of its deep rest, or the wild tumult of its excited wrath. It is awful when its crested waves rise up to make a compact with the black clouds and the howling winds, and the thunder and the thunderbolt, and they sweep on, in the 20 TEEASUBES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. joy of their dread alliance, to do the Almighty's bidding. And it is awful, too, when it stretches its broad level out to meet in quiet union the bended sky, and show in the line of meeting the vast rotundity of the world. There is majesty in its wide expanse, sep- arating and enclosing the great continents of the earth, occupying two-thirds of the whole surface of the globe, penetrating the land with its bays and secondary seas, and receiving the constantly pour- ing tribute of every river of every shore. There is majesty in its fulness, never diminishing, and never increasing. There is majesty in its integrity, for its whole vast substance is uniform in its local unity, for there is but one ocean, and the inhabitants of any one maritime spot may visit the inhabitants of any other in the wide world. Its depth is sublime; who can sound it? Its strength is sublime; what fabric of man can resist it? Its voice is sublime, whether in the prolonged song of its ripple or the stern music of its roar whether it utters its hollow and melancholy tones within a labyrinth of wave-worn caves, or thunders at the base of some huge promontory, or beats against a toiling vessel's sides, lulling the voyager to rest with the strains of its wild monotony, or dies away with the calm and fading twilight, in gentle murmurs on some shel- tered shore. The sea possesses beauty in richness of its own ; it borrows it from earth, and air, and heaven. The clonds lend it the various dyes of their wardrobe, and throw down upon it the broad masses of their shadows as they go sailing and sweeping by. The rainbow laves in it its many-colored feet. The sun loves to visit it, and the moon, and the glittering brotherhood of planets and stars, for they delight themselves in its beauty. The sunbeams return from it in showers of diamonds 'and glances of fire ; the moonbeams find in it a pathway of silver, where they dance to and fro with the breezes and the waves, through the livelong night. It has a light, too, of its own, a soft and sparkling light, rivaling the stars ; and often does the ship which cuts its siirface leave streaming behind a milky way of dim and uncertain luster, like that which is shining dimly TREASUEES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 21 above. It harmonizes in its forms and sounds both with the night and the day. It cheerfully reflects the light, and it unites solemnly with the darkness. It imparts sweetness to the music of men, and grandeur to the thunder of heaven. What landscape is so beautiful as one upon the borders of the sea? The spirit of its loveliness is from the waters where it dwells and rests, singing its spells and scattering its charms on all the coasts. What rocks and cliffs are so glorious as those which are washed by the chafing sea? What groves and fields and dwellings are so enchanting as those which stand by the reflecting sea? If we could see the great ocean as it can be seen by no mortal eye, beholding at one view what we are now obliged to visit in detail and spot by spot, if we could, from a flight far higher than the eagle's, view the immense surface of the deep all spread out beneath us like a universal chart what an infinite variety such a scene would display ! Here a storm would be raging, the thunder burst- ing, the waters boiling, and rain and foam and fire all mingling together; and here, next to this scene of magnificent confusion, we should see the bright blue waves glittering in the sun and clapping their hands for very gladness. Here we should see a cluster of green islands set like jewels in the bosom of the sea ; and there we should see broad shoals and gray rocks, fretting the billows and threaten- ing the mariner. Here we discern a ship propelled by the steady wind of the tropics, and inhaling the almost visible odors which diffuse themselves around the Spice Islands of the east; there we should behold a vessel piercing the cold barrier of the north, strug- gling among hills and fields of ice, and contending with Winter in his own everlasting dominion. Nor are the ships of man the only travelers we shall perceive upon this mighty map of the ocean. Flocks of sea-birds are passing and re-passing, diving for their food or for pastime, migrating from shore to shore with unwearied wing and undeviating instinct, or wheeling and swarming around the rocks which they make alive and vocal by their numbers and their clanging cries. 22 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. We shall behold new wonders and riches when we inves- tigate the sea-shore. We shall find both beauty for the eye and food for the body, in the varieties of shell-fish which adhere in myriads to the rocks or form their close, dark burrows in the sands. In some parts of the world we shall see those houses of stone which the little coral insect rears up with patient industry from the bot- tom of the waters, tih 1 they grow into formidable rocks, and broad forests, whose branches never wave and whose leaves never fall. In other parts we shall see those pale, glistening pearls which adorn the crowns of princes and are woven in the hair of beauty, extorted by the relentless grasp of man from the hidden stores of ocean. And spread round every coast there are beds of flowers and thickets of plants, which the dew does not nourish, and which man has not sown, nor cultivated, nor reaped, but which seem to belong to the floods alone and the denizens of the floods, until they are thrown up by the surges, and we discover that even the dead spoils of the fields of ocean may fertilize and enrich the fields of earth. They have a life, and a nourishment, and an economy of their own ; and we know little of them except that they are there in their briny nurseries, reared up into luxuriance by what would kill, like a mor- tal poison, the vegetation of the land. There is mystery in the sea. There is mystery in its depths. It is unfathomed and perhaps unfathomable. Who can tell, who shall know, how near its pits run down to the central core of the world? Who can tell what wells, what fountains are there to which the fountains of the earth are but drops? Who shall say whence the ocean derives those inexhaustible supplies of salt which so impregnate its waters that all the rivers of the earth, pouring into it from the time of the creation, have not been able to freshen them? What undescribed monsters, what unimaginable shapes, may be roving in the profoundest places of the sea, never seeking and perhaps, from their nature, never able to seek the upper waters and expose themselves tc the gaze of man ! What glittering riches, what heaps of gold, what stores of gems there must be scattered in . TREASURES PROM THE PROSE WORLD. 28 lavish profusion in the ocean's lowest bed! What spoils from all climates, what works of art from all lands, have been engulfed by the insatiable and reckless waves! Who shall go down to examine and reclaim this uncounted and idle wealth? Who bears the keys of the deep? And oh ! yet more affecting to the heart, and mysterious to the mind, what companies of human beings are locked up in that wide, weltering, unsearchable grave of the sea ! Where are the bodies of those lost ones over whom the melancholy waves alone have been chanting requiem? What shrouds were wrapped round the limbs of beauty, and of manhood, and of placid infancy, when they were laid on the dark floor of that secret tomb? Where are the bones, the relics of the brave and the timid, the good and the bad, the parent, the child, the wife, the husband, the brother, the sister, the lover, which have been tossed and scattered and buried by the wash- ing, wasting, wandering sea? The journeying winds may sigh as year after year they pass over their beds. The solitary rain cloud may weep in darkness over the mingled remains which lie strewed in that unwonted cemetery. But who shall tell the bereaved to what spot their affections may cling? And where shall human tears be shed throughout that solemn sepulchre? It is mystery all. When shall it be resolved? Who shall find it out? Who but He to whom the wildest waves listen reverently, and to whom all nature bows; He who shall one day speak and be heard in ocean's pro- foundest caves; to whom the deep, even the lowest deep, shall give up its dead, when the sun shall sicken, and the earth and the isles shall languish, and the heavens be rolled together like a scroll, and there shall be no more Sea. 24 TREASURES FRO& THE PROSE WORLD. CHARLES DICKENS. CHARLES DICKENS was born at Landport, a fraburb of Portsmouth, England, February 7, 1812, and he died at his home, known as Gadshill House, near Rochester, Kent, June 9, 1870. His father, John Dickens, was a clerk in the navy pay-office. Young Dickens received part of his education at Chat- ham, whither his parents had moved in 1816. His princi- pal studies, however, were "Robinson Crusoe, " "Don Quixote, " "Gill Bias," and other novels. In 1822 his father became bankrupt and was sent to prison for debt. Charles' family then removed to London, where the boy was put to work in a blacking factory. His father, now relieved by a small legacy, became a reporter for the "Morning Chronicle." After attending school for two years, the boy was placed in an attorney's office. Subsequently, he learned short-hand and became Parliamentary reporter for "The True Sun." Four years later, he was joined to the staff of the "Morning Chronicle. " At the age of nine, Dickens commenced his literary work by writing a tragedy, entitled Misnar, the Sultan oj India. In 1834, appeared his first published sketch, Mrs. Joseph Porter Over the Way. A series of sketches followed in the "Old Monthly Magazine, " over the signature of "Boz." For want of pay these sketches were discontinued, and after- ward resumed in the "Chronicle" where they attracted much public attention. CHABLES DICKENS. TBEASUEES FEOM THE PKOSE WOBLD. 25 In 1836 these sketches were published in two volumes. The tide of Dickens' popularity had now fully set in, and sketches and books flowed from his pen like the steady movement of a mighty river. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, upon the introduction of "Sam Weller, " in the fifth number, grew in popularity, and upon completion of the "Papers," the author was famous. Oliver Twist, two anonymous volumes entitled Young Gentlemen and Young Couples, Memoirs of Joseph Gramaldi, Nicholas Nickleby, Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, quickly followed. In January, 1842, in company with his wife, Dickens sailed for the United States, and on the 22d, landed at Boston. He was received with great enthusiasm. Upon his return home he published American Notes. He was severely censured for his exaggerations in speaking of American cus- toms. In 1844 appeared Martin Chuzzlewit. Then followed a year's travel in Italy, after which he became editor of the London "Daily News." In the "News" appeared his Pic- tures from Italy. His editorship was discontinued at the end of four months. Dombey and Son appeared in 1848, and David Copperfield, in 1850. In 1850 he" established "House- hold Words;" this being discontinued, in 1859 he started "All the Year Bound." At this time he wrote a popular Child's History of England. Omitting his other works we will only record the productions of A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1860 ; Great Expectations, 1861 ; Our Mutual Friend, in 1865. Visiting the United States again in 1867, he gave public readings from his works, in the Eastern and Middle States. 26 TBEASUBES FBOM THE PBOSE WOBLD. Dickens was an almost perfect actor, and his laborious study had prepared him to make his readings in this country the most successful part of his life work. In a financial, as well as in a literary sense, his life work was eminently successful. The Child's Dream of a .Star, which we have selected for this book, has been issued in a beautiful, illustrated edition. His writings are so well known that we will make no further record of them here. Dickens' social history is brief. He was the second of eight children. In 1836, he married Catherine, the eldest daughter of George Hogarth, an editorial writer for the "Chronicle. " They had seven children, but in 1858 arranged a formal separation, the reasons for which have never been made public. He once refused a baronetcy. He willed that no public announcement be made of his burial ; that his name be inscribed on his tomb in plain English letters, with- out any title. He wished no monument, but said : "I rest my claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works." A grateful world will remember him. Leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished, he died at the time given in the beginning of this sketch, from a stroke of apo- plexy, and was buried privately in the poet's corner of West- minster Abbey. TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 27 The Child's Dream of a Star. There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child, too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they won- dered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world. They used to say to one another, sometimes, "Supposing all the children upon the earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry?" They believed they would be sorry: "For," said they, "the buds are the children of the flowers; and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the waters; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide- and-seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more." There was one clear, shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church-spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at the window. Whoever saw it first, cried out, "I see the star!" And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good-night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, "God bless the star!" But while she was still very young, 0, very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient, pale face on the bed, "I see the star!" and then a smile 28 TEEASURES FEOM THE PROSE WORLD. would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, "God bless my brother and the star!" And so the time came, all too soon ! when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down toward him, as he saw it through his tears. Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that spark- ling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them. All these angels who were waiting turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy. But there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them was one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host. His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither, "Is my brother come?" And he said, "No." She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried, "0 sister, lam here! Take me!" And then she turned her beaming eyes upon him and it was night; and the star was shin- ing into the room, making long rays down toward him as he saw it through his tears. From that hour forth the child looked out upon the star as on TEEASUEES FEOM THE PBOSE WOELD. 29 the home he was to go to, when his time should come ; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star, too, because of his sister's angel gone before. There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken a word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed and died. Again the child dreamed of the opened star, and of the com- pany of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people's faces. Said his sister's angel to the leader, "Is my brother come?" And he said, "Not that one, but another." As the child beheld his brother's angel in her arms, he cried, "0, sister! I am here! Take me!" And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining. He grew to be a young man and was busy at his books when an old servant came to him and said, "Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!" Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his sister's angel to the leader, "Is my brother come?" And he said, "Thy mother!" A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the stars, because the mother was" reunited to her two children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, "0 mother, sister, brother, I am here! Take me!" And they answered him, "Not yet." And the star was shining. He grew to be a man whose hair was turning gray, and he was sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again. Said his sister's angel to the leader, "Is my brother come?" 30 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. And he said, "Nay, but his maiden daughter." And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said, "My daughter's head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is round my mother's neck, and at her feet is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, God be praised !" And the star was shining. And thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one night, as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago, "I see the star!" They whispered one another, "He is dying." And he said, "I am. My age is falling from me like a gar- ment, and I move toward the star as a child. And 0, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!" And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave. Death, of Little Jo. Jo is very glad to see his old friend; and says, when they are left alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr! Sangsby should come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Sangsby, touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half-a-crown ; that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. "And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquired the stationer, with his cough of sympathy. "I'm in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, "and don't want for nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think, Mr. Sangsby. TBEASUBES FBOM THE PBOSE WOBLD- 3\ I'm wery sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it. sir." The stationer softly lays down another half-crown s and asks him what it is that he is so sorry for having done. "Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, "I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says nothing to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good and my having been s' unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me yes'day, and she ses, 'Ah, Jo!' she ses. 'We thought we'd lost you, Jo!' she ses. And she sits down a smilin' so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I turns agin the wall, I does, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to give me somethink for to ease me, wot he's allus a doin' on day and night, and wen he comes a bendin' over me and a speakin' up so bold, I see his tears a fallin', Mr. Sangsby." The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve his feelings. "Wot I was thinkin' on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos as you wos able to write very large, p'r'aps?" "Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer. "Uncommon, precious large, p'r'aps?" says Jo, with eagerness. "Yes, my poor boy." Jo laughs with pleasure. "Wot I wos thinkin' on, then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that wen I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go, and couldn't be moved no furder, whether you might be so good, p'r'aps, as to write out, wery large, so that any one could see it any- wheres, as that I was wery truly hearty sorry that I done it, and that I never went fur to do it; and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I know'd as Mi. Woodcot once cried over it, and was allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as' he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin' could be made to say it wery large, he might." 82 TBEASUBES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. "It shall say it, Jo; very large." Jo laughs again. "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I wos afore." The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown he has never been so close to a case requiring so many, and is fain to depart. And Jo and he upon this little earth shall meet no more. No more. (Another Scene. Enter Mr. Woodcourt.) "Well, Jo, what is the matter? Don't be frightened." "I thought," says Jo, who has started, and is looking round, "I thought I was in Tom-All-Alone's agin. An't there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot?" "Nobody." "And I an't took back to Tom-All-Alone's, am I, sir?" "No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I am wery thankful." After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear, and says to him in a low, distinct voice: "Jo, did you ever know a prayer?" "Never know'd nothink, sir." "Not so much as one short prayer?" "No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a prayin' wunst at Mr. Sangsby's, and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a speakin' to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out nothink on it. Different times there wos other gen'l'men come down to Tom-All-Alone's a prayin', but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be talkin' to theirselves, or a passin' blame on the t'others, and not a talkin' to us. We never know'd nothink. I never know'd what it wos all about." It takes him a long time to say this ; and few but an experi- enced and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes of a sud- den, a strong effort to get out of bed. TEEASUKES FEOM THE PROSE WORLD, 3g "Stay, Jo, stay! What now?" "It's time for me to go to that there berryin'-ground, sir," he returns, with a wild look. "Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?" "Where they laid him as wos wery good to me; wery good to me, indeed, he wos. It's time for me to go down to that there berryin'-ground, sir and ask to be put along with him. I want to go there and be berried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now, and have come there to be laid along with him." "By-and-by, Jo; by-and-by." "Ah ! P'r'aps they wouldn't do it if I was to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" "I will, indeed." "Thankee, sir! Thankee, sir! They'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step there, as I used fur to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light acomin' ?" "It is coming fast, Jo." Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end. "Jo, my poor fellow !" "I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a gropin' a gropin' let me catch hold of your hand." "Jo, can you say what I say?" ''I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good." "Our Father." " 'Our Father!' Yes, that's wery good, sir." "Which art in heaven." " 'Art in heaven !' Is the light a comin', sir?" "It is close at hand. 'Hallowed by thy name. ' " 34 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. "Hallowt 1 be thy name !" The light i. as come upon the benighted way. Dead. Dead, your majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends anu wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day. Mother's Vacant Chair. I go a little farther on in your house, and I find the mother's chair. It is very apt to be a rocking chair. She had so many cares and troubles to soothe, that it must have rockers. I remember it well. It was an old chair, and the rockers were almost worn out, for I was the youngest, and the chair had rocked the whole family. It made a creaking noise as it moved, but there was music in the sound. It was just high enough to allow us children to put our heads into her lap. That was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. Oh, what a chair that was! It was different from the father's chair it was entirely different. Perhaps there was about this chair more gentleness, more tenderness, more grief when we had done wrong. When we were wayward, father scolded, but mother cried. It was a very wakeful chair. In the sick days of chil- dren other chairs could not keep awake ; that chair always kept awake kept easily awake. That chair knew all the old lullabies, and all those wordless songs which mothers sing to their - sick children songs in which all pity and compassion and sympathetic influences are combined. That old chair has stopped rocking for a good many years. It may be set up in the loft or the garret, but it holds a queenly power yet. When at midnight you went into that grog-shop to get the intoxicating draught, did you not hear a voice that said, "My son, why go in there?" and louder than the boisterous encore of the theater, a voice saying, "My son, what do you here?" A-nd when TREASURES FBOM THE PROSE WORLD. 85 you went into the house of sin, a voice saying, "What would your mother do if she knew you were here?" and you were provoked at yourself, and you charged yourself with superstition and fanaticism, and your head got hot with your own thoughts, and you went home, and you went to bed, and no sooner had you touched the bed than a voice said, "What, a prayerless pillow!" Man! what is the matter? This! You are too near your mother's rocking-chair! "Oh, pshaw!" you say, "there's nothing in that. I'm five hundred miles off from where I was born I'm three thousand miles off from the Scotch kirk whose bell was the first music I ever heard." I cannot help that; you are too near your mother's rocking-chair. "Oh !" you say, "there can't be anything in that; that chair has been vacant a great while." I cannot help that. It is all the mightier for that; it is omnipotent, that vacant mother's chair. It whispers. It speaks. It weeps. It carols. It mourns. It prays. It warns. It thunders. A young man went off and broke his mother's heart, and while he was away from home his mother died, and the telegraph brought the son, and he came into the room where she lay, and looked upon her face, and cried out, "0, mother, mother! what your life could not do your death shall effect. This moment I give my heart to God." And he kept his promise. Another victory for the vacant chair, With reference to your mother, the words of my text were fulfilled : "Thou shalt be missed because thy seat will be empty." 86 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. How Tom Sawyer 'Whitewashed His Fence. [Tom Sawyer, having offended his sole guardian, Aunt Polly, is by that sternly affectionate dame punished by being set to whitewash the fence in front of the garden.] Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him, and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank ; repeated the operation ; did it again ; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far- reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree- box, discouraged. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. ^ Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it bits of toys, marbles, and trash ; enough to buy an exchange of work, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as hah* an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration. He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight, presently the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and- jump proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. A 8 h e TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 37 drew near ne slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to starboard and rounded to, ponderously, and with labori- ous pomp and circumstance for he was personating the "Big Missouri," and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat, and captain, and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them : "Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk. "Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides. "Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling ! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!" His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles for it was representing a forty-foot wheel. "Let her go back on thelabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow- ch-chow-chow!" The left hand began to describe circles. "Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard. Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head- line. Lively, now ! Come out with your spring line what're you about there ! Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it ! Stand by that stage, now let her go ! Done with the engine, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! Sh't! SJit! Slit!" (trying the gauge- cocks.) Tom went on whitewashing paid no attention to the steam- boat. Ben stared a moment, and then said: "Hi-i/t .' you re a stump, ain't you?" No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye ot an artist; then he gave his brush another gentle sweep, and surveyed the result as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said : "Hello, old chap; you got to work, hey?" . Tom wheeled suddenly, and said: "Why, it's you, Ben; I warn't noticing." 88 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. "Say, I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But, of course, you'd druther work, wouldn't you? 'Course you would!" Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: "What do you caU work?" "Why, ain't that work?" Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered, carelessly: "Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer." "Oh, come now, you don't mean to let on that you like it?" "Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it? Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?" That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth stepped back to note the effect added a touch here and there criticised the effect again, Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: "Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little." Tom considered was about to consent but he altered his mind: "No, no, I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence right here on the street, you know if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful ; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it in the way it's got to be done." "No is that so? Oh, come, now, lemme just try, only just a little. I'd let you, if you was me, Tom." "Ben, I'd like to, honest Injin; but Aunt Polly well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him. Sid wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it "Oh, shucks! I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say ['11 give you the core of my apple." TBEASUEES FEOM THE PBOSE WOBLD. 89 "Well, here. No, Ben; now don't; I'm afeared " "I'll give you all of it." Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while Ben worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with; and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor, poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, beside the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews- harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire- crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog- collar but no dog, the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange- peel, and a dilapidated old window sash. Tom had had a nice good idle time all the while plenty of company and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village. He said to himself that it was not such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action without know- ing it namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make it difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this, he would now have comprehended that work consists of what- ever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do, and this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread -mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amuse- ment. 40 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. WASHINGTON IRVING. T I 7 ASHINGTON IEVING was born in the city of New York, \\ April 3, 1783, and he passed to the higher life on November 28, 1859. He was purely a self-made man, hav- ing received only a common-school education. He studied law for a time, but his chief studies were "Robinson Crusoe," collections of voyages, also Chaucer, Spenser and other English classics. Irving's literary record is as follows : In 1802 he com- menced writing for the newspaper conducted by his brother. His next venture was a publication entitled "Salmagundi," conducted by hi n self and his brother William, and James K. Paulding. It was filled with satire upon the follies of the day, and it became quite successful. Next followed his History of New York, probably the best sustained burlesque ever written. For two years he conducted the "Atlantic Magazine" in Philadelphia. His Sketch Book was partly made up of articles from the "Magazine." His Sketch Book was published in New York in 1818, and subsequently, in London. This work was at once accepted as classic and the author's reputation was placed upon a permanent basis ; it was considered a literary event. In 1822 Bracebridge Hill, written in Paris, appeared in London. In 1824 appeared the Tales of a Traveller; 1828, History of the Life and Voy- ages of Christopher Columbus, followed by Voyages and Dis- coveries of the Companions of Columbus. While in Spain he col- lected the materials for Conquest of Grenada, The Alhambra, Legends of the Conquest of Spain, and Mahomet and His WASHINGTON IRVING. TKEASUEES PKOM THE PKOSE WORLD. 41 Successors. From his trip beyond the Mississippi came, A Tour on the Prairies. This was followed by Astoria, The Adventures of Captain Bouneville, and a volume of miscel- lanies, entitled Wolf erf s Roost. He also published the Life of Margaret Davidson, and his biography of Oliver Goldsmith. His last great work is his Life of Washington, in five volumes. The words Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow and Knicker- bocker are familiar to all. For pleasure and for material for his works, Irving traveled quite extensively. In 1804 he started on his tour through Europe. He visited Genoa, Sicily, Naples, Borne, Paris, Brussels, arriving finally at London. In 1814 he went to Europe the second time. He made a tour of the continent, and enjoyed a special literary companionship in London. He also traveled quite extensively in this country,' Irving's civil record is brief but important. He served for a short time as aid-de-camp to Governor Tompkins in 1814. He was commissioned, by Alexander H. Everett, minster to Spain, to make translations of the newly dis- covered papers in Madrid referring to Columbus. In 1829 he was appointed secretary of legation to the American embassy in London. In 1842 he was appointed minister to Spain. In closing this sketch we quote from Underwood : "It is not difficult to assign Irving's place among our authors. Thackeray happily spoke of him as 'the first embassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old. ' In our lighter literature he is without a rival as an artist. He is equally happy in his delineations of scenery and charater ; he moves us to tears or to laughter at his pleasure. His works have all an admirable proportion ; nothing necessary is omitted, and needless details are 42 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. avoided. He never fatigues us by learned antithesis, nor by the parallelism of proverbial grace, and picturesque effect. The vivacity of his youth never wholly deserted him ; although he ceased writing humorous works, it served to animate his graver histories, and to give them a charm which the mere annalist could not attain. His life, on the whole, was fortunate ; his fame came in season for him to enjoy it ; his works brought him his bread, honestly earned, and not merely the monumental stone. Other authors may perhaps excite more of our wonder or reverence, but Irving will be remembered with delight and love. Irving's last years were spent at 'Sunnyside,' near Tarrytown, N. Y. He was never married. Miss Matilda Hoffman, the lady to whom he was betrothed, having died at the age of eighteen, he remained faithful to her memory; and her Bible, kept for so many years, was upon the table at his bedsit \*V>a be died." TBEASUBES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 48 The Grave. Oh, the grave ! the grave ! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a com- punctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies nioldering before him? But the grave of those we loved, what a place for meditation ! There it is we call up, in long review, the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded, in the daily intercourse of intimacy ; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene; the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendants, its mute, watchful assiduities ; the last testimonies of expiring love ; the feeble, fluttering, thrilling oh, how thrilling ! pressure of the hand; the faint, faltering accents struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection ; the last fond look of the glazing eye, turned upon us even from the threshold of existence! Aye, go to the grave of buried love and meditate ! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who can never, never, never return, to be soothed by thy contrition. If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent, if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kind- ness or thy truth, if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee, if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet, then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle 44 TEEASUBES FBOM THE PBOSE WOBLD. action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down, sor- rowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter because unheard and unavailing. Rural Life in England. The stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English character must not confine his observations to the metropolis. He must go forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farmhouses, cottages; he must wander through parks and gardens, along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about country churches, attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals, and cope with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and humors. In some countries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and intelli- gent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and having indulged this carnival, return again to the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The various orders of society are therefore diffused over the whole surface of the king- dom, and the most retired neighborhoods afford specimens of the different ranks. The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, enter TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 45 with facility into rural habits and evince a turn for rural occupa- tion. The merchant has his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-garden and the maturing of his fruits as he does in the conduct of his business and the success of his com- mercial enterprises. Even those less fortunate individuals who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and traffic, con- trive to have something that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles, frequently, a bank of flowers; every spot capable of vegetation has its grass plot and flower-bed and every square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste and gleaming with refreshing verdure. Those who see the Englishman only in town are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either absorbed in business or distracted by the thousand engagements that dissipate time, thought and feeling, in this huge metropolis ; he has, therefore, too commonly, a look of hurry and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be he is on the point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talking on one subject his mind is wan- dering to another; and while paying a friendly visit, he is calcula- ting how he shall economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the morning. An immense metropolis like London is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and tran- sient meetings, they can but deal briefly in common places. They present but the cold superfices of character its rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a flow. It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities of town ; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He manages to collect around him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish its restraint. His country seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of 46 TREASURES PROM THE PROSE WORLD. all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint either upon his guests -or himself, but in the true spirit of hospitality provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his inclination. The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called landscape gardening, is unrivaled. They have studied nature intently, and discover an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms, which in other countries she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive glances, and spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes. Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them ; the hare, bounding away to the covert; or the pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in the most natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake the sequestered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters; while some rustic temple or sylvan statue, grown green and dark with age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion. These are but a few of the features of park scenery; but what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pic- tures in his mind the future landscape. The sterile spot grows in- to loveliness under his hand; and yet the operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage ; the TKEASUEES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 47 introduction of a green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water; all these are man- aged with a delicate tact, a prevailing, yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture. The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door, the little flower bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice, the pot of flowers in the window, the holly providentially planted about the house, to cheat Winter of its dreariness, and throw in a semblance of green Summer to cheer the fireside; all these bespeak the influence of taste, flow- ing down from high sources and pervading the lowest levels of the public mind. If ever love, as poets sing, delight to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant. The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the English has had a great and salutary effect upon the national char- acter. I do not know a finer race of men than the English gentle- men. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which characterizes the men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame, and freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attribute to their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of the country. These hardy exercises produce also a healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and dissipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and can never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the different orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon each other. The distinctions between them do not appear to be so marked and impassible as in the cities. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms has established a regular gradation from the nobleman, through the classes of gentry, small landed propri- 48 TBEASUEES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. etors and substantial farmers, down to the laboring peasantry; and while it has thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused into each intermediate rank a spirit of independence. This, it must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly; the larger estates having, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, almost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have men- tioned. In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders of rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank and to enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyment of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of the country bring men more and more together, and the sound of hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in England than they are in any other country; and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures and extremities, without repining more gener- ally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege. To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life those incomparable descriptions of nature which abound in the British poets, that have continued down from "The Flower and the Leaf," of Chau'cer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and TBEASUBES FEOM THE PROSE WOBLD. 49 reveled with her ; they have wooed her in her most secret haunts ; they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze, a leaf could not rustle to the ground, a diamond drop could not patter in the stream, a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful morality. The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great part of the island is level, and would be monotonous were it not for the charms of culture ; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture; and as the roads are continually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small land- scapes of captivating loveliness. The great charm, however, of English scenery is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober, well-established principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Everything seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote achitecture, with its low,massive portal, its Gothic tower, its windows rich with tracery and painted glass, its stately monu- ments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil, its tombstones, recording successive gene- rations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plow the same fields and kneel at the same altar. The parsonage, a quaint, irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the taste of various ages and occupants ; the stile and foot-path leading from the churchyard across pleasant fields and along shady hedge- rows, according to an immemorable right of way; the neighboring village with its venerable cottages, its public green, sheltered by trees under which the forefathers of the present race have sported; 4 50 TREASURES PROM THE PROSE WORLD. the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene, all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, and hereditary transmission of home- bred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touch- ingly for the moral character of the nation. It is a pleasing sight on a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peas- antry in their best finery, with ruddy faces and modest cheerful- ness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church ; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them. Our Revolutionary Fathers [The following address to our ^Revolutionary Fathers, we take from Webster's "masterpiece as a dedicatory orator;" an address delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, at Charlestown, Mass., June 17, 1825.] Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven -has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder in the strife of your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads, the same ocean rolls at your feet, but all else how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying, the impetuous charge, the steady and successful repulse, the loud call to repeated assault, the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance, a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of TKEASURES FBOM THE PBOSE WORLD. 51 terror there may be in war and death, all these you have wit- nessed, but you witness them no more. AH is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw fiJled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with an uni- versal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appro- priately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defense. AH is peace, and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness ere you slumber forever in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils, and he has aUowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Bead, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band! You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country's independence established and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like "Another morn, Risen on mid -noon;" nnd the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. But, ah! Him! the first great martyr in this great cause! Him ! the premature victim of his own self -devoting heart ! Him ! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our mili- tary bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable 52 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. fire of his own spirit ! Him ! cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom, falling ere he saw the star of his country rise, pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage ! How shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish, but thine shall endure ! This monument may molder away, the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea, but thy memory shall not fail ! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit! But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits who hazarded or lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy repre- sentation of the survivors of the whole Eevolutionary Army. Veterans ! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century ! when in your youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and san- guine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this ! At a period to which you could not reason- ably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity such as you could never Uave foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the fellowship of oid soldiers and to receive the overflowing of an universal gratitude. But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, throng to your embraces. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years and bless them! And wheD f ou shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall ono nore have pressed the hands which have been so often TEEASUEES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. 53 extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory, then look abroad into this lovely land which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad in the whole earth and see what a name you have con- tributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind ! [Here follow a few remarks in which Mr. Webster refers to the effects of the battle of June 17th and its impression upon those who were about to engage in the struggle for equal rights. He sees the colonists standing together and he expresses the hope that this feeling will remain with them forever: "One cause, one country one heart."] Mr. Webster then continues .as follows: Information of these events, circulating through Europe, at length reached the ears of one who now hears me.* He has not forgotten the emotion which the fame of Bunker Hill and the name of Warren excited in his youthful breast. Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establishment of- great public principles of liberty, and to do honor to the distin- guished dead. The occasion is too severe for eulogy to the living. But, sir, your interesting relation to this country, the peculiar cir- cumstances which surround you and surround us, call on me to express the happiness which we derive from your presence and aid in this solemn commemoration. Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of devotion will you not thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life! You are connected with both hemispheres, and with two generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty should be conducted, through you, from the New World to the Old ; and, we who are now here to perform this duty of patriot- ism have all of us long ago received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your name and your virtues. You will account it an instance of your good fortune, sir, that you crossed the seas to visit us at a time which enables you to be present at this solemnity. You now behold the field, the renown of which reached you in the heart of General Lafayette 54 TBEASUBES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. France, and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. You see the lines of the little redoubt thrown up by the incredible diligence of Prescott; defended, to the last extremity, by his lion-hearted valor; and, within which, the corner-stone of our monument has now taken its position. You see where Warren fell, and where Parker, Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early patriots fell with him. Those who survived that day, and whose lives have been prolonged to the present hour, are now around you. Some of them you have known in the trying scenes of the war. Behold ! they now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace you. Behold ! they raise their trembling voices to invoke the blessing of God on you and yours forever. Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of this edifice. You have heard us rehearse, with our feeble commendation, the names of departed patriots. Sir, monuments and eulogy belong to the dead. We give them this day to Warren and his associates. On other occasions, they have been given to your more immediate companions in arms, to Washington, to Greene, to Gates, Sullivan, and Lincoln. Sir, we have become reluctant to grant these, our highest and last honors ; further : we would gladly hold them yet back from the little remnant of that immortal band. Serus in ccelum redeas. Illustrious as are your merits, yet far, Oh, very far distant be the day, when any inscription shall bear your name, or any tongue pronounce its eulogy. TEEASURES FEOM THE PEOSE WOELD. 65 Happiness. She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beautiful as the rain- bow, that smiling daughter of the storm ; but, like the mirage in ^the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates and that contiguity destroys. Yet, when unsought, she is often found, and when unexpected, often obtained; while those who seek for her the most diligently fail the most, because they seek her where she is not. Anthony sought her in love; Brutus, in glory; Caesar, in dominion ; the first found disgrace, the second disgust, the last ingratitude, and each destruction. To some she is more kind, but not less cruel; she hands them her cup and they drink even to stupefaction, until they doubt whether they are men, with Philip, or dream that they are gods, with Alexander. On some she smiles, as on Napoleon, with an Aspect more bewitching than an Italian sun ; but it is only to make her frown the more terrible, and by one short caress to embitter the pangs of separation. Yet is she, by universal homage and consent, a queen; and the pas- sions are the vassal lords that crowd her court, await her mandate, and move at her control. But, like other mighty sovereigns, she is so surrounded by her envoys, her officers, and her ministers of state, that it is extremely difficult to be admitted to her presence chamber, or to have any immediate communication with herself. Ambition, avarice, love, revenge, all these seek her, and her alone; alas ! they are neither presented to her nor will she come to them. She dispatches, however, her envoys unto them, mean and poor representatives of their queen. To ambition, she sends power; to avarice, wealth; to love, jealousy; to revenge, remorse; alas! what are these, but so many other names for vexation or disappoint- ment? Neither is she to be won by flatteries or by bribes she is to be gained by waging war against her enemies, much sooner than by 56 TBEASUBES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. paying any particular court to herself. Those that conquer her adversaries will find that they need not go to her, for she will come unto them. None bid so high for her as kings ; few are more will- ing, none are more able to purchase her alliance at the fullest price. But she has no more respect for kings than for their sub- jects ; she mocks them, indeed, with the empty show of a visit, by sending to their palaces all her equipage, her pomp, and her train ; but she comes not herself. What detains her? She is traveling incognito to keep a private appointment with contentment and to partake of a dinner of herbs in a cottage. The Music of Child Laughter. The laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike with hand of fire, weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's golden hair ! Fill the vast cathedral aisles with sym- phonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys! Blow, bugle, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, charming the wandering lovers on the vine-clad hills; but know your sweetest strains are discord all compared with childhood's happy laugh the laugh that fills the eyes with light and dimples every cheek with joy. Oh, rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beast and man, and every way- ward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. VICTOR HUGO. TEEASUEES FBOM THE PEOSE WOELD. 57 VICTOR HUGO. VICTOK HUGO was born at Besancon, on the 26th of Feb- ruary, 1802. His father, General Hugo, distinguished himself in the first French Eevolution, under Napoleon. His mother was of the old royalist Vendean stock. Thus we find that Victor Hugo came from a good family. He received an excellent classical education in France, and afterward spent a year in Spain, in a school devoted to the sons of nobles. At the age of fourteen, Victor Hugo dis- tinguished himself in the production of a tragedy called Irtamene, and two lyric pieces of excellent qualities. Besides other remarkable works, he produced in 1822 a volume of Odes et Ballades, in which, although the old classic form was not quite thrown aside, may be discovered traces of that romantic spirit which became the prevailing charac- teristic of Victor Hugo's writings. This volume announced the poet and author in all the strength, richness, and bril- liancy of his genius. It raised Victor at once to the highest rank of modern poets, a position which he has since main- tained. His romance, Notre Dame de Paris, in which he dis- played treasures of style, of imagination, of antiquarian knowledge, and great powers of description, raised him to the very foremost rank of romancers. In addition to the wonderful powers of description, Victor Hugo's writings possess a charm and sonority of language, and a remarkable 58 TEEASUBES FEOM THE PEOSE WOELD. brilliancy of fancy which make his style very picturesque and attractive. In the Eevolution of 1830, which drove Charles X from his throne, Hugo was on the side of the Eevolution. When Louis Philippe was on the throne, he raised Victor Hugo to the peerage. When the monarchy was at an end, Hugo was with the Eepublic, and received the high compliment of being sent to the Assembly as a representative of the city of Paris. In 1851 Hugo opposed the change in which Louis Napoleon established the throne again in France. For his opposition he was obliged to leave his native land and live in exile. He firmly refused to compromise himself and return to France under the rule of Louis Napoleon. During the greater portion of his absence from his own country he occu- pied Hauteville House, a pretty residence with a charming garden, standing on the high ground over St. Peter's Port. The house belonged to the Queen of England. In speaking of the matter, Hugo once said : "My position is somewhat anomalous. I am a republican, and also a peer of France ; a Frenchman in exile, who is the tenant of a house held by the Queen of England as Duchess of Normandy. " While in exile Hugo wrote quite extensively both in prose and poetry. His Les Miserables is sufficient to crown his emi- nent literary career, and, indeed, it is enough glory for one man to have given birth to what may be considered the greatest work of the imagination which the century has pro- duced. Upon the overthrow of Louis Napoleon in the war with Prussia, and the consequent return of France to a Eepublic, Victor Hugo returned to his native land. It was a happy day both to him and his countrymen when the long spell of exile was broken and he returned to his own loved France. TEEASUEES FEOM THE PEOSE WOELD. , 59 A Paradise on Earth, OK, THE BLIND BISHOP AND His SISTER. [The following charming selection is taken from Les Miserables. It is written in remembrance of a blind bishop who died in 1821, at the age of eighty-two. He had been prominent in the affairs of his country, and in his old age was satisfied to be blind, as his sister was by his side.] Let us say, parenthetically, that to be blind and to be loved, is one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this earth, where nothing is perfect. To have continually at your side a wife, a sister or a daughter, a charming being, who is there because you have need of her, and because she cannot do without you; to know yourself indispensable to a woman who is necessary to you; to be able constantly to gauge her affection by the amount of her presence which she gives you, and to say to yourself: "She devotes all her time to me because I possess her entire heart;" to see her thoughts in default of her face ; to prove the fidelity of a being in the eclipse of the world; to catch the rustling of a dress like the sound of wings; to hear her come and go, leave the room, return, talk, sing, and then to dream that you are the center of those steps, those words, those songs; to manifest at every moment your own attraction, and to feel yourself powerful in proportion to your weakness; to become in darkness and through darkness the planet round which this angel gravitates but few felicities equal this. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or more correctly speaking, loved in spite of yourself; and this conviction the blind man has. In this distress to be served is to be caressed. Does he want for anything? No. When you possess love, you have not lost the light. And what a love ! a love entirely made of virtues. There is no blindness where there is certainty; the groping soul seeks a soul and finds it, and 60 TKEASUBES FBOM THE PEOSE WOELD. this fond and tried soul is woman. A hand supports you, it is hers ; a mouth touches your forehead, it is hers ; you hear a breathing close to you, it is she. To have everything she has, from her worship to her pity, to be never left, to have this gentle weakness to succor you, to lean on this unbending reed, to touch providence with her hands, and be able to take her in your arms oh ! what rapture this is ! The heart, that obscure celestial flower, begins to- expand mysteriously, and you would not exchange this shadow for all the light! The angel soul is thus necessarily there ; if she go away, it is to return ; she disappears like a dream, and reappears like a reality. You feel heat approaching you, it is she. You overflow with serenity, ecstacy, and gayety; you are a sunbeam in the night. And then the thousand little attentions, the nothings which are so enormous in this vacuum ! The most ineffable accents of the human voice employed to lull you, and taking the place of the vanished universe ! You are caressed with the soul; you see nothing, but you feel your- self adored ; it is a paradise of darkness. JSTapoleon Buonaparte [The selection given below occurs in a conversation between two Frenchmen. One, a Republican, holds up his country by saying, "France requires no Corsica to be great. France is great because she is France." The other, one of "The Old Guard," with a strangely tremulous voice, produced by his internal emotion, answers, "Heaven forbid that I should diminish France ; but it is not diminishing her to amal- gamate Napoleon with her."] Come, let us talk. I am a new-comer among you, but I con- fess that you astonish me. * * * * I fancied you young men, but where do you keep your enthusiasm, and what do you do with it? Whom do you admire, if it is not the Emperor, and what more do you want? If you will not have that great man, what great man would you have? TBEASUEES FROM THE PBOSE WORLD. 61 He had everything, he was complete, and in his brain was the cube of human faculties. He made codes like Justinian, and dic- tated like Cassar; his conversation blended the lightning of Pascal with the thunder of Tacitus; he made history and wrote it, and his bulletins are Iliads ; he combined the figures of Newton with the metaphor of Mahomet. He left behind him in the east worlds great as the pyramids, at Tilsit he taught majesty to emperors, at the Academy of Science he answered Laplace, at the Council of State he held his own against Merlin, he gave a soul to the geometry of one and to the sophistry of others, for he was a legist with the lawyers, a sidereal with the astronomers. Like Cromwell, blowing out one of two candles, he went to the temple to bargain for a curtain tassel; he saw everything, knew everything, but that did not prevent him from laughing heartily by the cradle of his new-born son. And, all at once, startled Europe listened, armies set out, parks of artillery rolled along, bridges of boats were thrown over rivers, clouds of cavalry galloped in the hurricane, and shouts, bugles, and crashing of thrones could be heard all around. The frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map, the sound of a superhuman sword being drawn from its scabbard could be heard, and he was seen, standing erect on the horizon, with a gleam in his hand, and a splendor in his eye,, opening in the thunder of his two wings, the Grand Army and the Old Guard. He was the archangel of war. Let us be just, my friends ! What a splendid destiny it is for a people to be the empire of such an emperor, when that people is France and adds its genius to the genius of that man. To appear and reign; to march and triumph; to have as bivouacs every capital; to select grenadiers and make kings of them; to decree the downfall of dynasties; to transfigure Europe at double quick steps; to feel when you threaten that you lay your hand on the sword-hilt of God; to follow in one man Hannibal, Caesar, and Charlemagne ; to be the people of a ruler who accompanies your every day-break with the brilliant announcement of a battle gained ; to be aroused in the morning by the guns of the Invalides; to cast 62 TREASURES FROM THE PBOSE WORLD. into the abysses of light prodigious words which are eternally lum- inous Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram! to pro- duce at each moment on the zenith of centuries constellations of victories ; to make the French Emperor a pendant of the Roman Empire; to be the great nation, and give birth to the great army; to send legions all over the world, as the mountain sends its eagles in all directions to conquer, rule, and crush; to be in Europe a people gilt by glory; to sound a Titanic flourish of trumpets through history; to conquer the world twice, by conquest and by amazement all this is sublime. A Heart Beneath, a Stone. [The sentiments which we copy here are extremely beautiful. A Frenchman, who by his political opinions was obliged to live in secret, communicated with his lady by leaving a letter beneath a stone. The rest is fully explained in the following:] She raised the stone, which was of some size, and there was something under it that resembled a letter ; it was an envelope of white paper. Cosette seized it; there was no address on it, and it was not sealed up. Still the envelope, though open, was not empty, for papers could be seen inside. Cosette no longer suffered from terror, nor was it curiosity: it was a commencement of anxiety. Cosette took out a small quire of paper, each page of which was numbered, and bore several lines written in a very nice and delicate hand, so Cosette thought. She looked for a name, but there was none ; for a signature, but there was none, either. For whom was the packet intended? probably for herself, as a hand had laid it on the bench. From whom did it come? An irresistible fascin- ation seized upon her. She tried to turn her eyes away from these pages, which trembled in her hand. She looked at the sky, the street, the acacias all bathed in light, the pigeons circling round an adjoining roof, and then her eyes settled on the mauu- TEEASUBES FEOM THE PEOSE WOBLD. 63 script, and she said to herself that she must know what was inside it. This is what she read : The reduction of the universe to a single being, the dilation of a single being as far as God, such is love. Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars. How sad is the soul when it is sad through love ! What a void is the absence of the being, who of her own self fills the world. Oh! how true it is that the beloved being becomes God! We might understand how God might be jealous of her, had not the Father of all evidently made creation for the soul, and the soul for love. God is behind everything, but everything conceals God. Things are black and creatures are opaque, but to love a being is to render her transparent. Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when the soul is kneeling, no matter what the attitude of the body may be. love, adoration! voluptuousness of two minds which com- prehend each other, of two hearts which are exchanged, of two glances which penetrate one another. You will come to me, happiness, will you not? Walks with her in the solitudes, blest, and radiant days ! I have dreamed that from time to time hours were detached from the lives of angels, and came down here to traverse the destinies of men. God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love, except giving them endless duration. After a life of love, an eter- nity of love is in truth an augmentation ; but it is impossible even for God to increase in its intensity the ineffable felicity which love gives to the soul in this world. God is the fullness of heaven, love is the fullness of man. 64 TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD. You gaze at a star for two motives : because it is luminous and because it is impenetrable. You have by your side a sweeter radi- ance and greater mystery woman. When love has blended and molded two beings in an angelic and sacred union, they have found the secret of life; henceforth they are only the two terms of the same destiny, the two wings of one mind. Love and soar! If you are a stone, be a magnet; if you are a plant, be sensi- tive; if you are a man, be love. Love is the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise. I have met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his coat was out at elbows, the water passed through his shoes, and the stars through his soul. What a grand thing it is to be loved ! What a grander thing still to love! The heart becomes heroic by the might of passion. Henceforth it is composed of nought but what is pure, and is only supported by what is elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more germinate in it than a nettle on a glacier. The lofty and serene soul, inaccessible to emotions and vulgar passions, soar- ing above the clouds and shadows of the world, follies, falsehoods, hatreds, vanities, and miseries, dwells in the azure of the sky, and henceforth only feels the profound and subterranean heavings of destiny as the summit of the mountains feels earthquakes. If there were nobody who loved, the sun would be extinguished. TEEASUKES FEOM THE PEOSE WOELD. 65 Advice to a Would-Be Criminal. [A young man sought to murder an elderly citizen for his money. In the struggle the young man was overcome by his intended victim 'and held by an iron grasp. While in this situation the citizen gave his intended murderer the following excellent lecture:] "My boy, you are entering by sloth into the most laborious of existences. Ah ! you declare yourself an idler, then prepare your- self for labor. Have you ever seen a formidable machine which is called a flatting-press ? You must be on your guard against it, for it is a crafty and ferocious thing, and if it catches you by the skirt of the coat it drags you under it entirely. This machine is indo- lence. Stop while there is yet time, and save yourself, otherwise it is ah 1 over with you, and ere long you will be among the cog-wheels. Once caught, hope for nothing more. You will be forced to fatigue yourself, idler, and no rest will be allowed you, for the iron hand of implacable toil has seized you. You refuse tc earn your livelihood, have a calling, and accomplish a duty; it bores you to be like the rest well, you will be different. Labor is the law, and whoever repulses it as a bore must have it as a punish- ment. You do not wish to be a laborer, and you will be a slave ; toil only lets you loose on one side to seize you again on the other; you do not wish to be its friend, and you will be its negro. Ah, you did not care for the honest fatigue of men, and you are about to know the sweat of the damned; while others sing you will groan. You will see other men working in the distance, and they will seem to you to be resting. The laborer, the reaper, the sailor, the blacksmith, will appear to you in the light, like the blessed inmates of a paradise. "What a radiance there is in the anvil; what joy it is to guide the plow and tie up the sheaf; what a holiday to fly before the wind in a boat ! But you, idler, will have to dig, and drag, and roll, and walk! Pull at your halter, for you are a beast of burden in the 2 __ (56 TEEASUEES FEOM THE PEOSE WOELD. service of hell! So your desire is to do nothing? Well, you will not have a week, a day, an hour without feeling crushed. You will not be able to lift anything without agony, and every passing minute will make your muscles crack. What is a feather for others will be a rock for you, and the most simple things will grow scarped. Life will become a monster around you, and coining, going, breath- ing, will be so many terrible tasks for you. Your lungs will pro- duce in you the effect of a hundred-pound weight, and going there sooner than here will be a problem to solve. Any man who wishes to go out, merely opens his door and finds himself in the street; but if you wish to go out you must pierce through your wall. What do honest men do to reach to street? They go down stairs; but you will tear up your sheets, make a cord of them, fiber by fiber, then pass through your window and hang by this thread over an abyss, and it will take place at night, in the storm, the rain, or the hurricane, and if the cord be too short you wih 1 have but one way of descending, by falling falling hap-hazard into the gulf, and from any height, and on what? On some unknown thing beneath. Or you will climb up a chimney at the risk of burning yourself, or crawl through a sewer at the risk of drowning. I will say nothing of the holes which must be masked, of the stones which you will have to remove and put back twenty times a day, or of the plaster you must hide under your mattress. A lock presents itself, and the citizen has in his pocket the key for it, made by the locksmith. But you, if you wish to go out, are condemned to make a terrible masterpiece; you will take a double sou and cut it asunder with tools of your own invention that is your business. Then you will hollow out the interior of the two parts, being careful not to injure the outside, and form a thread all round the edge, so that the two parts may fit closely like a box and its cover. When they are screwed together there wih 1 be nothing suspicious to the watchers for you will be watched it will be a double sou, but for yourself a box. What will you place in this box? A small piece of steel, a watch-spring in which you have made teeth, and which will be a saw. With this saw, about the length of a pin, you will be obliged TREASURES FROM THE PROSE WORLD.