hbl, stx 
 
 PS 1772.M36 1898 
 Mfn without a country and other ta 
 
 T153 Dommsa 5 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Illustrated by F. T. Merrill. Square i2mo. Full gilt. 
 Cloth. Price, $1.50. 
 
 This is one of the very few books that every American at least ten 
 years of age ought to read without fail ; and the present edition is good 
 enough for the best man or the loveliest woman in all this blessed land. 
 — Boston Beacon. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS . . BOSTON, 
 
V 
 
 I? 
 
 ft'. 
 
 THE 
 
 Man Without a Country 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER TALES. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "IN HIS NAME," " TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," " HOW TO DO IT." 
 'WHAT CAREER," ETC., ETC. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1898. 
 
Copyright, 1868, 1868, 
 !y Ticknor and Fields. 
 
 Copyright, 1891, 
 By Edward Everett Hale. 
 
 ©tottattg Press: 
 John Wilson & Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 — •— 
 
 PAQS 
 
 The Man without a Country .... . 5 
 
 The Last of the Florida ........ 48 
 
 A Piece of Possible History 59 
 
 The South American Editor 79 
 
 The Old and the New, Face to Face .... 101 
 
 The Dot and Line Alphabet 117 
 
 The Last Voyage of the Resolute 131 
 
 My Double, and how he undid me 172 
 
 The Children of the Public 200 
 
 The Skeleton in the Closet ........ 257 
 
 Christmas Waits in Boston f . . 274 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTEY. 
 
 FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 This story was written in the summer of 1863, as a contri- 
 bution, however humble, towards the formation of a just and true 
 national sentiment, or sentiment of love to the nation. It was 
 at the time when Mr. Vallandigham had been sent across the 
 border. It was my wish, indeed, that the story might be printed 
 before the autumn elections of that year, — as my " testimony " 
 regarding the principles involved in them, — but circumstances 
 delayed its publication till the December number of the Atlantic 
 appeared. 
 
 It is wholly a fiction, " founded on faot." The facts on which 
 it is founded are these, — that Aaron Burr sailed down the Mis- 
 sissippi River in 1805, again in 1806, and was tried for treason in 
 1807. The rest, with one exception to be noticed, is all ficti- 
 tious. 
 
 It was my intention that the story should have been published 
 with no author's name, other than that of Captain Frederic Ing- 
 ham, U. S. N. Whether writing under his name or my own, I 
 have taken no liberties with history other than such as every 
 writer of fiction is privileged to take, — indeed, must take, if fio 
 tion is to be written at all. 
 
 The story having been once published, it passed out of my 
 hands. From that moment it has gradually acquired different 
 accessories, for which I am not responsible. Thus I have heard it 
 said r that at one bureau of the Navy Department they say that 
 
6 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 Nolan was pardoned, in fact, and returned home to die. At an- 
 other bureau, I am told, the answer to questions is, that, though 
 it is true that an officer was kept abroad all his life, his name was 
 not Nolan. A venerable friend of mine in Boston, who discredits 
 all tradition, still recollects this " Nolan court-martial." One of 
 the most accurate of my younger friends had noticed Nolan's 
 death in the newspaper, but recollected " that it was in Septem- 
 ber, and not in August." A lady in Baltimore writes me, I be- 
 lieve in good faith, that Nolan has two widowed sisters residing 
 in that neighborhood. A correspondent of the Philadelphia 
 Despatch believed " the article untrue, as the United States cor- 
 vette ' Levant ' was lost at sea nearly three years since, between 
 San Francisco and San Juan." I may remark that this uncer- 
 tainty as to the place of her loss rather adds to the probability 
 of her turning up after three years in Lat. 2° 11' S., Long. 131° 
 W. A writer in the New Orleans Picayune, in a careful histori- 
 cal paper, explained at length that I had been mistaken all 
 through ; that Philip Nolan never went to sea, but to Texas ; 
 that there he was shot in battle, March 21, 1801, and by orders 
 from Spain every fifth man of his party was to be shot, had they 
 not died in prison. Fortunately, however, he left his papers and 
 maps, which fell into the hands of a friend of the Picayune's 
 correspondent. This friend proposes to publish them, — and the 
 public will then ha re, it is to be hoped, the true history of Philip 
 Nolan, the man without a country. 
 
 With all these continuations, however, I have nothing to do. 
 I can only repeat that my Philip Nolan is pure fiction. I cannot 
 send his scrap-book to my friend who asks for it, because I have 
 it not to send. 
 
 1 remembered, when I was collecting material for my story, that 
 in General Wilkinson's galimatias, which he calls his " Memoirs," 
 is frequent reference to a business partner of his, of the name 
 of Nolan, who, in the very beginning of this century, was 
 killed in Texas. Whenever Wilkinson found himself in rathei 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 7 
 
 a deeper bog than usual, he used to justify himself by say* 
 ing that he could not explain such or such a charge because 
 ** the papers referring to it were lost when Mr. Nolan was im- 
 prisoned in Texas." Finding this mythical character in the 
 mythical legends of a mythical time, I took the liberty to give 
 him a cousin, rather more mythical, whose adventures should be 
 on the seas. I had the impression that Wilkinson's friend was 
 named Stephen, — and as such I spoke of him in the early 
 editions of this story. But long after this was printed, I found 
 that the New Orleans paper was right in saying that the Texan 
 hero was named Philip Nolan. 
 
 If I had forgotten him and his name, I can only say that Mr. 
 Jefferson, who did not forget him, abandoned him and his, — 
 when the Spanish Government murdered him and imprisoned his 
 associates for life. I have done my best to repair my fault, and 
 to recall to memory a brave man, by telling the story of his fate, 
 in a book called " Philip Nolan's Friends." To the historical 
 statements in that book the reader is referred. That the Texan 
 Philip Nolan played an important, though forgotten, part in our 
 national history, the reader will understand, — when I say that 
 the terror of the Spanish Government, excited by his adventures, 
 governed all their policy regarding Texas and Louisiana also, 
 till the last territory was no longer their own. 
 
 If any reader considers the invention of a cousin too great a 
 liberty to take in fiction, I venture to remind him that " 'T is 
 sixty years since"; and that I should have the highest authority 
 in literature even for much greater liberties taken with annals so 
 far removed from our time. 
 
 A Boston paper, in noticing the story of " My Double," con- 
 tained in another part of this collection, said it was highly im- 
 probable. I have always agreed with that critic. I confess 1 
 have the same opinion of this story of Philip Nolan. It passes on 
 ships which had no existence, is vouched for by officers who never 
 lived. Its hero is in two or three places at the same time, under 
 a process wholly impossible under any conceivable administra* 
 
8 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 tion of affairs. When my friend, Mr. W. H. Reed, sent me 
 
 from City Point, in Virginia, the record of the death of Philip 
 
 Nolan, a negro from Louisiana, who died in the cause of his 
 
 country in service in a colored regiment, I felt that he had 
 
 done something to atone for the imagined guilt of the imagined 
 
 namesake of his unfortunate god-father. 
 
 E. E. H. 
 Roxburt, Mass., March 20, 1886. 
 
 I suppose that very few casual readers of the New 
 York Herald of August 13th observed, in an obscure 
 corner, among the u Deaths," the announcement, — 
 
 "Nolan. Died, on board U. S. Corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11' S., 
 Long. 131° W., on the 11th of May, Philip Nolan." 
 
 I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at 
 the old Mission-House in Mackinaw, waiting for a 
 Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come, 
 and I was devouring to the very stubble all the cur- 
 rent literature I could get hold of, even down to the 
 deaths and marriages in the Herald. My memory for 
 names and people is good, and the reader will see, as 
 he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember 
 Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who 
 would have paused at that announcement, if the officer 
 of the Levant who reported it had chosen to make it 
 thus : — " Died, May 11th, The Man without a 
 Country." For it was as " The Man without a 
 Country" that poor Philip Nolan had generally been 
 known by the officers who had him in charge during 
 some fifty years, as, indeed, by all the men who sailed 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 9 
 
 under them. I dare say there is many a man who has 
 taken wine with him once a fortnight, in a three years' 
 cruise, who never knew that his name was " Nolan," 
 or whether the poor wretch had any name at all. 
 
 There can now be no possible harm in telling this 
 poor creature's story, Reason enough there has been 
 till now, ever since Madison's administration went out 
 in 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of honor 
 itself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have had 
 Nolan in successive charge. And certainly it speaks 
 well for the esprit de corps of the profession, and the 
 personal honor of its members, that to the press this 
 man's story has been wholly unknown, — and, I think, 
 to the country at large also. I have reason to think, 
 from some investigations I made in the Naval Archives 
 when I was attached to the Bureau of Construction, 
 that every official report relating to him was burned 
 when Ross burned the public buildings at Washington. 
 One of the Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsons, 
 had Nolan in charge at the end of the war ; and when, 
 on returning from his cruise, he reported at Washing- 
 ton to one of the Crowninshields, — who was in the 
 Navy Department when he came home, — he found 
 that the Department ignored the whole business. 
 W nether they really knew nothing about it or whether 
 it was a " Non mi ricordo" determined on as a piece 
 of policy, I do not know. But this I do know, that 
 since 1817, and possibly before, no naval officer ha? 
 mentioned Nolan in his report of a cruise. 
 
 1* 
 
10 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 But, as I say, there is no need for secrecy any 
 longer. And now the poor creature is dead, it seems 
 to me worth while to tell a little of his Story, by way 
 of showing young Americans of to-day what it is to be 
 A Man without a Country. 
 
 Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as there 
 was in the " Legion of the West," as the Western 
 division of our army was then called. When Aaron 
 Burr made his first dashing expedition down to New 
 Orleans in 1805, at Fort Massac, or somewhere 
 above on the river, he met, as the Devil would have 
 it, this gay, dashing, bright young fellow, at some din- 
 ner-party, I think. Burr marked him, talked to him, 
 walked with him, took him a day or two's voyage in 
 his flat-boat, and, in short, fascinated him. For the 
 next year, barrack-life was very tame to poor Nolan. 
 He occasionally availed himself of the permission the 
 great man had given him to write to him. Long, high- 
 worded, stilted letters the poor boy wrote and rewrote 
 and copied. But never a line did he have in reply from 
 the gay deceiver. The other boys in the garrison 
 sneered at him, because he sacrificed in this unrequited 
 affection for a politician the time which they devoted to 
 Monongahela, hazard, and high-low-jack. Bourbon, 
 euchre, and poker were still unknown. But one day 
 Nolan had his revenge. This time Burr came down the 
 river, not as an attorney seeking a place for his office, 
 but as a disguised conqueror. He had defeated I know 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 11 
 
 not how many district-attorneys ; he had dined at 1 
 know not how many public dinners ; he had been her- 
 alded in I know not how many Weekly Arguses, and 
 it was rumored that he had an army behind him and an 
 empire before hirn. It was a great day — his arrival — 
 to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hour 
 before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan 
 to take him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrake 
 or a cotton-wood tree, as he said, — really to seduce 
 him ; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan was en- 
 listed body and soul. From that time, though he did not 
 yet know it, he lived as a man without a country. 
 
 What Burr meant to do I know no more than you, 
 dear reader. It is none of our business just now. On- 
 ly, when the grand catastrophe came, and Jefferson and 
 the House of Virginia of that day undertook to break 
 on the wheel all the possible Clarences of the then 
 House of York, by the great treason-trial at Richmond, 
 some of the lesser fry in that distant Mississippi Val- 
 ley, which was farther from us than Puget's Sound is 
 to-day, introduced the like novelty on their provincial 
 stage, and, to while away the monotony of the summer 
 at Fort Adams, got up, for spectacles, a string of court- 
 martials on the officers there. One and another of 
 the colonels and majors were tried, and, to fill out the 
 list, little Nolan, against whom, Heaven knows, there 
 was evidence enough, — that he was sick of the ser- 
 vice, had been willing to be false to it, and would 
 have obeyed any order to march any- whit her \ritb 
 
12 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 any one who would follow him had the order been 
 signed, u By command of His Exc. A. Burr." The 
 courts dragged on. The big flies escaped, — rightly 
 for all I know. Nolan was proved guilty enough, as I 
 say ; yet you and I would never have heard of him, 
 reader, but that, when the president of the court 
 asked him at the close, whether he wished to say any- 
 thing to show that he had always been faithful to the 
 United States, he cried out, in a fit of frenzy, — 
 
 " D — n the United States ! I wish I may never 
 hear of the United States again ! " 
 
 I suppose he did not know how the words shocked 
 old Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court. 
 Half the officers who sat in it had served through the 
 Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had 
 been risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly 
 cursed in his madness. He, on his part, had grown 
 up in the West of those days, in the midst of " Spanish 
 plot," "Orleans plot," and all the rest. He had been 
 educated on a plantation where the finest company 
 was a Spanish officer or a French merchant from Or- 
 leans. His education, such as it was, had been per- 
 fected in commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I 
 think he told me his father once hired an Englishman 
 to be a private tutor for a winter on the plantation. 
 He l^ad spent half his youth with an older brother, 
 hunting horses in Texas; and, in a word, to him 
 " United States " was scarcely a reality. Yet he had 
 been fed by u United States '" p or all the vears since 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY- 13 
 
 he had been in the army. He had sworn on his faith 
 as a Christian to be true to " United States." It was 
 " United States " which gave him the uniform he 
 wore, and the sword by his side. Nay, my poor No- 
 lan, it was only because " United States " had picked 
 you out first as one of her own confidential men of 
 honor that " A. Burr " cared for you a straw more 
 than for the flat-boat men who sailed his ark for him. 
 I do not excuse Nolan ; I only explain to the reader 
 why he damned his country, and wished he might 
 never hear her name again. 
 
 He never did hear her name but once again. From 
 that moment, September 23, 1807, till the day he 
 died, May 11, 1863, he never heard her name again. 
 For that half-century and more he was a man without 
 a country. 
 
 Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. If 
 Nolan had compared George Washington to Benedict 
 Arnold, or had cried, " God save King George," 
 Morgan would not have felt worse. He called the 
 court into his private room, and returned in fifteen 
 minutes, with a face like a sheet, to say, — 
 
 " Prisoner, hear the sentence of the Court ! The 
 Court decides, subject to the approval of the Presi- 
 dent, that you never hear the name of the United 
 States again." 
 
 Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old 
 Morgan was too solemn, and the whole room was 
 hushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan lest 
 hia swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added, — 
 
14 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 " Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in an 
 armed boat, and deliver him to the naval commander 
 there." 
 
 The Marshal gave his orders and the prisoner was 
 taken out of court. 
 
 "Mr. Marshal," continued old Morgan, "see that 
 no one mentions the United States to the prisoner. 
 Mr. Marshal, make my respects to Lieutenant Mitch- 
 ell at Orleans, and request him to order that no one 
 shall mention the United States to the prisoner while 
 he is on board ship. You will receive your written 
 orders from the officer on duty here this evening. 
 The court is adjourned without day." 
 
 I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan him- 
 self took the proceedings of the court to Washington 
 City, and explained them to Mr. Jefferson. Certain 
 it is that the President approved them, — certain, 
 that is, if I may believe the men who say they have 
 seen his signature. Before the Nautilus got round 
 from New Orleans to the Northern Atlantic coast 
 with the prisoner on board the sentence had been ap- 
 proved, and he was a man without a country. 
 
 The plan then adopted was substantially the same 
 which was necessarily followed ever after. Perhaps 
 it was suggested by the necessity of sending him by 
 water from Fort Adams and Orleans. The Secretary 
 of the Navy — it must have been the first Crownin- 
 shield, though he is a man I do not remember — was 
 requested to put Nolan on board a government vessel 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 15 
 
 bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he should 
 be only so far confined there as to make it certain that 
 he never saw or heard of the country. We had few 
 long cruises then, and the navy was very much out 
 of favor ; and as almost all of this story is traditional, 
 as I have explained, I do not know certainly what 
 his first cruise was. But the commander to whom he 
 was intrusted, — perhaps it was Tingey or Shaw, though 
 I think it was one of the younger men, — we are all 
 old enough now, — regulated the etiquette and the 
 precautions of the affair, and according to his scheme 
 they were carried out, I suppose, till Nolan died. 
 
 When I was second officer of the " Intrepid," some 
 thirty years after, I saw the original paper of instruc- 
 tions. I have been sorry ever since that I did not 
 copy the whole of it. It ran, however, much in this 
 way : — 
 
 " Washington (with a date, which 
 must have been late in 1807). 
 
 " Sir, — You will receive from Lieutenant Neale 
 the person of Philip Nolan, late a Lieutenant in the 
 United States Army. 
 
 " This person on his trial by court-martial expressed 
 with an oath the wish that he might ' never hear of 
 the United States again.' 
 
 " The Court sentenced him to have his wish ful- 
 filled. 
 
 " For the present, the execution of the order is ixj 
 trusted by the President to this Department. 
 
16 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 "You will take the prisoner on board your ship, 
 and keep him there with such precautions as shall pre- 
 vent his escape.- 
 
 ' l You will provide him with such quarters, rations, 
 and clothing as would be proper for an officer of his 
 late rank, if he were a passenger on your vessel on 
 the business of his Government. 
 
 " The gentlemen on board will make any arrange- 
 ments agreeable to themselves regarding his society. 
 He is to be exposed to no indignity of any kind, nof 
 is he ever unnecessarily to be reminded that he is a 
 prisoner. 
 
 " But under no ircumstances is he ever to hear of 
 his country or to see any information regarding it, 
 and you will specially caution all the officers under 
 your command to take care, that, in the various in- 
 dulgences which may be granted, this rule, in which 
 his punishment is involved, shall not be broken. 
 
 " It is the intention of the Government that he 
 shall never again see the country which he has dis- 
 owned. Before the end of your cruise you will re- 
 fieive orders which will give effect to this intention. 
 " Respectfully yours, 
 
 " W. Southard, for the 
 
 Secretary of the Navy." 
 
 If I had only preserved the whole of this paper, 
 there would be no break in the beginning of my sketch 
 of this story. For Captain Shaw, if it were he, handed 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 17 
 
 it to his successor in the charge, and he to his, and I 
 suppose the commander of the Levant has it to-day as 
 his authority for keeping this man in this mild cus- 
 tody. 
 
 The rule adopted on board the ships on which I 
 have met " the man without a country " was, I think, 
 transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked to 
 have him permanently, because his presence cut off all 
 talk of home or of the prospect of return, of politics 
 or letters, of peace or of war, — cut off more than 
 half the talk men liked to have at sea. But it was al- 
 ways thought too hard that he should never meet the 
 rest of us, except to touch hats, and we finally sank 
 into one system. He was not permitted to talk with 
 the men, unless an officer was by. With officers he 
 had unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose. 
 But he grew shy, though he had favorites : I was one. 
 Then the captain always asked him to dinner on Mon- 
 day. Every mess in succession took up the invitation in 
 its turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him 
 at your mess more or less often at dinner. His break- 
 fast he ate in his own state-room, — he always had a 
 state-room, — which was where a sentinel or some- 
 body on the watch could see the door. And whatever 
 else he ate or drank, he ate or drank alone. Some- 
 times, when the marines or sailors had any special 
 jollification, they were permitted to invite "Plain- 
 Buttons," as they called him. Then Nolan was sent 
 with some officer, and the men were forbidden to speak 
 
18 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 of home while he was there. I believe the theory was 
 that the sight of his punishment did them good. They 
 called him " Plain-Buttons," because, while he always 
 chose to wear a regulation army-uniform, he was not 
 permitted to wear the army-button, for the reason that 
 it bore either the initials or the insignia of the country 
 he had disowned. 
 
 I remember, soon after I joined the navy, I was on 
 shore with some of the older officers from our ship and 
 from the Brandywine, which we had met at Alexan- 
 dria. We had leave to make a party and go up to 
 Cairo and the Pyramids. As we jogged along (you 
 went on donkeys then), some of the gentlemen (we 
 boys called them " Dons," but the phrase was long 
 since changed) fell to talking about Nolan, and some 
 one told the system which was adopted from the first 
 about his books and other reading. As he was almost 
 never permitted to go on shore, even though the vessel 
 lay in port for months, his time at the best hung 
 heavy ; and everybody was permitted to lend him 
 books, if they were not published in America and 
 made no allusion to it. These were common enough 
 in the old days, when people in the other hemisphere 
 talked of the United States as little as we do of Para- 
 guay. He had almost all the foreign papers that came 
 into the ship, sooner or later ; only somebody must go 
 over them first, and cut out any advertisement or 
 stray paragraph that alluded to America. This was a 
 little cruel sometimes, when the back of what was cut 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 19 
 
 out mig/it be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in the 
 midst of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Can- 
 ning's speeches, poor Nolan would find a great hole, 
 because on the back of the page of that paper there 
 had been an advertisement of a packet for New York, 
 or a scrap from the President's message. I say this 
 was the first time I ever heard of this plan, which 
 afterwards I had enough and more than enough to do 
 with. I remember it, because poor Phillips, who was 
 of the party, as soon as the allusion to reading was 
 made, told a story of something which happened at the 
 Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's first voyage ; and it is 
 the only thing I ever knew of that voyage. They had 
 touched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing with 
 the English Admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving 
 for a long cruise up the Indian Oceai, Phillips had 
 borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, 
 in those days, as indeed in these, was qu-te a windfall. 
 Among them, as the Devil would order, was the " Lay 
 of the Last Minstrel," which they had all of them 
 heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I 
 think it could not have been published long. Well, 
 nobody thought there could be any risk of anything 
 national in that, though Phillips swore old Shaw had 
 cut out the " Tempest " from Shakespeare before he let 
 Nolan have it, because he said " the Bermudas ought to 
 be ours, and, by Jove, should be one day." So Nolan 
 was permitted to join the circle one afternoon when a 
 lot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud. 
 
20 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 People do not do such things so often now * but when 
 I was young we got rid of a great deal of time so. 
 Well, so it happened that in his turn Nolan took the 
 book and read to the others ; and he read very well, 
 as I know. Nobody in the circle knew a line of the. 
 poem, only it was all magic and Border chivalry, and 
 was ten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily 
 through the fifth canto, stopped a minute and drank 
 something, and then began, without a thought of what 
 was coming, — 
 
 " Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said," — 
 
 It seems impossible to us that anybody ever heard this 
 for the first time ; but all these fellows did then, and 
 poor Nolan himself went on, still unconsciously or 
 mechanically, — 
 
 " This is my own, my native land ! " 
 Then they all saw something was to pay ; but he ex- 
 pected to get through, I suppose, turned a little pale, 
 but plunged on, — 
 
 " Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
 As home his footsteps he hath turned 
 
 From wandering on a ft^eign strand 1 — 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well," — ■ 
 
 By this time the men were &i\ beside themselves, wish- 
 ing there was any way to make him turn over two 
 pages ; but he had not qu : te presence of mind for 
 that ; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and stag- 
 gered on, — 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 2l 
 
 " For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
 High though his titles, proud his name, 
 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, 
 Despite these titles, power, and pelf, 
 The wretch, concentred all in self," — 
 
 and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but 
 started up, swung the book into the sea, vanisned into 
 his state-room, " And by Jove," said Phillips, " we did 
 not see him for two months again. And I had to 
 make up some beggarly story to that English surgeon 
 why I did not return his Walter Scott to him." 
 
 That story shows about the time when Nolan's 
 braggadocio must have broken down. At first, they 
 said, he took a very high tone, considered his imprison- 
 ment a mere farce, affected to enjoy the voyage, and 
 all that ; but Phillips said that after he came out of 
 his state-room he never was the same man again. He 
 never read aloud again, unless it was the Bible or 
 Shakespeare, or something else he was sure of. But 
 it was not that merely. He never entered in with 
 the other young men exactly as a companion again. 
 He was always shy afterwards, when I knew him, — 
 very seldom spoke, unless he was spoken to, except to 
 a very few friends. He lighted up occasionally, — 1 
 remember late in his life hearing him fairly eloquent 
 on something which had been suggested to him by 
 one of Fle*chier's sermons, — but generally he had the 
 nervous, tired look of a heart-wounded man. 
 
 When Captain Shaw was coming home, — if, as I 
 lay, it was Shaw, — rather to the surprise of every- 
 
22 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 body they made one of the Windward Islands, and lav 
 off and on for nearly a week. The boys said the of- 
 ficers were sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle- 
 soup before they came home. But after several days 
 the Warren came to the same rendezvous ; they ex- 
 changed signals ; she sent to Phillips and these home- 
 ward-bound men letters and papers, and told them she 
 was outward-bound, perhaps to the Mediterranean, 
 and took poor Nolan and his traps on the boat back to 
 try his second cruise. He looked very blank when he 
 was told to get ready to join her. He had known 
 enough of the signs of the sky to know that till that 
 moment he was going " home." But this was a dis- 
 tinct evidence of something he had not thought of, 
 perhaps, — that there was no going home for him, 
 even to a prison. And this was the first of some 
 twenty such transfers, which brought him sooner or 
 later into half our best vessels, but which kept him 
 all his life at least some hundred miles from the coun- 
 try he had hoped he might never hear of again. 
 
 It may have been on that second cruise, — it was 
 once when he was up the Mediterranean, — that Mrs. 
 Graff, the celebrated Southern beauty of those days, 
 danced with him. They had been lying a long time 
 in the Bay of Naples, and the officers were very inti- 
 mate in the English fleet, and there had been great 
 festivities, and our men thought they must give a great 
 ball on board the ship. How they ever did it on board 
 the " Warren " I am sure I do not know. Perhaps it 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 23 
 
 was not the " Warren," or perhaps ladies did not take 
 up so much room as they do now. They wanted to 
 use Nolan's state-room for something, and they hated 
 to do it without asking him to the ball ; so the captain 
 said they might ask him, if they would be responsible 
 that he did not talk with the wrong people, "who 
 would give him intelligence." So the dance went on, 
 the finest party that had ever been known, I dare say; 
 for I never heard of a man-of-war ball that was not. 
 For ladies they had the family of the American consul, 
 one or two travellers who had adventured so far, and 
 a nice bevy of English girls and matrons, perhaps 
 Lady Hamilton herself. 
 
 Well, different officers relieved each other in stand- 
 ing and talking with Nolan in a friendly way, so as to 
 be sure that nobody else spoke to him. The dancing 
 went on with spirit, and after a w^hile even the fellows 
 who took this honorary guard of Nolan ceased to fear 
 any contretemps. Only when some English lady — 
 Lady Hamilton, as I said, perhaps — called for a set 
 of "American dances," an odd thing happened. 
 Everybody then danced contra-dances.. The black 
 band, nothing loath, conferred as to what " American 
 dances " were, and started off with " Virginia Reel," 
 which they followed with " Money-Musk," which, in 
 its turn in those days, should have been followed by 
 " The Old Thirteen." But just as Dick, the leader, 
 tapped for his fiddles to begin, and bent forward, about 
 to say, in true negro state, " 4 The Old Thirteen, 
 
24 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 gentlemen and ladies ! " as he had said " ' Virginny 
 Reel,' if you please ! " and " ' Money-Musk,' if you 
 please !" the captain's boy tapped him on the shoulder, 
 whispered to him, and he did not announce the name 
 of the dance ; he merely bowed, began on the air, and 
 they all fell to, — the officers teaching the English 
 girls the figure, but not telling them why it had no 
 name. 
 
 But that is not the story I started to tell. —-As the 
 dancing went on, Nolan and our fellows all got at easo, 
 as I said, — so much so, that it seemed quite natural 
 for him to bow to that splendid Mrs. Graff, and say, — 
 
 44 1 hope you have not forgotten me, Miss Rutledge. 
 Shall I have the honor of dancing? " 
 
 He did it so quickly, that Fellows, who was by him, 
 could not hinder him. She laughed and said, — 
 
 " I am not Miss Rutledge any longer, Mr. Nolan ; 
 but I will dance all the same," just nodded to Fellows, 
 as if to say he must leave Mr. Nolan to her, and led 
 him off to the place where the dance was forming. 
 
 Nolan thought he had got his chance. He had 
 known her at Philadelphia, and at other places had 
 met her, and this was a Godsend. You could not 
 talk in contra-dances, as you do in cotillons, or even 
 ii the pauses of waltzing; but there were chances 
 for tongues and sounds, as well as for eyes and blushes. 
 He began with her travels, and Europe, and Vesuvius, 
 and the French ; and then, when they had worked 
 clown, and had that long talking-time at the bottom 
 
 1 DO 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 25 
 
 of the set, he said, boldly, — a little pale, she said, as 
 she told me the story, years after, — 
 
 " And what do you hear from home, Mrs. Graff? " 
 
 And that splendid creature looked through him. 
 Jove ! how she must have looked through him ! 
 
 " Home ! ! Mr. Nolan ! ! ! I thought you were the 
 man who never wanted to hear of ho-e again!" — 
 juid she walked directly up the deck to her husband, 
 and left poor Nolan alone, as he always was. — He did 
 not dance again. 
 
 I cannot give any history of him in order ; nobody 
 can now ; and, indeed, I am not trying to. These 
 are the traditions, which I sort out, as I believe them, 
 from the myths which have been told about this man 
 for forty years. The lies that have been told about 
 him are legion. The fellows used to say he was the 
 " Iron Mask" ; and poor George Pons went to his 
 grave in the belief that this was the author of " Junius," 
 who was being punished for his celebrated libel on 
 Thomas Jefferson. Pons was not very strong in the 
 historical line. A happier story than either of these I 
 have told is of the War. That came along soon after. 
 I have heard this affair told in three or four ways, — 
 and, indeed, it may have happened more than once. 
 But which ship it was on I cannot tell. However, 
 in one, at least, of the great frigate-duels with the 
 English, in which the navy was really baptized, it 
 happened that a round-shot from the enemy entered 
 one of our ports square, and took right down the of- 
 
26 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 fier of the gun himself, and almost every man of the 
 gun's crew. Now you may say what you choose 
 about courage, but that is not a nice thing to see. But, 
 as the men who were not killed picked themselves up, 
 snd as they and the surgeon's people were carrying off 
 the bodies, there appeared Nolan, in his shirt-sleeves, 
 with the rammer in his hand, and, just as if he had been 
 the officer, told them off with authority, — who should 
 go to the cockpit with the wounded men, who should 
 stay with him, — perfectly cheery, and with that way 
 which makes men feel sure all is right and is going to 
 be right. And he finished loading the gun with 
 his own hands, aimed it, and bade the men fire. And 
 there he stayed, captain of that gun, keeping those fel- 
 lows in spirits, till the enemy struck, — sitting on the 
 carriage while the gun was cooling, though he was ex- 
 posed all the time, — showing them easier ways to 
 handle heavy shot, — making the raw hands laugh at 
 their own blunders, — and when the gun cooled again, 
 getting it loaded and fired twice as often as any other 
 gun on the ship. The captain walked forward by way 
 of encouraging the men, and Nolan touched his hat 
 and said, — 
 
 " I am showing them how we do this in the artillery, 
 sir." 
 
 And this is the part of the story where all the le- 
 gends agree ; and the Commodore said, — 
 
 " I see you do, and I thank you, sir ; and I shali 
 never forget this day, sir, and you never shall, sir.' , 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 27 
 
 And after the whole thing was over, and he had 
 ihe Englishman's sword, in the midst of the state and 
 ceremony of the quarter-deck, he said, — 
 
 " Where is Mr. Nolan ? Ask Mr. Nolan to come 
 here." 
 
 And when Nolan came, the captain said, — 
 
 " Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful to you to-day, 
 you are one of us to-day ; you will be named in tho 
 despatches." 
 
 And then the old man took off his own sword o^ 
 ceremony, and gave it to Nolan, and made him put it 
 on. The man told me this who saw it. Nolan cried 
 like a baby, and well he might. He had not worn a 
 sword since that infernal day at Fort Adams. But 
 always afterwards on occasions of ceremony, he wor<* 
 that quaint old French sword of the Commodore's. 
 
 The captain did mention him in the despatches. 
 It was always said he asked that he might be par- 
 doned. He wrote a special letter to the Secretary of 
 War. But nothing ever came of it. As I said, that 
 was about the time when they began to ignore the 
 whole transaction at Washington, and when Nolan's 
 imprisonment began to carry itself on because there was 
 nobody to stop it without any new orders from home. 
 
 I have heard it said that he was with Porter when 
 he took possession of the Nukahiwa Islands. Not 
 this Porter, you know, but old Porter, his father, Es- 
 sex Porter, — that is, the old Essex Porter, not this 
 Essex. As an artillery officer, who had seen service 
 
28 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 in the West, Nolan knew more about fortifications, 
 embrasures, ravelins, stockades, and all that, than any 
 of them did ; and he worked with a right good- will in 
 fixing that battery all right. I have always thought 
 it was a pity Porter did not leave him in command 
 there with Gamble. That would have settled all the 
 question about his punishment. We should have kept 
 'he islands, and at this moment we should have one 
 station in the Pacific Ocean. Our French friends, 
 too, when they wanted this little watering-place, would 
 have found it was preoccupied. But Madison and the 
 Virginians, of course, flung all that away. 
 
 All that was near fifty years ago. If Nolan was thirty 
 then, he must have been near eighty when he died. 
 He looked sixty when he was forty. But he never 
 seemed to me to change a hair afterwards. As I im- 
 agine his life, from what I have seen and heard of it, 
 he must have been in every sea, and yet almost never 
 on land. He must have known, in a formal way, moie 
 officers in our service than any man living knows. 
 He told me once, with a grave smile, that no man in 
 the world lived so methodical a life as he. " Yon 
 know the boys say I am the Iron Mask, and you know 
 how busy he was." He said it did not do for any one to 
 try to read all the time, more than to do anything else 
 all the time ; but that he read just five hours a day. 
 " Then," he said, " I keep up my note-books, writing 
 in them at such and such hours from what I have been 
 reading ; and I include in these my scrap-books.' 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 29 
 
 These were very curious indeed. He had six or eight, 
 of different subjects. There was one of History, one 
 of Natural Science, one which he called " Odds and 
 Ends." But they were not merely books of extracts 
 from newspapers. They had bits of plants and rib' 
 bons, shells tied on, and carved scraps of bone and 
 wood, which he had taught the men to cut for him, 
 and they were beautifully illustrated. He drew ad- 
 mirably. He had some of the funniest drawings there, 
 and some of the most pathetic, that I have ever seen in 
 my life. I wonder who will have Nolan's scrap-books^ 
 Well, he said his reading and his notes were his pro- 
 fession, and that thev took five hours and two hours 
 respectively of each day. " Then," said he, " every 
 man should have a diversion as well as a profession. 
 My Natural History is my diversion." That took 
 two hours a day more. The men used to bring him 
 birds and fish, but on a long cruise he had to satisfy 
 himself with centipedes and cockroaches and such small 
 game. He was the only naturalist I ever met who 
 knew anything about the habits of the house-fly and the 
 mosquito. All those people can tell you whether they 
 are Lepidoptera or Steptopotera ; but as for telling how 
 you can get rid of them, or how they get away from 
 you when you strike them, — why Linnaeus knew as 
 little of that as John Foy the idiot did. These nine 
 hours made Nolan's regular daily " occupation." The 
 rest of the time he talked or walked. Till he grew 
 very old, he went aloft a great deal. He always kept 
 
30 THE MAlf WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 up his exercise ; and I never heard that he was ill. 
 If any other man was ill, he was the kindest nurse 
 in the world ; and he knew more than half the sur- 
 geons do. Then if anybody was sick or died, or if 
 the captain wanted him to, on any other occasion, he 
 was always ready to read prayers. I have said that 
 he read beautifully. 
 
 My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six 
 or eight years after the War, on my first voyage after I 
 was appointed a midshipman. It was in the first days 
 after our Slave-Trade treaty, while the Reigning House, 
 which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort of 
 sentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors of 
 the Middle Passage , and something was sometimes done 
 that way. We were in the South Atlantic on that 
 business. From the time I joined, I believe I th^aght 
 Nolan was a sort of lay chaplain, — a chaplain with a 
 blue coat. I never asked about him. Everything in 
 the ship was strange to me. I knew it was green to 
 ask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a 
 u Plain-Buttons " on every ship. We had him to 
 dine in our metes once a week, and the caution was 
 given that on that day nothing was to be said about 
 home. But if they had told us not to say anything 
 about the planet Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy, 
 I should not have asked why ; there were a great 
 many things which seemed to me to have as little rea- 
 son. I first came to understand anything about " the 
 man without a country " one day when we overhauled 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. gj 
 
 A dirty little schooner which had slaves on board. An 
 officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few 
 minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some one 
 might be sent him who conld speak Portuguese. We 
 were all looking over the rail when the message came, 
 and we all wished we could interpret, when the cap- 
 tain asked Who spoke Portuguese. But none of the 
 officers did ; and just as the captain was sending for- 
 ward to ask if any of the people coald, Nolan stepped 
 out and said he should be glad to interpret, if the cap- 
 tain wished, as he understood the language. The cap- 
 tain thanked him, fitted out another boat with him, and 
 in this boat it was my luck to go. 
 
 When we got there, it was such a scene as you sel- 
 dom see, and never want to. Nastiness beyond ac- 
 count, and chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness.- 
 There were not a great many of the negroes ; but by 
 way of making what there were understand that they 
 were free, Vaughan had had their hand-cuffs and an- 
 kle-cuffs knocked off, and, for convenience' sake, was 
 putting them upon the rascals of the schooner's crew. 
 The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and 
 gwarming all round the dirtv deck, with a central 
 throng surrounding Vaughan and addressing him in 
 every dialect, and patois of a dialect, from the Zulu 
 click up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed. 
 
 As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a 
 hogshead, on which he had mounted in desperation, 
 and said : — 
 
32 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 u For God's love, is there anybody who can make 
 these wretches understand something ? The men gave 
 them rum, and that did not quiet them. I knocked 
 that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe 
 him. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them to- 
 gether ; and I '11 be hanged if they understood that as 
 well as they understood the English." 
 
 Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or 
 two fine-looking Kroomen were dragged out, who, as 
 it had been found already, had worked for the Portu 
 guese on the coast at Fernando Po. 
 
 a Tell them they are free," said Vaughan ; " ar d 
 tell them that these rascals are to be hanged as soon us 
 we can get rope enough." 
 
 Nolan "put that into Spanish," — that is, he ex- 
 plained it in such Portuguese as the Kroomen cou^i 
 understand, and they in turn to such of the negro us 
 as could understand them. Then there was such a 
 yell of delight, clinching of fists, leaping and dan- 
 cing, kissing of Nolan's feet, and a general rush made 
 to the hogshead by way of spontaneous worship oi 
 Vaughan, as the deus ex machina of the occasion. 
 
 " Tell them," said Vaughan, well pleased, " that I 
 will take them all to Cape Palmas." 
 
 This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas waa 
 practically as far from the homes of most of them 
 as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was ; that is, they 
 would be eternally separated from home there. And 
 their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTKY. 33 
 
 said, " Ah, non JPalmas" and began to propose infinite 
 other expedients in most voluble language. Vaughan 
 was rather disappointed at this result of his liberality, 
 and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. The drops 
 stood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he hushed 
 the men down, and said : — 
 
 ** He says, ' Not Palmas.' He says, ' Take us 
 home, take us to our own country, take us to our own 
 house, take us to our own pickaninnies and our own 
 women.' He says he has an old father and mother 
 who will die if they do not see him. And this one 
 says he left his people all sick, and paddled down to 
 Fernando to beg the white doctor to come and help 
 them, and that these devils caught him in the bay just 
 in sight of home, and that he has never seen anybody 
 from home since then. And this one says," choked 
 out Nolan, " that he has not heard a word from his 
 home in six months, while he has been locked up in 
 an infernal barracoon." 
 
 Vaughan always said he grew gray himself whde 
 
 Nolan struggled through this interpretation. I, who 
 
 did not understand anything of the passion involved in 
 
 it, saw that the very elements were melting with fei - 
 
 vent heat, and that something was to pay somewhere. 
 
 Even the negroes themselves stopped howling, as they 
 
 saw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's almost equal agony 
 
 of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, he 
 
 said : — 
 
 " Tell them yes, yes, yes ; tell them they shall go 
 
 2* 
 
34 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 to the Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sail 
 the schooner through the Great White Desert, they 
 shall go home ! " 
 
 And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then 
 they all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rub 
 his nose with theirs. 
 
 But he could not stand it long ; and getting Vaughan 
 to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into 
 our boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets and 
 the men gave way, he said to me : " Youngster, let 
 that show you what it is to be without a family, 
 without a home, and without a country. And if you 
 are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that 
 shall put a bar between you and your family, your 
 home, and your country, pray God in his mercy to 
 take you that instant home to his own heaven. Stick 
 by your family, boy ; forget you have a self, while 
 you do everything for them. Think of your home, 
 boy ; write and send, and talk about it. Let it be 
 nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you 
 have to travel from it ; and rush back to it, when you 
 are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. And 
 for your country, boy," and the words rattled in his 
 throat, " and for that flag," and he pointed to the 
 ship, ''never dream a dream but of serving her as she 
 bids you, though the service carry you through a 
 thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no 
 matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never 
 look at another flag, never let a night pass but yon 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 35 
 
 pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that 
 behind all these men you have to do with, behind offi- 
 cers, and government, and people even, there is the 
 Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong 
 to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by 
 Her, boy > as you would stand by your mother, if those 
 devils there had got hold of her to-day I " 
 
 I was frightened to death by his calm, hard passion , 
 but I blundered out, that I would, by all that was 
 holy, and that I had never thought of doing anything 
 else. He hardly seemed to hear me ; but he did, 
 almost in a whisper, say : " O, if anybody had said so 
 to me when I was of your age ! " 
 
 I think it wis this half-confidence of his, which 1 
 never abused, for I never told this story till now, 
 which afterward made us great friends. He was 
 very kind to me. Often he sat up, or even got up, at 
 night, to walk the deck with me, when it was my 
 watch. He explained to me a great deal of my 
 mathematics, and I owe to him my taste for mathe« 
 matics. He lent mo books, and helped me about my 
 reading. He never alluded so directly to his story 
 again; but from one and another officer I have learned, 
 in thirty years, what I am telling. When we parted 
 from him in St. Thomas harbor, at the end of our 
 cruise, I was more sorry than I can tell. I was very 
 glad to meet him again in 1830 ; and later in life, 
 when I thought I had some influence in Washington, 
 I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged 
 
36 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 But it was like getting a ghost out of prison. They 
 pretended there was no such man, and never was 
 such a man. They will say so at the Department 
 now ! Perhaps they do not know. It will not be the 
 first thing in the service of which the Department 
 appears to know nothing ! 
 
 There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on one 
 of our vessels, when a party of Americans came on 
 board in the Mediterranean. But this I believe to be 
 a lie ; or, rather, it is a myth, ben trovato, involving a 
 tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr, — 
 asking him how he liked to be " without a country." 
 But it is clear from Burr's life, that nothing of the 
 sort could have happened ; and I mention this only as 
 an illustration of the stories which get a-going where 
 there is the least mystery at bottom. 
 
 So poor Philip Nolan had his wish fulfilled. I 
 know but one fate more dreadful; it is the fate re- 
 served for those men who shall have one day to exile 
 themselves from their country because they have at- 
 tempted her ruin, and shall have at the same time to 
 see the prosperity and honor to which she rises when 
 she has rid herself of them and their iniquities. The 
 wish of poor Nolan, as we all learned to call him, n ot be- 
 cause his punishment was too great, but because his 
 repentance was so clear, was precisely the wish of 
 every Bragg and Beauregard who broke a soldier's 
 oath two years ago, and of every Maury and Barron 
 who broke a sailor's. I do not know how often they 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 37 
 
 have repented. I do know that they have done all 
 that in them lay that they might have no country, — 
 that ail the honors, associations, memories, and hopes 
 which belong to " country " might be broken up into 
 little shreds and distributed to the winds. I know, 
 too, that their punishment, as they vegetate through 
 what is left of life to them in wretched Boulognes and 
 Leicester Squares, where they are destined to upbraid 
 each other till they die, will have all the agony of 
 Nolan's, with the added pang that every one who sees 
 them will see them to despise and to execrate them. 
 They will have their wish, like him. 
 
 For him, poor fellow, he repented of his folly, and 
 then, like a man, submitted to the fate he had asked 
 for. He never intentionally added to the difficulty or 
 delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold. 
 Accidents would happen ; but they never happened 
 from his fault. Lieutenant Truxton told me, that, 
 when Texas was annexed, there was a careful discus- 
 sion among the officers, whether they should get hold 
 of Nolan's handsome set of maps, and cut Texas out 
 of it, — from the map of the world and the map of 
 Mexico. The United States had been cut out when 
 the atlas was bought for him. But it was voted, 
 rightly enough, that to do this would be virtually to 
 reveal to him what had happened, or, as Harry Cole 
 said, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded. So 
 it was from no fault of Nolan's that a great botch hap- 
 pened at my own table, when, for a sk "7 time, I waf 
 
88 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 in command of the George Washington corvette, on 
 the South American station. We were lying in the 
 La Plata, and some of the officers, who had been on 
 shore, and had just joined again, were entertaining us 
 with accounts of their misadventures in riding the 
 half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was at 
 table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative 
 mood. Some story of a tumble reminded him of an 
 adventure of his own, when he was catching wild 
 horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a time 
 when he must have been quite a boy. He told the 
 story with a good deal of spirit, — so much so, that the 
 silence which often follows a good story hung over the 
 table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself. 
 For he asked perfectly unconsciously : — 
 
 " Pray, what has become of Texas ? After the Mexi- 
 cans got their independence, I thought that province 
 of Texas would come forward very fast. It is really 
 one of the finest regions on earth ; it is the Italy 
 of this continent. But I have not seen or heard a 
 word of Texas for near twenty years." 
 
 There were two Texan officers at the table. The 
 reason he had never heard of Texas was that Texas 
 and her affairs had been painfully cut out of his 
 newspapers since Austin began his settlements ; so 
 that, while he read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and, 
 till quite lately, of California, — this virgin province, 
 in which his brother had travelled so far, and, I be« 
 Ueve, had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters and 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTEY. 39 
 
 Williams, the two Texas men, looked grimly at each 
 other, and tried not to laugh. Edward Morris had his 
 attention attracted by the third link in the chain of 
 the captain's chandelier. Watrous was seized with a 
 convulsion of sneezing. Nolan himself saw that some- 
 thing was to pay, he did not know what. And I, as 
 master of the feast, had to say, — 
 
 " Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have you 
 seen Captain Back's curious account of Sir Thomas 
 Roe's Welcome ? " 
 
 After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wrote 
 to him at least twice a year, for in that voyage we be- 
 came even confidentially intimate ; but he never wrote 
 to me. The other men tell me that in those fifteen 
 years he aged very fast, as well he might indeed, but 
 that he was still the same gentle, uncomplaining, silent 
 sufferer that he ever was, bearing as best he could his 
 self-appointed punishment, — rather less social, per- 
 haps, with new men whom he did not know, but more 
 anxious, apparently, than ever to serve and befriend 
 and teach the boys, some of whom fairly seemed to 
 worship him. And now it seems the dear old fellow 
 is dead. He has found a home at last, and a country. 
 
 Since writing this, and while considering whether 
 or no I would print it, as a warning to the young No- 
 lans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of to-day of what 
 it is to throw away a country, I have received from 
 Danforth, who is on board the Levant, a letter which 
 
40 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 gives an account of Nolan's last hours. It remove? 
 all my doubts about telling this story. 
 
 To understand the first words of the letter, the non- 
 professional reader should remember that after 1817, 
 the position of every officer who had Nolan in charge 
 was one of the greatest delicacy. The government 
 had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. 
 What was a man to do ? Should he let him go ? 
 What, then, if he were called to account by the De- 
 partment for violating the order of 1807 ? Should he 
 keep him ? What, then, if Nolan should be liberated 
 some day, and should bring an action for false imprison- 
 ment or kidnapping against every man who had had 
 him in charge ? I urged and pressed this upon Southard, 
 and I have reason to think that other officers did the 
 same thing. But the Secretary always said, as they so 
 often do at Washington, that there were no special or- 
 ders to give, and that we must act on our own judgment. 
 That means, " If you succeed, you will be sustained ; 
 if you fail, you will be disavowed." Well, as Danforth 
 says, all that is over now, though I do not know but I 
 expose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidence 
 of the very revelation I am making. 
 
 Here is the letter : — 
 
 "Levant, 2° 2' S. @ 131° W. 
 *' Dear Fred : — I try to find heart and life to tell 
 you that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I have 
 been with him on this voyage more than I ever was. 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 41 
 
 and I can understand wholly now the way in which 
 you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see 
 that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end was 
 so near. The doctor has been watching him very 
 carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told 
 me that Nolan was not so well, and had not left his 
 state-room, — -a thing I never remember before. He 
 had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there, 
 
 — the first time the doctor had been in the state-room, 
 
 — and he said he should like to see me. O dear ! do 
 you remember the mysteries we boys used to invent 
 about his room, in the old Intrepid days? Well, I 
 went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in 
 his berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, 
 but looking very frail. I could not help a glance 
 round, which showed me what a little shrine he had 
 made of the box he was lying in. The stars and 
 stripes were triced up above and around a picture of 
 Washington, and he had painted a majestic eagle, with 
 lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasp- 
 ing the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. 
 The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad 
 smile, ' Here, you see, I have a country!' And then 
 he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen 
 before a great map of the United States, as he had 
 drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look 
 upon as he la^ Quaint, queer old names were on it, 
 in large letters * Indiana Territory,' '. Mississippi Ter- 
 ritory,' and ' Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our & 
 
42 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 thers learned such things : but tb** old fellow had 
 patched in Texas, too ; he had carried his western 
 boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore 
 fie had defined nothing. 
 
 " ' O Danforth,' he said, 'I know I am dying. I 
 cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something 
 now? — Stop ! stop ! Do not speak till I say what I 
 am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that 
 there is not in America, — God bless her ! — a more 
 loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves 
 the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes 
 for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, 
 Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not 
 know what their names are. There has never been 
 one taken away : I thank God for that. I know by 
 that that there has never been any successful Burr. 
 
 Danforth, Danforth,' he sighed out, ' how like a 
 wretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal fame 
 or of separate sovereignty seems, when one look? 
 back on it after such a life as mine ! But tell me, — 
 tell me something, — tell me everything, Danforth, 
 before I die ! ' 
 
 " Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster 
 that I had not told him everything before. Danger 
 or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that 
 
 1 should have been acting the tyrant all this time over 
 this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, 
 m his whole manhood's life, the madness of a boy's 
 treason ? ' Mr. Nolan,' said I, ' I will tell you every 
 thing you ask about. Only, where shall I begin ? ' 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 43 
 
 " O the blessed smile that crept over his white face ! 
 and he pressed my hand and said, i God bless you f 
 4 Tell me their names,' he said, and he pointed to the 
 stars on the flag. 4 The last I know is Ohio. My 
 father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michi- 
 gan and Indiana and Mississippi, — that was where 
 Fort Adams is, — they make twenty. But where 
 are your other fourteen ? You have not cut up any 
 of the old ones, I hope ? ' 
 
 " Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the 
 names in as good order as I could, and he bade me 
 take down his beautiful map and draw them in as J 
 best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight 
 about Texas, told me how his cousin died there ; he 
 had marked a gold cross near where he supposed his 
 gra.e was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then he 
 was delighted as he saw California and Oregon ; — 
 that, he said, he had suspected partly, because he had 
 never been permitted to land on that shore, though 
 the ships were there so much. ' And the men,' said 
 he, laughing, ' brought off a good deal besides furs.' 
 Then he went back — heavens, how far ! — to ask 
 about the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barron 
 for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whethei 
 Burr ever tried again, — and he ground his teeth with 
 the only passion he showed. But in a moment that 
 was over, and he said, ' God forgive me, for I am sure 
 I forgive him.' Then he asked about the old war, - - 
 told me the true story of his serving the gun the da^ 
 
44 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 we took the Java, — asked about dear old David Por- 
 ter, as he called him. Then he settled down more 
 quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an houi 
 the history of fifty years. 
 
 "How I wished it had been somebody who knew 
 something ! But I did as well as I could. I told him 
 of the English war. I told him about Fulton and the 
 steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and 
 Jackson ; told him all I could think of about the Mis- 
 sissippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old 
 Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in 
 command of the 'Legion of the West.' I told him it 
 was a very gallant officer named Grant, and that, by 
 our last news, he was about to establish his head-quar- 
 ters at Vicksburg. Then, ' Where was Vicksburg ? ' 
 I worked that out on the map ; it was about a hundred 
 miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams ; and I 
 thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now. ' It must 
 be at old Vick's plantation,' at Walnut Hills, said he : 
 ' well, that is a change ! ' 
 
 " I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to con- 
 dense the history of half a century into that talk with 
 a sick man. And I do not now know what I told him, 
 — of emigration, and the means of it, — of steamboats, 
 and railroads, and telegraphs, — of inventions, and 
 books, and literature, — of the colleges, and West 
 Point, and the Naval School, — but with the queerest 
 interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was 
 Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions 
 of fifty-six years ! 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 45 
 
 " I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was 
 President now ; and when I told him, he asked if Old 
 Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He said 
 he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy 
 himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old 
 Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell 
 him of what family ; he had worked up from the ranks. 
 4 Good for him ! ' cried Nolan ; 4 1 am glad of that. 
 As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our 
 danger was in keeping up those regular successions in 
 the first families.' Then I got talking about my visit 
 to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon 
 Congressman, Harding ; I told him about the Smith- 
 sonian, and the Exploring Expedition ; I told him 
 about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, 
 and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washing- 
 ton : Ingham, I told him everything I could think of 
 that would show the grandeur of his country and its 
 prosperity ; but I could not make up my mouth to te 11 
 him a word about this infernal Rebellion ! 
 
 " And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot 
 tell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I never 
 thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a glass of 
 water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go 
 away. Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian 
 * Book of Public Prayer,' which lay there, and said, 
 with a smile, that it would open at the right place, — 
 and so it did. There was his double red mark down 
 the pa^e ; and I knelt down and read, and he rev 
 
46 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 
 
 peaced with me, ' For ourselves and our country, C 
 gracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding 
 our manifold transgressions of Thy holy ' laws, Thou 
 hast continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,' — and 
 so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he turned to 
 the end of the same book, and I read the words more 
 familiar to me : ' Most heartily we beseech Thee with 
 Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, and all others in authority,' 
 — and the rest of the Episcopal collect. ' Danforth,' 
 said he, ' I have repeated those prayers night and 
 morning, it is now fifty-five years.' And then he 
 said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over 
 him and kissed me ; and he said, ' Look in my Bible, 
 Danforth, when I am gone.' And I went away. 
 
 " But I had no thought it was the end. I thought 
 he w^as tired and would sleep. I knew he was happy 
 and I wanted him to be alone. 
 
 " But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently m 
 he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a 
 smile. He had something pressed close to his lips 
 It was his father's badge of the Order of the Cincinnati. 
 
 " We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip ol 
 paper at the place where he had marked the text : — 
 
 " ' They desire a country, even a heavenly : where - 
 fore God is not ashamed to be called their God : for 
 he hath prepared for them a city.' 
 
 " On this slip of paper he had written : — 
 
 " 4 Bury me in the sea ; it has been my home, and 
 
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 47 
 
 1 love it. But will not some one set up a stone for 
 my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my 
 disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear ? Say 
 on it : — 
 
 " ' In Memory of 
 
 "'PHILIP NOLAN, 
 
 " * Lieutenant in the Army of the United States, 
 
 "*He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no 
 man deserved less at her hands-' " 
 
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 
 
 FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 [The Florida, Anglo-Kebel pirate, after inflicting horrible in- 
 juries on the commerce of America and the good name of Eng* 
 land, was cut out by Captain Collins, from the bay of Bahia, by 
 one of those fortunate mistakes in international law which endear 
 brave men to the nations in whose interest they are committed 
 When she arrived here the government was obliged to disavow 
 the act. The question then was, as we had her by mistake, 
 what we should do with her. At that moment the National 
 Sailors' Fair was in full blast at Boston, and I offered my 
 suggestion in answer in the following article, which was published 
 November 19, 1864, in the "Boatswain's Whistle," a little paper 
 issued at the fair. 
 
 The government did not take the suggestion. Very unfortu- 
 nately, before the Florida was got ready for sea, she was acci- 
 dentally sunk in a collision with a tug off Fort Monroe, and the 
 heirs of the Confederate government or the English bond-hold- 
 ers must look there for her, if the Brazilian government will 
 give them permission. 
 
 For the benefit of the New York Observer I will state that a 
 despatch sent round the world in a spiral direction westward 
 1,200 times, would not really arrive at its destination four years 
 before it started. It is only a joke which suggests it.] 
 
 SPECIAL DESPATCH. 
 
 LETTER FROM CAPTAIN INGHAM, IN COMMAND OF THE FLOXIDA. 
 
 [Received four years in advance of the mail by a lightning express, 
 which has gained that time by running round the world 1,200 times 
 
THE LAST OF THE FLOKIDA. 49 
 
 in a spiral direction westward on its way from Brazil to oar publica- 
 tion-office. Mrs. Ingham's address not being known, the letter is 
 printed for her information.] 
 No. 29. 
 
 Bahia, Brazil, April 1, 1868. 
 
 My dear Wife : — We are here at last, thank for- 
 tune ; and I shall surrender the old pirate to-day to 
 the officers of government. We have been saluted, 
 are to be feted, and perhaps I shall be made a Knight 
 Commander of the Golden Goose. I never was so 
 glad as when I saw the lights on the San Esperitu 
 head-land, which makes the south point of this Bahia 
 or bay. 
 
 You will not have received my No. 28 from Loando, 
 and may have missed 26 and 24, which I gave to out- 
 ward bound whalemen. I always doubted whether 
 you got 1, 7, 9, and 11. And for me I have no word 
 of you since you waved your handkerchief from the 
 window in Springfield Street on the morning of the 
 1st of June, 1865, nearly four years. My dear child, 
 you will not know me. 
 
 Let me then repeat, very briefly, the outline of this 
 strange cruise ; and when the letters come, you can 
 fill in the blanks. 
 
 The government had determined that the Florida 
 must be returned to the neutral harbor whence she 
 came. They had put her in complete repair, and six 
 months of diplomacy had made the proper apologies 
 to the Brazilian government. Meanwhile Collins, 
 who had captured her by mistake, had, by another 
 
50 CHki LAS! Ob IH! FLORIDA 
 
 mistake, been made an admiral, and wafc commanding 
 a squadron; and to insure hei safe and respectful 
 delivery, I, who had been waiting service, was un 
 shelved, and, as you know, bidden to take command. 
 
 She was in apple-pie order. The engines had been 
 cleaned up; and L thought we could make a quick 
 thing of it. I was a little dashed when 1 found the 
 crew was small ; but, I have been glad enough since 
 that we had no more mouths. No one but myself 
 knew our destination. The men thought we were to 
 take despatches to the Gulf squadron. 
 
 You remember I had had only verbal orders to take 
 command, and after we got outside the bay I opene« 
 my sealed despatches. The gist of them was in these 
 words : — 
 
 "You will understand that the honor of this gov 
 ernment is pledged for the safe aep'verv of the Florida 
 to the government of Brazil. You will therefore 
 hazard nothing to gain speed. The quantity of your 
 coal has been adjusted with the view to give your 
 vessel her best trim, and the supply is not large. You 
 will husband it with care, — taking every precaution 
 to arrive in Bahia safely with your charge, in such 
 time as your best discretion may suggest to .you " 
 
 *' Your best discretion" was underscored. 
 
 I called Prendergast, and showed him the letter. 
 Then we called the engineer and asked aboul the coal. 
 He had not been into the bunkers, but went and re- 
 turned with his face white, through the b!a«*l< gvime, 
 
THE (.AST OP THR FLORIDA 51 
 
 to report " n »t (bur lays' consumption ' By some 
 cursed accident, lie said, the bunkers had been filled 
 with barrels of sait-pork and Hour 1 
 
 On this, I ordered a light and went below. There 
 had been some fatal misunderstanding somewhere. 
 The vessel was fitted out as for an arctic voyage. 
 Everywhere hard-bread, flour, pork, beef, vinegar, 
 sour-krout ; but, clearly enough, not, at the very best, 
 five days of coal ! 
 
 And I was to get to Brazil with this old pirate 
 transformed into a provision ship, " at my best discre- 
 tion." 
 
 tf Prendergast," said I, " we will take it easy. 
 Were you ever in Bahia ? " 
 
 " Took flour there in '55, and lay waiting for India- 
 rubber from July to October. Lost six men by yel- 
 low-jack.' ' 
 
 Prendergast was from the merchant marine. I had 
 known him since we were children. " Ethan," said 
 I, "in my best discretion it would be bad to arrive 
 there before the end of October. Where would you 
 go.' 
 
 I cannot say he took the responsibility. He would 
 not take it. You know, my dear, of course, that it 
 was I who suggested Upernavik. From the days of 
 the old marbled paper Northern Regions, — through 
 the quarto Ross and Parry and Back and the nephew 
 Ross and Kane and McClure and McClintock, you 
 know, my dear, what my one assion has been, — to 
 
52 THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 
 
 see those floes and icebergs for myself. Surely you 
 forgive me, or at least excuse me. Do not you ? 
 Here was this fast steamer under me. I ought not to 
 be in Bahia before October 25. It was June 1. Of 
 course we went to Upernavik. 
 
 I will not say I regret it now. Yet I will say that 
 on that decision, cautiously made, though it was '* on 
 my discretion," all our subsequent misfortunes hang. 
 The Danes were kind to us, — the Governor especi- 
 ally, though I had to carry the poor fellow bad news 
 about the Duchies and the Danish war, which was all 
 fresh then. He got up a dance for us, I remember, 
 and there I wrote No. 1 to you. I could not of course 
 help — when we left him — running her up a few de- 
 grees to the north, just to see whether there is or is 
 not that passage between Igloolik and Prince Rupert's 
 Headland (and by the way there is}. After we 
 passed Igloolik, there was such splendid weather, that 
 I just used up a little coal to drive her along the coast 
 of King William's Land ; and there, as we waited for 
 little duck-shooting on the edge of a floe one day, as 
 our luck ordered, a party of natives came on board, 
 and we treated them with hard-tack crumbs and whale- 
 oi'L They fell to dancing, and we to laughing, — 
 they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest 
 woman tumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came 
 with a smash right on the little cast-iron frame by the 
 wheel, which screened binnacle and compass, My 
 dear child, there was such a hullalu and such a mess 
 
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 53 
 
 together as I remember now. We had to apologize , 
 the doctor set her head as well as he could. We gave 
 them gingerbread from the cabin, to console them, 
 and got them off without a fight. But the next morn- 
 ing when I cast off from the floe, it proved the beg- 
 gars had stolen the compass card, needle and all. 
 
 My dear Mary, there was not another bit of magne- 
 tized iron in the ship. The government had been very 
 shy of providing instruments of any kind for Confed- 
 erate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two com- 
 passes only the day before for whalebone spears and 
 skin breeches, neither of which knew the north star 
 from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of 
 more importance than you will think ; it really made 
 me feel that the stuff in the books and the sermons 
 about the mariners' needle was not quite poetry. 
 
 As you shall see, if I ever get through. (Since I 
 began, I have seen the Consul, — and heard the 
 glorious news from home, — and am to be presented 
 to the port authorities to-morrow.) It was the most 
 open summer, Mary, ever known there. If I had not 
 had to be here in October, I would have driven right 
 through Lancaster Sound, by Baring's Island, and 
 come out into the Pacific. But here was the honor 
 of the country, and we merely stole back through the 
 Straits. It was well enough there, — all daylight, 
 you know. But after we passed Cape Farewell, we 
 worked her into such fogs, child, as you never saw out 
 of Hyde Park. Did .lot I long fer that compass-card ! 
 
54 THE LAST OP THE FLOKIDA. 
 
 We sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed. For thirty - 
 seven days I did not get an observation, nor speak a 
 ship ! October ! It was October before we were 
 warm. At noon we used to sail where we thought it 
 was lightest. At night I used to keep two men up 
 hr a lookout, lash the wheel, and let her drift like a 
 Dutchman. One way as good as another. Mary, 
 when I saw the sun at last, enough to get any kind of 
 observation, we were wellnigh three hundred miles 
 northeast of Iceland ! Talk of fogs to me ! 
 
 Well, I set her south again, but how long can you 
 know if you are sailing south, in those places where 
 the northeast winds and Scotch mists come from ! 
 Thank Heaven, we got south, or we should have frozen 
 to death. We got into November, and we got into 
 December. We were as far south as 37° 29' ; and 
 were in 31° 17' west on New Year's Day, 1866, when 
 the second officer wished me a happy new year, con- 
 gratulated me on the fine weather, said we should get 
 a good observation, and asked me for the new nautical 
 almanac ! You know they are only calculated for five 
 years. We had two Greenwich ones on board, and 
 they ran out December 31, 1865. But the govern- 
 ment had been as stingy in almanacs as in coal and 
 compasses. They did not mean to keep the Confed- 
 eracy in almanacs. 
 
 That was the beginning of our troubles. I had to 
 take the old almanac, with Prenderga?t, and we fig- 
 ured like Cocker, and always kept ahead with a 
 
THE LAST OF THE FLOKIDA. 55 
 
 month's tables. But somehow, — I feel sure we were 
 right, — but something was wrong ; and after a few 
 weeks the lunars used to come out in the most beastly 
 way, and we always proved to be on the top of the 
 Andes or in the Marquesas Islands, or anywhere but 
 in the Atlantic Ocean. Well then, by good luck, we 
 spoke the Winged Batavian ; could not speak a 
 word of Dutch, nor he a word of English ; but he let 
 Ethan copy his tables, and so we ran for St. Sacra- 
 ment. I posted 8, 9, and 10 there ; I gave the Dutch- 
 man 7, which I hope you got, but fear. 
 
 Well, this story is running long ; but at St. Sa- 
 crament we started again, but, as ill-luck would have 
 it, without a clean bill of health. At that time I could 
 have run into Bahia with coal — of which I had 
 Douffht some — in a week. But there was fever on 
 shore, — and bad, — and I knew we must make pra- 
 tique when we came into the outer harbor here ; so, 
 rather than do that, we stretched down the coast, and 
 met that cyclone I wrote you about, and had to put 
 Into Loando. Understand, this was the first time we 
 went into Loando. I have learned that wretched 
 hole well enough since. And it was as we were run- 
 ning out of Loando, that, in reversing the engine too 
 suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguese 
 woman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of 
 the piston-rod just shot out of the grooves they run in 
 on the top, came cleverly down on the outside of the 
 carriage, gave that odious g-r-r-r, which I can hear 
 
56 THE LAST OF THE FLORID*.. 
 
 now, and then, dump, — down came the whole weight 
 of the walking-beam, bent rod and carriages all into 
 three figure 8's, and there we were ! I had as lief 
 run the boat with a clothes-wringer as with that en- 
 gine, any day, from then to now. 
 
 Well, we tinkered, and the Portuguese dock-yard 
 people tinkered. We took out this, and they took out 
 that. It was growing sickly, and I got frightened, 
 and finally I shipped the propeller and took it on board, 
 and started under such canvas as we had left, — not 
 much after the cyclone, — for the North and the 
 South together had rather rotted the original duck. 
 
 Then, — as I wrote you in No. 11, — it was too late 
 to get to Bahia before that summer's sickly season, 
 and I stretched off to cooler regions again, u in my 
 best discretion." That was the time when we had the 
 fever so horribly on board ; and but for Wilder the 
 surgeon, and the Falkland Islands, we should be dead, 
 every man of us, now. But we touched in Queen's 
 Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own 
 only subject) was very cordial and jolly and kind. 
 We all went ashore, and pitched tents, and ate ducks 
 and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped 
 her, nearly down to the bends, for the grass floatea 
 by our side like a mermaid's hair as we sailed, and 
 the once swift Florida would not make four knots an 
 hour on the wind ; — and this was the ship I was to 
 get into Bahia in good order, at my best discretion ! 
 
 Meanwhile none of these people had any news from 
 
THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 57 
 
 America. The last paper at the Falkland Islands wa9 
 a London Times of 1864, abusing the Yankees. As 
 for the Portuguese, they were like the people Logan 
 saw at Vicksburg. " They don't know anything 
 good! " said he ; " they don't know anything at all!" 
 It was really more for news than for water I put into 
 Sta. Lucia, — and a pretty mess I made of it there. 
 We looked so like pirates (as at bottom the old 
 tub is), that they took all of us who landed to the 
 guard-house. None of us could speak Sta. Lucia, 
 whatever that tongue may be, nor understand it. 
 And it was not till Ethan fired a shell from the 100 
 pound Parrott over the town that they let us go. I 
 hope the dogs sent you my letters. I suppose there 
 was another infringement of neutrality. But if the 
 Brazilian government sends this ship to Sta. Lucia, I 
 shall not command her, that 's all ! 
 
 Well ! what happened at Loando the second time, 
 Valencia, and Puntos Pimos, and Nueva Salamanca, 
 and Loando this last time, you know and will know, 
 and why we loitered so. At last, thank fortune, here 
 we are. Actually, Mary, this ship logged on the 
 average only thirty-two knots a day for the last week 
 before we got her into port. 
 
 Now think of the ingratitude of men ! I have 
 brought her in here, " according to my best discre- 
 tion," and do you believe, these hidalgos, or dons, or 
 senores, or whatever they are, had forgotten she ex- 
 isted. And when I showed them to her, they saii in 
 
 3* 
 
68 THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA. 
 
 good Portugal that I was a liar. Fortunately the Con- 
 sul is our old friend Kingsley. He was delighted to 
 see me ; thought I was at the bottom of the sea. 
 From him we learned that the Confederacy was blown 
 sky-high long ago. And from all I can learn, I may 
 have the Florida back again for my own private yacht 
 or peculium, unless she goes to Sta. Lucia. 
 
 Not I, my friends ! Scrape her, and mend her, and 
 give her to the marines, — and tell them her story ; 
 but do not intrust her again to my own Polly's own 
 
 Frederic Ingham 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISIORY. 
 
 [This essay was first published in the Monthly Religious 
 Magazine, Boston, for October, 1851. One or another professor 
 of chronology has since taken pains to tell me that it is impos- 
 sible. But until they satisfy themselves whether Homer ever 
 lived at all, I shall hold to the note which I wrote to Miss Dry- 
 asdust's cousin, which I printed originally at the end of the 
 article, and which will be found there in this collection. The 
 difficulties in the geography are perhaps worse than those of 
 chronology.] 
 
 A summer bivouac had collected together a little 
 troop of soldiers from Joppa, under the shelter of 
 a grove, where they had spread their sheep-skins, 
 tethered their horses, and pitched a single tent. With 
 the carelessness of soldiers, they were chatting away 
 the time till sleep might come, and help them to to- 
 morrow with its chances ; perhaps of fight, perhaps of 
 another day of this camp indolence. Below the garden 
 siope where they were lounging, the rapid torrent of 
 Kishon ran brawling along. A full moon was rising 
 above the rough edge of the Eastern hills, and the 
 whole scene was alive with the loveliness of an East- 
 ern landscape. 
 
60 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 
 
 As they talked together, the strains of a harp came 
 bonie down the stream by the wind, mingling with 
 the rippling of the brook. 
 
 "The boys ^ere right," said the captain of the 
 little company. "They asked leave to go up the 
 stream to spend their evening with the Carmel-men ; 
 and said that they had there a harper, who would sing 
 and play for them." 
 
 " Singing at night, and fighting in the morning ! 
 It is the true soldier's life," said another. 
 
 "Who have they there?" asked a third. 
 
 " One of those Ziklag-men," replied the chief. " He 
 came into camp a few days ago, seems to be an old 
 favorite of the king's, and is posted with his men, by 
 the old tomb on the edge of the hill. If you cross the 
 brook, he is not far from the Carmel post ; and some 
 of his young men have made acquaintance there." 
 
 " One is not a soldier for nothing. If we make 
 enemies at sight, we make friends at sight too." 
 
 " Echish here says that the harper is a Jew." 
 
 "What!— a deserter?" 
 
 " I do not know that ; that is the king's lookout. 
 Their company came up a week ago, were reviewed 
 the day I was on guard at the outposts, and they had 
 this post I tell you of assigned to them. So the king 
 iii satisfied ; and, if he is, I am." 
 
 " Jew or Gentile, Jehovah's man or Dagon's man," 
 said one of the younger soldiers, with a half-irreverent 
 tone, " I wish we had him here to sing to us." 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORT. 61 
 
 * 4 And to keep us awake," yawned anothei. 
 
 ** Or to keep us from thinking of to-morrow, ' said 
 a third. 
 
 " Can nobody sing here, or play, or tell an old-time 
 story ? " 
 
 There was nobody. The only two soldiers of the 
 post, who affected musical skill, were the two who 
 had gone up to the Carmelites' bivouac ; and the little 
 company of Joppa — catching louder notes and louder, 
 as the bard's inspiration carried him farther ana 
 farther away — crept as far up the stream as the limits 
 of their station would permit ; and lay, without noise, 
 to catch, as they best could, the rich tones of the music 
 as it swept down the valley. 
 
 Soothed by the sound, and by the moonlight, and 
 by the summer breeze, they were just in mood to wel- 
 come the first interruption which broke the quiet of 
 the night. It was the approach of one of their com 
 pany, who had been detached to Accho a day or two 
 before ; and who came hurrying in to announce the 
 speedy arrival of companions, for whom he bespoke 
 a welcome. Just as they were to leave Accho, he 
 said, that day, on their return to camp, an Ionian 
 trading-vessel had entered port. He and his fellow- 
 soldiers had waited to help her moor, anu had been 
 chatting with her seamen. They had told them of 
 the chance of battle to which they were returning ; 
 and two or three of the younger Ionians, enchanted at 
 the relief from the sea's imprisonment, had begged 
 
62 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 
 
 tbein to let them volunteer in company with them. 
 These men had come up into the country with the sol- 
 diers, therefore ; and he who had broken the silence of 
 the listeners to the distant serenade had hurried on to 
 tell his comrades that such visitors were on their way. 
 
 They soon appeared on foot, but hardly burdened 
 by the light packs they bore. 
 
 A soldier's welcome soon made the Ionian sailors a* 
 much at home with the men of the bivouac, as they 
 had been through the day with the detachment from 
 the sea-board. A few minutes were enough to draw 
 out sheep-skins for them to lie upon, a skin of wine for 
 their thirst, a bunch of raisins and some oat-cakes for 
 their hunger ; a few minutes more had told the news 
 which each party asked from the other; and then 
 these sons of the sea and these war-bronzed Philistines 
 were as much at ease with each other as if they had 
 served under the same sky for years. 
 
 " We were listening to music," said the old chief, 
 " when you came up. Some of our young men have 
 gone up, indeed, to the picket yonder, to hear the 
 harper sing, whose voice you catch sometimes, when 
 we are not speaking." 
 
 " You find the Muses in the midst of arms, then," 
 Baid one of the young Ionians. 
 
 4t Muses ? " said the old Philistine, laughing. u That 
 sounds like you Greeks. Ah ! sir, in our rocks here 
 we have few enough Muses, but those who carry these 
 lances, or teach us how to trade with the islands for 
 tin." 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 63 
 
 "That's not quite fair/' cried another. "The 
 youngsters who are gone sing well ; and one of them 
 has a harp i should be glad you should see. He made 
 it himself from a gnarled olive-root." And he turned 
 to look for it. 
 
 " You '11 not find it in the tent : the boy took it with 
 him. They hoped the Ziklag minstrel might ask 
 them to sing, I suppose." 
 
 "A harp of olive-wood," said the Ionian, "seems 
 Muse-born and Pallas-blessed." 
 
 And, as he spoke, one of the new-comers of the 
 Philistines leaned over, and whispered to the chief: 
 " He is a bard himself, and we made him promise to 
 sing to us. I brought his harp with me that he might 
 cheer up our bivouac. Pray, do you ask him." 
 
 The old chief needed no persuasion ; and the eyes 
 of the whole force brightened as they found they had 
 a minstrel " of their own " now, when the old man 
 pressed the young Ionian courteously to let them hear 
 him : "I told you, sir, that we had no Muses of our 
 own ; but we welcome all the more those who come 
 to us from over seas." 
 
 Homer smiled ; for it was Homer whom he spoke 
 to, — Homer still in the freshness of his unblinded 
 youth. He took the harp which the young Philistine 
 handed to him, thrummed upon its chords, and as he 
 tuned them said : " I have no harp of olive-wood ; we 
 cut this out, it was years ago, from an old oleander in 
 the marshes behind Colophon. What will you hear, 
 gentlemen ?" 
 
64 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 
 
 " The poet chooses for himself/' said the court] j 
 old captain. 
 
 " Let me sing you, then, of the Olive Harp " ; and 
 he struck the chords in a gentle, quieting harmony, 
 which attuned itself to his own spirit, pleased as he 
 was to find music and harmony and the olive of peace 
 in the midst of the rough bivouac, where he had come 
 up to look for war. But he was destined to be dis- 
 appointed. Just as his prelude closed, one of the 
 young soldiers turned upon his elbow, and whispered 
 contemptuously to his neighbor: "Always olives, a) 
 ways peace : that 's all your music 's good for ! ' : 
 
 The boy spoke too loud, and Homer caught the dis* 
 contented tone and words with an ear quicker than 
 the speaker had given him credit for. He ended the 
 prelude with a sudden crash on the strings, and said 
 shortly, " And what is better to sing of than the 
 olive?'' 
 
 The more courteous Philistines looked sternly on 
 the young soldier ; but he had gone too far to be 
 frightened, and he flashed back : " War is better. My 
 broadsword is better. If I could sing, I would sing 
 to your Ares ; we call him Mars ! " 
 
 Homer smiled gravely. " Let it be so," said he ; 
 and, in a lower tone, to the captain, who was troubled 
 at the breach of courtesy, he added, "Let the boy 
 see what war and Mars are for." 
 
 He struck another prelude and began. Then was 
 It that Homer composed his " Hymn to Mars." In 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 6. fr J 
 
 wild measure, and impetuous, he swept along through 
 the list of Mars's titles and attributes ; then his key 
 changed, and his bearers listened more intently, more 
 solemnly, as in a graver strain, with slower music, and 
 in almost awed dignity of voice, the bard went on . — 
 
 " Helper of mortals, hear ! 
 As thy fires give 
 The present boldnesses that strive 
 In youth for honor ; 
 So would I likewise wish to have the powei 
 To keep off from my head thy bitter hour, 
 And quench the false fire of my soul's low kind, 
 By the fit ruling of my highest mind ! 
 
 Control that sting of wealth 
 That stirs me on still to the horrid scath 
 Of hideous battle ! 
 
 "Do thou, O ever blessed ! give me still 
 Presence of mind to put in act my will, 
 
 Whate'er the occasion be ; 
 And so to live, unforced by any fear, 
 Beneath those laws of peace, that never are 
 Affected with pollutions popular 
 
 Of unjust injury, 
 As to bear safe the burden of hard fates, 
 Of foes infiexive, and inhuman hates ! " 
 
 The tones died away ; the company was hushed for 
 a moment ; and the old chief then said gravely to his 
 petulant follower, " That is what men fight for, boy/' 
 But the boy did not need the counsel. Homer's man- 
 ner, his voice, the music itself, the spirit of the song, 
 as much as the words, had overcome him ; and the 
 boasting soldier was covering his tears with his hands, 
 
6t) A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTOKr. 
 
 Homer felt at once (the prince of gentlemen he) 
 that the little outbreak, and the rebuke of it, had 
 jarred the ease of their unexpected meeting. How 
 blessed is the presence of mind with which the musi- 
 cian of real genius passes from song to song, " what- 
 e'er the occasion be ! " With the ease of genius he 
 changed the tone of his melody again, and sang his 
 own hymn, "To Earth, the Mother of all." 
 
 The triumphant strain is one which harmonizes with 
 every sentiment ; and he commanded instantly the rapt 
 attention of the circle. So engrossed was he, that he 
 did not seem to observe, as he sang, an addition to 
 their company of some soldiers from above in the val- 
 ley, just as he entered on the passage : — 
 
 "Happy, then, are they 
 Whom thou, O great in reverence ! 
 Are bent to honor. They shall all things find 
 In all abundance ! All their pastures yield 
 Herds in all plenty. All their roofs are filled 
 With rich possessions. 
 High happiness and wealth attend them, 
 While, with laws well-ordered, they 
 Cities of happy households sway ; 
 And their sons exult in the pleasure of youth, 
 And their daughters dance with the flower-decked girls, 
 Who play among the flowers of summer ! 
 Such are the honors thy full hands divide ; 
 Mother of Gods and starry Heaven's bride ! " * 
 
 A buzz of pleasure and a smile ran round the cir- 
 cle, in which the new-comers joined. They were the 
 
 * After Chapman. 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 67 
 
 soldiers who had been to hear and join the music at 
 the Carniel-men's post. The tones of Homer's harp 
 had tempted them to return ; and they had brought 
 with them the Hebrew minstrel, to whom they had 
 been listening. It was the outlaw David, of Bethle- 
 hem Ephrata. 
 
 David had listened to Homer more intently than 
 any one ; and, as the pleased applause subsided, the 
 eyes of the circle gathered upon him, and the manner 
 of all showed that they expected him, in minstrel- 
 fashion, to take up the same strain. 
 
 He accepted the implied invitation, played a short 
 prelude, and taking Homer's suggestion of topic, sang 
 in parallel with it : — 
 
 "I will sing a new song unto thee, O God! 
 Upon psaltery and harp will. I sing praise to thee. 
 Thou art He that giveth salvation to kings, 
 That delivereth David, thy servant, from the sword. 
 Rid me and save me from those who speak vanity, 
 Whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood, — 
 That our sons may be as plants in fresh youth , 
 That our daughters may be as corner-stones, — 
 The polished stones of our palaces ; 
 That our garners may be full with all manner of store ; 
 That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in th^ 
 
 way; 
 That there may be no cry nor complaint in our streets 
 Happy is the people that is in such a case ; 
 Yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord ! " 
 
 The melody was triumphant; and the enthusiastic 
 manner yet more so. The Philistines listened delight- 
 
68 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 
 
 ed, — too careless of religion, they, indeed not to be 
 catholic in presence of religious enthusiasm ; and Ho- 
 mer wore the exalted expression which his face seldom 
 wore. For the first time since his childhood, Homer 
 felt that he was not alone in the world ! 
 
 Who shall venture to tell what passed between the 
 two minstrels, when Homer, leaving his couch, crossed 
 the circle at once, flung himself on the ground by 
 David's side, gave him his hand; when they looked 
 each other in the face, and sank down into the rapid 
 murmuring of talk, which constant gesture illustrated, 
 but did not fully explain to the rough men around 
 them? They respected the poets' colloquy for a 
 while ; but then, eager again to hear one harp or the 
 other, they persuaded one of the Ionian sailors to 
 ask Homer again to sing to them. 
 
 It was hard to persuade Homer. He shook his 
 head, and turned back to the soldier-poet. 
 
 "What should J sing?" he said. 
 
 They did not enter into his notion : hearers will not 
 always. And so, taking his question literally, they re- 
 plied, " Sing ? Sing us of the snow-storm, the storm 
 of stones, of which you sang at noon." 
 
 Poor Homer ! It was easier to do it than to be 
 pressed to do it ; and he struck his harp again : — 
 
 " It was as when, some wintry day, to men 
 
 Jove would, in might, his sharp artillery show; 
 He wills his winds to sleep, and over plain 
 
 And mountains paurs, in countless flakes, his snow 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 69 
 
 Deep it conceals the rocky cliffs and hills, 
 Then covers all the blooming meadows o'er, 
 
 All the rich monuments of mortals' skill, 
 All ports and rocks that break the ocean-shore 
 
 Rock, haven, plain, are buried by its fall ; 
 
 But the near wave, unchanging, drinks it all. 
 
 So while these stony tempests veil the skies, 
 
 While this on Greeks, and that on Trojans flies, 
 
 Che walls unchanged above the clamor rise." * 
 
 Tie men looked round upon David, whose expres- 
 sion, &l< he returned the glance, showed that he had 
 enjoyed the fragment as well as they. But when they 
 still looked expectant, he did not decline the unspoken 
 invitation ; but, taking Homer's harp, sang, as if the 
 words were familiar to him : — 
 
 " He giveth snow like wool ; 
 He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes ; 
 He casteth forth his ice like morsels ; 
 Who can stand before his cold 1 
 He sendeth forth his word, and melteth them ; 
 He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow." 
 
 " Always this ' He, 1 " said one of the young soldiers 
 to another. 
 
 " Yes," he replied ; u and it was so in the beginning 
 of the evening, when we were above there." 
 
 " There is a strange difference between the two 
 men, though the one plays as well as the other, and 
 the Greek speaks with quite as little foreign accent as 
 the Jew, and their subjects are the same." 
 
 ** Yes," said the young Philistine harper ; " if the 
 
 * After Cowper and Pope. Long after 1 
 
70 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 
 
 Greek should sing one of the Hebrew's songs, you 
 would know he had borrowed it, in a moment." 
 
 " And so, if it were the other way." 
 
 " Of course," said their old captain, joining in this 
 conversation. " Homer, if you call him so, sings the 
 thing made : David sings the maker. Or, rather, 
 Homer thinks of the thino; made : David thinks of the 
 maker, whatever they sing." 
 
 " I was going to say that Homer would sing of 
 cities ; and David, of the life in them." 
 
 "It is not what they say so much, as the way they 
 look at it. The Greek sees the outside, — the beauty 
 of the thing; the Hebrew — " 
 
 " Hush ! " 
 
 For David and his new friend had been talking too. 
 Homer had told him of the storm at sea they met a 
 few days before ; and David, I think, had spoken of a 
 mountain-tornado, as he met it years before. In the 
 excitement of his narrative he struck the harp, which 
 was still in his hand, and sung: — 
 
 " Then the earth shook and trembled, 
 The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken, 
 
 Because He was wroth ; 
 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, 
 And fire out of his mouth devoured ; 
 
 It burned with living coal. 
 He bowed the heavens also, and came down, 
 And darkness was under his feet ; 
 He rode upon a cherub and did fly, 
 Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. 
 He made darkness his resting-place. 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 71 
 
 His pavilion were dark waters and clouds of the skies ; 
 At the brightness before him his clouds passed by 
 
 Hail-stones and coals of fire. 
 The Lord also thundered in the heavens, 
 And the highest gave his voice ; 
 Hail-stones and coals of fire. 
 Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them, 
 And he shot out his lightnings, and discomfited them. 
 Then the channels of waters were seen, 
 And the foundations of the world were made known, 
 
 At thy rebuke, O Lord ! 
 At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. 
 He sent from above, he took me, 
 He drew me out of many waters." 
 
 » 4 Mine were but a few verses," said Homer " 1 
 am more than repaid by yours. Imagine Nep> oe, 
 our sea-god, looking on a battle : — 
 
 " There he sat high, retired from the seas ; 
 There looked with pity on his Grecians beaten; 
 There burned with rage at the god-king who slew them. 
 Then he rushed forward from the rugged mountains, 
 
 Quickly descending ; 
 He bent the forests also as he came down, 
 And the high cliffs shook under his feet. 
 
 Three times he trod upon them, 
 And with his fourth step reached the home he sought for. 
 
 " There was his palace, in the deep waters of the seas, 
 Shining with gold, and builded forever. 
 There he yoked him his swift-footed horses ; 
 Their hoofs are brazen, and their manes are golden. 
 
 He binds them with golden thongs, 
 
 He seizes his golden goad, 
 He mounts upon his chariot, and doth fly : 
 Yes ! he drnes them forth into the waves ! 
 
72 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 
 
 And the whales rise under him from the depths, 
 
 For they know he is their king ; 
 And the glad sea is divided into parts, 
 That his steeds may fly along quickly ; 
 And his brazen axle passes dry between the waves, 
 So, bounding fast, they bring him to his Grecians." * 
 
 And the poets sank again into talk. 
 
 " You see it," said the old Philistine. " He paints 
 the picture. David sings the life of the picture. " 
 
 " Yes : Homer sees what he sings ; David feels his 
 song." 
 
 " Homer's is perfect in its description." 
 
 " Yes ; but for life, for the soul of the description, 
 jou need the Hebrew." 
 
 " Homer might be blind ; and, with that fancy anc 
 word-painting power of his, and his study of every- 
 thing new, he would paint pictures as he sang, though 
 unseen." 
 
 "Yes," said another; "but David — " And he 
 paused. 
 
 " But David ? " asked the chief. 
 
 " I was going to say that he might be blind, deaf, 
 imprisoned, exiled, sick, or all alone, and that yet he 
 would never know he was alone ; feeling as he does, 
 as he must to sing so, of the presence of this Lord of 
 his ! " 
 
 " He does not think of a snow-flake, but as sent 
 from him." 
 
 u While the snow-flake is reminding Homer of that 
 
 * Iliad, vL 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 73 
 
 hard, worrying, slinging work of battle. He must 
 have seen fight himself.'' 
 
 They were hushed again. For, though they no 
 longer dared ask the poets to sing to them, — so en- 
 grossed were they in each other's society, — the 
 soldiers were hardly losers from this modest courtesy. 
 For the poets were constantly arousing each other to 
 strike a chord, or to sing some snatch of remembered 
 song. And so it was that Homer, apropos of I do not 
 know what, sang in a sad tone : — 
 
 " Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground : 
 Another race the following spring supplies ; 
 They fall successive, and successive rise. 
 So generations in their course decay, 
 So flourish these, when those have passed away."* 
 
 David waited for a change in the strain ; but Homei 
 stopped. The young Hebrew asked him to go on ; 
 but Homer said that the passage which followed was 
 mere narrative, from a long narrative poem. David 
 looked surprised that his new friend had not pointed 
 a moral as he sang ; and said simply, " We sing thai 
 thus : — 
 
 " As for man, his days are as grass ; 
 As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth ; 
 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, 
 And the place thereof shall know it no more. 
 But the mercy of the Lord 
 Is from everlasting to everlasting 
 Of them that fear him ; 
 
 * Iliad, vi — Popss. 
 
74 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTOB?. 
 
 And his righteousness 
 Unto children's children, 
 
 To such as keep his covenant, 
 As remember his commandments to do them!" 
 
 Homer's face flashed delighted. " I, like you, 
 * keep his covenant,'" he cried; and then without a 
 lyre, for his was still in David's hands, he sang, in 
 clear tone : — 
 
 " Thou bid'st me birds obey ; — I scorn their flight, 
 If on the left they rise, or on the right ! 
 Heed them who may, the will of Jove I own, 
 Who mortals and immortals rules alone ! "* 
 
 u That is more in David's key," said the young 
 Philistine harper, seeing that the poets had fallen to 
 talk together again. " But how would it sound in one 
 of the hymns on one of our feast-days ? " 
 
 " Who mortals and immortals rales alone." 
 
 " How, indeed ? " cried one of his young compan 
 ions. " There would be more sense in what the priests 
 say and sing, if each were not quarrelling for his 
 own, — Dagon against Astarte, and Astarte against 
 Dagon. 
 
 The old captain bent over, that the poets might not 
 hear him, and whispered : " There it is that the He- 
 brews have so much more heart than we in such things. 
 Miserable fellows though they are, so many of them, 
 yet, when I have gone through their whole land with 
 the caravans, the chances have been that any serious- 
 
 * Iliad, xii., after Sotheby. 
 
A PIECE OP POSSIBLE HISTORY. 75 
 
 mmd?d man spoke of no God but this 4 He ' of 
 David's." 
 
 "What is his name?" 
 
 " They do not know themselves, I believe." 
 
 u Well, as I said an hour ago, God's man or Da- 
 gon's man, — for those are good names enough for 
 me, — I care little; but I should like to sing as that 
 young fellow does." 
 
 " My boy," said the old man, "have not you heard 
 him enough to see that it is not he that sings, near as 
 much as this love of his for a Spirit he does not name ? 
 It is that spirited heart of his that sings." 
 
 u You sing like him ? Find his life, boy ; and per- 
 haps it may sing for you." 
 
 " We should be more manly men, if he sang to us 
 every night." 
 
 " Or if the other did," said an Ionian sailor. 
 
 " Yes," said the chief. ". And yet, I think, if your 
 countryman sang every night to me, he would make 
 me want the other. Whether David's singing would 
 send me to his, I do not feel sure. But how silly to 
 compare them ! As well compare the temple in Ac- 
 cho with the roar of a whirlwind — " 
 
 " Or the point of my lance with the flight of an 
 eagle. The men are in two worlds." 
 
 " O, no ! that is saying too much. You said thai 
 one could paint pictures — " 
 
 " — Into which the other puts life. Yes, I did saj 
 so. W r e are fortunate, that we have them together." 
 
76 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY 
 
 " For this man sings of men quite as well as me 
 other does ; and to have the other sing of God — ' 
 
 " — Why, it completes the song. Between them 
 they bring the two worlds together.' ' 
 
 " He bows the heavens, and comes down," said the 
 boy of the olive-harp, trying to hum David's air. 
 
 " Let us ask them — " 
 
 And just then there rang along the valley the 
 sound of a distant conch-shell. The soldiers groaned, 
 roused up, and each looked for his own side-arms and 
 his own skin. 
 
 But the poets talked on unheeding. 
 
 The old chief knocked down a stack of lances ; but 
 the crash did not rouse them. He was obliged himself 
 to interrupt their eager converse. 
 
 " I am sorry to break in ; but the night-horn has 
 sounded to rest, and the guard will be round to inspect 
 the posts. I am sorry to hurry you away, sir," he 
 said to David. 
 
 David thanked him courteously. 
 
 " Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest," 
 said Homer, with a smile. 
 
 " We will all meet to-morrow. And may to-night's 
 dreams be good omens ! " 
 
 " If we dream at all," said Homer again : — 
 
 " Without a sign his sword the brave man draws, 
 And asks no omen but his country's cause." 
 
 They were all standing together, as he made this 
 careless reply to the captain ; and one of the young 
 
A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY 7* 
 
 men drew him aside, and whispered that David was 
 in arms against his country. 
 
 Plomer was troubled that he had spoken as he did. 
 But the young Jew looked little as if he needed 
 sympathy. He saw the doubt and regret which hung 
 over their kindly faces ; told them not to fear for him ; 
 singing, as he bade them good night, and with one of 
 the Carmel-men walked home to his own outpost : — 
 
 " The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion, 
 The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear, 
 He will deliver me." 
 
 And he smiled to think how his Carmelite com- 
 panion would start, if he knew when first he used 
 those words. 
 
 So they parted, as men who should meet on the 
 morrow. 
 
 But God disposes. 
 
 David had left to-morrow's dangers for to-morrow 
 to care for. It seemed to promise him that he must 
 be in arms against Saul. But, unlike us in our eager- 
 ness to anticipate our conflicts of duty, David waited. 
 
 And the Lord delivered him. While they were 
 singing by the brookside, the proud noblemen of the 
 Philistine army had forced an interview with their 
 king ; and, in true native Philistine arrogance, in- 
 sisted that u this Hebrew " and his men should be sent 
 away. 
 
 With the light of morning the king sent for the 
 minstrel, and courteously dismissed him, because " the 
 
78 A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY. 
 
 princes of the Philistines have said, ' He shall not go 
 up with us to the battle.' " 
 
 So David marched his men to Ziklag. 
 
 And David and Homer never met on earth again 
 
 Note. — This will be a proper place to print the following not- 
 which I was obliged to write to a second cousin of Miss Dryasdu*. 
 after she had read the MS. of the article above : — 
 
 " Dear Madam . — I thank you for your kind suggestion, in return- 
 ing my paper, that it involves a piece of impossible history. You 
 inform me, that, ' according to the nomenclatured formulas and ho- 
 mophonic analogies of Professor Gouraud, of never-to-be-forgotten 
 memory, " A Needle is less useful for curing a Deaf Head, than 
 for putting ear-rings into a Miss's lily-ears " ; and that this shows that 
 the second king of Judah, named David (or Deaf-head) began to 
 reign in 1055 B.C., and died 1040 B. C ; and further, that, according 
 to the same authority, ' Homer flourished when the Greeks were fond 
 of his Poetry ' ; which, being interpreted, signifies that he flourished 
 m 914 B.C., and, consequently, could have had no more to do with 
 David than to plant ivy over his grave, in some of his voyages to 
 Phoenicia. 
 
 " I thank you for the suggestion. I knew the unforgettmg pro- 
 fessor ; and I do not doubt that he remembered David and Homer as 
 his near friends. But, of course, to such a memory, a century or two 
 might easily slip aside. 
 
 " Now, did you look up Clement ? And did you not forget tne 
 Arundelian Marbles 1 For, if you will take the long estimates, you 
 will find that some folks think Homer lived as long ago as the year 
 1150, and some that it was as 'short ago* as 850. And some set 
 David as long ago as 1 1 70, and some bring him down to a hundred 
 and fifty years later. These are the long measures and the short 
 measures. So the long and short of it is, that you oan keep the twt 
 poets 320 years apart, while I have rather more than a century which 
 I can select any night of, for a bivouac scene, in which to bring thero 
 together. Believe me, my dear Miss D., always yours, &c, 
 
 " Confess that you forgo*, the Arundelian Marbles 1 " 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR 
 
 [1 AM tempted to include this little burlesque in this collection 
 simply in memory of the Boston Miscellany, the magazine in 
 which it was published, which won for itself a brilliant reputation 
 in its short career. There was not a large staff of writers for 
 the Miscellany, but many of the names then unknown have 
 since won distinction. To quote them in the accidental order in 
 which I find them in the table of contents, where they are ar- 
 ranged by the alphabetical order of the several papers, the Mis- 
 cellany contributors were Edward Everett, George Lunt, Nathan 
 Hale, Jr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, N. P. Willis, W. W. Story, J. 
 R. Lowell, C. N. Emerson, Alexander H. Everett, Sarah P. 
 Hale, W. A. Jones, Cornelius Matthews, Mrs. Kirkland, J. W. 
 Ingraham, H. T. Tuckerroan, Evart A. Duyckinck, Francis A. 
 Durivage, Mrs. J. Webb, Charles F. Powell, Charles W. Storey, 
 Lucretia P. Hale, Charles F. Briggs, William E. Channing, 
 Charles Lanman, G. H. Hastings, and Elizabeth B. Barrett, now 
 Mrs. Browning, some of whose earliest poema were published in 
 ibis magazine. These are all the contributors whose names ap- 
 pear, excepting the writers of a few verses. They furnished 
 nine tenths of the contents of the magazine. The two Everetts, 
 ^owell. William Story, and my brother, who was the editor, were 
 the principal contributors. And I am tempted to say that I 
 think they all put some of their best work upon this magazine. 
 
 The misfortune of the Miscellany, I suppose, was that its pub- 
 lishers had no capital. They had to resort to the claptraps of 
 fashion-plates and other engravings, in the hope of forcing aa 
 
80 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 immediate sale upon persons who, caring for fashion-plates, did 
 not care for the literary character of the enterprise. It gave a 
 very happy escape-pipe, however, for the high spirits of some of 
 us who had just left college, and, through my brother's kindness, 
 I was sometimes permitted to contribute to the journal. In 
 memory of those early days of authorship, I select " The South 
 American Editor " to publish here. For the benefit of the New 
 York Observer, I will state that the story is not true. And 
 lest anv should complain that it advocates elopements, I beg 
 to observe, in the seriousness of mature life, that the proposed 
 elopement did not succeed, and that the parties who proposed it 
 are represented as having no guardians or keepers but them* 
 selves. The article was first published in 1842.] 
 
 It is now more than six years since I received the 
 following letter from an old classmate of mine, Harry 
 Barry, who had been studying divinity, and was then 
 a settled minister. It was an answer to a communica- 
 tion I had sent him the week before. 
 
 " Topsham, R. I., January 22, 1836. 
 
 " To say the truth, my dear George, your letter star- 
 tled ms a little. To think that I, scarcely six months 
 settled in the profession, should be admitted so far into 
 the romance of it as to unite forever two young run- 
 aways like yourself and Miss Julia What's-her-name 
 is at least curious. But, to give you your due, you 
 
 hare made a strong case of it, and as Miss (what is 
 
 her name, I have not yours at hand) is not under any 
 real guardianship, I do not see but I am perfectly jus- 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 81 
 
 tified in complying with your rather odd request. You 
 see I make a conscientious matter of it. 
 
 w Write me word when it shall be, and I will be sure 
 to be ready. Jane is of course in my counsels, and 
 she will make your little wife feel as much at home as 
 in her father's parlor. Trust us for secrecy. 
 
 " I met her last week — " 
 
 But the rest of the letter has nothing to do with tne 
 story. 
 
 The elopement alluded to in it (if the little transac- 
 tion deserves so high-sounding a name) was, in every 
 sense of the words, strictly necessary. Julia Went- 
 worth had resided for years with her grandfather, a 
 pragmatic old gentleman, to whom from pure affection 
 she had long yielded an obedience which he would 
 have had no right to extort, and which he was some- 
 times disposed to abuse. He had declared in the most 
 ingenuous manner that she should never marry with 
 his consent any man of less fortune than her own would 
 be ; and on his consent rested the prospect of her in- 
 heriting his property. 
 
 Julia and I, however, care little for money now, we 
 cared still less then ] and her own little property and 
 my own little salary made us esteem ourselves en- 
 tirely independent of the old gentleman and his 
 will. 
 
 His intention respecting the poor girl's marriage was 
 thundered in her ears at least once a week, so that we 
 
 4* 
 
82 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 bcth knew that I had no need to make court to him , 
 indeed, I had never seen him, always having met hei 
 in walking, or in the evening at party, spectacle, con- 
 cert, or lecture. He had lately been more domineer- 
 ing than usual, and I had but little difficulty in per- 
 suading the dear girl to let me write to Harry Barry, 
 to make the arrangement to which he assented in the 
 letter which I have copied above. The reasoning which 
 I pressed upon her is obvious. We loved each other, 
 — the old gentleman could not help that ; and as he 
 managed to make us very uncomfortable in Boston, in 
 the existing state of affairs, we naturally came to the 
 conclusion that the sooner we changed that state the 
 better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we sup- 
 posed, prove a very disagreeable business to him ; but 
 we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so, 
 though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and 
 granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we out- 
 voted him. 
 
 I have said that I nad no fortune to enable me to 
 come near the old gentleman's beau ideal of a grand- 
 son-in-law. I was then living on my salary as a South 
 American editor. Does the reader know what that 
 is ? The South American editor of a newspaper has 
 the uncontrolled charge of its South American news. 
 Read any important commercial paper for a month, 
 and at the end of it tell me if you have any clear con- 
 ception of the condition of the various republics (!) 
 of South America. If you have, it is because that 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 83 
 
 journal employs an individual for the sole purpose oi 
 setting them in the clearest order before you, and 
 that individual is its South American editor. The 
 general-news editor of the paper will keep the run of 
 all the details of all the histories of all the rest of the 
 world, but he hardly attempts this in addition. If he 
 does, he fails. It is therefore necessary, from the most 
 cogent reasons, that any American news office which 
 has a strong regard for the consistency or truth of its 
 South American intelligence shall employ some person 
 competent to take the charge which I held in the es- 
 tablishment of the Boston Daily Argus at the time of 
 which I am speaking. Before that enterprising paper 
 was sold, I was its " South American man " ; this 
 being my only employment, excepting that by a special 
 agreement, in consideration of an addition to my sal- 
 ary, I was engaged to attend to the news from St. 
 Domingo, Guatemala, and Mexico.* 
 
 * I do not know that this explanation is at all clear. Let me, as 
 the mathematicians say, give an instance which will illustrate the im- 
 portance of this profession. It is now a few months since I received 
 the following note from a distinguished member of the Cabinet : — 
 
 " Washington, January —, 1842. 
 
 " Dear Sir : — We are in a little trouble about a little thing. There 
 are now in this city no less than three gentlemen bearing credentials 
 to government as Charges from the Republic of Oronoco. They are, 
 of course, accredited from three several home governments. The 
 President signified, when the first arrived, that he would receive the 
 Charge from that government, on the 2d proximo, but none of 
 us know who the right Charge is. The newspapers tell nothing satis 
 
84 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOK. 
 
 Monday afternoon, just a fortnight after I received 
 Harry Barry's letter, in taking my afternoon walk 
 round the Common, I happened to meet Julia. I al- 
 ways walked in the same direction when I was alone. 
 Julia always preferred to go the other way ; it was the 
 only thing in which we differed. When we were to- 
 gether I always went her way of course, and liked it 
 best. 
 
 factory about it. I suppose you kuow : can you write me word be 
 fore the 2d ? 
 
 " The gentlemen are : Dr. Estremadura, accredited from the ' Con- 
 stitutional Government,' — his credentials are dated the 2d of 
 November ; Don Paulo Vibeira, of the ' Friends of the People/ 5th 
 of November; M. Antonio de Vesga, ' Constitution of 1823/ Octo- 
 ber 27th. They attach great importance to our decision, each having 
 scrip to sell. In haste, truly yours." 
 
 To this letter I returned the following reply : — 
 
 u Sir : — Our latest dates from Oronoco are to the 13th ultimo. 
 The • Constitution of '23' was then in full power. If, however, 
 the policy of our government be to recognize the gentlemen whose 
 principals shall be in office on the 2d proximo, it is a very different 
 affair. 
 
 " You may not be acquainted with the formulas for ascertaining 
 the duration of any given modern revolution. I now use the follow- 
 ing, which I find almost exactly correct. 
 
 " Multiply the age of the President by the number of statute miles 
 from the equator, divide by the number of pages in the given Consti- 
 tation ; the result will be the length of the outbreak, in days. This 
 formula includes, as you will see, an allowance for the heat of the cli- 
 mate, the zeal of the leader, and the verbosity of the theorists. The 
 Constitution of 1823 was reproclaimed on the 25th of October last 
 If yon will give the above formula into the hands of any of youi 
 clerks, the calculation from it will show that that government will gr 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 86 
 
 I had told her, long before, all about Harry's letter, 
 and the dear girl in this walk, after a little blushing 
 and sighing, and half faltering and half hesitating and 
 feeling uncertain, yielded to my last and warmest 
 persuasions, and agreed to go to Mrs. Pollexfen's ball 
 that evening, ready to leave it with me in my 
 buggy sleigh, for a three hours' ride to Topsham, 
 where we both knew Harry would be waiting for 
 us. I do not know how she managed to get through 
 tea that evening with her lion of a grandfather, for 
 she could not then cover her tearful eyes with a veil 
 as she did through the last half of our walk together. 
 
 out of power on the 1st of February, at 25 minutes after 1, p. m. Your 
 choice, on the 2d, must be therefore between Vibeira and Estre- 
 madura; here you will have no difficulty. Bobadil (Vibeira's princi- 
 pal) was on the 13th ultimo confined under sentence of death, at such 
 a distance from the capital that he cannot possibly escape and get into 
 power before the 2d of February. The ' Friends of the People,' in 
 Oronoco, have always moved slowly ; they never got up an insurrection 
 in less than nineteen days' canvassing; that was in 1839. Generally 
 they are even longer. Of course, Estremadura will be your man. 
 " Believe me, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 " George Hackmatack." 
 
 The Cabinet had the good sense to act on my advice. My informa- 
 tion proved nearly correct, the only error being one of seven minutes 
 in the downfall of the 1823 Constitution. This arose from my making 
 no allowance for difference of longitude between Piaut, where their 
 government was established, and Opee, where it was crushed. The 
 difference of time between those places is six minutes and fifty-three 
 seconds, as the reader may see on a globe. 
 
 Estremadura was, of course, presented to the President, and sold 
 bis scrip. 
 
86 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 1 know that I got through my tea and such like ordi- 
 nary affairs by skipping them. I made all my arrange- 
 ments, bade Gage and Streeter be ready with the sleigh 
 at my lodgings (fortunately only two doors from Mrs. 
 Pollexfen's) at half-past nine o'clock, and was the 
 highest spirited of men when, on returning to those 
 lodgings myself at eight o'clock, I found the following 
 missives from the Argus office, which had been accu 
 mulating through the afternoon. 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 " 4 o'clock, p. M. 
 
 u Dear Sir : — The southern mail, just in, brings 
 Buenos Ayres papers six days later, by the Medora, at 
 Baltimore. 
 
 " In haste, J. C." 
 
 (Mr. C. was the gentleman who opened the news- 
 papers, and arranged the deaths and marriages; he 
 always kindly sent for me when I was out of the way.") 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 " 5 o'clock, p, m. 
 
 " Dear Sir : — The U. S. ship Preble is in at 
 
 Portsmouth ; latest from Valparaiso. The mail is not 
 sorted. 
 
 « Yours, J. D." 
 
 (Mr. D. arranged the ship news for the Argus.) 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 87 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 " 6 o'clock, p. M. 
 
 " Dear Sir : — I boarded, this morning, off Cape 
 Cod, the Blunderhead, from Carthagena, and have a 
 week's later papers. 
 
 " Truly yours, J. E." 
 
 (Mr. E. was the enterprising commodore of our 
 news-boats.) 
 
 No. 4. 
 
 1 6£ o'clock, p. m. 
 
 " Dear Sir : — I have just opened accidentally the 
 enclosed letter, from our correspondent at Panama. 
 You wrll see that it bears a New Orleans post-mark. 
 I hope it may prove exclusive. 
 
 " Yours, J. F.' 
 
 » 
 
 (Mr. F. was general editor of the Argus.) 
 
 No. 5. , * 
 
 " 6£ o'clock, p. m. 
 
 " Dear Sir : — A seaman, who appears to be an in- 
 telligent man, has arrived this morning at New Bed- 
 ford, and says he has later news of the rebellion in 
 Ecuador than any published. The Rosina (his ves- 
 sel) brought no papers. I bade him call at youl 
 room at eight o'clock, which he promised to do. 
 
 " Truly yours, J. G." 
 
 (Mr. G. was clerk in the Argus counting-room.) 
 
88 TUE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 No 6. 
 
 " 7£ o'clock, p. ai. 
 
 " Dear Sir : — The papers by the Ville de Lyon, 
 from Havre, which I have just received, mention the 
 reported escape of M. Bonpland from Paraguay, the 
 presumed death of Dr. Francia, the probable over- 
 throw of the government, the possible establishment 
 of a republic, and a great deal more than I understand 
 in the least. 
 
 " These papers had not come to hand when I wrote 
 you this afternoon. I have left them on your desk at 
 the office. 
 
 "In haste, J. F." 
 
 1 w T as taken all aback by this mass of odd-looking 
 little notes. I had spent the afternoon in drilling Sin- 
 gelton, the kindest of friends, as to what he should do 
 in any probable contingency of news of the next forty- 
 eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wed- 
 ding tour even longer than that time ; but I felt that 
 Singleton was entirely unequal to such a storm of in- 
 telligence as this ; and, as I hurried down to the of- 
 fice, my chief sensation was that of gratitude that 
 the cloud had broken before I was out of the way , 
 for I knew I could do a great deal in an hour, and 
 I had faith that I might slur over my digest as quickly 
 as possible, and be at Mrs. Pollexfen's within the 
 time arranged. 
 
 I rushed into the office in that state of zeal in which 
 a man may do anything in almost no time. But first, 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 8U 
 
 I had to go into the conversation-room, and get the 
 oral news from my sailor ; then Mr. H., from one of 
 the little news-boats, came to me in high glee, with 
 some Venezuela Gazettes, which he had just extorted 
 from a skipper, who, with great plausibility, told him 
 that he knew his vessel had brought no news, for she 
 never had before. (N. B. In this instance she was the 
 only vessel to sail, after a three months' blockade.) 
 And then I had handed to me by Mr. J., one of the 
 commercial gentlemen, a private letter from Rio Ja- 
 neiro, which had been lent him. After these delays, 
 with full materials, I sprang to work — read, read, 
 read ; wonder, wonder, wonder ; guess, guess, guess ; 
 scratch, scratch, scratch ; and scribble, scribble, scrib- 
 ble, make the only transcript I can give of the opera- 
 tions which followed. At first, several of the other 
 gentlemen in the room sat around me ; but soon Mr. 
 C, having settled the deaths and marriages, and the 
 police and municipal reporters immediately after him, 
 screwed out their lamps and went home ; then the 
 editor himself, then the legislative reporters, then the 
 commercial editors, then the ship-news conductor, and 
 left me alone. 
 
 I envied them that they got through so much earlier 
 than usual, but scratched on, only interrupted by the 
 compositors coming in for the pages of my copy as 
 I finished them ; and finally, having made my last 
 translation from the last Boletin Extraor dinar io, sprang 
 up, shouting, "Now for Mrs. P.'s," and looked at 
 
90 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 my watch. It was half past one ! * I thought of 
 course it had stopped, — no ; and my last manuscript 
 page was numbered twenty-eight ! Had I been writ- 
 ing there five hours ? Yes ! 
 
 Reader, when you are an editor, with a continent's 
 explosions to describe, you will understand how one 
 may be unconscious of the passage of time. 
 
 I walked home, sad at heart. There was no light in 
 all Mr. Wentworth's house ; there was none in any 
 of Mrs. Pollexfen's windows ; f and the last carriage of 
 her last relation had left her door. I stumbled up 
 stairs in the dark, and threw myself on my bed. What 
 should I say, what could I say, to Julia ? Thus pon- 
 dering, I fell asleep. 
 
 If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late 
 hour the next day, I listlessly drew aside the azure 
 curtains of my couch, and languidly rang a silver bell 
 which stood on my dressing-table, and received from a 
 page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and let 
 ters which had been left for me since morning, and the 
 uewspapers of the day. 
 
 I am not writing a novel. 
 
 The next morning, about ten o'clock, I arose and 
 
 * Newspaper men of 1868 will be amused to think that half past 
 one was late in 1836. At that time the "Great Western Mail" was 
 due in Boston at 6 P. M., and there was no later news except " local," 
 or an occasional horse express. 
 
 t The reader will observe the Arcadian habits of 1836, when the Ger 
 man was yet vnknown. 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 91 
 
 went down to breakfast. As I sat at the littered 
 table which every one else had left, dreading to attack 
 my cold coffee and toast, I caught sight of the morn- 
 ing papers, and received some little consolation from 
 them. There was the Argus with its three columns 
 and a half of " Important from South America," 
 while none of the other papers had a square of any 
 intelligibility excepting what they had copied from the 
 Argus the day before. I felt a grim smile creeping 
 over my face as I observed this signal triumph of 
 our paper, and ventured to take a sip of the black 
 broth as I glanced down my own article to see if there 
 were any glaring misprints in it. Before I took the 
 second sip, however, a loud peal at the door-bell an- 
 nounced a stranger, and, immediately after, a note was 
 brought in for me which I knew was in Julia's hand- 
 writing. 
 
 " Dear George : — Don't be angry ; it was not 
 my fault, really it was not. Grandfather came home 
 just as I was leaving last night, and was so angry, 
 and said I should not go to the party, and I had to 
 sit with him all the evening. Do write to me or 
 let me see you ; do something — " 
 
 What a load that note took off my mind ! And yet, 
 what must the poor girl have suffered ! Could the 
 old man suspect ? Singleton was true to me as steel, I 
 knew. He could not have whispered, — nor Barry; 
 
92 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOP- 
 
 out that Jane, Barry's wife. O woman ! woman 1 
 what newsmongers they are ! Here were Julia and 
 I, made miserable for life, perhaps, merely that Jane 
 Barry might have a good story to tell. What right 
 had Barry to a wife ? Not four years out of college, 
 and hardly settled in his parish. To think that I had 
 been fool enough to trust even him with the particu- 
 lars of my all-important secret ! But here I was again 
 interrupted, coffee-cup still full, toast still untasted, by 
 another missive. 
 
 " Tuesday morning. 
 
 " Sir : — I wish to see you this morning. Will you 
 call upon me, or appoint a time and place where I 
 may meet you ? 
 
 "Yours, Jedediah Wentworth." 
 
 " Send word by the bearer." 
 
 u Tell Mr. Wentworth I will call at his house at 
 eleven o'clock." 
 
 The cat was certainly out ; Mrs. Barry had told, or 
 some one else had, who I did not know and hardly 
 cared. The scene was to come now, and I was almost 
 glad of it. Poor Julia ! what a time she must have 
 had with the old bear ! 
 
 At eleven o'clock I was ushered into Mr. Wentworth's 
 sitting-room. Julia was there, but before I had even 
 spoken to her the old gentleman came bustling across 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 93 
 
 the room, with his "Mr. Hackmatack, I suppose"; and 
 then followed a formal introduction between me and 
 her, which both of us bore with the most praiseworthy 
 .ortitude and composure, neither evincing, even by a 
 glance, that we had ever seen or heard of each other 
 before. Here was another weight off my mind and 
 Julia's. I had wronged poor Mrs. Barry. The 
 secret was not out — what could he want ? It very 
 soon appeared. 
 
 After a minute's discussion of the weather, th6 
 snow, and the thermometer, the old gentleman drew 
 up his chair to mine, with " I think, sir, you are con- 
 nected with the Argus office?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I am its South American editor. 
 
 " Yes ! " roared the old man, in a sudden rage. 
 " Sir, I wish South America w^as sunk in the depths 
 of the sea ! " 
 
 " I am sure I do, sir," replied I, glancing at Julia, 
 who did not, however, understand me. I had not 
 fully passed out of my last night's distress. 
 
 My sympathizing zeal soothed the old gentleman a 
 little, and he said more coolly, in an undertone: "Well, 
 sir, you are well informed, no doubt ; tell me, in strict 
 secrecy, sir, between you and me, do you — do you 
 place full credit — entire confidence in the intelligence 
 in this morning's paper ? " 
 
 "Excuse me, sir; what paper do you allude to? 
 Ah ! the Argus, I see. Certainly, sir ; I have not 
 the least doubt that it is perfectly correct." 
 
94 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 " No doubt, sir ! Do you mean to insult me ? — • 
 Julia, I told you so ; he says there is no doubt it is 
 true. Tell me again there is some mistake, will 
 you ? " The poor girl had been trying to soothe him 
 with the constant remark of uninformed people, that 
 tne newspapers are always in the wrong. He turned 
 from her, and rose from his chair in a positive rage. 
 She was half crying. I never saw her more dis- 
 tressed. What did all this mean ? Were one, two, 
 or all of us crazy ? 
 
 It soon appeared. After pacing the length of the 
 room once or twice, Wentworth came up to me again, 
 and, attempting to appear cool, said between his closed 
 lips : "Do you say you have no doubt that Rio 
 Janeiro is strictly blockaded?" 
 
 " Not the slightest in the world," said I, trying to 
 seem unconcerned. 
 
 " Not the slightest, sir ? What are you so impudent 
 and cool about it for ? Do you think you are talking 
 of the opening of a rose-bud or the death of a mos- 
 quito ? Have you no sympathy with the sufferings 
 of a fellow-creature ? Why, sir ! " and the old man's 
 teeth chattered as he spoke, " I have five cargoes of 
 p iOur on their way to Rio, and their captains will — 
 Damn it, sir, I shall lose the whole venture." 
 
 The secret was out. The old fool had been sending 
 dour to Rio, knowing as little of the state of affairs 
 there as a child. 
 
 " And do you really mean, sir," continued the old 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 95 
 
 man, " that there is an embargo in force in Monte 
 Video?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir ; but I 'm very sorry for it." 
 
 " Sorry for it ! of course you are ; — and that all 
 foreigners are sent out of Buenos Ayres? " 
 
 44 Undoubtedly, sir. I wish — " 
 
 " Who does not wish so ? Why, sir, my correspond- 
 ing friends there are half across the sea by this 
 
 time. I wish Rosas was in and that the Indians 
 
 have risen near Maranham ? " 
 
 44 Undoubtedly, sir." 
 
 44 Undoubtedly ! I tell you, sir, I have two vessels 
 waiting for cargoes of India-rubbers there, under a 
 blunder-headed captain, who will do nothing he has 
 not been bidden to, — obey his orders if he breaks his 
 owners. You smile, sir ? Why, I should have made 
 thirty thousand dollars this winter, sir, by my India- 
 rubbers, if we had not had this devilish mild, open 
 weather, you and Miss Julia there have been prais- 
 ing so. But next winter must be a severe one, and 
 with those India-rubbers I should have made — But 
 now those Indians, — pshaw ! And a revolution in 
 Chili ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 44 No trade there ! And in Venezuela? " 
 
 44 Yes, sir," 
 
 44 Yes, sir ; yes, sir ; yes, sir ; yes, sir ! Sir, I am 
 ruined. Say 4 Yes, sir,' to that. I have thirteen 
 vessels at this moment in the South American trade, 
 
96 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 sir ; say ' Yes, sir,' to that. Half of them will be 
 taken by the piratical scoundrels ; say i Yes, sir,' to 
 that. Their insurance will not cover them ; say ' Yes, 
 sir,' to that. The other half will forfeit their cargoes, 
 or sell them for next to nothing ; say ' Yes, sir/ to 
 that. I tell you I am a ruined man, and I wish the 
 South America, and your daily Argus, and you — " 
 
 Here the old gentleman's old-school breeding got 
 the better of his rage, and he sank down in his arm- 
 chair, and, bursting into tears, said : " Excuse me, 
 sir, — excuse me, sir, — I am too warm." 
 
 We all sat for a few moments in silence, but then I 
 took my share of the conversation. I wish you could 
 have seen the old man's face light up little by little, as 
 I showed him that to a person who understood the 
 politics and condition of the mercurial country with 
 which he had ignorantly attempted to trade, his condi- 
 tion was not near so bad as he thought it: that though 
 one port was blockaded, another was opened ; that 
 though one revolution thwarted him, a few weeks 
 would show another which would favor him ; that the 
 goods w r hich, as he saw, would be worthless at the 
 port to which he had sent them, would be valuable 
 elsewhere ; that the vessels which would fail in secur- 
 ing the cargoes he had ordered could secure others ; 
 that the very revolutions and wars which troubled him 
 would require in some instances large government 
 purchases, perhaps large contracts for freight, possibly 
 even for passage, — his vessels might be used for trans^ 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 97 
 
 ports ; that the very excitement of some districts 
 might be made to turn to our advantage ; that, w 
 short, there were a thousand chances open to him 
 which skilful agents could readily improve. I re- 
 minded him that a quick run in a clipper schoonei 
 could carry directions to half these skippers of his, to 
 whom, with an infatuation which I could not and 
 cannot conceive, he had left no discretion, and who 
 indeed were to be pardoned if they could use none, 
 seeing the tumult as they did with only half an eye. 
 I talked to him for half an hour, and went into details 
 to show that my plans were not impracticable. The old 
 gentleman grew brighter and brighter, and Julia, as ] 
 saw, whenever I stole a glance across the room, felt 
 happier and happier. The poor girl had had a hard 
 time since he had first heard this news whispered the 
 evening before. 
 
 His difficulties were not over, however ; for p*hen I 
 talked to him of the necessity of sending out one or 
 two skilful agents immediately to take the personal 
 superintendence of his complicated affairs, the old man 
 sighed, and said he had no skilful agents to send. 
 
 With his customary suspicion, he had no partners, 
 and had never intrusted his clerks with any general 
 insight into his business. Besides, he considered them 
 all, like his captains, blunder-headed to the last degree. 
 I believe it was an idea of Julia's, communicated tc 
 me in an eager, entreating glance, which induced me to 
 propose myself as one of these confidential agents, 
 
98 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 and to be responsible for the other. I thought, as I 
 spoke, of Singleton, to whom I knew I could explain 
 my plans in full, and whose mercantile experience 
 would make him a valuable coadjutor. The old gen- 
 tleman accepted my offer eagerly. I told him that 
 twenty-four hours were all I wanted to prepare my- 
 self. He immediately took measures for the charter of 
 two little clipper schooners which lay in port then ; 
 and before two days were past, Singleton and I were 
 on our voyage to South America. Imagine, if you 
 can, how these two days were spent. Then, as now, 
 I could prepare for any journey in twenty minutes, and 
 of course I had no little time at my disposal for last 
 words with Mr. and — Miss Wentworth. How I won 
 on the old gentleman's heart in those two days ! How 
 he praised me to Julia, and then, in as natural affec- 
 tion, how he praised her to me ! And how Julia and 
 I smiled through our tears, when, in the last good-bys, 
 he said he was too old to write or read any but busi- 
 ness letters, and charged me and her to keep up a 
 close correspondence, which on one side should tell all 
 that I saw and did, and on the other hand remind me 
 of all at home. 
 
 I have neither time nor room to give the details ot 
 that South American expedition. I have no right to. 
 There were revolutions accomplished in those days 
 without any object in the world's eyes ; and, even in 
 mine, only serving to sell certain cargoes of long 
 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 99 
 
 cloths and flour. The details of those outbreaks now 
 told would make some patriotic presidents tremble in 
 their seats: and I have no right to betrav confidence 
 at whatever rate I purchased it. Usually, indeed, my 
 feats and Singleton's were only obtaining the best in- 
 formation and communicating the most speedy instruc- 
 tions to Mr. Wentworth's vessels, which w T ere made to 
 move from port to port with a rapidity and intricacy of 
 movement which none besides us two understood in 
 the least. It was in that expedition that I travelled 
 almost alone across the continent. I was, I think, the 
 first white man who ever passed through the mountain 
 path of Xamaulipas, now so famous in all the Chilian 
 picturesque annuals. I was carrying directions for 
 some vessels which had gone round the Cape ; and 
 what a time Burrows and Wheatland and I had a 
 week after, when we rode into the public square of 
 Valparaiso shouting, " Muera la Constitucion, — Viva 
 Libertad ! " by our own unassisted lungs actually 
 raising a rebellion, and, which was of more impor- 
 tance, a prohibition on foreign flour, while Bahamarra 
 and his army were within a hundred miles of us. 
 How those vessels came up the harbor, and how we 
 unloaded them, knowing that at best our revolution 
 could only last five days ! But as I said, I must be 
 careful, or I shall be telling other people's secrets. 
 
 The result of that expedition was that those thirteen 
 vessels all made good outward voyages, and all but 
 one or two eventually made profitable Hme voyages. 
 
100 THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR. 
 
 When I returned home, the old gentleman received 
 me with open arms. I had rescued, as he said, a large 
 share of that fortune which he valued so highly. To 
 say the truth, I felt and feel that he had planned 
 his voyages so blindly, that, without some wiser head 
 than his, they would never have resulted in anything. 
 They were his last, as they were almost his first, South 
 American ventures. He returned to his old course of 
 more methodical trading for the few remaining years 
 of his life. They were, thank Heaven, the only taste of 
 mercantile business which I ever had. Living as I 
 did, in the very sunshine of Mr. Wentworth's favor, 
 I went through the amusing farce of paying my ad- 
 dresses to Julia in approved form, and in due time re- 
 ceived the old gentleman's cordial assent to our union, 
 and his blessing upon it. In six months after my re- 
 turn, we were married ; the old man as happy as a 
 king. He would have preferred a little that the cere- 
 mony should have been performed by Mr. B , his 
 
 friend and pastor, but readily assented to my wishes 
 to call upon a dear and early friend of my own. 
 
 Harry Barry came from Topsham and performed 
 
 the ceremony, "assisted by Rev. Mr. B," 
 
 9 H 
 
 Asous Cottage, April 1, 1842. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO 
 
 FACE. 
 
 A THUMB-NAIL SKETCH. 
 
 [This essay was published in Sartain's Magazine, in 1852, 
 as " A Thumb-nail Sketch," having received one of ten premi- 
 ums which Mr. Sartain offered to encourage young writers. It 
 had been written a few years earlier, some time before the studies 
 of St. Paul's life by Conybeare and Howson, now so well known, 
 were made public. The chronology of my essay does not precise- 
 ly agree with that of these distinguished scholars. But I make 
 no attempt now either to recast the essay or to discuss the deli- 
 cate and complicated questions which belong to the chronology 
 of Paul's life or to that of Nero ; for there is no question with 
 regard to the leading facts. At the end of twenty years I may 
 again express the wish that some master competent to the great- 
 est themes might take the trial of Paul as the subject of a pic- 
 ture.] 
 
 In a Roman audience-chamber, the old civilization 
 and the new civilization brought out, at the very birth 
 of the new, their chosen champions. 
 
 In that little scene, as in one of Rembrandt's thumb- 
 nail studies for a great picture, the lights and shades 
 are as distinct as they will ever be in the largest scene 
 
102 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 
 
 of history. The champions were perfect representa- 
 tives of the parties. And any man, with til** soul of 
 a man, looking on, could have prophesied the issue of 
 the great battle from the issue of that contest. 
 
 The old civilization of the Roman Empire, just at 
 that time, had reached a point which, in all those 
 outward forms which strike the eye, would regard 
 our times as mean indeed. It had palaces of marble, 
 where even modern kings would build of brick with 
 a marble front to catch the eye ; it counted its armies 
 by thousands, where we count ours by hundreds ; it 
 surmounted long colonnades with its exquisite statues, 
 for which modern labor digs deep in ruined cities, be- 
 cause it cannot equal them from its own genius ; it 
 had roads, which are almost eternal, and which, for 
 their purposes, show a luxury of wealth and labor 
 that our boasted locomotion cannot rival. These are 
 its works of a larger scale. And if you enter the 
 palaces, you find pictures of matchless worth, rich 
 dresses which modern looms cannot rival, and sump- 
 tuous furniture at which modern times can only won- 
 der. The outside of the ancient civilization is unequalled 
 by the outside of ours, and for centuries will be un- 
 equalled by it. We have not surpassed it there. And 
 we see how it attained this distinction, such as it was. 
 It came by the constant concentration of power. 
 Power in few hands is the secret of its display and 
 glory. And thus that form of civilization attained ita 
 very climax in the moment of the greatest unity of 
 
\ 
 
 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 103 
 
 the Roman Empire. When the Empire nestled into 
 rest, after the convulsions in which it was born ; when 
 a generation had passed away of those who had been 
 Roman citizens ; when a generation arose, which, ex- 
 cepting one man, the emperor, was a nation of Roman 
 subjects, — then the Empire was at its height of power, 
 its centralization was complete, the system of its civi- 
 lization was at the zenith of its success. 
 
 At that moment it was that there dawned at Rome 
 the first gray morning-light of the new civilization. 
 
 At that moment it was that that short scene, in that 
 one chamber, contrasted the two as clearly as they can 
 be contrasted even in long centuries. 
 
 There is one man, the emperor, who is a precise 
 type, an exact representative, of the old. That man ia 
 brought face to face with another who is a precise 
 type, an exact representative, of the new. 
 
 Only look at them as they stand there ! The man 
 who best illustrates the old civilization owes to it the 
 most careful nurture. From his childhood he has 
 been its petted darling. Its principal is concentration 
 under one head. He is that head. When he is a child, 
 men know he will be emperor of the world. The 
 wise men of the world teach him ; the poets of the 
 world flatter him ; the princes of the world bow to 
 him. He is trained in all elegant accomplishments ; 
 he is led forward through a graceful, luxurious society. 
 His bearing is that of an emperor ; his face is the face 
 of fine physical beauty. Imagine for yourself tha 
 
104 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 
 
 sensual countenance of a young Bacchus, beautiful as 
 Milton's devils ; imagine him clad in splendor before 
 which even English luxury is mean ; arrayed in 
 jewels, to which even Eastern pomp is tinsel ; im- 
 agine an expression of tired hate, of low, brutal lust, 
 hanging on those exquisite licentious features, and you 
 have before you the type of Roman civilization. It is 
 the boy just budding into manhood, whom later times 
 will name as the lowest embodiment of meanness and 
 cruelty ! You are looking upon Nero ! 
 
 Not only is this man an exact type of the ancient civ- 
 ilization, its central power, its outside beauty, but the 
 precise time of this sketch of ours is the exact climax 
 of the moral results of the ancient civilization. We 
 are to look at Nero just when he has returned to 
 Rome from a Southern journey.* That journey had 
 one object, which succeeded. To his after-life it gives 
 one memory, which never dies. He has travelled to 
 his beautiful country palace, that he might kill his 
 mother ! 
 
 We can picture to ourselves Agrippina, by knowing 
 that she was Nero's mother, and our picture will not 
 fail in one feature. She has all the beauty of sense, 
 all the attraction of passion. Indeed, she is the Em- 
 press of Rome, because she is queen of beauty — 
 and of lust. She is most beautiful among the beauti- 
 ful of Rome ; but what is that beauty of feature in a 
 state of whose matrons not one is virtuous, of whose 
 
 * Anno Christi, 60. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW. FACE TO FACE. 10^ 
 
 daughters not one is chaste ? It is the beauty of sense 
 alone, fit adornment of that external grandeur, of that 
 old society. 
 
 [n the infancy of her son, this beautiful Aprippina 
 consulted a troop of fortune-tellers as to his fate ; and 
 they told her that he would live to be Emperor of 
 Rome, and to kill his mother. With all the ecstasy 
 of a mother's pride fused so strangely with all the ex- 
 cess of an ambitious woman's love of power, she cried 
 in answer, " He may kill me, if only he rules 
 Rome ! " * 
 
 She spoke her own fate in these words. 
 
 Here is the account of it by Tacitus. Nero had 
 made all the preparations ; had arranged a barge, that of 
 a sudden its deck might fall heavily upon those in the 
 cabin, and crush them in an instant. He meant thus 
 to give to the murder which he planned the aspect of an 
 accident. To this fatal vessel he led Agrippina. He 
 talked with her affectionately and gravely on the way ; 
 " and when they parted at the lakeside, with his old 
 boyish familiarity he pressed her closely to his heart, 
 either to conceal his purpose, or because the last sight 
 of a mother, on the eve of death, touched even his 
 cruel nature, and then bade her farewell." 
 
 Just at the point upon the lake where he had 
 directed, as the Empress sat in her cabin talking with 
 her attendants, the treacherous deck was let fall upon 
 them all. But the plot failed. She saw dead at hei 
 
 * Tacit. Arnial., xiv. 9 
 5* 
 
106 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 
 
 feet one of her favorites, crushed hj the sudden blow. 
 But she had escaped it. She saw that death awaited 
 them all upon the vessel. The men around sprang for- 
 ward, ready to do their master's bidding in a less clumsy 
 and more certain way. But the Empress, with one of her 
 attendants, sprang from the treacherous vessel into the 
 less treacherous waves. And there, this faithful friend 
 of hers, with a woman's wit and a woman's devotion, 
 drew on her own head the blows and stabs of the mur- 
 derers above, by crying, as if in drowning, " Save me, 
 I am Nero's mother ! " Utterino; those words of self- 
 devotion, she was killed by the murderers above, while 
 the Empress, in safer silence, buoyed up by fragments 
 of the wreck, floated to the shore. 
 
 Nero had failed thus in secret crime, and yet he 
 knew that he could not stop here. And the next day 
 after his mother's deliverance, he sent a soldier to her 
 palace, with a guard ; and there, where she was de- 
 serted even by her last attendant, without pretence 
 of secrecy, they put to death the daughter and the 
 mother of a Csesar. And Nero only waits to look 
 with a laugh upon the beauty of the corpse, before he 
 returns to resume his government at Rome. 
 
 That moment was the culminating; moment of the 
 ancient civilization. It is complete in its centralizing 
 power ; it is complete in its external beauty ; it is 
 complete in its crime. Beautiful as Eden to the eye, 
 with luxury, with comfort, with easy indolence to all ; 
 but dust and ashes beneath the surface ! It is cor- 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 107 
 
 rupted at the head ! It is corrupted at the heart I 
 There is nothing firm ! 
 
 This is the moment which I take for our little pic- 
 ture. At this very moment there is announced the 
 first germ of the new civilization. In the very midst 
 of this falsehood, there sounds one voice of truth ; in 
 the very arms of this giant, there plays the baby boy 
 who is to cleave him to the ground. This Nero slowly 
 returns to the city. He meets the congratulations of 
 a senate, which thank him and the gods that he has 
 murdered his own mother. With the agony of an undy- 
 ing conscience torturing him, he strives to avert care by 
 amusement. He hopes to turn the mob from despising 
 him by the grandeur of their public entertainments. 
 He enlarges for them the circus. He calls unheard-of 
 beasts to be baited and killed for their enjoyment. 
 The finest actors rant, the sweetest musicians sing, 
 that Nero may forget his mother, and that his people 
 may forget him. 
 
 At that period, the statesmen who direct the ma- 
 chinery of affairs inform him that his personal atten- 
 tion is required one morning for a state trial, to be 
 argued before the Emperor in person. Must the Em- 
 peror be there ? May he not waste the hours in the 
 blandishmenis of lying courtiers, or the honeyed false- 
 hoods of a mistress ? If he chooses thus to postpone 
 the audience, be it so; Seneca, Burrhus, and his other 
 counsellors will obey. But the time will come when 
 the worn-out boy will be pleased some morning with 
 
108 THE OLD AND THE NEW FACE TO FACE 
 
 the almost forgotten majesty of state. The time conies 
 one day. Worn out by the dissipation of the week, 
 fretted by some blunder of his flatterers, he sends for 
 his wiser counsellers, and bids them lead him to the 
 audience-chamber, where he will attend to these cases 
 which need an Emperor's decision. It is at that mo- 
 ment that we are to look upon him. 
 
 He sits there, upon that unequalled throne, his face 
 sickly pale with boyish debauchery ; his young fore 
 head worn with the premature sensual wrinkles of 
 lust ; and his eyes bloodshot with last night's intern 
 perance. He sits there, the Emperor-boy, vainly trying 
 to excite himself, and forget her, in the blazonry of 
 that pomp, and bids them call in the prisoner. 
 
 A soldier enters, at whose side the prisoner has 
 been chained for years. This soldier is a tried veteran 
 of the Praetorian cohorts. He was selected, that 
 from him this criminal could not escape ; and for 
 that purpose they have been inseparably bound. But, 
 as he leads that other through the hall, he looks at 
 him with a regard and earnestness which say he is no 
 criminal to him. Long since, the criminal has been 
 the guardian of his keeper. Long since, the keeper 
 has cared for the prisoner with all the ardor of a new- 
 found son's affection. 
 
 They lead that gray-haired captive forward, and 
 with his eagle eye he glances keenly round the hall. 
 That flashing eye has ere now bade monarchs quail ; 
 and those thin IBs have uttered words which shall 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 109 
 
 make the world ring till the last moment of the world 
 shall come. The stately Eastern captive moves un- 
 awed through the assembly, till he makes a subject's 
 salutation to the Emperor-judge who is to hear him. 
 And when, then, the gray-haired sage kneels before 
 the sensual boy, you see the prophet of the new 
 civilization kneel before the monarch of the old ! You 
 see Paul make a subject's formal reverence to Nero ! * 
 Let me do justice to the court which is to try him. 
 In that judgment-hall there are not only the pomp of 
 Rome, and its crime ; we have also the best of its wisdom. 
 By the dissolute boy, Nero, there stands the prime 
 minister Seneca, the chief of the philosophers of his 
 time ; " Seneca the saint," cry the Christians of the 
 next century. We will own him to be Seneca the 
 wise, Seneca almost the good. To this sage had been 
 0iven the education of the monster who was to rule 
 the world. This sage had introduced him into power, 
 had restrained his madness when he could, and with 
 his colleague had conducted the general administration 
 of the Empire with the greatest honor, while the boy 
 was wearing out his life in debauchery in the palace. 
 Seneca dared say more to Nero, to venture more with 
 him, than did any other man. For the young tiger 
 was afraid of his old master long after he had tasted 
 blood. Yet Seneca's system was a cowardly system. 
 It was the best of Roman morality and Greek philoso- 
 phy, and still it was mean. His daring was the brav 
 
 • Anno Christi . CO. See Neander, P. & T., B. iii. ch x 
 
110 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 
 
 est of the men of the old civilization. He is the typ« 
 of their excellences, as is Nero the model of their 
 power and their adornments. And yet all that Seneca's 
 daring could venture was to seduce the baby-tyrant 
 into the least injurious of tyrannies. From the plun- 
 der of a province he would divert him by the carnage 
 of the circus. From the murder of a senator he could 
 lure him by some new lust at home. From the ruin 
 of the Empire, he could seduce him by diverting him 
 with the ruin of a noble family. And Seneca did 
 this with the best of motives. He said he used all 
 the power in his hands, and he thought he did. He 
 was one of those men of whom all times have their 
 share. The bravest of his time, he satisfied himself 
 with alluring the beardless Emperor by petty crime 
 from public wrong; he could natter him to the ex- 
 pedient. He dared not order him to the right. 
 
 But Seneca knew what was right. Seneca also had 
 a well-trained conscience, which told him of right and 
 of wrong. Seneca's brother, Gallio, had saved Paul's 
 life when a Jewish mob would have dragged him to 
 pieces in Corinth ; and the legend is that Seneca and 
 Paul had corresponded with each other before they 
 stood together in Nero's presence, the one as counsel- 
 lor, the other as the criminal.* When Paul arose 
 
 * This correspondence, as preserved in the collections of fragments, 
 has too much the aspect of a school-boy exercise to claim much credit, 
 though high authorities support it as genuine. But the probability 
 that there was such a correspondence, though nov! lost, is very strong. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO PACE. Ill 
 
 from that formal salutation, -when the apostle of the 
 new civilization spoke to the tottering monarch of the 
 old, if there had been one man in that assemblage, 
 could he have failed to see that that was a turning- 
 point in the world's history ? Before him in that little 
 hall, in that little hour, was passing the scene which 
 for centuries would be acted out upon the larger stage. 
 Faith on the one side, before expediency and 
 cruelty on the other ! Paul before Seneca and Nero ! 
 He was ready to address Nero, with the eloquence 
 and vehemence which for years had been demanding 
 utterance. 
 
 He stood at length before the baby Csesar, to whose 
 tribunal he had appealed from the provincial court of 
 a doubting Festos and a trembling Agrippa. 
 
 And who shall ask what words the vigorous Chris- 
 tian spoke to the dastard boy ! Who that knows the 
 eloquence which rung out on the ears of astonished 
 Stoics at Athens, which commanded the incense and 
 the hecatombs of wandering peasants in Asia, which 
 stilled the gabbling clamor of a wild mob at Jerusa- 
 lem, — who will doubt the tone in which Paul spoke 
 to Nero ! The boy quailed for the moment before the 
 man ! The gilded dotard shrunk back from the home 
 truths of the new, young, vigorous faith: the ruler 
 of a hundred legions was nothing before the God- 
 commissioned prisoner. 
 
 No ; though at this audience all men forsook Paul, 
 as he tells us ; though not one of the timid converts 
 
112 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 
 
 were there, but the soldier chained at his side, — still he 
 triumphed over Nero and Nero's minister. 
 
 From that audience-hall those three men retire. 
 The boy, grown old in lust, goes thence to be an hour 
 alone, to ponder for an hour on this God, this resur- 
 rection, and this truth, of which the Jew, in such un- 
 courtly phrase, has harangued him. To be alone, un- 
 til the spectre of a dying mother rises again to haunt 
 him, to persecute him and drive him forth to his fol- 
 lowers and feasters, where he will try to forget Paul 
 and the Saviour and God, where he would be glad to 
 banish them forever. He does not banish them for- 
 ever ! Henceforward, whenever that spectre of a 
 mother comes before him, it must re-echo the words of 
 God and eternity which Paul has spoken. Whenever 
 the chained and bleeding captive of the arena bends 
 suppliant before him, there must return the memory 
 of the only captive who was never suppliant before 
 him, and his words of sturdy power ! 
 
 And Seneca ? Seneca goes home with the morti- 
 fied feelings of a great man who has detected his own 
 meanness. 
 
 We all know the feeling ; for all God's children 
 might be great, and it is with miserable mortification 
 that we detect ourselves in one or another pettiness. 
 Seneca goes home to say: " This wild Easterner has 
 rebuked the Emperor as I have so often wanted to re- 
 buke him. He stood there, as I have wanted to stand, 
 a man before a brute. 
 
TBE OLD AND THE NEW, I? ACE TO PACE. 113 
 
 tr He said what I have thought, and have been afraid 
 to say. Downright, straightforward, he told the Em- 
 peror truths as to Rome, as to man, and as to his vices, 
 which I have longed to tell him. He has done what I 
 am afraid to do. He has dared this, which I have 
 dallied with, and left undone. What is the mystery of 
 his power?" 
 
 Seneca did not know. Nero did not know. The 
 * 4 Eastern mystery " was in presence before them, and 
 they knew it not ! 
 
 What was the mystery of Paul's power ? 
 
 Paul leaves them with the triumph of a man who 
 has accomplished the hope of long years. Those 
 solemn words of his, " After that, I must also see 
 Rome," expressed the longing of years, whose object 
 now, in part, at least, is gratified. He must see 
 Rome ! 
 
 It is God's mission to him that he see Rome and its 
 Emperor. Paul has seen with the spirit's eye what 
 we have seen since in history, — that he is to be the 
 living link by which the electric fire of life should 
 pass first from religious Asia to quicken this dead, 
 brutish Europe. He knows that he is God's messen- 
 ger to bear this mystery of life eternal from the one 
 land to the other, and to unfold it there. And to-day 
 has made real, in fact, this his inward confidence. 
 To-day has put the seal of fact on that vision of his, 
 years since, when he first left his Asiatic home. A 
 prisoner in chains, still he has to-day seen the accom< 
 
114 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE. 
 
 plisliment of the vows, hopes, and resolutions of thai 
 field of Troy, most truly famous from the night he 
 spent there. There was another of these hours when 
 God brings into one spot the acts which shall be the 
 argument of centuries of history. Paul had come 
 down there in his long Asiatic journeys, — Eastern in 
 his lineage, Eastern in his temperament, Eastern in 
 his outward life, and Eastern in his faith, — to that 
 narrow Hellespont, which for long ages has separated 
 East from West, tore madly up the chains which 
 would unite them, overwhelmed even love when it 
 sought to intermarry them, and left their cliffs frown- 
 ing eternal hate from shore to shore. Paul stood 
 upon the Asian shore and looked across upon the 
 Western. There were Macedonia and the hills of 
 Greece, here Troas and the ruins of Ilium. The 
 names speak war. The blue Hellespont has no voice 
 but separation, except to Paul. But to Paul, sleep- 
 ing, it might be, on the tomb of Achilles, that night 
 the " man of Macedonia " appears, and bids him come 
 over to avenge Asia, to pay back the debt of Troy. 
 
 " Come over and help us." Give us life, for we 
 gave you death. Give us help for we gave you ruin. 
 Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. The 
 Christian Alexander, he crosses to Macedon with 
 the words of peace instead of war, — the Christian 
 shepherd of the people, he carries to Greece, from 
 Troy, the tidings of salvation instead of carnage, of 
 charity instead of license. And he knows that tc 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO PACE. 116 
 
 Eniope it is the beginning of her new civilization, it is 
 the dawn of her new warfare, of her new poetry, of 
 her reign of heroes who are immortal. 
 
 That faith of his, now years old, has this day re- 
 ceived its crowning victory. This day, when he has 
 faced Nero and Seneca together, may well stand in 
 his rnind as undoing centuries of bloodshed and of 
 license. 
 
 And in this effort, and in that spiritual strength 
 which had nerved him in planning it and carrying it 
 through, was the " Asian mystery." Ask what was 
 the secret of Paul's power as he bearded the baby 
 Emperor, and abashed the baby Philosopher ? What 
 did he give the praise to, as he left that scene ? What 
 was the principle in action there, but faith in the new 
 life, faith in the God who gave it ! 
 
 We do not wonder, as Seneca wondered, that such 
 a man as Paul dared say anything to such a boy as 
 Nero ! The absolute courage of the new faith was 
 the motive-power which forced it upon the world. 
 Here were the sternest of morals driven forward with 
 the most ultra bravery. 
 
 Perfect faith gave perfect courage to the first wit- 
 nesses. And there was the " mystery " of their vic- 
 tories. 
 
 And so, in this case, when after a while Seneca 
 again reminded Nero of his captive, poor Nero did not 
 dare but meet him again. Yet, when he met him 
 again in that same judgment-hall, he did not dare 
 
116 THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE 10 FACE. 
 
 hear him long ; and we may be sure that there were 
 but few words before, with such affectation of dig- 
 nity as he could summon, he bade them set the pris- 
 oner free. 
 
 Paul free ! The old had faced the new. Each 
 had named its champion. And the new conquers I 
 
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 [This sketch was originally published in the Atlantic Monthly 
 for October, 1858, just at the time that the first Atlantic Cable, 
 whose first prattle had been welcomed by the acclamations of 
 a continent, gasped its last under the manipulations of De 
 Sauty. It has since been copied by Mr. Prescott in his valuable 
 hand-book of the electric telegraph. 
 
 The war, which has taught us all so much, has given a brilliant 
 illustration of the dot and line alphabet, wholly apart from the 
 electric use of it, which will undoubtedly be often repeated. In 
 the movements of our troops under General Foster in North 
 Carolina, Dr. J. B. Upham of Boston, the distinguished medical 
 director in that department, equally distinguished for the success 
 with which he has led forward the musical education of New Eng- 
 land, trained a corps of buglers to converse with each other by 
 long and short bugle-notes, and thus to carry information with 
 literal accuracy from point to point at any distance within which 
 the tones of a bugle could be heard. It will readily be seen that 
 there are many occasions in military affairs when such means of 
 conversation might prove of inestimable value. Mr. Tuttle, the 
 astronomer, on duty in the same campaign, made a similar ar- 
 rangement witk long and short flashes of light.] 
 
 Jost in the triumph week of that Great Telegraph 
 which takes its name from the Atlantic Monthly, J 
 
118 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 read in the September number of that journal the rev- 
 elations of an observer who was surprised to find that 
 he had the power of reading, as they run, the reve- 
 lations of the wire. I had the hope that he was about 
 to explain to the public the more general use of this 
 instrument, — which, with a stupid fatuity, the public 
 has as yet failed to grasp. Because its signals have 
 been first applied by means of electro-magnetism, and 
 afterwards by means of the chemical power of elec- 
 tricity, the many-headed people refuses to avail it- 
 self, as it might do very easily, of the same signals for 
 the simpler transmission of intelligence, whatever the 
 power employed. 
 
 The great invention of Mr. Morse is his register and 
 alphabet. He himself eagerly disclaims any preten- 
 sion to the original conception of the use of electricity 
 as an errand-boy. Hundreds of people had thought 
 of that and suggested [^ . Du t Morse was the first to 
 give the errand-boy such a written message, that he 
 could not lose it on the way, nor mistake it when he 
 arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, as he de- 
 serves, thanks him for something he did not invent. 
 For this he probably cares very little ; nor do I care 
 more. But the public does not thank him for what 
 he did originate, — this invaluable and simple alpha- 
 bet. Now, as I use it myself in every detail of life, 
 and see every hour how the public might use it, if it 
 chose, 1 am really sorry for this negligence, — both on 
 the score of his fame, and of general convenience. 
 
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 119 
 
 Please to understand, then, ignorant Reader, that 
 this curious alphabet reduces all the complex machin- 
 ery of Cadmus and the rest of the writing-masters to 
 characters as simple as can be made by a dot, a space, 
 and a line, variously combined. Thus, the marks . — 
 designate the letter A. The marks — ... designate 
 the letter B. All the other letters are designated in 
 as simple a manner. 
 
 Now I am stripping myself of one of the private 
 comforts of my life, (but what will one not do for 
 mankind?) when I explain that this simple alphabet 
 need not be confined to electrical signals. Long and 
 short make it all, — and wherever long and short can 
 be combined, be it in marks, sounds, sneezes, fainting- 
 fits, canes, or children, ideas can be conveyed by this 
 arrangement of the long and short together. Only last 
 night I was talking scandal with Mrs. Wilberforce at 
 a summer party at the Hammersmiths. To my amaze- 
 ment, my wife, who scarcely can play " The Fish- 
 er's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wil- 
 berforce if she could give her the idea of an air in 
 "The Butcher of Turin." Mrs. Wilberforce had 
 never heard that opera, — indeed, had never heard 
 of it. My angel-wife was surprised, — stood thrum- 
 ming at the piano, — wondered she could not catch 
 this very odd bit of discordant accord at all, — but 
 checked herself in her effort, as soon as I observed 
 that her long notes and short notes, in their tum-tee, 
 tee, — tee-tee, tee-tum turn, meant, " He 's her brother." 
 
120 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 The conversation on her side turned from u The Butcher 
 of Turin," and I had just time on the hint thus given 
 me by Mrs. I. to pass a grateful eulogium on the dis- 
 tinguished statesman whom Mrs. Wilberforce, with all 
 a sister's care, had rocked in his baby-cradle, — whom, 
 but for my wife's long and short notes, I should have 
 clumsily abused among the other statesmen of the day. 
 
 You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that 
 it is not the business simply of " operators " in tele- 
 graphic dens to know this Morse alphabet, but your 
 business, and that of every man and woman. If our 
 school committees understood the times, it would be 
 taught, even before phonography or physiology, at 
 school. I believe both these sciences now precede the 
 old English alphabet. 
 
 As I write these words, the bell of the South Con- 
 gregational strikes dong, dong, dong, — dong, dong, 
 dong, dong, — dong, — dong. Nobody has unlocked 
 the church-door. I know that, for I am locked up in 
 the vestry. The old tin sign, " In case of fire, the 
 key will be found at the opposite house," has long 
 since been taken down, and made into the nose of a 
 water-pot. Yet there is no Goody Two-Shoes locked 
 in. No one except me, and certainly I am not ring- 
 ing the bell. No ! But, thanks to Dr. Channing's 
 Fire Alarm,* the bell is informing the South End thai 
 
 * The Fire Alarm is the invention of Dr. William F. Channing: 
 
 " A wizard of such dreaded fame, 
 That wher in Salamanca's cave, 
 Him listed his magic wand to wave, 
 The bells would ring in Notre Dame K 
 
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 12l 
 
 there is a fire in District Dong-dong-dong, — that is tc 
 say, District No. 3. Before I have explained to you 
 so far, the " Eagle " engine, with a good deal of noise, 
 has passed the house on its way to that fated district. 
 An immense improvement this on the old system, 
 when the engines radiated from their houses in every 
 possible direction, and the fire was extinguished by 
 the few machines whose lines of quest happened tc 
 cross each other at the particular place where the child 
 had been building cob-houses out of lucifer-matches in 
 a paper warehouse. Yes, it is a very great improve- 
 ment. All those persons, like you and me, who have 
 no property in District Dong-dong-dong, can now sit 
 at home at ease ; — and little need we think upon the 
 mud above the knees of those who have property in 
 that district and are running to look after it. But foi 
 them the improvement only brings misery. You arrive 
 wet, hot or cold, or both, at the large District No. 3, to 
 find that the lucifer-matches were half a mile away 
 from your store, — and that your own private watch- 
 man, even, had not been waked by the working of the 
 distant engines. Wet property holder, as you walk 
 home, consider this. When you are next in the Com- 
 mon Council, vote an appropriation for applying 
 Morse's alphabet of long and short to the bells. Then 
 they can be made to sound intelligibly. Daring ding 
 ding, — ding, — ding daring, — daung daung daung, 
 and so on, will tell you as you wake in the night that it 
 is Mr. B.'s store which is on fire, and not yours, or that 
 
122 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 it is yours and not his. This is not only a convex 
 ience to you and a relief to your wife and family, who 
 will thus be spared your excursions to unavailable and 
 unsatisfactory fires, and your somewhat irritated return, 
 — it will be a great relief to the Fire Department. 
 How placid the operations of a fire where none attend 
 except on business! The various engines arrive, but 
 no throng of distant citizens, men and boys, fearful of 
 the destruction of their all. They have all roused on 
 their pillows to learn that it is No. 530 Pearl Street 
 which is in flames. All but the owner of No. 530 
 Pearl Street have dropped back to sleep. He alone 
 has rapidly repaired to the scene. That is he, who 
 stands in the uncrowded street with the Chief Engineer, 
 on the deck of No. 18, as she plays away. His prop- 
 erty destroyed, the engines retire, — he mentions the 
 amount of his insurance to those persons who repre- 
 sent the daily press, they all retire to their homes, — 
 and the whole is finished as simply, almost, as was hia 
 private entry in his day-book the afternoon before.* 
 
 This is what might be, if the magnetic alarm onlv 
 struck long and short, and we had all learned Morse's 
 alphabet. Indeed, there is nothing the bells could not 
 tell, if you would only give them time enough. We 
 have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the 
 
 * I am proud to say that such suggestions have had so much weight. 
 that in 1868 the alarm strikes the number of the box which first tele 
 graphs danger, six-four, six-four, &c, six being the district number 
 and four the box number in that district. 
 
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 128 
 
 town. But, without attempting tunes, only give the 
 bells the Morse alphabet, and every bell in Boston 
 might chant in monotone the words of " Hail Colum- 
 bia " at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr. 
 Barnard should report any day that a discouraged 
 'prentice-boy had left town for his country home, all 
 the bells could instantly be set to work to speak articu- 
 lately, in language regarding which the dullest imagi- 
 nation need not be at loss, 
 
 " Turn again, Higginbottom, 
 Lord Mayor of Boston ! " 
 
 1 have suggested the propriety of introducing this 
 alphabet into the primary schools. I need not say I 
 have taught it to my own children, — and I have been 
 gratified to see how rapidly it made head, against 
 the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools. 
 Of course it does ; — an alphabet of two characters 
 matched against one of twenty-six, — or of forty-odd, 
 as the very odd one of the phonotypists employ ! On 
 the Franklin-medal day I went to the Johnson-School 
 examination. One of the committee asked a nice 
 girl what was the capital of Brazil. The child looked 
 tired and pale, and, for an instant, hesitated. But, be- 
 fore she had time to commit herself, all answering was 
 rendered impossible by an awful turn of whooping- 
 cough which one of my own sons was seized with, — 
 who had gone to the examination with me. Hawm, 
 hem hem ; — hem hem hem ; — hem, hem ; — hawm, 
 hem hem ; — hem hem hem ; — hem, hem, — barked 
 
124 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 the poor child, who was at the opposite extreme of the 
 Bchool-room. The spectators and the committee looked 
 to see him fall dead with a broken blood-vessel. I 
 confess that I felt no alarm, after I observed that some 
 of his gasps were long and some very staccato ; — nor 
 did pretty little Mabel Warren. She recovered her 
 color, — and, as soon as silence was in the least restored, 
 answered, u Rio is the capital of Brazil," — as modestly 
 and properly as if she had been taught it in her cradle. 
 They are nothing but children, any of them, — but 
 that afternoon, after they had done all the singing 
 the city needed for its annual entertainment of the 
 singers, I saw Bob and Mabel start for a long ex- 
 pedition into West Roxbury, — and when he came 
 back, I know it was a long featherfew, from her 
 prize school-bouquet, that he pressed in his Greene's 
 " Analysis," with a short frond of maiden's hair. 
 
 I hope nobody will write a letter to " The Atlantic," 
 to say that these are very trifling uses. The commu- 
 nication of useful information is never trifling. It is 
 as important to save a nice child from mortification on 
 examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he 
 is not elected President. If, however, the reader is 
 distressed, because these illustrations do not seem to 
 his more benighted observation to belong to the big 
 how-wow strain of human life, let him consider the 
 arrangement which ought to have been made years 
 since, for lee shores, railroad collisions, and that curious 
 class of maritime accidents where one steamer runs 
 
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 121. 
 
 into mother under the impression that she is a light 
 house. Imagine the Morse alphabet applied to a steam- 
 whistle, which is often heard five miles. It needs 
 only long and short again. " Stop Comet," for instance, 
 when you send it down the railroad line, by the wire, 
 is expressed thus: . . . — , 
 
 Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the 
 telegraph station when it comes ! But what if Comet, 
 has gone by ? Much good will your trumpery mes- 
 sage do then ! If, however, you have the wit to sound 
 your long and short on an engine-whistle, thus; — 
 Sere sere, sere ; screeee ; sere sere ; sere sere sere sere 
 sere ; sere sere sere, — sere sere ; screeeee screeeee ; 
 sere ; screeeee ; — why, then the whole neighborhood, 
 for five miles around, will know that Comet must 
 stop, if only they understand spoken language, — and 
 among others, the engineman of Comet will under- 
 stand it ; and Comet will not run into that wreck of 
 worlds which gives the order, — with the nucleus of 
 hot iron and his tail of five hundred tons of coal. — 
 So, of the signals which fog-bells can give, attached 
 to light-houses. How excellent to have them proclaim 
 through the darkness, " I am Wall " I Or of siomala 
 for steamship-engineers. When our friends were on 
 board the " Arabia " the other day, and she and the 
 "Europa" pitched into each other, — as if, on that 
 happy week, all the continents were to kiss and join 
 hands all round, — how great the relief to the passen- 
 
126 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 gers on each, if, through every night of their passage, 
 collision had been prevented by this simple expedient ! 
 One boat would have screamed, " Europa, Europa, 
 Europa," from night to morning, — and the other, 
 *' Arabia, Arabia, Arabia," — and neither would have 
 been mistaken, as one unfortunately was, for a light- 
 house. 
 
 The long and short of it is, that whoever can mark 
 distinctions of time can use this alphabet of long-and- 
 ehort, however he may mark them. It is therefore 
 within the compass of all intelligent beings, except 
 those who are no longer conscious of the passage ot 
 time, having exchanged its limitations for the widei 
 sweep of eternity. The illimitable range of this al 
 phabet, however, is not half disclosed when this has 
 been said. Most articulate language addresses itself 
 to one sense, or at most to two, sight and sound. I 
 see, as I write, that the particular illustrations I have 
 given are all of them confined to signals seen or signals 
 heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the few years 
 of its history, has already shown that it is not restricted 
 to these two senses, but makes itself intelligible to all. 
 Its message, of course, is heard as well as read. Any 
 good operator understands the sounds of its ticks upor 
 the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he sees it 
 As he lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound tht 
 passing message without striking a light to see it 
 But this is only what may be said of any written Ian 
 guage. You can read this article to your wife, or she 
 
1'HE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 127 
 
 can read it, as she prefers ; that is, she chooses whether 
 it shall address her eye or her ear. But the long-and- 
 short alphabet of Morse and his imitators despises 
 such narrow range. It addresses whichever of the 
 five senses the listener chooses. This fact is illustrated 
 by a curious set of anecdotes, — never yet put in print, 
 I think, — of that critical despatch which in one night 
 announced General Taylor's death to this whole land. 
 Most of the readers of these lines probably read that 
 despatch in the morning's paper. The compositors 
 and editors had read it. To them it was a despatch 
 to the eye. But half the operators at the stations 
 heard it ticked out, by the register stroke, and knew 
 it before they wrote it down for the press. To them 
 it was a despatch to the ear. My good friend Langen- 
 zunge had not that resource. He had just been prom- 
 ised, by the General himself (under whom he served 
 at Palo Alto), the office of Superintendent of the 
 Rocky Mountain Lines. He was returning from 
 Washington over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on 
 a freight-train, when he heard of the President's dan- 
 ger. Langenzunge loved Old Rough and Ready, — 
 and he felt badly about his own office, too. But his 
 extempore train chose to stop at a forsaken shanty -vil- 
 lage on the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at mid- 
 night. What does he do, but walk down the line into 
 the darkness, climb a telegraph-post, cut a wire, and 
 applied the two ends to his tongue, to taste, at the fatal 
 moment, the words, " Died at half past ten." Poor 
 
128 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 Langenzunge ! he hardly had nerve to solder the wire 
 again. Cogs told me that they had just fitted up the 
 Naguadavick stations with Bain's chemical revolving 
 disk. This disk is charged with a salt of potash, 
 whi?h, when the electric spark passes through it, is 
 changed to Prussian blue. Your despatch is noise- 
 lessly written in dark blue dots and lines. Just as the 
 disk started on that fatal despatch, and Cogs bent over 
 it to read, his spirit-lamp blew up, — as the dear things 
 will. They were beside themselves in the lonely, 
 dark office ; but, while the men were fumbling for 
 matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a 
 sweet blind girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from 
 Dr. Howe at South Boston, bent over the chemical 
 paper, and smelt out the prussiate of potash, as it formed 
 itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story. Almost 
 anybody used to reading the blind books can read the 
 embossed Morse messages with the finger, — and so 
 this message was read at all the midnight way-stations 
 where no night-work is expected, and where the com- 
 paniis do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow 
 circle of acquaintance, therefore, there were these 
 simultaneous instances, where the same message was 
 seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So universal is 
 the dot-and-iine alphabet, — for Bain's is on the same 
 principle as Morse's. 
 
 The reader see3, therefore, first, that the dot-and- 
 line alphabet can be employed by any being who has 
 command of any long and short symbols, — be they 
 
THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 129 
 
 long and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept 
 his accounts with, or long and short waves of electrici- 
 ty, such as these which Valentia is sending across to 
 the Newfoundland bay, so prophetically and appropri- 
 ately named " The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope the 
 reader sees that the alphabet can be understood by any 
 intelligent being who has any one of the five senses 
 left him, — by all rational men, that is, excepting the 
 few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both taste and 
 smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's 
 telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique 
 who possess or who understand electrical batteries. It 
 is not only the torpedo or the G-ymnotus electricus that 
 can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the 
 sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they 
 will only note the difference between long spoutings 
 and sliort ones. And they can listen, too. If they 
 will only note the difference between long and short, 
 the eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin 
 the smooth messages of our Presidents, and the catfish, 
 in his darkness, look fearless on the secrets of a Queen. 
 Any beast, bird, fish, or insect, which can discriminate 
 between long and short, may use the telegraph alpha- 
 bet, if he have sense enough. Any creature, which 
 can hear, smell, taste, feel, or see, may take note of its 
 signals, if he can understand them. A tired listener 
 at church, by properly varying his long yawns and his 
 short ones, may express his opinion of the sermon to 
 the opposite gallery before the sermon is done. A 
 
 6* m 
 
130 THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET. 
 
 dumb tobacconist may trade with his customers m an 
 alphabet of short-sixes and long-nines. A beleaguered 
 Sebastopol may explain its wants to the relieving army 
 beyond the line of the Chernaya, by the lispings of its 
 short Paixhans and its long twenty-foura. 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 [I had some opportunities, which no other writer for the press 
 had, I believe, of examining the Resolute on her return from 
 that weird voyage which is the most remarkable in the history 
 of the navies of the world. And, as I know of no other printed 
 record of the whole of that voyage than this, which was published 
 in the Boston Daily Advertiser of June 11, 1856, I reprint it 
 here. Readers should remember that the English government 
 abandoned all claim on the vessel ; that the American government 
 then bought her of the salvors, refitted her completely, and sent 
 her to England as a present to the Queen. The Queen visited 
 the ship, and accepted the present in person. The Resolute has 
 never since been to sea. I do not load the page with authorities ; 
 but I studied the original reports of the Arctic expeditions care- 
 fully in preparing the paper, and I believe it to be accurate 
 throughout. 
 
 The voyage from New London to England, when she was thus 
 returned, is strictly her last voyage. But when this article w«v 
 printed its name was correct.] 
 
 It was in early spring in 1852, early on the vurx. 
 mg of the 21st of April, that the stout English dis- 
 covery ship Resolute, manned by a large crew, com- 
 manded by a most manly man, Henry Kellett, left her 
 
132 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 moorings in the great river Thames, a little below the 
 old town of London, was taken in tow by a fussy 
 steam -tug, and proudly started as one of a fine English 
 squadron in the great search of the nations for the lost 
 Sir John Franklin. It was late in the year 1855, on 
 the 24th of December, that the same ship, weather- 
 worn, scantily rigged, without her lighter masts, all in 
 the trim of a vessel which has had a hard fight with 
 wind, water, ice, and time, made the light-house of 
 New London, — waited for day and came round to an- 
 chor in the other river Thames, of New England. 
 Not one man of the English crew was on board. The 
 gallant Captain Kellett was not there ; but in his place 
 an American master, who had shown, in his way, equal 
 gallantry. The sixty or seventy men with whom she 
 sailed were all in their homes more than a year ago. 
 The eleven men with whom she returned had had t 
 double parts, and to work hard to make good tht 
 places of the sixty. And between the day when the 
 Englishmen left her, and the day the Americans found 
 her, she had spent fifteen months and more alone. 
 She was girt in by the ice of the Arctic seas. Nc 
 man knows where she went, what narrow scapes she 
 passed through, how low her thermometers marked 
 co ld ; — it is a bit of her history which was nevei 
 written. Nor what befell her little tender, the "In- 
 trepid," which was left in her neighborhood, " ready 
 for occupation," just as she was left. No man wil 
 ever tell of the nip that proved too much for her, — 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 133 
 
 uf the opening of her seams, and her disappearance 
 beneath the ice. But here is the hardy Resolute, 
 which, on the 15th of May, 1854, her brave command- 
 er left, as he was ordered, u ready for occupation," — 
 which the brave Captain Buddington found Septem- 
 ber 10, 1855, more than a thousand miles from there, 
 and pronounced still "ready for occupation"; — and 
 of what can be known of her history from Old London 
 to New London, from Old England's Thames to New 
 England's Thames, we will try to tell the story ; as it 
 is written in the letters of her old officers and told by 
 the lips of her new rescuers. 
 
 For Arctic work, if ships are to go into every nook 
 and lane of ice that will yield at all to wind and steam, 
 they must be as nearly indestructible as man can make 
 them. For Arctic work, therefore, and for discovery 
 work, ships built of the teak wood of Malabar and Java 
 are considered most precisely fitted. Ships built of 
 teak are said to be wholly indestructible by time. To 
 this we owe the fact, which now becomes part of a 
 strange coincidence, that one of the old Captain Cook's 
 ships which went round the world with him has been, 
 till within a few years, a whaling among the American 
 whalers, revisiting, as a familiar thing, the shores which 
 she was first to discover. The English admiralty, 
 eager to fit out for Arctic service a ship of the best 
 build they could find, bought the two teak-built ships 
 Baboo and Ptarmigan in 1850, — sent them to their own 
 dock-yards to be refitted, and the Baboo became the 
 
134 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 Assistance, — the Ptarmigan became the Resolute, of 
 their squadrons of Arctic discovery. 
 
 Does the reader know that in the desolation of the 
 Arctic shores the Ptarmigan is the bird most often 
 found? It is the Arctic grouse or partridge,* and 
 often have the ptarmigans of Melville Island furnished 
 sport and even dinners to the hungry officers of the 
 " Resolute," wholly unconscious that she had ever been 
 their god-child, and had thrown off their name only to 
 take that which she now wears. 
 
 Early in May, 1850, just at the time we now know 
 that brave Sir John Franklin and the remnant of his 
 crew were dying of starvation at the mouth of Back's 
 River, the " Resolute " sailed first for the Arctic seas, 
 the flag-ship of Commodore Austin, with whose little 
 squadron our own De Haven and his men had such 
 pleasant intercourse near Beechey Island. In the 
 course of that expedition she wintered off Cornwallis 
 Island, — and in autumn of the next year returned to 
 England. 
 
 Whenever a squadron or a man or an army returns 
 to England, unless in the extreme and exceptional case 
 f complete victory over obstacle invincible, there is 
 ftl ways dissatisfaction. This is the English way. And 
 go there was dissatisfaction when Captain Austin re- 
 turned with his ships and men. There was also still 
 a lingering hope that some trace of Franklin might yet 
 be found, perhaps some of his party. Yet more, there 
 
 * Tctrao lagopus. 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 135 
 
 were two of the searching ships which had entered the 
 Polar seas from Behring's Straits on the west, the 
 " Enterprise " and " Investigator," which might need 
 relief before they came through or returned. Arctic 
 search became a passion by this time, and at once a 
 new squadron was fitted out to take the seas in the 
 spring of 1852. This squadron consisted of the "As- 
 sistance " and " Resolute " again, which had been re- 
 fitted since their return, of the " Intrepid " and " Pio- 
 neer," two steamships used as tenders to the " Assist- 
 ance " and " Resolute " respectively, and of the " North 
 Star," which had also been in those regions, and now 
 went as a storeship to the rest of the squadron. To 
 the command of the whole Sir Edward Belcher was 
 appointed, an officer who had served in some of the 
 earlier Arctic expeditions. Officers and men volun- 
 teered in full numbers for the service, and these five 
 vessels therefore carried out a body of men who brought 
 more experience of the Northern seas together than 
 any expedition which had ever visited them. 
 
 Of these, Captain Henry Kellett had command of 
 the " Resolute," and was second in seniority to Sir 
 Edward Belcher, who made the "Assistance " the flag- 
 ship. It shows what sort of man he was, to say that 
 for more than ten years he spent only part of one in 
 England, and was the rest of the time in an antipodean 
 hemisphere or a hyperborean zone. Before brave Sir 
 John Franklin sailed, Captain Kellett was in the Pa- 
 cific. Just as he was to return home, he was ordered 
 
136 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 into the Arctic seas to search for Sir John. Three 
 years successively, in his ship the " Herald," he passed 
 inside Behring's Straits, and far into the Arctic Ocean. 
 He discovered " Herald Island," the farthest land 
 known there. He was one of the last men to see Mc- 
 Clure in the " Investigator " before she entered the 
 Polar seas from the northwest. He sent three of his 
 men on board that ship to meet them all again, as will 
 be seen, in strange surroundings. After more than 
 seven years of this Pacific and Arctic life, he returned 
 to England, in May or June, 1851, and in the next 
 winter volunteered to try the eastern approach to the 
 same Arctic seas in our ship, the "Resolute." Some 
 of his old officers sailed with him. 
 
 We know nothing of Captain Kellett but what his 
 own letters, despatches, and instructions show, as they 
 are now printed in enormous parliamentary blue-books, 
 and what the despatches and letters of his officers and 
 of his commander show. But these papers present the 
 picture of a vigorous, hearty man, kind to his crew 
 and a great favorite with them, brave in whatever trial, 
 always considerate, generous to his officers, reposing 
 confidence in their integrity ; a man, in short, of whom 
 the world will be apt to hear more. His commander, 
 Sir Edward Belcher, tried by the same standard, ap- 
 pears a brave and ready man, apt to talk of himself, 
 not very considerate of his inferiors, confident in his 
 own opinion ; in short, a man with whom one would 
 not care to spend three Arctic winters. With him, as 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 187 
 
 we trace the "Resolute's " fortunes, we shall have 
 much to do. Of Captain Kellett we shall see some- 
 thing all along till the day when he sadly left her, as 
 bidden by Sir Edward Belcher, w ready for occupa- 
 tion." 
 
 With such a captain, and with sixty-odd men, the 
 " Resolute " cast off her moorings in the gray of the 
 morning on the 21st of April, 1852, to go in search of 
 Sir John Franklin. The brave Sir John had died two 
 years before, but no one knew that, nor whispered it. 
 The river steam-tug " Monkey " took her in tow, oth- 
 er steamers took the " Assistance " and the " North 
 Star"; the " Intrepid" and "Pioneer" got up their 
 own steam, and to the cheers of the little company 
 gathered at Greenhithe to see them off, they went down 
 the Thames. At the Nore, the steamship " Desper- 
 ate " took the " Resolute " in charge, Sir Edward 
 Belcher made the signal " Orkneys " as the place of 
 rendezvous, and in four days she was there, in Strom- 
 ness outer harbor. Here there was a little shifting of 
 provisions and coal-bags, those of the men who could 
 get on shore squandered their spending-money, and 
 then, on the 28th of April, she and hers bade good 
 by to British soil. And, though they have welcomed 
 it again long since, she has not seen it from then till 
 now. 
 
 The u Desperate " steamer took her in tow, she sent 
 her Dwn tow-lines to the "North Star," and for three 
 days in this procession of so wild and weird a name. 
 
138 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KESOLUTK 
 
 they three forged on westward toward Greenland, — 
 a train which would have startled any old Viking had 
 he fallen in with it, with a fresh gale blowing all the 
 time and "a nasty sea." On the fourth day all the 
 tow-lines broke or were cast off however, Neptune and 
 the winds claimed their own, and the " Resolute " 
 tried her own resources. The towing steamers were 
 sent home in a few days more, and the squadron left 
 to itself 
 
 We have too much to tell in this short article to be 
 able to dwell on the details of her visits to the hospi- 
 table Danes of Greenland, or of her passage through 
 the ice of Baffin's Bay. But here is one incident, 
 which, as the event has proved, is part of a singular 
 coincidence. On the 6th of July all the squadron, 
 tangled in the ice, joined a fleet of whalers beset in it, 
 by a temporary opening between the gigantic masses. 
 Caught at the head of a bight in the ice, with the "As- 
 sistance" and the "Pioneer," the "Resolute" was, 
 for the emergency, docked there, and, by the ice clos- 
 ing behind her, was, for a while, detained. Meanwhile 
 the rest of the fleet, whalers and discovery ships, passed 
 on by a little lane of water, the American whaler " Mc- 
 Lellan" leading;. This "McLellan" was one of the 
 ships of the spirited New London merchants, Messrs. 
 Perkins & Smith, another of whose vessels has now 
 found the " Resolute " and befriended her in her need 
 in those seas. The " McLellan " was their pioneei 
 vessel there. 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE EESOLUTE. 139 
 
 The " North Star " of the English squadron followed 
 the " McLellan." A long train stretched out behind. 
 Whalers and government ships, as they happened to 
 fall into line, — a long three quarters of a mile. It 
 was lovely weather, and, though the long lane closed 
 up so that they could neither go back nor forward, — 
 nobody apprehended injury till it was announced on 
 the morning of the 7th that the poor "McLellan " was 
 nipped in the ice and her crew were deserting her. 
 Sir Edward Belcher was then in condition to befriend 
 her, sent his carpenters to examine her, — put a few 
 charges of powder into the ice to relieve the pressure 
 upon her, — and by the end of the day it was agreed 
 that her injuries could be repaired, and her crew went 
 on board again. But there is no saying what ice will 
 do next. The next morning there was a fresh wind, 
 the " McLellan " was caught again, and the water 
 poured into her, a steady stream. She drifted about 
 unmanageable, now into one ship, now into another, 
 and the English whalemen began to pour on board, to 
 help themselves to such plunder as they chose. At 
 the Captain's request, Sir Edward Belcher put an end 
 to this, sent sentries on board, and working parties, to 
 clear her as far as might be, and keep account of what 
 her stores were and where they went to. In a day or 
 two more she sank to the water's edge and a friendly 
 charge or two of powder put her out of the way of harm 
 to the rest of the fleet. After such a week spent to- 
 gether it will easily be understood that the New London 
 
£40 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 whalemen did not feel strangers on board one of Sil 
 Edward's vessels when they found her " ready for oc- 
 cupation " three years and more afterwards. 
 
 In this tussle with the ice, the " Resolute " was 
 nipped once or twice, but she has known harder nips 
 than that since. As July wore away, she made her 
 way across Baffin's Bay, and on the 10th of August 
 made Beechey Island, — known now as the head-quar- 
 ters for years of the searching squadrons, because, as it 
 happened, the place where the last traces of Franklin's 
 ships were found, — the wintering place of his first 
 winter. But Captain Kellett was on what is called 
 the " western search," and he only stayed at Beechey 
 Island to complete his provisions from the storeships, 
 and in the few days which this took, to see for himself 
 the sad memorials of Franklin's party, — and then the 
 " Resolute " and " Intrepid " were away, through 
 Barrow's Straits, — on the track which Parry ran 
 along with such success thirty-three years before, — 
 and wdiich no one had followed with as good fortune 
 as he, until now. 
 
 On the 15th of August Captain Kellett was off; 
 bade good by to the party at Beechey Island, and was 
 to try his fortune in independent command. He had 
 not the best of luck at starting. The reader must re- 
 member that one great object of these Arctic expedi- 
 tions was to leave provisions for starving men. For 
 such a purpose, and for travelling parties of his own 
 over the ice, Captair Kellett was to leave a depot at 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 141 
 
 Assistance Bay, some thirty miles only from Beeohey 
 Island. In nearing for that purpose the u Resolute " 
 grounded, was left with but seven feet of water, the 
 ice threw her over on her starboard bilge, and she 
 was almost lost. Not quite lost, however, or we 
 should not be telling her story. At midnight she was 
 got off, leaving sixty feet of her false keel behind. 
 Captain Kellett forged on in her, — left a depot here 
 and another there, — and at the end of the short Arc - 
 tic summer had come as far westward as Sir Edward 
 Parry came. Here is the most westerly point the 
 reader will find on most maps far north in America, — 
 the Melville Island of Captain Parry. Captain Kel- 
 lett's associate, Captain McClintock of the " Intrep- 
 id," had commanded the only party which had been 
 here since Parry. In 1851 he came over from Austin's 
 squadron with a sledge party. So confident is every 
 one there that nobody has visited those parts unless 
 he was sent, that McClintock encouraged his men one 
 lay by telling them that if they got on well, they 
 should have an old cart Parry had left thirty-odd year3 
 before, to make a fire of. Sure enough ; they came to 
 the place, and there was the wreck of the cart just as 
 Parry left it. They even found the ruts the old cart 
 left in the ground as if they had not been left a week. 
 Captain Kellett came into harbor, and with great 
 spirit he and his officers began to prepare for the ex- 
 tended searching parties of the next spring. The 
 u Resolute " and her tender came to anchor off DeaJy 
 
142 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 Island, and there she spent the next eleven months of 
 her life, with great news around her in that time. 
 
 There is not much time for travelling in autumn. 
 The days grow very short and very cold. But what 
 days there were were spent in sending out carts and 
 sledges with depots of provisions, which the parties of 
 the next spring could use. Different officers were 
 already assigned to different lines of search in spring. 
 On their journeys they would be gone three months 
 and more, with a party of some eight men, — drag- 
 ging a sled very like a Yankee wood-sled with their 
 instruments and provisions, over ice and snow. To 
 extend those searches as much as possible, and to pre- 
 pare the men for that work when it should come, 
 advanced depots were now sent forward in the autumn, 
 under the charge of the gentlemen who would have to 
 use them in the spring. 
 
 One of these parties, the u South line of Mel- 
 ville Island" party, was under a spirited young officer 
 Mr. Mecliam, who had tried such service in the last 
 expedition. He had two of " her Majesty's sledges," 
 " The Discovery " and " The Fearless," a depot of. 
 twenty days' provision to be used in the spring, and 
 enough for twenty-five days" present use. All the 
 sledges had little flags, made by some young lady 
 friends of Sir Edward Belcher's. Mr. Mecham's bore 
 an armed hand and sword on a white ground, with the 
 motto, " Per mare, per terram, per glaciem." Over 
 mud, land, snow, and ice they carried their de*pot, and 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 143 
 
 wero nearly back, when, on the 12th of October } 1852, 
 Mr. Mecham made the great discovery of the expe- 
 dition. 
 
 On the shore of Melville Island, above Winter Har- 
 bor, is a great sandstone boulder, ten feet high, seven 
 or eight broad, and twenty and more long, which is 
 known to all those who have anything to do with 
 those regions as " Parry's sandstone," for it stood near 
 Parry's observatory the winter he spent here, and Mr. 
 Fisher, his surgeon, cut on a flat face of it this in- 
 scription : — 
 
 HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S 
 
 ships HECLA and GRIPER, 
 
 COMMANDED BY 
 
 W. E. Parry and Mr. Liddon, 
 
 WINTERED IN THE ADJACENT 
 HARBOR 1819-20. 
 
 A. Fisher, Sculpt. 
 
 It was a sort of God Terminus put up to mark the 
 end of that expedition, as the Danish gentlemen tell 
 us our Dighton rock is the last point of Thorflnn's ex- 
 pedition to these parts. Nobody came to read Mr. 
 Fisher's inscription for thirty years and more, — a lit- 
 tle Arctic hare took up her home under the great 
 rock, and saw the face of man for the first time when, 
 on the 5th of June, 1851, Mr. McClintock, on his first 
 expedition this way, had stopped to see whether possi- 
 bly any of Franklin's men had ever visited it. He 
 found no signs of them, had not so much time as Mr. 
 Fisher for stone-cutting, but carved the figures 1851 
 
144 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 on the stone, and left it and the hare. To this stone, 
 on his way back to the " Resolute," Mr. Mecham came 
 again (as we said) on the 12th of October, one 
 memorable Tuesday morning, having been bidden 
 to leav* 3 a record there. He went on in advance of 
 his party, meaning to cut 1852 on the stone. On top 
 of it was a small cairn of stones built by Mr. McClin- 
 tock the year before. Mecham examined this, and to 
 his surprise a copper cylinder rolled out from under 
 a spirit tin. u On opening it, I drew out a roll folded 
 in a bladder, which, being frozen, broke and crumbled. 
 From its dilapidated appearance, I thought at the mo- 
 ment it must be some record of Sir Edward Parry, 
 and, fearing I might damage it, laid it down with the 
 intention of lighting the fire to thaw it. My curios- 
 ity, however, overcame my prudence, and on open 
 ing it carefully with my knife, I came to a roll of car- 
 tridge paper with the impression fresh upon the seals. 
 My astonishment may be conceived on finding it con- 
 tained an account of the proceedings of H. M. ship ' In- 
 vestigator ' since parting company with the ' Herald ' 
 [Captain Kellett's old ship] in August, 1850, in Behr- 
 ing's Straits. Also a chart which disclosed to view not 
 only the long-sought Northwest Passage, but the 
 completion of the survey of Banks and Wollaston lands. 
 Opened and indorsed Commander McClintock's de- 
 spatch ; found it contained the following additions ; — 
 
 "' Opened and copied by his old friend and messmate upon this 
 date, April 28, 1852. Robert McClurb 
 
 "'Party all well and return to Investigator to-day.' " 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 145 
 
 A great discovery indeed to flash across one in a 
 minute: The " Investigator " had not been heard 
 from for more than two years. Here was news of her 
 not yet six months old. The Northwest Passage had 
 been dreamed of for three centuries and more. Here 
 was news of its discovery, — news that had been 
 known to Captain McClure for two years. McClure 
 and McClintock were lieutenants together in the 
 " Enterprise" when she was sent after Sir John Frank- 
 lin in 1848, and wintered together at Port Leopold 
 the next winter. Now, from different hemispheres; 
 they had come so near meeting at this old block of 
 sandstone. Mr. Mecham bade his mate build a new 
 cairn, to put the record of the story in, and hurried on 
 to the " Resolute" with his great news, — news of al- 
 most everybody but Sir John Franklin. Strangely 
 enough, the other expedition, Captain Collinson's, had 
 had a party in that neighborhood, between the other 
 two, under Mr. Parks ; but it was his extreme point 
 possible, and he could not reach the Sandstone, though 
 he saw the ruts of McClure's sleigh. This was not 
 known till long afterwards. 
 
 The " Investigator," as it appeared from this despatch 
 of Captain McClure's, had been frozen up in the Bay of 
 Mercy of Banks Land : Banks Land having been for 
 thirty years at once an Ultima Thule and Terra In- 
 cognita, put down on the maps where Captain Parry 
 saw it across thirty miles of ice and water in 1819. 
 Perhaps she was still in that same bay : these old 
 
 7 
 
146 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 friends wintering there, while the " Resolute " and 
 " Intrepid " were lying under Dealy Island, an'd only 
 one hundred and seventy miles between. It must have 
 been tantalizing to all parties to wait the winter through, 
 and not even get a message across. But until winter 
 made it too cold and dark to travel, the ice in the strait 
 was so broken up that it was impossible to attempt to 
 traverse it, even with a light boat, for the lanes of water. 
 So the different autumn parties came in, the last on the 
 last of October, and the officers and men entered on 
 their winter's work and play, to push off the winter 
 days as quickly as they could. 
 
 The winter was very severe ; and it proved that, 
 as the " Resolute" lay, they were a good deal exposed 
 to the wind. But they kept themselves busy, — ex- 
 ercised freely, — found game quite abundant within 
 reasonable distances on shore, whenever the light 
 served, — kept schools for the men, — delivered scien- 
 tific lectures to whoever would listen, — established 
 the theatre for which the ship had been provided at 
 home, — and gave juggler's exhibitions by way of va- 
 riety. The recent system of travelling in the fall and 
 spring cuts in materially to the length of the Arctic 
 winters as Ross, Parry, and Back used to experience 
 it, and it was only from the 1st of November to the 
 10th of March that they were left to their own re- 
 sources. Late in October one of the " Resolute's " men 
 died, and in December one of the " Intrepid's," but, 
 excepting these cases, they had little sickness, foi 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 147 
 
 weeks no one on the sick-list ; indeed, Captain Kellett 
 says cheerfully that a sufficiency of good provisions, 
 with plenty of work in the open air, will insure good 
 health in that climate. 
 
 As early in the spring as he dared risk a travelling 
 party, namely, on the 10th of March, 1853, he sent 
 what they all called a forlorn hope across to the Bay 
 of Mercy, to find any traces of the " Investigator " ; 
 for they scarcely ventured to hope that she was still 
 there. This start was earlier by thirty-five days than 
 the early parties had started on the preceding expedi- 
 tion. But it was every way essential that, if Captain 
 McClure had wintered in the Bay of Mercy, the mes^ 
 senger should reach him before he sent off any or all 
 his men, in travelling parties, in the spring. The little 
 forlorn hope consisted of ten men under the command 
 of Lieutenant Pirn, an officer who had been with Cap- 
 tain Kellett in the " Herald " on the Pacific side, had 
 spent a winter in the " Plover " up Behring's Straits, 
 and had been one of the last men whom the " Investiga- 
 tor " had seen before they put into the Arctic Ocean, to 
 discover, as it proved, the Northwest Passage. 
 
 Here we must stop a moment, to tell what one oi 
 these sledge parties is by whose efforts so much has 
 been added to our knowledge of Arctic geography, in 
 journeys which could never have been achieved in 
 ships or boats. In the work of the " Resolute's > par- 
 ties, in this spring of 1852, Commander McClintock 
 travelled 1,325 miles with his sledge, and Lieutenant 
 
148 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 Mecham 1,163 miles with his, through regions before 
 wholly unexplored. The sledge, as we have said, is 
 in general contour not unlike a Yankee wood-sled, 
 about eleven feet long. The runners are curved at 
 each end. The sled is fitted with a lio;ht canvas 
 trough, so adjusted that, in case of necessity, all the 
 stores, &c, can be ferried over any narrow lane of wa- 
 ter in the ice. There are packed on this sled a tent 
 for eight or ten men ; five or six pikes, one or more of 
 which is fitted as an ice-chisel ; two large buffalo- 
 skins, a water-tight floor-cloth, which contrives 
 
 " a double debt to pay, 
 A floor by night, the sledge's sail by day " 
 
 (and it must be remembered that " day " and " night '' 
 in those regions are very equivocal terms). There 
 are, besides, a cooking-apparatus, of which the fire is 
 made in spirit or tallow lamps, one or two guns, a 
 pick and shovel, instruments for observation, panni- 
 kins, spoons, and a little magazine of such necessaries, 
 with the extra clothing of the party. Then the pro- 
 vision, the supply of which measures the length of 
 the expedition, consists of about a pound of bread and 
 a pound of pemmican per man per day, six ounces of 
 pork, and a little preserved potato, rum, lime-juice, 
 tea, chocolate, sugar, tobacco, or other such creature 
 comforts. The sled is fitted with two drag-ropes, at 
 which the men haul. The officer goes ahead to find 
 the best way among hummocks of ice or masses oi 
 snow. Sometimes on a smooth floe, before the wind. 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 149 
 
 the floor-cloth is set for a sail, and she runs oft mer- 
 rily, perhaps with several of the crew on board, and 
 the rest running to keep up. But sometimes over 
 broken ice it is a constant task to get her on at all. 
 You hear, " One, two, three, haul" all day long, as she 
 is worked out of one ice " cradle-hole" over a hummock 
 into another. Different parties select different hours 
 for travelling. Captain Kellett finally considered that 
 the best division of time, when, as usual, they had con- 
 stant daylight, was to start at four in the afternoon, 
 travel till ten p. m., breakfast then, tent and rest four 
 hours ; travel four more, tent, dine, and sleep nine 
 hours. This secured sleep, when the sun was the 
 highest and most trying to the eyes. The distances 
 accomplished with this equipment are truly surprising. 
 Each man, of course, is dressed as warmly as flan- 
 nel, woollen cloth, leather, and seal-skin will dress him. 
 For such long journeying, the study of boots becomes 
 a science, and our authorities are full of discussions as 
 to canvas or woollen, or carpet or leather boots, of 
 strings and of buckles. When the time " to tent " 
 comes, the pikes are fitted for tent-poles, and the tent 
 set up, its door to leeward, on the ice or snow. The 
 floor-cloth is laid for the carpet. At an hour fixed, 
 all talking must stop. There is just room enough for 
 the party to lie side by side on the floor-cloth. Each 
 man gets into a long felt bag, made of heavy felting lit- 
 erally nearly half an inch thick. He brings this up 
 wholly over his head, and buttons himself in. He has a 
 
150 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 little hole in it to breathe through. Over the felt is 
 sometimes a brown holland bag, meant to keep out mois- 
 ture. The officer lies farthest in the tent, — as being 
 next the wind, the point of hardship and so of honor. 
 The cook for the day lies next the doorway, as being 
 first to be called. Side by side the others lie between. 
 Over them all Mackintosh blankets with the buf- 
 falo-robes are drawn, by what power this deponent 
 sayeth not, not knowing. No watch is kept, for 
 there is little danger of intrusion. Once a whole par- 
 ty was startled by a white bear smelling at them, who 
 waked one of their dogs, and a droll time they had of 
 it, springing to their arms while enveloped in their 
 sacks. But we remember no other instance where a 
 sentinel was needed. And occasionally in the journals 
 the officer notes that he overslept in the morning, and 
 did not u call the cook" early enough. What a pas- 
 sion is sleep, to be sure, that one should oversleep 
 with such comforts round him ! 
 
 Some thirty or forty parties, thus equipped, set out 
 from the " Resolute" while she was under Captain Kel- 
 lett's charge, on various expeditions. As the journey 
 of Lieutenant Pirn to the u Investigator " at Banks 
 Land was that on which turned the great victory of 
 her voyage, we will let that stand as a specimen of all. 
 None of the others, however, were undertaken at so 
 early a period of the year, and, on the other hand, 
 several others were much longer, — some of them, as 
 has been said, occupying three months and more. 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. lbl 
 
 Lieutenant Pirn had been appointed in the autumn to 
 the "Banks Land search," and had carried out his 
 depots of provisions when the other officers took theirs. 
 Captain McClure's chart and despatch made it no 
 longer necessary to have that coast surveyed, but 
 made it all the more necessary to have some one go 
 and see if he was still there. The chances were 
 against this, as a whole summer had intervened since 
 he was heard from. Lieutenant Pirn proposed, how- 
 ever, to travel all round Banks Land, which is an isl- 
 and about the size and shape of Ireland, in search 
 of him, Collinson, Franklin, or anybody. Captain 
 Kellett, however, told him not to attempt this with his 
 force, but to return to the ship by the route ne went. 
 First he was to go to the Bay of Mercy; if the "In- 
 vestigator " was gone, he was to follow any traces of 
 her, and, if possible, communicate with her or her 
 consort, the " Enterprise." 
 
 Lieutenant Pirn started with a sledge and seven 
 men, and a dog-sledge with two under Dr. Domville, 
 the surgeon, who was to bring back the earliest news 
 fiom the Bay of Mercy to the captain. There was a 
 relief sledge to go part way and return. For the in- 
 tense cold of this early season they had even more 
 careful arrangements than those we have described. 
 Their tent was doubled. They had extra Mackin- 
 toshes, and whatever else could be devised. They had 
 bad luck at starting, — broke down one sledge and 
 had to send back for another ; had bad weather, and 
 
152 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 muse encamp, once for three days. Ct Fortunately,' 1 
 says the lieutenant of this encampment, " the temper- 
 ature arose from fifty-one below zero to thirty-six be- 
 low, and there remained," while the drift accumu- 
 lated to such a degree around the tents, that within 
 them the thermometer was only twenty below, and, 
 when they cooked, rose to zero. A pleasant time of 
 it they must have had there on the ice, for those three 
 days, in their bags smoking and sleeping ! No won- 
 der that on the fourth day they found they moved 
 slowly, so cramped and benumbed were they. This 
 morning a new sledge came to them from the ship ; 
 they got out of their bags, packed, and got under way 
 again. They were still running along shore, but soon 
 sent back the relief party which had brought the new 
 sled, and in a few days more set out to cross the strait, 
 some twenty-five to thirty miles wide, which, when it 
 is open, as no man has ever seen it, is one of the North- 
 west Passages discovered by these expeditions. 
 
 Horrible work it was ! Foggy and dark, so they 
 could not choose the road, and, as it happened, lit on 
 the very worst mass of broken ice in the channel. 
 Just as they entered on it, one black raven must needs 
 appear. " Bad luck," said the men. And when Mr. 
 Pirn shot a musk-ox, their first, and the wounded 
 creature got away, " So much for the raven," they 
 croaked again. Only three miles the first day, four 
 miles the second day, two and a half the third, and 
 half a mile the fourth ; this was all they gained by 
 
TflE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 153 
 
 most laborious hauling over the broken ice, dragging 
 one sledge at a time, and sometimes carrying forward 
 the stores separately and going back for the sledges. 
 Two days more gave them eight miles more, but on 
 the seventh day on this narrow strait, the dragging 
 being a little better, the great sledge slipped off a 
 smooth hummock, broke one runner to smash, and 
 "there they were." 
 
 If the two officers had a little bit of a "tiff" out 
 there on the ice, with the thermometer at eighteen be- 
 low, only a little dog-sledge to get them anywhere, 
 their ship a hundred miles off, fourteen days' travel as 
 they had come, nobody ever knew it ; they kept their 
 secret from us, it is nobody's business, and it is not to 
 be wondered at. Certainly they did not agree. The 
 Doctor, whose sled, the u James Fitzjames," was still 
 sound, thought they had best leave the stores and all 
 go back ; but the Lieutenant, who had the command, 
 did not like to give it up, so he took the dogs and the 
 " James Fitzjames " and its two men and went on, 
 leaving the Doctor on the floe, but giving him direc- 
 tions to go back to land with the wounded sledge and 
 wait for him to return. And the Doctor did it, like 
 a spirited fellow, travelling back and forth for what he 
 could not take in one journey, as the man did in the 
 story who had a peck of corn, a goose, and a wclf to 
 get across the river. Over ice, over hummock the 
 Lieutenant went on his way with his dogs, not a bear 
 nor a seal nor a hare nor a wolf to feed them with 
 
 7* 
 
154 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 preserved meats, which had been put up with dainty 
 care for men and women, all he had for the ravenous, 
 tasteless creatures, who would have been more pleased 
 with blubber, came to Banks Land at last, but no game 
 there ; awful drifts ; shut up in the tent for a whole 
 day, and he himself so sick he could scarcely stand ! 
 There were but three of them in all ; and the captain 
 of the sledge not unnaturally asked poor Pim, when he 
 was at the worst, " What shall I do, sir, if you die ?" 
 Not a very comforting question ! 
 
 He did not die. He got a few hours' sleep, felt 
 better and started again, but had the discourage- 
 ment of finding such tokens of an open strait the last 
 year that he felt sure that the ship he was going to 
 look for would be gone. One morning, he had been 
 off for game for the dogs unsuccessfully, and, when he 
 came back to his men, learned that they had seen sev- 
 enteen deer. After them goes Pim ; finds them to 
 be three hares, magnified by fog and mirage, and their 
 long ears answering for horns. This same day they 
 got upon the Bay of Mercy. No ship in sight! 
 Right across it goes the Lieutenant to look for records ; 
 when, at two in the afternoon, Robert Hoile sees 
 something black up the bay. Through the glass the 
 Lieutenant makes it out to be a ship. They change 
 their direction at once. Over the ice towards her ! 
 He leaves the sledge at three and goes on. How far it 
 seems ! At four he can see people walking about, and a 
 pile of stones and flag-staff on the beach, Keep on, 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 155 
 
 Pirn : snail one never get there ? At five he is within a 
 hundred yards of her, and no one has seen him. But 
 just then the very persons see him who ought to ! 
 Pim beckons, Waves his arms as the Esquimaux do in 
 sign ;f friendship. Captain McOlure and his lieuten- 
 ant Has well are " taking their exercise," the chief 
 business of those winters, and at last see him ! Pim is 
 black a= Erebus from the smoke of cooking in the 
 little tent. McClure owns, not to surprise only, but 
 to a twinge of dismay. " I paused in my advance," 
 says he, " doubting who or what it could be, a denizen 
 of this or the other world." But this only lasts a 
 moment. Pim speaks. Brave man that he can. 
 How his voice must have choked, as if he were in 
 a dream. U I am Lieutenant Pim, late of 'Herald.' 
 Captain Kellett is at Melville Island." Well-chosen 
 words, Pim, to be sent in advance over the hundred 
 yards of floe ! Nothing about the " Resolute," — 
 that would have confused them. But " Pim," "Her- 
 ald," and " Kellett " were amono; the last sioms of Ens- 
 land they had seen, — all this was intelligible. An ex- 
 cellent little speech, which the brave man had been 
 getting ready, perhaps, as one does a telegraphic de- 
 spatch, for the hours that he had been walking over 
 the floe to her. Then such shaking hands, such a 
 greeting. Poor McClure could not speak at first. 
 One of the men at work got the news on board; 
 and up through the hatches poured everybody, sick 
 and well, to see the black stranger, and to bear hi*' 
 
156 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE EESOLUTE. 
 
 news fiom England. It was nearly three years since 
 they had seen any civilized man but themselves. 
 
 The 28th of July, three years before, Commander 
 McClure had sent his last despatch to the Admiralty. 
 He had then prophesied just what in three years he 
 bad almost accomplished. In the winter of 1850 he 
 had discovered the Northwest Passage. He had 
 come round into one branch of it, Banks Straits, in 
 the next summer ; had gladly taken refuge on the 
 Bay of Mercy in a gale ; and his ship had never left 
 it since. Let it be said, in passing, that most likely 
 she is there now. In his last despatches he had told the 
 Admiralty not to be anxious about him if he did not 
 arrive home before the autumn of 1854. As it proved, 
 that autumn he did come with all his men, except those 
 whom he had sent home before, and those who had 
 died. When Pirn found them, all the crew but thirty 
 were under orders for marching, some to Baffin's Bay, 
 some to the Mackenzie River, on their return to Eng- 
 land. McClure was going to stay with the rest, and 
 come home with the ship, if they could ; if not, by 
 sledges to Port Leopold, and so by a steam-launch 
 which he had seen left there for Franklin in 1849. 
 But the arrival of Mr. Pirn put an end to all these 
 plans. We have his long despatch to the Admiralty 
 explaining them, finished only the day before Pirn ar- 
 rived. It gives the history of his three years' exile 
 from the world, — an exile crowded full of effective 
 work, — in a record which gives a noble picture of the 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 157 
 
 man. The Queen has made him Sir Robert Le Mesu 
 rier McClure since, in honor of his great discovery. 
 
 Banks Land, or Baring Island, the two names be- 
 long to the same island, on the shores of which Mc- 
 Clure and his men had spent most of these two years 
 or more, is an island on which they were first of civ- 
 ilized men to land. For people who are not very par- 
 ticular, the measurement of it which we gave before, 
 namely, that it is about the size and shape of Ireland, 
 is precise enough. There is high land in the interior 
 probably, as the winds from in shore are cold. The 
 crew found coal and dwarf willow which they could 
 burn ; lemmings, ptarmigan, hares, reindeer, and 
 musk-oxen, which they could eat. 
 
 " Farewell to the land where I often have wended 
 My way o'er its mountains and valleys of snow ; 
 
 Farewell to the rocks and the hills I 've ascended, 
 The bleak arctic homes of the buck and the doe ; 
 
 Farewell to the deep glens where oft has resounded 
 The snow-bunting's song, as she carolled her lay 
 
 To hillside and plain, by the green sorrel bounded, 
 Till struck by the blast of a cold winter's day." 
 
 There is a bit of description of Banks Land, from 
 the anthology of that country, which, so far as we 
 know, consists of two poems by a seaman named Nel- 
 son, one of Captain McClure's crew. The highest 
 temperature ever observed on this u gem of the sea " 
 was 53° in midsummer. The lowest was 65° below 
 zero in January, 1853 ; that day the thermometer did 
 not rise to 80° below, that month was never warmer 
 
158 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 than 16° below, and the average of the month wa9 
 48° below. A pleasant climate to spend three years 
 in I 
 
 One day for talk was all that could be allowed, after 
 Mr. Pirn's amazing appearance. On the 8th of 
 April, he and his dogs, and Captain McClure and a 
 party, were ready to return to our friend the " Reso- 
 lute." They picked up Dr. Domville on the way ; he 
 had got the broken sledge mended, and killed five 
 musk-oxen, against they came along. He went on in 
 the dog-sledge to tell the news, but McClure and his 
 men kept pace with them; and he and Dr. Domville 
 had the telling of the news together. 
 
 It was decided that the " Investigator " should be 
 abandoned, and the "Intrepid" and "Resolute " made 
 room for her men. Glad greeting they gave them 
 too, as British seamen can give. More than half the 
 crews were away when the " Investigator's " parties 
 came in, but by July everybody had returned. They 
 had found islands where the charts had guessed there 
 was sea, and sea where they had guessed there was 
 land ; had changed peninsulas into islands and isl- 
 ands into peninsulas. Away off beyond the seventy 
 eighth parallel, Mr. McClintock had christened the far- 
 thest dot of land " Ireland's Eye," as if his native island 
 were peering off into the unknown there; — a great 
 island, which will be our farthest now, for years to 
 come, had been named " Prince Patrick's Land," in 
 honor of the baby prince who was the youngest when 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 159 
 
 they left home. Will he not be tempted, when he ia 
 a man, to take a crew, like another Madoc, and, as 
 younger sons of queens should, go and settle upon this 
 tempting god-child ? They had heard from Sir Ed- 
 ward Belcher's part of the squadron ; they had heard 
 from England ; had heard of everything but Sir 
 John Franklin. They had even found an ale-bottle 
 of Captain Collinson's expedition, — but not a stick 
 nor straw to show where Franklin or his men had 
 lived or died. Two officers of the "Investigator" 
 were sent home to England this summer by a ship 
 from Beechey Island, the head-quarters ; and thus 
 we heard, in October, 1853, of the discovery of the 
 Northwest Passage. 
 
 After their crews were on board again, and the 
 44 Investigator's " sixty stowed away also, the "Reso- 
 lute " and " Intrepid " had a dreary summer of it. 
 The ice would not break up. They had hunting-par- 
 ties on shore and races on the floe ; but the captain 
 could not send the " Investigators " home as he want- 
 ed to, in his steam tender. All his plans were made, 
 and made on a manly scale, — if only the ice would 
 open. He built a storehouse on the island for Col- 
 linson's people, or for you, reader, and us, if we 
 should happen there, and stored it well, and left this 
 record : — 
 
 " This is a house which I have named the ' Sailor's 
 Home,' under the especial patronage of my Lords 
 Commissioners of the Admiralty. 
 
160 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 u Here royal sailors and marines are fed, clothed, 
 and receive double pay for inhabiting it." 
 
 In that house is a little of everything, and a good 
 deal of victuals and drink ; but nobody has been 
 there since the last of the " Resolute's " men came 
 away. 
 
 At last, the 17th of August, a day of foot-racing 
 and jumping in bags and wrestling, all hands pres- 
 ent, as at a sort of " Isthmian games," ended with a 
 gale, a cracking up of ice, and the u Investigators " 
 thought they were on their way home, and Kellett 
 thought he was to have a month of summer yet. But 
 no ; " there is nothing certain in this navigation 
 from one hour to the next." The " Resolute " and 
 " Intrepid " were never really free of ice all that au- 
 tumn; drove and drifted to and fro in Barrow's Straits 
 till the 12th of November ; and then froze up, without 
 anchoring, off Cape Cockburn, perhaps one hundred 
 and forty miles from their harbor of the last winter. 
 The log-book of that winter is a curious record ; the 
 ingenuity of the officer in charge was well tasked to 
 make one day differ from another. Each day has the 
 first entry for " ship's position " thus : "In the floe of? 
 Cape Cockburn." And the blank for the second 
 entry, thus : " In the same position." Lectures, the- 
 atricals, schools, &c., whiled away the time ; but there 
 rould be no autumn travelling parties, and not much 
 hope for discovery in the summer. 
 
 Spring came. The captain went over ice in his 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 161 
 
 little dog-sled to Beechey Island, and received his di- 
 rections to abandon his ships. It appears that he 
 would rather have sent most of his men forward, and 
 with a small crew brought the " Resolute " home 
 that autumn or the next. But Sir Edward Belcher 
 considered his orders peremptory " that the safety of 
 the crews must preclude any idea of extricating the 
 ships." Both ships were to be abandoned. Two 
 distant travelling parties were away, one at the "In- 
 vestigator," one looking for traces of Collinson, which 
 they found. Word was left for them, at a proper 
 point, not to seek the ship again, but to come on to 
 Beechey Island. And at last, having fitted the 
 " Intrepid's " engines so that she could be under 
 steam in two hours, having stored both ships with 
 equal proportions of provisions, and made both vessels 
 " ready for occupation," the captain calked down the 
 hatches, and with all the crew he had not sent on 
 before, — forty-two persons in all, — left her Monday, 
 the 15th of May, 1854, and started with the sledges 
 for Beechey Island. 
 
 Poor old " Resolute " ! All this gay company is gone 
 who have made her sides split with their laughter. 
 Here is Harlequin's dress, lying in one of the ward- 
 rooms, but there is nobody to dance Harlequin's 
 dances. ;t Here is a lovely clear day, — surely to-da 
 they will come on deck and take a meridian ! " No, 
 nobody comes. The sun grows hot on the decks ; 
 but it is all one, nobody looks at the therm ome- 
 
162 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 ter ! " And so the poor ship was left all alone." Such 
 gay times she has had with all these brave young men 
 on board ! Such merry winters, such a lightsome 
 summer! So much fun, so much nonsense ! Sc 
 much science and wisdom, and now it is all so still ! 
 Is the poor " Resolute " conscious of the change ? Does 
 she miss the races on the ice, the scientific lecture 
 every Tuesday, the occasional racket and bustle of 
 the theatre, and the worship of every Sunday ? Has 
 not she shared the hope of Captain Kellett, of Mc- 
 Clure, and of the crew, that she may break out well I 
 She sees the last sledge leave her. The captain drives 
 off his six dogs, — vanishes over the ice, and they are 
 all gone " Will they not come back again ? " says 
 the poor ship. And she looks wistfully across the ice 
 to her little friend the steam tender " Intrepid," and she 
 3ees there is no one there. " Intrepid ! Intrepid ! 
 nave they really deserted us ? We have served them so 
 well, and have they really left us alone ? A great 
 many were away travelling last year, but they came 
 home. Will not any of these come home now?" 
 No, poor ' • Resolute " ! Not one of them ever came back 
 again ! Not one of them meant to. Summer came. 
 August came. No one can tell how soon, but somr 
 day or other this her icy prison broke up, and the 
 good ship found herself on her own element again ; 
 shook herself proudly, we cannot doubt, nodded joy- 
 fully across to the " Intrepid," and was free. But 
 alas ! there was no master to take latitude and longi- 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 103 
 
 tude, no helmsman at the wheel. In clear letters 
 cast in brass over her helm there are these words, 
 " England expects each man to do his duty." But 
 here is no man to heed the warning, and the rudder 
 flaps this way and that way, no longer directing her 
 course, but stupidly swinging to and fro. And she 
 drifts here and there, — drifts out of sicfnt of her little 
 consort, — strands on a bit of ice floe now, and then 
 is swept off from it, — and finds herself, without even 
 the "Intrepid's" company, alone on these blue seas with 
 those white shores. But what utter loneliness ! Poor 
 " Resolute " ! She longed for freedom, — but what is 
 freedom where there is no law? What is freedom 
 without a helmsman ! And the " Resolute " looks back 
 so sadly to the old days when she had a master. And 
 the short bright summer passes. And again she s^es 
 the sun set from her decks. And now even her top 
 masts see it set. And now it does not rise to her 
 deck. And the next day it does not rise to her top- 
 mast. Winter and night together ! She has known 
 them before ! But now it is winter and night and 
 loneliness all together. This horrid ice closes up round 
 her again. And there is no one to bring her into har- 
 bor, — she is out in the open sound. If the ice drifts 
 west, she must go west. If it goes east, she must go 
 east. Her seeming freedom is over, and for that 
 long winter she is chained again. But her heart ia 
 true to old England. And when she can go east, she 
 is so happy ! and when she must go west, she is so sad ! 
 
164 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 Eastward she does go ! Southward she does go ! 
 True to the instinct which sends us all home, she tracks 
 undirected and without a sail fifteen hundred miles of 
 that sea, without a beacon, which separates her from 
 her own. And so goes a dismal year. " Perhaps an- 
 other spring they will come and find me out, and fix 
 things below. It is getting dreadfully damp down 
 there ; and I cannot keep the guns bright and the 
 floors dry." No, good old " Resolute." May and 
 June pass off the next year, and nobody comes ; 
 and here you are all alone out in the bay, drifting in 
 this dismal pack. July and August, — the days are 
 growing shorter again. u Will nobody come and take 
 care of me, and cut off these horrid blocks of ice, and 
 see to these sides of bacon in the hold, and all these 
 mouldy sails, and this powder, and the bread and the 
 spirit that I have kept for them so well? It is Sep- 
 tember, and the sun begins to set again. And here is 
 another of those awful gales. Will it be my very last ? 
 I all alone here, — who have done so much, — and if 
 they would only take care of me I can do so much 
 more. Will nobody come ? Nobody? .... What! 
 Is it ice blink, — are my poor old lookouts blind ? Is 
 not there the ' Intrepid ' ? Dear ' Intrepid,' I will 
 never look down on you again ! No ! there is no 
 smoke-stack, it is not the ' Intrepid.' But it is some- 
 body. Pray see me, good somebody. Are you a 
 Yankee whaler ? I am glad to see the Yankee whalers, 
 I remember the Yankee whalers very pleasantly, 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 165 
 
 We had a happy summer together once It will 
 
 be dreadful if they do not see me ! But this ice, thia 
 wretched ice ! They do see me, — I know they see 
 me, but they cannot get at me. Do not go away, good 
 Yankees ; pray come and help me. I know I can get 
 
 out, if you will help a little But now it is a 
 
 whole week and they do not come ! Are there any 
 Yankees, or am I getting crazy ? I have heard them 
 
 talk of crazy old ships, in my young days No ! 
 
 I am not crazy. They are coming ! they are coming. 
 Brave Yankees ! over the hummocks, down into the 
 sludge. Do not give it up for the cold. There is 
 coal below, and we will have a fire in the Sylvester, 
 
 and in the captain's cabin There is a horrid lane 
 
 of water. They have not got a Halkett. O, if one 
 of these boats of mine would only start for them, in- 
 stead of lying so stupidly on my deck here ! But the 
 men are not afraid of water ! See them ferry over on 
 that ice block ! Come on, good friends ! Welcome, 
 whoever you be, — Dane, Dutch, French, or Yankee, 
 come on ! come on ! It is coming up a gale, but I 
 can bear a gale. Up the side, men. I wish I could 
 let down the gangway alone. But here are all these 
 blocks of ice piled up, — you can scramble over them I 
 Why do you stop ? Do not be afraid. I will maks 
 you very comfortable and jolly. Do not stay talking 
 there. Pray come in. There is port in the captain's 
 cabin, and a little preserved meat in the pantry. 
 You must be hungry ; pray come in ! O, he is com- 
 
166 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 ing, and now all four are coming. It would be 
 dreadful if they had gone back ! They are on deck. 
 Now I shall go home ! How lonely it has been ! " 
 
 It was true enough that when Mr. Quail, the brother 
 of the captain of the " McLellan," whom the " Reso- 
 lute " had befriended, the mate of the George Henry, 
 whaler, whose master, Captain Buddington, had dis 
 covered the " Resolute" in the ice, came to her after a 
 hard day's journey with his men, the men faltered with 
 a little superstitious feeling, and hesitated for a minute 
 about going on board. But the poor lonely ship wooed 
 them too lovingly, and they climbed over the broken 
 ice and came on deck. She was lying over on her 
 larboard side, with a heavy weight of ice holding her 
 down. Hatches and companion were made fast, as 
 Captain Kellett had left them. But, knocking open 
 the companion, groping down stairs to the after cabin 
 they found their way to the captain's table ; somebody 
 put his hand on a box of lucifers, struck a light, and 
 revealed — books scattered in confusion, a candle 
 standing, which he lighted at once, the glasses and 
 the decanters from which Kellett and his officers 
 had drunk good by to the vessel. The whalemen 
 filled them again, and undoubtedly felt less discouraged. 
 Meanwhile night came on, and a gale arose. So hard 
 did it blow, that for two days these four were the whole 
 crew of the " Resolute," and it was not till the 19th of 
 September that they returned to their own ship, and 
 reported what their prize was. 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 167 
 
 All these ten days, since Captain Buddington had 
 first seen her, the vessels had been nearing each other. 
 On the 19th he boarded her himself; found that in 
 her hold, on the larboard side, was a good deal of ice ; 
 TCP the starboard side there seemed to be water. In 
 fact, her tanks had burst from the extreme cold ; and 
 she was full of water, nearly to her lower deck. 
 Everything that could move from its place had moved ; 
 everything was wet ; everything that would mould 
 was mouldy. " A sort of perspiration " settled on the 
 beams above. Clothes were wringing wet. The cap- 
 tain's party made a fire in Captain Kellett's stove, and 
 soon started a sort of shower from the vapor with 
 which it filled the air. The " Resolute " has, how- 
 ever, four fine force-pumps. For three days the cap- 
 tain and six men worked fourteen hours a day on one 
 of these, and had the pleasure of finding that they 
 freed her of water, — that she was tight still. They 
 cut away upon the masses of ice ; and on the 23d of 
 September, in the evening, she freed herself from her 
 encumbrances, and took an even keel. This was off 
 the west shore of Baffin's Bay, in latitude 67°. On 
 the shortest tack she was twelve hundred miles from 
 where Captain Kellett left her. 
 
 There was work enough still to be done. The rud- 
 der was to be shipped, the rigging to be made taut, 
 sail to be set ; and it proved, by the way, that the sail 
 on the yards was much of it still serviceable, while 
 a suit of new linen sails below were greatly injured by 
 
168 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE- 
 
 moisture. In a week more they had her ready to 
 make sail. The pack of ice still drifted wHh both 
 ships ; but on the 21st of October, after a long north- 
 west gale, the " Resolute " was free, — more free than 
 she had been for more than two years. 
 
 Her " last voyage " is almost told. Captain Bud- 
 dington had resolved to bring her home. lie had 
 picked ten men from the " George Henry," leaving her 
 fifteen, and with a rough tracing of the American 
 coast drawn on a sheet of foolscap, with his lever 
 watch and a quadrant for his instruments, he squared 
 off for New London. A rough, hard passage they had 
 of it. The ship's ballast was gone, by the bursting of 
 the tanks ; she was top-heavy and under manned. He 
 spoke a British whaling bark, and by her sent to 
 Captain Kellett his epaulettes, and to his own owners 
 news that he was coming. They had heavy gales 
 and head winds, were driven as far down as the Ber- 
 mudas ; the water left in the ship's tanks was brack- 
 ish, and it needed all the seasoning which the ship's 
 chocolate would give to make it drinkable. " For 
 sixty hours at a time," says the spirited captain, " I 
 frequently had no sleep " ; but his perseverance was 
 crowned with success at last, and on the night of the 
 23d -24th of December he made the light off the 
 magnificent harbor from which he sailed ; and on Sun- 
 day morning, the 24th, dropped anchor in the Thames, 
 opposite New London, ran up the royal ensign on the 
 shorn masts of the " Resolute," and the good people 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 169 
 
 of tlie town knew that he and his were safe, and thai 
 one of the victories of peace was won. 
 
 As the fine ship lies opposite the piers of that 
 beautiful town, she attracts visitors from everywhere, 
 and is, indeed, a very remarkable curiosity. Seals 
 were at once placed, and very properly, on the cap- 
 tain's book-cases, lockers, and drawers, and wherever 
 private property might be injured by wanton curiosity, 
 and two keepers are on duty on the vessel, till her 
 destination is decided. But nothing is changed from 
 what she was when she came into harbor. And, from 
 stem to stern, every detail of her equipment is a 
 curiosity, to the sailor or to the landsman. The 
 candlestick in the cabin is not like a Yankee candle- 
 stick. The hawse hole for the chain cable is fitted aa 
 lias not been seen before. And so of everything be- 
 tween. There is the aspect of wet over every- 
 thing now, after months of ventilation ; — the rifles, 
 which were last fired at musk-oxen in Melville Island, 
 are red with rust, as if they had lain in the bottom of 
 the sea ; the volume of Shakespeare, which you find 
 in an officer's berth, has a damp feel, as if you had 
 been reading it in the open air in a March north 
 easter. The old seamen look with most amazement, 
 perhaps, on the preparations for amusement, — the 
 juggler's cups and balls, or Harlequin's spangled 
 dress ; the quiet landsman wonders at the gigantic 
 ice-saws, at the cast-off canvas boots, the long thick 
 Arctic stockings. It seems almost wrong to go into 
 
 8 
 
170 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton's wardroom, and see how he arranged 
 his soap-cup and his tooth-brush ; and one does not tell 
 of it, if he finds on a blank leaf the secret prayer a 
 sister wrote down for the brother to whom she gave a 
 prayer-book. There is a good deal of disorder now, — 
 thanks to her sudden abandonment, and perhaps to 
 her three months' voyage home. A little union-jack 
 lies over a heap of umnended and unwashed under- 
 clothes ; when Kellett left the ship, he left his coun- 
 try's flag over his arm-chair as if to keep possession. 
 Two officers' swords and a pair of epaulettes were on 
 the cabin table. Indeed, what is there not there, — 
 which should make an Arctic winter endurable, — 
 make a long night into day, — or while long days 
 away? 
 
 The ship is stanch and sound. The " last voyage" 
 which we have described will not, let us hope, be the 
 last voyage of her career. But wherever she goes, 
 under the English flag or under our own, she will 
 scarcely ever crowd more adventure into one cruise 
 than into that which sealed the discovery of the North- 
 west Passage ; which gave new lands to England, 
 nearest to the pole of all she has ; which spent more 
 than a year, no man knows where, self-governed 
 and unguided ; and which, having begun under the 
 strict regime of the English navy, ended under the re- 
 markable mutual rules, adopted by common consent, 
 m the business of American whalemen. 
 
 Is it not worth noting that in this chivalry of Arc- 
 
THE LAST VOYAGE OP THE RESOLUTE. 171 
 
 tic adventure, the ships which have been wrecked have 
 been those of the fight or horror ? They are the u Fury," 
 the "Victory," the " Erebus," the " Terror." But the 
 ships which never failed their crews, — which, for all 
 that man knows, are as sound now as ever, — bear the 
 names of peaceful adventure ; the " Hecla," the " En- 
 terprise," and " Investigator," the " Assistance " and 
 " Resolute," the " Pioneer " and " Intrepid," and our 
 u Advance " and " Rescue " and a Arctic," never 
 threatened any one, even in their names. And they 
 never failed the men who commanded them or who 
 sailed in them. 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME 
 
 ONE OF THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 [A Boston journal, in noticing this story, called it improbable 
 I think it is. But I think the moral important. It was first 
 published in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1859.] 
 
 It is not often that I trouble the readers of the 
 Atlantic Monthly. I should not trouble them now, 
 but for the importunities of my wife, who " feels 
 to insist " that a duty to society is unfulfilled, till I 
 have told why I had to have a double, and how he un- 
 did me. She is sure, she says, that intelligent persons 
 cannot understand that pressure upon public servants 
 which alone drives any man into the employment of a 
 double. And while I fear she thinks, at the bottom 
 of her heart, that my fortunes will never be remade, 
 she has a faint hope that, as another Rasselas, I may 
 teach a lesson to future publics, from which they may 
 profit, though we die. Owing to the behavior of my 
 double, or, if you please, to that public pressure which 
 compelled me to employ him, I have plenty of leisure 
 to write this communication. 
 
 I am, or rather was, a minister, of the Sandemanian 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 173 
 
 connection. I was settled in the active, wide-awake 
 town of Naguadavick, on one of the finest water-powers 
 in Maine. We used to call it a Western town in the 
 heart of the civilization of New England. A charm- 
 ing place it was and is. A spirited, brave young par 
 ish had I ; and it seemed as if we might have all "the 
 joy of eventful living" to our heart's content. 
 
 Alas ! how little we knew on the day of my ordina 
 tion, and in those halcyon moments of our first house- 
 keeping : To be the confidential friend in a hundred 
 families in the town, — cutting the social trifle, as my 
 friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped 
 syllabub to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which is 
 the foundation," — to keep abreast of the thought of 
 the age in one's study, and to do one's best on Sunday to 
 interweave that thought with the active life of an ac- 
 tive town, and to inspirit both and make both infinite 
 by glimpses of the Eternal Glory, seemed such an ex- 
 quisite forelook into one's life ! Enough to do, and al] 
 so real and so grand ! If this vision could only have 
 lasted ! 
 
 The truth is, that this vision was not in itself a de- 
 lusion, nor, indeed, half bright enough. .If one could 
 only have been left to do his own business, the vision 
 would have accomplished itself and brought out new 
 paraheliacal visions, each as bright as the original, 
 The misery was and is, as we found out, I and Polly, 
 before long, that besides the vision, and besides the 
 usual human and finite failures in life (such as break- 
 
174 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME 
 
 ing the old pitcher that came over in the "Mayflower/' 
 and putting into the fire the Alpenstock with which 
 her father climbed Mont Blanc), — besides these, I say 
 (imitating the style of Robinson Crusoe), there were 
 pitchforked in on us a great rowen-heap of hum- 
 bugs, handed down from some unknown seed-time, in 
 which we were expected, and I chiefly, to fulfil certain 
 public functions before the community, of the character 
 of those fulfilled by the third row of supernumeraries 
 who stand behind the Sepoys in the spectacle of the 
 " Cataract of the Ganges." They were the duties, 
 in a word, which one performs as member of one or 
 another social class or subdivision, wholly distinct from 
 what one does as A. by himself A. What invisible 
 power put these functions on me, it would be very 
 hard to tell. But such power there was and is. And 
 I had not been at work a year before I found I was 
 living two lives, one real and one merely functional, 
 — for two sets of people, one my parish, whom I 
 loved, and the other a vague public, for whom I did 
 not care two straws. All this was in a vague notion, 
 which everybody had and has, that this second life 
 would eventually bring out some great results, un- 
 known at present, to somebody somewhere. 
 
 Crazed by this duality of life, I first read Dr. Wigan 
 on the "Duality of the Brain," hoping that I could 
 train one side of my head to do these outside jobs, and 
 the other to do my intimate and real duties. For 
 Richard Greenough once told me, that, in studying 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 17& 
 
 for the statue of Franklin, he found that the left side 
 of the great man's face was philosophic and reflective, 
 and the right side funny and smiling. If you will go 
 and look at the bronze statue, you will find he has re- 
 peated this observation there for posterity. The east- 
 ern profile is the portrait of the statesman Franklin, the 
 western of poor Richard. But Dr. Wigan does not go 
 into these niceties of this subject, and I failed. It was 
 then that, on my wife's suggestion, I resolved to look 
 out for a Double. 
 
 I was, at first, singularly successful. We happened 
 to be recreating at Stafford Springs that summer. 
 We rode out one day, for one of the relaxations of 
 that watering-place, to the great Monson Poorhouse. 
 We were passing through one of the large halls, when 
 my destiny was fulfilled ! 
 
 He w r as not shaven. He had on no spectacles. 
 He was dressed in a green baize roundabout and faded 
 blue overalls, worn sadly at the knee. But I saw at 
 once that he was of my height, five feet four and a half. 
 He had black hair, worn off by his hat. So have and 
 have not I. He stooped in walking. So do I. His 
 hands were large, and mine. And — choicest gift of 
 Fate in all — he had, not a a strawberry-mark on his 
 left arm," but a cut from a juvenile brickbat over hia 
 right eye, slightly affecting the play of that eyebrow. 
 Reader, so have I ! My fate was sealed ! 
 
 A word with Mr. Holley, one of the inspectors, set- 
 tled the whole thing. It proved that this Dennis 
 
176 MT DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 Shea was a harmless, amiable fellow, of the class known 
 as shiftless, who had sealed his fate by marrying a 
 dumb wife, who was at that moment ironing in the 
 laundry. Before I left Stafford, I had hired both for 
 five years. We had applied to Judge Pynchon, then 
 the probate judge at Springfield, to change the name 
 of Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. We had ex- 
 plained to the Judge, what was the precise truth, that 
 an eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis, under 
 this new name, into his family. It never occurred to 
 him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years 
 old. And thus, to shorten this preface, when we 
 returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, 
 there entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, 
 myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingham, and my double, 
 who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by as good right as I. 
 O the fun we had the next morning in shaving his 
 beard to my pattern, cutting his hair to match mine, 
 and teaching him how to wear and how to take off 
 gold-bowed spectacles ! Really, they were electro-plate, 
 and the glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes 
 were excellent). Then in four successive afternoons 
 I taught him four speeches. I had found these would 
 be quite enough for the supernumerary- Sepoy line of 
 life, and it was well for me they were ; for though 
 he was good-natured, he was very shiftless, and it 
 was, as our national proverb says, " like pulling teeth " 
 to teach him. But at the end of the next week he 
 could say, with quite my easy and frisky air,- — 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 177 
 
 1. " Very well, thank you. And you ? " This for 
 u answer to casual salutations. 
 
 2. " I am very glad you liked it." 
 
 3. " There has been so much said, and, on the whole, 
 so well said, that I will not occupy the time/' 
 
 4. "I agree, in general, with my friend the other 
 side of the room." 
 
 At first I had a feeling that I was going to be at 
 great cost for clothing him. But it proved, of course, 
 at once, that, whenever he was out, I should be at 
 home. And I went, during the bright period of his 
 success, to so few of those awful pageants which re- 
 quire a black dress-coat and what the ungodly call, 
 after Mr. Dickens, a white choker, that in the happy 
 retreat of my own dressing-gowns and jackets my days 
 went by as happily and cheaply as those of another 
 Thalaba. And Polly declares there was never a year 
 when the tailoring cost so little. He lived (Dennis, 
 not Thalaba) in his wife's room over the kitchen. He 
 had orders never to show himself at that window. 
 When he appeared in the front of the house, I retired 
 to my sanctissimum and my dressing-gown. In short, 
 the Dutchman and his wife, in the old weather-box, 
 had not less to do with each other than he and I. He 
 made the furnace-fire and split the wood before day- 
 light; then he went to sleep again, and slept late; 
 then came for orders, with a red silk bandanna tied 
 round his head, with his overalls on, and his dress- 
 coat and spectacles off. If we happened to be inter* 
 
 8* 
 
178 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 ruptei, no one guessed that he was Frederic Ingham 
 as well as I ; and, in the neighborhood, there grew up 
 an impression that the minister's Irishman worked day- 
 times in the factory- village at New Coventry. After 
 I had given him his orders, I never saw him till the 
 next day. 
 
 I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the 
 Enlightenment Board. The Enlightenment Board 
 consists of seventy-four members, of whom sixty-seven 
 are necessary to form a quorum. One becomes a mem- 
 ber under the regulations laid down in old Judge 
 Dudley's will. I became one by being ordained pastor 
 of a church in Naguadavick. You see you cannot help 
 yourself, if you would. At this particular time we 
 had had four successive meetings, averaging four hours 
 each, — wholly occupied in whipping in a quorum. 
 At the first only eleven men were present ; at the 
 next, by force of three circulars, twenty-seven ; at the 
 third, thanks to two days' canvassing by Auchmuty 
 and myself, begging men to come, we had sixty. 
 Half the others were in Europe. But without a 
 quorum we could do nothing. All the rest of us waited 
 grimly for our four hours, and adjourned without any 
 action, At the fourth meeting we had flagged, and 
 only got fifty-nine together. But on the first appear- 
 ance of my double, — whom I sent on this fatal Mon- 
 day to the fifth meeting, — he was the sixty-seventh 
 man who entered the room. He was greeted with a 
 storm of applause ! The poor fellow had missed his 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 179 
 
 «vay, — read the street signs ill through his spectacles 
 (very ill, in fact, without them), — and had not dared 
 to inquire. He entered the room, — finding the pres- 
 ident and secretary holding to their chairs two judges 
 of the Supreme Court, who were also members ex 
 officio, and were begging leave to go away. On his 
 entrance all was changed. Presto, the by-laws were 
 suspended, and the Western property was given away. 
 Nobody stopped to converse with him. He voted, as 
 I had charged him to do, in every instance, with the 
 minority. I won new laurels as a man of sense, though 
 a little unpunctual, — and Dennis, alias Ingham, re- 
 turned to the parsonage, astonished to see with how 
 little wisdom the world is governed. He cut a few of 
 my parishioners in the street ; but he had his glasses 
 off, and I am known to be near-sighted. Eventually 
 he recognized them more readily than I. 
 
 I u set him again " at the exhibition of the New 
 Coventry Academy ; and here he undertook a " speak- 
 ing part," — as, in my boyish, worldly days, I remem- 
 ber the bills used to say of Mile. Celeste. We are all 
 trustees of the New Coventry Academy ; and there 
 has lately been " a good deal of feeling " because the 
 Sandemanian trustees did not regularly attend the ex- 
 hibitions. It has been intimated, indeed, that the San- 
 demanians are leaning towards Free- Will, and that we 
 have, therefore, neglected these semiannual exhibi 
 tions, while there is no doubt that Auchmuty last yeai 
 we'ntto Commencement at Waterville. Now the head 
 
180 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 master at New Coventry is a real good fellow, who 
 knows a Sanskrit root when he sees it, and often cracks 
 etymologies with me, — so that, in strictness, I ought to 
 go to their exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting 
 through three long July days in that Academy chapel, 
 following the programme from 
 
 Tuesday Morning. English Composition. " Sunshine." Miss 
 Jones. 
 
 round to 
 
 Trio on Three Pianos. Duel from the Opera of " Midshipmai. 
 Easy." Marryat. 
 
 coming in at nine, Thursday evening ! Think of this, 
 reader, for men who know the world is trying to go 
 backward, and who would give their lives if they could 
 help it on ! Well ! The double had succeeded so 
 well at the Board, that I sent him to the Academy. 
 (Shade of Plato, pardon !) He arrived early on 
 Tuesday, when, indeed, few but mothers and clergy- 
 men are generally expected, and returned in the even 
 ing to us, covered with honors. He had dined at the 
 right hand of the chairman, and he spoke in high 
 terms of the repast. The chairman had expressed his 
 interest in the French conversation. " I am very glad 
 you liked it," said Dennis ; and the poor chairman, 
 abashed, supposed the accent had been wrong. At the 
 end of the day, the gentlemen present had been called 
 upon for speeches, — the Rev. Frederic Ingham first, 
 as it happened ; upon which Dennis had risen, an<. 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 181 
 
 had said, " There has been so much said, and, on the 
 whole t so well said, that I will not occupy the time." 
 The girls were delighted, because Dr. Dabney, the 
 year before, had given them at this occasion a scolding 
 on impropriety of behavior at Lyceum lectures. They 
 all declared Mr. Ingham was a love, — and so hand- 
 some ! (Dennis is good-looking.) Three of them, 
 with arms behind the others' waists, followed him up 
 to the wagon he rode home in ; and a little girl with 
 a blue sash had been sent to give him a rosebud. 
 After this debut in speaking, he went to the exhibition 
 for two days more, to the mutual satisfaction of all 
 concerned. Indeed, Polly reported that he had pro- 
 nounced the trustees' dinners of a higher grade than 
 those of the parsonage. When the next term began, 
 I found six of the Academy girls had obtained per- 
 mission to come across the river and attend our church. 
 But this arrangement did not long continue. 
 
 After this he went to several Commencements for 
 me, and ate the dinners provided ; he sat through 
 three of our Quarterly Conventions for me, — always 
 voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned above, 
 of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who 
 had before been losing caste among my friends, as 
 holding myself aloof from the associations of the body, 
 began to rise in everybody's favor. " Ingham 's a 
 good fellow, — always on hand " ; " never talks much, 
 but does the right thing at the right time " ; " is not 
 as unpunctual as he used to be, — he comes carlv, and 
 
182 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 sits through to the end." " He has got over his old 
 talkative habit, too. I spoke to a friend of his about it 
 once ; and I think Ingham took it kindly," etc., etc. 
 
 This voting power of Dennis was particularly valu- 
 able at the quarterly meetings of the proprietors of the 
 Naguadavick Ferry. My wife inherited from her father 
 some shares in that enterprise, which is not yet fully de- 
 veloped, though it doubtless will become a very valuable 
 property. The law of Maine then forbade stockholders 
 to appear by proxy at such meetings. Polly disliked to 
 go, not being, in fact, a " hens'-rights hen," transferred 
 her stock to me. I, after going once, disliked it more 
 than she. But Dennis went to the next meeting, and 
 liked it very much. He said the arm-chairs were 
 good, the collation good, and the free rides to stock- 
 holders pleasant. He was a little frightened when 
 they first took him upon one of the ferry-boats, but 
 after two or three quarterly meetings he became quite 
 brave. 
 
 Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. In- 
 deed, being, as I implied, of that type which is called 
 shiftless, he was only too happy to be told daily what 
 to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting or in 
 any way original in his discharge of that duty. He 
 learned, however, to discriminate between the lines oi 
 his life, and very much preferred these stockholders' 
 meetings and trustees' dinners and Commencement 
 collations to another set of occasions, from which he 
 used to beg off most piteously. Our excellent broth- 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 183 
 
 er, Dr. Fillmore, had taken a notion at this time that 
 our Sandemanian churches needed more expression of 
 mutual sympathy. He insisted upon it that we were 
 remiss. He said, that, if the Bishop came to preach 
 at Naguadavick, all the Episcopal clergy of the neigh- 
 borhood were present ; if Dr. Pond came, all the Con- 
 gregational clergymen turned out to hear him ; if Dr. 
 Nichols, all the Unitarians ; and he thought we o"wed 
 it to each other, that, whenever there was an occa- 
 sional service at a Sandemanian church, the other 
 brethren should all, if possible, attend. " It looked 
 well," if nothing more. Now this really meant that 
 I had not been to hear one of Dr. Fillmore's lec- 
 tures on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that 
 he did not hear one of my course on the " Sande 
 manianism of Anselm." But I felt badly when he 
 said it ; and afterwards I always made Dennis go to 
 hear all the brethren preach, when I was not preach- 
 ing myself. This was what he took exceptions to, — 
 the only thing, as I said, which he ever did except 
 to. Now came the advantage of his lono- morning- 
 nap, and of the green tea with which Polly supplied 
 the kitchen. But he would plead* so humbly, to be 
 let off, only from one or two ! I never excepted him, 
 however. I knew the lectures were of value, and I 
 thought it best he should be able to keep the connec- 
 tion. 
 
 Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has ob- 
 served in the outset of this numoir. She risked Den 
 
184' MT DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME 
 
 ms one night under the eyes of her own sex. Gov- 
 ernor Gorges had always been very kind to us, and, 
 when he gave his great annual party to the town, asked 
 ii!5. I confess I hated to go. I was deep in the new 
 volume of Pfeiffer's " Mystics," which Haliburton had 
 just sent me from Boston. " But how rude," said 
 Polly, "not to return the Governor's civility and Mrs. 
 Gorges's, when they will be sure to ask why you are 
 away ! " Still I demurred, and at last she, with the 
 wit of Eve and of Semiramis conjoined, let me off by 
 saying that, if I would go in with her, and sustain the 
 initial conversations with the Governor and the ladies 
 staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of 
 the evening. And that was just what we did. She 
 took Dennis in training all that afternoon, instructed 
 him in fashionable conversation, cautioned him against 
 the temptations of the supper-table, — and at nine in 
 the evening he drove us all down in the carryall. I 
 made the grand star-ew£r<?e with Polly and the pretty 
 Walton girls, who were staying with us. We had put 
 Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his glasses; 
 and the girls never dreamed, in the darkness, of 
 looking at him. He sat in the carriage, at the door, 
 while we entered. I did the agreeable to Mrs. 
 Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss Fernanda ; 
 I complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in 
 the great case of D'Aulnay vs. Laconia Mining Com- 
 pany ; I stepped into the dressing-room for a 
 moment, stepped out for another, walked home 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 185 
 
 after a nod with Dennis and tying the horse to a 
 pump ; and while I walked home, Mr. Frederic Ing- 
 ham, my double, stepped in through the library into the 
 Gorges's grand saloon. 
 
 Oh ! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at 
 midnight! And even here, where I have to teach my 
 hands to hew the beech for stakes to fence our cave, 
 she dies of laughing as she recalls it, — and says that 
 single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. 
 Gallant Eve that she is ! She joined Dennis at the 
 library-door, and in an instant presented him to Dr. 
 Ochterlony, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, 
 and was talking with her as Dennis came in. " Mr. 
 Ingham would like to hear what you were telling ua 
 about your success among the German population." 
 And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from 
 Polly, " I 'm very glad you liked it." But Dr. Och- 
 terlony did not observe, and plunged into the tide of 
 explanation ; Dennis listened like a prime-minister, 
 and bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose, 
 the same thing. Polly declared it was just like Hali- 
 burton's Latin conversation with the Hungarian min- 
 ister, of which he is very fond of telling. " Qucene 
 sit historia Reformationis in Ungarid ? " quoth Hali- 
 burton, after some thought. And his confrere replied 
 gallantly, u In seculo decimo tertio" etc., etc., etc. ; 
 and from decimo tertio* to the nineteenth century and 
 
 * Which means, " In the thirteenth century," my dear little bell 
 and-coral reader. You have rightly guessed that the question means 
 '* What is the history of the Reformation in Hungary ' " 
 
L8b' MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 a half lasted till the oysters came. So was it that be- 
 fore Dr. Ochterlony came to the " success," or near it, 
 Governor Gorges came to Dennis, and asked him to 
 hand Mrs. Jeffries down to supper, a request which he 
 heard with great joy. 
 
 Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as 
 a lark. Auchmuty came to her u in pity for poor 
 Ingham," who was so bored by the stupid pundit, — 
 and Auchmuty could not understand why I stood it so 
 long. But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, 
 Polly could not resist standing near them. He was a 
 little flustered, till the sight of the eatables and drink- 
 ables gave him the same Mercian courage which it 
 gave Diggory. A little excited then, he attempted 
 one or two of his speeches to the Judge's lady. But 
 little he knew how hard it was to get in even a promp- 
 tu there edgewise. *' Very well, I thank you," said 
 he, after the eating elements were adjusted ; " and 
 you ? " And then did not he have to hear about the 
 mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna, 
 and chamomile-flower, and dodecatheon, till she 
 changed oysters for salad ; and then about the old 
 practice and the new, and what her sister said, and 
 what her sister's friend said, and what the physician 
 to her sister's friend said, and then what was said by 
 the brother of the sister of the physician of the friend 
 of her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff? 
 There was a moment's pause, as she declined Cham- 
 pagne. " I am very glad you liked it," said Dennis 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 187 
 
 again, which he never should have said but to one 
 who complimented a sermon. " Oh ! you are so sharp, 
 Mr. Ingham ! No ! I never drink any wine at all, 
 — except sometimes in summer a little currant shrub, 
 — from our own currants, you know. My own moth- 
 er, — that is, I call her my own mother, because, you 
 know, 1 do not remember," etc., etc., etc. ; till they 
 came to the candied orange at the end of the feast, 
 when Dennis, rather confused, thought he must say 
 something, and tried No. 4, — "I agree, in general, 
 with my friend the other side of the room," — which 
 he never should have said but at a public meeting. 
 But Mrs. Jeffries, who never listens expecting to un- 
 derstand, caught him up instantly with " Well, I 'm 
 sure my husband returns the compliment ; he always 
 agrees with you, — though we do worship with the 
 Methodists; but you know, Mr. Ingham," etc., etc., 
 etc., till the move up-stairs ; and as Dennis led her 
 through the hall, he was scarcely understood by any 
 but Polly, as he said, " There has been so much said, 
 and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy 
 the time." 
 
 His great resource the rest of the evening was 
 standing in the library, carrying on animated conver- 
 sations with one and another in much the same way. 
 Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a dis- 
 covery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish youi 
 sentences in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, 
 omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your 
 
188 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME, 
 
 words fail you, answers even in public extempore 
 speech, but better where other talking is going on. 
 Thus : ■* We missed you at the Natural History So- 
 ciety, Ingham." Ingham replies, " I am very gli- 
 gloglum, that is, that you were mmmram." By 
 gradually dropping the voice, the interlocutor is com- 
 pelled to supply the answer. " Mrs. Ingham, I hope 
 your friend Augusta is better." Augusta has not been 
 ill. Polly cannot think of explaining, however, and 
 answers, " Thank you, Ma'am ; she is very reara- 
 son wewahwewoh," in lower and lower tones. And 
 Mrs. Throckmorton, who forgot the subject of which 
 she spoke as soon as she asked the question, is quite 
 satisfied. Dennis could see into the card-room, and 
 came to Polly to ask if he might not go and play all- 
 fours. But, of course, she sternly refused. At mid- 
 night they came home delighted, — Polly, as I said, 
 wild to tell me the story of the victory ; only both the 
 pretty Walton girls said, " Cousin Frederic, you did 
 not come near me all the evening." 
 
 We always called him Dennis at home, for con- 
 venience, though his real name was Frederic Ingham, 
 as I have explained. When the election-day came 
 round, however, I found that by some accident there 
 was only one Frederic Ingham's name on the voting- 
 list ; and as I was quite busy that day in writing some 
 foreign letters to Halle, I thought I would forego my 
 privilege of suffrage, and stay quietly at home, telling 
 Dennis that he might use the record on the voting-list. 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 189 
 
 and vote. I gave him a ticket, whicn 1 told him he 
 might use, if he liked to. That was that very sharp 
 election in Maine which the readers of the Atlantic so 
 well remember, and it had been intimated in public 
 that the ministers would do well not to appear at the 
 polls. Of course, after that, we had to appear by self 
 or proxy. Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and 
 this standing in a double queue at town-meeting sev- 
 eral hours to vote was a bore of the first water ; and so 
 when I found that there was but one Frederic Ingham 
 on the list, and that one of us must give up, I stayed at 
 home and finished the letters (which, indeed, pro- 
 cured for Fothergill his coveted appointment of Pro- 
 fessor of Astronomy at Leavenworth), and I gave Den- 
 nis, as we called him, the chance. Something in the 
 matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic 
 Ingham name ; and at the adjourned election, next 
 week, Frederic Ingham was chosen to the legislature. 
 Whether this was I or Dennis I never really knew. 
 My friends seemed to think it was I; but I felt that 
 as Dennis had done the popular thing, he was entitled 
 to the honor : so I sent him to Augusta when the time 
 came, and he took the oaths. And a very valuable 
 member he made. They appointed him on the Com- 
 mittee on Parishes ; but I wrote a letter for him, re- 
 signing, on the ground that he took an interest in our 
 claim to the stumpage in the minister's sixteenths of 
 Gore A, next No. 7, in the 10th Range. He never 
 made any speeches, and always voted with the minor- 
 
190 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 ity, which was what he was sent to do. He made me 
 and himself a great many good friends, some of whom 
 I did not afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennis 
 did my parishioners. On one or two occasions, when 
 there was wood to saw at home, I kept him at home ; 
 but I took those occasions to go to Augusta myself. 
 Finding myself often in his vacant seat at these times, 
 I watched the proceedings with a good deal of care ; 
 and once was so much excited that I delivered my 
 somewhat celebrated speech on the Central School- 
 District question, a speech of which the " State of 
 Maine " printed some extra copies. I believe there is 
 no formal rule permitting strangers to speak ; but no 
 one objected. 
 
 Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But 
 our experience this session led me to think that if, by 
 some such " general understanding " as the reports 
 speak of in legislation daily, every member of Congress 
 might leave a double to sit through those deadly ses- 
 sions and answer to roll-calls and do the legitimate 
 party-voting, which appears stereotyped in the regular 
 list of Ashe, Bocock, Black, etc., we should gain de- 
 cidedly in working-power. As things stand, the sad- 
 dest State prison I ever visit is that Representatives' 
 Chamber in Washington. If a man leaves for an 
 nour, twenty " correspondents " may be howling, 
 " Where was Mr. Pendergrast when the Oregon bill 
 passed ? " Ana if poor Pendergrast stays there ! Cer- 
 tainly the worst use you can make of a man is to put 
 him in prison ! 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 191 
 
 I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank 
 have resorted to this expedient long ago. Dumas's 
 novel of the " Iron Mask " turns on the brutal impris- 
 onment of Louis the Fourteenth's double. There 
 seems little doubt, in our own history, that it was the 
 real General Pierce who shed tears when the dele- 
 gate from Lawrence explained to him the sufferings of 
 the people there, and only General Pierce's double 
 who had given the orders for the assault on that town, 
 which was invaded the next day. My charming 
 friend, George Withers, has, I am almost sure, a 
 double, who preaches his afternoon sermons for him. 
 This is the reason that the theology often varies so 
 from that of the forenoon. But that double is almost 
 as charming as the original. Some of the most well 
 defined men, who stand out most prominently on the 
 background of history, are in this way stereoscopic 
 men, who owe their distinct relief to the slight differ- 
 ences between the doubles. All this I know. My 
 present suggestion is simply the great extension of the 
 system, so that all public machine-work may be done 
 by it. 
 
 But I see I loiter on my story, which is rushing to 
 the plunge. Let me stop an instant more, however, 
 to recall, were it only to myself, that charming year 
 while all was yet well. After the double had become 
 a matter of course, for nearly twelve months before he 
 undid me, what a year it was ! Full of active life, full 
 of happy love, of the hardest work, of the sweetest 
 
J 92 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 sleep, and the fulfilment of so many of the fresh aspi- 
 rations and dreams of boyhood ! Dennis went to 
 every school-committee meeting, and sat through all 
 those late wranglings which used to keep me up till 
 midnight and awake till morning. He attended all 
 the lectures to which foreign exiles sent me tickets 
 begging me to come for the love of Heaven and of 
 Bohemia. He accepted and used all the tickets for 
 charity concerts which were sent to me. He appeared 
 everywhere where it was specially desirable that u our 
 denomination," or u our party," or " our class," or 
 " our family," or " our street," or " our town," or 
 "our country," or " our State," 7 should be fully repre- 
 sented. And I fell back to that charming life which 
 in boyhood one dreams of, when he supposes he shall 
 do his own duty and make his own sacrifices, without 
 being tied up with those of other people. My rusty 
 Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, 
 Italian, Spanish, German, and English began to take 
 polish. Heavens ! how little I had done with them 
 while I attended to my publie duties ! My calls on my 
 parishioners became the friendly, frequent, homelike 
 sociabilities they were meant to be, instead of the hard 
 work of a man goaded to desperation by the sight of 
 his lists of arrears. And preaching ! what a luxury 
 preaching was when I had on Sunday the whole re- 
 sult of an individual, personal week, from which to 
 speak to a people whom all that week I had been 
 meeting as hand-to-hand friend ; — I, never tired on 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 193 
 
 Suuday, and in condition to leave the sermon at home, 
 if I chose, and preach it extempore, as all men should 
 do always. Indeed, I wonder, when I think that a 
 sensible people, like ours, — really more attached to 
 their clergy than they were in the lost days, when the 
 Mathers and Nortons were noblemen, — should choose 
 to neutralize so much of their ministers' lives, and de- 
 stroy so much of their early training, by this unde- 
 fined passion for seeing them in public. It springs 
 from our balancing of sects. If a spirited Episcopa- 
 lian takes an interest in the almshouse, and is put on 
 the Poor Board, every other denomination must have 
 a minister there, lest the poorhouse be changed into 
 St. Paul's Cathedral. If a Sandemanian is chosen 
 president of the Young Men's Library, there must be 
 a Methodist vice-president and a Baptist secretary. 
 And if a Universalist Sunday-School Convention col- 
 lects five hundred delegates, the next Congregational- 
 ist Sabbath-School Conference must be as large, " lest 
 ' they ' — whoever they may be — should think i we ' 
 — whoever we may be — are going down." 
 
 Freed from these necessities, that happy year I be- 
 gan to know my wife by sight. We saw each other 
 sometimes. In those long mornings, when Dennis 
 was in the study explaining to map-peddlers that I had 
 eleven maps of Jerusalem already, and to school-book 
 agents that I would see them hanged before I would 
 be bribed to introduce their text-books into the schools, 
 — -she and I were at work together, as in those ol j 
 
194 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 dreamy days, — and in these of our log-cabin again, 
 But all this could not last, — and at length poor Den- 
 nis, my double, overtasked in turn, undid me. 
 
 It was thus it happened. There is an excellent 
 fellow, once a minister, — I will call him Isaacs, — 
 who deserves well of the world till he dies, and after, 
 because he once, in a real exigency, did the right 
 thing, in the right way, at the right time, as no other 
 man could do it. In the world's great football match, 
 the ball by chance found him loitering on the outside 
 of the field ; he closed with it, " camped " it, charged 
 it home, — yes, right through the other side, — not 
 disturbed, not frightened by his own success, — and 
 breathless found himself a great man, as the Great 
 Delta rang applause. But he did not find himself 
 a rich man ; and the football has never come in his 
 way again. From that moment to this moment he 
 has been of no use, that one can see at all. Still, for 
 that great act we speak of Isaacs gratefully and re- 
 member him kindly ; and he forges on, hoping to 
 meet the football somewhere again. In that vague 
 hope, he had arranged a u movement " for a general 
 organization of the human family into Debating- Clubs, 
 County Societies, State Unions, etc., etc., with a view 
 of inducing all children to take hold of the handles of 
 their knives and forks, instead of the metal. Children 
 have bad habits in that way. The movement, of 
 course, was absurd ; but we all did our best to forward, 
 not it, but him. It came time for the annual county- 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 195 
 
 meeting on this subject to be held at Naguadavick. 
 Isaacs came round, good fellow ! to arrange for it, — 
 got the town-hall, got the Governor to preside (the 
 saint ! — he ought to have triplet doubles provided 
 him by law), and then came to get me to speak. 
 " No," I said, " I would not speak, if ten Governors 
 presided. I do not believe in the enterprise. If 1 
 spoke, it should be to say children should take hold of 
 the prongs of the forks and the blades of the knives. 
 I would subscribe ten dollars, but I would not speak a 
 mill." So poor Isaacs went his way sadly, to coax 
 Auchmuty to speak, and Delafield. I went out. 
 Not long after he came back, and told Polly that they 
 had promised to speak, the Governor would speak, 
 and he himself would close with the quarterly report, 
 and some interesting anecdotes regarding Miss Bif- 
 fin's way of handling her knife and Mr. Nellis's way 
 of footing his fork. " Now if Mr. Ingham will only 
 come and sit on the platform, he need not say one 
 word ; but it will show well in the paper, — it will 
 show that the Sandemanians take as much interest in 
 the movement as the Armenians or the Mesopotamians, 
 and will be a great favor to me." Polly, good soul I 
 was tempted, and she promised. She knew Mrs. Isaacs 
 was starving, and the babies, — she knew Dennis 
 was at home, — and she promised ! Night came, and 
 I returned. I heard her story. I was sorry. I 
 doubted. But Polly had promised to beg me, and I 
 dared all ! I told Dennis to hold his peace, under al] 
 circumstances, and sent him down. 
 
196 MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 
 
 It was not half an hour more before he returned, 
 wild with excitement, — in a perfect Irish fury, — 
 which it was long before I understood. But I knew 
 at once that he had undone me ! 
 
 What happened was this. The audience got to- 
 gether, attracted by Governor Gorges's name. There 
 were a thousand people. Poor Gorges was late from 
 Augusta. They became impatient. He came in di- 
 rect from the train at last, really ignorant of the ob- 
 ject of the meeting. He opened it in the fewest 
 possible words, and said other gentlemen were present 
 who would entertain them better than he. The au- 
 dience were disappointed, but waited. The Gover- 
 nor, prompted by Isaacs, said, " The Honorable Mr. 
 Delafield will address you." Delafield had forgotten 
 the knives and forks, and was playing the Buy Lopez 
 opening at the chess-club. " The Rev. Mr. Auch- 
 muty will address you." Auchmuty had promised to 
 speak late, and was at the school-committee. u I see 
 Dr. Stearns in the hall; perhaps he will say a word." 
 Dr. Stearns said he had come to listen and not to speak 
 The Governor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor 
 looked at Dennis, who was resplendent on the plat- 
 form ; but Isaacs, to give him his due, shook his head, 
 But the look was enough. A miserable lad, ill-bred, 
 who had once been in Boston, thought it would sound 
 well to call for me, and peeped out, " Ingham ! " A 
 few more wretches cried, " Ingham ! Ingham I " 
 Still Isaacs was firm; but the Governor, anxious, in- 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 1^7 
 
 deed, to prevent a row, knew I would say some- 
 thing, and said, " Our friend Mr. Ingham is always 
 prepared ; and, though we had not relied upon him, 
 he will say a word perhaps." Applause followed, 
 which turned Dennis's head. He rose, fluttered, and 
 tried No. 3 : u There has been so much said, and, on 
 the whole, so well said, that I will not longer occupy 
 the time ! " and sat down, looking for his hat ; for 
 things seemed squally. But the people cried, " Go 
 on ! go on ! " and some applauded. Dennis, still con- 
 fused, but flattered by the applause, to which neither 
 he nor I are used, rose again, and this time tried No. 
 2: "I am very glad you liked it!" in a sonorous, 
 clear delivery. My best friends stared. All the peo- 
 ple who did not know me personally yelled with de- 
 light at the aspect of the evening ; the Governor was 
 beside himself, and poor Isaacs thought he was undone ! 
 Alas, it was I ! A boy in the gallery cried in a loud 
 tone, " It 's all an infernal humbug," just as Dennis, 
 waving his hand, commanded silence, and tried No. 4: 
 " I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of 
 the room." The poor Governor doubted his senses 
 and crossed to stop him, — not in time, however 
 The same gallery-boy shouted, " How 's your moth- 
 er ? " and Dennis, now completely lost, tried, as his 
 last shot, No. 1, vainly : " Very well, thank you ; and 
 you?" 
 
 I think I must have been undone already. But 
 Dennis, like another Lockhard, chose " to make sicker.*' 
 
198 MY DOUBLE, AND HOTV HE UNDID ME. 
 
 The audience rose in a whirl of amazement, rage, and 
 sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at Dennis, 
 broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered 
 himself of an address to the gallery, inviting any per- 
 son who wished to fight to come down and do so, — 
 stating, that they were all dogs and cowards and the 
 sons of dogs and cowards, — that he would take any 
 five of them single-handed. " Shure, I have said all 
 his Riverence and the Misthress bade me say," cried 
 he, in defiance ; and, seizing the Governor's cane from 
 his hand, brandished it, quarter-staff fashion, above his 
 head. He was, indeed, got from the hall only with 
 the greatest difficulty by the Governor, the City Mar- 
 shal, who had been called in, and the Superintendent 
 of my Sunday-School. 
 
 The universal impression, of course, was, that the 
 Rev. Frederic Ingham had lost all command of himself 
 in some of those haunts of intoxication which for fif- 
 teen years I have been laboring to destroy. Till this 
 moment, indeed, that is the impression in Naguadavick. 
 This number of the Atlantic will relieve from it a 
 hundred friends of mine who have been sadly wounded 
 by that notion now for years ; but I shall not be likely 
 ever to show my head there again. 
 
 No ! My double has undone me. 
 
 We left town at seven the next morning. I came 
 to No. 9, in the Third Range, and settled on the Min- 
 ister's Lot. In the new towns in Maine, the first 
 settled minister has a gift of a hundred acres of land. 
 
MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME. 199 
 
 I am the first settled minister in No. 9. My wife and 
 little Paulina are my parish. We raise corn enough 
 to live on in summer. We kill bear's meat enough to 
 carbonize it in winter. I work on steadily on my 
 " Traces of Sandemanianism in the Sixth and Seventh 
 Centuries," which I hope to persuade Phillips, Samp- 
 son, & Co. to publish next year. We are very happy, 
 but the world thinks we are undone. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 [This story originated in the advertisement of the humbug 
 which it describes. Some fifteen or twenty years since, when 
 gift enterprises rose to one of their climaxes, a gift of a large sum 
 of money, I think $10,000, was offered in New York to the most 
 successful ticket-holder in some scheme, and one of $ 5,000 to the 
 second. It was arranged that one of these parties should be a 
 man and the other a woman ; and the amiable suggestion was 
 added, on the part of the undertaker of the enterprise, that if the 
 gentleman and lady who drew these prizes liked each other 
 sufficiently well when the distribution was made, they might re- 
 gard the decision as a match made for them in Heaven, and take 
 the money as the dowry of the bride. This thoroughly practical, 
 and, at the same time, thoroughly absurd suggestion, arrested the 
 attention of a distinguished story-teller, a dear friend of mine, 
 who proposed to me that, we should each of us write the history 
 of one of the two successful parties, to be woven together by their 
 union at the end. The plan, however, lay latent for years, — 
 the gift enterprise of course blew up, — and it was not until tha 
 summer of 1862 that I wrote my half of the proposed story, with 
 the hope of eliciting the other half. My friend's more important 
 engagements, however, have thus far kept Fausta's detailed biog- 
 raphy from the light. I sent my half to Mr. Frank Leslie, in 
 competition for a premium offered by him, as is stated in the 
 second chapter of the story. And the story found such favor in 
 the eyes of the judges, that it received one of his second premi- 
 ums. The first was very properly awarded to Miss Louisa 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 201 
 
 Alcott, for a story of great spirit and power. " The Children of 
 the Public " was printed in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper 
 for January 24 and January 31, 1863. The moral which it tries 
 to illustrate, which is, I believe, an important one, was thus com- 
 mended to the attention of the very large circle of the readers of 
 that journal, — a journal to which I am eager to say I think this 
 nation has been very largely indebted for the loyalty, the good 
 sense, and the high tone which seem always to characterize it. 
 During the war, the pictorial journals had immense influence in 
 the army, and they used this influence with an undeviating re- 
 gard to the true honor of the country.] 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PORK-BARREL. 
 
 " Felix," said my wife to me, as I came home to- 
 night, "you will have to go to the pork-barrel." 
 
 " Are you quite sure," said I, — " quite sure ? ' Woe 
 to him,' says the oracle, ' who goes to the pork-barrel 
 before the moment of his need.' " 
 
 " And woe to him, say I," replied my brave wife, 
 . — r « woe and disaster to him ; but the moment of our 
 need has come. The figures are here, and you shall 
 see. I have it all in black and in white." 
 
 And so it proved, indeed, that when Miss Sampson* 
 the nurse, was paid for her month's service, and when 
 the boys had their winter boots, and when my life- 
 insurance assessment was provided for, and the new 
 payment for the insurance on the house, — when the 
 
202 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 taxes were settled with the collector (and my wife 
 had to lay aside double for the war), — when the pew- 
 rent was paid for the year, and the water-rate — we 
 must have to start with, on the 1st of January, cne 
 hundred dollars. This, as we live, would pay, in 
 cash, the butcher, and the grocer, and the baker, and 
 all the dealers in things that perish, and would buy 
 the omnibus tickets, and recompense Bridget till the 
 1st of April. And at my house, if we can see forward 
 three months we are satisfied. But, at my house, we 
 are never satisfied if there is a credit at any store for 
 us. We are sWorn to pay as we go. We owe no 
 man anything. 
 
 So it was that my wife said : " Felix, you will have 
 to go to the pork-barrel." 
 
 This is the story of the pork-barrel. 
 
 It happened once, in a little parish in the Green 
 Mountains, that the deacon reported to Parson 
 Plunkett, that, as he rode to meeting by Chung-a- 
 baug Pond, he saw Michael Stowers fishing for 
 pickerel through a hole in the ice on the Sabbath day. 
 The parson made note of the complaint, and that after- 
 noon drove over to the pond in his " one-horse shay." 
 He made his visit, not unacceptable, on the poor 
 Stowers household, and then crossed lots to the place 
 where he saw poor Michael hoeing. He told Michael 
 that he was charged with Sabbath breaking, and bade 
 him plead to the charge. And poor Mike, like a man, 
 plead guilty ; but, in extenuation, he said that there 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 203 
 
 was nothing to eat in the house, and rather than see 
 wife and children faint, he had cut a hole in the ice, 
 had put in his hook again and again, and yet again, 
 and coining home had delighted the waiting family 
 with an unexpected breakfast. The good parson 
 made no rebuke, nodded pensive, and drove straight- 
 way to the deacon's door. 
 
 " Deacon," said he, " what meat did you eat ior 
 breakfast yesterday? " 
 
 The deacon's family had eaten salt pork, fried. 
 
 " And where did you get the pork, Deacon ? " 
 
 The Deacon stared, but said he had taken it from 
 his pork-barrel. 
 
 "Yes, Deacon," said the old man; " I supposed so. 
 I have been to see Brother Stowers, to talk to him 
 about his Sabbath-breaking ; and, Deacon, I find the 
 pond is his pork-barrel." 
 
 The story is a favorite with me and with Fausta. 
 But " woe," says the oracle, " to him who goes to the 
 pork-barrel before the moment of his need." And to 
 that " woe " both Fausta and I say 1* amen." For 
 we know that there is no fish in our pond for spend- 
 thrifts or for lazy-bones ; none for people who wear 
 gold chains or Attleborough jewelry ; none for people 
 who are ashamed of cheap carpets or wooden mantel- 
 pieces. Not for those who run in debt will the fish 
 bite ; nor for those who pretend to be richer or better 
 or wiser than they are. No ! But we have found, in 
 our lives, that in a great democracy there reigns a 
 
204 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 great and gracious sovereign. We have found that this 
 sovereign, in a reckless and unconscious way, is, all 
 the time, making the most profuse provision for all the 
 citizens. We have found that those who are not too 
 grand to trust him fare as well as they deserve. We 
 have found, on the other hand, that those who lick his 
 feet or flatter his follies fare worst of living men. 
 We find that those who work honestly, and only seek 
 a man's fair average of life, or a woman's, get that 
 average, though sometimes by the most singular ex- 
 periences in the long run. And thus we find that, 
 w T hen an extraordinary contingency arises in life, as just 
 now in ours, we have only to go to our pork-barrel, 
 and the fish rises to our hook or spear. 
 
 The sovereign brings this about in all sorts of ways, 
 bat he does not fail, if, without flattering him, you 
 trust him. Of this sovereign the name is — "the 
 Public." Fausta and I are apt to call ourselves his 
 children, and so I name this story of our lives, 
 
 "The Children of the Public." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHERE IS THE BARREL? 
 
 " Where is the barrel this time, Fausta ? " said I, 
 after I had added and subtracted her figures three 
 times, to be sure she had carried her tens and hun 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. '206 
 
 dreds rightly. For the units, in such accounts, m 
 face of Dr. Franklin, I confess I do not care. 
 
 " The barrel," said she, "is in Frank Leslie's 
 Office. Here is the mark ! " and she handed me 
 Frank Leslie's Newspaper, with a mark at this 
 announcement : — 
 
 $100 
 
 for the best Short Tale of from one to two pages of Frank Leslie's 
 Illustrated Newspaper, to be sent iu on or before the 1st ol 
 November, 1862. 
 
 *• There is another barrel," she said, " with $ 5,000 
 in it, and another with $ 1,000. But we do not want 
 $5,000 or $ 1,000. There is a little barrel with $ 50 
 in it. But see here, with all this figuring, I cannot 
 make it do. I have stopped the gas now, and I have 
 turned the children's coats, — I wish you would see 
 Dow well Robert's looks, — and I have had a new tile 
 put in the cook-stove, instead of buying that lovely 
 crew ' Banner.' But all will not do. We must go to 
 irus barrel." 
 
 " And what is to be the hook, darling, this time?" 
 said I. 
 
 " I have been thinking of it all day. 1 hope you 
 will not hate it, — I know you will not like it exactly ; 
 but why not write down just the whole story ol 
 what it is to be ' Children of the Public ' ; how we 
 came to live here, you know; how we built the house, 
 and — all about it ? " 
 
 " How Felix knew Fausta," said I ; " and how 
 Fausta first met Felix, perhaps ; and when they first 
 
206 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 kissed each other ; and what she said to him when 
 they did so." 
 
 " Tell that, if you dare," said Fausta ; " but per- 
 haps — the oracle says we must not be proud — per- 
 haps you might tell just a little. You know — really 
 almost everybody is named Carter now ; and I do 
 not believe the neighbors will notice, — perhaps they 
 won't read the paper. And if they do notice it, I 
 don't care ! There ! " 
 
 " It will not be so bad as — " 
 
 But I never finished the sentence. An imperative 
 gesture closed my lips physically as well as metaphor- 
 ically, and I was glad to turn the subject enough to 
 sit down to tea with the children. After the bread 
 and butter we agreed what we might and what we 
 might not tell, and then I wrote what the reader is 
 now to see. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MY LIFE TO ITS CRISIS. 
 
 New-Yorkers of to-day see so many processions, 
 and live through so many sensations, and hurrah for 
 so many heroes in every year, that it is only the 
 oldest of fogies who tells you of the triumphant pro- 
 cession of steamboats which, in the year 1824, wel- 
 comed General Lafayette on his arrival from his 
 tour through the country he had so nobly served. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 207 
 
 But, if the reader wishes to lengthen out this story 
 he may button tli3 next silver-gray friend he meets, 
 and ask him to tell of the broken English and broken 
 French of the Marquis, of Levasseur, and the rest of 
 them ; of the enthusiasm of the people and the readi- 
 ness of the visitors, and he will please bear in mind 
 that of all that am I. 
 
 For it so happened that on the morning when, for 
 want of better lions to show, the mayor and governor 
 and the rest of them took the Marquis and his sec- 
 retary, and the rest of them, to see the orphan asylum 
 in Deering Street, — as they passed into the first ward, 
 after having had "a little refreshment" in the mana- 
 gers' room, Sally Eaton, the head nurse, dropped the 
 first courtesy to them, and Sally Eaton, as it happened, 
 held me screaming in her arms. I had been sent to 
 the asylum that morning with a paper pinned to my 
 bib, which said my name was Felix Carter. 
 
 " Eet ees verra fine," said the Marquis, smiling 
 blandly. 
 
 " Kavissant ! " said Levasseur, and he dropped a 
 five-franc piece into Sally Eaton's hand. And so the 
 procession of exhibiting managers talking bad French, 
 and of exhibited Frenchmen talking bad English, 
 passed on ; all but good old Elkanah Ogden — God 
 bless him! — who happened to have come there with 
 the governor's party, and who loitered a minute to 
 talk with Sally Eaton about me. 
 
 Years afterwards she told me how the old man 
 
208 THE CHILDKEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 kissed me, how his eyes watered when he asked nry 
 story, how she told again of the moment when I was 
 heard screaming on the doorstep, and how she offered 
 to go and bring the paper which had been pinned to 
 my bib. But the old man said it was no matter, — 
 " only we would have called him Marquis," said he, 
 " if his name was not provided for him. We must 
 not leave him here," he said ; " he shall grow up a 
 farmer's lad, and not a little cockney." And so, 
 instead of going the grand round of infirmaries, kitch- 
 ens, bakeries, and dormitories with the rest, the good 
 old soul went back into the managers' room, and 
 wrote at the moment a letter to John Myers, who 
 took care of his wild land in St. Lawrence County for 
 him, to ask him if Mrs. Myers would not bring up 
 an orphan baby by hand for him ; and if, both to- 
 gether, they would not train this baby till he said 
 " stop " ; if, on the other hand, he allowed them, in 
 the yearly account, a hundred dollars each year for the 
 charge. 
 
 Anybody who knows how far a hundred dollars 
 goes in the backwoods, in St. Lawrence County, will 
 know that any settler would be glad to take a ward so 
 recommended. Anybody who knew Betsy Myers ai 
 well as old Elkanah Ogden did, would know she 
 would have taken any orphan brought to her door, 
 even if he were not recommended at all. 
 
 So it happened, thanks to Lafayette and the city 
 council ! that I had not been a " Child of the Public " 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 209 
 
 a day, before, in its great, clumsy, liberal way, it had 
 provided for me. I owed my healthy, happy home 
 of the next fourteen years in the wilderness to those 
 marvellous habits, which I should else call absurd, 
 with which we lionize strangers. Because our hos- 
 pitals and poorhou^s are the largest buildings we 
 have, we entertain tne Prince of Wales and Jenny 
 Lind alike, by showing them crazy people and paupers. 
 Easy enough to laugh at is the display ; but if, dear 
 Public, it happen, that by such a habit you ventilate 
 your Bridewell or your Bedlam, is not the ventilation, 
 perhaps, a compensation for the absurdity ? I do not 
 know if Lafayette was any the better for his seeing 
 the Deering Street Asylum ; but I do know I was. 
 
 This is no history of my life. It is only an illus- 
 tration of one of its principles. I have no anecdotes 
 of wilderness life to tell, and no sketch of the lovely 
 rugged traits of John and Betsy Myers, — my real 
 father and mother. I have no quest for the pretended 
 parents, who threw me away in my babyhood, to re 
 cord. They closed accounts with me when they left 
 me on the asylum steps, and I with them. I grew up 
 with such schooling as the public gave, — ten weeks 
 in winter always, and ten in summer, till I was big 
 enough to work on the farm, — better periods of schools, 
 I hold, than on the modern systems. Mr. Ogden I 
 never saw. Regularly he allowed for me the hundred 
 a year till I was nine years old, and then suddenly he 
 died, as the reader perhaps knows. But John Myers 
 
210 THE CHILDKEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 kept me as his son, none the less. I knew no change 
 until, when I was fourteen, he thought it time for me 
 to see the world, and sent me to what, in those days, 
 was called a " Manual-Labor School. " 
 
 There was a theory coming up in those days, wholly 
 unfounded in physiology, that if a man worked five 
 hours with his hands, he could study better in the 
 next five. It is all nonsense. Exhaustion is exhaus- 
 tion ; and if you exhaust a vessel by one stopcock, 
 nothing is gained or saved by closing that and open- 
 ing another. The old up-country theory is the true 
 one. Study ten weeks and chop wood fifteen ; study 
 ten more and harvest fifteen. But the "Manual- 
 Labor School " offered itself for really no pay, only 
 John Myers and I carried over, I remember, a dozen 
 barrels of potatoes when I went there with my books. 
 The school was kept at Roscius, and if I would work 
 in the carpenter's shop and on the school farm five 
 hours, why they would feed me and teach me all they 
 knew in what I had of the day beside. 
 
 " Felix," said John, as he left me, " I do not sup- 
 pose this is the best school in the world, unless you 
 make it so. But I do suppose you can make it so. 
 If you and I went whining about, looking for the best 
 school in the world, and for somebody to pay your 
 way through it, I should die, and you would lose your 
 voice with whining, and we should not find one after 
 all. This is what the public happens to provide for 
 you and me, We won't look a gift-horse in the 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 211 
 
 moutl . Get on his back, Felix ; groom him well as 
 you can when you stop, feed him when you can, and 
 at all events water him well and take care of him 
 well. My last advice to you, Felix, is to take what 
 is offered you, and never complain because nobody 
 offers more." 
 
 Those words are to be cut on my seal-ring, if I 
 ever have one, and if Dr. Anthon or Professor Web- 
 ster will put them into short enough Latin for me. 
 That is the motto of the " Children of the Public." 
 
 John Myers died before that term was out. And 
 my more than mother, Betsy, went back to her friends 
 in Maine. After the funeral I never saw them more. 
 How I lived from that moment to what Fausta and I 
 call the Crisis is nobody's concern. I worked in the 
 shop at the school, or on the farm. Afterwards I 
 taught school in neighboring districts. I never bought 
 a ticket in a lottery or a raffle. But whenever there 
 was a chance to do an honest stroke of work, I did it. 
 1 have walked fifteen miles at night to carry an elec- 
 tion return to the Tribune's agent at Gouverneur. I 
 have turned out in the snow to break open the road 
 when the supervisor could not find another man in the 
 township. 
 
 When Sartain started his magazine, I wrote an 
 essay in competition for his premiums, and the essay 
 earned its hundred dollars. When the managers of 
 the " Orphan Home," in Baltimore, offered their 
 prizes for papers on bad boys, I wrote for one of them, 
 
212 THE CHTLDKEN OF THE PUBLIC 
 
 and that helped me on four hard months. There was 
 no luck in those things. I needed the money, and I 
 put my hook into the pork-barrel, — that is, I trusted 
 the Public. I never had but one stroke of luck in my 
 life. I wanted a new pair of boots badly. I was 
 going to walk to Albany, to work in the State library 
 on the history of the Six Nations, which had an in- 
 terest for me. I did not have a dollar. Just then 
 there passed Congress the bill dividing the surplus 
 revenue. The State of New York received two or 
 three millions, and divided it among the counties. 
 The county of St. Lawrence divided it among the 
 townships, and the township of Roscius divided it 
 among the voters. Two dollars and sixty cents of 
 Uncle Sam's money came to me, and with that money 
 on my feet I walked to Albany. That I call luck ! 
 How many fools had to assent in an absurdity before 
 I could study the history of the Six Nations ! 
 
 But one instance told in detail is better than a 
 thousand told in general, for the illustration of a prin- 
 ciple. So I will detain you no longer from the history 
 of what Fausta and I call 
 
 The Crisis. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 213 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CRISIS. 
 
 I was at work as a veneerer in a piano-forte fac- 
 tory at Attica, when some tariff or other was passed 
 or repealed ; there came a great financial explo- 
 sion, and our boss, among the rest, failed. He 
 owed us all six months' wages, and we were all very 
 poor and very blue. Jonathan Whittemore — a real 
 good fellow, who used to cover the hammers with 
 leather — came to me the day the shop was closed, 
 and told me he was going to take the chance to go to 
 Europe. He was going to the Musical Conservatory 
 at Leipsic, if he could. He would work his passage 
 out as a stoker. He would wash himself for three 
 or four days at Bremen, and then get work, if he 
 could, with Voightlander or Von Hammer till he 
 could enter the Conservatory. By way of prepara- 
 tion for this he wanted me to sell him my Adler's 
 German Dictionary. 
 
 " I 've nothing to give you for it, Felix, but this 
 foolish thing, — it is one of Burrham's tickets, — which 
 I bought in a frolic the night of our sleigh-ride. I '11 
 transfer it to you." 
 
 I told Jonathan he might have the dictionary and 
 welcome. He was doing a sensible thing, and he 
 would use it twenty times as much as I should. A? 
 
214 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 for the ticket, he had better keep it. I did not want 
 it. But I saw he would feel better if I took it, — so 
 he indorsed it to me. 
 
 Now the reader must know that this Burrham was 
 a man who had got hold of one corner of the idea of 
 what the Public could do for its children. He had 
 found out that there were a thousand people w r ho 
 would be glad to make the tour of the mountains 
 and the lakes every summer if they could do it for 
 half-price. He found out that the railroad companies 
 were glad enough to put the price down if they could 
 be sure of the thousand people. He mediated be- 
 tween the two, and so "cheap excursions" came into 
 being. They are one of the gifts the Public gives its 
 children. Rising from step to step, Burrham had, just 
 before the great financial crisis, conceived the idea of 
 a great cheap combination, in w T hich everybody was 
 to receive a magazine for a year and a cyclopaedia, 
 both at half-price ; and not only so, but the money 
 that was gained in the combination was to be given 
 by lot to two ticket-holders, one a man and one a 
 woman, for their dowry in marriage. I dare say the 
 reader remembers the prospectus. It savors too much 
 of the modern " Gift Enterprise " to be reprinted in 
 full ; but it had this honest element, that everybody 
 got more than he could get for his money in retail. 1 
 have my magazine, the old Boston Miscellany, to this 
 day, and I just now looked out Levasseur's name in 
 my cyclopaedia ; and, as you will see, I have reason tv 
 know that all the other subscribers got theirs. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 2U 
 
 One of the tickets for these books, for which Whit- 
 temore had given five good dollars, was what he gave 
 to me for my dictionary. And so we parted. I 
 loitered at Attica, hoping for a place where I could 
 put in my oar. But my hand was out at teaching, 
 and in a time when all the world's veneers of different 
 kinds were ripping off, nobody wanted me to put on 
 more of my kind, — so that my cash ran low. I 
 would not go in debt, — that is a thing I never did. 
 More honest, I say, to go to the poorhouse, and make 
 the Public care for its child there, than to borrow what 
 you cannot pay. But I did not come quite to that, as 
 you shall see. 
 
 I was counting up my money one night, — and it 
 was easily done, — when I observed that the date on 
 this Burrham order was the 15th of October, and it 
 occurred to me that it was not quite a fortnight before 
 those books were to be delivered. They were to be 
 delivered at Castle Garden, at New York ; and the 
 thought struck me that I might go to New York, try my 
 chance there for work, and at least see the city, which 
 I had never seen, and get my cyclopaedia and maga- 
 zine. It was the least offer the Public ever made to 
 me ; but just then the Public was in a collapse, and the 
 least was better than nothing. The plan of so long a 
 journey was Quixotic enough, and I hesitated about it 
 a good deal. Finally I came to this resolve : I would 
 start in the morning to walk to the lock-station at 
 Brockport on the canal. If a boat passed that 7 light 
 
216 THE CHILDEEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 where they would give me my fare for any work 1 
 could do for them, I would go to Albany. If not, I 
 would walk back to Lockport the next day, and try 
 my fortune there. This gave me, for my first day's 
 enterprise, a foot journey of about twenty-five miles. 
 It was out of the question, with my finances, for me 
 to think of compassing the train. 
 
 Every point of life is a pivot on which turns the 
 whole action of our after-lives ; and so, indeed, of the 
 after-lives of the whole world. But we are so pur- 
 blind that we only see this of certain special enter- 
 prises and endeavors, which we therefore call critical. 
 I am sure I see it of that twenty-five miles of fresh 
 Autumnal walking. I was in tiptop spirits. I found 
 the air all oxygen, and everything " ad right." I did 
 not loiter, and I did not hurry. I swung along with 
 the feeling that every nerve and muscle drew, as in 
 the trades a sailor feels of every rope and sail. And 
 so I was not tired, not thirsty, till the brook appeared 
 where I was to drink ; nor hungry till twelve o'clock 
 came, when I was to dine. I called myself as I 
 walked " The Child of Good Fortune," because the 
 sun was on my right quarter, as the sun should be 
 when you walk, because the rain of yesterday had 
 laid the dust for me, and the frost of yesterday had 
 painted the hills for me, and the northwest wind 
 cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roada 
 just in time to meet the Claremont baker and buy my 
 dinner loaf of him. And when ray walk was nearly 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 217 
 
 done, 1 came out on the low bridge at Sewell's, which 
 is a drawbridge, just before they raised it for a passing 
 boat, instead of the moment after. Because I was all 
 right I felt myself and called myself " The Child of Good 
 Fortune." Dear reader, in a world made by a loving 
 Father, we are all of us children of good fortune, if we 
 only have wit enough to find it out, as we stroll along. 
 The last stroke of good fortune which that day had 
 for me was the solution of my question whether or no 
 I would go to Babylon. I was to go if any good-na- 
 tured boatman would take me. This is a question, Mr. 
 Millionnaire, more doubtful to those who have not 
 drawn their dividends than to those who have. As I 
 came down the village street at Brockport, I could see 
 the horses of a boat bound eastward, led along from 
 level to level at the last lock ; and, in spite of my de- 
 termination not to hurry, I put myself on the long, 
 loping trot which the St. Regis Indians taught me, 
 that I might overhaul this boat before she got under 
 way at her new speed. I came out on the upper gate 
 of the last lock just as she passed out from the lower 
 gate. The horses were just put on, and a reckless boy 
 gave them their first blow after two hours of rest and 
 corn. As the heavy boat started off under the new 
 motion, I saw, and her skipper saw at the same in- 
 stant, that a long new tow-rope of his, which had lain 
 coiled on deck, was suddenly flying out to its full 
 length. The outer end of it had been carried upon 
 the lock-side by some chance or blunder, and there 
 
 10 
 
218 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 some idle loafer had thrown the looped bight of il 
 over a hawser-post. The loafers on the lock saw, as I 
 did, that the rope was running out, and at the call of 
 the skipper one of them condescended to throw the 
 loop overboard, but he did it so carelessly that the lazy 
 rope rolled over into the lock, and the loop caught on 
 one of the valve-irons of the upper gate. The whole 
 was the business of an instant, of course. But the 
 poor skipper saw, what we did not, that the coil of the 
 rope on deck was foul, and so entangled round his long 
 tiller, that ten seconds would do one of three things, — 
 they would snap his new rope in two, which was a tri 
 fie, or they would wrench his tiller-head off the rudder, 
 which would cost him an hour to mend, or they would 
 upset those two horses, at this instant on a trot, and 
 put into the canal the rowdy youngster who had start- 
 ed them. It was this complex certainty which gave fire 
 to the double cries which he addressed aft to us on 
 the lock, and forward to the magnet boy, whose indif- 
 ferent intelligence a t that moment drew him along;. 
 
 I was stepping upon the gate-head to walk across it. 
 It took but an instant, not nearly all the ten seconds, 
 to swing down by my arms into the lock, keeping my- 
 self hanging by my hands, to catch with my right foot 
 the bight of the rope and lift it off the treacherous 
 iron, to kick the whole into the water, and then to 
 scramble up the wet lock-side again. I got a little- 
 wet, but that was nothing. I ran down the tow-path, 
 beckoned to the skipper, who sheered his boat up to 
 the shore, and I jumped on board. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 219 
 
 At that moment, reader, Fausta was sitting in a 
 yellow chair on the deck of that musty old boai, 
 crocheting from a pattern in Grodey's Lady's Book. 
 I remember it as. I remember my breakfast of this 
 morning. Not that I fell in love with her, nor did I 
 fall in love with my breakfast ; but I knew she waa 
 there. And that was the first time I ever saw her. 
 It is many years since, and I have seen her every day 
 from that evening to this evening. But I had then no 
 business with her. My affair was with him whom I have 
 called the skipper, by way of adapting this fresh-water 
 narrative to ears accustomed to Marryat and Tom 
 Cringle. I told him that I had to go to New York ; 
 that I had not time to walk, and had not money to 
 pay ; that I should like to work my passage to Troy, 
 if there were any way in which I could ; and to ask 
 him this I had come on board. 
 
 " Waal," said the skipper, " 'taint much that is to 
 be done, and Zekiel and I calc'late to do most of that 
 and there 's that blamed boy beside — " 
 
 This adjective " blamed " is the virtuous oath by 
 which simple people, who are improving their habits, 
 cure themselves of a stronger epithet, as men take to 
 flagroot who are abandoning tobacco. 
 
 " He ain't good for nothin', as you see," continued 
 the skipper meditatively, " and you air, anybody can 
 see that," he added. " Ef you 've mind to come to 
 Albany, you can have your vittles, poor enough they 
 are too ; and ef you are willing to ride sometimes, you 
 
220 1H E CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 can ride. I guess where there 's rcom for three m tht- 
 bunks there 's room for four. 'Taint everybody would 
 have cast off that Mamed hawser-rope as neat as you 
 did." 
 
 From which last remark I inferred, what I learned 
 as a certainty as we travelled farther, that but for the 
 timely assistance I had rendered him I should have 
 plead for my passage in vain. 
 
 This was my introduction to Fausta. That is to 
 say, she heard the whole of the conversation. The 
 formal introduction, which is omitted in no circle of 
 American life to which I have ever been admitted, 
 took place at tea half an hour after, when Mrs. Grills, 
 who always voyaged with her husband, brought in 
 the flapjacks from the kitchen. " Miss Jones," said 
 Grills, as I came into the meal, leaving Zekiel at the 
 tiller, — " Miss Jones, this is a young man who is going 
 to Albany. I don't rightly know how to call your 
 name, sir." I said my name was Carter. Then he 
 said, " Mr. Carter, this is Miss Jones. Mrs. Grills, 
 Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter, Mrs. Grills. She is my 
 wife." And so our partie carree was established for 
 the voyage. 
 
 In these days there are few people who know that 
 a journey on a canal is the pleasantest journey in the 
 world. A canal has to go through fine scenery. It 
 cannot exist unless it follow through the valley of a 
 stream. The movement is so easy that, with youi 
 eyes shut, you do not know you move. The route is 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 22"j 
 
 so direct, that when you are once shielded from the 
 sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read, 
 you write, or you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on 
 your flute or your guitar, without one hint of incon- 
 venience. At a " low bridge " you duck your head 
 lest you lose your hat, — and that reminder teaches 
 you that you are human. You are glad to know this, 
 and you laugh at the memento. For the rest of the 
 time you journey, if you are " all right " within, in 
 elysium. 
 
 I rode one of those horses perhaps two or three 
 hours a day. At locks I made myself generally useful. 
 At night I walked the deck till one o'clock, with my 
 pipe or without it, to keep guard against the lock- 
 thieves. The skipper asked me sometimes, after he 
 found I could " cipher," to disentangle some of the 
 knots in his bills of lading for him. But all this made 
 but a little inroad in those lovely autumn days, and 
 for the eight days that we glided along, — there is one 
 blessed level which is seventy miles long, — I spent 
 most of my time with Fausta. We walked together 
 on the tow-path to get our appetites for dinner and 
 for supper. At sunrise I always made a cruise inland, 
 and collected the gentians and black alder-berries and 
 colored leaves, with which she dressed Mrs. Grill's 
 table. She took an interest in my wretched sketch- 
 book, and though she did not and does not draw well, 
 she did show me how to spread an even tint, which 1 
 never knew before. I was working up my French, 
 
222 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 She knew about as much and as little as 1 did, and 
 we read Mad. Reybaud's Clementine together, guess- 
 ing at the hard words, because we had no dictionary. 
 
 Dear old Grill offered to talk French at table, and 
 we tried it for a few days. But it proved he picked 
 up his pronunciation at St. Catherine's, among the 
 boatmen there, and he would say shwo for "horses," 
 where the book said chevaux. Our talk, on the 
 other hand, was not Parisian, — but it was not 
 Catherinian, — and we subsided into English again. 
 
 So sped along these blessed eight days. I told 
 Fausta thus much of my story, that I was going to 
 seek my fortune in New York. She, of course, knew 
 nothing of me but what she saw, and she told me 
 nothing of her story. 
 
 But I was very sorry when we came into the basin 
 
 at Troy, for I knew then that in all reason I must 
 
 take the steamboat down. And I was very glad, — I 
 
 have seldom in my life been so glad, — when I found 
 
 that she also was going to New York immediately. 
 
 She accepted, very pleasantly, my offer to carry her 
 
 trunk to the Isaac Newton for her, and to act as her 
 
 escort to the city. For me, my trunk, 
 
 " in danger tried," 
 Swung in my hand, — " nor left my side." 
 
 My earthly possessions were few anywhere. I had 
 left at Attica most of what they were. Through the 
 voyage I had been man enough to keep on a working- 
 gear fit for a workman's duty. And old Grills had not 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 223 
 
 yet grace enough to keep his boat still on Sunday 
 How one remembers little things ! I can remember 
 each touch of the toilet, as, in that corner of a dark 
 cuddy where I had shared "Zekiel's" bunk with him. 
 I dressed myself with one of my two white shirts, and 
 with the change of raiment which had been tight 
 squeezed in my portmanteau. The old overcoat was 
 the best part of it, as in a finite world it often is. I 
 sold my felt hat to Zekiel, and appeared with a light 
 travelling-cap. I do not know how Fausta liked my 
 metamorphosis. I only know that, like butterflies, 
 for a day or two after they go through theirs, I felt 
 decidedly cold. 
 
 As Carter, the canal man, I had carried Fausta'a 
 trunk on board. As Mr. Carter, I gave her my arm, 
 led her to the gangway of the Newton, took her pas- 
 sage and mine, and afterwards walked and sat through 
 the splendid moonlight of the first four hours down 
 the river. 
 
 Miss Jones determined that evening to breakfast on 
 the boat. Be it observed that I did not then know 
 her by any other name. She was to go to an aunt's 
 house, and she knew that if she left the boat on its 
 early arrival in New York, she would disturb that 
 lady by a premature ringing at her bell. I had no 
 reason for haste, as the reader knows. The distribu- 
 tion of the cyclopaedias was not to take place till the 
 next day, and that absurd trifle was the only distinct 
 excuse I had to myself for being in New York at all, 
 
224 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 I asked Miss Jones, therefore, if I might not be hei 
 escort still to her aunt's house. I had said it would 
 be hard to break off our pleasant journey before I had 
 seen where she lived, and I thought she seemed 
 relieved to know that she should not be wholly a 
 stranger on her arrival. It was clear enough that her 
 aunt would send no one to meet her. 
 
 These preliminaries adjusted, we parted to our 
 respective cabins. And when, the next morning, at 
 that unearthly hour demanded by Philadelphia trains 
 and other exigencies, the Newton made her dock, 1 
 rejoiced that breakfast was not till seven o'clock, that 
 I had two hours more of the berth, which was luxury 
 compared to Zekiel's bunk, — I turned upon my other 
 side and slept on. 
 
 Sorry enough for that morning nap was I for the 
 next thirty-six hours. For when I went on deck, and 
 sent in the stewardess to tell Miss Jones that I was 
 waiting for her, and then took from her the check for 
 her trunk, I woke to the misery of finding that, in 
 that treacherous two hours, some pirate from the pier 
 had stepped on board, had seized the waiting trunk, 
 left almost alone, while the baggage-master's back was 
 turned, and that, to a certainty, it was lost. I did not 
 return to Fausta with this story till the breakfast-bell 
 had long passed and the breakfast was very cold. 1 
 did not then tell it to her till I had seen her eat her 
 breakfast with an appetite much better than mine. I 
 had alreadv offered up stairs the largest reward to any- 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 225 
 
 body who would bring it back which my scanty pnrse 
 would pay. I had spoken to the clerk, who had sent 
 for a policeman. I could do nothing more, and I did 
 not choose to ruin her chop and coffee by ill-timed 
 news. The officer came before breakfast was over, 
 and called me from table. 
 
 On the whole, his business-like way encouraged 
 one. He had some clews which I had not thought 
 possible. It was not unlikely that they should pounce 
 on the trunk before it was broken open. I gave him 
 a written description of its marks ; and when he civilly 
 a^ked if " my lady " would give some description of 
 any books or other articles within, I readily promised 
 that I would call with such a description at the police 
 station. Somewhat encouraged, I returned to Miss 
 Jones, and, when I led her from the breakfast-table, 
 told her of her misfortune. I took all shame to my- 
 self for my own carelessness, to which I attributed the 
 loss. But I told her all that the officer had said to 
 me, and that I hoped to bring her the trunk at her 
 aunt's before the day was over. 
 
 Fausta took my news, however, with a start which 
 frightened me. All her money, but a shilling or two, 
 was in the trunk. To place money in trunks is a 
 weakness of the female mind which I have nowhere 
 seen accounted for. Worse than this, though, ■ — af 
 appeared after a moment's examination of her travel- 
 ling sac, — her portfolio in the trunk contained the 
 letter of the aunt whom she came to visit, giving her 
 
 10* 
 
226 THE CHILDKEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 her address in the city. To this address she had no 
 other clew but that her aunt was Mrs. Mary Mason, 
 had married a few years before a merchant named 
 Mason, whom Miss Jones had never seen, and of 
 whose name and business this was all she knew. They 
 lived in a numbered street, but whether it was Fourth 
 Street, or Fifty-fourth, or One Hundred and Twenty- 
 fourth, or whether it was something between, the 
 poor child had no idea. She had put up the letter 
 carefully, but had never thought of the importance of 
 the address. Besides this aunt, she knew no human 
 being in New York. 
 
 " Child of the Public," I said to myself, <i what do 
 you do now ? " I had appealed to my great patron in 
 sending for the officer, and on the whole I felt that 
 my sovereign had been gracious to me, if not yet 
 hopeful. But now I must rub my lamp again, and 
 ask the genie where the unknown Mason lived. The 
 genie of course suggested the Directory, and I ran for 
 it to the clerk's office. But as we were toiling down 
 the pages of " Masons," and had written off thirteen 
 or fourteen who lived in numbered streets, Fausta 
 started, looked back at the preface and its date, flung 
 down her pencil in the only abandonment of dismay in 
 which I ever saw her, and cried, " First of May 1 
 They were abroad until May. They have been 
 abroad since the day they were married ! " So that 
 genie had to put his glories into his pocket, and carry 
 his Directory back to the office again. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 227 
 
 The natural thing to propose was, that I should 
 find for Miss Jones a respectable boarding-house, and 
 that she should remain there until her trunk was 
 found, or till she could write to friends who had this 
 fatal address, and receive an answer. But here she 
 hesitated. She hardly liked to explain why, — did not 
 explain wholly. But she did not say that she had 
 no friends who knew this address. She had but few 
 relations in the world, and her aunt had communicated 
 with her alone since she came from Europe. As for 
 the boarding-house, " I had rather look for work," she 
 said bravely. " I have never promised to pay money 
 when I did not know how to obtain it; and that" — 
 and here she took out fifty or sixty cents from her 
 purse — " and that is all now. In respectable board 
 ing-houses, when people come without luggage, they 
 are apt to ask for an advance. Or, at least," she added, 
 with some pride, " I am apt to offer it." 
 
 I hastened to ask her to take all my little store ; but 
 I had to own that I had not two dollars. I was sure, 
 however, that my overcoat and the dress-suit I wore 
 would avail me something, if I thrust them boldly up 
 some spout. I was sure that I should be at work 
 within a day or two. At all events, I was certain of 
 the cyclopaedia the next day. That should go to old 
 Gowan's, — in Fulton Street it was then, — u the moral 
 centre of the intellectual world," in the hour I got it. 
 And at this moment, for the first time, the thought 
 crossed me, " If mine could only be the name drawn, 
 
228 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 so that that foolish $ 5,000 should fall to me." In that 
 case I felt that Fausta might live in " a respectable 
 bjarding-house " till she died. Of this, of course, I 
 said nothing, only that she was welcome to my poor 
 dollar and a half, and that I should receive the next 
 day some more money that was due me. 
 
 " You forget, Mr. Carter," replied Fausta, aa 
 proudly as before, — " you forget that I cannot borrow 
 of you any more than of a boarding-house-keeper. I 
 never borrow. Please God, I never will. It must 
 be," she added, " that in a Christian city like this 
 there is some respectable and fit arrangement made 
 for travellers who find themselves where I am. What 
 that provision is I do not know ; but I will find out 
 what it is before this sun goes down." 
 
 I paused a moment before I replied. If I had been 
 fascinated by this lovely girl before, I now bowed in 
 respect before her dignity and resolution ; and, with 
 my sympathy, there was a delicious throb of self-re- 
 spect united, when I heard her lay down so simply, as 
 principles of her life, two principles on which I had 
 always myself tried to live. The half-expressed habits 
 of my boyhood and youth were now uttered for me as 
 axioms by lips which I knew could speak nothing but 
 right and truth. 
 
 I paused a moment. I stumbled a little as I ex- 
 pressed my regret that she would not let me help her, 
 — joined with my certainty that she was in the right 
 in refusing, — and then, it the only stiff speech I evei 
 made to her, I said : — 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 229 
 
 ** I am the i Child of the Public' If you ever hear 
 my story, you will say so too. At the least, I can 
 claim this, that I have a right to help you in your 
 quest as to the way in which the public will help you. 
 Thus far I am clearly the officer in his suite to whom 
 he has intrusted you. Are you ready, then, to go on 
 shore ? " 
 
 Fausta looked around on that forlorn ladies' saloon, 
 
 as if it were the last link holding her to her old safe 
 
 world. 
 
 " Looked upon skylight, lamp, and chain. 
 As what she ne'er might see again." 
 
 Then she looked right through me ; and if there had 
 been one mean thought in me at that minute, she 
 would have seen the viper. Then she said, sadly, — 
 
 " I have perfect confidence in you, though people 
 would say we were strangers. Let us go." 
 
 And we left the boat together. We declined the 
 invitations of the noisy hackmen, and walked slowly to 
 Broadway. 
 
 We stopped at the station-house for that district, 
 and to the attentive chief Fausta herself described 
 those contents of her trunk which she thought would 
 be most easily detected, if offered for sale. Her moth- 
 er's Bible, at which the chief shook his head ; Bibles, 
 alas ! brought nothing at the shops ; a soldier's medal, 
 such as were given as target prizes by the Mont- 
 gomery regiment ; and a little silver canteen, marked 
 with the device of the same regiment, seemed to him 
 
230 THE CHILDEEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 better worthy of note. Her portfolio was wrought 
 with a cipher, and she explained to him that she was 
 most eager that this should be recovered. The pocket- 
 book contained more than one hundred dollars, which 
 she described, but he shook his head here, and gave 
 her but little hope of that, if the trunk were once 
 opened. His chief hope was for this morning. 
 
 " And where shall we send to you then, madam ?" 
 said he. 
 
 I had been proud, as if it were my merit, of the 
 impression Fausta had made upon the officer, in her 
 quiet, simple, ladylike dress and manner. For my- 
 self, I thought that one slip of pretence in my dress or 
 bearing, a scrap of gold or of pinchbeck, would have 
 ruined both of us in our appeal. But, fortunately, I 
 did not disgrace her, and the man looked at her as if 
 he expected her to say " Fourteenth Street." What 
 would she say ? 
 
 " That depends upon what the time will be. Mr. 
 Carter will call at noon, and will let you know." 
 
 We bowed, and were gone. In an instant more 
 she begged my pardon, almost with tears ; but I told 
 her that if she also had been a " Child of the Public," 
 she could not more fitly have spoken to one of her 
 father's officers. I begged her to use me as her pro- 
 tector, and not to apologize again. Then we laid out 
 the plans which we followed out that day. 
 
 The officer's manner had reassured her, ana I suc- 
 ceeded in persuading her that it was certain we should 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 231 
 
 have the trunk at noon. How much better to wait, at 
 least so far, before she entered on any of the enter- 
 prises of which she talked so coolly, as of offering her- 
 self as a nursery-girl, or as a milliner, to whoevei 
 would employ her, if only she could thus secure an 
 honest home till money or till aunt were found. Once 
 persuaded that we were safe from this Quixotism, I 
 told her that we must go on, as we did on the canal, 
 and first we must take our constitutional walk for two 
 hours. 
 
 " At least," she said, " our good papa, the Public, 
 gives us wonderful sights to see, and good walking to 
 our feet, as a better Father has given us this heavenly 
 sky and this bracing air." 
 
 And with those words the last heaviness of despond- 
 ency left her face for that day. And we plunged into 
 the delicious adventure of exploring a new city, 
 staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling 
 in print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine 
 buildings as residents always forget to do, and laying 
 up, in short, with those streets, nearly all the asso- 
 ciations which to this day we have with them. 
 
 Two hours of this tired us with walking, of course. 
 1 do not know what she meant to do next ; but at ten 
 I said, " Time for French, Miss Jones." " Ah oid" 
 said she, '' mais ou?" and I had calculated my dis- 
 tances, and led her at once into Lafayette Place ; and, 
 in a moment, pushed open the door of the Astor 
 Library, led her up the main stairway, and said, 
 
232 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 u This is what the Public provides for his children 
 when they have to study." 
 
 " This is the Astor," said she, delighted. " And 
 we are all right, as you say, here ? " Then she saw 
 that our entrance excited no surprise among the few 
 readers, men and women, who were beginning to as- 
 semble. 
 
 We took our seats at an unoccupied table, and 
 began to revel in the luxuries for which we had only 
 to ask that we might enjoy. I had a little memoran- 
 dum of books which I had been waiting to see. She 
 needed none ; but looked for one and another, and yet 
 another, and between us we kept the attendant well in 
 motion. A pleasant thing to me to be finding out her 
 thoroughbred tastes and lines of work, and I was 
 happy enough to interest her in some of my pet read- 
 ings ; and, of course, for she was a woman, to get 
 quick hints which had never dawned on me before. A 
 very short hour and a half we spent there before I 
 went to the station-house again. I went very quickly. 
 I returned to her very slowly. 
 
 The trunk was not found. But they were now 
 quite sure they were on its track. They felt certain 
 it had been carried from pier to pier and taken back 
 up the river. Nor was it hopeless to follow it. The 
 particular rascal who was supposed to have it would 
 certainly stop either at Piermont or at Newburg. 
 They had telegraphed to both places, and were in 
 time for both. " The day boat, sir, will bring youi 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 233 
 
 lady's trunk, and will bring me Rowdy Rob, too, 1 
 hope," said the officer. But at the same moment, as 
 he rang his bell, he learned that no despatch had yet 
 been received from either of the places named. I did 
 not feel so certain as he did. 
 
 But Fausta showed no discomfort as I told my 
 news " Thus far," said she, " the Public serves me 
 well. I will borrow no trouble by want of faith." 
 And I — as Dante would say — and I, to her, " will 
 you let me remind you, then, that at one we dine , 
 that Mrs. Grills is now placing the salt-pork upon the 
 cabin table, and Mr. Grills asking the blessing; and, 
 as this is the only day when I can have the honor of 
 your company, will you let me show you how a Child 
 of the Public dines, when his finances are low?" 
 
 Fausta laughed, and said again, less tragically than 
 before, " I have perfect confidence in you," — little 
 thinking how she started my blood with the words ; 
 but this time, as if in token, she let me take her hand 
 upon my arm, as we walked down the street together. 
 
 If we had been snobs, or even if I had been one, 
 I should have taken her to Taylor's, and have spent 
 all the money I had on such a luncheon as neither of 
 us had ever eaten before. Whatever else I am, I am 
 not a snob of that sort. I show my colors. I led 
 her into a little cross-street which I had noticed in our 
 erratic morning pilgrimage. We stopped at a German 
 baker's. I bade her sit down at the neat marble table, 
 and I bought two rolls. She declined lager, which 
 
234 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUPLIO. 
 
 I offered her in fun. We took water instead, and 
 we had dined, and had paid two cents for our meal, 
 and had had a very merry dinner, too, when the clock 
 struck two. 
 
 " And now, Mr. Carter," said she, " I will steal no 
 more of your day. You did not come to New York 
 to escort lone damsels to the Astor Library or to din- 
 ner. Nor did I come only to see the lions or to read 
 French. I insist on your going to your affairs, and 
 leaving me to mine. If you will meet me at the 
 Library half an hour before it closes, I will thank you ; 
 till then," with a tragedy shake of the hand, and a 
 merry laugh, " adieu ! " 
 
 I knew very well that no harm could happen to her 
 in two hours of an autumn afternoon. I was not sorry 
 for her conge, for it gave me an opportunity to follow 
 my own plans. I stopped at one or two cabinet- 
 makers, and talked with the "jours " about work, 
 that I might tell her with trutlr that I had been in 
 search of it; — then I sedulously began on calling upon 
 every man I could reach named Mason. O, how 
 often 1 went through one phase or another of this 
 colloquy : — 
 
 " Is Mr. Mason in ? " 
 
 " That 's my name, sir." 
 
 " Can you give me the address of Mr. Mason who 
 returned from Europe last May ? " 
 
 " Know no such person, sir." 
 
 The reader can imagine how many forms this dia- 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 235 
 
 logue could be repeated in, before, as I wrought my 
 way through a long line of dry-goods cases to a distant 
 counting-room, I heard some one in it say, " No, 
 madam, 1 know no such person as you describe " ; and 
 from the recess Fausta emerged and met me. Her 
 plan for the afternoon had been the same with mine. 
 We laughed as we detected each other ; then I told 
 her she had had quite enough of this, that it was time 
 she should rest, and took her, nolens volens, into the 
 ladies' parlor of the St. Nicholas, and bade her wait 
 there through the twilight, with my copy of Clemen- 
 tine, till I should return from the police-station. If 
 the reader has ever waited in such a place for some 
 one to come and attend to him, he will understand 
 that nobody will be apt to molest him when he has not 
 asked for attention. 
 
 Two hours I left Fausta in the rocking-chair, which 
 there the Public had provided for her. Then I re- 
 turned, sadly enough. No tidings of Rowdy Rob, 
 none of trunk, Bible, money, letter, medal, or any- 
 thing. Still was my district sergeant hopeful, and, 
 as always, respectful. But I was hopeless this time, 
 and I knew that the next day Fausta would be plung- 
 ing into the war with intelligence-houses and adver- 
 tisements. For the night, I was determined that she 
 should spend it in my ideal " respectable boarding- 
 house." On my way down town, I stopped in at one 
 or two shops to make inquiries, and satisfied myself 
 where I would take her. Still I thought it wisest thai 
 
236 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 we should go after tea; and another cross- street 
 baker, and another pair of rolls, and another tap at the 
 Croton, provided that repast for us. Then I told 
 Fausta of the respectable boarding-house, and that she 
 must go there. She did not say no. But she did say 
 she would rather not spend the evening there. " There 
 must be some place open for us," said she. " There ! 
 there is a church-bell ! The church is always home. 
 Let us come there." 
 
 So to " evening meeting " we went, startling the sex 
 ron by arriving an hour early. If there were any who 
 wondered what was the use of that Wednesday-even- 
 ing service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we 
 sat, she at one end, I at the other ; and, if the whole 
 truth be told, each of us fell asleep at once, and slept 
 till the heavy organ tones taught us that the service 
 had begun. A hundred or more people had straggled 
 in then, and the preacher, good soul, he took for his 
 text, " Doth not God care for the ravens ? " I cannot 
 describe the ineffable feeling of home that came over 
 me in that dark pew of that old church. I had never 
 been in so large a church before. I had never heard 
 so heavy an organ before. Perhaps I had heard bet- 
 ter preaching, but never any that came to my occa- 
 sions more. But it was none of these things which 
 moved me. It was the fact that we were just where 
 we had a right to be. No impudent waiter could ask 
 us why we were sitting there, nor any petulant police- 
 man propose that we should push on. It was God's 
 house, and, because his, it wa^ his children's. 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 237 
 
 All this feeling of repose grew upon me, and, as it 
 proved, upon Fausta also. For when the service was 
 ended, and 1 ventured to ask her whether she also 
 had this sense of home and rest, she assented so 
 eagerly, that I proposed, though with hesitation, a 
 notion which had crossed me, that I should leave her 
 there. 
 
 " I cannot think," I said, " of any possible harm 
 that could come to you before morning." 
 
 " Do you know, I had thought of that very same 
 thing, but I did not dare tell you," she said. 
 
 Was not I glad that she had considered me her 
 keeper ! But I only said, " At the ' respectable 
 boarding-house ' you might be annoyed by ques- 
 tions." 
 
 " And no one will speak to me here. I know that 
 from Goody Two-Shoes." 
 
 " I will be here," said I, " at sunrise in the morn- 
 ing." And so I bade her good by, insisting on leav- 
 ing in the pew my own great-coat. I knew she mighl 
 need it before morning. I walked out as the sexton 
 closed the door below on the last of the down-stairs 
 worshippers. He passed along the aisles below, with 
 his l3ng poker which screwed down the gas. I saw at 
 once that he had no intent of exploring the galleries. 
 But I loitered outside till I saw him lock the doors 
 and depart ; and then, happy in the thought that Miss 
 Jones was in the safest place in New York, — as com- 
 fortable as she was the night before, and much more 
 
238 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 comfortable than she had been any night upon the 
 °,anal, I went in search of my own lodging. 
 " To the respectable boarding-house ? " 
 Not a bit, reader. I had no shillings for respectable 
 or disrespectable boarding-houses. I asked the first 
 policeman where his district station was. I went into 
 its office, and told the captain that I was green in the 
 city ; had got no work and no money. In truth, I 
 had left my purse in Miss Jones's charge, and a five- 
 cent piece, which I showed the chief, was all I had. 
 He said no word but to bid me go up two flights and 
 turn into the first bunk I found. I did so ; and in five 
 minutes was asleep in a better bed than I had slept in 
 for nine days. 
 
 That was what the Public did for me that night. 
 I, too, was safe ! 
 
 I am making this story too long. But with that 
 n ? io;ht and its anxieties the end has come. At sunrise 
 T rose and made my easy toilet. I bought and ate my 
 roll, — varying the brand from yesterday's. I bought 
 another, with a lump of butter, and an orange, for 
 Fausta. I left my portmanteau at the station, while I 
 rushed to the sexton's house, told his wife I had left 
 my gloves in church the night before, — as was the 
 truth, — and easily obtained from her the keys. In 
 a moment I was in the vestibule — locked in — was 
 in the gallery, and there found Fausta, just awake, as 
 she declared, from a comfortable night, reading her 
 morning lesson in the Bible, and sure, she said, trial 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 23? 
 
 1 should soon appear. Nor ghost, nor wraith, nad 
 visited her. I spread for her a brown paper table- 
 cloth on the table in the vestibule. I laid out her 
 breakfast for her, called her, and wondered at her 
 toilet. How is it that women always make themselves 
 appear as neat and finished as if there were no conflict, 
 dust, or wrinkle in the world. 
 
 [Here Fausta adds, in this manuscript, a parenthesis, 
 to say that she folded her undersleeves neatly, and her 
 collar, before she slept, and put them between the 
 cushions, upon which she slept. In the morning they 
 had been pressed — without a sad-iron.] 
 
 She finished her repast. 1 opened the church door 
 for five minutes. She passed out when she had 
 enough examined the monuments, and at a respect- 
 able distance I followed her. We joined each other, 
 and took our accustomed morning walk ; but then she 
 resolutely said, " Good by," for the day. She would 
 find work before night, — work and a home. And I 
 must do the same. Only when I pressed her to iet 
 me know of her success, she said she would meet me 
 at the Astor Library just before it closed. No, she 
 would not take my money. Enough, that for twenty- 
 four hours she had been my guest. When she had 
 found her aunt and told her the story, they should 
 insist on repaying this hospitality. Hospitality, dear 
 reader, which I had dispensed at the charge of six 
 cents. Have you ever treated Miranda for a day and 
 found the charge so low ? When I urged other assist- 
 
240 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 ance she said resolutely, " No." In fact, she had 
 already made an appointment at two, she said, and she 
 must not waste the day. 
 
 I also had an appointment at two ; for it was at that 
 hour that Burrham was to distribute the cyclopaedias at 
 Castle Garden. The Emigrant Commission had not 
 yet seized it for their own. I spent the morning 
 in asking vainly for Masons fresh from Europe, and 
 for work in cabinet-shops. I found neither, and 
 so wrought my way to the appointed place, where, 
 instead of such wretched birds in the bush, I was to 
 get one so contemptible in my hand. 
 
 Those who remember Jenny Lind's first triumph 
 night at Castle Garden have some idea of the crowd 
 as it filled gallery and floor of that immense hall when I 
 entered. I had given no thought to the machinery of 
 this folly. I only know that my ticket bade me be 
 there at two p. M. this day. But as I drew near, the 
 throng, the bands of policemen, the long queues of 
 persons entering, reminded me that here was an affair 
 of ten thousand persons, and also that Mr. Burrham 
 was not unwilling to make it as showy, perhaps as 
 noisy, an affair as was respectable, by way of advertis- 
 ing future excursions and distributions. I was led to 
 geat No. 3,671 with a good deal of parade, and when I 
 mme there I found I was very much of a prisoner. I 
 was late, or rather on the stroke of two. ImmediatQly, 
 almost, Mr. Burrham arose in the front and made 
 a long speech about his liberality, and the public's 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 241 
 
 liberality, and everybody's liberality in general, and 
 the method of the distribution in particular. The 
 mayor and four or five other well-known and respect- 
 able gentlemen were kind enough to be present to 
 guarantee the fairness of the arrangements. At the 
 suggestion of the mayor and the police, the doors 
 would now be closed, that no persons might interrupt 
 the ceremony till it was ended. And the distribution 
 of the cyclopaedias would at once go forward, in the 
 order in which the lots were drawn, — earliest numbers 
 securing the earliest impressions ; which, as Mr. 
 Burrham almost regretted to say, were a little better 
 than the latest. After these had been distributed two 
 figures would be drawn, — one green and one red, to 
 indicate the fortunate lady and gentleman who would 
 receive respectively the profits which had arisen from 
 this method of selling the cyclopaedias, after the ex 
 penses of printing and distribution had been covered, 
 and after the magazines had been ordered. 
 
 Great cheering followed this announcement from all 
 but me. Here I had shut myself up in this humbug 
 hall, for Heaven knew how long, on the most impor- 
 tant day of my life. I would have given up willingly 
 my cyclopaedia and my chance at the " profits," for 
 the certainty of seeing Fausta at five o'clock. If i 
 did not see her then, what might befall her, and when 
 might I see her again. An hour before this certainty 
 was my own, now it was only mine by my liberating 
 
 myself from this prison. Still I was encouraged by 
 
 11 
 
242 THE CHILDKEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 seeing that everything was conducted like clock-work. 
 From literally a hundred stations they were distribut- 
 ing the books. We formed ourselves into queues as 
 we pleased, drew our numbers, and then presented 
 ourselves at the bureaux, ordered our magazines, and 
 took our cyclopaedias. It would be done, at that rate, 
 by half past four. An omnibus might bring me to 
 the Park, and a Bowery car do the rest in time. 
 After a vain discussion for the right of exit with one 
 or two of the attendants, I abandoned mvself to this 
 hope, and began studying my cyclopaedia. 
 
 It was sufficiently amusing to see ten thousand peo- 
 ple resign themselves to the same task, and affect to be 
 unconcerned about the green and red figures which 
 were to divide the " profits." I tried to make out who 
 were as anxious to get out of that tawdry den as I was. 
 Four o'clock struck, and the distribution was not done. 
 I began to be very impatient. What if Fausta fell 
 into trouble ? I knew, or hoped I knew, that she would 
 struggle to the Astor Library, as to her only place of 
 rescue and refuge, — her asylum. What if I failed 
 her there ? I who had pretended to be her protector ! 
 " Protector, indeed ! " she would say, if she knew I 
 was at a theatre witnessing the greatest folly of the 
 age. And if I did not meet her to-day, when should I 
 meet her ? If she found her aunt, how should I find 
 her? If she did not find her, — good God? that was 
 worse, — where might she not be before twelve hours 
 were over? Then the fatal trunk! I had told th« 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 24§ 
 
 Dolice agent he might send it to the St. Nicholas, be- 
 cause I had to give him some address. But Fausta 
 did not know this, and the St. Nicholas people knew 
 nothing of us. I grew more and more excited, and 
 when at last my next neighbor told me that it was half 
 past four, I rose and insisted on leaving my seat. 
 Two ushers with blue sashes almost held me down ; 
 they showed me the whole assembly sinking into 
 quiet. In fact, at that moment Mr. Burrham was 
 begging every one to be seated. I would not be 
 seated. I would go to the door. I would go out. 
 " Go, if you please ! " said the usher next it, contempt- 
 uously. And I looked, and there was no handle ! 
 Yet this was not a dream. It is the way they arrange 
 the doors in halls where they choose to keep people 
 in their places. I could have collared that grinning 
 blue sash. I did tell him I would wring his precious 
 neck for him, if he did not let me out. I said I would 
 sue him for false imprisonment ; I would have a writ 
 of habeas corpus, 
 
 " Habeas corpus be d — d ! " said the officer, with an 
 irreverent disrespect to the palladium. " If you are 
 not more civil, sir, I will call the police, of whom we 
 have plenty. You say you want to go out; you are 
 keeping everybody in." 
 
 And, in fact, at that moment the clear voice of the 
 mayor was announcing that they would not go on 
 until there was perfect quiet; and I felt that I was im 
 prisoning all these people, not they me. 
 
244 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC 
 
 •'Child of the Public," said my mourning genias, 
 "are you better than other men?" So I sneaked 
 back to seat No. 3,671, amid the contemptuous and 
 reproachful looks and sneers of my more respectable 
 neighbors, who had sat where they were told to do* 
 We must be through in a moment, and perhaps Fausta 
 would be late also. If only the Astor would keep 
 open after sunset ! How often have I wished that 
 since, and for less reasons ! 
 
 Silence thus restored, Mr. A , the mayor, led 
 
 forward his little daughter, blindfolded her, and bade 
 her put her hand into a green box, from which 
 she drew out a green ticket. He took it from her, 
 and read, in his clear voice again, u No. 2,973!" By 
 this time we all knew where the u two thousands" 
 sat. Then "nine hundreds" were not far from the 
 front, so that it was not far that that frightened girl, 
 dressed all in black, and heavily veiled, had to walk, 
 
 who answered to this call. Mr. A met her, 
 
 helped her up the stair upon the stage, took from her 
 her ticket, and read, " Jerusha Stillingfleet, of Yellow 
 Springs, who, at her death, as it seems, transferred 
 this right to the bearer." 
 
 The disappointed nine thousand nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine joined in a rapturous cheer, each man and 
 woman, to show that he or she was not disappointed. 
 The bearer spoke with Mr. Burrham, in answer to his 
 questions, and, with a good deal of ostentation, he 
 opened a check-book, filled a check an- 1 passed it to 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 245 
 
 ner, she signing a receipt as she took it, and transfer- 
 ring to him her ticket. So far, in dumb show, all was 
 well. What was more to my purpose, it was rapid, for 
 we should have been done in five minutes more, but 
 that some devil tempted some loafer in a gallery to 
 cry, " Face ! face ! " Miss Stillingfleet's legatee was 
 still heavily veiled. 
 
 In one horrid minute that whole amphitheatre, 
 which seemed to me then more cruel than the Coliseum 
 ever was, rang out with a cry of " Face, face ! " I tried 
 the counter-cry of "Shame! shame!" but I was in 
 disgrace among my neighbors, and a counter-cry 
 never takes as its prototype does, either. At first, on 
 the stage, they affected not to hear or understand ; 
 then there was a courtly whisper between Mr. Burr- 
 ham and the lady ; but Mr. A , the mayor, and 
 
 the respectable gentlemen, instantly interfered. It 
 was evident that she would not unveil, and that they 
 were prepared to indorse her refusal. In a moment 
 more she courtesied to the assembly; the mayor gave 
 her his arm, and led her out through a side-door. 
 
 O, the yell that rose up then ! The whole assembly 
 stood up, and, as if they had lost some vested right, 
 hooted and shrieked, " Back ! back ! Face ! face ! " 
 
 Mr. A returned, made as if he would speak, 
 
 came forward to the very front, and got a moment & 
 silence. 
 
 "It is not in the bond, gentlemen, " said he. " The 
 young lady is unwilling to unveil, and we must not 
 compel her." 
 
246 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC 
 
 * 4 Face I face ! " was the only answer, and oranges 
 from up stairs flew about his head and struck upon the 
 table, — an omen only fearful from what it prophesied. 
 Then there was such a row for five minutes as I hope 
 I may never see or hear again. People kept theii 
 places fortunately, under a vague impression that they 
 should forfeit some magic rights if they left those num- 
 bered seats. But when, for a moment, a file of police- 
 men appeared in the orchestra, a whole volley of 
 cyclopaedias fell like rain upon their chief, with a re- 
 newed cry of " Face ! face ! " 
 
 At this juncture, with a good deal of knowledge of 
 
 popular feeling, Mr. A led forward his child again. 
 
 Frightened to death the poor thing was, and crying ; 
 he tied his handkerchief round her eyes hastily, and 
 took her to the red box. For a minute the house was 
 hushed. A cry of " Down ! down ! " and every one 
 took his place as the child. gave the red ticket to her 
 father. He read it as before, " No. 3,671 ! " I heard 
 the words as if he did not speak them. All excited 
 by the delay and the row, by the injustice to the 
 stranger and the personal injustice of everybody to me, 
 I did not know, for a dozen seconds, that every one 
 was looking towards our side of the house, nor was it 
 till my next neighbor with the watch said, " Go, you 
 fool," that I was aware that 3,671 was I ! Even then, 
 as I stepped down the passage and up the steps, my 
 only feeling was, that I should get out of this horrid 
 trap, and possibly find Miss Jones lingering near the 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 24, 
 
 A.stor, — not by any means that I was invited to take 
 a check for $5,000. 
 
 There was not much cheering. Women never mean 
 to cheer, of course. The men had cheered the green 
 ticket, but they were mad with the red one. I gave 
 up my ticket, signed my receipt, and took my check. 
 
 shook hands with Mr. A and Mr. Burrham, and 
 
 turned to bow to the mob, — for mob I must call it 
 now. But the cheers died away. A few people tried 
 to go out perhaps, but there was nothing now to re- 
 tain any in their seats as before, and the generality 
 rose, pressed down the passages, and howled, " Face ! 
 face ! " I thought for a moment that I ought to say 
 something, but they would not hear me, and, after a 
 moment's pause, my passion to depart overwhelmed 
 me. I muttered some apology to the gentlemen, and 
 left the stage by the stage door. 
 
 I had forgotten that to Castle Garden there can bt 
 no back entrance. I came to door after door, which 
 were all locked. It was growing dark. Evidently 
 the sun was set, and I knew the library door would be 
 shut at sunset. The passages were very obscure. All 
 around me rang this horrid yell of the mob, in which 
 all that I could discern was the cry, " Face, face ! " 
 At last, as I groped round, I came to a practicable 
 door. I entered a room where the western sunset 
 glare dazzled me. I was not alone. The veiled lady 
 in black was there. But the instant she saw me she 
 sprang towards me, flung herself into my arms, and 
 cried : — 
 
248 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 "Felix, is it you? — you are indeed my protec- 
 tor ! " 
 
 It was Miss Jones ! It was Fausta ! She was the 
 legatee of Miss Stillingfleet. My first thought was, 
 " O, if that beggarly usher had let me go ! Will I 
 ever, ever think I have better rights than the Public 
 again ? " 
 
 I took her in my arms. I earned her to the sofa. 
 I could hardly speak for excitement. Then I did say 
 that I had been wild with terror ; that I had feared 1 
 had lost her, and lost her forever ; that to have lost 
 that interview would have been worse to me than 
 death ; for unless she knew that I loved her better 
 than man ever loved woman, I could not face a lonely 
 night, and another lonely day. 
 
 u My dear, dear child," I said, " you may think me 
 wild ; but I must say this, — it has been pent up too 
 long." 
 
 " Say what you will," she said after a moment, in 
 which still I held her in my arms ; she was trembling 
 so that she could not have sat upright alone, — " say 
 what you will, if only you do not tell me to spend an- 
 other day alone." 
 
 And I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I kissed her, 
 and I said, " Never, darling, God helping me, till 1 
 die! ; 
 
 How long we sat there I do not know. Neither of 
 us spoke again. For one, I looked out on the sunset 
 and the bay. We had but just time to rearrange our- 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 249 
 
 selves in positions more independent, when Mr. A 
 
 came in, this time in alarm, to say : — 
 
 " Miss Jones, we must get you out of this place, or 
 we must hide you somewhere. I believe, before God t 
 they will storm this passage, and pull the house about 
 our ears." 
 
 He said this, not conscious as he began that I was 
 there. At that moment, however, I felt as if I could 
 have met a million men. I started forward and passed 
 him, saying, " Let me speak to them." I rushed upon 
 the stage, fairly pushing back two or three bullies who 
 were already upon it. I sprang upon the table, kick- 
 ing down the red box as I did so, so that the red 
 tickets fell on the floor and on the people below. One 
 stuck in an old man's spectacles in a way which made 
 the people in the galleries laugh. A laugh is a great 
 blessing at such a moment. Curiosity is another. 
 Three loud words spoken like thunder do a good deal 
 more. And after three words the house was hushed 
 to hear me. I said : — 
 
 " Be fair to the girl. She has no father nor mother 
 She has no brother nor sister. She is alone in the 
 world, with nobody to help her but the Public — and 
 me ! " 
 
 The audacity of the speech brought out a cheer, 
 and we should have come off in triumph, when some 
 rowdy — the original " face " man, I suppose — 
 said, — 
 
 " And who are you ? ,y 
 
 11* 
 
250 THE CHILDEEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 If the laugh went against me now 1 was lost, of 
 course. Fortunately I had no time to think. 1 said 
 without thinking, — 
 
 " 1 am the Child of the Public, and her betrothed 
 husband ! " 
 
 Heavens ! what a yell of laughter, of hurrahings, 
 of satisfaction with a denouement, rang through the 
 house, and showed that all was well. Burrham 
 caught the moment, and started his band, this time 
 successfully, — I believe with "See the Conquering 
 Hero." The doors, of course, had been open long 
 before. Well-disposed people saw they need stay no 
 longer ; ill-disposed people dared not stay ; the blue- 
 coated men with buttons sauntered on the stage in 
 groups, and I suppose the worst rowdies disappeared 
 as they saw them. I had made my single speech, and 
 for the moment I was a hero. 
 
 1 believe the mayor would have liked to kiss me. 
 Burrham almost did. They overwhelmed me with 
 thanks and congratulations. All these I received as 
 well as I could, — somehow I did not feel at all sur 
 prised, — everything was as it should be. I scarcely 
 thought of leaving the stage myself, till, to my surprise, 
 the mayor asked me to go home with him to dinner. 
 
 Then I remembered that we were not to spend the 
 rest of our lives in Castle Garden. I blundered out 
 something about Miss Jones, that she had no escort 
 except me, and pressed into her room to find her. A 
 group of gentlemen was around her. Her veil was 
 
THE CHILDREN OP THE PUBLIC. 261 
 
 back now. She was very pale, but very lovely. Have 
 [ said that she was beautiful as heaven ? She was 
 the queen of the room, modestly and pleasantly receiv 
 ing their felicitations that the danger was over, ano 1 
 owning that she had been very much frightened. 
 <•' Until," she said, " my friend, Mr. Carter, was for- 
 tunate enough to guess that I was here. How he did 
 it," she said, turning to me, " is yet an utter mystery 
 to me." 
 
 She did not know till then that it was I who had 
 shared with her the profits of the cyclopaedias. 
 
 As soon as we could excuse ourselves, I asked some 
 one to order a carriage. I sent to the ticket-office for 
 my valise, and we rode to the St. Nicholas. I fairly 
 laughed as I gave the hackman at the hotel door what 
 would have been my last dollar and a half only two 
 hours before. I entered Miss Jones's name and my 
 own. The clerk looked, and said, inquiringly, — 
 
 " Is it Miss Jones's trunk which came this after- 
 noon? " 
 
 I followed his finger to see the trunk on the marble 
 floor. Rowdy Rob had deserted it, having seen, per- 
 haps, a detective when he reached Piermont. Tha 
 trunk had gone to Albany, had found no owner, and 
 had returned by the day boat of that day. 
 
 Fausta went to her room, and I sent her supper 
 after her. One kiss and " Good night " was all that I 
 got from her then. 
 
 " In the morning," said she, " you shall explain." 
 
25^ THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 It was not yet seven. I went to my own room and 
 dressed, and tendered myself at the mayor's just be- 
 fore his gay party sat down to dine. I met, for the 
 first time in my life, men whose books I had read, and 
 whose speeches I had by heart, and women whom I 
 have since known to honor ; and, in the midst of this 
 
 brilliant group, so excited had Mr. A been in 
 
 telling the strange story of the day, I was, for the 
 hour, the lion. 
 
 I led Mrs. A to the table ; I made her laugh 
 
 very heartily by telling her of the usher's threats to 
 me, and mine to him, and of the disgrace into which I 
 fell among the three thousand six hundreds. I had 
 never been at any such party before. But I found it 
 was only rather simpler and more quiet than most 
 parties I had seen, that its good breeding was exactly 
 that of dear Betsy Myers. 
 
 As the party broke up, Mrs. A said to me, — 
 
 " Mr. Carter, I am sure you are tired, with all this 
 excitement. You say you are a stranger here. Let 
 me send round for your trunk to the St. Nicholas, and 
 you shall spend the night here. I know I can make 
 you a better bed than they." 
 
 I thought as much myself, and assented. In half 
 
 an hour more I was in bed in Mrs. A 's " best 
 
 room." 
 
 " I shall not sleep better," said I to myself, " than 
 I did last night." 
 
 That was what the Public did for me that night ] 
 was safe again ! 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 25 O 
 
 CHAPTER LAST. 
 
 fausta's story. 
 
 Fausta slept late, poor child. I called for he? 
 before breakfast. I waited for her after. About 
 ten she appeared, so radiant, so beautiful, and so kind ! 
 The trunk had revealed a dress I never saw before, 
 and the sense of rest, and eternal security, and un- 
 broken love had revealed a charm which was never 
 there to see before. She was dressed for walking, and, 
 as she met me, said, — 
 
 u Time for constitutional, Mr. Millionnaire." 
 
 So we walked again, quite up town, almost to the 
 region of pig-pens and cabbage-gardens which is now 
 the Central Park. And after just the first gush of my 
 enthusiasm, Fausta said, very seriously: — 
 
 " I must teach you to be grave. You do not know 
 whom you are asking to be your wife. Excepting 
 Mrs. Mason, No. 27 Thirty-fourth Street, sir, there is 
 no one in the world who is of kin to me, and she does 
 not care for me one straw, Felix," she said, almost 
 sadly now. "You call yourself ' Child of the Public* 
 I started when you first said so, for that is just what I 
 am. 
 
 " I am twenty-two years old. My father died before I 
 was born. My mother, a poor woman, disliked by his 
 relatives and avoided bv them, went to live in Hobokan 
 
254 THE CHILDKEN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 over there, with me. How she lived, God knows, 
 but it happened that of a strange death she died, I in 
 her arms." 
 
 After a pause, the poor girl went on : — 
 
 " There was a great military review, an encamp- 
 ment. She was tempted out to see it. Of a sudden 
 by some mistake, a ramrod was fired from a careless 
 soldier's gun, and it pierced her through her heart. I 
 tell you, Felix, it pinned my baby frock into the 
 wound, so that they could not part me from her till it 
 was cut away. 
 
 " Of course every one was filled with horror. No- 
 body claimed poor me, the baby. But the battalion, 
 the Montgomery Battalion, it was, which had, by mis- 
 chance, killed my mother, adopted me as their child. 
 I was voted ' Fille du Regiment.' They paid an as- 
 sessment annually, which the colonel expended for me. 
 A kind old woman nursed me." 
 
 " She was your Betsy Myers," interrupted I. 
 
 " And when I was old enough I was sent into Con- 
 necticut, to the best of schools. This lasted till I was 
 sixteen. Fortunately for me, perhaps, the Montgom- 
 ery Battalion then dissolved. I was finding it hard to 
 answer the colonel's annual letters. I had my living 
 to earn, — it was best I should earn it. I declined a 
 proposal to go out as a missionary. I had no call. I 
 answered one of Miss Beecher's appeals for Western 
 teachers. Most of my life since has been a school- 
 ma'am's. It has had ups and downs. But I have al- 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 255 
 
 ways been proud that the Public was my godfather; 
 and, as you know," she said, u I have trusted the 
 Public well. I have never been lonely, wherever I 
 went. I tried to make myself of use. Where I was 
 of use I found society. The ministers have been kind 
 to me. I always offered my services in the Sunday 
 schools and sewing-rooms. The school committees 
 have been kind to me. They are the Public's high 
 chamberlains for poor girls. I have written for the 
 journals. I won one of Sartain's hundred-dollar 
 prizes — " 
 
 44 And I another," interrupted I. 
 
 " When I was very poor, I won the first prize for 
 an essay on bad boys." 
 
 "And I the second," answered I. 
 
 44 1 think I know one bad boy better than he 
 knows himself," said she. But she went on. 44 I 
 watched with this poor Miss Stillingfleet the night she 
 died. This absurd 4 distribution ' had got hold of her, 
 and she would not be satisfied till she had transferred 
 that strange ticket, No. 2,973, to me, writing the in- 
 dorsement which you have heard. I had had a long- 
 ing to visit New York and Hoboken again. This 
 ticket seemed to me to beckon me. I had monev 
 enough to come, if I would come cheaply. I wrote 
 to my father's business partner, and enclosed a note to 
 his only sister. She is Mrs. Mason. She asked me, 
 coldly enough, to her house. Old Mr. Grills always 
 liked me, — he offered me escort and passage as far aa 
 
256 THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC. 
 
 Troy or Albany. I accepted his proposal, and you 
 know the rest." 
 
 When I told Fausta my story, she declared I made 
 it up as I went along. When she believed it, — as 
 she does believe it now, — she agreed with me in de- 
 claring that it was not fit that two people thus joined 
 should ever be parted. Nor have we been, ever ! 
 
 She made a hurried visit at Mrs. Mason's. She pre- 
 pared there for her wedding. On the 1st of Novem- 
 ber we went into that same church which was our first 
 home in New York; and that dear old raven-man 
 
 made us 
 
 one! 
 
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET 
 
 By J. THOMAS DAREAGH (late C. C. S.). 
 
 [This paper was first published in the " Galaxy," in 1866. J 
 
 I see that an old chum of mine is publishing bits of 
 confidential Confederate History in Harper's Maga- 
 zine. It would seem to be time, then, for the pivots 
 to be disclosed on which some of the wheelwork of 
 the last six years has been moving. The science of 
 history, as I understand it, depends on the timely dis- 
 closure of such pivots, which are apt to be kept out 
 of view while things are moving. 
 
 I was in the Civil Service at Richmond. Why I 
 was there, or what I did, is nobody's affair. And I 
 do not in this paper propose to tell how it happened 
 that I was in New York in October, 1864, on confi- 
 dential business. Enough that I was there, and that 
 it was honest business. That business done, as far as 
 it could be with the resources intrusted to me, I pre- 
 pared to return home. And thereby hangs this tale, 
 and, as it proved, the fate of the Confederacy. 
 
 For, of course, I wanted to take presents home to 
 my family. Very little question was there what these 
 presents should be, — for I had no boys nor brothers. 
 
258 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSED. 
 
 The women of the Confederacy had one want, which 
 overtopped all others. They could make coffee out 
 of beans ; pins they had from Columbus ; straw hats 
 they braided quite well with their own fair hands ; 
 snuff we could get better than you could in " the old 
 concern." But we had no hoop-skirts, ■*— skeletons, 
 we used to call them. No ingenuity had made them. 
 No bounties had forced them. The Bat, the Grey- 
 hound, the Deer, the Flora, the J. C. Cobb, the Ya- 
 runa, and the Fore-and-Aft all took in cargoes of them 
 for us in England. But the Bat and the Deer and the 
 Flora were seized by the blockaders, the J. C. Cobb 
 sunk at sea, the Fore-and-Aft and the Greyhound 
 were set fire to by their own crews, and the Varuna 
 (our Varuna) was never heard of. Then the State 
 of Arkansas offered sixteen townships of swamp land 
 to the first manufacturer who would exhibit five gross 
 of a home-manufactured article. But no one ever 
 competed. The first attempts, indeed, were put to an 
 end, when Schofield crossed the Blue Lick, and de- 
 stroyed the dams on Yellow Branch. The conse- 
 quence was, that people's crinoline collapsed faster 
 than the Confederacy did, of which that brute of a 
 Grierson said there was never anything of it but the 
 outside. 
 
 Of course, then, I put in the bottom of my new 
 large trunk in New York, not a u duplex elliptic," 
 for none were then made, but a " Belmonte," of 
 thirty springs, for my wife. I bought, for her more 
 
THE SKELETON EN THE CLOSET. 259 
 
 common wear, a good " Belle-Fontaine. " For Sarah 
 and Susy each, I got two " Dumb-Belles." For Aunt 
 Eunice and Aunt Clara, maiden sisters of my wife, 
 who lived with us after Winchester fell the fourth 
 time, I got the " Scotch Harebell," two of each. For 
 my own mother I got one u Belle of the Prairies" and 
 one " Invisible Combination Gossamer." I did not 
 forget good old Mamma Chloe and Mamma Jane. 
 For them I got substantial cages, without names. 
 With these, tied in the shapes of figure eights in the 
 bottom of my trunk, as I said, I put in an assorted 
 cargo of dry-goods above, and, favored by a pass, and 
 Major Mulford's courtesy on the flag-of-truce boat, I 
 arrived safely at Richmond before the autumn closed. 
 
 I was received at home with rapture. But when, 
 the next morning, I opened my stores, this became 
 rapture doubly enraptured. Words cannot tell the 
 silent delight with which old and young, black and 
 white, surveyed these fairy-like structures, yet unbro- 
 ken and unmended. 
 
 Perennial summer reigned that autumn day in that 
 reunited family. It reigned the next day, and the 
 next. It would have reigned till now if the Bel- 
 montes and the other things would last as long as the 
 advertisements declare ; and, what is more, the Con- 
 federacy would have reigned till now, President Davis 
 and General Lee ! but for that great misery, which al! 
 families understand, which culminated in our great 
 misfortune. 
 
260 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 
 
 I was up in the cedar closet one day, looking for an 
 old parade cap of mine, which I thought, though it 
 was my third best, might look better than my second 
 best, which I had worn ever since my best was lost at 
 the Seven Pines. I say I was standing on the lower 
 shelf of the cedar closet, when, as I stepped along in 
 the darkness, my right foot caught in a bit of wire, 
 my left did not give way in time, and I fell, with a 
 small wooden hat-box in my hand, full on the floor. 
 The corner of the hat-box struck me just below the 
 second frontal sinus, and I fainted away. 
 
 When I came to myself I was in the blue chamber ; 
 I had vinegar on a brown paper on my forehead ; the 
 room was dark, and I found mother sitting by me, 
 glad enough indeed to hear my voice, and to know 
 that I knew her. It was some time before I fully un- 
 derstood what had happened. Then she brought me 
 a cup of tea, and I, quite refreshed, said I must go to 
 the office. 
 
 '* Office, my child ! " said she. u Your leg is bro- 
 ken above the ankle ; you will not move these six 
 weeks. Where do you suppose you are ? " 
 
 Till then I had. no notion that it was five minutes 
 since I went into the closet. When she told me the 
 time, five in the afternoon, I groaned in the lowest 
 depths. For, in my breast pocket in that innocent 
 coat, which I could now see lying on the window-seat, 
 were the duplicate despatches to Mr. Mason, for which, 
 late the night before, I had got the Secretary's signa* 
 
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 261 
 
 hire. They were to go at ten that morning to Wil- 
 mington, by the Navy Department's special messenger. 
 I had taken them to insure care and certainty. I had 
 worked on them till midnight, and they had not been 
 signed till near one o'clock. Heavens and earth, and 
 here it was five o'clock ! The man must be half-way 
 to Wilmington by this time. I sent the doctor for 
 Lafarge, my clerk. Lafarge did his prettiest in rush- 
 ing to the telegraph. But no ! A freshet on the 
 Chowan River, or a raid by Foster, or something, or 
 nothing, had smashed the telegraph wire for that night. 
 And before that despatch ever reached Wilmington the 
 navy agent was in the offing in the Sea Maid. 
 
 " But perhaps the duplicate got through ? " No, 
 breathless reader, the duplicate did not get through. 
 The duplicate was taken by Faucon, in the Ino. I 
 saw it last week in Dr. Lieber's hands, in Washington. 
 Well, all I know is, that if the duplicate had got 
 through, the Confederate government would have 
 had in March a chance at eighty-three thousand two 
 hundred and eleven muskets, which, as it was, never left 
 Belgium. So much for my treading into that blessed 
 piece of wire on the shelf of the cedar closet, up stairs. 
 
 " What was the bit of wire ? " 
 
 Well, it was not telegraph wire. If it had been, it 
 would have broken when it was not wanted to. 
 Don't you know what it was ? Go up in your own 
 cedar cioset, and step about in the dark, and see what 
 brings up round your ankles. Julia, poor child, cried 
 
262 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 
 
 her eyes out about it. When I got well enough to sit 
 up, and as soon as I could talk and plan with her, she 
 brought down seven of these old things, antiquated 
 Belmontes and Simplex Elliptics, and horrors without 
 a name, and she made a pile of them in the bedroom, 
 and asked me in the most penitent way what she 
 should do with them. 
 
 " You can't burn them," said she ; " fire won't 
 touch them. If you bury them in the garden, they 
 come up at the second raking. If you give them to 
 the servants, they say, ' Thank-e, missus,' and throw 
 them in the back passage. If you give them to the poor, 
 they throw them into the street in front, and do not say, 
 'Thank-e.' Sarah sent seventeen over to the sword 
 factory, and the foreman swore at the boy, and told 
 him he would floer him within an inch of his life if he 
 brought any more of his sauce there ; and so — and 
 so," sobbed the poor child, "I just rolled up these 
 wretched things, and laid them in the cedar closet, 
 hoping, you know, that some day the government 
 would want something, and would advertise for them. 
 You know what a good thing I made out of the bottle 
 corks." 
 
 In fact, sne had sold our bottle corks for four thou- 
 sand two hundred and sixteen dollars of the first issue. 
 We afterward bought two umbrellas and a corkscrew 
 with the money. 
 
 Well, I did not scold Julia. It was certainly no 
 fault of hers that I was walking on the lower shelf of 
 
^HE SKELETON EN THE CLOSET. 263 
 
 her cedar closet. I told her to make a parcel of the 
 things, and the first time we went to drive I hove the 
 whole shapeless heap into the river, without saying 
 mass for them. 
 
 But let no man think, or no woman, that this was 
 the end of troubles. As I look back on that winter, 
 and on the spring of 1865 (I do not mean the steel 
 spring), it seems to me only the beginning. I got out 
 on crutches at last ; I had the office transferred to 
 my house, so that Lafarge and Hepburn could work 
 there nights, and communicate with me when I could 
 not go out ; but mornings I hobbled up to the De- 
 partment, and sat with the Chief, and took his orders. 
 Ah me ! shall I soon forget that damp winter morn- 
 ing, when we all iiad such hope at the office. One or 
 two of the army fellows looked in at the window as 
 they ran by, and we knew that they felt well ; and 
 though I would not ask Old Wick, as we had nick- 
 named the Chief, what was in the wind, I knew the 
 time had come, and that the lion meant to break the 
 net this time. I made an excuse to go home earlier 
 than usual ; rode down to the house in the Major's 
 ambulance, I remember ; and hopped in, to surprise 
 Julia with the good news, only to find that the whole 
 house was in that quiet uproar which shows that some- 
 thing bad has happened of a sudden. 
 
 u What is it, Chloe ? " said I, as the old wench 
 rushed by me with a bucket of water. 
 
 "Poor Mr. George, I 'fraid he 's dead, sah I M 
 
264 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 
 
 And there he really was, — dear handsome, bright 
 George Schaff, — the delight of all the nicest girls of 
 Richmond ; he lay there on Aunt Eunice's bed on the 
 ground floor, where they had brought him in. He 
 was not dead, — and he did not die. He is making 
 cotton in Texas now. But he looked mighty near it 
 then. " The deep cut in his head " was the worst I 
 then had ever seen, and the blow confused everything. 
 When McGregor got round, he said it was not hope- 
 less ; but we were all turned out of the room, and 
 with one thing and another he got the boy out of the 
 swoon, and somehow it proved his head was not broken. 
 
 No, but poor George swears to this day it were bet- 
 ter it had been, if it could only have been broken the 
 right way and on the right field. For that evening 
 we heard that everything had gone wrong in the sur- 
 prise. There we had been waiting for one of those 
 early fogs, and at last the fog had come. And Jubal 
 Early had, that morning, pushed out every man he 
 had, that could stand ; and they lay hid for three mor- 
 tal hours, within I don't know how near the picket 
 line at Fort Powhatan, only waiting for the shot which 
 John Streight's party were to fire at Wilson's Wharf, as 
 soon as somebody on our left centre advanced in force 
 on the enemy's line above Turkey Island stretching 
 across to Nansemond. I am not in the War Depart- 
 ment, and I forget whether he was to advance en bar- 
 bette or by ichelon of infantry. But he was to advance 
 somehow, and he knew how ; and when he advanced, 
 
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 265 
 
 you see, that other man lower down was to rush in, 
 and as soon as Early heard him he was to surprise 
 Powhatan, you see ; and then, if you have understood 
 me, Grant and Butler and the whole rig of them 
 would have been cut off from their supplies, would 
 have had to fight a battle for which they were not pre- 
 pared, with then right made into a new left, and their 
 old left unexpectedly advanced at an oblique angle 
 from their centre, and would not that have been the 
 end of them ? 
 
 Well, that never happened. And the reason it 
 never happened was, that poor George Schaff, with 
 the last fatal order for this man whose name I forget 
 (the same who was afterward killed the day before 
 High Bridge), undertook to save time by cutting 
 across behind my house, from Franklin to Green Streets. 
 You know how much time he saved, — they waited all 
 day for that order. George told me afterwards that 
 the last thing he remembered was kissing his hand to 
 Julia, who sat at her bedroom window. He said he 
 thought she might be the last woman he ever saw this 
 side of heaven. Just after that, it must have been, — 
 his horse — that white Messenger colt old Williams bred 
 — went over like a log, and poor George was pitched 
 fifteen feet head-foremost against a stake there was in 
 that lot. Julia saw the whole. She rushed out with 
 all the women, and had just brought him in when I 
 got home. And that was the reason that the great 
 promised combination of December, 1864, never came 
 
 off at all. 
 
 12 
 
266 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 
 
 I walked out in the lot, after McGregor turned me 
 out of the chamber, to see what they had done with 
 the horse. There he lay, as dead as old Messenger 
 himself. His neck was broken. And do you think, I 
 looked to see what had tripped him. I supposed it 
 was one of the boys' bandy holes. It was no such 
 thing. The poor wretch had tangled his hind legs in 
 one of those infernal hoop-wires that Chloe had thrown 
 out in the piece when I gave her her new ones. 
 Though I did not know it then, those fatal scraps of 
 rusty steel had broken the neck that day of Robert 
 Lee's army. 
 
 That time I made a row about it. I felt too badly 
 to go into a passion. But before the women went to 
 bed, — they were all in the sitting-room together, — I 
 talked to them like a father. I did not swear. I had 
 got over that for a while, in that six weeks on my back. 
 But I did say the old wires were infernal things, and 
 that the house and premises must be made rid of them. 
 The aunts laughed, — though I was so serious, — and 
 tipped a wink to the girls. The girls wanted to laugh, 
 but were afraid to. And then it came out that the 
 aunts had sold their old hoops, tied as tight as they 
 could tie them, in a great mass of rags. They had 
 made a fortune by the sale, — I am sorry to say it 
 was in other rags, but the rags they got were new in- 
 stead of old, — it was a real Aladdin bargain. The 
 new rags had blue backs, and were numbered, some 
 as high as fifty dollars. The rag-man had been in a 
 
THE SKELETON EN THE CLOSET 267 
 
 hurry, and had not known what made the things so 
 heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all 
 was fair with a pedler, — and I own I was glad the 
 things were well out of Richmond. But when 1 
 said 1 thought it was a mean trick, Lizzie and Sarah 
 looked demure, and asked what in the world I would 
 have them do with the old things. Did I expect them 
 to walk down to the bridge themselves with great par- 
 cels to throw into the river, as I had done by Julia's ? 
 Of course it ended, as such things always do, by my 
 taking the work on my own shoulders. I told them 
 to tie up all they had in as small a parcel as they could, 
 and bring them to me. 
 
 Accordingly, the next day, I found a handsome 
 brown paper parcel, not so very large, considering, 
 and strangely square, considering, which the minxes 
 had put together and left on my office table. They 
 had a great frolic over it. They had not spared red 
 tape nor red wax. Very official it looked, indeed, 
 and on the left-hand corner, in Sarah's boldest and 
 most contorted hand, was written, " Secret service." 
 We had a great laugh over their success. And, in- 
 deed, I should have taken it with me the next time I 
 went down to the Tredegar, but that I happened to 
 dine one evening with young Norton of our gallant 
 little navy, and a very curious thing he told us. 
 
 We were talking about the disappointment of thf> 
 combined land attack. I did not tell what upset poor 
 SchafFs horse ; indeed, I do not think those navy mec 
 
268 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 
 
 knew the details of the disappointment. O'Brien had 
 told me, in confidence, what I have written down proba- 
 bly for the first time now. But we were speaking, in 
 a general way, of the disappointment. Norton finished 
 his cigar rather thoughtfully, and then said : " Well, 
 fellows, it is not worth while to put in the newspapers, 
 but what do you suppose upset our grand naval attack, 
 the day the Yankee gunboats skittled down the river 
 so handsomely ? " 
 
 " Why," said Allen, who is Norton's best-beloved 
 friend, " they say that you ran away from them as fast 
 as they did from you." 
 
 "Do they?" said Norton, grimly. "If you say 
 that, I '11 break your head for you. Seriously, men," 
 continued he, " that was a most extraordinary thing. 
 You know I was on the ram. But why she stopped 
 when she stopped I knew as little as this wineglass 
 does ; and Callender himself knew no more than I. 
 We had not been hit. We were all right as a trivet for 
 all we knew, when, skree ! she began blowing off steam, 
 and we stopped dead, and began to drift down under 
 those batteries. Callender had to telegraph to the little 
 Mosquito, or whatever Walter called his boat, and the 
 spunky little thing ran down and got us out of the 
 scrape. Walter did it right well ; if he had had a 
 monitor under him he could not have done better. 
 Of course we all rushed to the engine-room. What 
 in thunder were they at there ? All they knew wa? 
 they could get no water into her boiler. 
 
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 269 
 
 " Now, fellows, this is the end of the storj. Ag 
 soon as the boilers cooled off they worked all right on 
 those supply pumps. May I be hanged if they had 
 not sucked in, somehow, a long string of yarn, and 
 cloth, and, if you will believe me, a wire of some 
 woman's crinoline. And that French folly of a sham 
 Empress cut short that day the victory of the Confed- 
 erate navy, and old Davis himself can't tell when we 
 shall have such a chance again ! " 
 
 Some of the men thought Norton lied. But I 
 never was with him when he did not tell the truth. I 
 did not mention, however, what I had thrown into the 
 water the last time I had gone over to Manchester. 
 And I changed my mind about Sarah's " secret-ser- 
 vice " parcel. It remained on my table. 
 
 That was the last dinner our old club had at the 
 Spotswood, I believe. The spring came on, and the 
 plot thickened. We did our work in the office as 
 well as we could ; I can speak for mine, and if other 
 people — but no matter for that ! The 3d of April 
 came, and the fire, and the right wing of Grant's 
 army. I remember I was glad then that I had moved 
 the office down to the house, for we were out of the 
 way there. Everybody had run away from the De- 
 partment ; and so, when the powers that be took pos- 
 session, my little sub-bureau was unmolested for some 
 days. I improved those days as well as I could, — 
 burning carefully what was to be burned, and hiding 
 carefully what was to be hidden. One thing that 
 
270 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 
 
 happened then belongs to this story. As I was at 
 work on the private bureau, — it was really a bureau, 
 as it happened, one I had made Aunt Eunice give up 
 when I broke my leg, — I came, to my horror, on a 
 neat parcel of coast-survey maps of Georgia, Alabama, 
 and Florida. They were not the same Maury stole 
 when he left the National Observatory- but they were 
 like them. Now I was perfectly sure that on that fa- 
 tal Sunday of the flight I had sent Lafarge for these, 
 that the President might use them, if necessary, in his 
 escape. When I found them, I hopped out and called 
 for Julia, and asked her if she did not remember his 
 coming for them. " Certainly," she said, " it was the 
 first I knew of the danger. Lafarge came, asked for 
 the key of the office, told me all was up, walked in, 
 and in a moment was gone." 
 
 And here, on the file of April 3d, was Lafarge's 
 line to me : — 
 
 "" I got the secret-service parcel myself, and have 
 put it in the President's own hands. I marked it, 
 4 Gulf coast,' as you bade me." 
 
 What could Lafarge have given to the President ? 
 Not the soundings of Hatteras Bar. Not the working- 
 drawings of the first monitor. I had all these under 
 my hand. Could it be, — u Julia, what did we do with 
 that stuff of Sarah's that she marked secret service? " 
 
 As I live, we had sent the girls' old hoops to the 
 President in his flight. 
 
 And when the next day we read how he used them, 
 
THE SKELETON Etf THE CLOSET. 271 
 
 and how Pritchard arrested him, we thought if he 
 had only had the right parcel he would have found 
 the way to Florida. 
 
 That is really the end of this memoir. But I should 
 not have written it, but for something that happened 
 just now on the piazza. You must know, some of 
 us wrecks are up here at the Berkeley baths. My uncle 
 has a place near here. Here came to-day John Sis- 
 son, whom I have not seen since Memminger ran and 
 took the clerks with him. Here we had before, both 
 the Richards brothers, the great paper men, you 
 know, who started the Edgerly Works in Prince 
 George's County, just after the war began. After 
 dinner, Sisson and they met on the piazza. Queerly 
 enough, they had never seen each other before, though 
 they had used reams of Richards's paper in corre- 
 spondence with each other, and the treasury had used 
 tons of it in the printing of bonds and bank-bills. Of 
 course we all fell to talking of old times, — old they 
 seem now, though it is not a year ago. " Richards," 
 said Sisson at last, " what became of that last order of 
 ours for water-lined, pure linen government-callen- 
 dered paper of surete f We never got it, and I never 
 knew why." 
 
 " Did you think Kilpatrick got it ? " said Richards, 
 rather gruffly. 
 
 " None of your chaff, Richards. Just tell where 
 the paper went, for in the loss of that lot of paper, as 
 it proved, the bottom dropped out of the Treasury 
 
272 THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. 
 
 tub. On that paper was to have been printed our 
 new issue of ten per cent, convertible, you know, and 
 secured on that up-country cotton, which Kirby Smith 
 had above the Big Raft. I had the printers ready for 
 near a month waiting for that paper. The plates 
 were really very handsome. I '11 show you a proof 
 when we go up stairs. Wholly new they were, made 
 by some Frenchmen we got, who had worked for the 
 Bank of France. I was so anxious to have the thing 
 well done, that I waited three weeks for that paper, 
 and, by Jove, I waited just too long. We never got 
 one of the bonds off, and that was why we had no 
 money in March." 
 
 Richards threw his cigar away. I will not say he 
 swore between his teeth, but he twirled his chair 
 round, brought it down on all fours, both his elbows 
 on his knees and his chin in both hands. 
 
 44 Mr. Sisson," said he, " if the Confederacy had 
 lived, I would have died before I ever told what be- 
 came of that order of yours. But now I have nc 
 secrets, I believe, and I care for nothing. I do not 
 know now how it happened. We knew it was at* 
 extra nice job. And we had it on an elegant little 
 new French Fourdrinier, which cost us more than we 
 shall ever pay. The pretty thing ran like oil the day 
 before. That day, I thought all the devils were in it. 
 The more power we put on the more the rollers 
 screamed ; and the less we put on, the more sulkily 
 the jade stopped. I tried it myself every way ; back 
 current, I tried ; forward current ; high feed ; low 
 
THE SKELETON TM THE CLOSET. 273 
 
 treed , I tried it on old stock, I tried it on new ; and, 
 Mr. Sisson, I would have made better paper in a cof- 
 fee-mill ! We drained off every drop of water. We 
 washed the tubs free from size. Then my brother, 
 there, worked all night with the machinists, taking 
 down the frame and the rollers. You would not be- 
 lieve it, sir, but that little bit of wire," — and he took 
 out of his pocket a piece of this hateful steel, which 
 poor I knew so well by this time, — " that little bit of 
 wire had passed in from some hoop-skirt, passed the 
 pickers, passed the screens, through all the troughs* 
 up and down through what we call the lacerators, 
 and had got itself wrought in, where, if you know a 
 Fourdrinier machine, you may have noticed a brass 
 ring riveted to the cross-bar, and there this cursed lit- 
 tie knife — for you see it was a knife, by that time — 
 had been cutting to pieces the endless wire web every 
 time the machine was started. You lost your bonds* 
 Mr. Sisson, because some Yankee woman cheated one 
 of my rag-men." 
 
 On that story I came up stairs. Poor Aunt Eunice ! 
 She was the reason I got no salary on the 1st of April. 
 I thought I would warn other women by writing down 
 tne story. 
 
 That fatal present of mine, in those harmless hour- 
 glass parcels, was the ruin of the Confederate navy, 
 army, ordnance, and treasury ; and it led to the cap- 
 ture of the poor President too. 
 
 But, Heaven be praised, no one shall say that my 
 office did not do its duty ! 
 
CHEISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS. 
 
 {"When my friends of the Boston Daily Advertiser asked ma 
 iast year to contribute to their Christmas number, I was very 
 glad to recall this scrap of Mr. Ingham's memoirs. 
 
 For in most modern Christmas stories I have observed that the 
 rich wake up of a sudden to befriend the poor, and that the 
 moral is educed from such compassion. The incidents in this 
 story show, what all life shows, that the poor befriend the rich 
 as truly as the rich the poor : that, in the Christian life, each 
 needs all. 
 
 I have been asked a dozen times how far the story is true. 
 Of course no such series of incidents has ever taken place in thia 
 order in four or five hours. But there is nothing told here which 
 has not parallels perfectly fair in my experience or in that of any 
 working minister.] 
 
 I always give myself a Christmas present. 
 
 And on this particular year the present was a carol 
 party, which is about as good fun, all things con- 
 senting kindly, as a man can have. 
 
 Many things must consent, as will appear. First of 
 all, there must be good sleighing ; and second, a fine 
 night for Christmas eve. Ours are not the carollings 
 
CHEISTMA& WAITS IN BOSTON. 275 
 
 of your poor shivering little East Angles or South Mer- 
 cians, where they have to plod round afoot in countries 
 which do not know what a sleigh-ride is. 
 
 I had asked Harry to have sixteen of the best voices 
 in the chapel school to be trained to five or six good 
 carols, without knowing why. We did not care to 
 disappoint them if a February thaw setting in on the 
 24th of December should break up the spree before it 
 began. Then I had told Howland that he must re 
 serve for me a span of good horses, and a sleigh that I 
 could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed. 
 Howland is always good about such things, knew what 
 the sleigh was for, having done the same in other 
 years, and made the span four horses of his own ac- 
 cord, because the children would like it better, and 
 " it would be no difference to him." Sunday night, 
 as the weather nymphs ordered, the wind hauled 
 round to the northwest and everything froze hard. 
 Monday night, things moderated and the snow began 
 to fall steadily, — so steadily ; and so Tuesday night 
 the Metropolitan people gave up their unequal con 
 test, all good men and angels rejoicing at their dis- 
 comfiture, and only a few of the people in the very 
 lowest Bolgie being ill-natured enough to grieve. 
 And thus it was, that by Thursday evening was one hard 
 compact roadway from Copp's Hill to the Bone-burn- 
 er's Gehenna, fit for good men and angels to ride over, 
 without jar, without noise, and without fatigue to horse 
 or man. So it was that when I came down with Ly- 
 
276 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 cidas to the chapel at seven o'clock, I found Harry 
 had gathered there his eight pretty girls and his eight 
 jolly boys, and had them practising for the last time, 
 
 " Carol, carol, Christians, 
 Carol joyfully ; 
 Carol for the coming 
 Of Christ's nativity." 
 
 1 think the children had got inkling of what was 
 coming, or perhaps Harry had hinted it to their moth- 
 ers. Certainly they were warmly dressed, and when, 
 fifteen minutes afterwards, Howland came round him- 
 self with the sleigh, he had put in as many rugs and 
 bear-skins as if he thought the children were to be 
 taken new-born from their respective cradles. Great 
 was the rejoicing as the bells of the horses rang be- 
 neath the chapel windows, and Harry did not get his 
 last da capo for his last carol. Not much matter in- 
 deed, for they were perfect enough in it before mid- 
 night. 
 
 Lycidas and I tumbled in on the back seat, each 
 with a child in his lap to keep us warm ; I flanked 
 by Sam Perry, and he by John Rich, both of the 
 mercurial age, and therefore good to do errands, 
 Harry was in front somewhere flanked in like wise, 
 and the other children lay in miscellaneously between, 
 Hke sardines when you have first opened the box 
 I had invited Lycidas, because, besides being my best 
 friend, he is the best fellow in the world, and so de- 
 serves the best Christmas eve can give him. Under 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 277 
 
 (he full moon, on the still white snow, with sixteen chil- 
 dren at the happiest, and with the blessed memories of 
 the best the world has ever had, there can be nothing 
 better than two or three such hours. 
 
 " First, driver, out on Commonwealth Avenue. 
 That will tone down the horses. Stop on the left af- 
 ter you have passed Fairfield Street." So we dashed 
 up to the front of Haliburton's palace, where he was 
 keeping his first Christmas tide. And the children, 
 whom Harry had hushed down for a square or two, 
 broke forth with good full voice under his strong lead 
 in 
 
 " Shepherd of tender sheep," 
 
 singing with all that unconscious pathos with which 
 children do sing, and starting the tears in your eyes in 
 the midst of your gladness. The instant the horses' 
 bells stopped their voices began. In an instant more 
 we saw Haliburton and Anna run to the window and 
 pull up the shades, and in a minute more faces at all 
 the windows. And so the children sung through 
 Clement's old hymn. Little did Clement think of bells 
 and snow, as he taught it in his Sunday school there 
 in Alexandria. But perhaps to-day, as they pin up the 
 laurels and the palm in the chapel at Alexandria, they 
 are humming the words, not thinking of Clement 
 more than he thought of us. As the children closed 
 with 
 
 " Swell the triumphant song 
 To Christ, our King," 
 
278 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 Haliburton came running out, and begged me to bring 
 them in. But I told him, " No," as soon as 1 could 
 hush their shouts of " Merry Christmas " ; that we 
 had a long journey before us, and must not alight by 
 the way. And the children broke out with 
 
 " Hail to the night, 
 Hail to the day/' 
 
 rather a favorite, — quicker and more to the childish 
 taste perhaps than the other, — and with another 
 " Merry Christmas " we were off again. 
 
 Off, the length of Commonwealth Avenue, to where 
 it crosses the Brookline branch of the Mill-Dam, 
 dashing along with the gayest of the sleighing-parties 
 as we came back into town, up Chestnut Street, 
 through Louisburg Square ; ran the sleigh into a 
 bank on the slope of Pinckney Street in front of Wal- 
 ter's house ; and, before they suspected there that 
 any one had come, the children were singing 
 
 " Carol, carol, Christians, 
 Carol joyfully." 
 
 Kisses flung from the window ; kisses flung back 
 from the street. " Merry Christmas " again with * 
 good- will, and then one of the girls began, 
 
 " When Anna took the baby, 
 And pressed his lips to hers," 
 
 and all of them fell in so cheerily. O dear me I it is a 
 scrap of old Ephrem the Syrian, if they did but know 
 it I And when, after this, Harry would fain have drivei? 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 279 
 
 on, because two carols at one house was the rule, how 
 the little witches begged that they might sing just one 
 song more there, because Mrs. Alexander had been so 
 kind to them, when she showed them about the Ger- 
 man stitches. And then up the hill and over to the 
 North End, and as far as we could get the horses up 
 into Moon Court, that they might sing to the Italian 
 image-man who gave Lucy the boy and dog in plaster, 
 when she was sick in the spring. For the children 
 had, you know, the choice of where they would go, and 
 they select their best friends, and will be more apt to 
 remember the Italian image-man than Chrysostom 
 himself, though Chrysostom should have " made a few 
 remarks " to them seventeen times in the chapel. 
 Then the Italian image-man heard for the first time in 
 
 his life 
 
 " Now is the time of Christmas come," 
 
 and 
 
 " Jesus in his babes abiding." 
 
 And then we came up Hanover Street and stopped 
 under Mr. Gerry's chapel, where they were dressing; 
 the walls with their evergreens, and gave them 
 
 " Hail to the night, 
 Hail to the day " ; 
 
 and so down State Street and stopped at the Ad- 
 vertiser office, because, when the boys gave their " Lit- 
 erary Entertainment," Mr. Hale put in their adver- 
 tisement for nothing, and up in the old attic there the 
 compositors were relieved to hear 
 
280 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 " Nor war nor battle sound," 
 
 and 
 
 " The waiting world was still " ; 
 
 bo that even the leading editor relaxed from his grav- 
 ity, and the " In-General " man from his more serious 
 views, and the Daily the next morning wished every- 
 body a merry Christmas with even more unction, and 
 resolved that in coming years it would have a supple- 
 ment, large enough to contain all the good wishes. 
 So away again to the houses of confectioners who had 
 given the children candy, — to Miss Simonds's house, 
 because she had been so good to them in school, — to 
 the palaces of millionnaires who had prayed for these 
 children with tears if the children only knew it, — to 
 Dr. Frothingham's in Summer Street, I remember, 
 where we stopped because the Boston Association of 
 Ministers met here, — and out on Dover Street Bridge, 
 that the poor chair-mender might hear our carols sung 
 once more before he heard them better sung in an 
 other world where nothing needs mending. 
 " King of glory, king of peace ! " 
 " Hear the song, and see the Star ! " 
 
 " Welcome be thou, heavenly King ! " 
 " Was not Christ our Saviour 1 " 
 
 and all the others, rung out with order or without 
 order, breaking the hush directly as the horses' bells 
 were stilled, thrown into the air with all the glad- 
 ness of childhood, selected sometimes as Harry 
 happened to think best for the hearers, but more 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 281 
 
 often as the jubilant and uncontrolled enthusiasm of 
 the children bade them break out in the most joyous, 
 least studied, and purely lyrical of all. O, we went to 
 twenty places that night, I suppose ! We went to the 
 grandest places in Boston, and we went to the mean- 
 est. Everywhere they wished us a merry Christmas, 
 and we them. Everywhere a little crowd gathered 
 round us, and then we dashed away far enough to 
 gather quite another crowd ; and then back, perhaps, 
 not sorry to double on our steps if need were, and 
 leaving every crowd with a happy thought of 
 
 " The star, the manger, and the Child ! " 
 
 At nine we brought up at my house, D Street, three 
 doors from the corner, and the children picked their 
 very best for Polly and my six little girls to hear, and 
 then for the first time we let them jump out and run 
 in. Polly had some hot oysters for them, so that the 
 frolic was crowned with a treat. There was a Christ- 
 mas cake cut into sixteen pieces, wiiich they took home 
 to dream upon ; and then hoods and muffs on again, 
 and by ten o'clock, or a little after, we had all the girls 
 and all the little ones at their homes. Four of the. big 
 boys, our two flankers and Harry's right and left 
 hand men, begged that they might stay till the last 
 moment. They could walk back from the stable, and 
 " rather walk than not, indeed." To which we as- 
 sented, having gained parental permission, as we left 
 youngei sisters in their respective homes. 
 
282 CHRISTMAS WAIT3 IN BOSTON. 
 
 n. 
 
 Lyeidas and I both thought, as we went into 
 these modest houses, to leave the children, to say 
 they had been good and to wish a " Merry Christmas" 
 ourselves to fathers, mothers, and to guardian aunts, 
 that the welcome of those homes was perhaps the 
 best part of it all. Here was the great stout sailor- 
 boy whom we had not seen since he came back from 
 sea. He was a mere child when he left our school 
 years on years ago, for the East, on board Perry's 
 vessel, and had been round the world. Here was 
 brave Mrs. Masury. I had not seen her since her 
 mother died. " Indeed, Mr. Ingham, I got so used to 
 watching then, that I cannot sleep well yet o' nights ; 
 I wish you knew some poor creature that wanted me 
 to-night, if it were only in memory of Bethlehem." 
 " You take a deal of trouble for the children," said 
 Campbell, as he crushed my hand in his ; " but you 
 know they love you, and you know I would do as 
 much for you and yours," — which I knew was true. 
 6 * What can I send to your children ? " said Dalton, 
 who was finishing sword-blades. (Ill wind was Fort 
 Sumter, but it blew good to poor Dalton, whom it set 
 up in the world with his sword-factory.) " Here 's an 
 old-fashioned tape-measure for the girl, and a Sheffield 
 wimble for the boy. What, there is no boy? Let 
 one of the girls have it then ; it will count one more 
 present for her." And so he pressed his brown* 
 
CHEISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 283 
 
 paper parcel into my hand. From every House, 
 though it were the humblest, a word of love, as sweet, 
 in truth, as if we could have heard the voice of angels 
 singing in the sky. 
 
 I bade Harry good night ; took Lycidas to his 
 lodgings, and gave his wife my Christmas wishes and 
 good night ; and, coming down to the sleigh again, gave 
 way to the feeling which I think you will all under- 
 stand, that this was not the time to stop, but just the 
 time to begin. For the streets were stiller now, and 
 tiie moon brighter than ever, if possible, and the bless- 
 ings of these simple people and of the grand people, 
 and of the very angels in heaven, who are not bound 
 to the misery of using words when they have anything 
 worth saying, — all these wishes and blessings were 
 f;ound me, all the purity of the still winter night, 
 and I did n't want to lose it all by going to bed to 
 sleep. So I put the boys all together, where they 
 could chatter, took one more brisk turn on the two 
 avenues, and then, passing through Charles Street, I 
 believe I was even thinking of Cambridge, I noticed 
 the lights in Woodhull's house, and, seeing they were 
 up, thought I would make Fanny a midnight call. 
 She came to the door herself. I asked if she were 
 waiting for Santa Claus, but saw in a moment that I 
 must not joke with her. She said she had hoped I 
 was her husband. In a minute was one of those con- 
 trasts which make life, life. God puts us into the 
 world that we may try them and be tried by them 
 
284 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 Poor Fanny's mother had been blocked up on the 
 Springfield train as she was coming on to Christmas. 
 The old lady had been chilled through, and was here 
 in bed now with pneumonia. Both Fanny s children 
 had been ailing when she came, and this morning the 
 doctor had pronounced it scarlet fever. Fanny had 
 not undressed herself since Monday, nor slept, I 
 thought, in the same time. So while we had been 
 singing carols and wishing merry Christmas, the poor 
 child had been waiting, and hoping that her husband 
 or Edward, both of whom were on the tramp, would 
 find for her and bring to her the model nurse, who 
 had not yet appeared. But at midnight this unknown 
 sister had not arrived, nor had either of the men 
 returned. When I rang, Fanny had hoped I was one 
 of them. Professional paragons, dear reader, are shy 
 of scarlet fever. I told the poor child that it was 
 better as it was. I wrote a line for Sam Perry to take 
 to his aunt, Mrs. Masury, in which I simply said: 
 " Dear mamma, I have found the poor creature who 
 wants you to-night. Come back in this carriage." I 
 bade him take a hack at Gates's, where they were all 
 up waiting for the assembly to be done at Papanti's. 
 I sent him over to Albany Street ; and really as I sat 
 there trying to soothe Fanny, it seemed to me less 
 time than it has taken to dictate this little story about 
 her, before Mrs. Masury rang gently, and I left them, 
 having made Fanny promise that she would consecrate 
 the day, which at that moment was born, by trusting 
 
CHKISTMAS WAITS EN BOSTON. 285 
 
 (rod, by going to bed and going to sleep, knowing 
 that her children were in much better hands than 
 hers. As I passed out of the hall, the gas-light fell 
 on a print of Correggio's Adoration, where Woodhull 
 had himself written years before 
 
 " Ut appareat iis qui in tenebris et umbra mortis positi sunt." 
 
 44 Darkness and the shadow of death " indeed, and 
 what light like the light and comfort such a woman as 
 my Mary Masury brings ! 
 
 And so, but for one of the accidents, as we call 
 them, I should have dropped the boys at the corner 
 of Dover Street, and gone home with my Christmas 
 lesson. 
 
 But it happened, as we irreverently say, — it hap- 
 pened as we crossed Park Square, so called from 
 its being an irregular pentagon of which one of the 
 sides has been taken away, that I recognized a tall 
 man, plodding across in the snow, head down, round - 
 shouldered, stooping forward in walking, with his 
 right shoulder higher than his left; and by these tokens 
 1 knew Tom Coram, prince among Boston princes. 
 Not Thomas Coram that built the Foundling Hospital, 
 though he was of Boston too ; but he was longer 
 ago. You must look for him in Addison's contribu- 
 tion to a supplement to the Spectator, — the old Spec- 
 tator, I mean, not the Thursday Spectator, which is 
 more recent. Not Thomas Coram, I say, but Tom 
 Coram, who would build a hospital to-morrow, if you 
 
286 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 showed him the need, without waiting to die first, and 
 always helps forward, as a prince should, whatever ia 
 princely, be it a statue at home, a school in Rich- 
 mond, a newspaper in Florida, a church in Exeter, a 
 steam-line to Liverpool, or a widow who wants a hun- 
 dred dollars. I wished him a merry Christmas, and 
 Mr. Howland, by a fine instinct, drew up the horses 
 as I spoke. Coram shook hands ; and, as it seldom 
 nappens that I have an empty carriage while he is on 
 foot, I asked him if I might not see him home. He 
 was glad to get in. We wrapped him up with spoils 
 of the bear, the fox, and the bison, turned the horses' 
 heads again, — five hours now since they started on 
 this entangled errand of theirs, — and gave him his 
 ride. " I was thinking of you at the moment," said 
 Coram, — " thinking of old college times, of the mys- 
 tery of language as unfolded by the Abbe Faria to 
 Edmond Dantes in the depths of the Chateau d'If. 
 T was wondering if you could teach me Japanese, if I 
 asked you to a Christmas dinner." I laughed. Japan 
 was really a novelty then, and I asked him since when 
 he had been in correspondence with the sealed country. 
 It seemed that their house at Shanghae had just sen* 
 across there their agents for establishing the first house 
 in Edomo, in Japan, under the new treaty. Everything 
 looked promising, and the beginnings were made for 
 the branch which has since become Dot and Trevilyan 
 there. Of this he had the first tidings in his letters 
 by the mail of that afternoon. John Coram, his 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 287 
 
 brother, had written to him, and had said that he 
 enclosed for his amusement the Japanese bill of par- 
 ticulars, as it had been drawn out, on which they had 
 founded their orders for the first assorted cargo ever 
 to be sent from America to Edomo. Bill of particulars 
 there was, stretching down the long tissue-paper in 
 exquisite chirography. But by some freak of the "total 
 depravity of things," the translated order for the as- 
 sorted cargo was not there. John Coram, in his care 
 to fold up the Japanese writing nicely, had left on his 
 own desk at Shanghae the more intelligible English. 
 "And so I must wait," said Tom philosophically, "till 
 the next East India mail for my orders, certain that 
 seven English houses have had less enthusiastic and 
 philological correspondents than my brother." 
 
 I said I did not see that. That I could not teach 
 him to speak the Taghalian dialects so well, that he 
 could read them with facility before Saturday. But I 
 co aid do a good deal better. Did he remember writ- 
 ing a note to old Jack Percival for me five years ago? 
 No, he remembered no such thing ; he knew Jack 
 Percival, but never wrote a note to him in his life. 
 Did he remember giving me fifty dollars, because I 
 had taken a delicate boy, whom I was going to send 
 to sea, and I was not quite satisfied with the govern- 
 ment outfit ? No, he did not remember that, which 
 was not strange, for that was a thing he was doing 
 every day, " Well, I don't care how much you re- 
 member, but the boy about whom you wrote to Jack 
 
288 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 Percival, for whose mother's ease of mind you pro- 
 vided the half-hundred, is back again, — strong, 
 straight, and well , what is more to the point, he had 
 the whole charge of Perry's commissariat on shore at 
 Yokohama, was honorably discharged out there, reads 
 Japanese better than you read English ; and if it 
 will help you at all, he shall be here at your house at 
 breakfast." For as I spoke we stopped at Ooram's 
 door. "Ingham," said Coram, "if you were not a 
 parson, I should say you were romancing." " My 
 child," said I, " I sometimes write a parable for the 
 Atlantic ; but the words of my lips are verity, as all 
 those of the Sandemanians. Go to bed ; do not even 
 dream of the Taghalian dialects ; be sure that the Japa~ 
 nese interpreter will breakfast with you, and the next 
 time you are in a scrape send for the nearest minister 
 George, tell your brother Ezra that Mr. Coram wishes 
 him to breakfast here to-morrow morning at eight 
 o'clock ; don't forget the number, Pemberton Square, 
 you know." " Yes, sir," said George ; and Thomas 
 Coram laughed, said "Merry Christmas," and we 
 parted. 
 
 It was time we were all in bed, especially these boys. 
 But glad enough am I as I write these words that the 
 meeting of Coram set us back that dropped-stitch in 
 our night's journey. There was one more delay. 
 We were sweeping by the Old State House, the boys 
 singing again, " Carol, carol, Christians," as we dashed 
 along the still streets, when I caught sight of Adams 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 289 
 
 Tcdd, and he recognized me. He had heard us sing- 
 ing when we were at the Advertiser office. Todd is 
 an old fellow-apprentice of mine, — and he is now, or 
 rather was that night, chief pressman in the Argus 
 office. I like the Argus people, — it was there that I 
 was South American Editor, now many years ago, — 
 and they befriend me to this hour. Todd hailed me, 
 and once more I stopped. " What sent you out 
 from your warm steam-boiler ? " " Steam-boiler, in- 
 deed," said Todd. " Two rivets loose, — steam-room 
 full of steam, — police frightened, — neighborhood in 
 a row, — and we had to put out the fire. She would 
 have run a week without hurting a fly, — only a little 
 puff in the street sometimes. But there we are, Ing- 
 ham. We shall lose the early mail as it stands. Sev 
 enty-eight tokens to be worked now." They always 
 talked largely of their edition at the Argus. Saw it 
 with many eyes, perhaps ; but this time, I am sure, 
 Todd spoke true. I caught his idea at once. In 
 younger and more muscular times, Todd and I had 
 worked the Adams press by that fly-wheel for full 
 five minutes at a time, as a test of strength ; and in 
 my mind's eye, I saw that he was printing his paper 
 at this moment with relays of grinding stevedores. 
 He said it was so. " But think of it to-night," said 
 he. " It is Christmas eve, and not an Irishman to 
 be hired, though one paid him ingots. Not a man 
 can stand the grind ten minutes." I knew that very 
 well from old experience, and I thanked him inwardly 
 
 13 
 
290 CHKISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 for not saying u the demnition grind," with Mantilmi. 
 " We cannot run the press half the time," said he ; 
 " and the men we have are giving out now. We 
 shall lose all our carrier delivery." " Todd," said I, 
 • 4 is this a night to be talking of ingots, or hiring, or 
 losing, or gaining ? When will you learn that Love 
 rules the court, the camp, and the Argus office. And 
 I wrote on the back of a letter to Campbell : " Come 
 to the Argus office, No. 2 Dassett's Alley, with seven 
 men not afraid to work " ; and I gave it to John and 
 Sam, bade Howland take the boys to Campbell's 
 house, — walked down with Todd to his office, — chal- 
 lenged him to take five minutes at the wheel, in mem 
 ory of old times, — made the tired relays laugh a3 
 they saw us take hold ; and then, — when I had cooled 
 off, and put on my Cardigan, — met Campbell, with 
 his seven sons of Anak, tumbling down the stairs, 
 wondering what round of mercy the parson had found 
 for them this time. I started home, knowing I should 
 now have my Argus with my coffee. 
 
 in. 
 
 And so I walked home. Better so, perhaps, aftei 
 all, than in the lively sleigh, with the tinkling bells. 
 
 " It was a calm and silent night ! — 
 
 Seven hundred years and fifty-three 
 Had Rome been growing up to might, 
 And now was ^jueen of land and seal 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 291 
 
 No sound was heard of clashing wars, — 
 Peace hrooded o'er the hushed domain ; 
 Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars 
 
 Held undisturbed their ancient reign 
 In the solemn midnight, 
 
 Centuries ago ! " 
 
 What an eternity it seemed since I started with 
 ihose children singing carols. Bethlehem, Nazareth, 
 Calvary, Rome, Roman senators, Tiberius, Paul, 
 Nero, Clement, Ephrem, Ambrose, and all the singers, 
 — Vincent de Paul, and all the loving wonder- 
 workers, Milton and Herbert and all the carol-writers, 
 Luther and Knox and all the prophets, — what a 
 world of people had been keeping Christmas with 
 Sam Perry and Lycidas and Harry and me ; and 
 here were Yokohama and the Japanese, the Daily 
 Argus and its ten million tokens and their readers, — 
 poor Fanny Woodhull and her sick mother there, 
 keeping Christmas too I For a finite world, these are 
 a good many " waits " to be singing in one poor fel- 
 low's ears on one Christmas-tide. 
 
 " 'T was in the calm and silent night ! — 
 The senator of haughty Rome, 
 Impatient urged his chariot's flight, 
 From lordly revel, rolling home. 
 Triumphal arches gleaming swell 
 
 His breast, with thoughts of boundless sway 
 What recked the Roman what befell 
 A paltry province far away, 
 Id the solemn midnight, 
 Centuries ago ! 
 
292 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 " Within that province far away 
 
 Went plodding home a weary boor ; 
 A streak of light before him lay, 
 
 Fallen through a half-shut stable door 
 Across his path. He passed, — for naught 
 
 Told what was going on within ; 
 How keen the stars, his only thought, 
 The air how calm and cold and thin, 
 In the solemn midnight, 
 
 Centuries ago ! " 
 
 " Streak of light " — Is there a light in Lycidas's 
 room ? They not in bed ! That is making a night of 
 it I Well, there are few hours of the day or night 
 when I have not been in Lycidas's room, so I let my- 
 self in by the night-key he gave me, ran up the stairs, 
 — it is a horrid seven-storied, first-class lodging-house. 
 For my part, I had as lief live in a steeple. Two 
 flights I ran up, two steps at a time, — I was younger 
 then than I am now, — pushed open the door which 
 was ajar, and saw such a scene of confusion as I nevei 
 saw in Mary's over-nice parlor before. Queer ! I 
 remember the first thing that I saw was wrong waa 
 a great ball of white German worsted on the floor. 
 Her basket was upset. A great Christmas-tree lay 
 across the rug, quite too high for the room ; a large 
 sharp-pointed Spanish clasp-knife was by it, with 
 which they had been lopping it ; there were two 
 immense baskets of white papered presents, both up- 
 set ; but what frightened me most was the centre- 
 table. Three or four handkerchiefs on it, — towels, 
 napkins, I know not what, — all brown and red and 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 293 
 
 almost black with blood ! I turned, heart-sick, to 
 look into the bedroom, — and I really had a sense of 
 relief when I saw somebody. Bad enough it was, 
 however. Lycidas, but just now so strong and well, 
 lay pale and exhausted on the bloody bed, with the 
 clothing removed from his right thigh and leg, while 
 over him bent Mary and Morton. I learned after- 
 wards that poor Lycidas, while trimming the Christ- 
 mas-tree, and talking merrily with Mary and Morton, 
 
 — who, by good luck, had brought round his presents 
 late, and was staying to tie on glass balls and apples, 
 
 — had given himself a deep and dangerous wound 
 with the point of the unlucky knife, and had lost a 
 great deal of blood before the hemorrhage could be 
 controlled. Just before I entered, the stick tourniquet 
 which Morton had improvised had slipped in poor 
 Mary's unpractised hand, at the moment he was about 
 to secure the bleeding artery, and the blood followed 
 in such a gush as compelled him to give his whole 
 attention to stopping its flow. He only knew my 
 entrance by the " Ah, Mr. Ingham," of the frightened 
 Irish girl, who stood useless behind the head of the bed. 
 
 " O Fred," said Morton, without looking up, " 1 
 am glad you are here." 
 
 " And what can I do for you ? " 
 
 u Some whiskey, — first of all." 
 
 " There are two bottles," said Mary, who was hold- 
 ing the candle, — " in the cupboard behind his dresa 
 ing- glass." 
 
294 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 I took Bridget with me, struck a light in the dress- 
 ing-room (how she blundered about the match), and 
 found the cupboard door locked ! Key doubtless in 
 Mary's pocket, — probably in pocket of " another 
 dress." I did not ask. Took my own bunch, willed 
 tremendously that my account-book drawer key should 
 govern the lock, and it did. If it had not, I should 
 have put my fist through the panels. Bottle of bed- 
 bug poison ; bottle marked " bay rum " ; another bottle 
 with no mark ; two bottles of Saratoga water. " Set 
 them all on the floor, Bridget." A tall bottle of 
 Cologne. Bottle marked in MS. What in the 
 world is it ? " Bring that candle, Bridget." " Eau 
 destill^e. Marron, Montreal." What in the world 
 did Lycidas bring distilled water from Montreal for? 
 And then Morton's clear voice in the other room, 
 " As quick as you can, Fred." " Yes ! in one moment. 
 Put all these on the floor, Bridget." Here they are 
 at last. " Bourbon whiskey." " Corkscrew, Bridget." 
 
 u Indade, sir, and where is it ? " " Where ? I 
 don't know. Run down as quick as you can, and 
 bring it. His wife cannot leave him." So Bridget 
 ran, and the first I heard was the rattle as she pitched 
 down the. last six stairs of the first flight headlong. 
 Let us hope she has not broken her leg. I meanwhile 
 am driving a silver pronged fork into the Bourbon 
 corks, and the blade of my own penknife on the other 
 side. 
 
 " Now, Fred," from George within. (We all call 
 
CHKISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 295 
 
 Morton " George.") " Yes, in one moment, ,, 1 
 replied. Penknife blade breaks off, fork pulls ri^rht 
 out, two crumbs of cork come with it. Will that girl 
 never come ? 
 
 I turned round; I found a goblet on the wash- 
 stand ; I took Lycidas's heavy clothes-brush, and 
 knocked off the neck of the bottle. Did you ever do 
 it, reader, with one of those pressed glass bottles they 
 make now ? It smashed like a Prince Rupert's drop 
 in my hand, crumbled into seventy pieces, — a nasty 
 smell of whiskey on the floor, — and I, holding just 
 the hard bottom of the thing with two large spikes 
 running worthless up into the air. But I seized the 
 goblet, poured into it what was left in the bottom, and 
 carried it in to Morton as quietly as I could. He bade 
 me give Lycidas as much as he could swallow ; then 
 showed me how to substitute my thumb for his, and 
 compress the great artery. When he was satisfied that 
 he could trust me, he began his work again, silently ; 
 just speaking what must be said to that brave Mary, 
 who seemed to have three hands because he needed 
 them. When all was secure, he glanced at the 
 ghastly white face, with beads of perspiration on the 
 forehead and upper lip, laid his finger on the pulse, 
 and said : " We will have a little more whiskey. No, 
 Mary, you are overdone already ; let Fred bring it.'" 
 The truth was that poor Mary was almost as white as 
 Lycidas. She would not faint, — that was the only 
 reason she did not, — and at the moment I wondered 
 
296 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 that she did not fall. I believe George and 1 were both 
 expecting it, now the excitement was over. He called 
 her Mary and me Fred, because we were all together 
 every day of our lives. Bridget, you see, was still 
 nowhere. 
 
 So I retired for my whiskey again, — to attack. thai 
 other bottle. George whispered quickly as I went, 
 " Bring enough, — bring the bottle." Did he want 
 the bottle corked? Would that Kelt ever come up 
 stairs ? I passed the bell-rope as I went into the 
 dressing-room, and rang as hard as I could ring. I 
 took the other bottle, and bit steadily with my teeth 
 at the cork, only, of course, to wrench the end of it 
 off. George called me, and I stepped back. " No," 
 said he, " bring your whiskey." 
 
 Mary had just rolled gently back on the floor. I 
 went again in despair. But I heard Bridget's step 
 this time. First flight, first passage ; second flight, 
 second passage. She ran in in triumph at length, 
 with a screw-driver ! 
 
 " No ! " I whispered, — " no. The crooked thing 
 you draw corks with," and I showed her the bottle 
 again. u Find one somewhere and don't come back 
 without it." So she vanished for the second time. 
 
 " Frederic ! " said Morton. I think he never called 
 me so before. Should I risk the clothes-brush again ? 
 I opened Lycidas's own drawers, — papers, boxes, 
 everything in order, — not a sign of a tool. 
 
 "Frederic!" "Yes," I said. But why did J 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS EN BOSTON. 297 
 
 «ay " Yes " ? " Father of Mercy, tell me what to 
 <io." 
 
 And my mazed eyes, dim with tears, — did you ever 
 shed tears from excitement ? — fell on an old razor-strop 
 of those days of shaving, made by C. Whittaker, 
 SHEFFIELD. The " Sheffield "stood in black Lit 
 ters out from the rest like a vision. They make cork 
 screws in Sheffield too. If this Whittaker had only 
 made a corkscrew ! And what is a u Sheffield wim 
 ble ? " 
 
 Hand in my pocket, — brown paper parcel. 
 
 " Where are you, Frederic ? " " Yes," said I, foi 
 the last time. Twine off! brown paper off. And ] 
 learned that the " Sheffield wimble " was one of 
 those things whose name you never heard before, 
 which people sell you in Thames Tunnel, where a 
 hoof-cleaner, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a cork- 
 screw fold into one handle. 
 
 " Yes," said I, again. " Pop," said the cork 
 " Bubble, bubble, bubble," said the whiskey. Bottle 
 in one hand, full tumbler in the other, I walked in. 
 George poured half a tumblorful down Lycidas's 
 throat that time. Nor do I dare say how much he 
 poured down afterwards. I found that there was need 
 of it, from what he said of the pulse, when it was all 
 uver. I guess Mary had some, too. 
 
 This was the turning-point. He was exceedingly 
 weak, and we sat by him in turn through the night, 
 giving, at short intervals, stimulants and such food as 
 
 13* 
 
298 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 he could swallow easily ; for I remember Morton was 
 very particular not to raise his head more than we 
 could help. But there was no real danger after this. 
 
 As we turned away from the house on Christmas 
 morning, — I to preach and he to visit his patients, — 
 he said to me, " Did you make that whiskey ? " 
 
 " No," said I, " but poor Dod Dalton had to furnish 
 the corkscrew." 
 
 And I went down to the chapel to preach. The 
 sermon had been lying ready at home on my desk, — 
 and Polly had brought it round to me, — for there had 
 been no time for me to go from Lycidas's home to D 
 Street and to return. There was the text, all as it 
 was the day before : — 
 
 " They helped every one his neighhor, and every one said to Ms 
 brother Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the gold- 
 smith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the 
 anvil." 
 
 And there were the pat illustrations, as I had fin 
 ished them yesterday; of the comfort Mary Magda- 
 len gave Joanna, the court lady ; and the comfort 
 the court lady gave Mary Magdalen, after the media- 
 tor of a new covenant had mediated between them ; 
 how Simon the Cyrenian, and Joseph of Arima- 
 thea, and the beggar Bartimeus comforted each other, 
 gave each other strength, common force, com-fort, 
 when the One Life flowed in all their veins ; how 
 on board the ship the Tent-Maker proved to be Cap- 
 tain, and the Centurion learned his duty from hi* 
 
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 299 
 
 Prisoner, and how they " All came safe to shore," be- 
 cause the New Life was there. But as I preached, 1 
 caught Frye's eye. Frye is always critical ; and I 
 said to myself, " Frye would not take his illustrations 
 from eighteen hundred years ago." And I saw dear 
 old Dod Dalton trying to keep awake, and Campbell 
 hard asleep after trying, and Jane Masury looking 
 round to see if her mother did not come in ; and Ezra 
 Sheppard, looking, not so much at me, as at the win- 
 dow beside me, as if his thoughts were the other side 
 of the world. And I said to them all, " O, if I could 
 tell you, my friends, what every twelve hours of my 
 life tells me, — of the way in which woman helps wo- 
 man, and man helps man, when only the ice is broken, 
 — how we are all rich so soon as we find out that we 
 are all brothers, and how we are all in want, unless 
 we can call at any moment for a brother's hand, — 
 then I could make you understand something, in the 
 lives you lead every day, of what the New Covenant, 
 the New Commonwealth, the New Kingdom is to bo." 
 
 But I did not dare tell Dod Dalton what Campbell 
 had been doing for Todd, nor did I dare tell Camp- 
 bell by what unconscious arts old Dod had been help- 
 ing Lycidas. Perhaps the sermon would have been 
 better had I done so. 
 
 But, when we had our tree in the evening at home, 
 1 did tell all this story to Poiiy and the bairns, and I 
 gave Alice her measuring-tape, — precious with a spot 
 of Lycidas's blood, — and Bertha her Sheffield wimble 
 
300 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON. 
 
 " Papa," said old Clara, who is the next child, M all 
 the people gave presents, did not they, as they did 
 in the picture in your study ? " 
 
 " Yes," said I, " though they did not all know they 
 were giving them." 
 
 " Why do they not give such presents every day ? " 
 said Clara. 
 
 u O child," I said, " it is only for thirty-six hours 
 of the three hundred and sixty-five days, that all peo- 
 ple remember that they are all brothers and sisters, 
 and those are the hours that we call, therefore, Christ- 
 mas eve and Christmas day." 
 
 " And when they always remember it," said Bertha, 
 " it will be Christmas all the time ! What fun ! " 
 
 " What fun, to be sure ; but Clara, what is in the 
 picture ? " 
 
 " Why, an old woman has brought eggs to the baby 
 in the manger, and an old man has brought a sheep. 
 I suppose they all brought what they had." 
 
 " I suppose those who came from Sharon brought 
 roses," said Bertha. And Alice, who is eleven, and 
 goes to the Lincoln School, and therefore knows every- 
 thing, said, " Yes, and the Damascus people brought 
 Damascus wimbles." 
 
 " This is certain," said Polly, " that nobody tried to 
 give a straw, but the straw, if he really gave it, carried 
 a blessing." 
 
EDWARD EVERETT HALE'S WRITINGS. 
 
 Ten Times One is Ten. New edition, enlarged. i6mo. (Paper, 25 cents) $1.00 
 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ; Ten Christmas Stories. With 
 
 Frontispiece by Darley. i6mo 1.25 
 
 Ups and Downs. An Every-day Novel. i6mo 1.50 
 
 In His Name. Square i8mo 1.0c 
 
 " Paper covers 25 
 
 (i " A new Holiday Edition, with one hundred and twenty- 
 nine Illustrations by G. P. Jacomb-Hood. 161110 1.25 
 
 Our New Crusade. i6mo 1.00 
 
 The Man Without a Country, and Other Tales. i6mo. (Paper covers, 
 
 50 cents) 1.25 
 
 The Man Without a Country. Illustrated. Square i2mo .... 1.50 
 
 " " " School Edition. Paper covers . . . .30 
 
 Sybaris and Other Homes. 161110 1.25 
 
 How to Do It. 161110 ^ 1.00 
 
 His Level Best. i6mo 1.25 
 
 Gone to Texas; or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Pullman. i6mo 1.00 
 What Career 1 ? Ten Papers on the Choice of a Vocation and the Use 
 
 of Time 1.25 
 
 Mrs. Merriam's Scholars. i6mo : . 1.00 
 
 Crusoe in New York, and Other Tales. i6mo 1.00 
 
 Seven Spanish Cities. i6mo 1.25 
 
 Stories of War, told by Soldiers. Collected and edited by E. E. Hale. 
 
 i6mo 1. 00 
 
 Stories of the Sea, told by Sailors. Collected and edited by E. E. 
 
 Hale. i6mo 1.00 
 
 Stories of Adventure, told by Adventurers. Collected and edited by 
 
 E. E. Hale. i6mo 1.00 
 
 Stories of Discovery, told by Discoverers. Collected and edited by 
 
 E. E. Hale. i6mo 1.00 
 
 Stories of Invention, told by Inventors. Collected and edited by 
 
 E. E. Hale. i6mo 1.00 
 
 Franklin in France. First Period. 8vo 3.00 
 
 " " Second Period. 8vo 3 00 
 
 Mr. Tangier's Vacations. i6mo. (Paper covers, 50 cents) 1.25 
 
 Four and Five. A Story. i6mo 1.00 
 
 The New Harry and Lucy. Story of the Boston of To-day. i6mo . 1.25 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS . . . BOSTON. 
 
IN HIS NAME. 
 
 A Story of the Waldenses, Seven Hundred Years Ago. 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 By EDWARD E. HALE. 
 l6mo, cloth, 129 illustrations by G. P. Jacomb-Hood, 
 PRICE, ©1.95. 
 
 It deals with the Waldenses, reads like a troubadour song, as the late 
 Mrs. Jackson said, and fully deserves the holiday dress in which it is now 
 brought out. The book will delight all readers who understand integrity, 
 purity, and good-sense; it is historically accurate; it is a jewel, both as a 
 work of art and in ethics; and it is good holiday reading. — Beacon. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 . BOSTON.