THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE

by Oliver Wendell Holmes

PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 

The reader of to-day will not forget, I trust, that it is nearly aquarter of a century since these papers were written. Statements whichwere true then are not necessarily true now. Thus, the speed of thetrotting horse has been so much developed that the record of the yearwhen the fastest time to that date was given must be very considerablyaltered, as may be seen by referring to a note on page 49 of the"Autocrat. " No doubt many other statements and opinions might be more orless modified if I were writing today instead of having written beforethe war, when the world and I were both more than a score of yearsyounger. 

These papers followed close upon the track of the "Autocrat. " They hadto endure the trial to which all second comers are subjected, which isa formidable ordeal for the least as well as the greatest. ParadiseRegained and the Second Part of Faust are examples which are enoughto warn every one who has made a jingle fair hit with his arrow of thedanger of missing when he looses "his fellow of the selfsame flight. "

There is good reason why it should be so. The first juice that runs ofitself from the grapes comes from the heart of the fruit, and tastesof the pulp only; when the grapes are squeezed in the press the flowbetrays the flavor of the skin. If there is any freshness in theoriginal idea of the work, if there is any individuality in the methodor style of a new author, or of an old author on a new track, it willhave lost much of its first effect when repeated. Still, there have notbeen wanting readers who have preferred this second series of papers tothe first. The new papers were more aggressive than the earlier ones, and for that reason found a heartier welcome in some quarters, and metwith a sharper antagonism in others. It amuses me to look back on someof the attacks they called forth. Opinions which do not excite thefaintest show of temper at this time from those who do not accept themwere treated as if they were the utterances of a nihilist incendiary. Itrequired the exercise of some forbearance not to recriminate. 

How a stray sentence, a popular saying, the maxim of some wise man, aline accidentally fallen upon and remembered, will sometimes help onewhen he is all ready to be vexed or indignant! One day, in the time whenI was young or youngish, I happened to open a small copy of "Tom Jones, "and glance at the title-page. There was one of those little engravingsopposite, which bore the familiar name of "T. Uwins, " as I remember it, and under it the words "Mr. Partridge bore all this patiently. " Howmany times, when, after rough usage from ill-mannered critics, my ownvocabulary of vituperation was simmering in such a lively way that itthreatened to boil and lift its lid and so boil over, those words havecalmed the small internal effervescence! There is very little inthem and very little of them; and so there is not much in a linchpinconsidered by itself, but it often keeps a wheel from coming off andprevents what might be a catastrophe. The chief trouble in offering suchpapers as these to the readers of to-day is that their heresieshave become so familiar among intelligent people that they have toocommonplace an aspect. All the lighthouses and land-marks of beliefbear so differently from the way in which they presented themselves whenthese papers were written that it is hard to recognize that we and ourfellow-passengers are still in the same old vessel sailing the sameunfathomable sea and bound to the same as yet unseen harbor. 

But after all, there is not enough theology, good or bad, inthese papers to cause them to be inscribed on the Protestant IndexExpurgatorius; and if they are medicated with a few questionable dogmasor antidogmas, the public has become used to so much rougher treatments, that what was once an irritant may now act as an anodyne, and the readermay nod over pages which, when they were first written, would have wakedhim into a paroxysm of protest and denunciation. 

November, 1882. 

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

This book is one of those which, if it lives for a number of decades, and if it requires any Preface at all, wants a new one every tenyears. The first Preface to a book is apt to be explanatory, perhapsapologetic, in the expectation of attacks from various quarters. If thebook is in some points in advance of public opinion, it is natural thatthe writer should try to smooth the way to the reception of his more orless aggressive ideas. He wishes to convince, not to offend, --to obtaina hearing for his thought, not to stir up angry opposition in thosewho do not accept it. There is commonly an anxious look about a firstPreface. The author thinks he shall be misapprehended about this or thatmatter, that his well-meant expressions will probably be invidiouslyinterpreted by those whom he looks upon as prejudiced critics, and if hedeals with living questions that he will be attacked as a destructiveby the conservatives and reproached for his timidity by the noisierradicals. The first Preface, therefore, is likely to be the weakest partof a work containing the thoughts of an honest writer. 

After a time the writer has cooled down from his excitement, --has gotover his apprehensions, is pleased to find that his book is still read, and that he must write a new Preface. He comes smiling to his task. Howmany things have explained themselves in the ten or twenty or thirtyyears since he came before his untried public in those almost plaintiveparagraphs in which he introduced himself to his readers, --for thePreface writer, no matter how fierce a combatant he may prove, comes onto the stage with his shield on his right arm and his sword in his lefthand. 

The Professor at the Breakfast-Table came out in the "Atlantic Monthly"and introduced itself without any formal Preface. A quarter of a centurylater the Preface of 1882, which the reader has just had laid beforehim, was written. There is no mark of worry, I think, in that. Oldopponents had come up and shaken hands with the author they had attackedor denounced. Newspapers which had warned their subscribers against himwere glad to get him as a contributor to their columns. A great changehad come over the community with reference to their beliefs. Christianbelievers were united as never before in the feeling that, after all, their common object was to elevate the moral and religious standard ofhumanity. But within the special compartments of the great Christianfold the marks of division have pronounced themselves in the mostunmistakable manner. As an example we may take the lines ofcleavage which have shown themselves in the two great churches, theCongregational and the Presbyterian, and the very distinct fissure whichis manifest in the transplanted Anglican church of this country. Recentcircumstances have brought out the fact of the great change in thedogmatic communities which has been going on silently but surely. The licensing of a missionary, the transfer of a Professor fromone department to another, the election of a Bishop, --each of thesemovements furnishes evidence that there is no such thing as an air-tightreservoir of doctrinal finalities. 

The folding-doors are wide open to every Protestant to enter all theprivileged precincts and private apartments of the various exclusivereligious organizations. We may demand the credentials of everycreed and catechise all the catechisms. So we may discuss the gravestquestions unblamed over our morning coffee-cups or our evening tea-cups. There is no rest for the Protestant until he gives up his legendaryanthropology and all its dogmatic dependencies. 

It is only incidentally, however, that the Professor at theBreakfast-Table handles matters which are the subjects of religiouscontroversy. The reader who is sensitive about having his fixed beliefsdealt with as if they were open to question had better skip the pageswhich look as if they would disturb his complacency. "Faith" is the mostprecious of possessions, and it dislikes being meddled with. It means, of course, self-trust, --that is, a belief in the value of our ownopinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a religion, of a Being, a beliefquite independent of any evidence that we can bring to convince a juryof our fellow beings. Its roots are thus inextricably entangled withthose of self-love and bleed as mandrakes were said to, when pulled upas weeds. Some persons may even at this late day take offence at a fewopinions expressed in the following pages, but most of these passageswill be read without loss of temper by those who disagree with them, andby-and-by they may be found too timid and conservative for intelligentreaders, if they are still read by any. 

BEVERLY FARM, MASS. , June 18, 1891. O. W. H. 

THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

 What he said, what he heard, and what he saw. 

I

I intended to have signalized my first appearance by a certain largestatement, which I flatter myself is the nearest approach to a universalformula, of life yet promulgated at this breakfast-table. It wouldhave had a grand effect. For this purpose I fixed my eyes on a certaindivinity-student, with the intention of exchanging a few phrases, andthen forcing my court-card, namely, The great end of being. --I willthank you for the sugar, --I said. --Man is a dependent creature. 

It is a small favor to ask, --said the divinity-student, --and passed thesugar to me. 

--Life is a great bundle of little things, --I said. 

The divinity-student smiled, as if that were the concluding epigram ofthe sugar question. 

You smile, --I said. --Perhaps life seems to you a little bundle of greatthings?

The divinity-student started a laugh, but suddenly reined it back with apull, as one throws a horse on his haunches. --Life is a great bundle ofgreat things, --he said. 

(NOW, THEN!) The great end of being, after all, is. . . . 

Hold on!--said my neighbor, a young fellow whose name seems to be John, and nothing else, --for that is what they all call him, --hold on! theSculpin is go'n' to say somethin'. 

Now the Sculpin (Cottus Virginianus) is a little water-beast whichpretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pretext, hangs aboutthe piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the baitand hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, itexposes an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface sofull of spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists havenot been able to count them without quarrelling about the number, andthat the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touchthem, and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoeson, to cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet. 

When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's exclamation, I looked roundthe table with curiosity to see what it meant. At the further end of itI saw a head, and a--a small portion of a little deformed body, mountedon a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a fair level enoughfor him to get at his food. His whole appearance was so grotesque, Ifelt for a minute as if there was a showman behind him who would pullhim down presently and put up Judy, or the hangman, or the Devil, orsome other wooden personage of the famous spectacle. I contrived to losethe first of his sentence, but what I heard began so:

--by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in and the folks used to comedown from the tents on section and Independence days with their pails toget water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston; went to school in Bostonas long as the boys would let me. --The little man groaned, turned, asif to look around, and went on. --Ran away from school one day to seePhillips hung for killing Denegri with a logger-head. That was in flipdays, when there were always two three loggerheads in the fire. I'm aBoston boy, I tell you, --born at North End, and mean to be buried onCopp's Hill, with the good old underground people, --the Worthylakes, and the rest of 'em. Yes, --up on the old hill, where they buried CaptainDaniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet deep, to keep him safe fromthe red-coats, in those old times when the world was frozen up tightand there was n't but one spot open, and that was right over Faneuilall, --and black enough it looked, I tell you! There 's where my bonesshall lie, Sir, and rattle away when the big guns go off at the NavyYard opposite! You can't make me ashamed of the old place! Full crookedlittle streets;--I was born and used to run round in one of 'em--

--I should think so, --said that young man whom I hear them call"John, "--softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinkingin a half-whisper, evidently. --I should think so; and got kinked up, turnin' so many corners. --The little man did not hear what was said, butwent on, --

--full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened, andkept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and freespeech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead men, --Idon't care how broad their streets are, nor how high their steeples!

--How high is Bosting meet'n'-house?--said a person with black whiskersand imperial, a velvet waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, anda diamond pin so very large that the most trusting nature might confessan inward suggestion, --of course, nothing amounting to a suspicion. Forthis is a gentleman from a great city, and sits next to the landlady'sdaughter, who evidently believes in him, and is the object of hisespecial attention. 

How high?--said the little man. --As high as the first step of the stairsthat lead to the New Jerusalem. Is n't that high enough?

It is, --I said. --The great end of being is to harmonize man with theorder of things, and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may beso still. But who shall tune the pitch-pipe? Quis cus-(On the whole, asthis quotation was not entirely new, and, being in a foreign language, might not be familiar to all the boarders, I thought I would not finishit. )

--Go to the Bible!--said a sharp voice from a sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-elbowed, strenuous-looking woman in a black dress, appearing asif it began as a piece of mourning and perpetuated itself as a bit ofeconomy. 

You speak well, Madam, --I said;--yet there is room for a gloss orcommentary on what you say. "He who would bring back the wealth of theIndies must carry out the wealth of the Indies. " What you bring awayfrom the Bible depends to some extent on what you carry to it. --BenjaminFranklin! Be so good as to step up to my chamber and bring me down thesmall uncovered pamphlet of twenty pages which you will find lying underthe "Cruden's Concordance. " [The boy took a large bite, which left avery perfect crescent in the slice of bread-and-butter he held, anddeparted on his errand, with the portable fraction of his breakfast tosustain him on the way. ]

--Here it is. "Go to the Bible. A Dissertation, etc. , etc. By J. J. Flournoy. Athens, Georgia, 1858. "

Mr. Flournoy, Madam, has obeyed the precept which you have judiciouslydelivered. You may be interested, Madam, to know what are theconclusions at which Mr. J. J. Flournoy of Athens, Georgia, has arrived. You shall hear, Madam. He has gone to the Bible, and he has come backfrom the Bible, bringing a remedy for existing social evils, which, ifit is the real specific, as it professes to be, is of great interest tohumanity, and to the female part of humanity in particular. It is whathe calls TRIGAMY, Madam, or the marrying of three wives, so that "goodold men" may be solaced at once by the companionship of the wisdom ofmaturity, and of those less perfected but hardly less engaging qualitieswhich are found at an earlier period of life. He has followed yourprecept, Madam; I hope you accept his conclusions. 

The female boarder in black attire looked so puzzled, and, in fact, "allabroad, " after the delivery of this "counter" of mine, that I left herto recover her wits, and went on with the conversation, which I wasbeginning to get pretty well in hand. 

But in the mean time I kept my eye on the female boarder to see whateffect I had produced. First, she was a little stunned at havingher argument knocked over. Secondly, she was a little shocked at thetremendous character of the triple matrimonial suggestion. Thirdly. --Idon't like to say what I thought. Something seemed to have pleased herfancy. Whether it was, that, if trigamy should come into fashion, therewould be three times as many chances to enjoy the luxury of saying, "No!" is more than I, can tell you. I may as well mention that B. F. Came to me after breakfast to borrow the pamphlet for "a lady, "--one ofthe boarders, he said, --looking as if he had a secret he wished to berelieved of. 

--I continued. --If a human soul is necessarily to be trained up in thefaith of those from whom it inherits its body, why, there is the end ofall reason. If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth withits own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no presumption infavor of any particular belief arises from the fact of our inheritingit. Otherwise you would not give the Mahometan a fair chance to become aconvert to a better religion. 

The second thing would be to depolarize every fixed religious idea inthe mind by changing the word which stands for it. 

--I don't know what you mean by "depolarizing" an idea, --said thedivinity-student. 

I will tell you, --I said. --When a given symbol which represents athought has lain for a certain length of time in the mind, it undergoesa change like that which rest in a certain position gives to iron. Itbecomes magnetic in its relations, --it is traversed by strange forceswhich did not belong to it. The word, and consequently the idea itrepresents, is polarized. 

The religious currency of mankind, in thought, in speech, and in print, consists entirely of polarized words. Borrow one of these from anotherlanguage and religion, and you will find it leaves all its magnetismbehind it. Take that famous word, O'm, of the Hindoo mythology. Even apriest cannot pronounce it without sin; and a holy Pundit would shut hisears and run away from you in horror, if you should say it aloud. Whatdo you care for O'm? If you wanted to get the Pundit to look at hisreligion fairly, you must first depolarize this and all similar wordsfor him. The argument for and against new translations of the Biblereally turns on this. Skepticism is afraid to trust its truths indepolarized words, and so cries out against a new translation. I think, myself, if every idea our Book contains could be shelled out of its oldsymbol and put into a new, clean, unmagnetic word, we should have somechance of reading it as philosophers, or wisdom-lovers, ought to readit, --which we do not and cannot now any more than a Hindoo can read the"Gayatri" as a fair man and lover of truth should do. When society hasonce fairly dissolved the New Testament, which it never has done yet, itwill perhaps crystallize it over again in new forms of language. 

I did n't know you was a settled minister over this parish, --said theyoung fellow near me. 

A sermon by a lay-preacher may be worth listening--I replied, calmly. --It gives the parallax of thought and feeling as they appear to theobservers from two very different points of view. If you wish to getthe distance of a heavenly body, you know that you must take twoobservations from remote points of the earth's orbit, --in midsummer andmidwinter, for instance. To get the parallax of heavenly truths, youmust take an observation from the position of the laity as well asof the clergy. Teachers and students of theology get a certain look, certain conventional tones of voice, a clerical gait, a professionalneckcloth, and habits of mind as professional as their externals. Theyare scholarly men and read Bacon, and know well enough what the "idolsof the tribe" are. Of course they have their false gods, as all men thatfollow one exclusive calling are prone to do. --The clergy have playedthe part of the flywheel in our modern civilization. They have neversuffered it to stop. They have often carried on its movement, whenother moving powers failed, by the momentum stored in their vast body. Sometimes, too, they have kept it back by their vis inertia, when itswheels were like to grind the bones of some old canonized errorinto fertilizers for the soil that yields the bread of life. But themainspring of the world's onward religious movement is not in them, norin any one body of men, let me tell you. It is the people that makesthe clergy, and not the clergy that makes the people. Of course, theprofession reacts on its source with variable energy. --But there neverwas a guild of dealers or a company of craftsmen that did not need sharplooking after. 

Our old friend, Dr. Holyoke, whom we gave the dinner to some timesince, must have known many people that saw the great bonfire in HarvardCollege yard. 

--Bonfire?--shrieked the little man. --The bonfire when Robert Calef'sbook was burned?

The same, --I said, --when Robert Calef the Boston merchant's book wasburned in the yard of Harvard College, by order of Increase Mather, President of the College and Minister of the Gospel. You remember theold witchcraft revival of '92, and how stout Master Robert Calef, traderof Boston, had the pluck to tell the ministers and judges what a set offools and worse than fools they were--

Remember it?--said the little man. --I don't think I shall forget it, as long as I can stretch this forefinger to point with, and see what itwears. There was a ring on it. 

May I look at it?--I said. 

Where it is, --said the little man;--it will never come off, till itfalls off from the bone in the darkness and in the dust. 

He pushed the high chair on which he sat slightly back from the table, and dropped himself, standing, to the floor, --his head being only alittle above the level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles his sticks, hetook a few steps from his place, --his motions and the deadbeat of themisshapen boots announcing to my practised eye and ear the malformationwhich is called in learned language talipes varus, or invertedclub-foot. 

Stop! stop!--I said, --let me come to you. 

The little man hobbled back, and lifted himself by the left arm, withan ease approaching to grace which surprised me, into his high chair. I walked to his side, and he stretched out the forefinger of his righthand, with the ring upon it. The ring had been put on long ago, andcould not pass the misshapen joint. It was one of those funeral ringswhich used to be given to relatives and friends after the decease ofpersons of any note or importance. Beneath a round fit of glass was adeath's head. Engraved on one side of this, "L. B. AEt. 22, "--on theother, "Ob. 1692"

My grandmother's grandmother, --said the little man. --Hanged for a witch. It does n't seem a great while ago. I knew my grandmother, and lovedher. Her mother was daughter to the witch that Chief Justice Sewallhanged and Cotton Mather delivered over to the Devil. --That was Salem, though, and not Boston. No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Bostonmerchant, it was that blew them all to--

Never mind where he blew them to, --I said; for the little man wasgetting red in the face, and I did n't know what might come next. 

This episode broke me up, as the jockeys say, out of my squareconversational trot; but I settled down to it again. 

--A man that knows men, in the street, at their work, human nature inits shirt-sleeves, who makes bargains with deacons, instead of talkingover texts with them, a man who has found out that there are plenty ofpraying rogues and swearing saints in the world, --above all, who hasfound out, by living into the pith and core of life, that all of theDeity which can be folded up between the sheets of any human book is tothe Deity of the firmament, of the strata, of the hot aortic flood ofthrobbing human life, of this infinite, instantaneous consciousness inwhich the soul's being consists, --an incandescent point in the filamentconnecting the negative pole of a past eternity with the positive poleof an eternity that is to come, --that all of the Deity which any humanbook can hold is to this larger Deity of the working battery of theuniverse only as the films in a book of gold-leaf are to the broadseams and curdled lumps of ore that lie in unsunned mines and virginplacers, --Oh!--I was saying that a man who lives out-of-doors, amonglive people, gets some things into his head he might not find in theindex of his "Body of Divinity. "

I tell you what, --the idea of the professions' digging a moat roundtheir close corporations, like that Japanese one at Jeddo, on the bottomof which, if travellers do not lie, you could put Park Street Church andlook over the vane from its side, and try to stretch another such spireacross it without spanning the chasm, --that idea, I say, is prettynearly worn out. Now when a civilization or a civilized custom fallsinto senile dementia, there is commonly a judgment ripe for it, and itcomes as plagues come, from a breath, --as fires come, from a spark. 

Here, look at medicine. Big wigs, gold-headed canes, Latinprescriptions, shops full of abominations, recipes a yard long, "curing"patients by drugging as sailors bring a wind by whistling, selling liesat a guinea apiece, --a routine, in short, of giving unfortunate sickpeople a mess of things either too odious to swallow or too acrid tohold, or, if that were possible, both at once. 

--You don't know what I mean, indignant and not unintelligentcountry-practitioner? Then you don't know the history of medicine, --andthat is not my fault. But don't expose yourself in any outbreak ofeloquence; for, by the mortar in which Anaxarchus was pounded! I did notbring home Schenckius and Forestus and Hildanus, and all the old foliosin calf and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the proprietor, of a "Wood and Bache, " and a shelf of peppered sheepskin reprints byPhiladelphia Editors. Besides, many of the profession and I knowa little something of each other, and you don't think I am such asimpleton as to lose their good opinion by saying what the better headsamong them would condemn as unfair and untrue? Now mark how the greatplague came on the generation of drugging doctors, and in what form itfell. 

A scheming drug-vender, (inventive genius, ) an utterly untrustworthy andincompetent observer, (profound searcher of Nature, ) a shallow dabblerin erudition, (sagacious scholar, ) started the monstrous fiction(founded the immortal system) of Homoeopathy. I am very fair, yousee, --you can help yourself to either of these sets of phrases. 

All the reason in the world would not have had so rapid and general aneffect on the public mind to disabuse it of the idea that a drug is agood thing in itself, instead of being, as it is, a bad thing, as wasproduced by the trick (system) of this German charlatan (theorist). Notthat the wiser part of the profession needed him to teach them; but theroutinists and their employers, the "general practitioners, " who livedby selling pills and mixtures, and their drug-consuming customers, hadto recognize that people could get well, unpoisoned. These dumb cattlewould not learn it of themselves, and so the murrain of Homoeopathy fellon them. 

--You don't know what plague has fallen on the practitioners oftheology? I will tell you, then. It is Spiritualism. While some arecrying out against it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughingat it as an hysteric folly, and some are getting angry with it as amere trick of interested or mischievous persons, Spiritualism is quietlyundermining the traditional ideas of the future state which have beenand are still accepted, --not merely in those who believe in it, but inthe general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than mostgood people seem to be aware of. It need n't be true, to do this, anymore than Homoeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists have somepretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughlyhandled by theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pulpitcomes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of atoe-joint, and ending with such a crack of old beliefs that the roarof it is heard in all the ministers' studies of Christendom? Sir, youcannot have people of cultivation, of pure character, sensible enough incommon things, large-hearted women, grave judges, shrewd business-men, men of science, professing to be in communication with the spiritualworld and keeping up constant intercourse with it, without its graduallyreacting on the whole conception of that other life. It is the folly ofthe world, constantly, which confounds its wisdom. Not only out ofthe mouths of babes and sucklings, but out of the mouths of fools andcheats, we may often get our truest lessons. For the fool's judgment isa dog-vane that turns with a breath, and the cheat watches the cloudsand sets his weathercock by them, --so that one shall often see bytheir pointing which way the winds of heaven are blowing, when theslow-wheeling arrows and feathers of what we call the Temples of Wisdomare turning to all points of the compass. 

--Amen!--said the young fellow called John--Ten minutes by the watch. Those that are unanimous will please to signify by holding up their leftfoot!

I looked this young man steadily in the face for about thirty seconds. His countenance was as calm as that of a reposing infant. I think it wassimplicity, rather than mischief, with perhaps a youthful playfulness, that led him to this outbreak. I have often noticed that even quiethorses, on a sharp November morning, when their coats are beginning toget the winter roughness, will give little sportive demi-kicks, withslight sudden elevation of the subsequent region of the body, and asharp short whinny, --by no means intending to put their heels throughthe dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use afamiliar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiological conditionof the young person, John. I noticed, however, what I should call apalpebral spasm, affecting the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, ifit were intended for the facial gesture called a wink, might lead me tosuspect a disposition to be satirical on his part. 

--Resuming the conversation, I remarked, --I am, ex officio, as aProfessor, a conservative. For I don't know any fruit that clings toits tree so faithfully, not even a "froze-'n'-thaw" winter-apple, as aProfessor to the bough of which his chair is made. You can't shake himoff, and it is as much as you can do to pull him off. Hence, by a chainof induction I need not unwind, he tends to conservatism generally. 

But then, you know, if you are sailing the Atlantic, and all at oncefind yourself in a current, and the sea covered with weeds, and dropyour Fahrenheit over the side and find it eight or ten degrees higherthan in the ocean generally, there is no use in flying in the face offacts and swearing there is no such thing as a Gulf-Stream, when you arein it. 

You can't keep gas in a bladder, and you can't keep knowledge tight ina profession. Hydrogen will leak out, and air will leak in, throughIndia-rubber; and special knowledge will leak out, and general knowledgewill leak in, though a profession were covered with twenty thicknessesof sheepskin diplomas. 

By Jove, Sir, till common sense is well mixed up with medicine, andcommon manhood with theology, and common honesty with law, We thepeople, Sir, some of us with nut-crackers, and some of us withtrip-hammers, and some of us with pile-drivers, and some of us comingwith a whish! like air-stones out of a lunar volcano, will crash downon the lumps of nonsense in all of them till we have made powder ofthem--like Aaron's calf. 

If to be a conservative is to let all the drains of thought choke up andkeep all the soul's windows down, --to shut out the sun from the east andthe wind from the west, --to let the rats run free in the cellar, and themoths feed their fill in the chambers, and the spiders weave their lacebefore the mirrors, till the soul's typhus is bred out of our neglect, and we begin to snore in its coma or rave in its delirium, --I, Sir, ama bonnet-rouge, a red cap of the barricades, my friends, rather than aconservative. 

--Were you born in Boston, Sir?--said the little man, --looking eager andexcited. 

I was not, --I replied. 

It's a pity, --it's a pity, --said the little man;--it 's the place to beborn in. But if you can't fix it so as to be born here, you can comeand live here. Old Ben Franklin, the father of American science and theAmerican Union, was n't ashamed to be born here. Jim Otis, the fatherof American Independence, bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes awhile, but he came to Boston as soon as he got big enough. Joe Warren, thefirst bloody ruffed-shirt of the Revolution, was as good as born here. Parson Charming strolled along this way from Newport, and stayedhere. Pity old Sam Hopkins hadn't come, too;--we'd have made a man ofhim, --poor, dear, good old Christian heathen! There he lies, as peacefulas a young baby, in the old burying-ground! I've stood on the slabmany a time. Meant well, --meant well. Juggernaut. Parson Charming puta little oil on one linchpin, and slipped it out so softly, the firstthing they knew about it was the wheel of that side was down. T'other fellow's at work now, but he makes more noise about it. When thelinchpin comes out on his side, there'll be a jerk, I tell you! Somethink it will spoil the old cart, and they pretend to say that there arevaluable things in it which may get hurt. Hope not, --hope not. But thisis the great Macadamizing place, --always cracking up something. 

Cracking up Boston folks, --said the gentleman with the diamond-pin, whom, for convenience' sake, I shall hereafter call the Koh-i-noor. 

The little man turned round mechanically towards him, as Maelzel's Turkused to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it wentby cogwheels. --Cracking up all sorts of things, --native and foreignvermin included, --said the little man. 

This remark was thought by some of us to have a hidden personalapplication, and to afford a fair opening for a lively rejoinder, ifthe Koh-i-noor had been so disposed. The little man uttered it with thedistinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used to exclaim, E-chec! so that it must have been heard. The party supposed to beinterested in the remark was, however, carrying a large knife-bladefulof something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt, interfered withthe reply he would have made. 

--My friend who used to board here was accustomed sometimes, in apleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table, --meaning, Isuppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think oursmall boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertaketo use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been incompany with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty ofthe same kind of usurpation which my friend openly justified. But Imaintain, that I, the Professor, am a good listener. If a man can tellme a fact which subtends an appreciable angle in the horizon of thought, I am as receptive as the contribution-box in a congregation of coloredbrethren. If, when I am exposing my intellectual dry-goods, a man willbegin a good story, I will have them all in, and my shutters up, beforehe has got to the fifth "says he, " and listen like a three-years' child, as the author of the "Old Sailor" says. I had rather hear one of thosegrand elemental laughs from either of our two Georges, (fictitiousnames, Sir or Madam, ) glisten to one of those old playbills of ourCollege days, in which "Tom and Jerry" ("Thomas and Jeremiah, " as theold Greek Professor was said to call it) was announced to be brought onthe stage with whole force of the Faculty, read by our Frederick, (nosuch person, of course, ) than say the best things I might by any chancefind myself capable of saying. Of course, if I come across a realthinker, a suggestive, acute, illuminating, informing talker, I enjoythe luxury of sitting still for a while as much as another. 

Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things, --things he did notmean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false notesometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops ofthought. I can't answer for what will turn up. If I could, it wouldn't be talking, but "speaking my piece. " Better, I think, the heartyabandonment of one's self to the suggestions of the moment at the riskof an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the instant it escapes, but just one syllable too late, than the royal reputation of neversaying a foolish thing. 

--What shall I do with this little man?--There is only one thingto do, --and that is to let him talk when he will. The day of the"Autocrat's" monologues is over. 

--My friend, --said I to the young fellow whom, as I have said, the boarders call "John, "--My friend, --I said, one morning, afterbreakfast, --can you give me any information respecting the deformedperson who sits at the other end of the table?

What! the Sculpin?--said the young fellow. 

The diminutive person, with angular curvature of the spine, --I said, --and double talipes varus, --I beg your pardon, --with two club-feet. 

Is that long word what you call it when a fellah walks so?--said theyoung man, making his fists revolve round an imaginary axis, as you mayhave seen youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, whenthey show how they would punish an adversary, themselves protected bythis rotating guard, --the middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, fiercely prominent, death-threatening. 

It is, --said I. --But would you have the kindness to tell me if you knowanything about this deformed person?

About the Sculpin?--said the young fellow. 

My good friend, --said I, --I am sure, by your countenance, you would nothurt the feelings of one who has been hardly enough treated by Natureto be spared by his fellows. Even in speaking of him to others, I couldwish that you might not employ a term which implies contempt for whatshould inspire only pity. 

A fellah 's no business to be so crooked, --said the young man calledJohn. 

Yes, yes, --I said, thoughtfully, --the strong hate the weak. It'sall right. The arrangement has reference to the race, and not tothe individual. Infirmity must be kicked out, or the stock run down. Wholesale moral arrangements are so different from retail!--I understandthe instinct, my friend, --it is cosmic, --it is planetary, --it is aconservative principle in creation. 

The young fellow's face gradually lost its expression as I was speaking, until it became as blank of vivid significance as the countenance of agingerbread rabbit with two currants in the place of eyes. He had nottaken my meaning. 

Presently the intelligence came back with a snap that made him wink, ashe answered, --Jest so. All right. A 1. Put her through. That's the wayto talk. Did you speak to me, Sir?--Here the young man struck up thatwell-known song which I think they used to sing at Masonicfestivals, beginning, "Aldiborontiphoscophornio, Where left youChrononhotonthologos?"

I beg your pardon, --I said;--all I meant was, that men, as temporaryoccupants of a permanent abode called human life, which is improved orinjured by occupancy, according to the style of tenant, have a naturaldislike to those who, if they live the life of the race as well as ofthe individual, will leave lasting injurious effects upon the abodespoken of, which is to be occupied by countless future generations. Thisis the final cause of the underlying brute instinct which we have incommon with the herds. 

--The gingerbread-rabbit expression was coming on so fast, that Ithought I must try again. --It's a pity that families are kept up, wherethere are such hereditary infirmities. Still, let us treat this poor manfairly, and not call him names. Do you know what his name is?

I know what the rest of 'em call him, --said the young fellow. --They callhim Little Boston. There's no harm in that, is there?

It is an honorable term, --I replied. --But why Little Boston, in a placewhere most are Bostonians?

Because nobody else is quite so Boston all over as he is, --said theyoung fellow. 

"L. B. Ob. 1692. "--Little Boston let him be, when we talk about him. Thering he wears labels him well enough. There is stuff in the little man, or he would n't stick so manfully by this crooked, crotchety old town. Give him a chance. --You will drop the Sculpin, won't you?--I said to theyoung fellow. 

Drop him?--he answered, --I ha'n't took him up yet. 

No, no, --the term, --I said, --the term. Don't call him so any more, ifyou please. Call him Little Boston, if you like. 

All right, --said the young fellow. --I would n't be hard on the poorlittle--

The word he used was objectionable in point of significance and ofgrammar. It was a frequent termination of certain adjectives among theRomans, --as of those designating a person following the sea, or given torural pursuits. It is classed by custom among the profane words; why, itis hard to say, --but it is largely used in the street by those who speakof their fellows in pity or in wrath. 

I never heard the young fellow apply the name of the odious pretendedfish to the little man from that day forward. 

--Here we are, then, at our boarding--house. First, myself, theProfessor, a little way from the head of the table, on the right, looking down, where the "Autocrat" used to sit. At the further end sitsthe Landlady. At the head of the table, just now, the Koh-i-noor, or thegentleman with the diamond. Opposite me is a Venerable Gentleman with abland countenance, who as yet has spoken little. The Divinity Student ismy neighbor on the right, --and further down, that Young Fellow of whomI have repeatedly spoken. The Landlady's Daughter sits near theKoh-i-noor, as I said. The Poor Relation near the Landlady. At the rightupper corner is a fresh-looking youth of whose name and history I haveas yet learned nothing. Next the further left-hand corner, near thelower end of the table, sits the deformed person. The chair at his side, occupying that corner, is empty. I need not specially mention the otherboarders, with the exception of Benjamin Franklin, the landlady's son, who sits near his mother. We are a tolerably assorted set, --differenceenough and likeness enough; but still it seems to me there is somethingwanting. The Landlady's Daughter is the prima donna in the way offeminine attractions. I am not quite satisfied with this young lady. Shewears more "jewelry, " as certain young ladies call their trinkets, thanI care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, herlaugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancingand bobbing like a quill-float with a "minnum" biting the hook below it, which one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of more pretensions. I can't help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yetwhich will add the missing string to our social harp. I hear talk of arare Miss who is expected. Something in the schoolgirl way, I believe. We shall see. 

--My friend who calls himself The Autocrat has given me a caution whichI am going to repeat, with my comment upon it, for the benefit of allconcerned. 

Professor, --said he, one day, --don't you think your brain will run drybefore a year's out, if you don't get the pump to help the cow? Let metell you what happened to me once. I put a little money into a bank, and bought a check-book, so that I might draw it as I wanted, in sumsto suit. Things went on nicely for a time; scratching with a pen was aseasy as rubbing Aladdin's Lamp; and my blank check-book seemed to be adictionary of possibilities, in which I could find all the synonymes ofhappiness, and realize any one of them on the spot. A check came backto me at last with these two words on it, --NO FUNDS. My check-book was avolume of waste-paper. 

Now, Professor, --said he, --I have drawn something out of your bank, you know; and just so sure as you keep drawing out your soul's currencywithout making new deposits, the next thing will be, NO FUNDS, --and thenwhere will you be, my boy? These little bits of paper mean your gold andyour silver and your copper, Professor; and you will certainly break upand go to pieces, if you don't hold on to your metallic basis. 

There is something in that, --said I. --Only I rather think life can cointhought somewhat faster than I can count it off in words. What if oneshall go round and dry up with soft napkins all the dew that falls of aJune evening on the leaves of his garden? Shall there be no more dew onthose leaves thereafter? Marry, yea, --many drops, large and round andfull of moonlight as those thou shalt have absterged!

Here am I, the Professor, --a man who has lived long enough to haveplucked the flowers of life and come to the berries, --which are notalways sad-colored, but sometimes golden-hued as the crocus of April, orrosy-cheeked as the damask of June; a man who staggered against books asa baby, and will totter against them, if he lives to decrepitude; witha brain full of tingling thoughts, such as they are, as a limb whichwe call "asleep, " because it is so particularly awake, is of prickingpoints; presenting a key-board of nerve-pulps, not as yet tanned orossified, to finger-touch of all outward agencies; knowing nothing ofthe filmy threads of this web of life in which we insects buzz awhile, waiting for the gray old spider to come along; contented enough withdaily realities, but twirling on his finger the key of a private Bedlamof ideals; in knowledge feeding with the fox oftener than with thestork, --loving better the breadth of a fertilizing inundation thanthe depth of narrow artesian well; finding nothing too small for hiscontemplation in the markings of the grammatophora subtilissima, andnothing too large in the movement of the solar system towards the starLambda of the constellation Hercules;--and the question is, whetherthere is anything left for me, the Professor, to suck out of creation, after my lively friend has had his straw in the bung-hole of theUniverse!

A man's mental reactions with the atmosphere of life must go on, whetherhe will or no, as between his blood and the air he breathes. As tocatching the residuum of the process, or what we call thought, --thegaseous ashes of burned-out thinking, --the excretion of mentalrespiration, --that will depend on many things, as, on having a favorableintellectual temperature about one, and a fitting receptacle. --I sowmore thought-seeds in twenty-four hours' travel over the desert-sandalong which my lonely consciousness paces day and night, than I shallthrow into soil where it will germinate, in a year. All sorts of bodilyand mental perturbations come between us and the due projection of ourthought. The pulse-like "fits of easy and difficult transmission" seemto reach even the transparent medium through which our souls areseen. We know our humanity by its often intercepted rays, as we tella revolving light from a star or meteor by its constantly recurringobscuration. 

An illustrious scholar once told me, that, in the first lecture he everdelivered, he spoke but half his allotted time, and felt as if he hadtold all he knew. Braham came forward once to sing one of his mostfamous and familiar songs, and for his life could not recall the firstline of it;--he told his mishap to the audience, and they screamed itat him in a chorus of a thousand voices. Milton could not write to suithimself, except from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. One in theclothing-business, who, there is reason to suspect, may have inherited, by descent, the great poet's impressible temperament, let a customerslip through his fingers one day without fitting him with a new garment. "Ah!" said he to a friend of mine, who was standing by, "if it hadn'tbeen for that confounded headache of mine this morning, I'd have hada coat on that man, in spite of himself, before he left-the store. " Apassing throb, only, --but it deranged the nice mechanism requiredto persuade the accidental human being, X, into a given piece ofbroadcloth, A. 

We must take care not to confound this frequent difficulty oftransmission of our ideas with want of ideas. I suppose that a man'smind does in time form a neutral salt with the elements in the universefor which it has special elective affinities. In fact, I look upon alibrary as a kind of mental chemist's shop filled with the crystals ofall forms and hues which have come from the union of individual thoughtwith local circumstances or universal principles. 

When a man has worked out his special affinities in this way, thereis an end of his genius as a real solvent. No more effervescence andhissing tumult--as he pours his sharp thought on the world's bitingalkaline unbeliefs! No more corrosion of the old monumental tabletscovered with lies! No more taking up of dull earths, and turning them, first into clear solutions, and then into lustrous prisms!

I, the Professor, am very much like other men: I shall not find out whenI have used up my affinities. What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived tomake critics out of the chips that were left! Painful as the task is, they never fail to warn the author, in the most impressive manner, of the probabilities of failure in what he has undertaken. Sad as thenecessity is to their delicate sensibilities, they never hesitate toadvertise him of the decline of his powers, and to press upon him thepropriety of retiring before he sinks into imbecility. Trusting to theirkind offices, I shall endeavor to fulfil--

--Bridget enters and begins clearing the table. 

--The following poem is my (The Professor's) only contribution to thegreat department of Ocean-Cable literature. As all the poets of thiscountry will be engaged for the next six weeks in writing for thepremium offered by the Crystal-Palace Company for the Burns Centenary, (so called, according to our Benjamin Franklin, because there willbe nary a cent for any of us, ) poetry will be very scarce and dear. Consumers may, consequently, be glad to take the present article, which, by the aid of a Latin tutor--and a Professor of Chemistry, will be foundintelligible to the educated classes. 

 DE SAUTY

 AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE. 

 Professor. Blue-Nose. 

 PROFESSOR. 

 Tell me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, Holding talk with nations?

 Is there a De Sauty, ambulant on Tellus, Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night-cap, Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature Three times daily patent?

 Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? Or is he a mythus, --ancient word for "humbug, " --Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed Romulus and Remus?

 Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? Or a living product of galvanic action, Like the status bred in Crosses flint-solution? Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal!

 BLUE-NOSE. 

 Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, Thou shalt hear them answered. 

 When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, At the polar focus of the wire electric Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us Called himself "DE SAUTY. "

 As the small opossum held in pouch maternal Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, Sucking in the current. 

 When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger, Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, And from time to time, in sharp articulation, Said, "All right! DE SAUTY. "

 From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples Till the land was filled with loud reverberations Of "All right! DE SAUTY. "

 When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger, Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor Of disintegration. 

 Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, There was no De Sauty. 

 Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?) Such as man is made of. 

 Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished! There is no De Sauty now there is no current! Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him Cry, "All right! DE SAUTY. "

II

Back again!--A turtle--which means a tortoise--is fond of his shell;but if you put a live coal on his back, he crawls out of it. So the boyssay. 

It is a libel on the turtle. He grows to his shell, and his shell is inhis body as much as his body is in his shell. --I don't think thereis one of our boarders quite so testudineous as I am. Nothing but acombination of motives, more peremptory than the coal on the turtle'sback, could have got me to leave the shelter of my carapace; and aftermemorable interviews, and kindest hospitalities, and grand sights, andhuge influx of patriotic pride, --for every American owns all America, --

 "Creation's heir, --the world, the world is"

his, if anybody's, --I come back with the feeling which a boned turkeymight experience, if, retaining his consciousness, he were allowed toresume his skeleton. 

Welcome, O Fighting Gladiator, and Recumbent Cleopatra, and DyingWarrior, whose classic outlines (reproduced in the calcined mineral ofLutetia) crown my loaded shelves! Welcome, ye triumphs of pictorial art(repeated by the magic graver) that look down upon me from the walls ofmy sacred cell! Vesalius, as Titian drew him, high-fronted, still-eyed, thick-bearded, with signet-ring, as beseems a gentleman, with book andcarelessly-held eyeglass, marking him a scholar; thou, too, Jan Kuyper, commonly called Jan Praktiseer, old man of a century and seven yearsbesides, father of twenty sons and two daughters, cut in copper byHoubraken, bought from a portfolio on one of the Paris quais; and yeThree Trees of Rembrandt, black in shadow against the blaze of light;and thou Rosy Cottager of Sir Joshua, roses hinted by the peppery burinof Bartolozzi; ye, too, of lower grades in nature, yet not unlovely forunrenowned, Young Bull of Paulus Potter, and sleeping Cat of CorneliusVisscher; welcome once more to my eyes! The old books look out fromthe shelves, and I seem to read on their backs something asides theirtitles, --a kind of solemn greeting. The crimson carpet flushes warmunder my feet. The arm-chair hugs me; the swivel-chair spins roundwith me, as if it were giddy with pleasure; the vast recumbent fauteuilstretches itself out under my weight, as one joyous with food and winestretches in after-dinner laughter. 

The boarders were pleased to say that they were glad to get me back. Oneof them ventured a compliment, namely, --that I talked as if I believedwhat I said. --This was apparently considered something unusual, by itsbeing mentioned. 

One who means to talk with entire sincerity, --I said, --always feelshimself in danger of two things, namely, --an affectation of bluntness, like that of which Cornwall accuses Kent in "Lear, " and actual rudeness. What a man wants to do, in talking with a stranger, is to get and togive as much of the best and most real life that belongs to the twotalkers as the time will let him. Life is short, and conversation aptto run to mere words. Mr. Hue I think it is, who tells us some very goodstories about the way in which two Chinese gentlemen contrive to keep upa long talk without saying a word which has any meaning in it. Somethinglike this is occasionally heard on this side of the Great Wall. The bestChinese talkers I know are some pretty women whom I meet from timeto time. Pleasant, airy, complimentary, the little flakes of flatteryglimmering in their talk like the bits of gold-leaf in eau-de-vie deDantzic; their accents flowing on in a soft ripple, --never a wave, and never a calm; words nicely fitted, but never a colored phrase ora highly-flavored epithet; they turn air into syllables so gracefully, that we find meaning for the music they make as we find faces in thecoals and fairy palaces in the clouds. There is something very odd, though, about this mechanical talk. 

You have sometimes been in a train on the railroad when the engine wasdetached a long way from the station you were approaching? Well, youhave noticed how quietly and rapidly the cars kept on, just as if thelocomotive were drawing them? Indeed, you would not have suspected thatyou were travelling on the strength of a dead fact, if you had not seenthe engine running away from you on a side-track. Upon my conscience, I believe some of these pretty women detach their minds entirely, sometimes, from their talk, --and, what is more, that we never know thedifference. Their lips let off the fluty syllables just as their fingerswould sprinkle the music-drops from their pianos; unconscious habitturns the phrase of thought into words just as it does that ofmusic into notes. --Well, they govern the world for all that, thesesweet-lipped women, --because beauty is the index of a larger fact thanwisdom. 

--The Bombazine wanted an explanation. 

Madam, --said I, --wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is thepromise of the future. 

--All this, however, is not what I was going to say. Here am I, suppose, seated--we will say at a dinner-table--alongside of an intelligentEnglishman. We look in each other's faces, --we exchange a dozen words. One thing is settled: we mean not to offend each other, --to be perfectlycourteous, --more than courteous; for we are the entertainer and theentertained, and cherish particularly amiable feelings, to each other. The claret is good; and if our blood reddens a little with its warmcrimson, we are none the less kind for it. 

I don't think people that talk over their victuals are like to sayanything very great, especially if they get their heads muddled withstrong drink before they begin jabberin'. 

The Bombazine uttered this with a sugary sourness, as if the words hadbeen steeped in a solution of acetate of lead. --The boys of my time usedto call a hit like this a "side-winder. "

--I must finish this woman. --

Madam, --I said, --the Great Teacher seems to have been fond of talking ashe sat at meat. Because this was a good while ago, in a far-off place, you forget what the true fact of it was, --that those were realdinners, where people were hungry and thirsty, and where you met a verymiscellaneous company. Probably there was a great deal of loose talkamong the guests; at any rate, there was always wine, we may believe. 

Whatever may be the hygienic advantages or disadvantages of wine, --andI for one, except for certain particular ends, believe in water, and, I blush to say it, in black tea, --there is no doubt about its being thegrand specific against dull dinners. A score of people come together inall moods of mind and body. The problem is, in the space of one hour, more or less, to bring them all into the same condition of slightlyexalted life. Food alone is enough for one person, perhaps, --talk, alone, for another; but the grand equalizer and fraternizer, which worksup the radiators to their maximum radiation, and the absorbents to theirmaximum receptivity, is now just where it was when

 The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed, --when six great vessels containing water, the whole amounting to morethan a hogshead-full, were changed into the best of wine. I once wrotea song about wine, in which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was afraidsome would think it was written inter pocula; whereas it was composedin the bosom of my family, under the most tranquillizing domesticinfluences. 

--The divinity-student turned towards me, looking mischievous. --Can youtell me, --he said, --who wrote a song for a temperance celebration once, of which the following is a verse?

 Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair The joys of the banquet to chasten and share! Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine!

I did, --I answered. --What are you going to do about it?--I will tell youanother line I wrote long ago:--

 Don't be "consistent, "--but be simply true. 

The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, thatthe truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with manyfacets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them;secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grindus down to a single flat surface. It is hard work to resist thisgrinding-down action. --Now give me a chance. Better eternal anduniversal abstinence than the brutalities of those days that made wivesand mothers and daughters and sisters blush for those whom they shouldhave honored, as they came reeling home from their debauches! Yetbetter even excess than lying and hypocrisy; and if wine is upon allour tables, let us praise it for its color and fragrance and socialtendency, so far as it deserves, and not hug a bottle in the closet andpretend not to know the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner! I thinkyou will find that people who honestly mean to be true really contradictthemselves much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent. " Buta great many things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simplybecause they are partial views of a truth, and may often look unlike atfirst, as a front view of a face and its profile often do. 

Here is a distinguished divine, for whom I have great respect, for Iowe him a charming hour at one of our literary anniversaries, and hehas often spoken noble words; but he holds up a remark of my friend the"Autocrat, "--which I grieve to say he twice misquotes, by omitting thevery word which gives it its significance, --the word fluid, intended totypify the mobility of the restricted will, --holds it up, I say, as ifit attacked the reality of the self-determining principle, instead ofillustrating its limitations by an image. Now I will not explain anyfarther, still less defend, and least of all attack, but simply quotea few lines from one of my friend's poems, printed more than ten yearsago, and ask the distinguished gentleman where he has ever asserted morestrongly or absolutely the independent will of the "subcreative centre, "as my heretical friend has elsewhere called man. 

 --Thought, conscience, will, to make them all thy own He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! --Made in His image, thou must nobly dare The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. --Think not too meanly of thy low estate; Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create!

If he will look a little closely, he will see that the profile and thefull-face views of the will are both true and perfectly consistent!

Now let us come back, after this long digression, to the conversationwith the intelligent Englishman. We begin skirmishing with a few lightideas, --testing for thoughts, --as our electro-chemical friend, De Sauty, if there were such a person, would test for his current; trying a littlelitmus-paper for acids, and then a slip of turmeric-paper for alkalies, as chemists do with unknown compounds; flinging the lead, and lookingat the shells and sands it brings up to find out whether we are liketo keep in shallow water, or shall have to drop the deep-sea line;--inshort, seeing what we have to deal with. If the Englishman gets hisH's pretty well placed, he comes from one of the higher grades of theBritish social order, and we shall find him a good companion. 

But, after all, here is a great fact between us. We belong to twodifferent civilizations, and, until we recognize what separates us, weare talking like Pyramus and Thisbe, without any hole in the wall totalk through. Therefore, on the whole, if he were a superior fellow, incapable of mistaking it for personal conceit, I think I would let outthe fact of the real American feeling about Old-World folks. They arechildren to us in certain points of view. They are playing with toys wehave done with for whole-generations. 

--------FOOTNOTE: The more I have observed and reflected, the morelimited seems to me the field of action of the human will. Every act ofchoice involves a special relation between the ego and the conditionsbefore it. But no man knows what forces are at work in the determinationof his ego. The bias which decides his choice between two or moremotives may come from some unsuspected ancestral source, of which heknows nothing at all. He is automatic in virtue of that hidden springof reflex action, all the time having the feeling that he isself-determining. The Story of Elsie Yenner, written-soon after thisbook was published, illustrates the direction in which my thought wasmoving. 'The imaginary subject of the story obeyed her will, but herwill Obeyed the mysterious antenatal poisoning influence. 

*****

That silly little drum they are always beating on, and the trumpet andthe feather they make so much noise and cut such a figure with, we havenot quite outgrown, but play with much less seriously and constantlythan they do. Then there is a whole museum of wigs, and masks, andlace-coats, and gold-sticks, and grimaces, and phrases, which we laughat honestly, without affectation, that are still used in the Old-Worldpuppet-shows. I don't think we on our part ever understand theEnglishman's concentrated loyalty and specialized reverence. But then wedo think more of a man, as such, (barring some little difficulties aboutrace and complexion which the Englishman will touch us on presently, )than any people that ever lived did think of him. Our reverence is agreat deal wider, if it is less intense. We have caste among us, to someextent; it is true; but there is never a collar on the American wolf-dogsuch as you often see on the English mastiff, notwithstanding hisrobust, hearty individuality. 

This confronting of two civilizations is always a grand sensation to me;it is like cutting through the isthmus and letting the two oceans swiminto each other's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let outthe whole American nature without its self-assertion seeming to take apersonal character. But I never enjoy the Englishman so much as when hetalks of church and king like Manco Capac among the Peruvians. Then youget the real British flavor, which the cosmopolite Englishman loses. 

How much better this thorough interpenetration of ideas than a barreninterchange of courtesies, or a bush-fighting argument, in which eachman tries to cover as much of himself and expose as much of his opponentas the tangled thicket of the disputed ground will let him!

--My thoughts flow in layers or strata, at least three deep. I followa slow person's talk, and keep a perfectly clear under-current of myown beneath it. Under both runs obscurely a consciousness belonging to athird train of reflections, independent of the two others. I will try towrite out a Mental movement in three parts. 

A. --First voice, or Mental Soprano, --thought follows a woman talking. 

B. --Second voice, or Mental Barytone, --my running accompaniment. 

C. --Third voice, or Mental Basso, --low grumble of importunateself-repeating idea. 

A. --White lace, three skirts, looped with flowers, wreath ofapple-blossoms, gold bracelets, diamond pin and ear-rings, the mostdelicious berthe you ever saw, white satin slippers--

B. --Deuse take her! What a fool she is! Hear her chatter! (Look out ofwindow just here. --Two pages and a half of description, if it wereall written out, in one tenth of a second. )--Go ahead, old lady! (Eyecatches picture over fireplace. ) There's that infernal family nose! Cameover in the "Mayflower" on the first old fool's face. Why don't theywear a ring in it?

C. --You 'll be late at lecture, --late at lecture, --late, --late--

I observe that a deep layer of thought sometimes makes itself feltthrough the superincumbent strata, thus:--The usual single or doublecurrents shall flow on, but there shall be an influence blending withthem, disturbing them in an obscure way, until all at once I say, --Oh, there! I knew there was something troubling me, --and the thought whichhad been working through comes up to the surface clear, definite, andarticulates itself, --a disagreeable duty, perhaps, or an unpleasantrecollection. 

The inner world of thought and the outer world of events are alike inthis, that they are both brimful. There is no space between consecutivethoughts, or between the never-ending series of actions. All pack tight, and mould their surfaces against each other, so that in the long runthere is a wonderful average uniformity in the forms of both thoughtsand actions, just as you find that cylinders crowded all becomehexagonal prisms, and spheres pressed together are formed into regularpolyhedra. 

Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and noman ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped by him. So, to carry out, with another comparison, my remark about the layers ofthought, we may consider the mind as it moves among thoughts or events, like a circus-rider whirling round with a great troop of horses. He canmount a fact or an idea, and guide it more or less completely, but hecannot stop it. So, as I said in another way at the beginning, he canstride two or three thoughts at once, but not break their steady walk, trot, or gallop. He can only take his foot from the saddle of onethought and put it on that of another. 

--What is the saddle of a thought? Why, a word, of course. --Twenty yearsafter you have dismissed a thought, it suddenly wedges up to you throughthe press, as if it had been steadily galloping round and round all thattime without a rider. 

The will does not act in the interspaces of thought, for there are nosuch interspaces, but simply steps from the back of one moving thoughtupon that of another. 

--I should like to ask, --said the divinity-student, --since we aregetting into metaphysics, how you can admit space, if all things are incontact, and how you can admit time, if it is always now to something?

--I thought it best not to hear this question. 

--I wonder if you know this class of philosophers in books or elsewhere. One of them makes his bow to the public, and exhibits an unfortunatetruth bandaged up so that it cannot stir hand or foot, --as helpless, apparently, and unable to take care of itself, as an Egyptian mummy. He then proceeds, with the air and method of a master, to take off thebandages. Nothing can be neater than the way in which he does it. Butas he takes off layer after layer, the truth seems to grow smaller andsmaller, and some of its outlines begin to look like something we haveseen before. At last, when he has got them all off, and the truth strutsout naked, we recognize it as a diminutive and familiar acquaintancewhom we have known in the streets all our lives. The fact is, thephilosopher has coaxed the truth into his study and put all thosebandages on; or course it is not very hard for him to take them off. Still, a great many people like to watch the process, --he does it soneatly!

Dear! dear! I am ashamed to write and talk, sometimes, when I see howthose functions of the large-brained, thumb-opposing plantigrade areabused by my fellow-vertebrates, --perhaps by myself. How they spar forwind, instead of hitting from the shoulder!

--The young fellow called John arose and placed himself in a neatfighting attitude. --Fetch on the fellah that makes them long words!--hesaid, --and planted a straight hit with the right fist in the concavepalm of the left hand with a click like a cup and ball. --You small boythere, hurry up that "Webster's Unabridged!"

The little gentleman with the malformation, before described, shockedthe propriety of the breakfast-table by a loud utterance of three words, of which the two last were "Webster's Unabridged, " and the first was anemphatic monosyllable. --Beg pardon, --he added, --forgot myself. But letus have an English dictionary, if we are to have any. I don't believe inclipping the coin of the realm, Sir! If I put a weathercock on my house, Sir, I want it to tell which way the wind blows up aloft, --off from theprairies to the ocean, or off from the ocean to the prairies, or anyway it wants to blow! I don't want a weathercock with a winch in an oldgentleman's study that he can take hold of and turn, so that the vaneshall point west when the great wind overhead is blowing east with allits might, Sir! Wait till we give you a dictionary; Sir! It takes Bostonto do that thing, Sir!

--Some folks think water can't run down-hill anywhere out of Boston, --remarked the Koh-i-noor. 

I don't know what some folks think so well as I know what some foolssay, --rejoined the Little Gentleman. --If importing most dry goods madethe best scholars, I dare say you would know where to look for 'em. --Mr. Webster could n't spell, Sir, or would n't spell, Sir, --at any rate, hedid n't spell; and the end of it was a fight between the owners ofsome copyrights and the dignity of this noble language which we haveinherited from our English fathers. Language!--the blood of the soul, Sir! into which our thoughts run and out of which they grow! We knowwhat a word is worth here in Boston. Young Sam Adams got up on the stageat Commencement, out at Cambridge there, with his gown on, the Governorand Council looking on in the name of his Majesty, King George theSecond, and the girls looking down out of the galleries, and taughtpeople how to spell a word that was n't in the Colonial dictionaries!R-e, re, s-i-s, sis, t-a-n-c-e, tance, Resistance! That was in '43, andit was a good many years before the Boston boys began spelling it withtheir muskets;--but when they did begin, they spelt it so loud that theold bedridden women in the English almshouses heard every syllable! Yes, yes, yes, --it was a good while before those other two Boston boysgot the class so far along that it could spell those two hard words, Independence and Union! I tell you what, Sir, there are a thousandlives, aye, sometimes a million, go to get a new word into a languagethat is worth speaking. We know what language means too well here inBoston to play tricks with it. We never make a new word til we have madea new thing or a new thought, Sir! then we shaped the new mould of thiscontinent, we had to make a few. When, by God's permission, we abrogatedthe primal curse of maternity, we had to make a word or two. Thecutwater of this great Leviathan clipper, the OCCIDENTAL, --thisthirty-wasted wind-and-steam wave-crusher, --must throw a little sprayover the human vocabulary as it splits the waters of a new world'sdestiny!

He rose as he spoke, until his stature seemed to swell into the fairhuman proportions. His feet must have been on the upper round of hishigh chair; that was the only way I could account for it. 

Puts her through fast-rate, --said the young fellow whom the boarderscall John. 

The venerable and kind-looking old gentleman who sits opposite said heremembered Sam Adams as Governor. An old man in a brown coat. Saw himtake the Chair on Boston Common. Was a boy then, and remembers sittingon the fence in front of the old Hancock house. Recollects he had aglazed 'lectionbun, and sat eating it and looking down on to the Common. Lalocks flowered late that year, and he got a great bunch off from thebushes in the Hancock front-yard. 

Them 'lection-buns are no go, --said the young man John, so called. --Iknow the trick. Give a fellah a fo'penny bun in the mornin', an' hedowns the whole of it. In about an hour it swells up in his stomach asbig as a football, and his feedin' 's spilt for that day. That's the wayto stop off a young one from eatin' up all the 'lection dinner. 

Salem! Salem! not Boston, --shouted the little man. 

But the Koh-i-noor laughed a great rasping laugh, and the boyBenjamin Franklin looked sharp at his mother, as if he remembered thebun-experiment as a part of his past personal history. 

The Little Gentleman was holding a fork in his left hand. He stabbed aboulder of home-made bread with it, mechanically, and looked at it as ifit ought to shriek. It did not, --but he sat as if watching it. 

--Language is a solemn thing, --I said. --It grows out of life, --out ofits agonies and ecstasies, its wants and its weariness. Every languageis a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. Because time softens its outlines and rounds the sharp angles of itscornices, shall a fellow take a pickaxe to help time? Let me tell youwhat comes of meddling with things that can take care of themselves. --Afriend of mine had a watch given him, when he was a boy, --a "bull'seye, " with a loose silver case that came off like an oyster-shell fromits contents; you know them, --the cases that you hang on your thumb, while the core, or the real watch, lies in your hand as naked as apeeled apple. Well, he began with taking off the case, and so on fromone liberty to another, until he got it fairly open, and there were theworks, as good as if they were alive, --crown-wheel, balance-wheel, andall the rest. All right except one thing, --there was a confounded littlehair had got tangled round the balance-wheel. So my young Solomon got apair of tweezers, and caught hold of the hair very nicely, and pulled itright out, without touching any of the wheels, --when, --buzzzZZZ! andthe watch had done up twenty-four hours in double magnetic-telegraphtime!--The English language was wound up to run some thousands of years, I trust; but if everybody is to be pulling at everything he thinks isa hair, our grandchildren will have to make the discovery that it is ahair-spring, and the old Anglo-Norman soul's-timekeeper will run down, as so many other dialects have done before it. I can't stand thismeddling any better than you, Sir. But we have a great deal to be proudof in the lifelong labors of that old lexicographer, and we must n'tbe ungrateful. Besides, don't let us deceive ourselves, --the war ofthe dictionaries is only a disguised rivalry of cities, colleges, andespecially of publishers. After all, it is likely that the language willshape itself by larger forces than phonography and dictionary-making. You may spade up the ocean as much as you like, and harrow itafterwards, if you can, --but the moon will still lead the tides, and thewinds will form their surface. 

--Do you know Richardson's Dictionary?--I said to my neighbor thedivinity-student. 

Haow?--said the divinity-student. --He colored, as he noticed on my facea twitch in one of the muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, (zygomaticus major, ) and which I could not hold back from making alittle movement on its own account. 

It was too late. --A country-boy, lassoed when he was a half-grown colt. Just as good as a city-boy, and in some ways, perhaps, better, --butcaught a little too old not to carry some marks of his earlier ways oflife. Foreigners, who have talked a strange tongue half their lives, return to the language of their childhood in their dying hours. Gentlemen in fine linen, and scholars in large libraries, taken bysurprise, or in a careless moment, will sometimes let slip a word theyknew as boys in homespun and have not spoken since that time, --but itlay there under all their culture. That is one way you may know thecountry-boys after they have grown rich or celebrated; another is by theodd old family names, particularly those of the Hebrew prophets, whichthe good old people have saddled them with. 

--Boston has enough of England about it to make a good Englishdictionary, --said that fresh-looking youth whom I have mentioned assitting at the right upper corner of the table. 

I turned and looked him full in the face, --for the pure, manlyintonations arrested me. The voice was youthful, but full ofcharacter. --I suppose some persons have a peculiar susceptibility in thematter of voice. --Hear this. 

Not long after the American Revolution, a young lady was sitting inher father's chaise in a street of this town of Boston. She overheard alittle girl talking or singing, and was mightily taken with the tones ofher voice. Nothing would satisfy her but she must have that little girlcome and live in her father's house. So the child came, being then nineyears old. Until her marriage she remained under the same roof withthe young lady. Her children became successively inmates of the lady'sdwelling; and now, seventy years, or thereabouts, since the young ladyheard the child singing, one of that child's children and one of hergrandchildren are with her in that home, where she, no longer young, except in heart, passes her peaceful days. --Three generations linkedtogether by so light a breath of accident!

I liked--the sound of this youth's voice, I said, and his look when Icame to observe him a little more closely. His complexion had somethingbetter than the bloom and freshness which had first attracted me;--ithad that diffused tone which is a sure index of wholesome, lusty life. A fine liberal style of nature seemed to be: hair crisped, moustachespringing thick and dark, head firmly planted, lips finished, as iscommonly sees them in gentlemen's families, a pupil well contracted, anda mouth that opened frankly with a white flash of teeth that looked asif they could serve him as they say Ethan Allen's used to serve theirowner, --to draw nails with. This is the kind of fellow to walk afrigate's deck and bowl his broadsides into the "Gadlant Thudnder-bomb, "or any forty-port-holed adventurer who would like to exchange a few tonsof iron compliments. --I don't know what put this into my head, for itwas not till some time afterward I learned the young fellow had been inthe naval school at Annapolis. Something had happened to change his planof life, and he was now studying engineering and architecture in Boston. 

When the youth made the short remark which drew my attention to him, thelittle deformed gentleman turned round and took a long look at him. 

Good for the Boston boy!--he said. 

I am not a Boston boy, --said the youth, smiling, --I am a Marylander. 

I don't care where you come from, --we'll make a Boston man of you, --saidthe little gentleman. Pray, what part of Maryland did you come from, andhow shall I call you?

The poor youth had to speak pretty loud, as he was at the right uppercorner of the table, and the little gentleman next the lower left-handcorner. His face flushed a little, but he answered pleasantly, tellingwho he was, as if the little man's infirmity gave him a right to ask anyquestions he wanted to. 

Here is the place for you to sit, --said the little gentleman, pointingto the vacant chair next his own, at the corner. 

You're go'n' to have a young lady next you, if you wait tillto-morrow, --said the landlady to him. 

He did not reply, but I had a fancy that he changed color. It can't bethat he has susceptibilities with reference to a contingent young lady!It can't be that he has had experiences which make him sensitive! Naturecould not be quite so cruel as to set a heart throbbing in that poorlittle cage of ribs! There is no use in wasting notes of admiration. Imust ask the landlady about him. 

These are some of the facts she furnished. --Has not been long with her. Brought a sight of furniture, --could n't hardly get some of it upstairs. Has n't seemed particularly attentive to the ladies. The Bombazine(whom she calls Cousin something or other) has tried to enter intoconversation with him, but retired with the impression that he wasindifferent to ladies' society. Paid his bill the other day withoutsaying a word about it. Paid it in gold, --had a great heap oftwenty-dollar pieces. Hires her best room. Thinks he is a very nicelittle man, but lives dreadful lonely up in his chamber. Wants the careof some capable nuss. Never pitied anybody more in her life--never see amore interestin' person. 

--My intention was, when I began making these notes, to let them consistprincipally of conversations between myself and the other boarders. Sothey will, very probably; but my curiosity is excited about this littleboarder of ours, and my reader must not be disappointed, if I sometimesinterrupt a discussion to give an account of whatever fact or traits Imay discover about him. It so happens that his room is next to mine, andI have the opportunity of observing many of his ways without any activemovements of curiosity. That his room contains heavy furniture, thathe is a restless little body and is apt to be up late, that he talksto himself, and keeps mainly to himself, is nearly all I have yet foundout. 

One curious circumstance happened lately which I mention without drawingan absolute inference. Being at the studio of a sculptor with whom I amacquainted, the other day, I saw a remarkable cast of a left arm. On myasking where the model came from, he said it was taken direct from thearm of a deformed person, who had employed one of the Italian mouldersto make the cast. It was a curious case, it should seem, of onebeautiful limb upon a frame otherwise singularly imperfect--I haverepeatedly noticed this little gentleman's use of his left arm. Can hehave furnished the model I saw at the sculptor's?

--So we are to have a new boarder to-morrow. I hope there will besomething pretty and pleasing about her. A woman with a creamyvoice, and finished in alto rilievo, would be a variety in theboarding-house, --a little more marrow and a little less sinew than ourlandlady and her daughter and the bombazine-clad female, all of whom areof the turkey-drumstick style of organization. I don't mean that theseare our only female companions; but the rest being conversationalnon-combatants, mostly still, sad feeders, who take in their food aslocomotives take in wood and water, and then wither away from the tablelike blossoms that never came to fruit, I have not yet referred to themas individuals. 

I wonder what kind of young person we shall see in that empty chairto-morrow!

--I read this song to the boarders after breakfast the other morning. Itwas written for our fellows;--you know who they are, of course. 

 THE BOYS. 

 Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? If there has, take him out, without making a noise! Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

 We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? He's tipsy, --young jackanapes!--show him the door! --"Gray temples at twenty?"--Yes! white, if we please; Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

 Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! Look close, --you will see not a sign of a flake; We want some new garlands for those we have shed, And these are white roses in place of the red!

 We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told. Of talking (in public) as if we were old; That boy we call Doctor, (1) and this we call Judge (2) --It's a neat little fiction, --of course it's all fudge. 

 That fellow's the Speaker, (3)--the one on the right; Mr. Mayor, (4) my young one, how are you to-night? That's our "Member of Congress, "(5) we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend" (6) What's his name?--don't make me laugh!

 That boy with the grave mathematical look(7) Made believe he had written a wonderful book, And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too. 

 There's a boy, --we pretend, --with a three-decker-brain That could harness a team with a logical chain: When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, We called him "The Justice, "--but now he's "The Squire. "(1)

 And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, (2) Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith, But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, --Just read on his medal, --"My country, --of thee!"

 You hear that boy laughing?--you think he's all fun, But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!(3)

 Yes, we're boys, --always playing with tongue or with pen, --And I sometimes have asked, --Shall we ever be men? Shall we always be youthful and laughing and gay, Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

 Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! The stars of its Winter, the dews of its May! And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, Dear Father, take care of thy children, the Boys!

 1 Francis Thomas. 2 George Tyler Bigelow. 3 Francis Boardman Crowninshield. 4 G. W. Richardson. 5 George Thomas Davis. 6 James Freeman Clarke. 7 Benjamin Peirce. 

III

[The Professor talks with the Reader. He tells a Young Girl's Story. ]

When the elements that went to the making of the first man, father ofmankind, had been withdrawn from the world of unconscious matter, thebalance of creation was disturbed. The materials that go to the makingof one woman were set free by the abstraction from inanimate nature ofone man's-worth of masculine constituents. These combined to make ourfirst mother, by a logical necessity involved in the previous creationof our common father. All this, mythically, illustratively, and by nomeans doctrinally or polemically. 

The man implies the woman, you will understand. The excellent gentlemanwhom I had the pleasure of setting right in a trifling matter a fewweeks ago believes in the frequent occurrence of miracles at the presentday. So do I. I believe, if you could find an uninhabited coral-reefisland, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with plenty of cocoa-palmsand bread-fruit on it, and put a handsome young fellow, like ourMarylander, ashore upon it, if you touched there a year afterwards, youwould find him walking under the palm-trees arm in arm with a prettywoman. 

Where would she come from?

Oh, that 's the miracle!

--I was just as certain, when I saw that fine, high-colored youth atthe upper right-hand corner of our table, that there would appear somefitting feminine counterpart to him, as if I had been a clairvoyant, seeing it all beforehand. 

--I have a fancy that those Marylanders are just about near enough tothe sun to ripen well. --How some of us fellows remember Joe and Harry, Baltimoreans, both! Joe, with his cheeks like lady-apples, and his eyeslike black-heart cherries, and his teeth like the whiteness of theflesh of cocoanuts, and his laugh that set the chandelier-drops rattlingoverhead, as we sat at our sparkling banquets in those gay times!Harry, champion, by acclamation, of the college heavy-weights, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, square-jawed, six feet and trimmings, a little science, lots of pluck, good-natured as a steer in peace, formidable as a red-eyed bison in the crack of hand-to-hand battle! Whoforgets the great muster-day, and the collision of the classic with thedemocratic forces? The huge butcher, fifteen stone, --two hundred and tenpounds, --good weight, --steps out like Telamonian Ajax, defiant. No wordsfrom Harry, the Baltimorean, --one of the quiet sort, who strike first;and do the talking, if there is any, afterwards. No words, but, in theplace thereof, a clean, straight, hard hit, which took effect with aspank like the explosion of a percussion-cap, knocking the slayer ofbeeves down a sand-bank, --followed, alas! by the too impetuous youth, so that both rolled down together, and the conflict terminated in one ofthose inglorious and inevitable Yankee clinches, followed by a generalmelee, which make our native fistic encounters so different from suchadmirably-ordered contests as that which I once saw at an English fair, where everything was done decently and in order; and the fight began andended with such grave propriety, that a sporting parson need hardly havehesitated to open it with a devout petition, and, after it was over, dismiss the ring with a benediction. 

I can't help telling one more story about this great field-day, thoughit is the most wanton and irrelevant digression. But all of us have alittle speck of fight underneath our peace and good-will to men, justa speck, for revolutions and great emergencies, you know, --so that weshould not submit to be trodden quite flat by the first heavy-heeledaggressor that came along. You can tell a portrait from an ideal head, I suppose, and a true story from one spun out of the writer's invention. See whether this sounds true or not. 

Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin sent out two fine blood-horses, Barefoot andSerab by name, to Massachusetts, something before the time I am talkingof. With them came a Yorkshire groom, a stocky little fellow, in velvetbreeches, who made that mysterious hissing noise, traditionary inEnglish stables, when he rubbed down the silken-skinned racers, in greatperfection. After the soldiers had come from the muster-field, andsome of the companies were on the village-common, there was still someskirmishing between a few individuals who had not had the fight takenout of them. The little Yorkshire groom thought he must serve outsomebody. So he threw himself into an approved scientific attitude, and, in brief, emphatic language, expressed his urgent anxiety to accommodateany classical young gentleman who chose to consider himself a candidatefor his attentions. I don't suppose there were many of the college boysthat would have been a match for him in the art which Englishmen knowso much more of than Americans, for the most part. However, one of theSophomores, a very quiet, peaceable fellow, just stepped out of thecrowd, and, running straight at the groom, as he stood there, sparringaway, struck him with the sole of his foot, a straight blow, as if ithad been with his fist, and knocked him heels over head and senseless, so that he had to be carried off from the field. This ugly way ofhitting is the great trick of the French gavate, which is not commonlythought able to stand its ground against English pugilistic science. These are old recollections, with not much to recommend them, except, perhaps, a dash of life, which may be worth a little something. 

The young Marylander brought them all up, you may remember. He recalledto my mind those two splendid pieces of vitality I told you of. Bothhave been long dead. How often we see these great red-flaring flambeauxof life blown out, as it were, by a puff of wind, --and the little, single-wicked night-lamp of being, which some white-faced and attenuatedinvalid shades with trembling fingers, flickering on while they go outone after another, until its glimmer is all that is left to us of thegeneration to which it belonged!

I told you that I was perfectly sure, beforehand, we should find somepleasing girlish or womanly shape to fill the blank at our table andmatch the dark-haired youth at the upper corner. 

There she sits, at the very opposite corner, just as far off as accidentcould put her from this handsome fellow, by whose side she ought, ofcourse, to be sitting. One of the "positive" blondes, as my friend, you may remember, used to call them. Tawny-haired, amber-eyed, full-throated, skin as white as a blanched almond. Looks dreamy to me, not self-conscious, though a black ribbon round her neck sets it offas a Marie-Antoinette's diamond-necklace could not do. So in her dress, there is a harmony of tints that looks as if an artist had run his eyeover her and given a hint or two like the finishing touch to a picture. I can't help being struck with her, for she is at once rounded and finein feature, looks calm, as blondes are apt to, and as if she might runwild, if she were trifled with. It is just as I knew it would be, --andanybody can see that our young Marylander will be dead in love with herin a week. 

Then if that little man would only turn out immensely rich and have thegood-nature to die and leave them all his money, it would be as nice asa three-volume novel. 

The Little Gentleman is in a flurry, I suspect, with the excitementof having such a charming neighbor next him. I judge so mainly by hissilence and by a certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if hewere thinking of something that had happened, or that might happen, orthat ought to happen, --or how beautiful her young life looked, or howhardly Nature had dealt with him, or something which struck him silent, at any rate. I made several conversational openings for him, but he didnot fire up as he often does. I even went so far as to indulge in, afling at the State House, which, as we all know, is in truth a veryimposing structure, covering less ground than St. Peter's, but ofsimilar general effect. The little man looked up, but did not reply tomy taunt. He said to the young lady, however, that the State House wasthe Parthenon of our Acropolis, which seemed to please her, for shesmiled, and he reddened a little, --so I thought. I don't think it rightto watch persons who are the subjects of special infirmity, --but we alldo it. 

I see that they have crowded the chairs a little at that end ofthe table, to make room for another newcomer of the lady sort. Awell-mounted, middle-aged preparation, wearing her hair without acap, --pretty wide in the parting, though, --contours vaguely hinted, --features very quiet, --says little as yet, but seems to keep her eye onthe young lady, as if having some responsibility for her My record isa blank for some days after this. In the mean time I have contrived tomake out the person and the story of our young lady, who, according toappearances, ought to furnish us a heroine for a boarding-house romancebefore a year is out. It is very curious that she should prove connectedwith a person many of us have heard of. Yet, curious as it is, I havebeen a hundred times struck with the circumstance that the most remotefacts are constantly striking each other; just as vessels starting fromports thousands of miles apart pass close to each other in the nakedbreadth of the ocean, nay, sometimes even touch, in the dark, with acrack of timbers, a gurgling of water, a cry of startled sleepers, --acry mysteriously echoed in warning dreams, as the wife of someGloucester fisherman, some coasting skipper, wakes with a shriek, callsthe name of her husband, and sinks back to uneasy slumbers upon herlonely pillow, --a widow. 

Oh, these mysterious meetings! Leaving all the vague, waste, endlessspaces of the washing desert, the ocean-steamer and the fishing-smacksail straight towards each other as if they ran in grooves ploughed forthem in the waters from the beginning of creation! Not only things andevents, but our own thoughts, are so full of these surprises, that, if there were a reader in my parish who did not recognize the familiaroccurrence of what I am now going to mention, I should think it a casefor the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of Intelligenceamong the Comfortable Classes. There are about as many twins in thebirths of thought as of children. For the first time in your lives youlearn some fact or come across some idea. Within an hour, a day, a week, that same fact or idea strikes you from another quarter. It seems as ifit had passed into space and bounded back upon you as an echo fromthe blank wall that shuts in the world of thought. Yet no possibleconnection exists between the two channels by which the thought or thefact arrived. Let me give an infinitesimal illustration. 

One of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a verypleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons-table boarders, which I, nourished at the parental board, had never heard of. Youngfellows being always hungry--Allow me to stop dead-short, in order toutter an aphorism which has been forming itself in one of the blankinterior spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the cavity of ageode. 

 Aphorism by the Professor. 

In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it foodof different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anythingat any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods, andyou might as well attempt to regulate the time of highwater to suita fishing-party as to change these periods. The crucial experiment isthis. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the suspected individual just tenminutes before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and devoured, thefact of youth is established. If the subject of the question starts backand expresses surprise and incredulity, as if you could not possibly bein earnest, the fact of maturity is no less clear. 

--Excuse me, --I return to my story of the Commons-table. --Young fellowsbeing always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of theevening meal, it was a trick of some of the Boys to impale a slice ofmeat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and stick the fork holding it beneaththe table, so that they could get it at tea-time. The dragons thatguarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick at last, andkept a sharp look-out for missing forks;--they knew where to find one, if it was not in its place. --Now the odd thing was, that, after waitingso many years to hear of this college trick, I should hear it mentioneda second time within the same twenty-four hours by a college youth ofthe present generation. Strange, but true. And so it has happened to meand to every person, often and often, to be hit in rapid succession bythese twinned facts or thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot. 

I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking itas an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrowof subsoil in it. --The explanation is, of course, that in a great manythoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrestour attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of theenormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness, until in some future life we see the photographic record of our thoughtsand the stereoscopic picture of our actions. There go more pieces tomake up a conscious life or a living body than you think for. Why, some of you were surprised when a friend of mine told you therewere fifty-eight separate pieces in a fiddle. How many "swimmingglands"--solid, organized, regularly formed, rounded disks taking anactive part in all your vital processes, part and parcel, each one ofthem, of your corporeal being--do you suppose are whirled along, likepebbles in a stream, with the blood which warms your frame and colorsyour cheeks?--A noted German physiologist spread out a minute dropof blood, under the microscope, in narrow streaks, and counted theglobules, and then made a calculation. The counting by the micrometertook him a week. --You have, my full-grown friend, of these littlecouriers in crimson or scarlet livery, running on your vital errandsday and night as long as you live, sixty-five billions, five hundred andseventy thousand millions. Errors excepted. --Did I hear some gentlemansay, "Doubted? "--I am the Professor. I sit in my chair with a petardunder it that will blow me through the skylight of my lecture-room, if Ido not know what I am talking about and whom I am quoting. 

Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads, andsaying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you had beenwaltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is it possiblethat you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of all that Ihave been saying, and its bearing on what is now to come? Listen, then. The number of these living elements in our bodies illustratesthe incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of our thoughtsaccounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of; these coincidencesin the world of thought illustrate those which we constantly observe inthe world of outward events, of which the presence of the young girl nowat our table, and proving to be the daughter of an old acquaintance someof us may remember, is the special example which led me through thislabyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at the commencement ofthis young girl's story, which, as I said, I have found the time andfelt the interest to learn something of, and which I think I can tellwithout wronging the unconscious subject of my brief delineation. IRIS. 

You remember, perhaps, in some papers published awhile ago, an odd poemwritten by an old Latin tutor? He brought up at the verb amo, I love, as all of us do, and by and by Nature opened her great living dictionaryfor him at the word filia, a daughter. The poor man was greatlyperplexed in choosing a name for her. Lucretia and Virginia were thefirst that he thought of; but then came up those pictured stories ofTitus Livius, which he could never read without crying, though he hadread them a hundred times. 

--Lucretia sending for her husband and her father, each to bring onefriend with him, and awaiting them in her chamber. To them her wrongsbriefly. Let them see to the wretch, --she will take care of herself. Then the hidden knife flashes out and sinks into her heart. Sheslides from her seat, and falls dying. "Her husband and her father cryaloud. "--No, not Lucretia. 

-Virginius, --a brown old soldier, father of a nice girl. She engagedto a very promising young man. Decemvir Appius takes a violent fancy toher, --must have her at any rate. Hires a lawyer to present the argumentsin favor of the view that she was another man's daughter. There used tobe lawyers in Rome that would do such things. --All right. There are twosides to everything. Audi alteram partem. The legal gentleman has noopinion, --he only states the evidence. --A doubtful case. Let the younglady be under the protection of the Honorable Decemvir until it can belooked up thoroughly. --Father thinks it best, on the whole, to give in. Will explain the matter, if the young lady and her maid will step thisway. That is the explanation, --a stab with a butcher's knife, snatchedfrom a stall, meant for other lambs than this poor bleeding Virginia. 

The old man thought over the story. Then he must have one look at theoriginal. So he took down the first volume and read it over. When hecame to that part where it tells how the young gentleman she was engagedto and a friend of his took up the poor girl's bloodless shape andcarried it through the street, and how all the women followed, wailing, and asking if that was what their daughters were coming to, --if thatwas what they were to get for being good girls, --he melted down into hisaccustomed tears of pity and grief, and, through them all, of delight atthe charming Latin of the narrative. But it was impossible to call hischild Virginia. He could never look at her without thinking she had aknife sticking in her bosom. 

Dido would be a good name, and a fresh one. She was a queen, and thefounder of a great city. Her story had been immortalized by the greatestof poets, --for the old Latin tutor clove to "Virgilius Maro, " as hecalled him, as closely as ever Dante did in his memorable journey. So hetook down his Virgil, it was the smooth-leafed, open-lettered quarto ofBaskerville, --and began reading the loves and mishaps of Dido. It wouldn't do. A lady who had not learned discretion by experience, and came toan evil end. He shook his head, as he sadly repeated, "--misera ante diem, subitoque accensa furore;"

but when he came to the lines, "Ergo Iris croceis per coelum roscida pennis Mille trahens varios adverso Sole colores, "

he jumped up with a great exclamation, which the particular recordingangel who heard it pretended not to understand, or it might have gonehard with the Latin tutor some time or other. 

"Iris shall be her name!"--he said. So her name was Iris. 

--The natural end of a tutor is to perish by starvation. It is only aquestion of time, just as with the burning of college libraries. Theseall burn up sooner or later, provided they are not housed in brick orstone and iron. I don't mean that you will see in the registry of deathsthat this or that particular tutor died of well-marked, uncomplicatedstarvation. They may, even, in extreme cases, be carried off by a thin, watery kind of apoplexy, which sounds very well in the returns, butmeans little to those who know that it is only debility settling onthe head. Generally, however, they fade and waste away under variouspretexts, --calling it dyspepsia, consumption, and so on, to put a decentappearance upon the case and keep up the credit of the family and theinstitution where they have passed through the successive stages ofinanition. 

In some cases it takes a great many years to kill a tutor by theprocess in question. You see they do get food and clothes and fuel, inappreciable quantities, such as they are. You will even notice rows ofbooks in their rooms, and a picture or two, --things that look as ifthey had surplus money; but these superfluities are the water ofcrystallization to scholars, and you can never get them away tillthe poor fellows effloresce into dust. Do not be deceived. The tutorbreakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with milk watered to theverge of transparency; his mutton is tough and elastic, up to themoment when it becomes tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen, sulphurous anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, inthe shallow grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and toothick for summer. The greedy lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck theoxygen from the air he breathes in his recitation-room. In short, heundergoes a process of gentle and gradual starvation. 

--The mother of little Iris was not called Electra, like hers of the oldstory, neither was her grandfather Oceanus. Her blood-name, which shegave away with her heart to the Latin tutor, was a plain old Englishone, and her water-name was Hannah, beautiful as recalling the motherof Samuel, and admirable as reading equally well from the initial letterforwards and from the terminal letter backwards. The poor lady, seatedwith her companion at the chessboard of matrimony, had but just pushedforward her one little white pawn upon an empty square, when the BlackKnight, that cares nothing for castles or kings or queens, swooped downupon her and swept her from the larger board of life. 

The old Latin tutor put a modest blue stone at the head of his latecompanion, with her name and age and Eheu! upon it, --a smaller oneat her feet, with initials; and left her by herself, to be rained andsnowed on, --which is a hard thing to do for those whom we have cherishedtenderly. 

About the time that the lichens, falling on the stone, like drops ofwater, had spread into fair, round rosettes, the tutor had starved intoa slight cough. Then he began to draw the buckle of his black trousersa little tighter, and took in another reef in his never-ample waistcoat. His temples got a little hollow, and the contrasts of color in hischeeks more vivid than of old. After a while his walks fatigued him, and he was tired, and breathed hard after going up a flight or two ofstairs. Then came on other marks of inward trouble and general waste, which he spoke of to his physician as peculiar, and doubtless owing toaccidental causes; to all which the doctor listened with deference, asif it had not been the old story that one in five or six of mankind intemperate climates tells, or has told for him, as if it were somethingnew. As the doctor went out, he said to himself, --"On the rail at last. Accommodation train. A good many stops, but will get to the stationby and by. " So the doctor wrote a recipe with the astrological sign ofJupiter before it, (just as your own physician does, inestimable reader, as you will see, if you look at his next prescription, ) and departed, saying he would look in occasionally. After this, the Latin tutor beganthe usual course of "getting better, " until he got so much better thathis face was very sharp, and when he smiled, three crescent linesshowed at each side of his lips, and when he spoke; it was in a muffledwhisper, and the white of his eye glistened as pearly as the purestporcelain, --so much better, that he hoped--by spring--he--might beable--to--attend------to his class again. --But he was recommended notto expose himself, and so kept his chamber, and occasionally, not havinganything to do, his bed. The unmarried sister with whom he lived tookcare of him; and the child, now old enough to be manageable and evenuseful in trifling offices, sat in the chamber, or played, about. 

Things could not go on so forever, of course. One morning his facewas sunken and his hands were very, very cold. He was "better, " hewhispered, but sadly and faintly. After a while he grew restless andseemed a little wandering. His mind ran on his classics, and fell backon the Latin grammar. 

"Iris!" he said, --"filiola mea!"--The child knew this meant my dearlittle daughter as well as if it had been English. --"Rainbow!" for hewould translate her name at times, --"come to me, --veni"--and his lipswent on automatically, and murmured, "vel venito!"--The child came andsat by his bedside and took his hand, which she could not warm, butwhich shot its rays of cold all through her slender frame. But there shesat, looking steadily at him. Presently he opened his lips feebly, andwhispered, "Moribundus. " She did not know what that meant, but she sawthat there was something new and sad. So she began to cry; but presentlyremembering an old book that seemed to comfort him at times, got up andbrought a Bible in the Latin version, called the Vulgate. "Open it, " hesaid, --"I will read, segnius irritant, --don't put the light out, --ah!hoeret lateri, --I am going, --vale, vale, vale, goodbye, good-bye, --theLord take care of my child! Domine, audi--vel audito!" His face whitenedsuddenly, and he lay still, with open eyes and mouth. He had taken hislast degree. 

--Little Miss Iris could not be said to begin life with a very brilliantrainbow over her, in a worldly point of view. A limited wardrobe ofman's attire, such as poor tutors wear, --a few good books, principallyclassics, --a print or two, and a plaster model of the Pantheon, withsome pieces of furniture which had seen service, --these, and a child'sheart full of tearful recollections and strange doubts and questions, alternating with the cheap pleasures which are the anodynes of childishgrief; such were the treasures she inherited. --No, --I forgot. Withthat kindly sentiment which all of us feel for old men's firstchildren, --frost-flowers of the early winter season, the old tutor'sstudents had remembered him at a time when he was laughing and cryingwith his new parental emotions, and running to the side of the plaincrib in which his alter egg, as he used to say, was swinging, to hangover the little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, red, downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips, --inthat unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, andwhich gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant's life thecharacter of a first old age, to counterpoise that second childhoodwhich there is one chance in a dozen it may reach by and by. The boyshad remembered the old man and young father at that tender period of hishard, dry life. There came to him a fair, silver goblet, embossed withclassical figures, and bearing on a shield the graver words, Ex donopupillorum. The handle on its side showed what use the boys had meant itfor; and a kind letter in it, written with the best of feeling, inthe worst of Latin, pointed delicately to its destination. Out of thissilver vessel, after a long, desperate, strangling cry, which markedher first great lesson in the realities of life, the child took the bluemilk, such as poor tutors and their children get, tempered withwater, and sweetened a little, so as to bring it nearer the standardestablished by the touching indulgence and partiality of Nature, --whohad mingled an extra allowance of sugar in the blameless food of thechild at its mother's breast, as compared with that of its infantbrothers and sisters of the bovine race. 

But a willow will grow in baked sand wet with rainwater. An air-plantwill grow by feeding on the winds. Nay, those huge forests thatoverspread great continents have built themselves up mainly from theair-currents with which they are always battling. The oak is but afoliated atmospheric crystal deposited from the aerial ocean that holdsthe future vegetable world in solution. The storm that tears its leaveshas paid tribute to its strength, and it breasts the tornado clad in thespoils of a hundred hurricanes. 

Poor little Iris! What had she in common with the great oak in theshadow of which we are losing sight of her?--She lived and grew likethat, --this was all. The blue milk ran into her veins and filled themwith thin, pure blood. Her skin was fair, with a faint tinge, such asthe white rosebud shows before it opens. The doctor who had attendedher father was afraid her aunt would hardly be able to "raise"her, --"delicate child, "--hoped she was not consumptive, --thought therewas a fair chance she would take after her father. 

A very forlorn-looking person, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, sent her a memoir of a child who died at the age of two years and elevenmonths, after having fully indorsed all the doctrines of the particularpersuasion to which he not only belonged himself, but thought it veryshameful that everybody else did not belong. What with foreboding looksand dreary death-bed stories, it was a wonder the child made out to livethrough it. It saddened her early years, of course, --it distressedher tender soul with thoughts which, as they cannot be fully taken in, should be sparingly used as instruments of torture to break down thenatural cheerfulness of a healthy child, or, what is infinitely worse, to cheat a dying one out of the kind illusions with which the Father ofAll has strewed its downward path. 

The child would have died, no doubt, and, if properly managed, mighthave added another to the long catalogue of wasting children who havebeen as cruelly played upon by spiritual physiologists, often with thebest intentions, as ever the subject of a rare disease by the curiousstudents of science. 

Fortunately for her, however, a wise instinct had guided the late Latintutor in the selection of the partner of his life, and the future motherof his child. The deceased tutoress was a tranquil, smooth woman, easilynourished, as such people are, --a quality which is inestimable in atutor's wife, --and so it happened that the daughter inherited enoughvitality from the mother to live through childhood and infancy and fighther way towards womanhood, in spite of the tendencies she derived fromher other parent. 

--Two and two do not always make four, in this matter of hereditarydescent of qualities. Sometimes they make three, and sometimes five. Itseems as if the parental traits at one time showed separate, at anotherblended, --that occasionally, the force of two natures is represented inthe derivative one by a diagonal of greater value than either originalline of living movement, --that sometimes there is a loss of vitalityhardly to be accounted for, and again a forward impulse of variableintensity in some new and unforeseen direction. 

So it was with this child. She had glanced off from her parentalprobabilities at an unexpected angle. Instead of taking to classicallearning like her father, or sliding quietly into household duties likeher mother, she broke out early in efforts that pointed in the directionof Art. As soon as she could hold a pencil she began to sketch outlinesof objects round her with a certain air and spirit. Very extraordinaryhorses, but their legs looked as if they could move. Birds unknown toAudubon, yet flying, as it were, with a rush. Men with impossible legs, which did yet seem to have a vital connection with their most improbablebodies. By-and-by the doctor, on his beast, --an old man with a facelooking as if Time had kneaded it like dough with his knuckles, with arhubarb tint and flavor pervading himself and his sorrel horse and alltheir appurtenances. A dreadful old man! Be sure she did not forgetthose saddle-bags that held the detestable bottles out of which he usedto shake those loathsome powders which, to virgin childish palates thatfind heaven in strawberries and peaches, are--Well, I suppose I hadbetter stop. Only she wished she was dead sometimes when she heard himcoming. On the next leaf would figure the gentleman with the black coatand white cravat, as he looked when he came and entertained her withstories concerning the death of various little children about her age, to encourage her, as that wicked Mr. Arouet said about shooting AdmiralByng. Then she would take her pencil, and with a few scratches therewould be the outline of a child, in which you might notice how onesudden sweep gave the chubby cheek, and two dots darted at the paperlooked like real eyes. 

By-and-by she went to school, and caricatured the schoolmaster onthe leaves of her grammars and geographies, and drew the faces of hercompanions, and, from time to time, heads and figures from her fancy, with large eyes, far apart, like those of Raffaelle's mothers andchildren, sometimes with wild floating hair, and then with wings andheads thrown back in ecstasy. This was at about twelve years old, as thedates of these drawings show, and, therefore, three or four years beforeshe came among us. Soon after this time, the ideal figures began to takethe place of portraits and caricatures, and a new feature appeared inher drawing-books in the form of fragments of verse and short poems. 

It was dull work, of course, for such a young girl to live with an oldspinster and go to a village school. Her books bore testimony to this;for there was a look of sadness in the faces she drew, and a sense ofweariness and longing for some imaginary conditions of blessednessor other, which began to be painful. She might have gone through thisflowering of the soul, and, casting her petals, subsided into a sober, human berry, but for the intervention of friendly assistance andcounsel. 

In the town where she lived was a lady of honorable condition, somewhatpast middle age, who was possessed of pretty ample means, of cultivatedtastes, of excellent principles, of exemplary character, and of morethan common accomplishments. The gentleman in black broadcloth and whiteneckerchief only echoed the common voice about her, when he called her, after enjoying, beneath her hospitable roof, an excellent cup of tea, with certain elegancies and luxuries he was unaccustomed to, "The Modelof all the Virtues. "

She deserved this title as well as almost any woman. She did reallybristle with moral excellences. Mention any good thing she had not done;I should like to see you try! There was no handle of weakness to takehold of her by; she was as unseizable, except in her totality, as abilliard-ball; and on the broad, green, terrestrial table, where she hadbeen knocked about, like all of us, by the cue of Fortune, she glancedfrom every human contact, and "caromed" from one relation to another, and rebounded from the stuffed cushion of temptation, with such exactand perfect angular movements, that the Enemy's corps of Reporters hadlong given up taking notes of her conduct, as there was no chance fortheir master. 

What an admirable person for the patroness and directress of a slightlyself-willed child, with the lightning zigzag line of genius running likea glittering vein through the marble whiteness of her virgin nature! Oneof the lady-patroness's peculiar virtues was calmness. She was resoluteand strenuous, but still. You could depend on her for every duty; shewas as true as steel. She was kind-hearted and serviceable in allthe relations of life. She had more sense, more knowledge, moreconversation, as well as more goodness, than all the partners you havewaltzed with this winter put together. 

Yet no man was known to have loved her, or even to have offeredhimself to her in marriage. It was a great wonder. I am very anxiousto vindicate my character as a philosopher and an observer of Nature byaccounting for this apparently extraordinary fact. 

You may remember certain persons who have the misfortune of presentingto the friends whom they meet a cold, damp hand. There are states ofmind in which a contact of this kind has a depressing effect on thevital powers that makes us insensible to all the virtues and graces ofthe proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs. When they touchus, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had beendrained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrownhuman torpedo. 

"The Model of all the Virtues" had a pair of searching eyes as clear asWenham ice; but they were slower to melt than that fickle jewelry. Herfeatures disordered themselves slightly at times in a surface-smile, butnever broke loose from their corners and indulged in the riotous tumultof a laugh, --which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features;--andpropriety the magistrate who reads the riot-act. She carried thebrimming cup of her inestimable virtues with a cautious, steady hand, and an eye always on them, to see that they did not spill. Then she wasan admirable judge of character. Her mind was a perfect laboratory oftests and reagents; every syllable you put into breath went intoher intellectual eudiometer, and all your thoughts were recorded onlitmus-paper. I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman. Of course, Miss Iris was immensely and passionately attachedto her. --Well, --these are two highly oxygenated adverbs, --grateful, --suppose we say, --yes, --grateful, dutiful, obedient to herwishes for the most part, --perhaps not quite up to the concert pitch ofsuch a perfect orchestra of the virtues. 

We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love itmuch. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything thanis good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirablesubjects for biographies. But we don't always care most for thoseflat-pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium. 

This immaculate woman, --why could n't she have a fault or two? Is n'tthere any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole ofsaintly perfection? Does n't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket? Isn't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use wouldrequire? It would be such a comfort!

Not for the world would a young creature like Iris have let such wordsescape her, or such thoughts pass through her mind. Whether at thebottom of her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressivepresence, it is hard to say, until we know more about her. Iris sitsbetween the Little Gentleman and the "Model of all the Virtues, " as theblack-coated personage called her. --I will watch them all. 

--Here I stop for the present. What the Professor said has had to makeway this time for what he saw and heard. 

-And now you may read these lines, which were written for gentle soulswho love music, and read in even tones, and, perhaps, with somethinglike a smile upon the reader's lips, at a meeting where these musicalfriends had gathered. Whether they were written with smiles or not, youcan guess better after you have read them. 

 THE OPENING OF THE PIANO. 

 In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night. 

 Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came! What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, When the wondrous boa was opened that had come from over seas, With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys!

 Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play. "

 For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, Or caroling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. 

 So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, Sat down to the new "Clementi, " and struck the glittering keys. Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn. "

 --Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, (Wedded since, and a widow, --something like ten years dead, ) Hearing a gush of music such as none before, Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door. 

 Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, --"Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, (For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard, ) "Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the bird!"

IV

I don't know whether our literary or professional people are moreamiable than they are in other places, but certainly quarrelling is outof fashion among them. This could never be, if they were in the habit ofsecret anonymous puffing of each other. That is the kind of undergroundmachinery which manufactures false reputations and genuine hatreds. Onthe other hand, I should like to know if we are not at liberty to havea good time together, and say the pleasantest things we can think of toeach other, when any of us reaches his thirtieth or fortieth or fiftiethor eightieth birthday. 

We don't have "scenes, " I warrant you, on these occasions. No "surprise"parties! You understand these, of course. In the rural districts, wherescenic tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, at theexpense of a quarter and a white pocket-handkerchief, emotionalexcitement has to be sought in the dramas of real life. Christenings, weddings, and funerals, especially the latter, are the main dependence;but babies, brides, and deceased citizens cannot be had at a day'snotice. Now, then, for a surprise-party!

A bag of flour, a barrel of potatoes, some strings of onions, a basketof apples, a big cake and many little cakes, a jug of lemonade, a pursestuffed with bills of the more modest denominations, may, perhaps, do well enough for the properties in one of these private theatricalexhibitions. The minister of the parish, a tender-hearted, quiet, hard-working man, living on a small salary, with many children, sometimes pinched to feed and clothe them, praying fervently every dayto be blest in his "basket and store, " but sometimes fearing he asksamiss, to judge by the small returns, has the first role, --not, however, by his own choice, but forced upon him. The minister's wife, a sharp-eyed, unsentimental body, is first lady; the remaining parts bythe rest of the family. If they only had a playbill, it would run thus:

 ON TUESDAY NEXT WILL BE PRESENTED THE AFFECTING SCENE CALLED

 THE SURPRISE-PARTY

 OR

 THE OVERCOME FAMILY;

WITH THE FOLLOWING STRONG CAST OF CHARACTERS. 

 The Rev. Mr. Overcome, by the Clergyman of this Parish. Mrs. Overcome, by his estimable lady. Masters Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Overcome, Misses Dorcas, Tabitha, Rachel, and Hannah, Overcome, by their interesting children. Peggy, by the female help. 

The poor man is really grateful;--it is a most welcome and unexpectedrelief. He tries to express his thanks, --his voice falters, --hechokes, --and bursts into tears. That is the great effect of the evening. The sharp-sighted lady cries a little with one eye, and counts thestrings of onions, and the rest of the things, with the other. Thechildren stand ready for a spring at the apples. The female help weepsafter the noisy fashion of untutored handmaids. 

Now this is all very well as charity, but do let the kind visitorsremember they get their money's worth. If you pay a quarter for drycrying, done by a second-rate actor, how much ought you to pay for realhot, wet tears, out of the honest eyes of a gentleman who is not acting, but sobbing in earnest?

All I meant to say, when I began, was, that this was not asurprise-party where I read these few lines that follow:

 We will not speak of years to-night; For what have years to bring, But larger floods of love and light And sweeter songs to sing?

 We will not drown in wordy praise The kindly thoughts that rise; If friendship owns one tender phrase, He reads it in our eyes. 

 We need not waste our schoolboy art To gild this notch of time; Forgive me, if my wayward heart Has throbbed in artless rhyme. 

 Enough for him the silent grasp That knits us hand in hand, And he the bracelet's radiant clasp That locks our circling band. 

 Strength to his hours of manly toil! Peace to his starlit dreams! Who loves alike the furrowed soil, The music-haunted streams!

 Sweet smiles to keep forever bright The sunshine on his lips, And faith, that sees the ring of light Round Nature's last eclipse!

--One of our boarders has been talking in such strong language that I amalmost afraid to report it. However, as he seems to be really honest andis so very sincere in his local prejudices, I don't believe anybody willbe very angry with him. 

It is here, Sir! right here!--said the little deformed gentleman, --inthis old new city of Boston, --this remote provincial corner of aprovincial nation, that the Battle of the Standard is fighting, and wasfighting before we were born, and will be fighting when we are deadand gone, --please God! The battle goes on everywhere throughoutcivilization; but here, here, here is the broad white flag flying whichproclaims, first of all, peace and good-will to men, and, next tothat, the absolute, unconditional spiritual liberty of each individualimmortal soul! The three-hilled city against the seven-hilled city! Thatis it, Sir, --nothing less than that; and if you know what that means, Idon't think you'll ask for anything more. I swear to you, Sir, I believethat these two centres of civilization are just exactly the two pointsthat close the circuit in the battery of our planetary intelligence! AndI believe there are spiritual eyes looking out from Uranus andunseen Neptune, --ay, Sir, from the systems of Sirius and Arcturus andAldebaran, and as far as that faint stain of sprinkled worlds confluentin the distance that we call the nebula of Orion, --looking on, Sir, withwhat organs I know not, to see which are going to melt in that fieryfusion, the accidents and hindrances of humanity or man himself, Sir, --the stupendous abortion, the illustrious failure that he is, if the three-hilled city does not ride down and trample out theseven-hilled city!

--Steam 's up!--said the young man John, so called, in a low tone. --Three hundred and sixty-five tons to the square inch. Let him blow heroff, or he'll bu'st his b'iler. 

The divinity-student took it calmly, only whispering that he thoughtthere was a little confusion of images between a galvanic battery and acharge of cavalry. 

But the Koh-i-noor--the gentleman, you remember, with a very largediamond in his shirt-front laughed his scornful laugh, and made as if tospeak. 

Sail in, Metropolis!--said that same young man John, by name. And then, in a lower lane, not meaning to be heard, --Now, then, Ma'am Allen!

But he was heard, --and the Koh-i-noor's face turned so white with rage, that his blue-black moustache and beard looked fearful, seen againstit. He grinned with wrath, and caught at a tumbler, as if he would havethrown it or its contents at the speaker. The young Marylander fixedhis clear, steady eye upon him, and laid his hand on his arm, carelesslyalmost, but the Jewel found it was held so that he could not move it. It was of no use. The youth was his master in muscle, and in that deadlyIndian hug in which men wrestle with their eyes;--over in five seconds, but breaks one of their two backs, and is good for threescore years andten;--one trial enough, --settles the whole matter, --just as whentwo feathered songsters of the barnyard, game and dunghill, cometogether, -after a jump or two at each other, and a few sharp kicks, there is the end of it; and it is, Apres vous, Monsieur, with the beatenparty in all the social relations for all the rest of his days. 

I cannot philosophically account for the Koh-i-noor's wrath. For thougha cosmetic is sold, bearing the name of the lady to whom referencewas made by the young person John, yet, as it is publicly asserted inrespectable prints that this cosmetic is not a dye, I see no reason whyhe should have felt offended by any suggestion that he was indebted toit or its authoress. 

I have no doubt that there are certain exceptional complexions to whichthe purple tinge, above alluded to, is natural. Nature is fertile invariety. I saw an albiness in London once, for sixpence, (including theinspection of a stuffed boa-constrictor, ) who looked as if she had beenboiled in milk. A young Hottentot of my acquaintance had his hair all inlittle pellets of the size of marrow-fat peas. One of my own classmateshas undergone a singular change of late years, --his hair losing itsoriginal tint, and getting a remarkable discolored look; and anotherhas ceased to cultivate any hair at all over the vertex or crown of thehead. So I am perfectly willing to believe that the purple-black ofthe Koh-i-noor's moustache and whiskers is constitutional and notpigmentary. But I can't think why he got so angry. 

The intelligent reader will understand that all this pantomime of thethreatened onslaught and its suppression passed so quickly that it wasall over by the time the other end of the table found out there was adisturbance; just as a man chopping wood half a mile off may be seenresting on his axe at the instant you hear the last blow he struck. So you will please to observe that the Little Gentleman was not, interrupted during the time implied by these ex-post-facto remarks ofmine, but for some ten or fifteen seconds only. 

He did not seem to mind the interruption at all, for he started again. The "Sir" of his harangue was no doubt addressed to myself more thananybody else, but he often uses it in discourse as if he were talkingwith some imaginary opponent. 

--America, Sir, --he exclaimed, --is the only place where man isfull-grown!

He straightened himself up, as he spoke, standing on the top roundof his high chair, I suppose, and so presented the larger part of hislittle figure to the view of the boarders. 

It was next to impossible to keep from laughing. The commentary was sostrange an illustration of the text! I thought it was time to put ina word; for I have lived in foreign parts, and am more or lesscosmopolitan. 

I doubt if we have more practical freedom in America than they have inEngland, --I said. --An Englishman thinks as he likes in religion andpolitics. Mr. Martineau speculates as freely as ever Dr. Channing did, and Mr. Bright is as independent as Mr. Seward. 

Sir, --said he, --it is n't what a man thinks or says; but when and whereand to whom he thinks and says it. A man with a flint and steel strikingsparks over a wet blanket is one thing, and striking them over atinder-box is another. The free Englishman is born under protest; helives and dies under protest, --a tolerated, but not a welcome fact. Isnot freethinker a term of reproach in England? The same idea in thesoul of an Englishman who struggled up to it and still holds itantagonistically, and in the soul of an American to whom it iscongenital and spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an elementblended with all his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing ofhis breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. Youmay teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wantingto be on all fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is likethe atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. TheAmerican baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast at which hehangs. 

--That's a good joke, --said the young fellow John, --considerin' itcommonly belongs to a female Paddy. 

I thought--I will not be certain--that the Little Gentleman winked, asif he had been hit somewhere--as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when thewooden-spoon suggestion upset his theory about why, etc. If he winked, however, he did not dodge. 

A lively comment!--he said. --But Rome, in her great founder, sucked theblood of empire out of the dugs of a brute, Sir! The Milesian wet-nurseis only a convenient vessel through which the American infant gets thelife-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is making man over again, onthe sunset pattern! You don't think what we are doing and going todo here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering themselves withinterpretation of prophecies, we have got the new heavens and the newearth over us and under us! Was there ever anything in Italy, I shouldlike to know, like a Boston sunset?

--This time there was a laugh, and the little man himself almost smiled. 

Yes, --Boston sunsets;--perhaps they're as good in some other places, but I know 'em best here. Anyhow, the American skies are different fromanything they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are different, and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil, from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisionalraces are dying out--

--What do you mean by the provisional races, Sir?--said thedivinity-student, interrupting him. 

Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure, --he answered, --the red-crayonsketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the realmanhood were ready. 

I hope they will come to something yet, --said the divinity-student. 

Irreclaimable, Sir, --irreclaimable!--said the Little Gentleman. --Cheaperto breed white men than domesticate a nation of red ones. When you canget the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can make an enlightenedcommonwealth of Indians. A provisional race, Sir, --nothing more. Exhaled carbonic acid for the use of vegetation, kept down the bears andcatamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalping and being scalped, and thenpassed away or are passing away, according to the programme. 

Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has to acclimatehimself. It takes him a good while; but he will come all rightby-and-by, Sir, --as sound as a woodchuck, --as sound as a musquash!

A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest of'em for wash-basins! A new race, and a whole new world for the new-bornhuman soul to work in! And Boston is the brain of it, and has been anytime these hundred years! That's all I claim for Boston, --that it is thethinking centre of the continent, and therefore of the planet. 

--And the grand emporium of modesty, --said the divinity-student, alittle mischievously. 

Oh, don't talk to me of modesty!--answered the Little Gentleman, --I 'mpast that! There is n't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie ittore into tatters and flung into the dock, that was n't thought veryindelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails ofcommercial and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as oftenas this revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come overit. --No, Sir, --show me any other place that is, or was since themegalosaurus has died out, where wealth and social influence are sofairly divided between the stationary and the progressive classes! Showme any other place where every other drawing-room is not a chamber ofthe Inquisition, with papas and mammas for inquisitors, --and the coldshoulder, instead of the "dry pan and the gradual fire, " the punishmentof "heresy"!

--We think Baltimore is a pretty civilized kind of a village, --said theyoung Marylander, good-naturedly. --But I suppose you can't forgive itfor always keeping a little ahead of Boston in point of numbers, --tellthe truth now. Are we not the centre of something?

Ah, indeed, to be sure you are. You are the gastronomic metropolisof the Union. Why don't you put a canvas-back-duck on the top of theWashington column? Why don't you get that lady off from Battle Monumentand plant a terrapin in her place? Why will you ask for other glorieswhen you have soft crabs? No, Sir, --you live too well to think as hardas we do in Boston. Logic comes to us with the salt-fish of Cape Ann;rhetoric is born of the beans of Beverly; but you--if you open yourmouths to speak, Nature stops them with a fat oyster, or offers a sliceof the breast of your divine bird, and silences all your aspirations. 

And what of Philadelphia?--said the Marylander. 

Oh, Philadelphia?--Waterworks, --killed by the Croton and Cochituate;--Ben Franklin, --borrowed from Boston;--David Rittenhouse, --made anorrery;--Benjamin Rush, --made a medical system;--both interesting toantiquarians;--great Red-river raft of medical students, --spontaneousgeneration of professors to match;--more widely known through theMoyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar parties;-for geological sectionof social strata, go to The Club. --Good place to live in, --first-ratemarket, --tip-top peaches. --What do we know about Philadelphia, exceptthat the engine-companies are always shooting each other?

And what do you say to New York?--asked the Koh-i-noor. 

A great city, Sir, --replied the Little Gentleman, --a very opulent, splendid city. A point of transit of much that is remarkable, and ofpermanence for much that is respectable. A great money-centre. SanFrancisco with the mines above-ground, --and some of 'em under thesidewalks. I have seen next to nothing grandiose, out of New York, in all our cities. It makes 'em all look paltry and petty. Has manyelements of civilization. May stop where Venice did, though, foraught we know. --The order of its development is just this:--Wealth;architecture; upholstery; painting; sculpture. Printing, as a mechanicalart, --just as Nicholas Jepson and the Aldi, who were scholars too, madeVenice renowned for it. Journalism, which is the accident of businessand crowded populations, in great perfection. Venice got as far asTitian and Paul Veronese and Tintoretto, --great colorists, mark you, magnificent on the flesh-and-blood side of Art, --but look over toFlorence and see who lie in Santa Crocea, and ask out of whose loinsDante sprung!

Oh, yes, to be sure, Venice built her Ducal Palace, and her Church ofSt. Mark, and her Casa d' Or, and the rest of her golden houses; andVenice had great pictures and good music; and Venice had a Golden Book, in which all the large tax-payers had their names written;--but all thatdid not make Venice the brain of Italy. 

I tell you what, Sir, --with all these magnificent appliances ofcivilization, it is time we began to hear something from the djinnisdonee whose names are on the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, marble-placed Venice, --something in the higher walks of literature, --something in the councils of the nation. Plenty of Art, I grant you, Sir; now, then, for vast libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkersand statesmen, --five for every Boston one, as the population is toours, --ten to one more properly, in virtue of centralizing attraction asthe alleged metropolis, and not call our people provincials, and have tocome begging to us to write the lives of Hendrik Hudson and GouverneurMorris!

--The Little Gentleman was on his hobby, exalting his own city at theexpense of every other place. I have my doubts if he had been ineither of the cities he had been talking about. I was just going to saysomething to sober him down, if I could, when the young Marylander spokeup. 

Come, now, --he said, --what's the use of these comparisons? Did n't Ihear this gentleman saying, the other day, that every American owns allAmerica? If you have really got more brains in Boston than other folks, as you seem to think, who hates you for it, except a pack of scribblingfools? If I like Broadway better than Washington Street, what then? Iown them both, as much as anybody owns either. I am an American, --andwherever I look up and see the stars and stripes overhead, that is hometo me!

He spoke, and looked up as if he heard the emblazoned folds cracklingover him in the breeze. We all looked up involuntarily, as if we shouldsee the national flag by so doing. The sight of the dingy ceiling andthe gas-fixture depending therefrom dispelled the illusion. 

Bravo! bravo!--said the venerable gentleman on the other side of thetable. --Those are the sentiments of Washington's Farewell Address. Nothing better than that since the last chapter in Revelations. Five-and-forty years ago there used to be Washington societies, andlittle boys used to walk in processions, each little boy having a copyof the Address, bound in red, hung round his neck by a ribbon. Why don'tthey now? Why don't they now? I saw enough of hating each other in theold Federal times; now let's love each other, I say, --let's love eachother, and not try to make it out that there is n't any place fit tolive in except the one we happen to be born in. 

It dwarfs the mind, I think, --said I, --to feed it on any localism. Thefull stature of manhood is shrivelled--

The color burst up into my cheeks. What was I saying, --I, who would notfor the world have pained our unfortunate little boarder by an allusion?

I will go, --he said, --and made a movement with his left arm to lethimself down from his high chair. 

No, --no, --he does n't mean it, --you must not go, --said a kind voice nexthim; and a soft, white hand was laid upon his arm. 

Iris, my dear!--exclaimed another voice, as of a female, in accentsthat might be considered a strong atmospheric solution of duty with verylittle flavor of grace. 

She did not move for this address, and there was a tableau that lastedsome seconds. For the young girl, in the glory of half-blown womanhood, and the dwarf, the cripple, the misshapen little creature covered withNature's insults, looked straight into each other's eyes. 

Perhaps no handsome young woman had ever looked at him so in his life. Certainly the young girl never had looked into eyes that reachedinto her soul as these did. It was not that they were in themselvessupernaturally bright, --but there was the sad fire in them that flamesup from the soul of one who looks on the beauty of woman without hope, but, alas! not without emotion. To him it seemed as if those amber gateshad been translucent as the brown water of a mountain brook, and throughthem he had seen dimly into a virgin wilderness, only waiting for thesunrise of a great passion for all its buds to blow and all its bowersto ring with melody. 

That is my image, of course, --not his. It was not a simile that wasin his mind, or is in anybody's at such a moment, --it was a pang ofwordless passion, and then a silent, inward moan. 

A lady's wish, --he said, with a certain gallantry of manner, --makesslaves of us all. --And Nature, who is kind to all her children, andnever leaves the smallest and saddest of all her human failureswithout one little comfit of self-love at the bottom of his poor raggedpocket, --Nature suggested to him that he had turned his sentence well;and he fell into a reverie, in which the old thoughts that were alwayshovering dust outside the doors guarded by Common Sense, and watchingfor a chance to squeeze in, knowing perfectly well they would beignominiously kicked out again as soon as Common Sense saw them, flockedin pell-mell, --misty, fragmentary, vague, half-ashamed of themselves, but still shouldering up against his inner consciousness till itwarmed with their contact:--John Wilkes's--the ugliest man's inEngland--saying, that with half-an-hour's start he would cut out thehandsomest man in all the land in any woman's good graces; Cadenus--oldand savage--leading captive Stella and Vanessa; and then the stray lineof a ballad, "And a winning tongue had he, "--as much as to say, it isn't looks, after all, but cunning words, that win our Eves over, --justas of old when it was the worst-looking brute of the lot that got ourgrandmother to listen to his stuff and so did the mischief. 

Ah, dear me! We rehearse the part of Hercules with his club, subjugatingman and woman in our fancy, the first by the weight of it, and thesecond by our handling of it, --we rehearse it, I say, by our ownhearth-stones, with the cold poker as our club, and the exercise iseasy. But when we come to real life, the poker is in the fore, and, tento one, if we would grasp it, we find it too hot to hold;--lucky forus, if it is not white-hot, and we do not have to leave the skin of ourhands sticking to it when we fling it down or drop it with a loud orsilent cry!

--I am frightened when I find into what a labyrinth of human characterand feeling I am winding. I meant to tell my thoughts, and to throw ina few studies of manner and costume as they pictured themselves forme from day to day. Chance has thrown together at the table with me anumber of persons who are worth studying, and I mean not only to lookon them, but, if I can, through them. You can get any man's or woman'ssecret, whose sphere is circumscribed by your own, if you will only lookpatiently on them long enough. Nature is always applying her reagentsto character, if you will take the pains to watch her. Our studiesof character, to change the image, are very much like the surveyor'striangulation of a geographical province. We get a base-line inorganization, always; then we get an angle by sighting some distantobject to which the passions or aspirations of the subject of ourobservation are tending; then another;--and so we construct our firsttriangle. Once fix a man's ideals, and for the most part the rest iseasy. A wants to die worth half a million. Good. B (female) wants tocatch him, --and outlive him. All right. Minor details at our leisure. 

What is it, of all your experiences, of all your thoughts, of all yourmisdoings, that lies at the very bottom of the great heap of acts ofconsciousness which make up your past life? What should you most disliketo tell your nearest friend?--Be so good as to pause for a brief space, and shut the volume you hold with your finger between the pages. --Oh, that is it!

What a confessional I have been sitting at, with the inward ear of mysoul open, as the multitudinous whisper of my involuntary confidantscame back to me like the reduplicated echo of a cry among the craggybills!

At the house of a friend where I once passed the night was one of thosestately upright cabinet desks and cases of drawers which were not rarein prosperous families during the last century. It had held the clothesand the books and the papers of generation after generation. The handsthat opened its drawers had grown withered, shrivelled, and at last beenfolded in death. The children that played with the lower handles hadgot tall enough to open the desk, to reach the upper shelves behind thefolding-doors, --grown bent after a while, --and then followed thosewho had gone before, and left the old cabinet to be ransacked by a newgeneration. 

A boy of ten or twelve was looking at it a few years ago, and, being aquick-witted fellow, saw that all the space was not accounted for by thesmaller drawers in the part beneath the lid of the desk. Prying aboutwith busy eyes and fingers, he at length came upon a spring, on pressingwhich, a secret drawer flew from its hiding-place. It had never beenopened but by the maker. The mahogany shavings and dust were lying in itas when the artisan closed it, --and when I saw it, it was as fresh as ifthat day finished. 

Is there not one little drawer in your soul, my sweet reader, which nohand but yours has ever opened, and which none that have known youseem to have suspected? What does it hold?--A sin?--I hope not. What astrange thing an old dead sin laid away in a secret drawer of the soulis! Must it some time or other be moistened with tears, until it comesto life again and begins to stir in our consciousness, --as the drywheel-animalcule, looking like a grain of dust, becomes alive, if it iswet with a drop of water?

Or is it a passion? There are plenty of withered men and women walkingabout the streets who have the secret drawer in their hearts, which, if it were opened, would show as fresh as it was when they were in theflush of youth and its first trembling emotions. 

What it held will, perhaps, never be known, until they are dead andgone, and same curious eye lights on an old yellow letter with thefossil footprints of the extinct passion trodden thick all over it. 

There is not a boarder at our table, I firmly believe, excepting theyoung girl, who has not a story of the heart to tell, if one could onlyget the secret drawer open. Even this arid female, whose armor of blackbombazine looks stronger against the shafts of love than any cuirass oftriple brass, has had her sentimental history, if I am not mistaken. Iwill tell you my reason for suspecting it. 

Like many other old women, she shows a great nervousness andrestlessness whenever I venture to express any opinion upon a class ofsubjects which can hardly be said to belong to any man or set of menas their strictly private property, --not even to the clergy, or thenewspapers commonly called "religious. " Now, although it would be agreat luxury to me to obtain my opinions by contract, ready-made, from aprofessional man, and although I have a constitutional kindly feelingto all sorts of good people which would make me happy to agree with alltheir beliefs, if that were possible, still I must have an idea, now andthen, as to the meaning of life; and though the only condition of peacein this world is to have no ideas, or, at least, not to express them, with reference to such subjects, I can't afford to pay quite so much asthat even for peace. 

I find that there is a very prevalent opinion among the dwellers on theshores of Sir Isaac Newton's Ocean of Truth, that salt, fish, which havebeen taken from it a good while ago, split open, cured and dried, arethe only proper and allowable food for reasonable people. I maintain, onthe other hand, that there are a number of live fish still swimming init, and that every one of us has a right to see if he cannot catch someof them. Sometimes I please myself with the idea that I have landedan actual living fish, small, perhaps, but with rosy gills and silveryscales. Then I find the consumers of nothing but the salted and driedarticle insist that it is poisonous, simply because it is alive, and cryout to people not to touch it. I have not found, however, that peoplemind them much. 

The poor boarder in bombazine is my dynamometer. I try everyquestionable proposition on her. If she winces, I must be prepared foran outcry from the other old women. I frightened her, the other day, bysaying that faith, as an intellectual state, was self-reliance, which, if you have a metaphysical turn, you will find is not so much of aparadox as it sounds at first. So she sent me a book to read which wasto cure me of that error. It was an old book, and looked as if it hadnot been opened for a long time. What should drop out of it, one day, but a small heart-shaped paper, containing a lock of that straight, coarse, brown hair which sets off the sharp faces of so manythin-flanked, large-handed bumpkins! I read upon the paper the name"Hiram. "--Love! love! love!--everywhere! everywhere!--under diamonds andhousemaids' "jewelry, "--lifting the marrowy camel's-hair, and rustlingeven the black bombazine!--No, no, --I think she never was pretty, butshe was young once, and wore bright ginghams, and, perhaps, gay merinos. We shall find that the poor little crooked man has been in love, or isin love, or will be in love before we have done with him, for aught thatI know!

Romance! Was there ever a boarding-house in the world where theseemingly prosaic table had not a living fresco for its background, where you could see, if you had eyes, the smoke and fire of someupheaving sentiment, or the dreary craters of smouldering or burnt-outpassions? You look on the black bombazine and high-necked decorum ofyour neighbor, and no more think of the real life that underlies thisdespoiled and dismantled womanhood than you think of a stone trilobiteas having once been full of the juices and the nervous thrills ofthrobbing and self-conscious being. There is a wild creature under thatlong yellow pin which serves as brooch for the bombazine cuirass, --awild creature, which I venture to say would leap in his cage, ifI should stir him, quiet as you think him. A heart which has beendomesticated by matrimony and maternity is as tranquil as a tamebullfinch; but a wild heart which has never been fairly broken influtters fiercely long after you think time has tamed it down, --likethat purple finch I had the other day, which could not be approachedwithout such palpitations and frantic flings against the bars of hiscage, that I had to send him back and get a little orthodox canarywhich had learned to be quiet and never mind the wires or his keeper'shandling. I will tell you my wicked, but half involuntary experiment onthe wild heart under the faded bombazine. 

Was there ever a person in the room with you, marked by any specialweakness or peculiarity, with whom you could be two hours and not touchthe infirm spot? I confess the most frightful tendency to do just thisthing. If a man has a brogue, I am sure to catch myself imitating it. If another is lame, I follow him, or, worse than that, go before him, limping. 

I could never meet an Irish gentleman--if it had been the Duke ofWellington himself--without stumbling upon the word "Paddy, "--which Iuse rarely in my common talk. 

I have been worried to know whether this was owing to some innatedepravity of disposition on my part, some malignant torturing instinct, which, under different circumstances, might have made a Fijiananthropophagus of me, or to some law of thought for which I wasnot answerable. It is, I am convinced, a kind of physical fact likeendosmosis, with which some of you are acquainted. A thin film ofpoliteness separates the unspoken and unspeakable current of thoughtfrom the stream of conversation. After a time one begins to soak throughand mingle with the other. 

We were talking about names, one day. --Was there ever anything, --Isaid, --like the Yankee for inventing the most uncouth, pretentious, detestable appellations, --inventing or finding them, --since the time ofPraise-God Barebones? I heard a country-boy once talking of another whomhe called Elpit, as I understood him. Elbridge is common enough, butthis sounded oddly. It seems the boy was christened Lord Pitt, --andcalled for convenience, as above. I have heard a charming littlegirl, belonging to an intelligent family in the country, called Angesinvariably; doubtless intended for Agnes. Names are cheap. How can aman name an innocent new-born child, that never did him any harm, Hiram?--The poor relation, or whatever she is, in bombazine, turnedtoward me, but I was stupid, and went on. --To think of a man goingthrough life saddled with such an abominable name as that!--The poorrelation grew very uneasy. --I continued; for I never thought of all thistill afterwards. --I knew one young fellow, a good many years ago, by thename of Hiram--What's got into you, Cousin, --said our landlady, --to lookso?--There! you 've upset your teacup!

It suddenly occurred to me what I had been doing, and I saw thepoor woman had her hand at her throat; she was half-choking with the"hysteric ball, "--a very odd symptom, as you know, which nervous womenoften complain of. What business had I to be trying experiments on thisforlorn old soul? I had a great deal better be watching that young girl. 

Ah, the young girl! I am sure that she can hide nothing from me. Herskin is so transparent that one can almost count her heart-beats by theflushes they send into her cheeks. She does not seem to be shy, either. I think she does not know enough of danger to be timid. She seems tome like one of those birds that travellers tell of, found in remote, uninhabited islands, who, having never received any wrong at the handof man, show no alarm at and hardly any particular consciousness of hispresence. 

The first thing will be to see how she and our little deformed gentlemanget along together; for, as I have told you, they sit side by side. Thenext thing will be to keep an eye on the duenna, --the "Model" andso forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The intention of thatestimable lady is, I understand, to launch her and leave her. I supposethere is no help for it, and I don't doubt this young lady knows how totake care of herself, but I do not like to see young girls turned loosein boarding-houses. Look here now! There is that jewel of his race, whom I have called for convenience the Koh-i-noor, (you understand itis quite out of the question for me to use the family names of ourboarders, unless I want to get into trouble, )--I say, the gentleman withthe diamond is looking very often and very intently, it seems to me, down toward the farther corner of the table, where sits our amber-eyedblonde. The landlady's daughter does not look pleased, it seems to me, at this, nor at those other attentions which the gentleman referred tohas, as I have learned, pressed upon the newly-arrived young person. Thelandlady made a communication to me, within a few days after the arrivalof Miss Iris, which I will repeat to the best of my remembrance. 

He, (the person I have been speaking of, )--she said, --seemed tobe kinder hankerin' round after that young woman. It had hurt herdaughter's feelin's a good deal, that the gentleman she was a-keepin'company with should be offerin' tickets and tryin' to send presents tothem that he'd never know'd till jest a little spell ago, --and he asgood as merried, so fur as solemn promises went, to as respectable ayoung lady, if she did say so, as any there was round, whosomever theymight be. 

Tickets! presents!--said I. --What tickets, what presents has he had theimpertinence to be offering to that young lady?

Tickets to the Museum, --said the landlady. There is them that's gladenough to go to the Museum, when tickets is given 'em; but some of 'emha'n't had a ticket sence Cenderilla was played, --and now he must beofferin' 'em to this ridiculous young paintress, or whatever she is, that's come to make more mischief than her board's worth. But it a'n'ther fault, --said the landlady, relenting;--and that aunt of hers, orwhatever she is, served him right enough. 

Why, what did she do?

Do? Why, she took it up in the tongs and dropped it out o' winder. 

Dropped? dropped what?--I said. 

Why, the soap, --said the landlady. 

It appeared that the Koh-i-noor, to ingratiate himself, had sent anelegant package of perfumed soap, directed to Miss Iris, as a delicateexpression of a lively sentiment of admiration, and that, after havingmet with the unfortunate treatment referred to, it was picked up byMaster Benjamin Franklin, who appropriated it, rejoicing, and indulgedin most unheard-of and inordinate ablutions in consequence, so that hishands were a frequent subject of maternal congratulation, and he smeltlike a civet-cat for weeks after his great acquisition. 

After watching daily for a time, I think I can see clearly into therelation which is growing up between the little gentleman and the younglady. She shows a tenderness to him that I can't help being interestedin. If he was her crippled child, instead of being more than old enoughto be her father, she could not treat him more kindly. The landlady'sdaughter said, the other day, she believed that girl was settin' her capfor the Little Gentleman. 

Some of them young folks is very artful, --said her mother, --and there isthem that would merry Lazarus, if he'd only picked up crumbs enough. I don't think, though, this is one of that sort; she's kinderchildlike, --said the landlady, --and maybe never had any dolls to playwith; for they say her folks was poor before Ma'am undertook to see toher teachin' and board her and clothe her. 

I could not help overhearing this conversation. "Board her and clotheher!"--speaking of such a young creature! Oh, dear!--Yes, --she mustbe fed, --just like Bridget, maid-of-all-work at this establishment. Somebody must pay for it. Somebody has a right to watch her and see howmuch it takes to "keep" her, and growl at her, if she has too good anappetite. Somebody has a right to keep an eye on her and take care thatshe does not dress too prettily. No mother to see her own youth overagain in these fresh features and rising reliefs of half-sculpturedwomanhood, and, seeing its loveliness, forget her lessons ofneutral-tinted propriety, and open the cases that hold her own ornamentsto find for her a necklace or a bracelet or a pair of ear-rings, --thosegolden lamps that light up the deep, shadowy dimples on the cheeks ofyoung beauties, --swinging in a semi-barbaric splendor that carries thewild fancy to Abyssinian queens and musky Odalisques! I don't believeany woman has utterly given up the great firm of Mundus & Co. , so longas she wears ear-rings. 

I think Iris loves to hear the Little Gentleman talk. She smilessometimes at his vehement statements, but never laughs at him. When hespeaks to her, she keeps her eye always steadily upon him. This may beonly natural good-breeding, so to speak, but it is worth noticing. I have often observed that vulgar persons, and public audiences ofinferior collective intelligence, have this in common: the least thingdraws off their minds, when you are speaking to them. I love thisyoung creature's rapt attention to her diminutive neighbor while he isspeaking. 

He is evidently pleased with it. For a day or two after she came, hewas silent and seemed nervous and excited. Now he is fond of getting thetalk into his own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at leastone interested listener. Once or twice I have seen marks of specialattention to personal adornment, a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, anda diamond pin in it, --not so very large as the Koh-i-noor's, but morelustrous. I mentioned the death's-head ring he wears on his right hand. I was attracted by a very handsome red stone, a ruby or carbuncle orsomething of the sort, to notice his left hand, the other day. It isa handsome hand, and confirms my suspicion that the cast mentioned wastaken from his arm. After all, this is just what I should expect. It isnot very uncommon to see the upper limbs, or one of them, running awaywith the whole strength, and, therefore, with the whole beauty, whichwe should never have noticed, if it had been divided equally between allfour extremities. If it is so, of course he is proud of his one strongand beautiful arm; that is human nature. I am afraid he can hardly helpbetraying his favoritism, as people who have any one showy point are aptto do, --especially dentists with handsome teeth, who always smile backto their last molars. 

Sitting, as he does, next to the young girl, and next but one to thecalm lady who has her in charge, he cannot help seeing their relationsto each other. 

That is an admirable woman, Sir, --he said to me one day, as we sat aloneat the table after breakfast, --an admirable woman, Sir, --and I hate her. 

Of course, I begged an explanation. 

An admirable woman, Sir, because she does good things, and even kindthings, --takes care of this--this--young lady--we have here, talks likea sensible person, and always looks as if she was doing her duty withall her might. I hate her because her voice sounds as if it nevertrembled and her eyes look as if she never knew what it was to cry. Besides, she looks at me, Sir, stares at me, as if she wanted to getan image of me for some gallery in her brain, --and we don't love to belooked at in this way, we that have--I hate her, --I hate her, --her eyeskill me, --it is like being stabbed with icicles to be looked at so, --thesooner she goes home, the better. I don't want a woman to weigh me ina balance; there are men enough for that sort of work. The judicialcharacter is n't captivating in females, Sir. A woman fascinates a manquite as often by what she overlooks as by what she sees. Love preferstwilight to daylight; and a man doesn't think much of, nor care muchfor, a woman outside of his household, unless he can couple the ideaof love, past, present, or future, with her. I don't believe the Devilwould give half as much for the services of a sinner as he would forthose of one of these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in away to make them unpleasing. --That young girl wants a tender nature tocherish her and give her a chance to put out her leaves, --sunshine, andnot east winds. 

He was silent, --and sat looking at his handsome left hand with the redstone ring upon it. --Is he going to fall in love with Iris?

Here are some lines I read to the boarders the other day:--

 THE CROOKED FOOTPATH

 Ah, here it is! the sliding rail That marks the old remembered spot, --The gap that struck our schoolboy trail, --The crooked path across the lot. 

 It left the road by school and church, A pencilled shadow, nothing more, That parted from the silver birch And ended at the farmhouse door. 

 No line or compass traced its plan; With frequent bends to left or right, In aimless, wayward curves it ran, But always kept the door in sight. 

 The gabled porch, with woodbine green, --The broken millstone at the sill, --Though many a rood might stretch between, The truant child could see them still. 

 No rocks, across the pathway lie, --No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown, --And yet it winds, we know not why, And turns as if for tree or stone. 

 Perhaps some lover trod the way With shaking knees and leaping heart, --And so it often runs astray With sinuous sweep or sudden start. 

 Or one, perchance, with clouded brain From some unholy banquet reeled, --And since, our devious steps maintain His track across the trodden field. 

 Nay, deem not thus, --no earthborn will Could ever trace a faultless line; Our truest steps are human still, --To walk unswerving were divine!

 Truants from love, we dream of wrath; --Oh, rather let us trust the more! Through all the wanderings of the path, We still can see our Father's door!

V

The Professor finds a Fly in his Teacup. 

I have a long theological talk to relate, which must be dull reading tosome of my young and vivacious friends. I don't know, however, that anyof them have entered into a contract to read all that I write, or that Ihave promised always to write to please them. What if I should sometimeswrite to please myself?

Now you must know that there are a great many things which interest me, to some of which this or that particular class of readers may be totallyindifferent. I love Nature, and human nature, its thoughts, affections, dreams, aspirations, delusions, --Art in all its forms, --virtu in allits eccentricities, --old stories from black-letter volumes and yellowmanuscripts, and new projects out of hot brains not yet imbedded in thesnows of age. I love the generous impulses of the reformer; but not lessdoes my imagination feed itself upon the old litanies, so often warmedby the human breath upon which they were wafted to Heaven that they glowthrough our frames like our own heart's blood. I hope I love good menand women; I know that they never speak a word to me, even if it be ofquestion or blame, that I do not take pleasantly, if it is expressedwith a reasonable amount of human kindness. 

I have before me at this time a beautiful and affecting letter, whichI have hesitated to answer, though the postmark upon it gave itsdirection, and the name is one which is known to all, in some of itsrepresentatives. It contains no reproach, only a delicately-hinted fear. Speak gently, as this dear lady has spoken, and there is no heart soinsensible that it does not answer to the appeal, no intellect sovirile that it does not own a certain deference to the claims of age, ofchildhood, of sensitive and timid natures, when they plead with it notto look at those sacred things by the broad daylight which they see inmystic shadow. How grateful would it be to make perpetual peace withthese pleading saints and their confessors, by the simple actthat silences all complainings! Sleep, sleep, sleep! says theArch-Enchantress of them all, --and pours her dark and potent anodyne, distilled over the fires that consumed her foes, --its large, round dropschanging, as we look, into the beads of her convert's rosary! Silence!the pride of reason! cries another, whose whole life is spent inreasoning down reason. 

I hope I love good people, not for their sake, but for my own. And mostassuredly, if any deed of wrong or word of bitterness led me into an actof disrespect towards that enlightened and excellent class of men whomake it their calling to teach goodness and their duty to practise it, I should feel that I had done myself an injury rather than them. Goand talk with any professional man holding any of the medieval creeds, choosing one who wears upon his features the mark of inward and outwardhealth, who looks cheerful, intelligent, and kindly, and see how allyour prejudices melt away in his presence! It is impossible to come intointimate relations with a large, sweet nature, such as you may oftenfind in this class, without longing to be at one with it in all itsmodes of being and believing. But does it not occur to you that one maylove truth as he sees it, and his race as he views it, better than eventhe sympathy and approbation of many good men whom he honors, --betterthan sleeping to the sound of the Miserere or listening to therepetition of an effete Confession of Faith?

The three learned professions have but recently emerged from a stateof quasi-barbarism. None of them like too well to be told of it, but itmust be sounded in their ears whenever they put on airs. When a man hastaken an overdose of laudanum, the doctors tell us to place him betweentwo persons who shall make him walk up and down incessantly; and if hestill cannot be kept from going to sleep, they say that a lash or twoover his back is of great assistance. 

So we must keep the doctors awake by telling them that they have not yetshaken off astrology and the doctrine of signatures, as is shown by theform of their prescriptions, and their use of nitrate of silver, whichturns epileptics into Ethiopians. If that is not enough, they must begiven over to the scourgers, who like their task and get good fees forit. A few score years ago, sick people were made to swallow burnttoads and powdered earthworms and the expressed juice of wood-lice. Thephysician of Charles I. And II. Prescribed abominations not to be named. Barbarism, as bad as that of Congo or Ashantee. Traces of this barbarismlinger even in the greatly improved medical science of our century. Sowhile the solemn farce of over-drugging is going on, the world over, the harlequin pseudo-science jumps on to the stage, whip in hand, withhalf-a-dozen somersets, and begins laying about him. 

In 1817, perhaps you remember, the law of wager by battle wasunrepealed, and the rascally murderous, and worse than murderous, clown, Abraham Thornton, put on his gauntlet in open court and defied theappellant to lift the other which he threw down. It was not until thereign of George II. That the statutes against witchcraft were repealed. As for the English Court of Chancery, we know that its antiquated abusesform one of the staples of common proverbs and popular literature. So the laws and the lawyers have to be watched perpetually by publicopinion as much as the doctors do. 

I don't think the other profession is an exception. When the ReverendMr. Cauvin and his associates burned my distinguished scientificbrother, --he was burned with green fagots, which made it rather slow andpainful, --it appears to me they were in a state of religious barbarism. The dogmas of such people about the Father of Mankind and his creaturesare of no more account in my opinion than those of a council of Aztecs. If a man picks your pocket, do you not consider him thereby disqualifiedto pronounce any authoritative opinion on matters of ethics? If a manhangs my ancient female relatives for sorcery, as they did in thisneighborhood a little while ago, or burns my instructor for notbelieving as he does, I care no more for his religious edicts than Ishould for those of any other barbarian. 

Of course, a barbarian may hold many true opinions; but when the ideasof the healing art, of the administration of justice, of Christian love, could not exclude systematic poisoning, judicial duelling, and murderfor opinion's sake, I do not see how we can trust the verdict ofthat time relating to any subject which involves the primal instinctsviolated in these abominations and absurdities. --What if we are even nowin a state of semi-barbarism?

 [Note: This physician believes we "are even now in a state of semi-barbarism": invasive procedures for the prolongation of death rather than prolongation of life; "faith" as slimly based as medieval faith in minute differences between control and treated groups; statistical manipulation to prove a prejudice. Medicine has a good deal to answer for! D. W. ]

Perhaps some think we ought not to talk at table about such things. --Iam not so sure of that. Religion and government appear to me the twosubjects which of all others should belong to the common talk of peoplewho enjoy the blessings of freedom. Think, one moment. The earth is agreat factory-wheel, which, at every revolution on its axis, receivesfifty thousand raw souls and turns off nearly the same number workedup more or less completely. There must be somewhere a population oftwo hundred thousand million, perhaps ten or a hundred times as many, earth-born intelligences. Life, as we call it, is nothing but the edgeof the boundless ocean of existence where it comes on soundings. Inthis view, I do not see anything so fit to talk about, or half sointeresting, as that which relates to the innumerable majority of ourfellow-creatures, the dead-living, who are hundreds of thousands to oneof the live-living, and with whom we all potentially belong, though wehave got tangled for the present in some parcels of fibrine, albumen, and phosphates, that keep us on the minority side of the house. Inpoint of fact, it is one of the many results of Spiritualism to makethe permanent destiny of the race a matter of common reflection anddiscourse, and a vehicle for the prevailing disbelief of the Middle-Agedoctrines on the subject. I cannot help thinking, when I remember howmany conversations my friend and myself have sported, that it would bevery extraordinary, if there were no mention of that class of subjectswhich involves all that we have and all that we hope, not merely forourselves, but for the dear people whom we love best, --noble men, pureand lovely women, ingenuous children, about the destiny of nine tenthsof whom you know the opinions that would have been taught by thoseold man-roasting, woman-strangling dogmatists. --However, I fought thismatter with one of our boarders the other day, and I am going to reportthe conversation. 

The divinity-student came down, one morning, looking rather more seriousthan usual. He said little at breakfast-time, but lingered after theothers, so that I, who am apt to be long at the table, found myselfalone with him. 

When the rest were all gone, he turned his chair round towards mine, andbegan. 

I am afraid, --he said, --you express yourself a little too freely on amost important class of subjects. Is there not danger in introducingdiscussions or allusions relating to matters of religion into commondiscourse?

Danger to what?--I asked. 

Danger to truth, --he replied, after a slight pause. 

I didn't know Truth was such an invalid, ' I said. --How long is it sinceshe could only take the air in a close carriage, with a gentleman ina black coat on the box? Let me tell you a story, adapted to youngpersons, but which won't hurt older ones. 

--There was a very little boy who had one of those balloons you may haveseen, which are filled with light gas, and are held by a string to keepthem from running off in aeronautic voyages on their own account. Thislittle boy had a naughty brother, who said to him, one day, --Brother, pull down your balloon, so that I can look at it and take hold of it. Then the little boy pulled it down. Now the naughty brother had a sharppin in his hand, and he thrust it into the balloon, and all the gasoozed out, so that there was nothing left but a shrivelled skin. 

One evening, the little boy's father called him to the window to see themoon, which pleased him very much; but presently he said, --Father, donot pull the string and bring down the moon, for my naughty brother willprick it, and then it will all shrivel up and we shall not see it anymore. 

Then his father laughed, and told him how the moon had been shining agood while, and would shine a good while longer, and that all we coulddo was to keep our windows clean, never letting the dust get too thickon them, and especially to keep our eyes open, but that we could notpull the moon down with a string, nor prick it with a pin. --Mind youthis, too, the moon is no man's private property, but is seen from agood many parlor-windows. 

--Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round andfull at evening. Does not Mr. Bryant say, that Truth gets well if she isrun over by a locomotive, while Error dies of lockjaw if she scratchesher finger? [Would that this was so:--error, superstition, mysticism, authoritarianism, pseudo-science all have a tenacity that survivesinexplicably. D. W. ] I never heard that a mathematician was alarmed forthe safety of a demonstrated proposition. I think, generally, that fearof open discussion implies feebleness of inward conviction, and greatsensitiveness to the expression of individual opinion is a mark ofweakness. 

--I am not so much afraid for truth, --said the divinity-student, --as forthe conceptions of truth in the minds of persons not accustomed to judgewisely the opinions uttered before them. 

Would you, then, banish all allusions to matters of this nature from thesociety of people who come together habitually?

I would be very careful in introducing them, --said the divinity-student. 

Yes, but friends of yours leave pamphlets in people's entries, to bepicked up by nervous misses and hysteric housemaids, full of doctrinesthese people do not approve. Some of your friends stop little childrenin the street, and give them books, which their parents, who have hadthem baptized into the Christian fold and give them what they considerproper religious instruction, do not think fit for them. One wouldsay it was fair enough to talk about matters thus forced upon people'sattention. 

The divinity-student could not deny that this was what might be calledopening the subject to the discussion of intelligent people. 

But, --he said, --the greatest objection is this, that persons who havenot made a professional study of theology are not competent to speak onsuch subjects. Suppose a minister were to undertake to express opinionson medical subjects, for instance, would you not think he was goingbeyond his province?

I laughed, --for I remembered John Wesley's "sulphur and supplication, "and so many other cases where ministers had meddled withmedicine, --sometimes well and sometimes ill, but, as a general rule, with a tremendous lurch to quackery, owing to their very loose way ofadmitting evidence, --that I could not help being amused. 

I beg your pardon, --I said, --I do not wish to be impolite, but I wasthinking of their certificates to patent medicines. Let us look at thismatter. 

If a minister had attended lectures on the theory and practice ofmedicine, delivered by those who had studied it most deeply, for thirtyor forty years, at the rate of from fifty to one hundred a year, --ifhe had been constantly reading and hearing read the most approvedtext-books on the subject, --if he had seen medicine actually practisedaccording to different methods, daily, for the same length of time, --Ishould think, that if a person of average understanding, he was entitledto express an opinion on the subject of medicine, or else that hisinstructors were a set of ignorant and incompetent charlatans. 

If, before a medical practitioner would allow me to enjoy the fullprivileges of the healing art, he expected me to affirm my belief in aconsiderable number of medical doctrines, drugs, and formulae, I shouldthink that he thereby implied my right to discuss the same, and myability to do so, if I knew how to express myself in English. 

Suppose, for instance, the Medical Society should refuse to give us anopiate, or to set a broken limb, until we had signed our belief in acertain number of propositions, --of which we will say this is the first:

I. All men's teeth are naturally in a state of total decay or caries, and, therefore, no man can bite until every one of them is extracted anda new set is inserted according to the principles of dentistry adoptedby this Society. 

I, for one, should want to discuss that before signing my name to it, and I should say this:--Why, no, that is n't true. There are a good manybad teeth, we all know, but a great many more good ones. You must n'ttrust the dentists; they are all the time looking at the people who havebad teeth, and such as are suffering from toothache. The idea thatyou must pull out every one of every nice young man and young woman'snatural teeth! Poh, poh! Nobody believes that. This tooth must bestraightened, that must be filled with gold, and this other perhapsextracted, but it must be a very rare case, if they are all so bad as torequire extraction; and if they are, don't blame the poor soul for it!Don't tell us, as some old dentists used to, that everybody not onlyalways has every tooth in his head good for nothing, but that he oughtto have his head cut off as a punishment for that misfortune! No, Ican't sign Number One. Give us Number Two. 

II. We hold that no man can be well who does not agree with our viewsof the efficacy of calomel, and who does not take the doses of itprescribed in our tables, as there directed. 

To which I demur, questioning why it should be so, and get for answerthe two following:

III. Every man who does not take our prepared calomel, as prescribedby us in our Constitution and By-Laws, is and must be a mass of diseasefrom head to foot; it being self-evident that he is simultaneouslyaffected with Apoplexy, Arthritis, Ascites, Asphyxia, and Atrophy; withBorborygmus, Bronchitis, and Bulimia; with Cachexia, Carcinoma, andCretinismus; and so on through the alphabet, to Xerophthahnia and Zona, with all possible and incompatible diseases which are necessary to makeup a totally morbid state; and he will certainly die, if he does nottake freely of our prepared calomel, to be obtained only of one of ourauthorized agents. 

IV. No man shall be allowed to take our prepared calomel who does notgive in his solemn adhesion to each and all of the above-named and thefollowing propositions (from ten to a hundred) and show his mouth tocertain of our apothecaries, who have not studied dentistry, to examinewhether all his teeth have been extracted and a new set insertedaccording to our regulations. 

Of course, the doctors have a right to say we sha'n't have any rhubarb, if we don't sign their articles, and that, if, after signing them, weexpress doubts (in public), about any of them, they will cut us offfrom our jalap and squills, --but then to ask a fellow not to discuss thepropositions before he signs them is what I should call boiling it downa little too strong!

If we understand them, why can't we discuss them? If we can't understandthem, because we have n't taken a medical degree, what the Father ofLies do they ask us to sign them for?

Just so with the graver profession. Every now and then some of itsmembers seem to lose common sense and common humanity. The laymen haveto keep setting the divines right constantly. Science, for instance, --inother words, knowledge, --is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, then religion would mean ignorance: But it is often the antagonist ofschool-divinity. 

Everybody knows the story of early astronomy and the school-divines. Come down a little later, Archbishop Usher, a very learned Protestantprelate, tells us that the world was created on Sunday, the twenty-thirdof October, four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ. Deluge, December 7th, two thousand three hundred and forty-eight yearsB. C. Yes, and the earth stands on an elephant, and the elephant on atortoise. One statement is as near the truth as the other. 

Again, there is nothing so brutalizing to some natures as moral surgery. I have often wondered that Hogarth did not add one more picture tohis four stages of Cruelty. Those wretched fools, reverend divines andothers, who were strangling men and women for imaginary crimes a littlemore than a century ago among us, were set right by a layman, and veryangry it made them to have him meddle. 

The good people of Northampton had a very remarkable man for theirclergyman, --a man with a brain as nicely adjusted for certain mechanicalprocesses as Babbage's calculating machine. The commentary of the laymenon the preaching and practising of Jonathan Edwards was, that, aftertwenty-three years of endurance, they turned him out by a vote of twentyto one, and passed a resolve that he should never preach for them again. A man's logical and analytical adjustments are of little consequence, compared to his primary relations with Nature and truth: and people havesense enough to find it out in the long ran; they know what "logic" isworth. 

In that miserable delusion referred to above, the reverend Aztecs andFijians argued rightly enough from their premises, no doubt, for manymen can do this. But common sense and common humanity were unfortunatelyleft out from their premises, and a layman had to supply them. A hundredmore years and many of the barbarisms still lingering among us will, ofcourse, have disappeared like witch-hanging. But people are sensitivenow, as they were then. You will see by this extract that the Rev. Cotton Mather did not like intermeddling with his business very well. 

"Let the Levites of the Lord keep close to their Instructions, " he says, "and God will smite thro' the loins of those that rise up against them. I will report unto you a Thing which many Hundreds among us know to betrue. The Godly Minister of a certain Town in Connecticut, when he hadoccasion to be absent on a Lord's Day from his Flock, employ'd an honestNeighbour of some small Talents for a Mechanick, to read a Sermon outof some good Book unto 'em. This Honest, whom they ever counted also aPious Man, had so much conceit of his Talents, that instead of Readinga Sermon appointed, he to the Surprize of the People, fell to preachingone of his own. For his Text he took these Words, 'Despise notProphecyings'; and in his Preachment he betook himself to bewail theEnvy of the Clergy in the Land, in that they did not wish all the Lord'sPeople to be Prophets, and call forth Private Brethren publickly toprophesie. While he was thus in the midst of his Exercise, God smote himwith horrible Madness; he was taken ravingly distracted; the Peoplewere forc'd with violent Hands to carry him home. I will not mentionhis Name: He was reputed a Pious Man. "--This is one of Cotton Mather's"Remarkable Judgments of God, on Several Sorts of Offenders, "--and thenext cases referred to are the Judgments on the "Abominable Sacrilege"of not paying the Ministers' Salaries. 

This sort of thing does n't do here and now, you see, my young friend!We talk about our free institutions;--they are nothing but a coarseoutside machinery to secure the freedom of individual thought. ThePresident of the United States is only the engine driver of ourbroad-gauge mail-train; and every honest, independent thinker has a seatin the first-class cars behind him. 

--There is something in what you say, --replied the divinity-student;--and yet it seems to me there are places and times where disputeddoctrines of religion should not be introduced. You would not attack achurch dogma--say Total Depravity--in a lyceum-lecture, for instance?

Certainly not; I should choose another place, --I answered. --But, mindyou, at this table I think it is very different. I shall express myideas on any subject I like. The laws of the lecture-room, to which myfriends and myself are always amenable, do not hold here. I shall notoften give arguments, but frequently opinions, --I trust with courtesyand propriety, but, at any rate, with such natural forms of expressionas it has pleased the Almighty to bestow upon me. 

A man's opinions, look you, are generally of much more value than hisarguments. These last are made by his brain, and perhaps he does notbelieve the proposition they tend to prove, --as is often the case withpaid lawyers; but opinions are formed by our whole nature, --brain, heart, instinct, brute life, everything all our experience has shapedfor us by contact with the whole circle of our being. 

--There is one thing more, --said the divinity-student, --that I wishedto speak of; I mean that idea of yours, expressed some time since, ofdepolarizing the text of sacred books in order to judge them fairly. MayI ask why you do not try the experiment yourself?

Certainly, --I replied, --if it gives you any pleasure to ask foolishquestions. I think the ocean telegraph-wire ought to be laid and will belaid, but I don't know that you have any right to ask me to go andlay it. But, for that matter, I have heard a good deal of Scripturedepolarized in and out of the pulpit. I heard the Rev. Mr. F. Oncedepolarize the story of the Prodigal Son in Park-Street Church. Manyyears afterwards, I heard him repeat the same or a similar depolarizedversion in Rome, New York. I heard an admirable depolarization of thestory of the young man who "had great possessions" from the Rev. Mr. H. In another pulpit, and felt that I had never half understood it before. All paraphrases are more or less perfect depolarizations. But I tell youthis: the faith of our Christian community is not robust enough tobear the turning of our most sacred language into its depolarizedequivalents. You have only to look back to Dr. Channing's famousBaltimore discourse and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with whichit was greeted, to satisfy yourself on this point. Time, time only, cangradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, byspiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idolater orsymbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his; butsooner or later all his local and temporary symbols must be ground topowder, like the golden calf, --word-images as well as metal and woodenones. Rough work, iconoclasm, --but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons forSleepers, " hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftieoccupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratchtface; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly forcoram nobas. "

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may thinkwhat we like and say what we think. 

--Think what we like!--said the divinity-student;--think what we like!What! against all human and divine authority?

Against all human versions of its own or any other authority. At our ownperil always, if we do not like the right, --but not at the risk of beinghanged and quartered for political heresy, or broiled on green fagotsfor ecclesiastical treason! Nay, we have got so far, that the very wordheresy has fallen into comparative disuse among us. 

And now, my young friend, let-us shake hands and stop our discussion, which we will not make a quarrel. I trust you know, or will learn, agreat many things in your profession which we common scholars do notknow; but mark this: when the common people of New England stop talkingpolitics and theology, it will be because they have got an Emperor toteach them the one, and a Pope to teach them the other!

That was the end of my long conference with the divinity-student. The next morning we got talking a little on the same subject, verygood-naturedly, as people return to a matter they have talked out. 

You must look to yourself, --said the divinity-student, --if yourdemocratic notions get into print. You will be fired into from allquarters. 

If it were only a bullet, with the marksman's name on it!--I said. --Ican't stop to pick out the peep-shot of the anonymous scribblers. 

Right, Sir! right!--said the Little Gentleman. The scamps! I know thefellows. They can't give fifty cents to one of the Antipodes, but theymust have it jingled along through everybody's palms all the way, tillit reaches him, --and forty cents of it gets spilt, like the water out ofthe fire-buckets passed along a "lane" at a fire;--but when it comesto anonymous defamation, putting lies into people's mouths, andthen advertising those people through the country as the authors ofthem, --oh, then it is that they let not their left hand know what theirright hand doeth!

I don't like Ehud's style of doing business, Sir. He comes along witha very sanctimonious look, Sir, with his "secret errand unto thee, " andhis "message from God unto thee, " and then pulls out his hidden knifewith that unsuspected hand of his, --(the Little Gentleman lifted hisclenched left hand with the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger, )--andruns it, blade and haft, into a man's stomach! Don't meddle with thesefellows, Sir. They are read mostly by persons whom you would not reach, if you were to write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose opinionsare not attacked is beneath contempt. 

I hope so, --I said. --I got three pamphlets and innumerable squibs flungat my head for attacking one of the pseudo-sciences, in former years. When, by the permission of Providence, I held up to the professionalpublic the damnable facts connected with the conveyance of poison fromone young mother's chamber to another's, --for doing which humble officeI desire to be thankful that I have lived, though nothing else goodshould ever come of my life, --I had to bear the sneers of those whoseposition I had assailed, and, as I believe, have at last demolished, sothat nothing but the ghosts of dead women stir among the ruins. --Whatwould you do, if the folks without names kept at you, trying to get aSan Benito on to your shoulders that would fit you?--Would you standstill in fly-time, or would you give a kick now and then?

Let 'em bite!--said the Little Gentleman, --let 'em bite! It makes 'emhungry to shake 'em off, and they settle down again as thick as ever andtwice as savage. Do you know what meddling with the folks without names, as you call 'em, is like?--It is like riding at the quintaan. You runfull tilt at the board, but the board is on a pivot, with a bag of sandon an arm that balances it. The board gives way as soon as you touchit; and before you have got by, the bag of sand comes round whack on theback of your neck. "Ananias, " for instance, pitches into your lecture, we will say, in some paper taken by the people in your kitchen. Yourservants get saucy and negligent. If their newspaper calls you names, they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boilingpotatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which youthink is going to finish "Ananias, " proving him a booby who doesn't knowenough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tellslies. Now you think you 've got him! Not so fast. "Ananias" keeps stilland winks to "Shimei, " and "Shimei" comes out in the paper which theytake in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times worse than t'other fellow. If you meddle with "Shimei, " he steps out, and next week appears"Rab-shakeh, " an unsavory wretch; and now, at any rate, you find outwhat good sense there was in Hezekiah's "Answer him not. "--No, no, --keepyour temper. --So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled his left fist andlooked at it as if he should like to hit something or somebody a mostpernicious punch with it. 

Good!--said I. --Now let me give you some axioms I have arrived at, afterseeing something of a great many kinds of good folks. 

--Of a hundred people of each of the different leading religious sects, about the same proportion will be safe and pleasant persons to deal andto live with. 

--There are, at least, three real saints among the women to one amongthe men, in every denomination. 

--The spiritual standard of different classes I would reckon thus:

 1. The comfortably rich. 2. The decently comfortable. 3. The very rich, who are apt to be irreligious. 4. The very poor, who are apt to be immoral. 

--The cut nails of machine-divinity may be driven in, but they won'tclinch. 

--The arguments which the greatest of our schoolmen could not refutewere two: the blood in men's veins, and the milk in women's breasts. 

--Humility is the first of the virtues--for other people. 

--Faith always implies the disbelief of a lesser fact in favor of agreater. A little mind often sees the unbelief, without seeing thebelief of a large one. 

The Poor Relation had been fidgeting about and working her mouth whileall this was going on. She broke out in speech at this point. 

I hate to hear folks talk so. I don't see that you are any better than aheathen. 

I wish I were half as good as many heathens have been, --I said. --Dyingfor a principle seems to me a higher degree of virtue than scolding forit; and the history of heathen races is full of instances where men havelaid down their lives for the love of their kind, of their country, oftruth, nay, even for simple manhood's sake, or to show their obedienceor fidelity. What would not such beings have done for the souls of men, for the Christian commonwealth, for the King of Kings, if they had livedin days of larger light? Which seems to you nearest heaven, Socratesdrinking his hemlock, Regulus going back to the enemy's camp, or thatold New England divine sitting comfortably in his study and chucklingover his conceit of certain poor women, who had been burned to death inhis own town, going "roaring out of one fire into another"?

I don't believe he said any such thing, --replied the Poor Relation. 

It is hard to believe, --said I, --but it is true for all that. In anotherhundred years it will be as incredible that men talked as we sometimeshear them now. 

Pectus est quod facit theologum. The heart makes the theologian. Everyrace, every civilization, either has a new revelation of its own or anew interpretation of an old one. Democratic America, has a differenthumanity from feudal Europe, and so must have a new divinity. See, for one moment, how intelligence reacts on our faiths. The Bible was adivining-book to our ancestors, and is so still in the hands of some ofthe vulgar. The Puritans went to the Old Testament for their laws; theMormons go to it for their patriarchal institution. Every generationdissolves something new and precipitates something once held in solutionfrom that great storehouse of temporary and permanent truths. 

You may observe this: that the conversation of intelligent men of thestricter sects is strangely in advance of the formula that belong totheir organizations. So true is this, that I have doubts whether a largeproportion of them would not have been rather pleased than offended, if they could have overheard our talk. For, look you, I think there ishardly a professional teacher who will not in private conversation allowa large part of what we have said, though it may frighten him in print;and I know well what an under-current of secret sympathy gives vitalityto those poor words of mine which sometimes get a hearing. 

I don't mind the exclamation of any old stager who drinks Madeiraworth from two to six Bibles a bottle, and burns, according to his ownpremises, a dozen souls a year in the cigars with which he muddles hisbrains. But as for the good and true and intelligent men whom we see allaround us, laborious, self-denying, hopeful, helpful, --men who knowthat the active mind of the century is tending more and more to the twopoles, Rome and Reason, the sovereign church or the free soul, authorityor personality, God in us or God in our masters, and that, though a manmay by accident stand half-way between these two points, he must lookone way or the other, --I don't believe they would take offence atanything I have reported of our late conversation. 

But supposing any one do take offence at first sight, let him look overthese notes again, and see whether he is quite sure he does not agreewith most of these things that were said amongst us. If he agrees withmost of them, let him be patient with an opinion he does not accept, oran expression or illustration a little too vivacious. I don't know thatI shall report any more conversations on these topics; but I do insiston the right to express a civil opinion on this class of subjectswithout giving offence, just when and where I please, --unless, as inthe lecture-room, there is an implied contract to keep clear of doubtfulmatters. You did n't think a man could sit at a breakfast-table doingnothing but making puns every morning for a year or two, and never givea thought to the two thousand of his fellow-creatures who are passinginto another state during every hour that he sits talking and laughing. Of course, the one matter that a real human being cares for is what isgoing to become of them and of him. And the plain truth is, that a goodmany people are saying one thing about it and believing another. 

--How do I know that? Why, I have known and loved to talk with goodpeople, all the way from Rome to Geneva in doctrine, as long as I canremember. Besides, the real religion of the world comes from women muchmore than from men, --from mothers most of all, who carry the key ofour souls in their bosoms. It is in their hearts that the "sentimental"religion some people are so fond of sneering at has its source. Thesentiment of love, the sentiment of maternity, the sentiment of theparamount obligation of the parent to the child as having called it intoexistence, enhanced just in proportion to the power and knowledge ofthe one and the weakness and ignorance of the other, --these are the"sentiments" that have kept our soulless systems from driving men off todie in holes like those that riddle the sides of the hill oppositethe Monastery of St. Saba, where the miserable victims of afalsely-interpreted religion starved and withered in their delusion. 

I have looked on the face of a saintly woman this very day, whose creedmany dread and hate, but whose life is lovely and noble beyond allpraise. When I remember the bitter words I have heard spoken against herfaith, by men who have an Inquisition which excommunicates those who askto leave their communion in peace, and an Index Expurgatorius on whichthis article may possibly have the honor of figuring, --and, far worsethan these, the reluctant, pharisaical confession, that it mightperhaps be possible that one who so believed should be accepted of theCreator, --and then recall the sweet peace and love that show throughall her looks, the price of untold sacrifices and labors, and againrecollect how thousands of women, filled with the same spirit, die, without a murmur, to earthly life, die to their own names even, thatthey may know nothing but their holy duties, --while men are torturingand denouncing their fellows, and while we can hear day and night theclinking of the hammers that are trying, like the brute forces in the"Prometheus, " to rivet their adamantine wedges right through the breastof human nature, --I have been ready to believe that we have even now anew revelation, and the name of its Messiah is WOMAN!

--I should be sorry, --I remarked, a day or two afterwards, to thedivinity-student, --if anything I said tended in any way to foster anyjealousy between the professions, or to throw disrespect upon that oneon whose counsel and sympathies almost all of us lean in our momentsof trial. But we are false to our new conditions of life, if we do notresolutely maintain our religious as well as our political freedom, in the face of any and all supposed monopolies. Certain men will, ofcourse, say two things, if we do not take their views: first, that wedon't know anything about these matters; and, secondly, that we are notso good as they are. They have a polarized phraseology for saying thesethings, but it comes to precisely that. To which it may be answered, inthe first place, that we have good authority for saying that even babesand sucklings know something; and, in the second, that, if there is amote or so to be removed from our premises, the courts and councils ofthe last few years have found beams enough in some other quarters tobuild a church that would hold all the good people in Boston and havesticks enough left to make a bonfire for all the heretics. 

As to that terrible depolarizing process of mine, of which we weretalking the other day, I will give you a specimen of one way of managingit, if you like. I don't believe it will hurt you or anybody. Besides, Ihad a great deal rather finish our talk with pleasant images and gentlewords than with sharp sayings, which will only afford a text, if anybodyrepeats them, for endless relays of attacks from Messrs. Ananias, Shimei, and Rabshakeh. 

[I must leave such gentry, if any of them show themselves, in the handsof my clerical friends, many of whom are ready to stand up for therights of the laity, --and to those blessed souls, the good women, towhom this version of the story of a mother's hidden hopes and tenderanxieties is dedicated by their peaceful and loving servant. ]

 A MOTHER'S SECRET. 

 How sweet the sacred legend--if unblamed In my slight verse such holy things are named --Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song!

 The choral host had closed the angel's strain Sung to the midnight watch on Bethlehem's plain; And now the shepherds, hastening on their way, Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled O'er, They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn, Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn; And some remembered how the holy scribe, Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. So fared they on to seek the promised sign That marked the anointed heir of David's line. 

 At last, by forms of earthly semblance led, They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. No pomp was there, no glory shone around On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground; One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed, In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid!

 The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale; Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed; Told how the shining multitude proclaimed "Joy, joy to earth! Behold the hallowed morn! In David's city Christ the Lord is born! 'Glory to God!' let angels shout on high, 'Good-will to men!' the listening Earth reply!"

 They spoke with hurried words and accents wild; Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. No trembling word the mother's joy revealed, One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed; Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, But kept their words to ponder in her heart. 

 Twelve years had passed; the boy was fair and tall, Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill Their balanced urns beside the mountain-rill, The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun, Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. No voice had reached the Galilean vale Of star-led kings or awe-struck shepherds' tale; In the meek, studious child they only saw The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. 

 So grew the boy; and now the feast was near, When at the holy place the tribes appear. Scarce had the home-bred child of Nazareth seen Beyond the hills that girt the village-green, Save when at midnight, o'er the star-lit sands, Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands, A babe, close-folded to his mother's breast, Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West. 

 Then Joseph spake: "Thy boy hath largely grown; Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown; Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest Goes he not with us to the holy feast?"

 And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white; Till eve she spun; she spun till morning light. The thread was twined; its parting meshes through From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew, Till the full web was wound upon the beam, Love's curious toil, --a vest without a seam!

 They reach the holy place, fulfil the days To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. At last they turn, and far Moriah's height Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight. All day the dusky caravan has flowed In devious trails along the winding road, (For many a step their homeward path attends, And all the sons of Abraham are as friends. ) Evening has come, --the hour of rest and joy; Hush! hush!--that whisper, -"Where is Mary's boy?"

 O weary hour! O aching days that passed Filled with strange fears, each wilder than the last: The soldier's lance, --the fierce centurion's sword, The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord, The midnight crypt that suck's the captive's breath, The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of death!

 Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light, Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night, Crouched by some porphyry column's shining plinth, Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. 

 At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more The Temple's porches, searched in vain before; They found him seated with the ancient men, The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen, Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near; Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear, Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise That lips so fresh should utter words so wise. 

 And Mary said, --as one who, tried too long, Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong, "What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done? Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, O my son!" Few words he spake, and scarce of filial tone, Strange words, their sense a mystery yet unknown; Then turned with them and left the holy hill, To all their mild commands obedient still. 

 The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again; The maids retold it at the fountain's side; The youthful shepherds doubted or denied; It passed around among the listening friends, With all that fancy adds and fiction fends, Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis down. 

 But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard, Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil, And shuddering Earth confirmed the wondrous tale. 

 Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. 

VI

You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back. Bloated some, I expect. 

This was the cheerful and encouraging and elegant remark with which thePoor Relation greeted the divinity-student one morning. 

Of course every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part tocontinue living in this transitory, unsatisfactory, and particularlyunpleasant world. This is so much a matter of course, that I wassurprised to see the divinity-student change color. He took a look ata small and uncertain-minded glass which hung slanting forward over thechapped sideboard. The image it returned to him had the color of avery young pea somewhat overboiled. The scenery of a long tragic dramaflashed through his mind as the lightning-express-train whishes by astation: the gradual dismantling process of disease; friends looking on, sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over their own stomachs of iron andlungs of caoutchouc; nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, andthinking how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to your neighbor, who is good for a year or so longer; doctors assiduous, but givingthemselves a mental shake, as they go out of your door, which throws offyour particular grief as a duck sheds a raindrop from his oily feathers;undertakers solemn, but happy; then the great subsoil cultivator, whoplants, but never looks for fruit in his garden; then the stone-cutter, who puts your name on the slab which has been waiting for you ever sincethe birds or beasts made their tracks on the new red sandstone; thenthe grass and the dandelions and the buttercups, ---Earth saying to themortal body, with her sweet symbolism, "You have scarred my bosom, but you are forgiven"; then a glimpse of the soul as a floatingconsciousness without very definite form or place, but dimly conceivedof as an upright column of vapor or mist several times larger thanlife-size, so far as it could be said to have any size at all, wandering about and living a thin and half-awake life for want of goodold-fashioned solid matter to come down upon with foot and fist, --infact, having neither foot nor fist, nor conveniences for taking thesitting posture. 

And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, and those heathenimages which remind one of the childlike fancies of the dying Adrianwere only the efforts of his imagination to give shape to the formlessand position to the placeless. Neither did his thoughts spreadthemselves out and link themselves as I have displayed them. They cameconfusedly into his mind like a heap of broken mosaics, --sometimes apart of the picture complete in itself, sometimes connected fragments, and sometimes only single severed stones. 

They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his countenance. On the contrary, the Poor Relation's remark turned him pale, as I havesaid; and when the terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass turnedhim green in addition, and he saw himself in it, it seemed to him asif it were all settled, and his book of life were to be shut not yethalf-read, and go back to the dust of the under-ground archives. Hecoughed a mild short cough, as if to point the direction in which hisdownward path was tending. It was an honest little cough enough, so faras appearances went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You find one outin the cold, take it up and nurse it and make everything of it, dress itup warm, give it all sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carryit round in your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. And by-and-byits little bark grows sharp and savage, and--confound the thing!--youfind it is a wolf's whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing inthe breast where he has been nestling so long. --The Poor Relation saidthat somebody's surrup was good for folks that were gettin' into abad way. --The landlady had heard of desperate cases cured bycherry-pictorial. 

Whiskey's the fellah, --said the young man John. --Make it into punch, cold at dinner-time 'n' hot at bed-time. I'll come up 'n' show you howto mix it. Have n't any of you seen the wonderful fat man exhibitin'down in Hanover Street?

Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue with a breezyexclamation, that he had seen a great picter outside of the place wherethe fat man was exhibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the manat the door looked at his teeth and said he was more'n ten year old. 

It is n't two years, --said the young man John, since that fat fellahwas exhibitin' here as the Livin' Skeleton. Whiskey--that's what didit, --real Burbon's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a littleshavin' of lemon-skin in it, --skin, mind you, none o' your juice; takeit off thin, --shape of one of them flat curls the factory-girls wear onthe sides of their foreheads. 

But I am a teetotaller, --said the divinity-student in a subduedtone;--not noticing the enormous length of the bow-string the youngfellow had just drawn. 

He took up his hat and went out. 

I think you have worried that young man more than you meant, --I said. --Idon't believe he will jump off one of the bridges, for he has too muchprinciple; but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for he looksas if his mind were made up to something. 

I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked doggedly along, looking neither to the right nor the left, turned into State Street, and made for a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor wasthere and overhauled him on the spot. There was nothing the matter withhim, he said, and he could have his life insured as a sound one. He cameout in good spirits, and told me this soon after. 

This led me to make some remarks the next morning on the manners ofwell-bred and ill-bred people. 

I began, --The whole essence of true gentle-breeding (one does notlike to say gentility) lies in the wish and the art to be agreeable. Good-breeding is surface-Christianity. Every look, movement, tone, expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another ishabitually excluded from conversational intercourse. This is the reasonwhy rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others. 

--I thought you were a great champion of equality, --said the discreetand severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor'sdaughter. 

I go politically for equality, --I said, --and socially for the quality. 

Who are the "quality, "--said the Model, etc. , in a community like ours?

I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer, --I said. --Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks whichexists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The greatgentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters andmistresses; they are the quality, whether in a monarchy or a republic;mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents arenothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds adistinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, andI disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural linesof cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its owntrue laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth;and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to thestratification of society. 

Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this ofsocial position, --as you see by the circumstances that the core of allthe great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, forthe most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in aregular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body toall else. 

Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been gettingfarther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, canprevent this subdivision of society into classes from taking placeeverywhere, --in the great centres of our republic as much as inold European monarchies. Only there position is more absolutelyhereditary, --here it is more completely elective. 

--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and whoare the electors?--said the Model. 

Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote. The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what ispresentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and thecritical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in aribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement, everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a generalthing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from thesoil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes, --quite as good, nodoubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots ontheir heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing theirdescent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whoseveins have held "base" fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima!

Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model. 

Almost. And with good reason. For though there are numerous exceptions, rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeablecompanions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, goodlibraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, aposition so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmonyand refinement to the character and manners which we feel, if we cannotexplain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it by thinking alittle. 

All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeablecontacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences. In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just asthe hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in softgloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I likethe quality ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones. They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to youwhen you are talking to them. If they are never learned, they make upfor it in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, there isless self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know whereyou will find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poorplay-girl of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel whenshe went before her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious andagreeable person than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the storyof Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something thatyou know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance. 

Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highestfashion is intensely alive, --not alive necessarily to the truestand best things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all itsextremities and to the farthest point of its surface, so that thefeather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, and the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and pimpant (pronounce itEnglish fashion, --it is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than thatwhere it is spoken. Don't you see why? Attention and deference don'trequire you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness(lies) and returning all the compliments paid you. This is one reason. 

--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man, --said theModel. 

[My reflection. Oh! oh! no wonder you did n't get married. Served youright. ] My remark. Surely, Madam, --if you mean by flattery tellingpeople boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they arenot. But a woman who does not carry about with her wherever she goesa halo of good feeling and desire to make everybody contented, --anatmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows herpresence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that sheis rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble oftalking to, as a woman; she may do well enough to hold discussions with. 

--I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She said, --a littlespitefully, I thought, --that a sensible man might stand a little praise, but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit ofgetting much. 

Oh, yes, --I replied, --just as men get sick of tobacco. It is notorioushow apt they are to get tired of that vegetable. 

--That 's so!--said the young fellow John, --I've got tired of my cigarsand burnt 'em all up. 

I am heartily glad to hear it, --said the Model, --I wish they were alldisposed of in the same way. 

So do I, --said the young fellow John. 

Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odiousinstruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed yourown?

I wish I could, --said the young fellow John. 

It would be a noble sacrifice, --said the Model, and every American womanwould be grateful to you. Let us burn them all in a heap out in theyard. 

That a'n't my way, --said the young fellow John;--I burn 'em one 't'time, --little end in my mouth and big end outside. 

--I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when itshould reach the calm stillness of the Model's interior apprehension, as a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped intoa well. But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who hadfollowed the conversation with a certain interest until it turned thissharp corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John, )laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as thelocust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorusafter it. It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul ofthis young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out ofwhich she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment thatswept all before it. So we had a great laugh all round, in which theModel--who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yetwanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, andis as important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways oflife--had not the tact to join. She seemed to be "stuffy" about it, asthe young fellow John said. In fact, I was afraid the joke would havecost us both our new lady-boarders. It had no effect, however, except, perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, onthe whole, be spared. 

--I had meant to make this note of our conversation a text for a fewaxioms on the matter of breeding. But it so happened, that, exactly atthis point of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom severalof our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no doubt many of myreaders follow habitually, treated this matter of manners. Up to thispoint, if I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has more felicitouslysaid, nobody is to blame; for what has been given thus far was allwritten before the lecture was delivered. But what shall I do now? Hetold us it was childish to lay down rules for deportment, --but he couldnot help laying down a few. 

Thus, --Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry. True, but hard ofapplication. People with short legs step quickly, because legs arependulums, and swing more times in a minute the shorter they are. Generally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organization: quickpulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid trains of thought, excitabletemper. Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marksof good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at least, theymust work their limbs or features. 

Talking of one's own ails and grievances. --Bad enough, but not so badas insulting the person you talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, orappealing to notice any of his personal peculiarities. 

Apologizing. --A very desperate habit, --one that is rarely cured. Apologyis only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first thinga man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It ismighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of somuch consequence that you must make a talk about them. 

Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, andeyes that do not wander, --shyness of personalities, except in certainintimate communions, --to be light in hand in conversation, to haveideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them, --tobelong to the company you are in, and not to yourself, --to have nothingin your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil itand get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies, throughoutyour person and--dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital ofmanners to begin with. 

Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly anoverestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from ourgeneric humanity. It is just here that the very highest society assertsits superior breeding. Among truly elegant people of the highest ton, you will find more real equality in social intercourse than in a countryvillage. As nuns drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret andSister Mary, so high-bred people drop their personal distinctionsand become brothers and sisters of conversational charity. Nor arefashionable people without their heroism. I believe there are men whohave shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone wall-flower down tothe supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonizedhis name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothingcan hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in hiscorner, and distill their soft words upon him like dew upon the greenherb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddensthe perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known oneof these angels ask, of her own accord, that a desolate middle-aged man, whom nobody seemed to know, should be presented to her by the hostess. He wore no shirt-collar, --he had on black gloves, --and was flourishing ared bandanna handkerchief! Match me this, ye proud children of poverty, who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each other! Virtue in humblelife! What is that to the glorious self-renunciation of a martyr inpearls and diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending gracefully beforethe social mendicant, --the white billows of her beauty heaving underthe foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed them, --I shouldhave wept with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, except as a privatedemonstration, are an ill-disguised expression of self-consciousness andvanity, which is inadmissible in good society. 

I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the position in whichpolitical chance or contrivance might hereafter place some one ofour fellow-citizens. It has happened hitherto, so far as my limitedknowledge goes, that the President of the United States has always beenwhat might be called in general terms a gentleman. But what if at somefuture time the choice of the people should fall upon one on whom thatlofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, be bestowed? This mayhappen, --how soon the future only knows. Think of this miserable manof coming political possibilities, --an unpresentable boor sucked intooffice by one of those eddies in the flow of popular sentiment whichcarry straws and chips into the public harbor, while the prostratetrunks of the monarchs of the forest hurry down on the senseless streamto the gulf of political oblivion! Think of him, I say, and of theconcentrated gaze of good society through its thousand eyes, allconfluent, as it were, in one great burning-glass of ice that shrivelsits wretched object in fiery torture, itself cold as the glacier of anunsunned cavern! No, --there will be angels of good-breeding then asnow, to shield the victim of free institutions from himself and from historturers. I can fancy a lovely woman playfully withdrawing the knifewhich he would abuse by making it an instrument for the conveyanceof food, --or, failing in this kind artifice, sacrificing herself byimitating his use of that implement; how much harder than to plunge itinto her bosom, like Lucretia! I can see her studying in his provincialdialect until she becomes the Champollion of New England or Westernor Southern barbarisms. She has learned that haow means what; thatthink-in' is the same thing as thinking, or she has found out themeaning of that extraordinary mono syllable, which no single-tonguedphonographer can make legible, prevailing on the banks of the Hudson andat its embouchure, and elsewhere, --what they say when they think theysay first, (fe-eest, --fe as in the French le), --or that cheermeans chair, --or that urritation means irritation, --and so of otherenormities. Nothing surprises her. The highest breeding, you know, comes round to the Indian standard, --to take everything coolly, --niladmirari, --if you happen to be learned and like the Roman phrase for thesame thing. 

If you like the company of people that stare at you from head to foot tosee if there is a hole in your coat, or if you have not grown alittle older, or if your eyes are not yellow with jaundice, or if yourcomplexion is not a little faded, and so on, and then convey the factto you, in the style in which the Poor Relation addressed thedivinity-student, --go with them as much as you like. I hate the sight ofthe wretches. Don't for mercy's sake think I hate them; the distinctionis one my friend or I drew long ago. No matter where you find suchpeople; they are clowns. 

The rich woman who looks and talks in this way is not half so much alady as her Irish servant, whose pretty "saving your presence, " when shehas to say something which offends her natural sense of good manners, has a hint in it of the breeding of courts, and the blood of oldMilesian kings, which very likely runs in her veins, --thinned by twohundred years of potato, which, being an underground fruit, tends todrag down the generations that are made of it to the earth from whichit came, and, filling their veins with starch, turn them into a kind ofhuman vegetable. 

I say, if you like such people, go with them. But I am going to make apractical application of the example at the beginning of this particularrecord, which some young people who are going to choose professionaladvisers by-and-by may remember and thank me for. If you are makingchoice of a physician, be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheerfuland serene countenance. A physician is not--at least, ought not tobe--an executioner; and a sentence of death on his face is as bad as awarrant for execution signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no manhas a right to tell another by word or look that he is going to die. Itmay be necessary in some extreme cases; but as a rule, it is the lastextreme of impertinence which one human being can offer to another. "Youhave killed me, " said a patient once to a physician who had rashly toldhim he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, but he was deadin six' weeks. If we will only let Nature and the God of Nature alone, persons will commonly learn their condition as early as they ought toknow it, and not be cheated out of their natural birthright of hope ofrecovery, which is intended to accompany sick people as long as lifeis comfortable, and is graciously replaced by the hope of heaven, or atleast of rest, when life has become a burden which the bearer is readyto let fall. 

Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chanceof a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certaintime is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. Asyou go down the social scale, you reach a point at length where thecommon talk in sick rooms is of churchyards and sepulchres, and a kindof perpetual vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of themiserable sufferer. 

And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things being equal, prefer theone of a wholesome and cheerful habit of mind and body. If you can getalong with people who carry a certificate in their faces that theirgoodness is so great as to make them very miserable, your childrencannot. And whatever offends one of these little ones cannot be right inthe eyes of Him who loved them so well. 

After all, as you are a gentleman or a lady, you will probably selectgentlemen for your bodily and spiritual advisers, and then all will beright. 

This repetition of the above words, --gentleman and lady, --which couldnot be conveniently avoided, reminds me what strange uses are made ofthem by those who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at a marriageceremony, once, of two very excellent persons who had been at service, instead of, Do you take this man, etc. ? and, Do you take this woman?how do you think the officiating clergyman put the questions? It was, Doyou, Miss So and So, take this GENTLEMAN? and, Do you, Mr. This or That, take this LADY?! What would any English duchess, ay, or the Queen ofEngland herself, have thought, if the Archbishop of Canterbury hadcalled her and her bridegroom anything but plain woman and man at such atime?

I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all very fine, if shehappened to be in the church; but if the worthy man who uttered thesemonstrous words--monstrous in such a connection--had known the ludicroussurprise, the convulsion of inward disgust and contempt, that seizedupon many of the persons who were present, --had guessed what a suddenflash of light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, the shabby, perking pretension belonging to certain social layers, --so inherent intheir whole mode of being, that the holiest offices of religioncannot exclude its impertinences, --the good man would have given hismarriage-fee twice over to recall that superb and full-blown vulgarism. Any persons whom it could please could have no better notion of what thewords referred to signify than of the meaning of apsides and asymptotes. 

MAN! Sir! WOMAN! Sir! Gentility is a fine thing, not to be undervalued, as I have been trying to explain; but humanity comes before that. 

 "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"

The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners which comes from thefinest training is not to be understood by those whose habitat is belowa certain level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the gracefulocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below the surface, the elegancesand suavities of life die out one by one as we sink through the socialscale. Fortunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, and lastpretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute pauperism, wherethey do not flourish greatly. 

--I had almost forgotten about our boarders. As the Model of all theVirtues is about to leave us, I find myself wondering what is the reasonwe are not all very sorry. Surely we all like good persons. She is agood person. Therefore we like her. --Only we don't. 

This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, involving the principlewhich some English conveyancer borrowed from a French wit and embodiedin the lines by which Dr. Fell is made unamiably immortal, thissyllogism, I say, is one that most persons have had occasion toconstruct and demolish, respecting somebody or other, as I have done forthe Model. "Pious and painefull. " Why has that excellent old phrase goneout of use? Simply because these good painefull or painstaking personsproved to be such nuisances in the long run, that the word "painefull"came, before people thought of it, to mean pain-giving instead ofpainstaking. 

--So, the old fellah's off to-morrah, --said the young man John. 

Old fellow?--said I, --whom do you mean?

Why, the one that came with our little beauty, the old fellah inpetticoats. 

--Now that means something, --said I to myself. --These rough youngrascals very often hit the nail on the head, if they do strike withtheir eyes shut. A real woman does a great many things without knowingwhy she does them; but these pattern machines mix up their intellectswith everything they do, just like men. They can't help it, no doubt;but we can't help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to awoman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her dress; it oughtto underlie her silks and embroideries, but not to show itself toostaringly on the outside. --You don't know, perhaps, but I will tellyou; the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heartthe reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the placeit came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat andcolor of its birthplace. 

The young man John did not hear my soliloquy, of course, but sent up onemore bubble from our sinking conversation, in the form of a statement, that she was at liberty to go to a personage who receives no visits, asis commonly supposed, from virtuous people. 

Why, I ask again, (of my reader, ) should a person who never did anybodyany wrong, but, on the contrary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, a particularly enlightened and exemplary member of society, fail toinspire interest, love, and devotion? Because of the reversed current inthe flow of thought and emotion. The red heart sends all its instinctsup to the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and so becomepure reason, which is just exactly what we do not want of woman aswoman. The current should run the other-way. The nice, calm, coldthought, which in women shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly knowit as thought, should always travel to the lips via the heart. It doesso in those women whom all love and admire. It travels the wrong way inthe Model. That is the reason why the Little Gentleman said "I hate her, I hate her. " That is the reason why the young man John called herthe "old fellah, " and banished her to the company of the greatUnpresentable. That is the reason why I, the Professor, am picking herto pieces with scalpel and forceps. That is the reason why the younggirl whom she has befriended repays her kindness with gratitude andrespect, rather than with the devotion and passionate fondness which liesleeping beneath the calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, asshe sits between this estimable and most correct of personages and themisshapen, crotchety, often violent and explosive little man on theother side of her, leaning and swaying towards him as she speaks, andlooking into his sad eyes as if she found some fountain in them at whichher soul could quiet its thirst. 

Women like the Model are a natural product of a chilly climate and highculture. It is not

 "The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr with Aurora playing, "

when the two meet

 "--on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, "

that claim such women as their offspring. It is rather the east wind, asit blows out of the fogs of Newfoundland, and clasps a clear-eyed wintrynoon on the chill bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry. --Don't throwup your cap now, and hurrah as if this were giving up everything, andturning against the best growth of our latitudes, --the daughters ofthe soil. The brain-women never interest us like the heart women; whiteroses please less than red. But our Northern seasons have a narrow greenstreak of spring, as well as a broad white zone of winter, --they havea glowing band of summer and a golden stripe of autumn in theirmany-colored wardrobe; and women are born to us that wear all these huesof earth and heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women are reallyadmirable, if we only ask of them just what they can give, and no more. Only compare them, talking or writing, with one of those babbling, chattering dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know enough even tokeep out of print, and who are interesting to us only as specimens ofarrest of development for our psychological cabinets. 

Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues! We can spare you now. A little clearperfection, undiluted with human weakness, goes a great way. Go! beuseful, be honorable and honored, be just, be charitable, talk purereason, and help to disenchant the world by the light of an achromaticunderstanding. Goodbye! Where is my Beranger? I must read a verse or twoof "Fretillon. "

Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible qualities for anybody. Justice is a very rare virtue in our community. Everything that publicsentiment cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled underhigh pressure till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and the verybones give up their jelly. What are all the strongest epithets of ourdictionary to us now? The critics and politicians, and especiallythe philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are mere wads ofsyllable-fibre, without a suggestion of their old pungency and power. 

Justice! A good man respects the rights even of brute matter andarbitrary symbols. If he writes the same word twice in succession, by accident, he always erases the one that stands second; has not thefirst-comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, which I trustmany of my readers, like myself, have often performed, is a curiousanti-illustration, by the way, of the absolute wickedness of humandispositions. Why doesn't a man always strike out the first of the twowords, to gratify his diabolical love of injustice?

So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of respect to thesefiltered intellects which have left their womanhood on the strainer. They are so clear that it is a pleasure at times to look at the worldof thought through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer naturesthey cannot give us, and it is not just to them to ask it. 

Fashionable society gets at these rich natures very often in a way onewould hardly at first think of. It loves vitality above all things, sometimes disguised by affected languor, always well kept under by thelaws of good-breeding, --but still it loves abundant life, opulent andshowy organizations, --the spherical rather than the plane trigonometryof female architecture, --plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropicalvoices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress without growing palebeneath their lustre. Among these you will find the most delicious womenyou will ever meet, --women whom dress and flattery and the round of citygayeties cannot spoil, --talking with whom, you forget their diamondsand laces, --and around whom all the nice details of elegance, whichthe cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so nicely, blend in oneharmonious whole, too perfect to be disturbed by the petulant sparkle ofa jewel, or the yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a feather. 

There are many things that I, personally, love better than fashion orwealth. Not to speak of those highest objects of our love and loyalty, I think I love ease and independence better than the golden slavery ofperpetual matinees and soirees, or the pleasures of accumulation. 

But fashion and wealth are two very solemn realities, which thefrivolous class of moralists have talked a great deal of silly stuffabout. Fashion is only the attempt to realize Art in living forms andsocial intercourse. What business has a man who knows nothing about thebeautiful, and cannot pronounce the word view, to talk about fashion toa set of people who, if one of the quality left a card at their doors, would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap of the namesof their two-story acquaintances, till it was as yellow as the CodexVaticanus?

Wealth, too, --what an endless repetition of the same foolishtrivialities about it! Take the single fact of its alleged uncertaintenure and transitory character. In old times, when men were all thetime fighting and robbing each other, --in those tropical countries wherethe Sabeans and the Chaldeans stole all a man's cattle and camels, andthere were frightful tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it wastrue enough that riches took wings to themselves not unfrequently in avery unexpected way. But, with common prudence in investments, it isnot so now. In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on thewhole, as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fadeout of remembrance, but the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to hischildren live and keep his memory green. 

I do not think there is much courage or originality in giving utteranceto truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventionaltrumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out tofeeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth ofthat significance which gives to fashion and fortune their tremendouspower, we do not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the one, nor the meanness which often degrades the other. 

A remark which seems to contradict a universally current opinion is notgenerally to be taken "neat, " but watered with the ideas of common-senseand commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be temptedto waste their substance on white kids and "all-rounds, " or to insist onbecoming millionaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give themreferences to some of the class referred to, well known to the public asproviders of literary diluents, who will weaken any truth so thatthere is not an old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfectimpunity. 

I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean toflatter them. I hope not;--if I do, set it down as a weakness. But thereis so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, draw a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glareof their candelabra, but which have a real respectability and meaning, if we will only look at them stereoscopically, with both eyes instead ofone, ) that I thought it a duty to speak a few words for them. Why can'tsomebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks?

Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten graver matters in theselesser topics, I beg them to drop these trifles and read the followinglesson for the day. 

 THE TWO STREAMS. 

 Behold the rocky wall That down its sloping sides Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, In rushing river-tides!

 Yon stream, whose sources run Turned by a pebble's edge, Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun Through the cleft mountain-ledge. 

 The slender rill had strayed, But for the slanting stone, To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid Of foam-flecked Oregon. 

 So from the heights of Will Life's parting stream descends, And, as a moment turns its slender rill, Each widening torrent bends, From the same cradle's side, From the same mother's knee, --One to long darkness and the frozen tide, One to the Peaceful Sea!

VII

Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some pretensions togentility. She wears her bonnet well back on her head, which is knownby all to be a mark of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, as the great ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their dresses are so madeonly to sweep the tapestried floors of chateaux and palaces; as thoseodious aristocrats of the other side do not go draggling through the mudin silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride in coaches when theyare in full dress. It is true, that, considering various habits of theAmerican people, also the little accidents which the best-kept sidewalksare liable to, a lady who has swept a mile of them is not exactly insuch a condition that one would care to be her neighbor. But then thereis no need of being so hard on these slight weaknesses of the poor, dearwomen as our little deformed gentleman was the other day. 

--There are no such women as the Boston women, Sir, --he said. Forty-twodegrees, north latitude, Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir! They had grand women inold Rome, Sir, --and the women bore such men--children as never the worldsaw before. And so it was here, Sir. I tell you, the revolution theBoston boys started had to run in woman's milk before it ran in man'sblood, Sir!

But confound the make-believe women we have turned loose in ourstreets!--where do they come from? Not out of Boston parlors, I trust. Why, there is n't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail through thedirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because a queen ora duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a maid-of-all-work or afactory-girl thinks she must make herself a nuisance by trailing throughthe street, picking up and carrying about with her pah!--that's whatI call getting vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making believe bewhat you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show over dirt is theone attribute of vulgar people. If any man can walk behind one of thesewomen and see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, hehas got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one of 'em into my room withoutserving 'em as David served Saul at the cave in the wilderness, --cut offhis skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts!

I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish ladies who offended inthe way he condemned. 

Stylish women, I don't doubt, --said the Little Gentleman. --Don't tell methat a true lady ever sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her sweetand clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't believe it of alady. There are some things that no fashion has any right to touch, andcleanliness is one of those things. If a woman wishes to show that herhusband or her father has got money, which she wants and means to spend, but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin it toher dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before shegoes into the house;--there may be poor women that will think it worthdisinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry suchthings into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers anytoo well, --in fact, I never saw but one, and she--or he, or it--had amob of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as if she hadbeen a----

The Little Gentleman stopped short, --flushed somewhat, and looked roundwith that involuntary, suspicious glance which the subjects of anybodily misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye wanderedover the company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had, probably, noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris, --his nextneighbor, you remember. 

--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person'seyes have been fixed on us. 

Sometimes we are conscious of it before we turn so as to see the person. Strange secrets of curiosity, of impertinence, of malice, of love, leakout in this way. There is no need of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflectionin the mirror, to tell us that she is plotting evil for us behind ourbacks. We know it, as we know by the ominous stillness of a child thatsome mischief or other is going-on. A young girl betrays, in a moment, that her eyes have been feeding on the face where you find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with their pencils of blue or brownlight. 

A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, to that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops togather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. When welook at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge tofill it. When we examine a minute object, we naturally contract, notonly our foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I see two men wrestling, I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. When a country-fellow comesupon the stage, you will see twenty faces in the boxes putting on thebumpkin expression. There is no need of multiplying instances to reachthis generalization; every person and thing we look upon puts itsspecial mark upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we get apermanent resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we tookfrom it. Husband and wife come to look alike at last, as has often beennoticed. It is a common saying of a jockey, that he is "all horse"; andI have often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage, and anangular movement of the arm, that remind one of a pump and the workingof its handle. 

All this came in by accident, just because I happened to mention thatthe Little Gentleman found that Iris had been looking at him with hersoul in her eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering roundthe company. What he thought, it is hard to say; but the shadow ofsuspicion faded off from his face, and he looked calmly into the ambereyes, resting his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. 

--If it were a possible thing, --women are such strange creatures! Isthere any trick that love and their own fancies do not play them? Justsee how they marry! A woman that gets hold of a bit of manhood is likeone of those Chinese wood-carvers who work on any odd, fantastic rootthat comes to hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcatedbelow, will always contrive to make a man--such as he is--out of it. Ishould like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a Gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. 

--A child, --yes, if you choose to call her so, but such a child! Do youknow how Art brings all ages together? There is no age to the angelsand ideal human forms among which the artist lives, and he sharestheir youth until his hand trembles and his eye grows dim. The youthfulpainter talks of white-bearded Leonardo as if he were a brother, andthe veteran forgets that Raphael died at an age to which his own is ofpatriarchal antiquity. 

But why this lover of the beautiful should be so drawn to one whomNature has wronged so deeply seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. They say that leads to love. 

--I thought this matter over until I became excited and curious, anddetermined to set myself more seriously at work to find out what wasgoing on in these wild hearts and where their passionate lives weredrifting. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because I think I canlook through this seeming calmness of youth and this apparent feeblenessof organization, and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, is only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, knowing that all is inreadiness and the slow-match burning quietly down to the powder. He willleave it by-and-by, and then it will take care of itself. 

One need not wait to see the smoke coming through the roof of a houseand the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building ison fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toastingshingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stingsone's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on. --Oh, --oh, --oh! doyou know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that isborn of the little red eggs we call sparks, with his hundred blowingred manes, and his thousand lashing red tails, and his multitudinous redeyes glaring at every crack and key-hole, and his countless red tongueslapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breathwarping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweatthat had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap!or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coronerwould take for the wreck of a human being!

If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop this run-awaycomparison, I shall be much obliged to him. All I intended to say was, that we need not wait for hearts to break out in flames to know thatthey are full of combustibles and that a spark has got among them. Idon't pretend to say or know what it is that brings these two personstogether;--and when I say together, I only mean that there is an evidentaffinity of some kind or other which makes their commonest intercoursestrangely significant, as that each seems to understand a look or aword of the other. When the young girl laid her hand on the LittleGentleman's arm, --which so greatly shocked the Model, you mayremember, --I saw that she had learned the lion-tamer's secret. Shemasters him, and yet I can see she has a kind of awe of him, as the manwho goes into the cage has of the monster that he makes a baby of. 

One of two things must happen. The first is love, downright love, onthe part of this young girl, for the poor little misshapen man. You maylaugh, if you like. But women are apt to love the men who they thinkhave the largest capacity of loving;--and who can love like one that hasthirsted all his life long for the smile of youth and beauty, and seenit fly his presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of himwhose fabled punishment is the perpetual type of human longing anddisappointment? What would become of him, if this fresh soul shouldstoop upon him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops outof the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in the marshes of Cagliari, with a flutter of scarlet feathers and a kindling of strange fires inthe shadowy waters that hold her burning image?

--Marry her, of course?--Why, no, not of course. I should think thechance less, on the whole, that he would be willing to marry her thanshe to marry him. 

There is one other thing that might happen. If the interest he awakes inher gets to be a deep one, and yet has nothing of love in it, she willglance off from him into some great passion or other. All excitementsrun to love in women of a certain--let us not say age, but youth. Anelectrical current passing through a coil of wire makes a magnet of abar of iron lying within it, but not touching it. So a woman is turnedinto a love-magnet by a tingling current of life running round her. Ishould like to see one of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, and watch if she did not turn so as to point north and south, --as shewould, if the love-currents are like those of the earth our mother. 

Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's "Boy of Windermere"? Thisboy used to put his hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking thehooting of the owls, who would answer him

 "with quivering peals, And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud Redoubled and redoubled. "

When they failed to answer him, and he hung listening intently fortheir voices, he would sometimes catch the faint sound of far distantwaterfalls, or the whole scene around him would imprint itself withnew force upon his perceptions. --Read the sonnet, if you please;--itis Wordsworth all over, --trivial in subject, solemn in style, vividin description, prolix in detail, true metaphysically, but immenselysuggestive of "imagination, " to use a mild term, when related as anactual fact of a sprightly youngster. All I want of it is to enforce theprinciple, that, when the door of the soul is once opened to a guest, there is no knowing who will come in next. 

--Our young girl keeps up her early habit of sketching heads andcharacters. Nobody is, I should think, more faithful and exact in thedrawing of the academical figures given her as lessons, but there isa perpetual arabesque of fancies that runs round the margin of herdrawings, and there is one book which I know she keeps to run riotin, where, if anywhere, a shrewd eye would be most likely to read herthoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can get at it honorably. 

I have never yet crossed the threshold of the Little Gentleman'schamber. How he lives, when he once gets within it, I can only guess. His hours are late, as I have said; often, on waking late in the night, I see the light through cracks in his window-shutters on the wall of thehouse opposite. If the times of witchcraft were not over, I should beafraid to be so close a neighbor to a place from which there come suchstrange noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of something heavy over thefloor, that makes me shiver to hear it, --it sounds so like what peoplethat kill other people have to do now and then. Occasionally I hear verysweet strains of music, --whether of a wind or stringed instrument, or ahuman voice, strange as it may seem, I have often tried to find out, butthrough the partition I could not be quite sure. If I have not hearda woman cry and moan, and then again laugh as though she would dielaughing, I have heard sounds so like them that--I am a fool to confessit--I have covered my head with the bedclothes; for I have had a fancyin my dreams, that I could hardly shake off when I woke up, about thatso-called witch that was his great-grandmother, or whatever it was, --asort of fancy that she visited the Little Gentleman, --a young womanin old-fashioned dress, with a red ring round her white neck, --not aneck-lace, but a dull-stain. 

Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish superstitions aboutthe matter, --I, the Professor, who have seen enough to take all thatnonsense out of any man's head! It is not our beliefs that frighten ushalf so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, but knows he runsa risk, whenever he steps into a railroad car; but it does n't worry himmuch. On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little wayfrom some dreary country-village, and show him an old house where therewere strange deaths a good many years ago, and there are rumors of uglyspots on the walls, --the old man hung himself in the garret, that iscertain, and ever since the country-people have called it "the hauntedhouse, "--the owners have n't been able to let it since the last tenantsleft on account of the noises, --so it has fallen into sad decay, and themoss grows on the rotten shingles of the roof, and the clapboards haveturned black, and the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, and the walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees were shaking, --take the man who did n't mind the real risk of the cars to that oldhouse, on some dreary November evening, and ask him to sleep therealone, --how do you think he will like it? He doesn't believe one wordof ghosts, --but then he knows, that, whether waking or sleeping, hisimagination will people the haunted chambers with ghostly images. It isnot what we believe, as I said before, that frightens us commonly, but what we conceive. A principle that reaches a good way if I am notmistaken. I say, then, that, if these odd sounds coming from the LittleGentleman's chamber sometimes make me nervous, so that I cannot getto sleep, it is not because I suppose he is engaged in any unlawful ormysterious way. The only wicked suggestion that ever came into my headwas one that was founded on the landlady's story of his having a pileof gold; it was a ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story ofsweating gold was only one of the many fables got up to make the Jewsodious and afford a pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like awoman laughing and crying, I never said it was a woman's voice; for, inthe first place, I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he mayhave an organ, or some queer instrument or other, with what they callthe vox humana stop. If he moves his bed round to get away from thewindow, or for any such reason, there is nothing very frightful in thatsimple operation. Most of our foolish conceits explain themselves insome such simple way. And, yet, for all that, I confess, that, when Iwoke up the other evening, and heard, first a sweet complaining cry, andthen footsteps, and then the dragging sound, --nothing but his bed, I amquite sure, --I felt a stirring in the roots of my hair as the feastersdid in Keats's terrible poem of "Lamia. "

There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous when I happen to lieawake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any timeafter midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a darknight. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you willhear! The stillness of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seemto be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never hear itcrack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; you know you shut themall. 

Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody trying it softly?or, worse than any body, is---? (Cold shiver. ) Then a sudden gust thatjars all the windows;--very strange!--there does not seem to be any windabout that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear the worms boring inthe powdery beams overhead. Then steps outside, --a stray animal, nodoubt. All right, --but a gentle moisture breaks out all over you; andthen something like a whistle or a cry, --another gust of wind, perhaps;that accounts for the rustling that just made your heart roll over andtumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under your ribsthan a part of your own body; then a crash of something that hasfallen, --blown over, very likely---Pater noster, qui es in coelis! foryou are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed tremblingso that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking!

No, --night is an awful time for strange noises and secret doings. Whoever dreamed, till one of our sleepless neighbors told us of it, of thatWalpurgis gathering of birds and beasts of prey, --foxes, and owls, andcrows, and eagles, that come from all the country round on moonshinynights to crunch the clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of deadfishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? Our old mother Naturehas pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes in her dressof blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows usup-stairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, everycreak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mysteryand fear. 

You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not believe there isanything about this singular little neighbor of mine which is as itshould not be. Probably a visit to his room would clear up all that haspuzzled me, and make me laugh at the notions which began, I suppose, innightmares, and ended by keeping my imagination at work so as almost tomake me uncomfortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him assome of our other boarders, for various reasons which I will not stop tomention. I think some of them are rather pleased to get "the Professor"under their ceilings. 

The young man John, for instance, asked me to come up one day and trysome "old Burbon, " which he said was A 1. On asking him what was thenumber of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, sky-parlorfloor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he did n't go ahead to show methe way. I followed him to his habitat, being very willing to see inwhat kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up somethingabout the boarders who had excited my curiosity. 

Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowedhimself and his furniture; this last consisting of a bed, a chair, a bureau, a trunk, and numerous pegs with coats and "pants" and"vests, "--as he was in the habit of calling waist-coats and pantaloonsor trousers, --hanging up as if the owner had melted out of them. Several prints were pinned up unframed, --among them that grand nationalportrait-piece, "Barnum presenting Ossian E. Dodge to Jenny Lind, " and apicture of a famous trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air ofthat imposing array of expressions, and especially the Italicized word, "Dan Mace names b. H. Major Slocum, " and "Hiram Woodruff names g. M. Lady Smith. " "Best three in five. Time: 2. 40, 2. 46, 2. 50. "

That set me thinking how very odd this matter of trotting horses is, asan index of the mathematical exactness of the laws of living mechanism. I saw Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2. 26. Flora Temple has trotted closedown to 2. 20; and Ethan Allen in 2. 25, or less. Many horses have trottedtheir mile under 2. 30; none that I remember in public as low down as2. 20. From five to ten seconds, then, in about a hundred and sixty isthe whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses. The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile infive minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper downuntil somewhere about 4. 30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masseshave been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know fromthe Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children--sayfrom one to two dozen--die every year in England from drinking hot waterout of spouts of teakettles. We know, that, among suicides, women andmen past a certain age almost never use fire-arms. A woman who has madeup her mind to die is still afraid of a pistol or a gun. Or is it thatthe explosion would derange her costume?

I say, averages of masses we have, but our tables of maxima we oweto the sporting men more than to the philosophers. The lesson theirexperience teaches is, that Nature makes no leaps, --does nothing persaltum. The greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only asmall fraction of an idea ahead of the second best. Just look at thechess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal exceptions, the niceshades that separate the skilful ones show how closely their brainsapproximate, --almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is a"knight-player, "--he must have that piece given him. Another must havetwo pawns. Another, "pawn and two, " or one pawn and two moves. Thenwe find one who claims "pawn and move, " holding himself, with thisfractional advantage, a match for one who would be pretty sure to beathim playing even. --So much are minds alike; and you and I think weare "peculiar, "--that Nature broke her jelly-mould after shaping ourcerebral convolutions. So I reflected, standing and looking at thepicture. 

--I say, Governor, --broke in the young man John, --them bosses '11 stayjest as well, if you'll only set down. I've had 'em this year, and theyhaven't stirred. --He spoke, and handed the chair towards me, --seatinghimself, at the same time, on the end of the bed. 

You have lived in this house some time?--I said, --with a note ofinterrogation at the end of the statement. 

Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh--said he, answering my question byanother. 

No, --said I;--for that matter, I think you do credit to "the bountifullyfurnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for thecompany that meets around her hospitable board. "

[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterestededitorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished bya friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. Thisimpartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment andits head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a coupleof new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them wasof the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvas-backs andwoodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject tosomnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have beenasleep in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders'chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, from some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, gottogether a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, as it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our youngMarylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in hischamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave hima dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and so lefthim till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used to takingcare of such cases of somnambulism. ]

If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, you will come to our conversation, which it has interrupted. 

It a'n't the feed, --said the young man John, --it's the old woman's lookswhen a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geesehave got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n'veal's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass 's growin' tall 'n' slim 'n'scattery about the head, 'n' green peas are gettin' so big 'n' hardthey'd be dangerous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold ofall them delicacies of the season. But it's too much like feedin' onlive folks and devourin' widdah's substance, to lay yourself out in theeatin' way, when a fellah 's as hungry as the chap that said a turkeywas too much for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help lookin' atthe old woman. Corned-beef-days she's tolerable calm. Roastin'-days sheworries some, 'n' keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But whenthere's anything in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin's soto see the knife goin' into the breast and joints comin' to pieces, thatthere's no comfort in eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help theboarders, I always feel as if I ought to say, Won't you have a slice ofwiddah?--instead of chicken. 

The young man John fell into a train of reflections which ended in hisproducing a Bologna sausage, a plate of "crackers, " as we Boston folkscall certain biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being A 1. 

Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he grew cordial andcommunicative. 

It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of our boarders who hadexcited my curiosity. 

What do you think of our young Iris?--I began. 

Fust-rate little filly;-he said. --Pootiest and nicest little chapI've seen since the schoolma'am left. Schoolma'am was a brown-hairedone, --eyes coffee-color. This one has got wine-colored eyes, --'n' that's the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose. 

This is a splendid blonde, --I said, --the other was a brunette. Whichstyle do you like best?

Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mutton?--said the young manJohn. Like 'em both, --it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I've been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. Used to like tolook at her. I never said anything particular to her, that I remember, but--

I don't know whether it was the cracker and sausage, or that the youngfellow's feet were treading on the hot ashes of some longing that hadnot had time to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. 

I suppose she wouldn't have looked at a fellah like me, --he said, --but Icome pretty near tryin'. If she had said, Yes, though, I shouldn't haveknown what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman now-a-days tillyou're so deaf you have to cock your head like a parrot to hear what shesays, and so longsighted you can't see what she looks like nearer thanarm's-length. 

Here is another chance for you, --I said. --What do you want nicer thansuch a young lady as Iris?

It's no use, --he answered. --I look at them girls and feel as the fellahdid when he missed catchin' the trout. --'To'od 'a' cost more butter tocook him 'n' he's worth, --says the fellah. --Takes a whole piece o' goodsto cover a girl up now-a-days. I'd as lief undertake to keep a span ofelephants, --and take an ostrich to board, too, --as to marry one of 'em. What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers ain't anything. Sparragrassand green peas a'n't for them, --not while they're young and tender. Hossback-ridin' a'n't for them, --except once a year, on Fast-day. Andmarryin' a'n't for them. Sometimes a fellah feels lonely, and wouldlike to have a nice young woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. Andsometimes a fellah, --here the young man John looked very confidential, and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his weakness, --sometimes afellah would like to have one o' them small young ones to trot on hisknee and push about in a little wagon, --a kind of a little Johnny, youknow;--it's odd enough, but, it seems to me, nobody can afford themlittle articles, except the folks that are so rich they can buyeverything, and the folks that are so poor they don't want anything. Itmakes nice boys of us young fellahs, no doubt! And it's pleasant to seefine young girls sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers, --and the men lingerin' roundand lookin' at the goods, like folks that want to be customers, but haven't the money!

Do you think the deformed gentleman means to make love to Iris?--I said. 

What! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him! Well, now, that's cumin'of it a little too strong. Yes, I guess she will marry him and carryhim round in a basket, like a lame bantam: Look here!--he said, mysteriously;--one of the boarders swears there's a woman comes to seehim, and that he has heard her singin' and screechin'. I should liketo know what he's about in that den of his. He lays low 'n' keepsdark, --and, I tell you, there's a good many of the boarders would liketo get into his chamber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy couldtell somethin' about what she's seen when she 's been to put his roomto rights. She's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but she knows enough to keep hertongue still. All I know is, I saw her crossin' herself one day when shecame out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' I heard her mutterin'somethin' or other about the Blessed Virgin. If it had n't been for thedouble doors to that chamber of his, I'd have had a squint inside beforethis; but, somehow or other, it never seems to happen that they're bothopen at once. 

What do you think he employs himself about? said I. 

The young man John winked. 

I waited patiently for the thought, of which this wink was the blossom, to come to fruit in words. 

I don't believe in witches, --said the young man John. 

Nor I. 

We were both silent for a few minutes. 

--Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books, --I said, presently. 

All but one, --he answered;--she keeps a lock on that, and won't show it. Ma'am Allen, (the young rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of thegentleman with the diamond, ) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one daywhen she left it on the sideboard. "If you please, " says she, --'n'took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like acaterpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he had n't, and had jestgiven her a little sass, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I 'vegot a new way of counterin' I want to try on to somebody. 

--The end of all this was, that I came away from the young fellow'sroom, feeling that there were two principal things that I had to livefor, for the next six weeks or six months, if it should take so long. These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which Isuspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the LittleGentleman's room. 

I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myselfabout these matters. You tell me, with some show of reason, that allI shall find in the young girl's--book will be some outlines ofangels with immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, andcaricatures, among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeingmy own features figuring. Very likely. But I'll tell you what I thinkI shall find. If this child has idealized the strange little bit ofhumanity over which she seems to have spread her wings like a broodingdove, --if, in one of those wild vagaries that passionate natures are soliable to, she has fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, asthe sea-flowers fold about the first stray shell-fish that brushes theiroutspread tentacles, depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it inthis drawing-book of hers, --if I can ever get a look at it, --fairly, ofcourse, for I would not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity. 

Then, if I can get into this Little Gentleman's room under any fairpretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he isjust like other people, and that there is no particular mystery abouthim. 

The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these andmany more reflections. It was about two o'clock in the morning, --brightstarlight, --so light that I could make out the time on myalarm-clock, --when I woke up trembling and very moist. It was the heavydragging sound, as I had often heard it before that waked me. Presentlya window was softly closed. I had just begun to get over the agitationwith which we always awake from nightmare dreams, when I heard the soundwhich seemed to me as of a woman's voice, --the clearest, purest sopranowhich one could well conceive of. It was not loud, and I could notdistinguish a word, if it was a woman's voice; but there were recurringphrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached me, which suggestedthe idea of complaint, and sometimes, I thought, of passionate grief anddespair. It died away at last, --and then I heard the opening of a door, followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of one talking, --and thenthe closing of a door, --and presently the light on the opposite walldisappeared and all was still for the night. 

By George! this gets interesting, --I said, as I got out of bed for achange of night-clothes. 

I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought I would n't read itat our celebration. So I read it to the boarders instead, and print itto finish off this record with. 

 ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. 

 He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer His wandering flock had gone before, But he, the shepherd, might not share Their sorrows on the wintry shore. 

 Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, The pastor spake, and thus he said:--

 "Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! God calls you hence from over sea; Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. 

 "Ye go to bear the saving word To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: Heed well the lessons ye have heard From those old teachers taught of God. 

 "Yet think not unto them was lent All light for all the coming days, And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent In making straight the ancient ways. 

 "The living fountain overflows For every flock, for every lamb, Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam. "

 He spake; with lingering, long embrace, With tears of love and partings fond, They floated down the creeping Maas, Along the isle of Ysselmond. 

 They passed the frowning towers of Briel, The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, And grated soon with lifting keel The sullen shores of Fatherland. 

 No home for these!--too well they knew The mitred king behind the throne; The sails were set, the pennons flew, And westward ho! for worlds unknown. 

 --And these were they who gave us birth, The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, Who won for us this virgin earth, And freedom with the soil they gave. 

 The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, --In alien earth the exiles lie, --Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, His words our noblest battle-cry!

 Still cry them, and the world shall hear, Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee!

VIII

There has been a sort of stillness in the atmosphere of ourboarding-house since my last record, as if something or other were goingon. There is no particular change that I can think of in the aspectof things; yet I have a feeling as if some game of life were quietlyplaying and strange forces were at work, underneath this smooth surfaceof every-day boardinghouse life, which would show themselves somefine morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. I have beenwatchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. Youmay laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to troublemyself about what is going on in a middling-class household likeours. Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with, --abeautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre that belong toNature's women, turned loose among live men. 

-Terrible fact?

Very terrible. Nothing more so. Do you forget the angels who lost heavenfor the daughters of men? Do you forget Helen, and the fair women whomade mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was born? Ifjealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of their bodies, --if pangs thatwaste men to shadows and drive them into raving madness or mopingmelancholy, --if assassination and suicide are dreadful possibilities, then there is always something frightful about a lovely young woman. --Ilove to look at this "Rainbow, " as her father used sometimes to callher, of ours. Handsome creature that she is in forms and colors, --thevery picture, as it seems to me, of that "golden blonde" my friend whosebook you read last year fell in love with when he was a boy, (as youremember, no doubt, )--handsome as she is, fit for a sea-king's bride, itis not her beauty alone that holds my eyes upon her. Let me tell youone of my fancies, and then you will understand the strange sort offascination she has for me. 

It is in the hearts of many men and women--let me add children--thatthere is a Great Secret waiting for them, --a secret of which they gethints now and then, perhaps oftener in early than in later years. These hints come sometimes in dreams, sometimes in sudden startlingflashes, --second wakings, as it were, --a waking out of the waking state, which last is very apt to be a half-sleep. I have many times stoppedshort and held my breath, and felt the blood leaving my cheeks, in oneof these sudden clairvoyant flashes. Of course I cannot tell whatkind of a secret this is, but I think of it as a disclosure ofcertain relations of our personal being to time and space, to otherintelligences, to the procession of events, and to their First GreatCause. This secret seems to be broken up, as it were, into fragments, so that we find here a word and there a syllable, and then again only aletter of it; but it never is written out for most of us as a completesentence, in this life. I do not think it could be; for I am disposed toconsider our beliefs about such a possible disclosure rather as a kindof premonition of an enlargement of our faculties in some future statethan as an expectation to be fulfilled for most of us in this life. Persons, however, have fallen into trances, --as did the Reverend WilliamTennent, among many others, --and learned some things which they couldnot tell in our human words. 

Now among the visible objects which hint to us fragments of thisinfinite secret for which our souls are waiting, the faces of women arethose that carry the most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery. There are women's faces, some real, some ideal, which contain somethingin them that becomes a positive element in our creed, so direct andpalpable a revelation is it of the infinite purity and love. I remembertwo faces of women with wings, such as they call angels, of FraAngelico, --and I just now came across a print of Raphael's SantaApollina, with something of the same quality, --which I was sure hadtheir prototypes in the world above ours. No wonder the Catholics paytheir vows to the Queen of Heaven! The unpoetical side of Protestantismis, that it has no women to be worshipped. 

But mind you, it is not every beautiful face that hints the Great Secretto us, nor is it only in beautiful faces that we find traces of it. Sometimes it looks out from a sweet sad eye, the only beauty of a plaincountenance; sometimes there is so much meaning in the lips of a woman, not otherwise fascinating, that we know they have a message for us, andwait almost with awe to hear their accents. But this young girl has atonce the beauty of feature and the unspoken mystery of expression. Canshe tell me anything?

Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing element in it whichI have been groping after through so many friendships that I have tiredof, and through--Hush! Is the door fast? Talking loud is a bad trick inthese curious boarding-houses. 

You must have sometimes noted this fact that I am going to remind you ofand to use for a special illustration. Riding along over a rocky road, suddenly the slow monotonous grinding of the crushing gravel changes toa deep heavy rumble. There is a great hollow under your feet, --a hugeunsunned cavern. Deep, deep beneath you in the core of the livingrock, it arches its awful vault, and far away it stretches its windinggalleries, their roofs dripping into streams where fishes have beenswimming and spawning in the dark until their scales are white as milkand their eyes have withered out, obsolete and useless. 

So it is in life. We jog quietly along, meeting the same faces, grindingover the same thoughts, the gravel of the soul's highway, --now and thenjarred against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride over or roundas we best may, sometimes bringing short up against a disappointment, but still working along with the creaking and rattling and gratingand jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in thesmoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep undergroundreverberation that reveals the unsuspected depth of some abyss ofthought or passion beneath us. 

I wish the girl would go. I don't like to look at her so much, and yet Icannot help it. Always that same expression of something that I ought toknow, --something that she was made to tell and I to hear, --lying thereready to fall off from her lips, ready to leap out of her eyes and makea saint of me, or a devil or a lunatic, or perhaps a prophet to tell thetruth and be hated of men, or a poet whose words shall flash upon thedry stubble-field of worn-out thoughts and burn over an age of lies inan hour of passion. 

It suddenly occurs to me that I may have put you on the wrong track. TheGreat Secret that I refer to has nothing to do with the Three Words. Setyour mind at ease about that, --there are reasons I could give you whichsettle all that matter. I don't wonder, however, that you confounded theGreat Secret with the Three Words. 

I LOVE YOU is all the secret that many, nay, most women have to tell. When that is said, they are like China-crackers on the morning of thefifth of July. And just as that little patriotic implement is made witha slender train which leads to the magazine in its interior, so a sharpeye can almost always see the train leading from a young girl's eye orlip to the "I love you" in her heart. But the Three Words are not theGreat Secret I mean. No, women's faces are only one of the tabletson which that is written in its partial, fragmentary symbols. It liesdeeper than Love, though very probably Love is a part of it. Some, Ithink, --Wordsworth might be one of them, --spell out a portion of it fromcertain beautiful natural objects, landscapes, flowers, and others. Ican mention several poems of his that have shadowy hints which seemto me to come near the region where I think it lies. I have known twopersons who pursued it with the passion of the old alchemists, --allwrong evidently, but infatuated, and never giving up the daily searchfor it until they got tremulous and feeble, and their dreams changed tovisions of things that ran and crawled about their floor and ceilings, and so they died. The vulgar called them drunkards. 

I told you that I would let you know the mystery of the effect thisyoung girl's face produces on me. It is akin to those influences afriend of mine has described, you may remember, as coming from certainvoices. I cannot translate it into words, --only into feelings; andthese I have attempted to shadow by showing that her face hinted thatrevelation of something we are close to knowing, which all imaginativepersons are looking for either in this world or on the very threshold ofthe next. 

You shake your head at the vagueness and fanciful incomprehensiblenessof my description of the expression in a young girl's face. You forgetwhat a miserable surface-matter this language is in which we try toreproduce our interior state of being. Articulation is a shallow trick. From the light Poh! which we toss off from our lips as we fling anameless scribbler's impertinence into our waste-baskets, to the gravestutterances which comes from our throats in our moments of deepest need, is only a space of some three or four inches. Words, which are a set ofclickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean very little, compared totones and expression of the features. I give it up; I thought I couldshadow forth in some feeble way, by their aid, the effect this younggirl's face produces on my imagination; but it is of no use. No doubtyour head aches, trying to make something of my description. If thereis here and there one that can make anything intelligible out of my talkabout the Great Secret, and who has spelt out a syllable or two of it onsome woman's face, dead or living, that is all I can expect. One shouldsee the person with whom he converses about such matters. Thereare dreamy-eyed people to whom I should say all these things with acertainty of being understood;--

 That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me To him my tale I teach. 

--I am afraid some of them have not got a spare quarter of a dollar forthis August number, so that they will never see it. 

--Let us start again, just as if we had not made this ambitious attempt, which may go for nothing, and you can have your money refunded, if youwill make the change. 

This young girl, about whom I have talked so unintelligibly, is theunconscious centre of attraction to the whole solar system of ourbreakfast-table. The Little Gentleman leans towards her, and she againseems to be swayed as by some invisible gentle force towards him. Thatslight inclination of two persons with a strong affinity towards eachother, throwing them a little out of plumb when they sit side by side, is a physical fact I have often noticed. Then there is a tendency in allthe men's eyes to converge on her; and I do firmly believe, that, ifall their chairs were examined, they would be found a little obliquelyplaced, so as to favor the direction in which their occupants love tolook. 

That bland, quiet old gentleman, of whom I have spoken as sittingopposite to me, is no exception to the rule. She brought down somemignonette one morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She gave asprig to her little neighbor, and one to the landlady, and sent anotherby the hand of Bridget to this old gentleman. 

--Sarvant, Ma'am I Much obleeged, --he said, and put it gallantly in hisbutton-hole. --After breakfast he must see some of her drawings. Veryfine performances, --very fine!--truly elegant productions, trulyelegant!--Had seen Miss Linwood's needlework in London, in the year(eighteen hundred and little or nothing, I think he said, )--patronizedby the nobility and gentry, and Her Majesty, --elegant, truly elegantproductions, very fine performances; these drawings reminded him ofthem;--wonderful resemblance to Nature; an extraordinary art, painting;Mr. Copley made some very fine pictures that he remembered seeing whenhe was a boy. Used to remember some lines about a portrait Written byMr. Cowper, beginning, "Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd With me but roughly since I heard thee last. "

And with this the old gentleman fell to thinking about a dead motherof his that he remembered ever so much younger than he now was, andlooking, not as his mother, but as his daughter should look. The deadyoung mother was looking at the old man, her child, as she used to lookat him so many, many years ago. He stood still as if in a waking dream, his eyes fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew indistinct andthey ran into each other, and a pale, sweet face shaped itself out ofthe glimmering light through which he saw them. --What is there quiteso profoundly human as an old man's memory of a mother who died in hisearlier years? Mother she remains till manhood, and by-and-by she growsto be as a sister; and at last, when, wrinkled and bowed and broken, he looks back upon her in her fair youth, he sees in the sweet image hecaresses, not his parent, but, as it were, his child. 

If I had not seen all this in the old gentleman's face, the words withwhich he broke his silence would have betrayed his train of thought. 

--If they had only taken pictures then as they do now!--he said. --Allgone! all gone! nothing but her face as she leaned on the arms of hergreat chair; and I would give a hundred pound for the poorest littlepicture of her, such as you can buy for a shilling of anybody that youdon't want to see. --The old gentleman put his hand to his forehead so asto shade his eyes. I saw he was looking at the dim photograph of memory, and turned from him to Iris. 

How many drawing-books have you filled, --I said, --since you began totake lessons?--This was the first, --she answered, --since she was here;and it was not full, but there were many separate sheets of large sizeshe had covered with drawings. 

I turned over the leaves of the book before us. Academic studies, principally of the human figure. Heads of sibyls, prophets, and soforth. Limbs from statues. Hands and feet from Nature. What a superbdrawing of an arm! I don't remember it among the figures from MichelAngelo, which seem to have been her patterns mainly. From Nature, Ithink, or after a cast from Nature. --Oh!

--Your smaller studies are in this, I suppose, --I said, taking up thedrawing-book with a lock on it, --Yes, --she said. --I should like to seeher style of working on a small scale. --There was nothing in it worthshowing, --she said; and presently I saw her try the lock, which provedto be fast. We are all caricatured in it, I haven't the least doubt. I think, though, I could tell by her way of dealing with us whather fancies were about us boarders. Some of them act as if they werebewitched with her, but she does not seem to notice it much. Herthoughts seem to be on her little neighbor more than on anybody else. The young fellow John appears to stand second in her good graces. Ithink he has once or twice sent her what the landlady's daughter callsbo-kays of flowers, --somebody has, at any rate. --I saw a book shehad, which must have come from the divinity-student. It had a drearytitle-page, which she had enlivened with a fancy portrait of theauthor, --a face from memory, apparently, --one of those faces that smallchildren loathe without knowing why, and which give them that inwarddisgust for heaven so many of the little wretches betray, when theyhear that these are "good men, " and that heaven is full of such. --Thegentleman with the diamond--the Koh-i-noor, so called by us--was notencouraged, I think, by the reception of his packet of perfumed soap. Hepulls his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly at Iris, who neversees him, as it should seem. The young Marylander, who I thought wouldhave been in love with her before this time, sometimes looks from hiscorner across the long diagonal of the table, as much as to say, Iwish you were up here by me, or I were down there by you, --which would, perhaps, be a more natural arrangement than the present one. But nothingcomes of all this, --and nothing has come of my sagacious idea of findingout the girl's fancies by looking into her locked drawing-book. 

Not to give up all the questions I was determined to solve, I madean attempt also to work into the Little Gentleman's chamber. For thispurpose, I kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was justready to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue the talk, followedhim as he toiled back to his room. He rested on the landing and facedround toward me. There was something in his eye which said, Stop there!So we finished our conversation on the landing. The next day, I musteredassurance enough to knock at his door, having a pretext ready. --Noanswer. --Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was shut softly andlocked, and presently I heard the peculiar dead beat of his thick-soled, misshapen boots. The bolts and the lock of the inner door wereunfastened, --with unnecessary noise, I thought, --and he came into thepassage. He pulled the inner door after him and opened the outer oneat which I stood. He had on a flowered silk dressing-gown, such as"Mr. Copley" used to paint his old-fashioned merchant-princes in; anda quaint-looking key in his hand. Our conversation was short, but longenough to convince me that the Little Gentleman did not want my companyin his chamber, and did not mean to have it. 

I have been making a great fuss about what is no mystery at all, --aschoolgirl's secrets and a whimsical man's habits. I mean to give upsuch nonsense and mind my own business. --Hark! What the deuse is thatodd noise in his chamber?

--I think I am a little superstitious. There were two things, when I wasa boy, that diabolized my imagination, --I mean, that gave me a distinctapprehension of a formidable bodily shape which prowled round theneighborhood where I was born and bred. The first was a series ofmarks called the "Devil's footsteps. " These were patches of sand inthe pastures, where no grass grew, where the low-bush blackberry, the"dewberry, " as our Southern neighbors call it, in prettier and moreShakspearian language, did not spread its clinging creepers, --where eventhe pale, dry, sadly-sweet "everlasting" could not grow, but all wasbare and blasted. The second was a mark in one of the public buildingsnear my home, --the college dormitory named after a Colonial Governor. I do not think many persons are aware of the existence of thismark, --little having been said about the story in print, as it wasconsidered very desirable, for the sake of the Institution, to hush itup. In the northwest corner, and on the level of the third or fourthstory, there are signs of a breach in the walls, mended pretty well, butnot to be mistaken. A considerable portion of that corner must have beencarried away, from within outward. It was an unpleasant affair; and Ido not care to repeat the particulars; but some young men had been usingsacred things in a profane and unlawful way, when the occurrence, whichwas variously explained, took place. The story of the Appearance in thechamber was, I suppose, invented afterwards; but of the injury to thebuilding there could be no question; and the zig-zag line, where themortar is a little thicker than before, is still distinctly visible. Thequeer burnt spots, called the "Devil's footsteps, " had never attractedattention before this time, though there is no evidence that they hadnot existed previously, except that of the late Miss M. , a "Goody, " socalled, or sweeper, who was positive on the subject, but had a strangehorror of referring to an affair of which she was thought to knowsomething. --I tell you it was not so pleasant for a little boy ofimpressible nature to go up to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, withuntenanted, locked upper-chambers, and a most ghostly garret, --with the"Devil's footsteps" in the fields behind the house and in front of itthe patched dormitory where the unexplained occurrence had taken placewhich startled those godless youths at their mock devotions, so thatone of them was epileptic from that day forward, and another, after adreadful season of mental conflict, took holy orders and became renownedfor his ascetic sanctity. 

There were other circumstances that kept up the impression producedby these two singular facts I have just mentioned. There was a darkstoreroom, on looking through the key-hole of which, I could dimly see aheap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed things, which seemedto me to have rushed in there, frightened, and in their fright to havehuddled together and climbed up on each other's backs, --as the peopledid in that awful crush where so many were killed, at the execution ofHolloway and Haggerty. Then the Lady's portrait, up-stairs, with thesword-thrusts through it, --marks of the British officers' rapiers, --andthe tall mirror in which they used to look at their red coats, --confoundthem for smashing its mate?--and the deep, cunningly wrought arm-chairin which Lord Percy used to sit while his hair was dressing;--he was agentleman, and always had it covered with a large peignoir, to savethe silk covering my grandmother embroidered. Then the little roomdownstairs from which went the orders to throw up a bank of earth on thehill yonder, where you may now observe a granite obelisk, --"the study"in my father's time, but in those days the council-chamber of armedmen, --sometimes filled with soldiers; come with me, and I will show youthe "dents" left by the butts of their muskets all over the floor. Withall these suggestive objects round me, aided by the wild storiesthose awful country-boys that came to live in our service brought withthem;--of contracts written in blood and left out over night, not to befound the next morning, (removed by the Evil One, who takes his nightlyround among our dwellings, and filed away for future use, )--of dreamscoming true, --of death-signs, --of apparitions, no wonder that myimagination got excited, and I was liable to superstitious fancies. 

Jeremy Bentham's logic, by which he proved that he couldn't possibly seea ghost is all very well-in the day-time. All the reason in the worldwill never get those impressions of childhood, created by just suchcircumstances as I have been telling, out of a man's head. That is theonly excuse I have to give for the nervous kind of curiosity with whichI watch my little neighbor, and the obstinacy with which I lie awakewhenever I hear anything going on in his chamber after midnight. 

But whatever further observations I may have made must be deferred forthe present. You will see in what way it happened that my thoughts wereturned from spiritual matters to bodily ones, and how I got my fancyfull of material images, --faces, heads, figures, muscles, and soforth, --in such a way that I should have no chance in this number togratify any curiosity you may feel, if I had the means of so doing. 

Indeed, I have come pretty near omitting my periodical record this time. It was all the work of a friend of mine, who would have it that Ishould sit to him for my portrait. When a soul draws a body in the greatlottery of life, where every one is sure of a prize, such as it is, thesaid soul inspects the said body with the same curious interest withwhich one who has ventured into a "gift enterprise" examines the"massive silver pencil-case" with the coppery smell and impressibletube, or the "splendid gold ring" with the questionable specificgravity, which it has been his fortune to obtain in addition to hispurchase. 

The soul, having studied the article of which it finds itselfproprietor, thinks, after a time, it knows it pretty well. But there isthis difference between its view and that of a person looking at us:--welook from within, and see nothing but the mould formed by the elementsin which we are incased; other observers look from without, and seeus as living statues. To be sure, by the aid of mirrors, we get a fewglimpses of our outside aspect; but this occasional impression is alwaysmodified by that look of the soul from within outward which none butourselves can take. A portrait is apt, therefore, to be a surprise tous. The artist looks only from without. He sees us, too, with a hundredaspects on our faces we are never likely to see. No genuine expressioncan be studied by the subject of it in the looking-glass. 

More than this; he sees us in a way in which many of our friends oracquaintances never see us. Without wearing any mask we are consciousof, we have a special face for each friend. For, in the first place, each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on the principle ofassimilation you found referred to in my last record, if you happenedto read that document. And secondly, each of our friends is capable ofseeing just so far, and no farther, into our face, and each sees in itthe particular thing that he looks for. Now the artist, if he is trulyan artist, does not take any one of these special views. Suppose heshould copy you as you appear to the man who wants your name to asubscription-list, you could hardly expect a friend who entertains youto recognize the likeness to the smiling face which sheds its radianceat his board. Even within your own family, I am afraid there is aface which the rich uncle knows, that is not so familiar to the poorrelation. The artist must take one or the other, or something compoundedof the two, or something different from either. What the daguerreotypeand photograph do is to give the features and one particular look, thevery look which kills all expression, that of self-consciousness. Theartist throws you off your guard, watches you in movement and in repose, puts your face through its exercises, observes its transitions, andso gets the whole range of its expression. Out of all this he forms anideal portrait, which is not a copy of your exact look at any one timeor to any particular person. Such a portrait cannot be to everybody whatthe ungloved call "as nat'ral as life. " Every good picture, therefore, must be considered wanting in resemblance by many persons. 

There is one strange revelation which comes out, as the artist shapesyour features from his outline. It is that you resemble so manyrelatives to whom you yourself never had noticed any particular likenessin your countenance. 

He is at work at me now, when I catch some of these resemblances, thus:

There! that is just the look my father used to have sometimes; I neverthought I had a sign of it. The mother's eyebrow and grayish-blue eye, those I knew I had. But there is a something which recalls a smile thatfaded away from my sister's lips--how many years ago! I thought it sopleasant in her, that I love myself better for having a trace of it. 

Are we not young? Are we not fresh and blooming? Wait, a bit. The artisttakes a mean little brush and draws three fine lines, divergingoutwards from the eye over the temple. Five years. --The artist drawsone tolerably distinct and two faint lines, perpendicularly between theeyebrows. Ten years. --The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth, so that they look a little as a hat does that has been sat upon andrecovered itself, ready, as one would say, to crumple up again in thesame creases, on smiling or other change of feature. --Hold on! Stopthat! Give a young fellow a chance! Are we not whole years short of thatinteresting period of life when Mr. Balzac says that a man, etc. , etc. , etc. ?

There now! That is ourself, as we look after finishing an article, getting a three-mile pull with the ten-foot sculls, redressing thewrongs of the toilet, and standing with the light of hope in our eyeand the reflection of a red curtain on our cheek. Is he not a POET thatpainted us?

 "Blest be the art that can immortalize!" COWPER. 

--Young folks look on a face as a unit; children who go to school withany given little John Smith see in his name a distinctive appellation, and in his features as special and definite an expression of his soleindividuality as if he were the first created of his race: As soon aswe are old enough to get the range of three or four generations well inhand, and to take in large family histories, we never see an individualin a face of any stock we know, but a mosaic copy of a pattern, withfragmentary tints from this and that ancestor. The analysis of a faceinto its ancestral elements requires that it should be examined in thevery earliest infancy, before it has lost that ancient and solemn lookit brings with it out of the past eternity; and again in that briefspace when Life, the mighty sculptor, has done his work, and Death, hissilent servant, lifts the veil and lets us look at the marble lines hehas wrought so faithfully; and lastly, while a painter who can seize allthe traits of a countenance is building it up, feature after feature, from the slight outline to the finished portrait. 

--I am satisfied, that, as we grow older, we learn to look upon ourbodies more and more as a temporary possession and less and less asidentified with ourselves. In early years, while the child "feels itslife in every limb, " it lives in the body and for the body to a verygreat extent. It ought to be so. There have been many very interestingchildren who have shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earthand an extraordinary development of the spiritual nature. There is aperfect literature of their biographies, all alike in their essentials;the same "disinclination to the usual amusements of childhood ";the same remarkable sensibility; the same docility; the sameconscientiousness; in short, an almost uniform character, marked bybeautiful traits, which we look at with a painful admiration. It willbe found that most of these children are the subjects of someconstitutional unfitness for living, the most frequent of which I neednot mention. They are like the beautiful, blushing, half-grown fruitthat falls before its time because its core is gnawed out. They havetheir meaning, --they do not-live in vain, --but they are windfalls. I amconvinced that many healthy children are injured morally by being forcedto read too much about these little meek sufferers and their spiritualexercises. Here is a boy that loves to run, swim, kick football, turnsomersets, make faces, whittle, fish, tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, blow squash "tooters, " cut his name on fences, read aboutRobinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor, eat the widest-angled slices ofpie and untold cakes and candies, crack nuts with his back teeth andbite out the better part of another boy's apple with his front ones, turn up coppers, "stick" knives, call names, throw stones, knock offhats, set mousetraps, chalk doorsteps, "cut behind" anything onwheels or runners, whistle through his teeth, "holler" Fire! on slightevidence, run after soldiers, patronize an engine-company, or, in hisown words, "blow for tub No. 11, " or whatever it may be;--isn't thata pretty nice sort of a boy, though he has not got anything the matterwith him that takes the taste of this world out? Now, when you put intosuch a hot-blooded, hard-fisted, round-cheeked little rogue's hand asad-looking volume or pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, white-facedchild, whose life is really as much a training for death as the lastmonth of a condemned criminal's existence, what does he find in commonbetween his own overflowing and exulting sense of vitality and theexperiences of the doomed offspring of invalid parents? The time comeswhen we have learned to understand the music of sorrow, the beauty ofresigned suffering, the holy light that plays over the pillow of thosewho die before their time, in humble hope and trust. But it is notuntil he has worked his way through the period of honest hearty animalexistence, which every robust child should make the most of, --not untilhe has learned the use of his various faculties, which is his firstduty, --that a boy of courage and animal vigor is in a proper state toread these tearful records of premature decay. I have no doubt thatdisgust is implanted in the minds of many healthy children by earlysurfeits of pathological piety. I do verily believe that He who tookchildren in His arms and blessed them loved the healthiest andmost playful of them just as well as those who were richest in thetuberculous virtues. I know what I am talking about, and there are moreparents in this country who will be willing to listen to what I say thanthere are fools to pick a quarrel with me. In the sensibility and thesanctity which often accompany premature decay I see one of the mostbeautiful instances of the principle of compensation which marks theDivine benevolence. But to get the spiritual hygiene of robust naturesout of the exceptional regimen of invalids is just simply what weProfessors call "bad practice"; and I know by experience that there areworthy people who not only try it on their own children, but actuallyforce it on those of their neighbors. 

--Having been photographed, and stereographed, and chromatographed, ordone in colors, it only remained to be phrenologized. A polite notefrom Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attendance at theirPhysiological Emporium, was too tempting to be resisted. We repaired tothat scientific Golgotha. 

Messrs. Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the plan of the man and thewoman in the toy called a "weather-house, " both on the same wooden armsuspended on a pivot, --so that when one comes to the door, the otherretires backwards, and vice versa. The more particular speciality of oneis to lubricate your entrance and exit, --that of the other to polishyou off phrenologically in the recesses of the establishment. Supposeyourself in a room full of casts and pictures, before a counterful ofbooks with taking titles. I wonder if the picture of the brain isthere, "approved" by a noted Phrenologist, which was copied from my, theProfessor's, folio plate, in the work of Gall and Spurzheim. An extraconvolution, No. 9, Destructiveness, according to the list beneath, which was not to be seen in the plate, itself a copy of Nature, was veryliberally supplied by the artist, to meet the wants of the catalogueof "organs. " Professor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of women, --horn-combers and gold-beaders, or somewhere about that range oflife, --looking so credulous, that, if any Second-Advent Miller or JoeSmith should come along, he could string the whole lot of them on hischeapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen "shiners" on a stripped twig ofwillow. 

The Professor (meaning ourselves) is in a hurry, as usual; letthe horn-combers wait, --he shall be bumped without inspecting theantechamber. 

Tape round the head, --22 inches. (Come on, old 23 inches, if you thinkyou are the better man!)

Feels thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among muscles as those horridold women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stallsat the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium, ) some other number equallysignificant. 

Mild champooing of head now commences. 'Extraordinary revelations!Cupidiphilous, 6! Hymeniphilous, 6 +! Paediphilous, 5! Deipniphilous, 6!Gelasmiphilous, 6! Musikiphilous, 5! Uraniphilous, 5! Glossiphilous, 8!!and so on. Meant for a linguist. --Invaluable information. Will invest ingrammars and dictionaries immediately. --I have nothing against the grandtotal of my phrenological endowments. 

I never set great store by my head, and did not think Messrs. Bumpusand Crane would give me so good a lot of organs as they did, especiallyconsidering that I was a dead-head on that occasion. Much obliged tothem for their politeness. They have been useful in their way by callingattention to important physiological facts. (This concession is due toour immense bump of Candor. )

A short Lecture on Phrenology, read to the Boarders at ourBreakfast-Table. 

I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a Pseudo-science. A Pseudo-science consists of a nomenclature, with a self-adjustingarrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favors itsdoctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tellsagainst it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrativepractical application. Its professors and practitioners are usuallyshrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and laugha good deal among themselves. The believing multitude consists of womenof both sexes, feeble minded inquirers, poetical optimists, peoplewho always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insiston hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here andthere a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police. --Ido not say that Phrenology was one of the Pseudo-sciences. 

A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It maycontain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank startswith a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on thestrength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one. The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, afterthey have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merestrag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us, we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (Howmany persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) ThePseudo-sciences take advantage of this. --I did not say that it was sowith Phrenology. 

I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there wassomething in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly agreed, promises intellect; one that is "villanous low" and has a huge hind-headback of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely metan unbiassed and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It isobserved, however, that persons with what the Phrenologists call "goodheads" are more prone than others toward plenary belief in the doctrine. 

It is so hard to prove a negative, that, if a man should assert that themoon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable substanceof the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might bepuzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar cheese, I callon him to prove the truth of the Gaseous nature of our satellite, beforeI purchase. 

It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement. It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannotbe, by the common course of argument. The walls of the head are double, with a great air-chamber between them, over the smallest and mostclosely crowded "organs. " Can you tell how much money there is in asafe, which also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with yourfingers? So when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about theorgans of Individuality, Size, etc. , I trust him as much as I shouldif he felt of the outside of my strong-box and told me that there wasa five-dollar or a ten-dollar-bill under this or that particular rivet. Perhaps there is; only he does n't know anything about at. But this isa point that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or oughtto, certainly, better than you do. The next argument you will allappreciate. 

I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism ofPhrenology, which is very similar to that of the Pseudo-sciences. Anexample will show it most conveniently. 

A. Is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find agood-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Castsand drawings of A. Are multiplied, and the bump does not lose in the actof copying. --I did not say it gained. --What do you look so for? (to theboarders. )

Presently B. Turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. Has no bump at allover Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology. --Not a bitof it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? That's the reasonB. Stole. 

And then comes C. , ten times as much a thief as either A. Or B. , --usedto steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets andput its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committingpetty larceny. Unfortunately, C. Has a hollow, instead of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah, but just look and see what a bump ofAlimentiveness! Did not C. Buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, withthe money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how hisexample confirms our noble science. 

At last comes along a case which is apparently a settler, for there isa little brain with vast and varied powers, --a case like that of Byron, for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which coverseverything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner aPhrenologist. "It is not the size alone, but the quality of an organ, which determines its degree of power. "

Oh! oh! I see. --The argument may be briefly stated thus by thePhrenologist: "Heads I win, tails you lose. " Well, that's convenient. 

It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to thePseudo-sciences. I did not say it was a Pseudo-science. 

I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and amazedat the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of Phrenology hadread their characters written upon their skulls. Of course the Professoracquires his information solely through his cranial inspections andmanipulations. --What are you laughing at? (to the boarders. )--But let usjust suppose, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fellow, who did notknow or care anything about Phrenology, should open a shop and undertaketo read off people's characters at fifty cents or a dollar apiece. Letus see how well he could get along without the "organs. "

I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one hundreddollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, and othermatters that would make the most show for the money. That would do tobegin with. I would then advertise myself as the celebrated ProfessorBrainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my firstcustomer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him, --askhim a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got thehang of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating as follows: SCALE FROM 1 TO 10. 

 LIST OF FACULTIES FOR PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL. CUSTOMER. Each to be accompanied with a wink. 

 Amativeness, 7. Most men love the conflicting sex, and all men love to be told they do. 

 Alimentiveness, 8. Don't you see that he has burst off his lowest waistcoat-button with feeding, --hey

 Acquisitiveness, 8. Of course. A middle-aged Yankee. 

 Approbativeness 7+. Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the effect of that plus sign. 

 Self-Esteem 6. His face shows that. 

 Benevolence 9. That'll please him. 

 Conscientiousness 8 1/2 That fraction looks first-rate. 

 Mirthfulness 7 Has laughed twice since he came in. 

 Ideality 9 That sounds well. 

 Form, Size, Weight, 4 to 6. Average everything that Color, Locality, cannot be guessed. Eventuality, etc. Etc. 

 And so of the other faculties. 

Of course, you know, that isn't the way the Phrenologists do. They goonly by the bumps. --What do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders. )I only said that is the way I should practise "Phrenology" for a living. 

 End of my Lecture. 

--The Reformers have good heads, generally. Their faces are commonlyserene enough, and they are lambs in private intercourse, even thoughtheir voices may be like

 The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore, when heard from the platform. Their greatest spiritual danger is fromthe perpetual flattery of abuse to which they are exposed. These linesare meant to caution them. 

 SAINT ANTHONY THE REFORMER. 

 HIS TEMPTATION. 

 No fear lest praise should make us proud! We know how cheaply that is won; The idle homage of the crowd Is proof of tasks as idly done. 

 A surface-smile may pay the toil That follows still the conquering Right, With soft, white hands to dress the spoil That sunbrowned valor clutched in fight. 

 Sing the sweet song of other days, Serenely placid, safely true, And o'er the present's parching ways Thy verse distils like evening dew. 

 But speak in words of living power, --They fall like drops of scalding rain That plashed before the burning shower Swept o'er the cities of the plain!

 Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale, --Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, And, smitten through their leprous mail, Strike right and left in hope to sting. 

 If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love, --

 Too kind for bitter words to grieve, Too firm for clamor to dismay, When Faith forbids thee to believe, And Meekness calls to disobey, --

 Ah, then beware of mortal pride! The smiling pride that calmly scorns Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed In laboring on thy crown of thorns!

IX

One of our boarders--perhaps more than one was concerned in it--sent insome questions to me, the other day, which, trivial as some of them are, I felt bound to answer. 

1. --Whether a lady was ever known to write a letter covering only asingle page?

To this I answered, that there was a case on record where a lady had buthalf a sheet of paper and no envelope; and being obliged to send throughthe post-office, she covered only one side of the paper (crosswise, lengthwise, and diagonally). 

2. --What constitutes a man a gentleman?

To this I gave several answers, adapted to particular classes ofquestioners. 

a. Not trying to be a gentleman. 

b. Self-respect underlying courtesy. 

c. Knowledge and observance of the fitness of things in socialintercourse. 

d. F. S. D. (as many suppose. )

3. --Whether face or figure is most attractive in the female sex?

Answered in the following epigram, by a young man about town:

 Quoth Tom, "Though fair her features be, It is her figure pleases me. " "What may her figure be?" I cried. "One hundred thousand!" he replied. 

When this was read to the boarders, the young man John said he shouldlike a chance to "step up" to a figger of that kind, if the girl was oneof the right sort. 

The landlady said them that merried for money didn't deserve theblessin' of a good wife. Money was a great thing when them that had itmade a good use of it. She had seen better days herself, and knew whatit was never to want for anything. One of her cousins merried a veryrich old gentleman, and she had heerd that he said he lived ten yearlonger than if he'd staid by himself without anybody to take care ofhim. There was nothin' like a wife for nussin' sick folks and them thatcouldn't take care of themselves. 

The young man John got off a little wink, and pointed slyly with histhumb in the direction of our diminutive friend, for whom he seemed tothink this speech was intended. 

If it was meant for him, he did n't appear to know that it was. Indeed, he seems somewhat listless of late, except when the conversation fallsupon one of those larger topics that specially interest him, and then hegrows excited, speaks loud and fast, sometimes almost savagely, --and, Ihave noticed once or twice, presses his left hand to his right side, as if there were something that ached, or weighed, or throbbed in thatregion. 

While he speaks in this way, the general conversation is interrupted, and we all listen to him. Iris looks steadily in his face, and thenhe will turn as if magnetized and meet the amber eyes with his ownmelancholy gaze. I do believe that they have some kind of understandingtogether, that they meet elsewhere than at our table, and that there isa mystery, which is going to break upon us all of a sudden, involvingthe relations of these two persons. From the very first, they have takento each other. The one thing they have in common is the heroic will. In him, it shows itself in thinking his way straightforward, in doingbattle for "free trade and no right of search" on the high seas ofreligious controversy, and especially in fighting the battles of hiscrooked old city. In her, it is standing up for her little friend withthe most queenly disregard of the code of boarding-house etiquette. People may say or look what they like, --she will have her way about thissentiment of hers. 

The Poor Relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever the Little Gentlemansays anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seemsto think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had thetoothache, --and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter the windblows from, she will catch her "death o' cold. "

The landlady herself came to him one day, as I have found out, andtried to persuade him to hold his tongue. --The boarders was gettin'uneasy, --she said, --and some of 'em would go, she mistrusted, if hetalked any more about things that belonged to the ministers to settle. She was a poor woman, that had known better days, but all her livin'depended on her boarders, and she was sure there was n't any of 'em sheset so much by as she did by him; but there was them that never liked tohear about sech things, except on Sundays. 

The Little Gentleman looked very smiling at the landlady, who smiledeven more cordially in return, and adjusted her cap-ribbon with anunconscious movement, --a reminiscence of the long-past pairing-time, when she had smoothed her locks and softened her voice, and won her mateby these and other bird-like graces. --My dear Madam, --he said, --I willremember your interests, and speak only of matters to which I am totallyindifferent. --I don't doubt he meant this; but a day or two after, something stirred him up, and I heard his voice uttering itself aloud, thus:

-It must be done, Sir!--he was saying, --it must be done! Our religionhas been Judaized, it has been Romanized, it has been Orientalized, it has been Anglicized, and the time is at hand when it must beAMERICANIZED! Now, Sir, you see what Americanizing is in politics;--itmeans that a man shall have a vote because he is a man, --and shall votefor whom he pleases, without his neighbor's interference. If he choosesto vote for the Devil, that is his lookout;--perhaps he thinks the Devilis better than the other candidates; and I don't doubt he's often right, Sir. Just so a man's soul has a vote in the spiritual community; andit doesn't do, Sir, or it won't do long, to call him "schismatic"and "heretic" and those other wicked names that the old murderousInquisitors have left us to help along "peace and goodwill to men"!

As long as you could catch a man and drop him into an oubliette, or pullhim out a few inches longer by machinery, or put a hot iron through histongue, or make him climb up a ladder and sit on a board at the top of astake so that he should be slowly broiled by the fire kindled round it, there was some sense in these words; they led to something. But since wehave done with those tools, we had better give up those words. I shouldlike to see a Yankee advertisement like this!--(the Little Gentlemanlaughed fiercely as he uttered the words, --)

--Patent thumb-screws, --will crush the bone in three turns. 

--The cast-iron boot, with wedge and mallet, only five dollars!

--The celebrated extension-rack, warranted to stretch a man six inchesin twenty minutes, --money returned, if it proves unsatisfactory. 

I should like to see such an advertisement, I say, Sir! Now, what'sthe use of using the words that belonged with the thumb-screws, andthe Blessed Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and sleeves andbodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire, if we can't have the thingsthemselves, Sir? What's the use of painting the fire round a poorfellow, when you think it won't do to kindle one under him, --as they didat Valencia or Valladolid, or wherever it was?

--What story is that?--I said. 

Why, --he answered, --at the last auto-da-fe, in 1824 or '5, or somewherethere, --it's a traveller's story, but a mighty knowing traveller heis, --they had a "heretic" to use up according to the statutes providedfor the crime of private opinion. They could n't quite make up theirminds to burn him, so they only hung him in a hogshead painted all overwith flames!

No, Sir! when a man calls you names because you go to the ballot-boxand vote for your candidate, or because you say this or that is youropinion, he forgets in which half of the world he was born, Sir! Itwon't be long, Sir, before we have Americanized religion as we haveAmericanized government; and then, Sir, every soul God sends intothe world will be good in the face of all men for just so much of His"inspiration" as "giveth him understanding"!--None of my words, Sir!none of my words!

--If Iris does not love this Little Gentleman, what does love look likewhen one sees it? She follows him with her eyes, she leans over towardhim when he speaks, her face changes with the changes of his speech, sothat one might think it was with her as with Christabel, --

 That all her features were resigned To this sole image in her mind. 

But she never looks at him with such intensity of devotion as when hesays anything about the soul and the soul's atmosphere, religion. 

Women are twice as religious as men;--all the world knows that. Whether they are any better, in the eyes of Absolute Justice, might bequestioned; for the additional religious element supplied by sex hardlyseems to be a matter of praise or blame. But in all common aspects theyare so much above us that we get most of our religion from them, --fromtheir teachings, from their example, --above all, from their pureaffections. 

Now this poor little Iris had been talked to strangely in her childhood. Especially she had been told that she hated all good things, --whichevery sensible parent knows well enough is not true of a great manychildren, to say the least. I have sometimes questioned whether manylibels on human nature had not been a natural consequence of thecelibacy of the clergy, which was enforced for so long a period. 

The child had met this and some other equally encouraging statementsas to her spiritual conditions, early in life, and fought the battle ofspiritual independence prematurely, as many children do. If all she didwas hateful to God, what was the meaning of the approving or elsethe disapproving conscience, when she had done "right" or "wrong"? No"shoulder-striker" hits out straighter than a child with its logic. Why, I can remember lying in my bed in the nursery and settling questionswhich all that I have heard since and got out of books has never beenable to raise again. If a child does not assert itself in this way ingood season, it becomes just what its parents or teachers were, and isno better than a plastic image. --How old was I at the time?--I supposeabout 5823 years old, --that is, counting from Archbishop Usher's dateof the Creation, and adding the life of the race, whose accumulatedintelligence is a part of my inheritance, to my own. A good deal olderthan Plato, you see, and much more experienced than my Lord Bacon andmost of the world's teachers. --Old books, as you well know, are books ofthe world's youth, and new books are fruits of its age. How many of allthese ancient folios round me are like so many old cupels! The gold haspassed out of them long ago, but their pores are full of the dross withwhich it was mingled. 

And so Iris--having thrown off that first lasso which not only fetters, but chokes those whom it can hold, so that they give themselves uptrembling and breathless to the great soul-subduer, who has them by thewindpipe had settled a brief creed for herself, in which love of theneighbor, whom we have seen, was the first article, and love ofthe Creator, whom we have not seen, grew out of this as its naturaldevelopment, being necessarily second in order of time to the firstunselfish emotions which we feel for the fellow-creatures who surroundus in our early years. 

The child must have some place of worship. What would a young girl bewho never mingled her voice with the songs and prayers that rose allaround her with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free tochoose. Sometimes one and sometimes another would offer to carry herto this or that place of worship; and when the doors were hospitablyopened, she would often go meekly in by herself. It was a curious fact, that two churches as remote from each other in doctrine as could well bedivided her affections. 

The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the look of a RomanCatholic chapel. I do not wish to run the risk of giving names to theecclesiastical furniture which gave it such a Romish aspect; but therewere pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated characters, and therewere reading-stands, and flowers on the altar, and other elegantarrangements. Then there were boys to sing alternately in choirsresponsive to each other, and there was much bowing, with very loudresponding, and a long service and a short sermon, and a bag, such asJudas used to hold in the old pictures, was carried round to receivecontributions. Everything was done not only "decently and in order, "but, perhaps one might say, with a certain air of magnifying theiroffice on the part of the dignified clergymen, often two or three innumber. The music and the free welcome were grateful to Iris, and sheforgot her prejudices at the door of the chapel. For this was a churchwith open doors, with seats for all classes and all colors alike, --achurch of zealous worshippers after their faith, of charitable andserviceable men and women, one that took care of its children and neverforgot its poor, and whose people were much more occupied in looking outfor their own souls than in attacking the faith of their neighbors. Inits mode of worship there was a union of two qualities, --the taste andrefinement, which the educated require just as much in their churches aselsewhere, and the air of stateliness, almost of pomp, which impressesthe common worshipper, and is often not without its effect uponthose who think they hold outward forms as of little value. Under thehalf-Romish aspect of the Church of Saint Polycarp, the young girlfound a devout and loving and singularly cheerful religious spirit. Theartistic sense, which betrayed itself in the dramatic proprieties ofits ritual, harmonized with her taste. The mingled murmur of the loudresponses, in those rhythmic phrases, so simple, yet so fervent, almostas if every tenth heart-beat, instead of its dull tic-tac, articulateditself as "Good Lord, deliver us! "--the sweet alternation of the twochoirs, as their holy song floated from side to side, the keen youngvoices rising like a flight of singing-birds that passes from one groveto another, carrying its music with it back and forward, --why shouldshe not love these gracious outward signs of those inner harmonieswhich none could deny made beautiful the lives of many of herfellow-worshippers in the humble, yet not inelegant Chapel of SaintPolycarp?

The young Marylander, who was born and bred to that mode of worship, hadintroduced her to the chapel, for which he did the honors for such ofour boarders as were not otherwise provided for. I saw them looking overthe same prayer-book one Sunday, and I could not help thinking that twosuch young and handsome persons could hardly worship together insafety for a great while. But they seemed to mind nothing but theirprayer-book. By-and-by the silken bag was handed round. --I don't believeshe will; so awkward, you know;--besides, she only came by invitation. There she is, with her hand in her pocket, though, --and sure enough, herlittle bit of silver tinkled as it struck the coin beneath. God blessher! she has n't much to give; but her eye glistens when she gives it, and that is all Heaven asks. --That was the first time I noticed theseyoung people together, and I am sure they behaved with the most charmingpropriety, --in fact, there was one of our silent lady-boarders withthem, whose eyes would have kept Cupid and Psyche to their goodbehavior. A day or two after this I noticed that the young gentleman hadleft his seat, which you may remember was at the corner diagonal to thatof Iris, so that they have been as far removed from each other as theycould be at the table. His new seat is three or four places farther downthe table. Of course I made a romance out of this, at once. So stupidnot to see it! How could it be otherwise?--Did you speak, Madam? I begyour pardon. (To my lady-reader. )

I never saw anything like the tenderness with which this young girltreats her little deformed neighbor. If he were in the way of going tochurch, I know she would follow him. But his worship, if any, is notwith the throng of men and women and staring children. 

I, the Professor, on the other hand, am a regular church-goer. I shouldgo for various reasons if I did not love it; but I am happy enough tofind great pleasure in the midst of devout multitudes, whether I canaccept all their creeds or not. One place of worship comes nearer thanthe rest to my ideal standard, and to this it was that I carried ouryoung girl. 

The Church of the Galileans, as it is called, is even humbler in outsidepretensions than the Church of Saint Polycarp. Like that, it is open toall comers. The stranger who approaches it looks down a quiet street andsees the plainest of chapels, --a kind of wooden tent, that owes whatevergrace it has to its pointed windows and the high, sharp roofs--traces, both, of that upward movement of ecclesiastical architecture whichsoared aloft in cathedral-spires, shooting into the sky as the spike ofa flowering aloe from the cluster of broad, sharp-wedged leaves below. This suggestion of medieval symbolism, aided by a minute turret in whicha hand-bell might have hung and found just room enough to turn over, wasall of outward show the small edifice could boast. Within there was verylittle that pretended to be attractive. A small organ at one side, and aplain pulpit, showed that the building was a church; but it was a churchreduced to its simplest expression:

Yet when the great and wise monarch of the East sat upon his throne, inall the golden blaze of the spoils of Ophir and the freights of the navyof Tarshish, his glory was not like that of this simple chapel in itsSunday garniture. For the lilies of the field, in their season, and thefairest flowers of the year, in due succession, were clustered everySunday morning over the preacher's desk. Slight, thin-tissuedblossoms of pink and blue and virgin white in early spring, then thefull-breasted and deep-hearted roses of summer, then the velvet-robedcrimson and yellow flowers of autumn, and in the winter delicate exoticsthat grew under skies of glass in the false summers of our crystalpalaces without knowing that it was the dreadful winter of New Englandwhich was rattling the doors and frosting the panes, --in their languagethe whole year told its history of life and growth and beauty from thatsimple desk. There was always at least one good sermon, --this floralhomily. There was at least one good prayer, --that brief space when allwere silent, after the manner of the Friends at their devotions. 

Here, too, Iris found an atmosphere of peace and love. The same gentle, thoughtful faces, the same cheerful but reverential spirit, thesame quiet, the same life of active benevolence. But in all else howdifferent from the Church of Saint Polycarp! No clerical costume, noceremonial forms, no carefully trained choirs. A liturgy they have, tobe sure, which does not scruple to borrow from the time-honored manualsof devotion, but also does not hesitate to change its expressions to itsown liking. 

Perhaps the good people seem a little easy with each other;--they areapt to nod familiarly, and have even been known to whisper beforethe minister came in. But it is a relief to get rid of that oldSunday--no, --Sabbath face, which suggests the idea that the first dayof the week is commemorative of some most mournful event. The truthis, these brethren and sisters meet very much as a family does for itsdevotions, not putting off their humanity in the least, considering iton the whole quite a delightful matter to come together for prayer andsong and good counsel from kind and wise lips. And if they are freer intheir demeanor than some very precise congregations, they have not theair of a worldly set of people. Clearly they have not come to advertisetheir tailors and milliners, nor for the sake of exchanging criticismson the literary character of the sermon they may hear. There is norestlessness and no restraint among these quiet, cheerful worshippers. One thing that keeps them calm and happy during the season so evidentlytrying to many congregations is, that they join very generally in thesinging. In this way they get rid of that accumulated nervous forcewhich escapes in all sorts of fidgety movements, so that a ministertrying to keep his congregation still reminds one of a boy with his handover the nose of a pump which another boy is working, --this spirtingimpatience of the people is so like the jets that find their way throughhis fingers, and the grand rush out at the final Amen! has such awonderful likeness to the gush that takes place when the boy pulls hishand away, with immense relief, as it seems, to both the pump and theofficiating youngster. 

How sweet is this blending of all voices and all hearts in one commonsong of praise! Some will sing a little loud, perhaps, --and now andthen an impatient chorister will get a syllable or two in advance, or anenchanted singer so lose all thought of time and place in the luxuryof a closing cadence that he holds on to the last semi-breve upon hisprivate responsibility; but how much more of the spirit of the oldPsalmist in the music of these imperfectly trained voices than in theacademic niceties of the paid performers who take our musical worshipout of our hands!

I am of the opinion that the creed of the Church of the Galileans is notlaid down in as many details as that of the Church of Saint Polycarp. Yet I suspect, if one of the good people from each of those churches hadmet over the bed of a suffering fellow-creature, or for the promotionof any charitable object, they would have found they had more in commonthan all the special beliefs or want of beliefs that separated themwould amount to. There are always many who believe that the fruits ofa tree afford a better test of its condition than a statement of thecomposts with which it is dressed, though the last has its meaning andimportance, no doubt. 

Between these two churches, then, our young Iris divides her affections. But I doubt if she listens to the preacher at either with more devotionthan she does to her little neighbor when he talks of these matters. 

What does he believe? In the first place, there is some deep-rooteddisquiet lying at the bottom of his soul, which makes him very bitteragainst all kinds of usurpation over the right of private judgment. Overthis seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity in general, bred outof life-long trial, I should say, but sharply streaked with fiery linesof wrath at various individual acts of wrong, especially if they comein an ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him the days when his mother'sgreat-grandmother was strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the OldTestament for her halter. With all this, he has a boundless beliefin the future of this experimental hemisphere, and especially in thedestiny of the free thought of its northeastern metropolis. 

--A man can see further, Sir, --he said one day, --from the top of BostonState House, and see more that is worth seeing, than from all thepyramids and turrets and steeples in all the places in the world! Nosmoke, Sir; no fog, Sir; and a clean sweep from the Outer Light and thesea beyond it to the New Hampshire mountains! Yes, Sir, --and there aregreat truths that are higher than mountains and broader than seas, thatpeople are looking for from the tops of these hills of ours;--such asthe world never saw, though it might have seen them at Jerusalem, if itseyes had been open!--Where do they have most crazy people? Tell me that, Sir!

I answered, that I had heard it said there were more in New England thanin most countries, perhaps more than in any part of the world. 

Very good, Sir, --he answered. --When have there been most people killedand wounded in the course of this century?

During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt, --I said. 

That's it! that's it!--said the Little Gentleman;--where the battle ofintelligence is fought, there are most minds bruised and broken! We'rebattling for a faith here, Sir. 

The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather late in the world'shistory for men to be looking out for a new faith. 

I did n't say a new faith, --said the Little Gentleman;--old or new, it can't help being different here in this American mind of ours fromanything that ever was before; the people are new, Sir, and that makesthe difference. One load of corn goes to the sty, and makes the fatof swine, --another goes to the farm-house, and becomes the muscle thatclothes the right arms of heroes. It is n't where a pawn stands on theboard that makes the difference, but what the game round it is when itis on this or that square. 

Can any man look round and see what Christian countries are now doing, and how they are governed, and what is the general condition of society, without seeing that Christianity is the flag under which the worldsails, and not the rudder that steers its course? No, Sir! There wasa great raft built about two thousand years ago, --call it an ark, rather, --the world's great ark! big enough to hold all mankind, and madeto be launched right out into the open waves of life, --and here it hasbeen lying, one end on the shore and one end bobbing up and down in thewater, men fighting all the time as to who should be captain and whoshould have the state-rooms, and throwing each other over the sidebecause they could not agree about the points of compass, but thegreat vessel never getting afloat with its freight of nations and theirrulers;--and now, Sir, there is and has been for this long time a fleetof "heretic" lighters sailing out of Boston Bay, and they have beensaying, and they say now, and they mean to keep saying, "Pump out yourbilge-water, shovel over your loads of idle ballast, get out your oldrotten cargo, and we will carry it out into deep waters and sink itwhere it will never be seen again; so shall the ark of the world's hopefloat on the ocean, instead of sticking in the dock-mud where it islying!"

It's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched. The Jordan wasn't deep enough, and the Tiber was n't deep enough, and the Rhone wasn't deep enough, and the Thames was n't deep enough, and perhaps theCharles is n't deep enough; but I don't feel sure of that, Sir, and Ilove to hear the workmen knocking at the old blocks of tradition andmaking the ways smooth with the oil of the Good Samaritan. I don't know, Sir, --but I do think she stirs a little, --I do believe she slides;--andwhen I think of what a work that is for the dear old three-breastedmother of American liberty, I would not take all the glory of all thegreatest cities in the world for my birthright in the soil of littleBoston!

--Some of us could not help smiling at this burst of local patriotism, especially when it finished with the last two words. 

And Iris smiled, too. But it was the radiant smile of pleasure whichalways lights up her face when her little neighbor gets excited on thegreat topics of progress in freedom and religion, and especially on thepart which, as he pleases himself with believing, his own city isto take in that consummation of human development to which he looksforward. 

Presently she looked into his face with a changed expression, --theanxiety of a mother that sees her child suffering. 

You are not well, --she said. 

I am never well, --he answered. --His eyes fell mechanically on thedeath's-head ring he wore on his right hand. She took his hand as if ithad been a baby's, and turned the grim device so that it should be outof sight. One slight, sad, slow movement of the head seemed to say, "Thedeath-symbol is still there!"

A very odd personage, to be sure! Seems to know what is going on, --reads books, old and new, --has many recent publications sent him, theytell me, but, what is more curious, keeps up with the everyday affairsof the world, too. Whether he hears everything that is said withpreternatural acuteness, or whether some confidential friend visits himin a quiet way, is more than I can tell. I can make nothing more ofthe noises I hear in his room than my old conjectures. The movementsI mention are less frequent, but I often hear the plaintive cry, --Iobserve that it is rarely laughing of late;--I never have detected onearticulate word, but I never heard such tones from anything but a humanvoice. 

There has been, of late, a deference approaching to tenderness, onthe part of the boarders generally so far as he is concerned. This isdoubtless owing to the air of suffering which seems to have saddened hislook of late. Either some passion is gnawing at him inwardly, or somehidden disease is at work upon him. 

--What 's the matter with Little Boston?--said the young man John to meone day. --There a'n't much of him, anyhow; but 't seems to me he lookspeakeder than ever. The old woman says he's in a bad way, 'n' wants apuss to take care of him. Them pusses that take care of old rich folksmarry 'em sometimes, --'n' they don't commonly live a great while afterthat. No, Sir! I don't see what he wants to die for, after he's taken somuch trouble to live in such poor accommodations as that crooked bodyof his. I should like to know how his soul crawled into it, 'n' how it'sgoin' to get out. What business has he to die, I should like to know?Let Ma'am Allen (the gentleman with the diamond) die, if he likes, andbe (this is a family-magazine); but we a'n't goin' to have him dyin'. Not by a great sight. Can't do without him anyhow. A'n't it fun to hearhim blow off his steam?

I believe the young fellow would take it as a personal insult, if theLittle Gentleman should show any symptoms of quitting our table for abetter world. 

--In the mean time, what with going to church in company with our younglady, and taking every chance I could get to talk with her, I have foundmyself becoming, I will not say intimate, but well acquainted with MissIris. There is a certain frankness and directness about her that perhapsbelong to her artist nature. For, you see, the one thing that marks thetrue artist is a clear perception and a firm, bold hand, in distinctionfrom that imperfect mental vision and uncertain touch which give us thefeeble pictures and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvasor in stone. A true artist, therefore, can hardly fail to have a sharp, well-defined mental physiognomy. Besides this, many young girls havea strange audacity blended with their instinctive delicacy. Even inphysical daring many of them are a match for boys; whereas you will findfew among mature women, and especially if they are mothers, who do notconfess, and not unfrequently proclaim, their timidity. One of theseyoung girls, as many of us hereabouts remember, climbed to the top of ajagged, slippery rock lying out in the waves, --an ugly height to get up, and a worse one to get down, even for a bold young fellow of sixteen. Another was in the way of climbing tall trees for crows' nests, --andcrows generally know about how far boys can "shin up, " and set theirhousehold establishments above that high-water mark. Still another ofthese young ladies I saw for the first time in an open boat, tossing onthe ocean ground-swell, a mile or two from shore, off a lonely island. She lost all her daring, after she had some girls of her own to look outfor. 

Many blondes are very gentle, yielding in character, impressible, unelastic. But the positive blondes, with the golden tint runningthrough them, are often full of character. They come, probably enough, from those deep-bosomed German women that Tacitus portrayed in suchstrong colors. The negative blondes, or those women whose tints havefaded out as their line of descent has become impoverished, are ofvarious blood, and in them the soul has often become pale with thatblanching of the hair and loss of color in the eyes which makes themapproach the character of Albinesses. 

I see in this young girl that union of strength and sensibility which, when directed and impelled by the strong instinct so apt to accompanythis combination of active and passive capacity, we call genius. She isnot an accomplished artist, certainly, as yet; but there is alwaysan air in every careless figure she draws, as it were of upwardaspiration, --the elan of John of Bologna's Mercury, --a lift to them, asif they had on winged sandals, like the herald of the Gods. I hear hersinging sometimes; and though she evidently is not trained, yet is therea wild sweetness in her fitful and sometimes fantastic melodies, --suchas can come only from the inspiration of the moment, --strangelyenough, reminding me of those long passages I have heard from my littleneighbor's room, yet of different tone, and by no means to be mistakenfor those weird harmonies. 

I cannot pretend to deny that I am interested in the girl. Alone, unprotected, as I have seen so many young girls left in boarding-houses, the centre of all the men's eyes that surround the table, watched withjealous sharpness by every woman, most of all by that poor relationof our landlady, who belongs to the class of women that like tocatch others in mischief when they themselves are too mature forindiscretions, (as one sees old rogues turn to thief-catchers, ) one ofNature's gendarmerie, clad in a complete suit of wrinkles, thecheapest coat-of-mail against the shafts of the great little enemy, --sosurrounded, Iris spans this commonplace household-life of ours with herarch of beauty, as the rainbow, whose name she borrows, looks down on adreary pasture with its feeding flocks and herds of indifferent animals. 

These young girls that live in boarding-houses can do pretty muchas they will. The female gendarmes are off guard occasionally. Thesitting-room has its solitary moments, when any two boarders who wish tomeet may come together accidentally, (accidentally, I said, Madam, andI had not the slightest intention of Italicizing the word, ) and discussthe social or political questions of the day, or any other subject thatmay prove interesting. Many charming conversations take place at thefoot of the stairs, or while one of the parties is holding the latchof a door, --in the shadow of porticoes, and especially on those outsidebalconies which some of our Southern neighbors call "stoops, " the mostcharming places in the world when the moon is just right and the rosesand honeysuckles are in full blow, --as we used to think in eighteenhundred and never mention it. 

On such a balcony or "stoop, " one evening, I walked with Iris. We wereon pretty good terms now, and I had coaxed her arm under mine, --my leftarm, of course. That leaves one's right arm free to defend the lovelycreature, if the rival--odious wretch! attempt, to ravish her from yourside. Likewise if one's heart should happen to beat a little, its mutelanguage will not be without its meaning, as you will perceive when thearm you hold begins to tremble, a circumstance like to occur, if youhappen to be a good-looking young fellow, and you two have the "stoop"to yourselves. 

We had it to ourselves that evening. The Koh-inoor, as we called him, was in a corner with our landlady's daughter. The young fellow John wassmoking out in the yard. The gendarme was afraid of the evening air, andkept inside, The young Marylander came to the door, looked out and sawus walking together, gave his hat a pull over his forehead and stalkedoff. I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the arm I held, and saw thegirl's head turn over her shoulder for a second. What a kind creaturethis is! She has no special interest in this youth, but she does notlike to see a young fellow going off because he feels as if he were notwanted. 

She had her locked drawing-book under her arm. --Let me take it, --I said. 

She gave it to me to carry. 

This is full of caricatures of all of us, I am sure, --said I. 

She laughed, and said, --No, --not all of you. 

I was there, of course?

Why, no, --she had never taken so much pains with me. 

Then she would let me see the inside of it?

She would think of it. 

Just as we parted, she took a little key from her pocket and handed itto me. This unlocks my naughty book, --she said, --you shall see it. I amnot afraid of you. 

I don't know whether the last words exactly pleased me. At any rate, Itook the book and hurried with it to my room. I opened it, and saw, in afew glances, that I held the heart of Iris in my hand. 

--I have no verses for you this month, except these few lines suggestedby the season. 

 MIDSUMMER. 

 Here! sweep these foolish leaves away, I will not crush my brains to-day! Look! are the southern curtains drawn? Fetch me a fan, and so begone!

 Not that, --the palm-tree's rustling leaf Brought from a parching coral-reef! Its breath is heated;--I would swing The broad gray plumes, --the eagle's wing. 

 I hate these roses' feverish blood! Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, A long-stemmed lily from the lake, Cold as a coiling water-snake. 

 Rain me sweet odors on the air, And wheel me up my Indian chair, And spread some book not overwise Flat out before my sleepy eyes. 

 --Who knows it not, --this dead recoil Of weary fibres stretched with toil, The pulse that flutters faint and low When Summer's seething breezes blow?

 O Nature! bare thy loving breast And give thy child one hour of rest, One little hour to lie unseen Beneath thy scarf of leafy green!

 So, curtained by a singing pine, Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay In sweeter music dies away. 

X

 IRIS, HER BOOK

 I pray thee by the soul of her that bore thee, By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee, Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee!

 For Iris had no mother to infold her, Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her. 

 She had not learned the mystery of awaking Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching, Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking. 

 Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token! Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken?

 She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies, Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances, And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. 

 Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing, Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring, Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. 

 Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her? What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her? Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. 

 And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven, Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, Save me! oh, save me! Shall I die forgiven?

 And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters, The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters!

 If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore Had the world nothing she might live to care for? No second self to say her evening prayer for?

 She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming. 

 Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher. What if a lonely and unsistered creature Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, Saying, unsaddened, --This shall soon be faded, And double-hued the shining tresses braided, And all the sunlight of the morning shaded?

 --This her poor book is full of saddest follies, Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. 

 In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. 

 Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee, Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee. 

 Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping. No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping. 

These verses were written in the first leaves of the locked volume. AsI turned the pages, I hesitated for a moment. Is it quite fair to takeadvantage of a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned depths ofa young girl's nature, which I can look through, as the balloon-voyagerstell us they see from their hanging-baskets through the translucentwaters which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in ships mightstrive to pierce in vain? Why has the child trusted me with such artlessconfessions, --self-revelations, which might be whispered by tremblinglips, under the veil of twilight, in sacred confessionals, but whichI cannot look at in the light of day without a feeling of wronging asacred confidence?

To all this the answer seemed plain enough after a little thought. She did not know how fearfully she had disclosed herself; she was tooprofoundly innocent. Her soul was no more ashamed than the fair shapesthat walked in Eden without a thought of over-liberal loveliness. Havingnobody to tell her story to, --having, as she said in her verses, nomusical instrument to laugh and cry with her, --nothing, in short, butthe language of pen and pencil, --all the veinings of her nature wereimpressed on these pages as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to theblank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I rememberseeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we hadone day at our boarding-house. The child was a deaf mute. But its soulhad the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacitywhich through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it hadto talk with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapidalternations of feeling and shifting expressions of thought as flittedover its face, I have never seen in any other human countenance. 

I wonder if something of spiritual transparency is not typified inthe golden-blonde organization. There are a great many littlecreatures, --many small fishes, for instance, --which are literallytransparent, with the exception of some of the internal organs. Theheart can be seen beating as if in a case of clouded crystal. Thecentral nervous column with its sheath runs as a dark stripe throughthe whole length of the diaphanous muscles of the body. Other littlecreatures are so darkened with pigment that we can see only theirsurface. Conspirators and poisoners are painted with black, beady-eyesand swarthy hue; Judas, in Leonardo's picture, is the model of them all. 

However this may be, I should say there never had been a book like thisof Iris, --so full of the heart's silent language, so transparent thatthe heart itself could be seen beating through it. I should say therenever could have been such a book, but for one recollection, which isnot peculiar to myself, but is shared by a certain number of my formertownsmen. If you think I over-color this matter of the young girl'sbook, hear this, which there are others, as I just said, besides myself, will tell you is strictly true. 

X

THE BOOK OF THE THREE MAIDEN SISTERS. 

In the town called Cantabridge, now a city, water-veined and gaswindpiped, in the street running down to the Bridge, beyond whichdwelt Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a houseinhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe;whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they livedand died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they livedin was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape ofEsquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was it provided withone of those half-doors now so rarely met with, which are to wholedoors as spencers worn by old folk are to coats. They speak of limitedcommerce united with a social or observing disposition--on the part ofthe shopkeeper, --allowing, as they do, talk with passers-by, yet keepingoff such as have not the excuse of business to cross the threshold. On the door-posts, at either side, above the half-door, hung certainperennial articles of merchandise, of which my memory still has hangingamong its faded photographs a kind of netted scarf and some pairs ofthick woollen stockings. More articles, but not very many, were storedinside; and there was one drawer, containing children's books, out ofwhich I once was treated to a minute quarto ornamented with handsomecuts. This was the only purchase I ever knew to be made at the shop keptby the three maiden ladies, though it is probable there were others. Solong as I remember the shop, the same scarf and, I should say, the samestockings hung on the door-posts. --You think I am exaggerating again, and that shopkeepers would not keep the same article exposed for years. Come to me, the Professor, and I will take you in five minutes to a shopin this city where I will show you an article hanging now in the veryplace where more than thirty years ago I myself inquired the price ofit of the present head of the establishment. [ This was a glass alembic, which hung up in Daniel Henchman's apothecary shop, corner of Cambridgeand Chambers streets. ]

The three maidens were of comely presence, and one of them hadhad claims to be considered a Beauty. When I saw them in the oldmeeting-house on Sundays, as they rustled in through the aisles in silksand satins, not gay, but more than decent, as I remember them, I thoughtof My Lady Bountiful in the history of "Little King Pippin, " and of theMadam Blaize of Goldsmith (who, by the way, must have taken the hint ofit from a pleasant poem, "Monsieur de la Palisse, " attributed to De laMonnoye, in the collection of French songs before me). There was somestory of an old romance in which the Beauty had played her part. Perhapsthey all had had lovers; for, as I said, they were shapely and seemlypersonages, as I remember them; but their lives were out of the flowerand in the berry at the time of my first recollections. 

One after another they all three dropped away, objects of kindlyattention to the good people round, leaving little or almost nothing, and nobody to inherit it. Not absolutely nothing, of course. There musthave been a few old dresses--perhaps some bits of furniture, a Bible, and the spectacles the good old souls read it through, and littlekeepsakes, such as make us cry to look at, when we find them in olddrawers;--such relics there must have been. But there was more. Therewas a manuscript of some hundred pages, closely written, in which thepoor things had chronicled for many years the incidents of their dailylife. After their death it was passed round somewhat freely, and fellinto my hands. How I have cried and laughed and colored over it! Therewas nothing in it to be ashamed of, perhaps there was nothing in it tolaugh at, but such a picture of the mode of being of poor simple goodold women I do believe was never drawn before. And there were all thesmallest incidents recorded, such as do really make up humble life, but which die out of all mere literary memoirs, as the houses where theEgyptians or the Athenians lived crumble and leave only their templesstanding. I know, for instance, that on a given day of a certain year, a kindly woman, herself a poor widow, now, I trust, not without specialmercies in heaven for her good deeds, --for I read her name on a propertablet in the churchyard a week ago, --sent a fractional pudding from herown table to the Maiden Sisters, who, I fear, from the warmth and detailof their description, were fasting, or at least on short allowance, about that time. I know who sent them the segment of melon, which in herriotous fancy one of them compared to those huge barges to which we givethe ungracious name of mudscows. But why should I illustrate furtherwhat it seems almost a breach of confidence to speak of? Some kindfriend, who could challenge a nearer interest than the curious strangersinto whose hands the book might fall, at last claimed it, and I was gladthat it should be henceforth sealed to common eyes. I learned from itthat every good and, alas! every evil act we do may slumber unforgotteneven in some earthly record. I got a new lesson in that humanity whichour sharp race finds it so hard to learn. The poor widow, fightinghard to feed and clothe and educate her children, had not forgotten thepoorer ancient maidens. I remembered it the other day, as I stood by herplace of rest, and I felt sure that it was remembered elsewhere. I knowthere are prettier words than pudding, but I can't help it, --the puddingwent upon the record, I feel sure, with the mite which was cast into thetreasury by that other poor widow whose deed the world shall rememberforever, and with the coats and garments which the good women criedover, when Tabitha, called by interpretation Dorcas, lay dead in theupper chamber, with her charitable needlework strewed around her. 

--Such was the Book of the Maiden Sisters. You will believe me morereadily now when I tell you that I found the soul of Iris in the onethat lay open before me. Sometimes it was a poem that held it, sometimesa drawing, angel, arabesque, caricature, or a mere hieroglyphicsymbol of which I could make nothing. A rag of cloud on one page, as Iremember, with a streak of red zigzagging out of it across the paper asnaturally as a crack runs through a China bowl. On the next page a deadbird, --some little favorite, I suppose; for it was worked out with aspecial love, and I saw on the leaf that sign with which once or twicein my life I have had a letter sealed, --a round spot where the paperis slightly corrugated, and, if there is writing there, the lettersare somewhat faint and blurred. Most of the pages were surrounded withemblematic traceries. It was strange to me at first to see how oftenshe introduced those homelier wild-flowers which we call weeds, --for itseemed there was none of them too humble for her to love, and none toolittle cared for by Nature to be without its beauty for her artisteye and pencil. By the side of the garden-flowers, --of Spring's curleddarlings, the hyacinths, of rosebuds, dear to sketching maidens, offlower-de-luces and morning-glories, nay, oftener than these, and moretenderly caressed by the colored brush that rendered them, --were thosecommon growths which fling themselves to be crushed under our feet andour wheels, making themselves so cheap in this perpetual martyrdom thatwe forget each of them is a ray of the Divine beauty. 

Yellow japanned buttercups and star-disked dandelions, --just as we seethem lying in the grass, like sparks that have leaped from the kindlingsun of summer; the profuse daisy-like flower which whitens the fields, to the great disgust of liberal shepherds, yet seems fair to lovingeyes, with its button-like mound of gold set round with milk-white rays;the tall-stemmed succory, setting its pale blue flowers aflame, oneafter another, sparingly, as the lights are kindled in the candelabraof decaying palaces where the heirs of dethroned monarchs are dying out;the red and white clovers, the broad, flat leaves of the plantain, --"thewhite man's foot, " as the Indians called it, --the wiry, jointed stems ofthat iron creeping plant which we call "knot-grass, " and which loves itslife so dearly that it is next to impossible to murder it with a hoe, as it clings to the cracks of the pavement;--all these plants, and manymore, she wove into her fanciful garlands and borders. --On one of thepages were some musical notes. I touched them from curiosity on a pianobelonging to one of our boarders. Strange! There are passages that Ihave heard before, plaintive, full of some hidden meaning, as if theywere gasping for words to interpret them. She must have heard thestrains that have so excited my curiosity, coming from my neighbor'schamber. The illuminated border she had traced round the page that heldthese notes took the place of the words they seemed to be aching for. Above, a long monotonous sweep of waves, leaden-hued, anxious and jadedand sullen, if you can imagine such an expression in water. On one sidean Alpine needle, as it were, of black basalt, girdled with snow. On theother a threaded waterfall. The red morning-tint that shone in the dropshad a strange look, --one would say the cliff was bleeding;--perhaps shedid not mean it. Below, a stretch of sand, and a solitary bird of prey, with his wings spread over some unseen object. --And on the verynext page a procession wound along, after the fashion of that onthe title-page of Fuller's "Holy War, " in which I recognized withoutdifficulty every boarder at our table in all the glory of the mostresplendent caricature--three only excepted, --the Little Gentleman, myself, and one other. 

I confess I did expect to see something that would remind me of thegirl's little deformed neighbor, if not portraits of him. --There is aleft arm again, though;--no, --that is from the "Fighting Gladiator, " the"Jeune Heros combattant" of the Louvre;--there is the broad ring of theshield. From a cast, doubtless. [The separate casts of the "Gladiator's"arm look immense; but in its place the limb looks light, almostslender, --such is the perfection of that miraculous marble. I neverfelt as if I touched the life of the old Greeks until I looked on thatstatue. ]--Here is something very odd, to be sure. An Eden of all thehumped and crooked creatures! What could have been in her head when sheworked out such a fantasy? She has contrived to give them all beautyor dignity or melancholy grace. A Bactrian camel lying under a palm. Adromedary flashing up the sands, --spray of the dry ocean sailed by the"ship of the desert. " A herd of buffaloes, uncouth, shaggy-maned, heavyin the forehand, light in the hind-quarter. [The buffalo is the lionof the ruminants. ] And there is a Norman horse, with his huge, roughcollar, echoing, as it were, the natural form of the other beast. Andhere are twisted serpents; and stately swans, with answering curvesin their bowed necks, as if they had snake's blood under their whitefeathers; and grave, high-shouldered herons standing on one footlike cripples, and looking at life round them with the cold stare ofmonumental effigies. --A very odd page indeed! Not a creature in itwithout a curve or a twist, and not one of them a mean figure to lookat. You can make your own comment; I am fanciful, you know. I believeshe is trying to idealize what we vulgarly call deformity, which shestrives to look at in the light of one of Nature's eccentric curves, belonging to her system of beauty, as the hyperbola, and parabola belongto the conic sections, though we cannot see them as symmetrical andentire figures, like the circle and ellipse. At any rate, I cannot helpreferring this paradise of twisted spines to some idea floating inher head connected with her friend whom Nature has warped in themoulding. --That is nothing to another transcendental fancy of mine. Ibelieve her soul thinks itself in his little crooked body at times, --ifit does not really get freed or half freed from her own. Did you eversee a case of catalepsy? You know what I mean, --transient loss of sense, will, and motion; body and limbs taking any position in which they areput, as if they belonged to a lay-figure. She had been talking withhim and listening to him one day when the boarders moved from the tablenearly all at once. But she sat as before, her cheek resting on herhand, her amber eyes wide open and still. I went to her, she wasbreathing as usual, and her heart was beating naturally enough, --but shedid not answer. I bent her arm; it was as plastic as softened wax, andkept the place I gave it. --This will never do, though, and I sprinkleda few drops of water on her forehead. She started and looked round. --Ihave been in a dream, --she said;--I feel as if all my strength were inthis arm;--give me your hand!--She took my right hand in her left, whichlooked soft and white enough, but--Good Heaven! I believe she will crackmy bones! All the nervous power in her body must have flashed throughthose muscles; as when a crazy lady snaps her iron window-bars, --she whocould hardly glove herself when in her common health. Iris turned pale, and the tears came to her eyes;--she saw she had given pain. Then shetrembled, and might have fallen but for me;--the poor little soul hadbeen in one of those trances that belong to the spiritual pathology ofhigher natures, mostly those of women. 

To come back to this wondrous book of Iris. Two pages faced each otherwhich I took for symbolical expressions of two states of mind. On theleft hand, a bright blue sky washed over the page, specked with a singlebird. No trace of earth, but still the winged creature seemed to besoaring upward and upward. Facing it, one of those black dungeons suchas Piranesi alone of all men has pictured. I am sure she must haveseen those awful prisons of his, out of which the Opium-Eater gothis nightmare vision, described by another as "cemeteries of departedgreatness, where monstrous and forbidden things are crawling and twiningtheir slimy convolutions among mouldering bones, broken sculpture, andmutilated inscriptions. " Such a black dungeon faced the page that heldthe blue sky and the single bird; at the bottom of it something wascoiled, --what, and whether meant for dead or alive, my eyes could notmake out. 

I told you the young girl's soul was in this book. As I turned over thelast leaves I could not help starting. There were all sorts of facesamong the arabesques which laughed and scowled in the borders that ranround the pages. They had mostly the outline of childish or womanly ormanly beauty, without very distinct individuality. But at last it seemedto me that some of them were taking on a look not wholly unfamiliar tome; there were features that did not seem new. --Can it be so? Was thereever such innocence in a creature so full of life? She tells her heart'ssecrets as a three-years-old child betrays itself without need of beingquestioned! This was no common miss, such as are turned out inscores from the young-lady-factories, with parchments warranting themaccomplished and virtuous, --in case anybody should question the fact. Ibegan to understand her;--and what is so charming as to read the secretof a real femme incomprise?--for such there are, though they are not theones who think themselves uncomprehended women. 

Poets are never young, in one sense. Their delicate ear hears thefar-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towardsfor scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. I havefrequently seen children, long exercised by pain and exhaustion, whosefeatures had a strange look of advanced age. Too often one meets such inour charitable institutions. Their faces are saddened and wrinkled, asif their few summers were threescore years and ten. 

And so, many youthful poets have written as if their hearts were oldbefore their time; their pensive morning twilight has been as cooland saddening as that of evening in more common lives. The profoundmelancholy of those lines of Shelley, "I could lie down like a tired child And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear. "

came from a heart, as he says, "too soon grown old, "--at twenty-sixyears, as dull people count time, even when they talk of poets. 

I know enough to be prepared for an exceptional nature, --only this giftof the hand in rendering every thought in form and color, as well asin words, gives a richness to this young girl's alphabet of feeling andimagery that takes me by surprise. And then besides, and most of all, Iam puzzled at her sudden and seemingly easy confidence in me. PerhapsI owe it to my--Well, no matter! How one must love the editor who firstcalls him the venerable So-and-So!

--I locked the book and sighed as I laid it down. The world is alwaysready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know whatto do with genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows its head meeklywhile the world slips the collar over it. It backs into the shafts likea lamb. It draws its load cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and ofthe whip. But genius is always impatient of its harness; its wild bloodmakes it hard to train. 

Talent seems, at first, in one sense, higher than genius, --namely, thatit is more uniformly and absolutely submitted to the will, and thereforemore distinctly human in its character. Genius, on the other hand, ismuch more like those instincts which govern the admirable movements ofthe lower creatures, and therefore seems to have something of thelower or animal character. A goose flies by a chart which the RoyalGeographical Society could not mend. A poet, like the goose, sailswithout visible landmarks to unexplored regions of truth, whichphilosophy has yet to lay down on its atlas. The philosopher gets histrack by observation; the poet trusts to his inner sense, and makes thestraighter and swifter line. 

And yet, to look at it in another light, is not even the lowest instinctmore truly divine than any voluntary human act done by the suggestionof reason? What is a bee's architecture but an unobstructed divinethought?--what is a builder's approximative rule but an obstructedthought of the Creator, a mutilated and imperfect copy of some absoluterule Divine Wisdom has established, transmitted through a human soul asan image through clouded glass?

Talent is a very common family-trait; genius belongs rather toindividuals;--just as you find one giant or one dwarf in a family, butrarely a whole brood of either. Talent is often to be envied, and geniusvery commonly to be pitied. It stands twice the chance of the other ofdying in hospital, in jail, in debt, in bad repute. It is a perpetualinsult to mediocrity; its every word is a trespass against somebody'svested ideas, --blasphemy against somebody's O'm, or intangible privatetruth. 

--What is the use of my weighing out antitheses in this way, like arhetorical grocer?--You know twenty men of talent, who are making theirway in the world; you may, perhaps, know one man of genius, and verylikely do not want to know any more. For a divine instinct, such asdrives the goose southward and the poet heavenward, is a hard thing tomanage, and proves too strong for many whom it possesses. It must havebeen a terrible thing to have a friend like Chatterton or Burns. Andhere is a being who certainly has more than talent, at once poet andartist in tendency, if not yet fairly developed, --a woman, too;--andgenius grafted on womanhood is like to overgrow it and break its stem, as you may see a grafted fruit-tree spreading over the stock whichcannot keep pace with its evolution. 

I think now you know something of this young person. She wants nothingbut an atmosphere to expand in. Now and then one meets with a naturefor which our hard, practical New England life is obviously utterlyincompetent. It comes up, as a Southern seed, dropped by accident in oneof our gardens, finds itself trying to grow and blow into flower amongthe homely roots and the hardy shrubs that surround it. There is noquestion that certain persons who are born among us find themselves manydegrees too far north. Tropical by organization, they cannot fight forlife with our eastern and northwestern breezes without losing thecolor and fragrance into which their lives would have blossomed inthe latitude of myrtles and oranges. Strange effects are produced bysuffering any living thing to be developed under conditions such asNature had not intended for it. A French physiologist confined sometadpoles under water in the dark. Removed from the natural stimulus oflight, they did not develop legs and arms at the proper period of theirgrowth, and so become frogs; they swelled and spread into gigantictadpoles. I have seen a hundred colossal human tadpoles, overgrownZarvce or embryos; nay, I am afraid we Protestants should look on aconsiderable proportion of the Holy Father's one hundred and thirty-ninemillions as spiritual larvae, sculling about in the dark by the aidof their caudal extremities, instead of standing on their legs, andbreathing by gills, instead of taking the free air of heaven into thelungs made to receive it. Of course we never try to keep young soulsin the tadpole state, for fear they should get a pair or two of legsby-and-by and jump out of the pool where they have been bred and fed!Never! Never. Never?

Now to go back to our plant. You may know, that, for the earlier stagesof development of almost any vegetable, you only want air, water, light, and warmth. But by-and-by, if it is to have special complex principlesas a part of its organization, they must be supplied by the soil;--yourpears will crack, if the root of the tree gets no iron, --yourasparagus-bed wants salt as much as you do. Just at the period ofadolescence, the mind often suddenly begins to come into flower and toset its fruit. Then it is that many young natures, having exhaustedthe spiritual soil round them of all it contains of the elementsthey demand, wither away, undeveloped and uncolored, unless they aretransplanted. 

Pray for these dear young souls! This is the second natural birth;--forI do not speak of those peculiar religious experiences which form thepoint of transition in many lives between the consciousness of a generalrelation to the Divine nature and a special personal relation. Thelitany should count a prayer for them in the list of its supplications;masses should be said for them as for souls in purgatory; all goodChristians should remember them as they remember those in peril throughtravel or sickness or in warfare. 

I would transport this child to Rome at once, if I had my will. Sheshould ripen under an Italian sun. She should walk under the frescoedvaults of palaces, until her colors deepened to those of Venetianbeauties, and her forms were perfected into rivalry with the Greekmarbles, and the east wind was out of her soil. Has she not exhaustedthis lean soil of the elements her growing nature requires?

I do not know. The magnolia grows and comes into full flower on CapeAnn, many degrees out of its proper region. I was riding once along thatdelicious road between the hills and the sea, when we passed a thicketwhere there seemed to be a chance of finding it. In five minutes I hadfallen on the trees in full blossom, and filled my arms with the sweet, resplendent flowers. I could not believe I was in our cold, northernEssex, which, in the dreary season when I pass its slate-colored, unpainted farm-houses, and huge, square, windy, 'squire-built"mansions, " looks as brown and unvegetating as an old rug with itspatterns all trodden out and the colored fringe worn from all itsborder. 

If the magnolia can bloom in northern New England, why should not a poetor a painter come to his full growth here just as well? Yes, but ifthe gorgeous tree-flower is rare, and only as if by a freak of Naturesprings up in a single spot among the beeches and alders, is there notas much reason to think the perfumed flower of imaginative genius willfind it hard to be born and harder to spread its leaves in the clear, cold atmosphere of our ultra-temperate zone of humanity?

Take the poet. On the one hand, I believe that a person with thepoetical faculty finds material everywhere. The grandest objects ofsense and thought are common to all climates and civilizations. The sky, the woods, the waters, the storms, life, death love, the hope and visionof eternity, --these are images that write themselves in poetry in everysoul which has anything of the divine gift. 

On the other hand, there is such a thing as a lean, impoverished life, in distinction from a rich and suggestive one. Which our common NewEngland life might be considered, I will not decide. But there are somethings I think the poet misses in our western Eden. I trust it is notunpatriotic to mention them in this point of view as they come before usin so many other aspects. 

There is no sufficient flavor of humanity in the soil out of which wegrow. At Cantabridge, near the sea, I have once or twice picked up anIndian arrowhead in a fresh furrow. At Canoe Meadow, in the BerkshireMountains, I have found Indian arrowheads. So everywhere Indianarrowheads. Whether a hundred or a thousand years old, who knows?who cares? There is no history to the red race, --there is hardly anindividual in it;--a few instincts on legs and holding a tomahawk--thereis the Indian of all time. The story of one red ant is the story of allred ants. So, the poet, in trying to wing his way back through the lifethat has kindled, flitted, and faded along our watercourses and on oursouthern hillsides for unknown generations, finds nothing to breathe orfly in; he meets

 "A vast vacuity! all unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep. "

But think of the Old World, --that part of it which is the seat ofancient civilization! The stakes of the Britons' stockades are stillstanding in the bed of the Thames. The ploughman turns up an old Saxon'sbones, and beneath them is a tessellated pavement of the time ofthe Caesars. In Italy, the works of mediaeval Art seem to be ofyesterday, --Rome, under her kings, is but an intruding newcomer, aswe contemplate her in the shadow of the Cyclopean walls of Fiesole orVolterra. It makes a man human to live on these old humanized soils. He cannot help marching in step with his kind in the rear of such aprocession. They say a dead man's hand cures swellings, if laid on them. There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the Past to take down ourtumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race. Rousseau came out of one of his sad self-torturing fits, as he cast hiseye on the arches of the old Roman aqueduct, the Pont du Gard. 

I am far from denying that there is an attraction in a thriving railroadvillage. The new "depot, " the smartly-painted pine houses, the spaciousbrick hotel, the white meeting-house, and the row of youthful and leggytrees before it, are exhilarating. They speak of progress, and the timewhen there shall be a city, with a His Honor the Mayor, in the place oftheir trim but transient architectural growths. Pardon me, if I preferthe pyramids. They seem to me crystals formed from a stronger solutionof humanity than the steeple of the new meeting-house. I may be wrong, but the Tiber has a voice for me, as it whispers to the piers of thePons Alius, even more full of meaning than my well-beloved Charleseddying round the piles of West Boston Bridge. 

Then, again, we Yankees are a kind of gypsies, --a mechanical andmigratory race. A poet wants a home. He can dispense with an apple-parerand a reaping-machine. I feel this more for others than for myself, forthe home of my birth and childhood has been as yet exempted from thechange which has invaded almost everything around it. 

--Pardon me a short digression. To what small things our memory and ouraffections attach themselves! I remember, when I was a child, thatone of the girls planted some Star-of-Bethlehem bulbs in the southwestcorner of our front-yard. Well, I left the paternal roof and wanderedin other lands, and learned to think in the words of strange people. But after many years, as I looked on the little front-yard again, itoccurred to me that there used to be some Star-of-Bethlehems in thesouthwest corner. The grass was tall there, and the blade of the plantis very much like grass, only thicker and glossier. Even as Tullyparted the briers and brambles when he hunted for the sphere-containingcylinder that marked the grave of Archimedes, so did I comb the grasswith my fingers for my monumental memorial-flower. Nature had stored mykeepsake tenderly in her bosom; the glossy, faintly streaked blades werethere; they are there still, though they never flower, darkened as theyare by the shade of the elms and rooted in the matted turf. 

Our hearts are held down to our homes by innumerable fibres, trivialas that I have just recalled; but Gulliver was fixed to the soil, youremember, by pinning his head a hair at a time. Even a stone with awhitish band crossing it, belonging to the pavement of theback-yard, insisted on becoming one of the talismans of memory. Thisintussusception of the ideas of inanimate objects, and their faithfulstoring away among the sentiments, are curiously prefigured in thematerial structure of the thinking centre itself. In the very core ofthe brain, in the part where Des Cartes placed the soul, is a smallmineral deposit, consisting, as I have seen it in the microscope, ofgrape-like masses of crystalline matter. 

But the plants that come up every year in the same place, like theStar-of-Bethlehems, of all the lesser objects, give me the liveliesthome-feeling. Close to our ancient gambrel-roofed house is the dwellingof pleasant old Neighbor Walrus. I remember the sweet honeysuckle that Isaw in flower against the wall of his house a few months ago, as longas I remember the sky and stars. That clump of peonies, butting theirpurple heads through the soil every spring in just the same circle, andby-and-by unpacking their hard balls of buds in flowers big enoughto make a double handful of leaves, has come up in just that place, Neighbor Walrus tells me, for more years than I have passed on thisplanet. It is a rare privilege in our nomadic state to find the home ofone's childhood and its immediate neighborhood thus unchanged. Many bornpoets, I am afraid, flower poorly in song, or not at all, because theyhave been too often transplanted. 

Then a good many of our race are very hard and unimaginative;--theirvoices have nothing caressing; their movements are as of machinerywithout elasticity or oil. I wish it were fair to print a letter a younggirl, about the age of our Iris, wrote a short time since. "I am *** ******, " she says, and tells her whole name outright. Ah!--said I, when Iread that first frank declaration, --you are one of the right sort!--Shewas. A winged creature among close-clipped barn door fowl. How tiredthe poor girl was of the dull life about her, --the old woman's "skeletonhand" at the window opposite, drawing her curtains, --"Ma'am shooing awaythe hens, "--the vacuous country eyes staring at her as only countryeyes can stare, --a routine of mechanical duties, and the soul'shalf-articulated cry for sympathy, without an answer! Yes, --pray forher, and for all such! Faith often cures their longings; but it is sohard to give a soul to heaven that has not first been trained in thefullest and sweetest human affections! Too often they fling their heartsaway on unworthy objects. Too often they pine in a secret discontent, which spreads its leaden cloud over the morning of their youth. Theimmeasurable distance between one of these delicate natures and theaverage youths among whom is like to be her only choice makes one'sheart ache. How many women are born too finely organized in sense andsoul for the highway they must walk with feet unshod! Life is adjustedto the wants of the stronger sex. There are plenty of torrents to becrossed in its journey; but their stepping-stones are measured by thestride of man, and not of woman. 

Women are more subject than men to atrophy of the heart. So says thegreat medical authority, Laennec. Incurable cases of this kind usedto find their hospitals in convents. We have the disease in NewEngland, --but not the hospitals. I don't like to think of it. I will notbelieve our young Iris is going to die out in this way. Providence willfind her some great happiness, or affliction, or duty, --and which wouldbe best for her, I cannot tell. One thing is sure: the interest shetakes in her little neighbor is getting to be more engrossing than ever. Something is the matter with him, and she knows it, and I think worriesherself about it. 

I wonder sometimes how so fragile and distorted a frame has kept thefiery spirit that inhabits it so long its tenant. He accounts for it inhis own way. 

The air of the Old World is good for nothing, he said, one day. --Usedup, Sir, --breathed over and over again. You must come to this side, Sir, for an atmosphere fit to breathe nowadays. Did not worthy Mr. Higginsonsay that a breath of New England's air is better than a sup of OldEngland's ale? I ought to have died when I was a boy, Sir; but I couldn't die in this Boston air, --and I think I shall have to go to New Yorkone of these days, when it's time for me to drop this bundle, --or to NewOrleans, where they have the yellow fever, --or to Philadelphia, wherethey have so many doctors. 

This was some time ago; but of late he has seemed, as I have beforesaid, to be ailing. An experienced eye, such as I think I may call mine, can tell commonly whether a man is going to die, or not, long before heor his friends are alarmed about him. I don't like it. 

Iris has told me that the Scottish gift of second-sight runs in herfamily, and that she is afraid she has it. Those who are so endowedlook upon a well man and see a shroud wrapt about him. According to thedegree to which it covers him, his death will be near or more remote. Itis an awful faculty; but science gives one too much like it. Luckilyfor our friends, most of us who have the scientific second-sight schoolourselves not to betray our knowledge by word or look. 

Day by day, as the Little Gentleman comes to the table, it seems to methat the shadow of some approaching change falls darker and darker overhis countenance. Nature is struggling with something, and I am afraidshe is under in the wrestling-match. You do not care much, perhaps, formy particular conjectures as to the nature of his difficulty. I shouldsay, however, from the sudden flushes to which he is subject, andcertain other marks which, as an expert, I know how to interpret, thathis heart was in trouble; but then he presses his hand to the rightside, as if there were the centre of his uneasiness. 

When I say difficulty about the heart, I do not mean any of thosesentimental maladies of that organ which figure more largely in romancesthan on the returns which furnish our Bills of Mortality. I mean someactual change in the organ itself, which may carry him off by slow andpainful degrees, or strike him down with one huge pang and only timefor a single shriek, --as when the shot broke through the brave CaptainNolan's breast, at the head of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, and witha loud cry he dropped dead from his saddle. 

I thought it only fair to say something of what I apprehended tosome who were entitled to be warned. The landlady's face fell when Imentioned my fears. 

Poor man!--she said. --And will leave the best room empty! Has n't he gotany sisters or nieces or anybody to see to his things, if he should betook away? Such a sight of cases, full of everything! Never thoughtof his failin' so suddin. A complication of diseases, she expected. Liver-complaint one of 'em?

After this first involuntary expression of the too natural selfishfeelings, (which we must not judge very harshly, unless we happen tobe poor widows ourselves, with children to keep filled, covered, andtaught, --rents high, --beef eighteen to twenty cents per pound, )--afterthis first squeak of selfishness, followed by a brief movement ofcuriosity, so invariable in mature females, as to the nature of thecomplaint which threatens the life of a friend or any person who mayhappen to be mentioned as ill, --the worthy soul's better feelingsstruggled up to the surface, and she grieved for the doomed invalid, until a tear or two came forth and found their way down a channel wornfor them since the early days of her widowhood. 

Oh, this dreadful, dreadful business of being the prophet of evil! Ofall the trials which those who take charge of others' health and liveshave to undergo, this is the most painful. It is all so plain to thepractised eye!--and there is the poor wife, the doting mother, who hasnever suspected anything, or at least has clung always to the hope whichyou are just going to wrench away from her!--I must tell Iris that Ithink her poor friend is in a precarious state. She seems nearer to himthan anybody. 

I did tell her. Whatever emotion it produced, she kept a still face, except, perhaps, a little trembling of the lip. --Could I be certain thatthere was any mortal complaint?--Why, no, I could not be certain; but itlooked alarming to me. --He shall have some of my life, --she said. 

I suppose this to have been a fancy of hers, or a kind of magnetic powershe could give out;--at any rate, I cannot help thinking she wills herstrength away from herself, for she has lost vigor and color from thatday. I have sometimes thought he gained the force she lost; but this mayhave been a whim, very probably. 

One day she came suddenly to me, looking deadly pale. Her lips moved, as if she were speaking; but I could not at first hear a word. Her hairlooked strangely, as if lifting itself, and her eyes were full of wildlight. She sunk upon a chair, and I thought was falling into one of hertrances. Something had frozen her blood with fear; I thought, fromwhat she said, half audibly, that she believed she had seen a shroudedfigure. 

That night, at about eleven o'clock, I was sent for to see the LittleGentleman, who was taken suddenly ill. Bridget, the servant, went beforeme with a light. The doors were both unfastened, and I found myselfushered, without hindrance, into the dim light of the mysteriousapartment I had so longed to enter. 

I found these stanzas in the young girl's book among many others. I givethem as characterizing the tone of her sadder moments. 

 UNDER THE VIOLETS. 

 Her hands are cold; her face is white; No more her pulses come and go; Her eyes are shut to life and light; Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, And lay her where the violets blow. 

 But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; A slender cross of wood alone Shall say, that here a maiden lies In peace beneath the peaceful skies. 

 And gray old trees of hugest limb Shall wheel their circling shadows round To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground, And drop their dead leaves on her mound. 

 When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call, And, ripening in the autumn sun, The acorns and the chestnuts fall, Doubt not that she will heed them all. 

 For her the morning choir shall sing Its matins from the branches high, And every minstrel voice of spring, That trills beneath the April sky, Shall greet her with its earliest cry. 

 When, turning round their dial-track, Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, Her little mourners, clad in black, The crickets, sliding through the grass, Shall pipe for her an evening mass. 

 At last the rootlets of the trees Shall find the prison where she lies, And bear the buried dust they seize In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that warmed it rise!

 If any, born of kindlier blood, Should ask, What maiden lies below? Say only this: A tender bud, That tried to blossom in the snow, Lies withered where the violets blow. 

XI

You will know, perhaps, in the course of half an hour's reading, whathas been haunting my hours of sleep and waking for months. I cannottell, of course, whether you are a nervous person or not. If, however, you are such a person, --if it is late at night, --if all the rest of thehousehold have gone off to bed, --if the wind is shaking your windows asif a human hand were rattling the sashes, --if your candle or lamp is lowand will soon burn out, --let me advise you to take up some good quietsleepy volume, or attack the "Critical Notices" of the last Quarterlyand leave this to be read by daylight, with cheerful voices round, andpeople near by who would hear you, if you slid from your chair and camedown in a lump on the floor. 

I do not say that your heart will beat as mine did, I am willing toconfess, when I entered the dim chamber. Did I not tell you that I wassensitive and imaginative, and that I had lain awake with thinking whatwere the strange movements and sounds which I heard late at night in mylittle neighbor's apartment? It had come to that pass that I was trulyunable to separate what I had really heard from what I had dreamed inthose nightmares to which I have been subject, as before mentioned. So, when I walked into the room, and Bridget, turning back, closed the doorand left me alone with its tenant, I do believe you could have grated anutmeg on my skin, such a "goose-flesh" shiver ran over it. It was notfear, but what I call nervousness, --unreasoning, but irresistible; aswhen, for instance, one looking at the sun going down says, "I willcount fifty before it disappears"; and as he goes on and it becomesdoubtful whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, and his imagination pictures life and death and heaven and hell as theissues depending on the completion or non-completion of the fifty he iscounting. Extreme curiosity will excite some people as much as fear, orwhat resembles fear, acts on some other less impressible natures. 

I may find myself in the midst of strange facts in this littleconjurer's room. Or, again, there may be nothing in this poor invalid'schamber but some old furniture, such as they say came over in theMayflower. All this is just what I mean to, find out while I am lookingat the Little Gentleman, who has suddenly become my patient. Thesimplest things turn out to be unfathomable mysteries; the mostmysterious appearances prove to be the most commonplace objects indisguise. 

I wonder whether the boys who live in Roxbury and Dorchester are evermoved to tears or filled with silent awe as they look upon the rocksand fragments of "puddingstone" abounding in those localities. I havemy suspicions that those boys "heave a stone" or "fire a brickbat, "composed of the conglomerate just mentioned, without any more tearful orphilosophical contemplations than boys of less favored regions expend onthe same performance. Yet a lump of puddingstone is a thing to look at, to think about, to study over, to dream upon, to go crazy with, to beatone's brains out against. Look at that pebble in it. From what cliff wasit broken? On what beach rolled by the waves of what ocean? How andwhen imbedded in soft ooze, which itself became stone, and by-and-bywas lifted into bald summits and steep cliffs, such as you may see onMeetinghouse-Hill any day--yes, and mark the scratches on their facesleft when the boulder-carrying glaciers planed the surface of thecontinent with such rough tools that the storms have not worn the marksout of it with all the polishing of ever so many thousand years?

Or as you pass a roadside ditch or pool in springtime, take from it anybit of stick or straw which has lain undisturbed for a time. Some littleworm-shaped masses of clear jelly containing specks are fastened tothe stick: eggs of a small snail-like shell-fish. One of these specksmagnified proves to be a crystalline sphere with an opaque mass in itscentre. And while you are looking, the opaque mass begins to stir, andby-and-by slowly to turn upon its axis like a forming planet, --lifebeginning in the microcosm, as in the great worlds of the firmament, with the revolution that turns the surface in ceaseless round to thesource of life and light. 

A pebble and the spawn of a mollusk! Before you have solved theirmysteries, this earth where you first saw them may be a vitrified slag, or a vapor diffused through the planetary spaces. Mysteries are commonenough, at any rate, whatever the boys in Roxbury and Dorchester thinkof "brickbats" and the spawn of creatures that live in roadside puddles. 

But then a great many seeming mysteries are relatively perfectly plain, when we can get at them so as to turn them over. How many ghosts that"thick men's blood with cold" prove to be shirts hung out to dry!How many mermaids have been made out of seals! How many times havehorse-mackerels been taken for the sea-serpent!

--Let me take the whole matter coolly, while I see what is the matterwith the patient. That is what I say to myself, as I draw a chair to thebedside. The bed is an old-fashioned, dark mahogany four-poster. It wasnever that which made the noise of something moving. It is too heavy tobe pushed about the room. --The Little Gentleman was sitting, bolsteredup by pillows, with his hands clasped and their united palms restingon the back of the head, one of the three or four positions speciallyaffected by persons whose breathing is difficult from disease of theheart or other causes. 

Sit down, Sir, --he said, --sit down! I have come to the hill Difficulty, Sir, and am fighting my way up. --His speech was laborious andinterrupted. 

Don't talk, --I said, --except to answer my questions. --And I proceededto "prospect" for the marks of some local mischief, which you know isat the bottom of all these attacks, though we do not always find it. I suppose I go to work pretty much like other professional folks of mytemperament. Thus:

Wrist, if you please. --I was on his right side, but he presented hisleft wrist, crossing it over the other. --I begin to count, holding watchin left hand. One, two, three, four, --What a handsome hand! wonder ifthat splendid stone is a carbuncle. --One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, --Can't see much, it is so dark, except one white object. --One, two, three, four, --Hang it! eighty or ninety in the minute, Iguess. --Tongue, if you please. --Tongue is put out. Forget to look at it, or, rather, to take any particular notice of it;--but what is that whiteobject, with the long arm stretching up as if pointing to the sky, just as Vesalius and Spigelius and those old fellows used to put theirskeletons? I don't think anything of such objects, you know; but whatshould he have it in his chamber for? As I had found his pulse irregularand intermittent, I took out a stethoscope, which is a pocket-spyglassfor looking into people's chests with your ears, and laid it over theplace where the heart beats. I missed the usual beat of the organ. --Howis this?--I said, --where is your heart gone to?--He took the stethoscopeand shifted it across to the right side; there was a displacement of theorgan. --I am ill-packed, --he said;--there was no room for my heart inits place as it is with other men. --God help him!

It is hard to draw the line between scientific curiosity and the desirefor the patient's sake to learn all the details of his condition. I mustlook at this patient's chest, and thump it and listen to it. For this isa case of ectopia cordis, my boy, --displacement of the heart; and itis n't every day you get a chance to overhaul such an interestingmalformation. And so I managed to do my duty and satisfy my curiosityat the same time. The torso was slight and deformed; the right armattenuated, --the left full, round, and of perfect symmetry. It hadrun away with the life of the other limbs, --a common trick enough ofNature's, as I told you before. If you see a man with legs withered fromchildhood, keep out of the way of his arms, if you have a quarrel withhim. He has the strength of four limbs in two; and if he strikes you, itis an arm-blow plus a kick administered from the shoulder instead of thehaunch, where it should have started from. 

Still examining him as a patient, I kept my eyes about me to searchall parts of the chamber and went on with the double process, asbefore. --Heart hits as hard as a fist, --bellows-sound over mitral valves(professional terms you need not attend to). --What the deuse is thatlong case for? Got his witch grandmother mummied in it? And three bigmahogany presses, --hey?--A diabolical suspicion came over me which I hadhad once before, --that he might be one of our modern alchemists, --youunderstand, make gold, you know, or what looks like it, sometimes withthe head of a king or queen or of Liberty to embellish one side of thepiece. --Don't I remember hearing him shut a door and lock it once? Whatdo you think was kept under that lock? Let's have another look at hishand, to see if there are any calluses. 

One can tell a man's business, if it is a handicraft, very often byjust taking a look at his open hand. Ah! Four calluses at the end of thefingers of the right hand. None on those of the left. Ah, ha! What dothose mean?

All this seems longer in the telling, of course, than it was in fact. While I was making these observations of the objects around me, I wasalso forming my opinion as to the kind of case with which I had to deal. 

There are three wicks, you know, to the lamp of a man's life: brain, blood, and breath. Press the brain a little, its light goes out, followed by both the others. Stop the heart a minute and out go allthree of the wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently thefluid ceases to supply the other centres of flame, and all issoon stagnation, cold, and darkness. The "tripod of life" a Frenchphysiologist called these three organs. It is all clear enough which legof the tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you exactlywhat the difficulty is;--which would be as intelligible and amusing as awatchmaker's description of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It isenough to say, that I found just what I expected to, and that I thinkthis attack is only the prelude of more serious consequences, --whichexpression means you very well know what. 

And now the secrets of this life hanging on a thread must surely comeout. If I have made a mystery where there was none, my suspicions willbe shamed, as they have often been before. If there is anything strange, my visits will clear it up. 

I sat an hour or two by the side of the Little Gentleman's bed, aftergiving him some henbane to quiet his brain, and some foxglove, which animaginative French professor has called the "Opium of the Heart. " Undertheir influence he gradually fell into an uneasy, half-waking slumber, the body fighting hard for every breath, and the mind wandering off instrange fancies and old recollections, which escaped from his lips inbroken sentences. 

--The last of 'em, --he said, --the last of 'em all, --thank God! And thegrave he lies in will look just as well as if he had been straight. Digit deep, old Martin, dig it deep, --and let it be as long as otherfolks' graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old man, --flat as ever astraight-backed young fellow was laid under. And then, with a good tallslab at the head, and a foot-stone six foot away from it, it'll lookjust as if there was a man underneath. 

A man! Who said he was a man? No more men of that pattern to bear hisname!--Used to be a good-looking set enough. --Where 's all the manhoodand womanhood gone to since his great-grandfather was the strongestman that sailed out of the town of Boston, and poor Leah there thehandsomest woman in Essex, if she was a witch?

--Give me some light, --he said, --more light. I want to see the picture. 

He had started either from a dream or a wandering reverie. I was notunwilling to have more light in the apartment, and presently had lightedan astral lamp that stood on a table. --He pointed to a portrait hangingagainst the wall. --Look at her, --he said, --look at her! Wasn't that apretty neck to slip a hangman's noose over?

The portrait was of a young woman, something more than twenty years old, perhaps. There were few pictures of any merit painted in New Englandbefore the time of Smibert, and I am at a loss to know what artistcould have taken this half-length, which was evidently from life. It wassomewhat stiff and flat, but the grace of the figure and the sweetnessof the expression reminded me of the angels of the early Florentinepainters. She must have been of some consideration, for she was dressedin paduasoy and lace with hanging sleeves, and the old carved frameshowed how the picture had been prized by its former owners. A proud eyeshe had, with all her sweetness. --I think it was that which hanged her, as his strong arm hanged Minister George Burroughs;--but it may havebeen a little mole on one cheek, which the artist had just hinted as abeauty rather than a deformity. You know, I suppose, that nursling impsaddict themselves, after the fashion of young opossums, to these littleexcrescences. "Witch-marks" were good evidence that a young woman wasone of the Devil's wet-nurses;--I should like to have seen you make funof them in those days!--Then she had a brooch in her bodice, that mighthave been taken for some devilish amulet or other; and she wore a ringupon one of her fingers, with a red stone in it, that flamed as if thepainter had dipped his pencil in fire;--who knows but that it was givenher by a midnight suitor fresh from that fierce element, and licensedfor a season to leave his couch of flame to tempt the unsanctifiedhearts of earthly maidens and brand their cheeks with the print of hisscorching kisses?

She and I, --he said, as he looked steadfastly at the canvas, --she and Iare the last of 'em. --She will stay, and I shall go. They never paintedme, --except when the boys used to make pictures of me with chalk on theboard-fences. They said the doctors would want my skeleton when I wasdead. --You are my friend, if you are a doctor, --a'n't you?

I just gave him my hand. I had not the heart to speak. 

I want to lie still, --he said, --after I am put to bed upon the hillyonder. Can't you have a great stone laid over me, as they did over thefirst settlers in the old burying-ground at Dorchester, so as to keepthe wolves from digging them up? I never slept easy over the sod;--Ishould like to lie quiet under it. And besides, --he said, in a kind ofscared whisper, --I don't want to have my bones stared at, as my body hasbeen. I don't doubt I was a remarkable case; but, for God's sake, oh, for God's sake, don't let 'em make a show of the cage I have been shutup in and looked through the bars of for so many years. 

I have heard it said that the art of healing makes men hard-hearted andindifferent to human suffering. I am willing to own that there isoften a professional hardness in surgeons, just as there is intheologians, --only much less in degree than in these last. It does notcommonly improve the sympathies of a man to be in the habit of thrustingknives into his fellow-creatures and burning them with red-hot irons, any more than it improves them to hold the blinding-white cantery ofGehenna by its cool handle and score and crisp young souls with ituntil they are scorched into the belief of--Transubstantiation or theImmaculate Conception. And, to say the plain truth, I think there area good many coarse people in both callings. A delicate nature willnot commonly choose a pursuit which implies the habitual infliction ofsuffering, so readily as some gentler office. Yet, while I am writingthis paragraph, there passes by my window, on his daily errand of duty, not seeing me, though I catch a glimpse of his manly features throughthe oval glass of his chaise, as he drives by, a surgeon of skill andstanding, so friendly, so modest, so tenderhearted in all his ways, that, if he had not approved himself at once adroit and firm, one wouldhave said he was of too kindly a mould to be the minister of pain, evenif he were saving pain. 

You may be sure that some men, even among those who have chosen the taskof pruning their fellow-creatures, grow more and more thoughtful andtruly compassionate in the midst of their cruel experience. They becomeless nervous, but more sympathetic. They have a truer sensibility forothers' pain, the more they study pain and disease in the light ofscience. I have said this without claiming any special growth inhumanity for myself, though I do hope I grow tenderer in my feelingsas I grow older. At any rate, this was not a time in which professionalhabits could keep down certain instincts of older date than these. 

This poor little man's appeal to my humanity against the supposedrapacity of Science, which he feared would have her "specimen, " if hisghost should walk restlessly a thousand years, waiting for his bonesto be laid in the dust, touched my heart. But I felt bound to speakcheerily. 

--We won't die yet awhile, if we can help it, --I said, --and I trust wecan help it. But don't be afraid; if I live longest, I will see thatyour resting place is kept sacred till the dandelions and buttercupsblow over you. 

He seemed to have got his wits together by this time, and to have avague consciousness that he might have been saying more than he meantfor anybody's ears. --I have been talking a little wild, Sir, eh? hesaid. --There is a great buzzing in my head with those drops of yours, and I doubt if my tongue has not been a little looser than I would haveit, Sir. But I don't much want to live, Sir; that's the truth of thematter, and it does rather please me to think that fifty years from nownobody will know that the place where I lie does n't hold as stout andstraight a man as the best of 'em that stretch out as if they were proudof the room they take. You may get me well, if you can, Sir, if youthink it worth while to try; but I tell you there has been no time forthis many a year when the smell of fresh earth was not sweeter to methan all the flowers that grow out of it. There's no anodyne like yourgood clean gravel, Sir. But if you can keep me about awhile, and itamuses you to try, you may show your skill upon me, if you like. Thereis a pleasure or two that I love the daylight for, and I think the nightis not far off, at best. --I believe I shall sleep now; you may leave me, and come, if you like, in the morning. 

Before I passed out, I took one more glance round the apartment. Thebeautiful face of the portrait looked at me, as portraits often do, witha frightful kind of intelligence in its eyes. The drapery fluttered onthe still outstretched arm of the tall object near the window;--a crackof this was open, no doubt, and some breath of wind stirred the hangingfolds. In my excited state, I seemed to see something ominous in thatarm pointing to the heavens. I thought of the figures in the Dance ofDeath at Basle, and that other on the panels of the covered Bridge atLucerne, and it seemed to me that the grim mask who mingles with everycrowd and glides over every threshold was pointing the sick man to hisfar home, and would soon stretch out his bony hand and lead him or draghim on the unmeasured journey towards it. 

The fancy had possession of me, and I shivered again as when I firstentered the chamber. The picture and the shrouded shape; I saw onlythese two objects. They were enough. The house was deadly still, and thenight-wind, blowing through an open window, struck me as from a field ofice, at the moment I passed into the creaking corridor. As I turned intothe common passage, a white figure, holding a lamp, stood full beforeme. I thought at first it was one of those images made to stand inniches and hold a light in their hands. But the illusion was momentary, and my eyes speedily recovered from the shock of the bright flame andsnowy drapery to see that the figure was a breathing one. It was Iris, in one of her statue-trances. She had come down, whether sleeping orwaking, I knew not at first, led by an instinct that told her she waswanted, --or, possibly, having overheard and interpreted the sound of ourmovements, --or, it may be, having learned from the servant that therewas trouble which might ask for a woman's hand. I sometimes think womenhave a sixth sense, which tells them that others, whom they cannot seeor hear, are in suffering. How surely we find them at the bedside of thedying! How strongly does Nature plead for them, that we should draw ourfirst breath in their arms, as we sigh away our last upon their faithfulbreasts!

With white, bare feet, her hair loosely knotted, clad as the starlightknew her, and the morning when she rose from slumber, save that she hadtwisted a scarf round her long dress, she stood still as a stone beforeme, holding in one hand a lighted coil of waxtaper, and in the othera silver goblet. I held my own lamp close to her, as if she had been afigure of marble, and she did not stir. There was no breach of proprietythen, to scare the Poor Relation with and breed scandal out of. She hadbeen "warned in a dream, " doubtless suggested by her waking knowledgeand the sounds which had reached her exalted sense. There was nothingmore natural than that she should have risen and girdled her waist, andlighted her taper, and found the silver goblet with "Ex dono pupillorum"on it, from which she had taken her milk and possets through allher childish years, and so gone blindly out to find her place at thebedside, --a Sister of Charity without the cap and rosary; nay, unknowingwhither her feet were leading her, and with wide blank eyes seeingnothing but the vision that beckoned her along. --Well, I must wake herfrom her slumber or trance. --I called her name, but she did not heed myvoice. 

The Devil put it into my head that I would kiss one handsome young girlbefore I died, and now was my chance. She never would know it, and Ishould carry the remembrance of it with me into the grave, and a roseperhaps grow out of my dust, as a brier did out of Lord Lovers, inmemory of that immortal moment! Would it wake her from her trance? andwould she see me in the flush of my stolen triumph, and hate and despiseme ever after? Or should I carry off my trophy undetected, and alwaysfrom that time say to myself, when I looked upon her in the glory ofyouth and the splendor of beauty, "My lips have touched those rosesand made their sweetness mine forever"? You think my cheek was flushed, perhaps, and my eyes were glittering with this midnight flash ofopportunity. On the contrary, I believe I was pale, very pale, andI know that I trembled. Ah, it is the pale passions that are thefiercest, --it is the violence of the chill that gives the measure of thefever! The fighting-boy of our school always turned white when he wentout to a pitched battle with the bully of some neighboring village; butwe knew what his bloodless cheeks meant, --the blood was all in his stoutheart, --he was a slight boy, and there was not enough to redden his faceand fill his heart both at once. 

Perhaps it is making a good deal of a slight matter, to tell theinternal conflicts in the heart of a quiet person something more thanjuvenile and something less than senile, as to whether he should beguilty of an impropriety, and, if he were, whether he would get caughtin his indiscretion. And yet the memory of the kiss that Margaret ofScotland gave to Alain Chartier has lasted four hundred years, andput it into the head of many an ill-favored poet, whether Victoria, orEugenie, would do as much by him, if she happened to pass him when hewas asleep. And have we ever forgotten that the fresh cheek of the youngJohn Milton tingled under the lips of some high-born Italian beauty, who, I believe, did not think to leave her card by the side of theslumbering youth, but has bequeathed the memory of her pretty deed toall coming time? The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer. 

There is one disadvantage which the man of philosophical habits ofmind suffers, as compared with the man of action. While he is taking anenlarged and rational view of the matter before him, he lets his chanceslip through his fingers. Iris woke up, of her own accord, before I hadmade up my mind what I was going to do about it. 

When I remember how charmingly she looked, I don't blame myself atall for being tempted; but if I had been fool enough to yield to theimpulse, I should certainly have been ashamed to tell of it. She did notknow what to make of it, finding herself there alone, in such guise, andme staring at her. She looked down at her white robe and bare feet, andcolored, --then at the goblet she held in her hand, then at the taper;and at last her thoughts seemed to clear up. 

I know it all, --she said. --He is going to die, and I must go and sit byhim. Nobody will care for him as I shall, and I have nobody else to carefor. 

I assured her that nothing was needed for him that night but rest, andpersuaded her that the excitement of her presence could only do harm. Let him sleep, and he would very probably awake better in the morning. There was nothing to be said, for I spoke with authority; and the younggirl glided away with noiseless step and sought her own chamber. 

The tremor passed away from my limbs, and the blood began to burn in mycheeks. The beautiful image which had so bewitched me faded graduallyfrom my imagination, and I returned to the still perplexing mysteries ofmy little neighbor's chamber. 

All was still there now. No plaintive sounds, no monotonous murmurs, no shutting of windows and doors at strange hours, as if somethingor somebody were coming in or going out, or there was something to behidden in those dark mahogany presses. Is there an inner apartment thatI have not seen? The way in which the house is built might admit of it. As I thought it over, I at once imagined a Bluebeard's chamber. Suppose, for instance, that the narrow bookshelves to the right are really only amasked door, such as we remember leading to the private study of oneof our most distinguished townsmen, who loved to steal away from hisstately library to that little silent cell. If this were lightedfrom above, a person or persons might pass their days there withoutattracting attention from the household, and wander where they pleasedat night, --to Copp's-Hill burial-ground, if they liked, --I said tomyself, laughing, and pulling the bed-clothes over my head. There isno logic in superstitious-fancies any more than in dreams. A she-ghostwouldn't want an inner chamber to herself. A live woman, with a valuablesoprano voice, wouldn't start off at night to sprain her ankles over theold graves of the North-End cemetery. 

It is all very easy for you, middle-aged reader, sitting over this pagein the broad daylight, to call me by all manner of asinine and anserineunchristian names, because I had these fancies running through myhead. I don't care much for your abuse. The question is not, what itis reasonable for a man to think about, but what he actually does thinkabout, in the dark, and when he is alone, and his whole body seems butone great nerve of hearing, and he sees the phosphorescent flashes ofhis own eyeballs as they turn suddenly in the direction of the laststrange noise, --what he actually does think about, as he lies andrecalls all the wild stories his head is full of, his fancy hinting themost alarming conjectures to account for the simplest facts about him, his common-sense laughing them to scorn the next minute, but his mindstill returning to them, under one shape or another, until he gets verynervous and foolish, and remembers how pleasant it used to be to havehis mother come and tuck him up and go and sit within call, so that shecould hear him at any minute, if he got very much scared and wanted her. Old babies that we are!

Daylight will clear up all that lamp-light has left doubtful. I longedfor the morning to come, for I was more curious than ever. So, betweenmy fancies and anticipations, I had but a poor night of it, and camedown tired to the breakfast-table. My visit was not to be made untilafter this morning hour; there was nothing urgent, so the servant wasordered to tell me. 

It was the first breakfast at which the high chair at the side of Irishad been unoccupied. --You might jest as well take away that chair, --saidour landlady, --he'll never want it again. He acts like a man that 'sstruck with death, 'n' I don't believe he 'll ever come out of hischamber till he 's laid out and brought down a corpse. --These good womendo put things so plainly! There were two or three words in her shortremark that always sober people, and suggest silence or brief moralreflections. 

--Life is dreadful uncerting, --said the Poor Relation, --and pulled inher social tentacles to concentrate her thoughts on this fact of humanhistory. 

--If there was anything a fellah could do, --said the young man John, socalled, --a fellah 'd like the chance o' helpin' a little cripple likethat. He looks as if he couldn't turn over any handier than a turtlethat's laid on his back; and I guess there a'n't many people that knowhow to lift better than I do. Ask him if he don't want any watchers. Idon't mind settin' up any more 'n a cat-owl. I was up all night twicelast month. 

[My private opinion is, that there was no small amount of punch absorbedon those two occasions, which I think I heard of at the time];--but theoffer is a kind one, and it is n't fair to question how he would likesitting up without the punch and the company and the songs and smoking. He means what he says, and it would be a more considerable achievementfor him to sit quietly all night by a sick man than for a good manyother people. I tell you this odd thing: there are a good many persons, who, through the habit of making other folks uncomfortable, by findingfault with all their cheerful enjoyments, at last get up a kindof hostility to comfort in general, even in their own persons. Thecorrelative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselvesas we hate our neighbors. Look at old misers; first they starve theirdependants, and then themselves. So I think it more for a lively youngfellow to be ready to play nurse than for one of those useful butforlorn martyrs who have taken a spite against themselves and love togratify it by fasting and watching. 

--The time came at last for me to make my visit. I found Iris sittingby the Little Gentleman's pillow. To my disappointment, the room wasdarkened. He did not like the light, and would have the shutters keptnearly closed. It was good enough for me; what business had I to beindulging my curiosity, when I had nothing to do but to exercise suchskill as I possessed for the benefit of my patient? There was not muchto be said or done in such a case; but I spoke as encouragingly as Icould, as I think we are always bound to do. He did not seem to pay anyvery anxious attention, but the poor girl listened as if her own lifeand more than her own life were depending on the words I uttered. Shefollowed me out of the room, when I had got through my visit. 

How long?--she said. 

Uncertain. Any time; to-day, --next week, next month, --I answered. --Oneof those cases where the issue is not doubtful, but may be sudden orslow. 

The women of the house were kind, as women always are in trouble. ButIris pretended that nobody could spare the time as well as she, and kepther place, hour after hour, until the landlady insisted that she'd bekillin' herself, if she begun at that rate, 'n' haf to give up, if shedidn't want to be clean beat out in less 'n a week. 

At the table we were graver than common. The high chair was set backagainst the wall, and a gap left between that of the young girl andher nearest neighbor's on the right. But the next morning, to our greatsurprise, that good-looking young Marylander had very quietly moved hisown chair to the vacant place. I thought he was creeping down that way, but I was not prepared for a leap spanning such a tremendous parenthesisof boarders as this change of position included. There was no denyingthat the youth and maiden were a handsome pair, as they sat side byside. But whatever the young girl may have thought of her new neighborshe never seemed for a moment to forget the poor little friend who hadbeen taken from her side. There are women, and even girls, with whom itis of no use to talk. One might as well reason with a bee as to the formof his cell, or with an oriole as to the construction of his swingingnest, as try to stir these creatures from their own way of doing theirown work. It was not a question with Iris, whether she was entitled byany special relation or by the fitness of things to play the part of anurse. She was a wilful creature that must have her way in this matter. And it so proved that it called for much patience and long enduranceto carry through the duties, say rather the kind offices, the painfulpleasures, which she had chosen as her share in the household whereaccident had thrown her. She had that genius of ministration which isthe special province of certain women, marked even among their helpfulsisters by a soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light hand, a cheeringsmile, and a ready self-surrender to the objects of their care, whichsuch trifles as their own food, sleep, or habits of any kind neverpresume to interfere with. Day after day, and too often through the longwatches of the night, she kept her place by the pillow. 

That girl will kill herself over me, Sir, --said the poor LittleGentleman to me, one day, --she will kill herself, Sir, if you don'tcall in all the resources of your art to get me off as soon as may be. Ishall wear her out, Sir, with sitting in this close chamber and watchingwhen she ought to be sleeping, if you leave me to the care of Naturewithout dosing me. 

This was rather strange pleasantry, under the circumstances. But thereare certain persons whose existence is so out of parallel with thelarger laws in the midst of which it is moving, that life becomes tothem as death and death as life. --How am I getting along?--he said, another morning. He lifted his shrivelled hand, with the death's-headring on it, and looked at it with a sad sort of complacency. By this onemovement, which I have seen repeatedly of late, I know that his thoughtshave gone before to another condition, and that he is, as it were, looking back on the infirmities of the body as accidents of the past. For, when he was well, one might see him often looking at thehandsome hand with the flaming jewel on one of its fingers. The singlewell-shaped limb was the source of that pleasure which in some form orother Nature almost always grants to her least richly endowed children. Handsome hair, eyes, complexion, feature, form, hand, foot, pleasantvoice, strength, grace, agility, intelligence, --how few there are thathave not just enough of one at least of these gifts to show them thatthe good Mother, busy with her millions of children, has not quiteforgotten them! But now he was thinking of that other state, where, freefrom all mortal impediments, the memory of his sorrowful burdenshould be only as that of the case he has shed to the insect whose"deep-damasked wings" beat off the golden dust of the lily-anthers, ashe flutters in the ecstasy of his new life over their full-blown summerglories. 

No human being can rest for any time in a state of equilibrium, wherethe desire to live and that to depart just balance each other. If onehas a house, which he has lived and always means to live in, he pleaseshimself with the thought of all the conveniences it offers him, andthinks little of its wants and imperfections. But once having made uphis mind to move to a better, every incommodity starts out upon him, until the very ground-plan of it seems to have changed in his mind, and his thoughts and affections, each one of them packing up its littlebundle of circumstances, have quitted their several chambers and nooksand migrated to the new home, long before its apartments are ready toreceive their coming tenant. It is so with the body. Most persons havedied before they expire, --died to all earthly longings, so that thelast breath is only, as it were, the locking of the door of the alreadydeserted mansion. The fact of the tranquillity with which the greatmajority of dying persons await this locking of those gates of lifethrough which its airy angels have been going and coming, from themoment of the first cry, is familiar to those who have been oftencalled upon to witness the last period of life. Almost always there is apreparation made by Nature for unearthing a soul, just as on the smallerscale there is for the removal of a milktooth. The roots which holdhuman life to earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its place. Some of the dying are weary and want rest, the idea of which is almostinseparable in the universal mind from death. Some are in pain, and wantto be rid of it, even though the anodyne be dropped, as in thelegend, from the sword of the Death-Angel. Some are stupid, mercifullynarcotized that they may go to sleep without long tossing about. Andsome are strong in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near the nextworld, they would fair hurry toward it, as the caravan moves faster overthe sands when the foremost travellers send word along the file thatwater is in sight. Though each little party that follows in a foot-trackof its own will have it that the water to which others think they arehastening is a mirage, not the less has it been true in all ages and forhuman beings of every creed which recognized a future, that those whohave fallen worn out by their march through the Desert have dreamed atleast of a River of Life, and thought they heard its murmurs as they laydying. 

The change from the clinging to the present to the welcoming of thefuture comes very soon, for the most part, after all hope of life isextinguished, provided this be left in good degree to Nature, and notinsolently and cruelly forced upon those who are attacked by illness, on the strength of that odious foreknowledge often imparted by science, before the white fruit whose core is ashes, and which we call death, has set beneath the pallid and drooping flower of sickness. There is asingular sagacity very often shown in a patient's estimate of his ownvital force. His physician knows the state of his material frame wellenough, perhaps, --that this or that organ is more or less impaired ordisintegrated; but the patient has a sense that he can hold out so muchlonger, --sometimes that he must and will live for a while, though by thelogic of disease he ought to die without any delay. 

The Little Gentleman continued to fail, until it became plain that hisremaining days were few. I told the household what to expect. There wasa good deal of kind feeling expressed among the boarders, in variousmodes, according to their characters and style of sympathy. Thelandlady was urgent that he should try a certain nostrum which had savedsomebody's life in jest sech a case. The Poor Relation wanted me tocarry, as from her, a copy of "Allein's Alarm, " etc. I objected to thetitle, reminding her that it offended people of old, so that more thantwice as many of the book were sold when they changed the name to "ASure Guide to Heaven. " The good old gentleman whom I have mentionedbefore has come to the time of life when many old men cry easily, andforget their tears as children do. --He was a worthy gentleman, --hesaid, --a very worthy gentleman, but unfortunate, --very unfortunate. Sadly deformed about the spine and the feet. Had an impression that thelate Lord Byron had some malformation of this kind. Had heerd there wassomething the matter with the ankle-j'ints of that nobleman, but he wasa man of talents. This gentleman seemed to be a man of talents. Could not always agree with his statements, --thought he was a littleover-partial to this city, and had some free opinions; but was sorryto lose him, --and if--there was anything--he--could--. In the midst ofthese kind expressions, the gentleman with the diamond, the Koh-i-noor, as we called him, asked, in a very unpleasant sort of way, how the oldboy was likely to cut up, --meaning what money our friend was going toleave behind. 

The young fellow John spoke up, to the effect that this was a diabolishsnobby question, when a man was dying and not dead. --To this theKoh-i-noor replied, by asking if the other meant to insult him. Wheretothe young man John rejoined that he had no particul'r intentions one wayor t'other. -The Kohi-noor then suggested the young man's stepping outinto the yard, that he, the speaker, might "slap his chops. "--Let 'emalone, said young Maryland, --it 'll soon be over, and they won't hurteach other much. --So they went out. 

The Koh-i-noor entertained the very common idea, that, when one quarrelswith another, the simple thing to do is to knock the man down, and thereis the end of it. Now those who have watched such encounters are awareof two things: first, that it is not so easy to knock a man down as itis to talk about it; secondly, that, if you do happen to knock a mandown, there is a very good chance that he will be angry, and get up andgive you a thrashing. 

So the Koh-i-noor thought he would begin, as soon as they got into theyard, by knocking his man down, and with this intention swung his armround after the fashion of rustics and those unskilled in the noble art, expecting the young fellow John to drop when his fist, having completeda quarter of a circle, should come in contact with the side of thatyoung man's head. Unfortunately for this theory, it happens that a blowstruck out straight is as much shorter, and therefore as much quickerthan the rustic's swinging blow, as the radius is shorter than thequarter of a circle. The mathematical and mechanical corollary was, thatthe Koh-i-noor felt something hard bring up suddenly against his righteye, which something he could have sworn was a paving-stone, judging byhis sensations; and as this threw his person somewhat backwards, and theyoung man John jerked his own head back a little, the swinging blow hadnothing to stop it; and as the Jewel staggered between the hit he gotand the blow he missed, he tripped and "went to grass, " so far as theback-yard of our boardinghouse was provided with that vegetable. It wasa signal illustration of that fatal mistake, so frequent in young andardent natures with inconspicuous calves and negative pectorals, thatthey can settle most little quarrels on the spot by "knocking the mandown. "

We are in the habit of handling our faces so carefully, that a heavyblow, taking effect on that portion of the surface, produces a mostunpleasant surprise, which is accompanied with odd sensations, asof seeing sparks, and a kind of electrical or ozone-like odor, half-sulphurous in character, and which has given rise to a very vulgarand profane threat sometimes heard from the lips of bullies. A personnot used to pugilistic gestures does not instantly recover from thissurprise. The Koh-i-noor exasperated by his failure, and still a littleconfused by the smart hit he had received, but furious, and confidentof victory over a young fellow a good deal lighter than himself, madea desperate rush to bear down all before him and finish the contestat once. That is the way all angry greenhorns and incompetent personsattempt to settle matters. It does n't do, if the other fellow is onlycool, moderately quick, and has a very little science. It didn't do thistime; for, as the assailant rushed in with his arms flying everywhere, like the vans of a windmill, he ran a prominent feature of his faceagainst a fist which was travelling in the other direction, andimmediately after struck the knuckles of the young man's other fist asevere blow with the part of his person known as the epigastrium to onebranch of science and the bread-basket to another. This second roundclosed the battle. The Koh-i-noor had got enough, which in such casesis more than as good as a feast. The young fellow asked him if he wassatisfied, and held out his hand. But the other sulked, and mutteredsomething about revenge. --Jest as ye like, --said the young manJohn. --Clap a slice o' raw beefsteak on to that mouse o' yours 'n' 't'lltake down the swellin'. (Mouse is a technical term for a bluish, oblong, rounded elevation occasioned by running one's forehead or eyebrowagainst another's knuckles. ) The young fellow was particularly pleasedthat he had had an opportunity of trying his proficiency in the art ofself-defence without the gloves. The Koh-i-noor did not favor us withhis company for a day or two, being confined to his chamber, it wassaid, by a slight feverish, attack. He was chop-fallen always afterthis, and got negligent in his person. The impression must have beena deep one; for it was observed, that, when he came down again, hismoustache and whiskers had turned visibly white about the roots. Inshort, it disgraced him, and rendered still more conspicuous a tendencyto drinking, of which he had been for some time suspected. This, and thedisgust which a young lady naturally feels at hearing that her loverhas been "licked by a fellah not half his size, " induced the landlady'sdaughter to take that decided step which produced a change in theprogramme of her career I may hereafter allude to. 

I never thought he would come to good, when I heard him attemptingto sneer at an unoffending city so respectable as Boston. After aman begins to attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about theFrog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of him. Poor Edgar Poedied in the hospital soon after he got into this way of talking; andso sure as you find an unfortunate fellow reduced to this pass, you hadbetter begin praying for him, and stop lending him money, for he ison his last legs. Remember poor Edgar! He is dead and gone; but theState-House has its cupola fresh-gilded, and the Frog-Pond has got afountain that squirts up a hundred feet into the air and glorifies thathumble sheet with a fine display of provincial rainbows. 

--I cannot fulfil my promise in this number. I expected to gratifyyour curiosity, if you have become at all interested in these puzzles, doubts, fancies, whims, or whatever you choose to call them, of mine. Next month you shall hear all about it. 

--It was evening, and I was going to the sick-chamber. As I paused atthe door before entering, I heard a sweet voice singing. It was not thewild melody I had sometimes heard at midnight:--no, this was the voiceof Iris, and I could distinguish every word. I had seen the verses inher book; the melody was new to me. Let me finish my page with them. 

 HYMN OF TRUST. 

 O Love Divine, that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, On Thee we cast each earthborn care, We smile at pain while Thou art near!

 Though long the weary way we tread, And sorrow crown each lingering year, No path we shun, no darkness dread, Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near!

 When drooping pleasure turns to grief, And trembling faith is changed to fear, The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf Shall softly tell us, Thou art near!

 On Thee we fling our burdening woe, O Love Divine, forever dear, Content to suffer, while we know, Living and dying, Thou art near!

XII

A young fellow, born of good stock, in one of the more thoroughlycivilized portions of these United States of America, bred in goodprinciples, inheriting a social position which makes him at his easeeverywhere, means sufficient to educate him thoroughly without takingaway the stimulus to vigorous exertion, and with a good opening in somehonorable path of labor, is the finest sight our private satellite hashad the opportunity of inspecting on the planet to which she belongs. Insome respects it was better to be a young Greek. If we may trust the oldmarbles, my friend with his arm stretched over my head, above there, (inplaster of Paris, ) or the discobolus, whom one may see at the principalsculpture gallery of this metropolis, --those Greek young men wereof supreme beauty. Their close curls, their elegantly set heads, column-like necks, straight noses, short, curled lips, firm chins, deep chests, light flanks, large muscles, small joints, were finer thananything we ever see. It may well be questioned whether the human shapewill ever present itself again in a race of such perfect symmetry. Butthe life of the youthful Greek was local, not planetary, like that ofthe young American. He had a string of legends, in place of our Gospels. He had no printed books, no newspaper, no steam caravans, no forks, nosoap, none of the thousand cheap conveniences which have become mattersof necessity to our modern civilization. Above all things, if he aspiredto know as well as to enjoy, he found knowledge not diffused everywhereabout him, so that a day's labor would buy him more wisdom than ayear could master, but held in private hands, hoarded in preciousmanuscripts, to be sought for only as gold is sought in narrow fissures, and in the beds of brawling streams. Never, since man came into thisatmosphere of oxygen and azote, was there anything like the condition ofthe young American of the nineteenth century. Having in possession or inprospect the best part of half a world, with all its climates and soilsto choose from; equipped with wings of fire and smoke than fly withhim day and night, so that he counts his journey not in miles, but indegrees, and sees the seasons change as the wild fowl sees them in hisannual flights; with huge leviathans always ready to take him on theirbroad backs and push behind them with their pectoral or caudal fins thewaters that seam the continent or separate the hemispheres; heir of allold civilizations, founder of that new one which, if all the propheciesof the human heart are not lies, is to be the noblest, as it is thelast; isolated in space from the races that are governed by dynastieswhose divine right grows out of human wrong, yet knit into the mostabsolute solidarity with mankind of all times and places by the onegreat thought he inherits as his national birthright; free to form andexpress his opinions on almost every subject, and assured that he willsoon acquire the last franchise which men withhold from man, --thatof stating the laws of his spiritual being and the beliefs he acceptswithout hindrance except from clearer views of truth, --he seems to wantnothing for a large, wholesome, noble, beneficent life. In fact, thechief danger is that he will think the whole planet is made for him, and forget that there are some possibilities left in the debris of theold-world civilization which deserve a certain respectful considerationat his hands. 

The combing and clipping of this shaggy wild continent are in somemeasure done for him by those who have gone before. Society hassubdivided itself enough to have a place for every form of talent. Thus, if a man show the least sign of ability as a sculptor or a painter, forinstance, he finds the means of education and a demand for his services. Even a man who knows nothing but science will be provided for, ifhe does not think it necessary to hang about his birthplace all hisdays, --which is a most unAmerican weakness. The apron-strings of anAmerican mother are made of India-rubber. Her boy belongs where he iswanted; and that young Marylander of ours spoke for all our young men, when he said that his home was wherever the stars and stripes blew overhis head. 

And that leads me to say a few words of this young gentleman, whomade that audacious movement lately which I chronicled in my lastrecord, --jumping over the seats of I don't know how many boarders toput himself in the place which the Little Gentleman's absence had leftvacant at the side of Iris. When a young man is found habitually at theside of any one given young lady, --when he lingers where she stays, andhastens when she leaves, --when his eyes follow her as she moves and restupon her when she is still, --when he begins to grow a little timid, he who was so bold, and a little pensive, he who was so gay, wheneveraccident finds them alone, --when he thinks very often of the given younglady, and names her very seldom, --

What do you say about it, my charming young expert in that sweet sciencein which, perhaps, a long experience is not the first of qualifications?

--But we don't know anything about this young man, except that he isgood-looking, and somewhat high-spirited, and strong-limbed, and has agenerous style of nature, --all very promising, but by no means provingthat he is a proper lover for Iris, whose heart we turned inside outwhen we opened that sealed book of hers. 

Ah, my dear young friend! When your mamma then, if you will believe it, a very slight young lady, with very pretty hair and figure--came andtold her mamma that your papa had--had--asked No, no, no! she could n'tsay it; but her mother--oh the depth of maternal sagacity!--guessed itall without another word!--When your mother, I say, came and told hermother she was engaged, and your grandmother told your grandfather, howmuch did they know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman to whomshe had pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how muchyour respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature ofyour respected papa, though, if we should compare a younggirl's man-as-she-thinks-him with a forty-summered matron'sman-as-she-finds-him, I have my doubts as to whether the second would bea facsimile of the first in most cases. 

The idea that in this world each young person is to wait until he or shefinds that precise counterpart who alone of all creation was meant forhim or her, and then fall instantly in love with it, is pretty enough, only it is not Nature's way. It is not at all essential that all pairsof human beings should be, as we sometimes say of particular couples, "born for each other. " Sometimes a man or a woman is made a great dealbetter and happier in the end for having had to conquer the faults ofthe one beloved, and make the fitness not found at first, by gradualassimilation. There is a class of good women who have no right to marryperfectly good men, because they have the power of saving those whowould go to ruin but for the guiding providence of a good wife. I haveknown many such cases. It is the most momentous question a woman isever called upon to decide, whether the faults of the man she loves arebeyond remedy and will drag her down, or whether she is competent to behis earthly redeemer and lift him to her own level. 

A person of genius should marry a person of character. Genius does notherd with genius. The musk-deer and the civet-cat are never found incompany. They don't care for strange scents, --they like plain animalsbetter than perfumed ones. Nay, if you will have the kindness to notice, Nature has not gifted my lady musk-deer with the personal peculiarity bywhich her lord is so widely known. 

Now when genius allies itself with character, the world is very apt tothink character has the best of the bargain. A brilliant woman marries aplain, manly fellow, with a simple intellectual mechanism;--we have allseen such cases. The world often stares a good deal and wonders. Sheshould have taken that other, with a far more complex mental machinery. She might have had a watch with the philosophical compensation-balance, with the metaphysical index which can split a second into tenths, withthe musical chime which can turn every quarter of an hour into melody. She has chosen a plain one, that keeps good time, and that is all. 

Let her alone! She knows what she is about. Genius has an infinitelydeeper reverence for character than character can have for genius. Tobe sure, genius gets the world's praise, because its work is a tangibleproduct, to be bought, or had for nothing. It bribes the common voice topraise it by presents of speeches, poems, statues, pictures, or whateverit can please with. Character evolves its best products for homeconsumption; but, mind you, it takes a deal more to feed a family forthirty years than to make a holiday feast for our neighbors once ortwice in our lives. You talk of the fire of genius. Many a blessedwoman, who dies unsung and unremembered, has given out more of the realvital heat that keeps the life in human souls, without a spark flittingthrough her humble chimney to tell the world about it, than would set adozen theories smoking, or a hundred odes simmering, in the brains ofso many men of genius. It is in latent caloric, if I may borrow aphilosophical expression, that many of the noblest hearts give out thelife that warms them. Cornelia's lips grow white, and her pulse hardlywarms her thin fingers, --but she has melted all the ice out of thehearts of those young Gracchi, and her lost heat is in the blood of heryouthful heroes. We are always valuing the soul's temperature by thethermometer of public deed or word. Yet the great sun himself, when hepours his noonday beams upon some vast hyaline boulder, rent from theeternal ice-quarries, and floating toward the tropics, never warms ita fraction above the thirty-two degrees of Fahrenheit that marked themoment when the first drop trickled down its side. 

How we all like the spirting up of a fountain, seemingly against the lawthat makes water everywhere slide, roll, leap, tumble headlong, toget as low as the earth will let it! That is genius. But what is thistransient upward movement, which gives us the glitter and the rainbow, to that unsleeping, all-present force of gravity, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, (if the universe be eternal, )--the great outspreadhand of God himself, forcing all things down into their places, andkeeping them there? Such, in smaller proportion, is the force ofcharacter to the fitful movements of genius, as they are or have beenlinked to each other in many a household, where one name was historic, and the other, let me say the nobler, unknown, save by some faintreflected ray, borrowed from its lustrous companion. 

Oftentimes, as I have lain swinging on the water, in the swell of theChelsea ferry-boats, in that long, sharp-pointed, black cradle in whichI love to let the great mother rock me, I have seen a tall ship glide byagainst the tide, as if drawn by some invisible towline, with a hundredstrong arms pulling it. Her sails hung unfilled, her streamers weredrooping, she had neither side-wheel nor stern-wheel; still she movedon, stately, in serene triumph, as if with her own life. But I knew thaton the other side of the ship, hidden beneath the great hulk that swamso majestically, there was a little toiling steam-tug, with heart offire and arms of iron, that was hugging it close and dragging it bravelyon; and I knew, that, if the little steam-tug untwined her arms andleft the tall ship, it would wallow and roll about, and drift hither andthither, and go off with the refluent tide, no man knows whither. Andso I have known more than one genius, high-decked, full-freighted, wide-sailed, gay-pennoned, that, but for the bare toiling arms, andbrave, warm, beating heart of the faithful little wife, that nestledclose in his shadow, and clung to him, so that no wind or wave couldpart them, and dragged him on against all the tide of circumstance, would soon have gone down the stream and been heard of no more. --No, I am too much a lover of genius, I sometimes think, and too often getimpatient with dull people, so that, in their weak talk, where nothingis taken for granted, I look forward to some future possible state ofdevelopment, when a gesture passing between a beatified human soul andan archangel shall signify as much as the complete history of a planet, from the time when it curdled to the time when its sun was burned out. And yet, when a strong brain is weighed with a true heart, it seems tome like balancing a bubble against a wedge of gold. 

--It takes a very true man to be a fitting companion for a woman ofgenius, but not a very great one. I am not sure that she will notembroider her ideal better on a plain ground than on one with abrilliant pattern already worked in its texture. But as the very essenceof genius is truthfulness, contact with realities, (which are alwaysideas behind shows of form or language, ) nothing is so contemptibleas falsehood and pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to find aperfectly true woman, and it is very hard to find a perfectly true man. And a woman of genius, who has the sagacity to choose such a one as hercompanion, shows more of the divine gift in so doing than in her finesttalk or her most brilliant work of letters or of art. 

I have been a good while coming at a secret, for which I wished toprepare you before telling it. I think there is a kindly feeling growingup between Iris and our young Marylander. Not that I suppose there isany distinct understanding between them, but that the affinity which hasdrawn him from the remote corner where he sat to the side of the younggirl is quietly bringing their two natures together. Just now she is allgiven up to another; but when he no longer calls upon her daily thoughtsand cares, I warn you not to be surprised, if this bud of friendshipopen like the evening primrose, with a sound as of a sudden stolen kiss, and lo! the flower of full-blown love lies unfolded before you. 

And now the days had come for our little friend, whose whims andweaknesses had interested us, perhaps, as much as his better traits, tomake ready for that long journey which is easier to the cripple thanto the strong man, and on which none enters so willingly as he who hasborne the life-long load of infirmity during his earthly pilgrimage. Atthis point, under most circumstances, I would close the doors and drawthe veil of privacy before the chamber where the birth which we calldeath, out of life into the unknown world, is working its mystery. Butthis friend of ours stood alone in the world, and, as the last act ofhis life was mainly in harmony with the rest of its drama, I do not herefeel the force of the objection commonly lying against that death-bedliterature which forms the staple of a certain portion of the press. Letme explain what I mean, so that my readers may think for themselves alittle, before they accuse me of hasty expressions. 

The Roman Catholic Church has certain formulas for its dying children, to which almost all of them attach the greatest importance. There ishardly a criminal so abandoned that he is not anxious to receive the"consolations of religion" in his last hours. Even if he be senseless, but still living, I think that the form is gone through with, just asbaptism is administered to the unconscious new-born child. Now we do notquarrel with these forms. We look with reverence and affection upon allsymbols which give peace and comfort to our fellow-creatures. But thevalue of the new-born child's passive consent to the ceremony is null, as testimony to the truth of a doctrine. The automatic closing of adying man's lips on the consecrated wafer proves nothing in favor of theReal Presence, or any other dogma. And, speaking generally, the evidenceof dying men in favor of any belief is to be received with greatcaution. 

They commonly tell the truth about their present feelings, no doubt. Adying man's deposition about anything he knows is good evidence. Butit is of much less consequence what a man thinks and says when he ischanged by pain, weakness, apprehension, than what he thinks when he istruly and wholly himself. Most murderers die in a very pious frame ofmind, expecting to go to glory at once; yet no man believes he shallmeet a larger average of pirates and cut-throats in the streets of theNew Jerusalem than of honest folks that died in their beds. 

Unfortunately, there has been a very great tendency to make capital ofvarious kinds out of dying men's speeches. The lies that have been putinto their mouths for this purpose are endless. The prime minister, whose last breath was spent in scolding his nurse, dies with amagnificent apothegm on his lips, manufactured by a reporter. Addisongets up a tableau and utters an admirable sentiment, --or somebody makesthe posthumous dying epigram for him. The incoherent babble of greenfields is translated into the language of stately sentiment. One wouldthink, all that dying men had to do was to say the prettiest thingthey could, --to make their rhetorical point, --and then bow themselvespolitely out of the world. 

Worse than this is the torturing of dying people to get their evidencein favor of this or that favorite belief. The camp-followers ofproselyting sects have come in at the close of every life where theycould get in, to strip the languishing soul of its thoughts, and carrythem off as spoils. The Roman Catholic or other priest who insists onthe reception of his formula means kindly, we trust, and very commonlysucceeds in getting the acquiescence of the subject of his spiritualsurgery, but do not let us take the testimony of people who are in theworst condition to form opinions as evidence of the truth or falsehoodof that which they accept. A lame man's opinion of dancing is not goodfor much. A poor fellow who can neither eat nor drink, who is sleeplessand full of pains, whose flesh has wasted from him, whose blood is likewater, who is gasping for breath, is not in a condition to judge fairlyof human life, which in all its main adjustments is intended for men ina normal, healthy condition. It is a remark I have heard from the wisePatriarch of the Medical Profession among us, that the moral conditionof patients with disease above the great breathing-muscle, thediaphragm, is much more hopeful than that of patients with disease belowit, in the digestive organs. Many an honest ignorant man has givenus pathology when he thought he was giving us psychology. Withthis preliminary caution I shall proceed to the story of the LittleGentleman's leaving us. 

When the divinity-student found that our fellow-boarder was not likelyto remain long with us, he, being a young man of tender conscienceand kindly nature, was not a little exercised on his behalf. It wasundeniable that on several occasions the Little Gentleman had expressedhimself with a good deal of freedom on a class of subjects which, according to the divinity-student, he had no right to form an opinionupon. He therefore considered his future welfare in jeopardy. 

The Muggletonian sect have a very odd way of dealing with people. IfI, the Professor, will only give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, thereshall be no question through all that persuasion that I am competent tojudge of that doctrine; nay, I shall be quoted as evidence of its truth, while I live, and cited, after I am dead, as testimony in its behalf. But if I utter any ever so slight Anti-Muggletonian sentiment, then Ibecome incompetent to form any opinion on the matter. This, you cannotfail to observe, is exactly the way the pseudo-sciences go to work, as explained in my Lecture on Phrenology. Now I hold that he whosetestimony would be accepted in behalf of the Muggletonian doctrine has aright to be heard against it. Whoso offers me any article of belief formy signature implies that I am competent to form an opinion upon it; andif my positive testimony in its favor is of any value, then my negativetestimony against it is also of value. 

I thought my young friend's attitude was a little too much like that ofthe Muggletonians. I also remarked a singular timidity on his partlest somebody should "unsettle" somebody's faith, --as if faith did notrequire exercise as much as any other living thing, and were not all thebetter for a shaking up now and then. I don't mean that it would be fairto bother Bridget, the wild Irish girl, or Joice Heth, the centenarian, or any other intellectual non-combatant; but all persons who proclaim abelief which passes judgment on their neighbors must be ready to have it"unsettled, " that is, questioned, at all times and by anybody, --justas those who set up bars across a thoroughfare must expect to have themtaken down by every one who wants to pass, if he is strong enough. 

Besides, to think of trying to water-proof the American mind against thequestions that Heaven rains down upon it shows a misapprehension of ournew conditions. If to question everything be unlawful and dangerous, wehad better undeclare our independence at once; for what the Declarationmeans is the right to question everything, even the truth of its ownfundamental proposition. 

The old-world order of things is an arrangement of locks and canals, where everything depends on keeping the gates shut, and so holdingthe upper waters at their level; but the system under which the youngrepublican American is born trusts the whole unimpeded tide of lifeto the great elemental influences, as the vast rivers of the continentsettle their own level in obedience to the laws that govern the planetand the spheres that surround it. 

The divinity-student was not quite up to the idea of the commonwealth, as our young friend the Marylander, for instance, understood it. Hecould not get rid of that notion of private property in truth, with theright to fence it in, and put up a sign-board, thus:

 ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED OFF THESE GROUNDS!

He took the young Marylander to task for going to the Church of theGalileans, where he had several times accompanied Iris of late. 

I am a Churchman, --the young man said, --by education and habit. I lovemy old Church for many reasons, but most of all because I think ithas educated me out of its own forms into the spirit of its highestteachings. I think I belong to the "Broad Church, " if any of you cantell what that means. 

I had the rashness to attempt to answer the question myself. --Somesay the Broad Church means the collective mass of good people of alldenominations. Others say that such a definition is nonsense; thata church is an organization, and the scattered good folks are noorganization at all. They think that men will eventually come togetheron the basis of one or two or more common articles of belief, and forma great unity. Do they see what this amounts to? It means an equaldivision of intellect! It is mental agrarianism! a thing that neverwas and never will be until national and individual idiosyncrasies haveceased to exist. The man of thirty-nine beliefs holds the man of onebelief a pauper; he is not going to give up thirty-eight of them forthe sake of fraternizing with the other in the temple which bears onits front, "Deo erexit Voltaire. " A church is a garden, I have heard itsaid, and the illustration was neatly handled. Yes, and there is no suchthing as a broad garden. It must be fenced in, and whatever is fenced inis narrow. You cannot have arctic and tropical plants growing togetherin it, except by the forcing system, which is a mighty narrow piece ofbusiness. You can't make a village or a parish or a family think alike, yet you suppose that you can make a world pinch its beliefs or padthem to a single pattern! Why, the very life of an ecclesiasticalorganization is a life of induction, a state of perpetually disturbedequilibrium kept up by another charged body in the neighborhood. If thetwo bodies touch and share their respective charges, down goes the indexof the electrometer!

Do you know that every man has a religious belief peculiar to himself?Smith is always a Smithite. He takes in exactly Smith's-worth ofknowledge, Smith's-worth of truth, of beauty, of divinity. And Brown hasfrom time immemorial been trying to burn him, to excommunicate him, to anonymous-article him, because he did not take in Brown's-worth ofknowledge, truth, beauty, divinity. He cannot do it, any more than apint-pot can hold a quart, or a quart-pot be filled by a pint. Iron isessentially the same everywhere and always; but the sulphate of iron isnever the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is invariable; but theSmithate of truth must always differ from the Brownate of truth. 

The wider the intellect, the larger and simpler the expressions in whichits knowledge is embodied. The inferior race, the degraded and enslavedpeople, the small-minded individual, live in the details which to largerminds and more advanced tribes of men reduce themselves to axioms andlaws. As races and individual minds must always differ just as sulphatesand carbonates do, I cannot see ground for expecting the Broad Churchto be founded on any fusion of intellectual beliefs, which of courseimplies that those who hold the larger number of doctrines as essentialshall come down to those who hold the smaller number. These doctrinesare to the negative aristocracy what the quarterings of their coats areto the positive orders of nobility. 

The Broad Church, I think, will never be based on anything that requiresthe use of language. Freemasonry gives an idea of such a church, and abrother is known and cared for in a strange land where no word ofhis can be understood. The apostle of this church may be a deaf mutecarrying a cup of cold water to a thirsting fellow-creature. The cupof cold water does not require to be translated for a foreigner tounderstand it. I am afraid the only Broad Church possible is one thathas its creed in the heart, and not in the head, --that we shall knowits members by their fruits, and not by their words. If you say thiscommunion of well-doers is no church, I can only answer, that allorganized bodies have their limits of size, and that when we find a mana hundred feet high and thirty feet broad across the shoulders, we willlook out for an organization that shall include all Christendom. 

Some of us do practically recognize a Broad Church and a Narrow Church, however. The Narrow Church may be seen in the ship's boats of humanity, in the long boat, in the jolly boat, in the captain's gig, lying off thepoor old vessel, thanking God that they are safe, and reckoning how soonthe hulk containing the mass of their fellow-creatures will go down. TheBroad Church is on board, working hard at the pumps, and very slow tobelieve that the ship will be swallowed up with so many poor people init, fastened down under the hatches ever since it floated. 

--All this, of course, was nothing but my poor notion about thesematters. I am simply an "outsider, " you know; only it doesn't do verywell for a nest of Hingham boxes to talk too much about outsiders andinsiders!

After this talk of ours, I think these two young people went prettyregularly to the Church of the Galileans. Still they could not keep awayfrom the sweet harmonies and rhythmic litanies of Saint Polycarp on thegreat Church festival-days; so that, between the two, they were so muchtogether, that the boarders began to make remarks, and our landlady saidto me, one day, that, though it was noon of her business, them that hadeyes couldn't help seein' that there was somethin' goin', on betweenthem two young people; she thought the young man was a very likely youngman, though jest what his prospecs was was unbeknown to her; but shethought he must be doing well, and rather guessed he would be ableto take care of a femily, if he didn't go to takin' a house; for agentleman and his wife could board a great deal cheaper than they couldkeep house;--but then that girl was nothin' but a child, and wouldn'tthink of bein' married this five year. They was good boarders, both of'em, paid regular, and was as pooty a couple as she ever laid eyes on. 

--To come back to what I began to speak of before, --the divinity-studentwas exercised in his mind about the Little Gentleman, and, in thekindness of his heart, --for he was a good young man, --and in thestrength of his convictions, --for he took it for granted that he andhis crowd were right, and other folks and their crowd were wrong, --hedetermined to bring the Little Gentleman round to his faith before hedied, if he could. So he sent word to the sick man, that he should bepleased to visit him and have some conversation with him; and receivedfor answer that he would be welcome. 

The divinity-student made him a visit, therefore and had a somewhatremarkable interview with him, which I shall briefly relate, withoutattempting to justify the positions taken by the Little Gentleman. Hefound him weak, but calm. Iris sat silent by his pillow. 

After the usual preliminaries, the divinity-student said; in a kind way, that he was sorry to find him in failing health, that he felt concernedfor his soul, and was anxious to assist him in making preparations forthe great change awaiting him. 

I thank you, Sir, --said the Little Gentleman, permit me to ask you, whatmakes you think I am not ready for it, Sir, and that you can do anythingto help me, Sir?

I address you only as a fellow-man, --said the divinity-student, --andtherefore a fellow-sinner. 

I am not a man, Sir!--said the Little Gentleman. --I was born into thisworld the wreck of a man, and I shall not be judged with a race towhich I do not belong. Look at this!--he said, and held up his witheredarm. --See there!--and he pointed to his misshapen extremities. --Lay yourhand here!--and he laid his own on the region of his misplaced heart. --Ihave known nothing of the life of your race. When I first came to myconsciousness, I found myself an object of pity, or a sight to show. Thefirst strange child I ever remember hid its face and would not come nearme. I was a broken-hearted as well as broken-bodied boy. I grew into theemotions of ripening youth, and all that I could have loved shrank frommy presence. I became a man in years, and had nothing in common withmanhood but its longings. My life is the dying pang of a worn-out race, and I shall go down alone into the dust, out of this world of men andwomen, without ever knowing the fellowship of the one or the love of theother. I will not die with a lie rattling in my throat. If anotherstate of being has anything worse in store for me, I have had a longapprenticeship to give me strength that I may bear it. I don't believeit, Sir! I have too much faith for that. God has not left me whollywithout comfort, even here. I love this old place where I was born;--theheart of the world beats under the three hills of Boston, Sir! I lovethis great land, with so many tall men in it, and so many good, noblewomen. --His eyes turned to the silent figure by his pillow. --I havelearned to accept meekly what has been allotted to me, but I cannothonestly say that I think my sin has been greater than my suffering. Ibear the ignorance and the evil-doing of whole generations in my singleperson. I never drew a breath of air nor took a step that was not apunishment for another's fault. I may have had many wrong thoughts, butI cannot have done many wrong deeds, --for my cage has been a narrow one, and I have paced it alone. I have looked through the bars and seen thegreat world of men busy and happy, but I had no part in their doings. I have known what it was to dream of the great passions; but sincemy mother kissed me before she died, no woman's lips have pressed mycheek, --nor ever will. 

--The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden film, and almost withouta thought, but with a warm human instinct that rushed up into herface with her heart's blood, she bent over and kissed him. It was thesacrament that washed out the memory of long years of bitterness, and Ishould hold it an unworthy thought to defend her. The Little Gentlemanrepaid her with the only tear any of us ever saw him shed. 

The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turning away from thesick man, walked to the other side of the room, where he bowed his headand was still. All the questions he had meant to ask had faded fromhis memory. The tests he had prepared by which to judge of hisfellow-creature's fitness for heaven seemed to have lost their virtue. He could trust the crippled child of sorrow to the Infinite Parent. The kiss of the fair-haired girl had been like a sign from heaven, thatangels watched over him whom he was presuming but a moment before tosummon before the tribunal of his private judgment. Shall I pray withyou?--he said, after a pause. A little before he would have said, ShallI pray for you?--The Christian religion, as taught by its Founder, isfull of sentiment. So we must not blame the divinity-student, if he wasovercome by those yearnings of human sympathy which predominate somuch more in the sermons of the Master than in the writings of hissuccessors, and which have made the parable of the Prodigal Son theconsolation of mankind, as it has been the stumbling-block of allexclusive doctrines. 

Pray!--said the Little Gentleman. 

The divinity-student prayed, in low, tender tones, Iris and the Little Gentleman that God would look on his servant lyinghelpless at the feet of his mercy; that He would remember his long yearsof bondage in the flesh; that He would deal gently with the bruisedreed. Thou hast visited the sins of the fathers upon this their child. Oh, turn away from him the penalties of his own transgressions! Thouhast laid upon him, from infancy, the cross which thy stronger childrenare called upon to take up; and now that he is fainting under it, beThou his stay, and do Thou succor him that is tempted! Let his manifoldinfirmities come between him and Thy judgment; in wrath remember mercy!If his eyes are not opened to all Thy truth, let Thy compassion lightenthe darkness that rests upon him, even as it came through the word ofthy Son to blind Bartimeus, who sat by the wayside, begging!

Many more petitions he uttered, but all in the same subdued toneof tenderness. In the presence of helpless suffering, and in thefast-darkening shadow of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christianhumanity, and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than making aproselyte of him. 

This was the last prayer to which the Little Gentleman ever listened. Some change was rapidly coming over him during this last hour of whichI have been speaking. The excitement of pleading his cause before hisself-elected spiritual adviser, --the emotion which overcame him, whenthe young girl obeyed the sudden impulse of her feelings and pressedher lips to his cheek, --the thoughts that mastered him while thedivinity-student poured out his soul for him in prayer, might well hurryon the inevitable moment. When the divinity-student had uttered his lastpetition, commending him to the Father through his Son's intercession, he turned to look upon him before leaving his chamber. His face waschanged. --There is a language of the human countenance which we allunderstand without an interpreter, though the lineaments belong to therudest savage that ever stammered in an unknown barbaric dialect. By thestillness of the sharpened features, by the blankness of the tearlesseyes, by the fixedness of the smileless mouth, by the deadening tints, by the contracted brow, by the dilating nostril, we know that the soulis soon to leave its mortal tenement, and is already closing up itswindows and putting out its fires. --Such was the aspect of the faceupon which the divinity-student looked, after the brief silence whichfollowed his prayer. The change had been rapid, though not that abruptone which is liable to happen at any moment in these cases. --The sickman looked towards him. --Farewell, --he said, --I thank you. Leave mealone with her. 

When the divinity-student had gone, and the Little Gentleman foundhimself alone with Iris, he lifted his hand to his neck, and took fromit, suspended by a slender chain, a quaint, antique-looking key, --thesame key I had once seen him holding. He gave this to her, and pointedto a carved cabinet opposite his bed, one of those that had so attractedmy curious eyes and set me wondering as to what it might contain. 

Open it, --he said, --and light the lamp. --The young girl walked to thecabinet and unlocked the door. A deep recess appeared, lined with blackvelvet, against which stood in white relief an ivory crucifix. A silverlamp hung over it. She lighted the lamp and came back to the bedside. The dying man fixed his eyes upon the figure of the dying Saviour. --Giveme your hand, he said; and Iris placed her right hand in his left. Sothey remained, until presently his eyes lost their meaning, though theystill remained vacantly fixed upon the white image. Yet he held theyoung girl's hand firmly, as if it were leading him through somedeep-shadowed valley and it was all he could cling to. But presently aninvoluntary muscular contraction stole over him, and his terrible dyinggrasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an engine of torture. She pressed her lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand heldher tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingerswould be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tortures of theInquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir from her place. Then, in her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dyingfigure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet and side andlacerated forehead, she felt that she also must suffer uncomplaining. In the moment of her sharpest pain she did not forget the duties ofher under office, but dried the dying man's moist forehead with herhandkerchief, even while the dews of agony were glistening on her own. How long this lasted she never could tell. Time and thirst are twothings you and I talk about; but the victims whom holy men and righteousjudges used to stretch on their engines knew better what they meant thanyou or I!--What is that great bucket of water for? said the Marchionessde Brinvilliers, before she was placed on the rack. --For you todrink, --said the torturer to the little woman. --She could not think thatit would take such a flood to quench the fire in her and so keep heralive for her confession. The torturer knew better than she. 

After a time not to be counted in minutes, as the clock measures, --without any warning, --there came a swift change of his features; hisface turned white, as the waters whiten when a sudden breath passes overtheir still surface; the muscles instantly relaxed, and Iris, releasedat once from her care for the sufferer and from his unconscious grasp, fell senseless, with a feeble cry, --the only utterance of her longagony. 

Perhaps you sometimes wander in through the iron gates of the Copp'sHill burial-ground. You love to stroll round among the graves that crowdeach other in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. Youlove to lean on the freestone slab which lies over the bones of theMathers, --to read the epitaph of stout William Clark, "Despiser of SorryPersons and little Actions, "--to stand by the stone grave of sturdyDaniel Malcolm and look upon the splintered slab that tells the oldrebel's story, --to kneel by the triple stone that says how the threeWorthylakes, father, mother, and young daughter, died on the same dayand lie buried there; a mystery; the subject of a moving ballad, by thelate BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, as may be seen in his autobiography, which willexplain the secret of the triple gravestone; though the old philosopherhas made a mistake, unless the stone is wrong. 

Not very far from that you will find a fair mound, of dimensions fitto hold a well-grown man. I will not tell you the inscription upon thestone which stands at its head; for I do not wish you to be sure of theresting-place of one who could not bear to think that he should be knownas a cripple among the dead, after being pointed at so long among theliving. There is one sign, it is true, by which, if you have been asagacious reader of these papers, you will at once know it; but I fearyou read carelessly, and must study them more diligently before you willdetect the hint to which I allude. 

The Little Gentleman lies where he longed to lie, among the oldnames and the old bones of the old Boston people. At the foot of hisresting-place is the river, alive with the wings and antennae of itscolossal water-insects; over opposite are the great war-ships, and theheavy guns, which, when they roar, shake the soil in which he lies; andin the steeple of Christ Church, hard by, are the sweet chimes which arethe Boston boy's Ranz des Vaches, whose echoes follow him all the worldover. 

 In Pace!

I, told you a good while ago that the Little Gentleman could not do abetter thing than to leave all his money, whatever it might be, to theyoung girl who has since that established such a claim upon him. He didnot, however. A considerable bequest to one of our public institutionskeeps his name in grateful remembrance. The telescope through which hewas fond of watching the heavenly bodies, and the movements of which hadbeen the source of such odd fancies on my part, is now the property of aWestern College. You smile as you think of my taking it for a fleshlesshuman figure, when I saw its tube pointing to the sky, and thought itwas an arm, under the white drapery thrown over it for protection. So doI smile now; I belong to the numerous class who are prophets after thefact, and hold my nightmares very cheap by daylight. 

I have received many letters of inquiry as to the sound resembling awoman's voice, which occasioned me so many perplexities. Some thoughtthere was no question that he had a second apartment, in which he hadmade an asylum for a deranged female relative. Others were of opinionthat he was, as I once suggested, a "Bluebeard" with patriarchaltendencies, and I have even been censured for introducing so Oriental anelement into my record of boarding-house experience. 

Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening when I have nothingelse to do, and ask me to play you Tartini's Devil's Sonata on thatextraordinary instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs as oneof the masterpieces of Joseph Guarnerius. The vox humana of the greatHaerlem organ is very lifelike, and the same stop in the organ of theCambridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones for a humanvoice; but I think you never heard anything come so near the cry ofa prima donna as the A string and the E string of this instrument. Asingle fact will illustrate the resemblance. I was executing some toursde force upon it one evening, when the policeman of our district rangthe bell sharply, and asked what was the matter in the house. Hehad heard a woman's screams, --he was sure of it. I had to make theinstrument sing before his eyes before he could be satisfied that he hadnot heard the cries of a woman. The instrument was bequeathed to me bythe Little Gentleman. Whether it had anything to do with the sounds Iheard coming from his chamber, you can form your own opinion;--I have noother conjecture to offer. It is not true that a second apartment witha secret entrance was found; and the story of the veiled lady is theinvention of one of the Reporters. 

Bridget, the housemaid, always insisted that he died a Catholic. She hadseen the crucifix, and believed that he prayed on his knees before it. The last circumstance is very probably true; indeed, there was aspot worn on the carpet just before this cabinet which might be thusaccounted for. Why he, whose whole life was a crucifixion, should notlove to look on that divine image of blameless suffering, I cannot see;on the contrary, it seems to me the most natural thing in the worldthat he should. But there are those who want to make private property ofeverything, and can't make up their minds that people who don't think asthey do should claim any interest in that infinite compassion expressedin the central figure of the Christendom which includes us all. 

The divinity-student expressed a hope before the boarders that he shouldmeet him in heaven. --The question is, whether he'll meet you, --said theyoung fellow John, rather smartly. The divinity-student had n't thoughtof that. 

However, he is a worthy young man, and I trust I have shown him in akindly and respectful light. He will get a parish by-and-by; and, as heis about to marry the sister of an old friend, --the Schoolmistress, whomsome of us remember, --and as all sorts of expensive accidents happento young married ministers, he will be under bonds to the amount of hissalary, which means starvation, if they are forfeited, to think allhis days as he thought when he was settled, --unless the majority ofhis people change with him or in advance of him. A hard ease, to whichnothing could reconcile a man, except that the faithful discharge ofdaily duties in his personal relations with his parishioners will makehim useful enough in his way, though as a thinker he may cease to existbefore he has reached middle age. 

--Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentleman. Although, as Ihave said, he left the bulk of his property, by will, to a publicinstitution, he added a codicil, by which he disposed of various piecesof property as tokens of kind remembrance. It was in this way I becamethe possessor of the wonderful instrument I have spoken of, which hadbeen purchased for him out of an Italian convent. The landlady wascomforted with a small legacy. The following extract relates to Iris:"in consideration of her manifold acts of kindness, but only in tokenof grateful remembrance, and by no means as a reward for services whichcannot be compensated, a certain messuage, with all the land theretoappertaining, situated in ______ Street, at the North End, so called, ofBoston, aforesaid, the same being the house in which I was born, butnow inhabited by several families, and known as 'The Rookery. '" Iris hadalso the crucifix, the portrait, and the red-jewelled ring. The funeralor death's-head ring was buried with him. 

It was a good while, after the Little Gentleman was gone, before ourboarding-house recovered its wonted cheerfulness. There was a flavor inhis whims and local prejudices that we liked, even while we smiledat them. It was hard to see the tall chair thrust away among uselesslumber, to dismantle his room, to take down the picture of Leah, thehandsome Witch of Essex, to move away the massive shelves that held thebooks he loved, to pack up the tube through which he used to study thesilent stars, looking down at him like the eyes of dumb creatures, witha kind of stupid half-consciousness that did not worry him as did theeyes of men and women, --and hardest of all to displace that sacredfigure to which his heart had always turned and found refuge, in thefeelings it inspired, from all the perplexities of his busy brain. Itwas hard, but it had to be done. 

And by-and-by we grew cheerful again, and the breakfast-table woresomething of its old look. The Koh-i-noor, as we named the gentlemanwith the diamond, left us, however, soon after that "little mill, " asthe young fellow John called it, where he came off second best. Hisdeparture was no doubt hastened by a note from the landlady's daughter, inclosing a lock of purple hair which she "had valued as a pledge ofaffection, ere she knew the hollowness of the vows he had breathed, "speedily followed by another, inclosing the landlady's bill. The nextmorning he was missing, as were his limited wardrobe and the trunk thatheld it. Three empty bottles of Mrs. Allen's celebrated preparation, each of them asserting, on its word of honor as a bottle, that itsformer contents were "not a dye, " were all that was left to us of theKoh-i-noor. 

From this time forward, the landlady's daughter manifested a decidedimprovement in her style of carrying herself before the boarders. Sheabolished the odious little flat, gummy side-curl. She left off variousarticles of "jewelry. " She began to help her mother in some of herhousehold duties. She became a regular attendant on the ministrationsof a very worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meetin' bywitnessing a marriage ceremony in which he called a man and a woman a"gentleman" and a "lady, "--a stroke of gentility which quite overcameher. She even took a part in what she called a Sabbath school, thoughit was held on Sunday, and by no means on Saturday, as the name sheintended to utter implied. All this, which was very sincere, as Ibelieve, on her part, and attended with a great improvement in hercharacter, ended in her bringing home a young man, with straight, sandyhair, brushed so as to stand up steeply above his forehead, wearing apair of green spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth. His personalaspect, and a certain solemnity of countenance, led me to think hemust be a clergyman; and as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out beforeseveral of us boarders, one day, that "Sis had got a beau, " I waspleased at the prospect of her becoming a minister's wife. On inquiry, however, I found that the somewhat solemn look which I had noticed wasindeed a professional one, but not clerical. He was a young undertaker, who had just succeeded to a thriving business. Things, I believe, aregoing on well at this time of writing, and I am glad for the landlady'sdaughter and her mother. Sextons and undertakers are the cheerfullestpeople in the world at home, as comedians and circus-clowns are the mostmelancholy in their domestic circle. 

As our old boarding-house is still in existence, I do not feel atliberty to give too minute a statement of the present condition of eachand all of its inmates. I am happy to say, however, that they are allalive and well, up to this time. That amiable old gentleman who satopposite to me is growing older, as old men will, but still smilesbenignantly on all the boarders, and has come to be a kind of father toall of them, --so that on his birthday there is always something likea family festival. The Poor Relation, even, has warmed into a filialfeeling towards him, and on his last birthday made him a beautifulpresent, namely, a very handsomely bound copy of Blair's celebratedpoem, "The Grave. "

The young man John is still, as he says, "in fustrate fettle. " I sawhim spar, not long since, at a private exhibition, and do himself greatcredit in a set-to with Henry Finnegass, Esq. , a professional gentlemanof celebrity. I am pleased to say that he has been promoted to an upperclerkship, and, in consequence of his rise in office, has takenan apartment somewhat lower down than number "forty-'leven, " as hefacetiously called his attic. Whether there is any truth, or not, in thestory of his attachment to, and favorable reception by, the daughter ofthe head of an extensive wholesale grocer's establishment, I will notventure an opinion; I may say, however, that I have met him repeatedlyin company with a very well-nourished and high-colored young lady, who, I understand, is the daughter of the house in question. 

Some of the boarders were of opinion that Iris did not return theundisguised attentions of the handsome young Marylander. Instead offixing her eyes steadily on him, as she used to look upon the LittleGentleman, she would turn them away, as if to avoid his own. They oftenwent to church together, it is true; but nobody, of course, supposesthere is any relation between religious sympathy and those wretched"sentimental" movements of the human heart upon which it is commonlyagreed that nothing better is based than society, civilization, friendship, the relation of husband and wife, and of parent and child, and which many people must think were singularly overrated by theTeacher of Nazareth, whose whole life, as I said before, was full ofsentiment, loving this or that young man, pardoning this or that sinner, weeping over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, blessing, andperhaps kissing, the little children, so that the Gospels are stillcried over almost as often as the last work of fiction!

But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the door of ourboarding-house a hack containing a lady inside and a trunk on theoutside. It was our friend the lady-patroness of Miss Iris, the same whohad been called by her admiring pastor "The Model of all the Virtues. "Once a week she had written a letter, in a rather formal hand, but fullof good advice, to her young charge. And now she had come to carry heraway, thinking that she had learned all she was likely to learnunder her present course of teaching. The Model, however, was to stayawhile, --a week, or more, --before they should leave together. 

Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She was respectful, grateful, as a child is with a just, but not tender parent. Yet something waswrong. She had one of her trances, and became statue-like, as before, only the day after the Model's arrival. She was wan and silent, tastednothing at table, smiled as if by a forced effort, and often lookedvaguely away from those who were looking at her, her eyes just glazedwith the shining moisture of a tear that must not be allowed to gatherand fall. Was it grief at parting from the place where her strangefriendship had grown up with the Little Gentleman? Yet she seemed tohave become reconciled to his loss, and rather to have a deep feeling ofgratitude that she had been permitted to care for him in his last wearydays. 

The Sunday after the Model's arrival, that lady had an attack ofheadache, and was obliged to shut herself up in a darkened room alone. Our two young friends took the opportunity to go together to theChurch of the Galileans. They said but little going, --"collecting theirthoughts" for the service, I devoutly hope. My kind good friend thepastor preached that day one of his sermons that make us all feel likebrothers and sisters, and his text was that affectionate one from John, "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. " When Iris and her friend came out of church, theywere both pale, and walked a space without speaking. 

At last the young man said, --You and I are not little children, Iris!

She looked in his face an instant, as if startled, for there wassomething strange in the tone of his voice. She smiled faintly, butspoke never a word. 

In deed and in truth, Iris, ---

What shall a poor girl say or do, when a strong man falters in hisspeech before her, and can do nothing better than hold out his hand tofinish his broken sentence?

The poor girl said nothing, but quietly laid her ungloved hand inhis, --the little soft white hand which had ministered so tenderly andsuffered so patiently. 

The blood came back to the young man's cheeks, as he lifted it to hislips, even as they walked there in the street, touched it gently withthem, and said, "It is mine!"

Iris did not contradict him. 

The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled to think how muchhas happened since these events I was describing. Those two youngpeople would insist on having their own way about their own affairs, notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the Model, insisted thatthe age of twenty-five years was as early as any discreet young ladyshould think of incurring the responsibilities, etc. , etc. Longbefore Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young Marylandengineer, directing some of the vast constructions of his nativeState, --where he was growing rich fast enough to be able to decline thatfamous Russian offer which would have made him a kind of nabob in afew years. Iris does not write verse often, nowadays, but she sometimesdraws. The last sketch of hers I have seen in my Southern visits was oftwo children, a boy and girl, the youngest holding a silver goblet, like the one she held that evening when I--I was so struck with herstatue-like beauty. If in the later, summer months you find the grassmarked with footsteps around that grave on Copp's Hill I told you of, and flowers scattered over it, you may be sure that Iris is here on herannual visit to the home of her childhood and that excellent lady whoseonly fault was, that Nature had written out her list of virtues an ruledpaper, and forgotten to rub out the lines. 

One thing more I must mention. Being on the Common, last Sunday, Iwas attracted by the cheerful spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhatyouthful papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing a stoutbaby. A buxom young lady watched them from one of the stone seats, with an interest which could be nothing less than maternal. I at oncerecognized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called John. He wasdelighted to see me, introduced me to "Madam, " and would have the lustyinfant out of the carriage, and hold him up for me to look at. 

Now, then, --he said to the two-year-old, --show the gentleman how you hitfrom the shoulder. Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist straightinto my eye, to his father's intense satisfaction. 

Fust-rate little chap, --said the papa. --Chip of the old block. Regl'rlittle Johnny, you know. 

I was so much pleased to find the young fellow settled in life, andpushing about one of "them little articles" he had seemed to want somuch, that I took my "punishment" at the hands of the infant pugilistwith great equanimity. --And how is the old boarding-house?--I asked. 

A 1, --he answered. --Painted and papered as good as new. Gabs in all therooms up to the skyparlors. Old woman's layin' up money, they say. Means to send Ben Franklin to college. Just then the first bell rang forchurch, and my friend, who, I understand, has become a most exemplarymember of society, said he must be off to get ready for meetin', andtold the young one to "shake dada, " which he did with his closed fist, in a somewhat menacing manner. And so the young man John, as we used tocall him, took the pole of the miniature carriage, and pushed the smallpugilist before him homewards, followed, in a somewhat leisurely way, byhis pleasant-looking lady-companion, and I sent a sigh and a smile afterhim. 

That evening, as soon as it was dark, I could not help going round bythe old boarding-house. The "gahs" was lighted, but the curtains, ormore properly, the painted shades; were not down. And so I stood thereand looked in along the table where the boarders sat at the eveningmeal, --our old breakfast-table, which some of us feel as if we knew sowell. There were new faces at it, but also old and familiar ones. --Thelandlady, in a wonderfully smart cap, looking young, comparativelyspeaking, and as if half the wrinkles had been ironed out of herforehead. --Her daughter, in rather dressy half-mourning, with a vastbrooch of jet, got up, apparently, to match the gentleman next her, whowas in black costume and sandy hair, --the last rising straight fromhis forehead, like the marble flame one sometimes sees at the top of afuneral urn. --The Poor Relation, not in absolute black, but in a stuffwith specks of white; as much as to say, that, if there were any moreHirams left to sigh for her, there were pin-holes in the night of herdespair, through which a ray of hope might find its way to an adorer. --Master Benjamin Franklin, grown taller of late, was in the act ofsplitting his face open with a wedge of pie, so that his features wereseen to disadvantage for the moment. --The good old gentleman was sittingstill and thoughtful. All at once he turned his face toward the windowwhere I stood, and, just as if he had seen me, smiled his benignantsmile. It was a recollection of some past pleasant moment; but it fellupon me like the blessing of a father. 

I kissed my hand to them all, unseen as I stood in the outer darkness;and as I turned and went my way, the table and all around it faded intothe realm of twilight shadows and of midnight dreams. 

 --------------

And so my year's record is finished. The Professor has talked less thanhis predecessor, but he has heard and seen more. Thanks to all thosefriends who from time to time have sent their messages of kindlyrecognition and fellow-feeling! Peace to all such as may have beenvexed in spirit by any utterance these pages have repeated! They will, doubtless, forget for the moment the difference in the hues of truth welook at through our human prisms, and join in singing (inwardly) thishymn to the Source of the light we all need to lead us, and the warmthwhich alone can make us all brothers. 

 A SUN-DAY HYMN. 

 Lord of all being! throned afar, Thy glory flames from sun and star, Centre and soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving heart how near!

 Sun of our life, thy quickening ray Sheds on our path the glow of day; Star of our hope, thy softened light Cheers the long watches of the night. 

 Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; Our noontide is thy gracious dawn; Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign; All, save the clouds of sin, are thine!

 Lord of all life, below, above, Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, Before thy ever-blazing throne We ask no lustre of our own. 

 Grant us thy truth to make us free, And kindling hearts that burn for thee, Till all thy living altars claim One holy light, one heavenly flame. One holy light, one heavenly flame.