* * * * *

It is a curious, but certain fact, that clever young men, at that period of their life when their own likings tend towards Veal, know quite well the difference between Veal and Beef, and are quite able, when necessary, to produce the latter. The tendency to boyishness of thought and style may be repressed, when you know you are writing for the perusal of readers with whom that will not go down. A student of twenty, who has in him great talent, no matter how undue a supremacy his imagination may meanwhile have, if he be set to producing an essay in Metaphysics to be read by professors of philosophy, will produce a composition singularly free from any trace of immaturity. For such a clever youth, though he may have a strong bent towards Veal, has in him an instinctive perception that it is Veal, and a keen sense of what will and will not do for the particular readers he has to please. Go, you essayist who carried off a host of university honors, and read over now the prize essays you wrote at twenty-one or twenty-two. I think the thing that will mainly strike you will be, how very mature these compositions are,—how ingenious, how judicious, how free from extravagance, how quietly and accurately and even felicitously expressed. They are not Veal. And yet you know that several years after you wrote them you were still writing a great deal which was Veal beyond all question. But then a clever youth can produce material to any given standard; and you wrote the essays not to suit your own taste, but to suit what you intuitively knew was the taste of the grave and even smoke-dried professors who were to read them and sit in judgment on them.

And though it is very fit and right that the academic standard should be an understood one, and quite different from the popular standard, still it is not enough that a young man should be able to write to a standard against which he in his heart rebels and protests. It is yet more important that you should get him to approve and adopt a standard which is accurate, if not severe. It is quite extraordinary what bombastic and immature sermons are preached in their first years in the Church by young clergymen who wrote many academic compositions in a style the most classical. It seems to be essential that a man of feeling and imagination should be allowed fairly to run himself out. The course apparently is, that the tree should send out its rank shoots, and then that you should prune them, rather than that by some repressive means you should prevent the rank shoots coming forth at all. The way to get a high-spirited horse to be content to stay peaceably in its stall is to allow it to have a tearing gallop, and thus get out its superfluous nervous excitement and vital spirit. Let the boiler blow off its steam. All repression is dangerous. And some injudicious folk, instead of encouraging the highly-charged mind and heart to relieve themselves by blowing off in excited verse and extravagant bombast, would (so to speak) sit on the safety-valve. Let the bursting spring flow! It will run turbid at first; but it will clear itself day by day. Let a young man write a vast deal: the more he writes, the sooner will the Veal be done with. But if a man write very little, the bombast is not blown off; and it may remain till advanced years. It seems as if a certain quantity of fustian must be blown off before you reach the good material. I have heard a mercantile man of fifty read a paper he had written on a social subject. He had written very little save business letters all his life. And I assure you that his paper was bombastic to a degree that you would have said was barely tolerable in a youth of twenty. I have seldom listened to Veal so outrageous. You see he had not worked through it in his youth; and so here it was now. I have witnessed the like phenomenon in a man who went into the Church at five-and-forty. I heard him preach one of his earliest sermons, and I have hardly ever heard such boyish rhodomontade. The imaginations of some men last out in liveliness longer than those of others; and the taste of some men never becomes perfect; and it is no doubt owing to these things that you find some men producing Veal so much later in life than others. You will find men who are very turgid and magniloquent at five-and-thirty, at forty, at fifty. But I attribute the phenomenon in no small measure to the fact that such men had not the opportunity of blowing off their steam in youth. Give a man at four-and-twenty two sermons to write a week, and he will very soon work through his Veal. It is probably because ladies write comparatively so little, that you find them writing at fifty poetry and prose of the most awfully romantic and sentimental strain.

* * * * *

We have been thinking, my friend, as you have doubtless observed, almost exclusively of intellectual and aesthetical immaturity, and of its products in composition, spoken or written. But combining with that immaturity, and going very much to affect the character of that Veal, there is moral immaturity, resulting in views, feelings, and conduct which may be described as Moral Veal. But, indeed, it is very difficult to distinguish between the different kinds of immaturity, and to say exactly what in the moods and doings of youth proceeds from each. It is safest to rest in the general proposition, that, even as the calf yields Veal, so does the immature human mind yield immature productions. It is a stage which you outgrow, and therefore a stage of comparative immaturity, in which you read a vast deal of poetry, and repeat much poetry to yourself when alone, working yourself up thereby to an enthusiastic excitement. And very like a calf you look, when some one suddenly enters the room in which you are wildly gesticulating or moodily laughing, and thinking yourself poetical, and, indeed, sublime. The person probably takes you for a fool; and the best, you can say for yourself is that you are not so great a fool as you seem to be. Vealy is the period of life in which you filled a great volume with the verses you loved, and in which you stored your memory, by frequent reading, with many thousands of lines. All that you outgrow. Fancy a man of fifty having his commonplace book of poetry! And it will be instructive to turn over the ancient volume, and to see how year by year the verses copied grew fewer, and finally ceased entirely. I do not say that all growth is progress: sometimes it is like that of the muscle, which once advanced into manly vigor and usefulness, but is now ossifying into rigidity. It is well to have fancy and feeling under command: it is not well to have feeling and fancy dead. That season of life is Vealy in which you are charmed by the melody of verse, quite apart from its meaning. And there is a season in which that is so. And it is curious to remark what verses they are that have charmed many men; for they are often verses in which no one else could have discerned that singular fascination. You may remember how Robert Burns has recorded that in youth he was enchanted by the melody of two lines of Addison's,—

"For though in dreadful whirls we hung, High on the broken wave."

Sir Walter Scott felt the like fascination in youth (and he tells us it was not entirely gone even in age) in Mickle's stanza,—

"The dews of summer night did fall; The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby."

Not a remarkable verse, I think. However, it at least presents a pleasant picture. But I remember well the enchantment which, when twelve years old, I felt in a verse by Mrs. Hemans, which I can now see presents an excessively disagreeable picture. I saw it not then; and when I used to repeat that verse, I know it was without the slightest perception of its meaning. You know the beautiful poem called the "Battle of Morgarten." At least I remember it as beautiful; and I am not going to spoil my recollection by reading it now. Here is the verse:—

"Oh! the sun in heaven fierce havoc viewed, When the Austrian turned to fly: And the brave, in the trampling multitude, Had a fearful death to die!"

As I write that verse, (at which the critical reader will smile,) I am aware that Veal has its hold of me yet. I see nothing of the miserable scene the poet describes; but I hear the waves murmuring on a distant beach, and I see the hills across the sea, the first sea I ever beheld; I see the school to which I went daily; I see the class-room, and the place where I used to sit; I see the faces and hear the voices of my old companions, some dead, one sleeping in the middle of the great Atlantic, many scattered over distant parts of the world, almost all far away. Yes, I feel that I have not quite cast off the witchery of the "Battle of Morgarten." Early associations can give to verse a charm and a hold upon one's heart which no literary excellence, however high, ever could. Look at the first hymns you learned to repeat, and which you used to say at your mother's knee; look at the psalms and hymns you remember hearing sung at church when you were a child: you know how impossible it is for you to estimate these upon their literary merits. They may be almost doggerel; but not Mr. Tennyson can touch you like them! The most effective eloquence is that which is mainly done by the mind to which it is addressed: it is that which touches chords which of themselves yield matchless music; it is that which wakens up trains of old remembrance, and which wafts around you the fragrance of the hawthorn that blossomed and withered many long years since. An English stranger would not think much of the hymns we sing in our Scotch churches: he could not know what many of them are to us. There is a magic about the words. I can discern, indeed, that some of them are mawkish in sentiment, faulty in rhyme, and, on the whole, what you would call extremely unfitted to be sung in public worship, if you were judging of them as new things: but a crowd of associations which are beautiful and touching gathers round the lines which have no great beauty or pathos in themselves.

You were in an extremely Vealy condition, when, having attained the age of fourteen, you sent some verses to the county newspaper, and with simple-hearted elation read them in the corner devoted to what was termed "Original Poetry." It is a pity you did not preserve the newspapers in which you first saw yourself in print, and experienced the peculiar sensation which accompanies that sight. No doubt your verses expressed the gloomiest views of life, and told of the bitter disappointments you had met in your long intercourse with mankind, and especially with womankind. And though you were in a flutter of anxiety and excitement to see whether or not your verses would be printed, your verses probably declared that you had used up life and seen through it,—that your heart was no longer to be stirred by aught on earth,—and that, in short, you cared nothing for anything. You could see nothing fine then in being good, cheerful, and happy; but you thought it a grand thing to be a gloomy man, of a very dark complexion, with blood on your conscience, upwards of six feet high, and accustomed to wander from land to land, like Childe Harold. You were extremely Vealy when you used to fancy that you were sure to be a very great man, and to think how proud your relations would some day be of you, and how you would come back and excite a great commotion at the place where you used to be a school-boy. And it is because the world has still left some impressionable spot in your hearts, my readers, that you still have so many fond associations with "the school-boy spot we ne'er forget, though we are there forgot." They were Vealy days, though pleasant to remember, my old school-companions, in which you used to go to the dancing-school, (it was in a gloomy theatre, seldom entered by actors,) in which you fell in love with several young ladies about eleven years old, and (being permitted occasionally to select your own partners) made frantic rushes to obtain the hand of one of the beauties of that small society. Those were the days in which you thought, that, when you grew up, it would be a very fine thing to be a pirate, bandit, or corsair, rather than a clergyman, barrister, or the like; even a cheerful outlaw like Robin Hood did not come up to your views; you would rather have been a man like Captain Kyd, stained with various crimes of extreme atrocity, which would entirely preclude the possibility of returning to respectable society, and given to moody laughter in solitary moments. Oh, what truly asinine developments the human being must go through, before arriving at the stage of common sense! You were very Vealy, too, when you used to think it a fine thing to astonish people by expressing awful sentiments,—such as that you thought Mahometans better than Christians, that you would like to be dissected after death, that you did not care what you got for dinner, that you liked learning your lessons better than going out to play, that you would rather read Euclid than "Ivanhoe," and the like. It may be remarked, that this peculiar Vealiness is not confined to youth; I have seen it appearing very strongly in men with gray hair. Another manifestation of Vealiness, which appears both in age and youth, is the entertaining a strong belief that kings, noblemen, and baronets are always in a condition of ecstatic happiness. I have known people pretty far advanced in life, who not only believed that monarchs must be perfectly happy, but that all who were permitted to continue in their presence would catch a considerable degree of the mysterious bliss which was their portion. I have heard a sane man, rather acute and clever in many things, seriously say, "If a man cannot be happy in the presence of his Sovereign, where can he be happy?"

And yet, absurd and foolish as is Moral Vealiness, there is something fine about it. Many of the old and dear associations most cherished in human hearts are of the nature of Veal. It is sad to think that most of the romance of life is unquestionably so. All spooniness, all the preposterous idolization of some one who is just like anybody else, all love, (in the narrow sense in which the word is understood by novel-readers,) you feel, when you look back, are Veal. The young lad and the young girl, whom at a picnic party you have discerned stealing off under frivolous pretexts from the main body of guests, and sitting on the grass by the river-side, enraptured in the prosecution of a conversation which is intellectually of the emptiest, and fancying that they two make all the world, and investing that spot with remembrances which will continue till they are gray, are (it must in sober sadness be admitted) of the nature of calves. For it is beyond doubt that they are at a stage which they will outgrow, and on which they may possibly look back with something of shame. All these things, beautiful as they are, are no more than Veal. Yet they are fitting and excellent in their time. No, let us not call them Veal; they are rather like Lamb, which is excellent, though immature. No doubt, youth is immaturity; and as you outgrow it, you are growing better and wiser: still youth is a fine thing; and most people would be young again, if they could. How cheerful and light-hearted is immaturity! How cheerful and lively are the little children even of silent and gloomy men! It is sad, and it is unnatural, when they are not so. I remember yet, when I was at school, with what interest and wonder I used to look at two or three boys, about twelve or thirteen years old, who were always dull, sullen, and unhappy-looking. In those days, as a general rule, you are never sorrowful without knowing the reason why. You are never conscious of the dull atmosphere, of the gloomy spirits, of after-time. The youthful machine, bodily and mental, plays smoothly; the young being is cheery. Even a kitten is very different from a grave old cat, and a young colt from a horse sobered by the cares and toils of years. And you picture fine things to yourself in your youthful dreams. I remember a beautiful dwelling I used often to see, as if from the brow of a great hill. I see the rich valley below, with magnificent woods and glades, and a broad river reflecting the sunset; and in the midst of the valley, the vast Saracenic pile, with gilded minarets blazing in the golden light. I have since then seen many splendid habitations, but none in the least equal to that. I cannot even yet discard the idea that somewhere in this world there stands that noble palace, and that some day I shall find it out. You remember also the intense delight with which you read the books that charmed you then: how you carried off the poem or the tale to some solitary place,—how you sat up far into the night to read it,—how heartily you believed in all the story, and sympathized with the people it told of. I wish I could feel now the veneration for the man who has written a book which I used once to feel. Oh that one could read the old volumes with the old feeling! Perhaps you have some of them yet, and you remember the peculiar expression of the type in which they were printed: the pages look at you with the face of an old friend. If you were then of an observant nature, you will understand how much of the effect of any composition upon the human mind depends upon the printing, upon the placing of the points, even upon the position of the sentences on the page. A grand, high-flown, and sentimental climax ought always to conclude at the bottom of a page. It will look ridiculous, if it ends four or five lines down from the top of the next page. Somehow there is a feeling as of the difference between the night before and the next morning. It is as though the crushed ball-dress and the dishevelled locks of the close of the evening reappeared, the same, before breakfast. Let us have homely sense at the top of the page, pathos at the foot of it. What a force in the bad type of the shabby little "Childe Harold" you used to read so often! You turn it over in a grand illustrated edition, and it seems like another poem. Let it here be said, that occasionally you look with something like indignation on the volume which enchained you in your boyish days. For now you have burst the chain. And you have somewhat of the feeling of the prisoner towards the jailer who held him in unjust bondage. What right had that bombastic rubbish to touch and thrill you as it used to do? Well, remember that it suits successive generations at their enthusiastic stage. There are poets whose great admirers are for the most part under twenty years old; but probably almost every clever young person regards them at some period in his life as among the noblest of mortals. And it is no ignoble ambition to win the ardent appreciation of even immature tastes and hearts. Its brief endurance is compensated by its intensity. You sit by the fireside and read your leisurely "Times," and you feel a tranquil enjoyment. You like it better than the "Sorrows of Werter," but you do not like it a twentieth part as much as you once liked the "Sorrows of Werter." You would be interested in meeting the man who wrote that brilliant and slashing leader; but you would not regard him with speechless awe, as something more than human. Yet, remembering all the weaknesses out of which men grow, and on which they look back with a smile or sigh, who does not feel that there is a charm which will not depart about early youth? Longfellow knew that he would reach the hearts of most men, when he wrote such a verse as this:—

"The green trees whispered low and mild; It was a sound of joy! They were my playmates when a child, And rocked me in their arms so wild; Still they looked at me and smiled, As if I were a boy!"

Such, readers as are young men will understand what has already been said as to the bitter indignation with which the writer, some years ago, listened to self-conceited elderly persons who put aside the arguments and the doings of younger men with the remark that these younger men were boys. There are few terms of reproach which I have heard uttered with looks of such deadly ferocity. And there are not many which excite feelings of greater wrath in the souls of clever young men. I remember how in those days I determined to write an essay which should scorch up and finally destroy all these carping and malicious critics. It was to be called "A Chapter on Boys." After an introduction of a sarcastic and magnificent character, setting out views substantially the same as those contained in the speech of Lord Chatham in reply to Walpole, which boys are taught to recite at school, that essay was to go on to show that a great part of English literature was written by very young men. Unfortunately, on proceeding to investigate the matter carefully, it appeared that the best part of English literature, even in the range of poetry, was in fact written by men of even more than middle age. So the essay was never finished, though a good deal of it was sketched out. Yesterday I took out the old manuscript; and after reading a bit of it, it appeared so remarkably Vealy, that I put it with indignation into the fire. Still I observed various facts of interest as to great things done by young men, and some by young men who never lived to be old. Beaumont the dramatist died at twenty-nine. Christopher Marlowe wrote "Faustus" at twenty-five, and died at thirty. Sir Philip Sidney wrote his "Arcadia" at twenty-six. Otway wrote "The Orphan" at twenty-eight, and "Venice Preserved" at thirty. Thomson wrote the "Seasons" at twenty-seven. Bishop Berkeley had devised his Ideal System at twenty-nine; and Clarke at the same age published his great work on "The Being and Attributes of God." Then there is Pitt, of course. But these cases are exceptional; and besides, men at twenty-eight and thirty are not in any way to be regarded as boys. What I wanted was proof of the great things that had been done by young fellows about two-and-twenty; and such proof was not to be found. A man is simply a boy grown up to his best; and of course what is done by men must be better than what is done by boys. Unless in very peculiar cases, a man at thirty will be every way superior to what he was at twenty; and at forty to what he was at thirty. Not, indeed, physically,—let that be granted; not always morally; but surely intellectually and aesthetically.

* * * * *

Yes, my readers, we have all been Calves. A great part of all our doings has been, what the writer, in figurative language, has described as Veal. We have not said, written, or done very much on which we can now look back with entire approval; and we have said, written, and done a very great deal on which we cannot look back but with burning shame and confusion. Very many things, which, when we did them, we thought remarkably good, and much better than the doings of ordinary men, we now discern, on calmly looking back, to have been extremely bad. That time, you know, my friend, when you talked in a very fluent and animated manner after dinner at a certain house, and thought you were making a great impression on the assembled guests, most of them entire strangers, you are now fully aware that you were only making a fool of yourself. And let this hint of one public manifestation of Vealiness suffice to suggest to each of us scores of similar cases. But though we feel, in our secret souls, what Calves we have been, and though it is well for us that we should feel it deeply, and thus learn humility and caution, we do not like to be reminded of it by anybody else. Some people have a wonderful memory for the Vealy sayings and doings of their friends. They may be very bad hands at remembering anything else; but they never forget the silly speeches and actions on which one would like to shut down the leaf. You may find people a great part of whose conversation consists of repeating and exaggerating their neighbors' Veal; and though that Veal may be immature enough and silly enough, it will go hard but your friend Mr. Snarling will represent it as a good deal worse than the fact. You will find men, who while at college were students of large ambition, but slender abilities, revenging themselves in this fashion upon the clever men who beat them. It is easy, very easy, to remember foolish things that were said and done even by the senior wrangler or the man who took a double first-class; and candid folk will think that such foolish things were not fair samples of the men,—and will remember, too, that the men have grown out of these, have grown mature and wise, and for many a year past would not have said or done such things. But if you were to judge from the conversation of Mr. Limejuice, (who wrote many prize essays, but, through the malice and stupidity of the judges, never got any prizes,) you would conclude that every word uttered by his successful rivals was one that stamped them as essential fools, and calves which would never grow into oxen. I do not think it is a pleasing or magnanimous feature in any man's character, that he is ever eager to rake up these early follies. I would not be ready to throw in the teeth of a pretty butterfly that it was an ugly caterpillar once, unless I understood that the butterfly liked to remember the fact. I would not suggest to this fair sheet of paper on which I am writing, that not long ago it was dusty rags and afterwards dirty pulp. You cannot be an ox without previously having been a calf; you acquire taste and sense gradually, and in acquiring them you pass through stages in which you have very little of either. It is a poor burden for the memory, to collect and shovel into it the silly sayings and doings in youth of people who have become great and eminent. I read with much disgust a biography of Mr. Disraeli which recorded, no doubt accurately, all the sore points in that statesman's history. I remember with great approval what Lord John Manners said in Parliament in reply to Mr. Bright, who had quoted a well-known and very silly passage from Lord John's early poetry. "I would rather," said Lord John, "have been the man who in his youth wrote those silly verses than the man who in mature years would rake them up." And with even greater indignation I regard the individual who, when a man is doing creditably and Christianly the work of life, is ever ready to relate and aggravate the moral delinquencies of his school-boy and student days, long since repented of and corrected. "Remember not," said a man who knew human nature well, "the sins of my youth." But there are men whose nature has a peculiar affinity for anything petty, mean, and bad. They fly upon it as a vulture on carrion. Their memory is of that cast, that you have only to make inquiry of them concerning any of their friends, to hear of something not at all to the friends' advantage. There are individuals, after listening to whom you think it would be a refreshing novelty, almost startling from its strangeness, to hear them say a word in favor of any human being whatsoever.

It is not a thing peculiar to immaturity; yet it may be remarked, that, though it is an unpleasant thing to look back and see that you have said or done something very foolish, it is a still more unpleasant thing to be well aware at the time that you are saying or doing something very foolish. If a man be a fool at all, it is much to be desired that he should be a very great fool; for then he will not know when he is making a fool of himself. But it is painful not to have sense enough to know what you should do in order to be right, but to have sense enough to know that you are doing wrong. To know that you are talking like an ass, yet to feel that you cannot help it,—that you must say something, and can think of nothing better to say,—this is a suffering that comes with advanced civilization. This is a phenomenon frequently to be seen at public dinners in country towns, also at the entertainment which succeeds a wedding. Men at other times rational seem to be stricken into idiocy when they rise to their feet on such occasions; and the painful fact is, that it is conscious idiocy. The man's words are asinine, and he knows they are asinine. His wits have entirely abandoned him: he is an idiot for the time. Have you sat next a man unused to speaking at a public dinner? have you seen him nervously rise and utter an incoherent, ungrammatical, and unintelligible sentence or two, and then sit down with a ghastly smile? Have you heard him say to his friend on the other side, in bitterness, "I have made a fool of myself"? And have you seen him sit moodily through the remainder of the feast, evidently ruminating on what he said, seeing now what he ought to have said, and trying to persuade himself that what he said was not so bad after all? Would you do a kindness to that miserable man? You have just heard his friend on the other side cordially agreeing with what he had said as to the badness of the appearance made by him. Enter into conversation with him; talk of his speech; congratulate him upon it; tell him you were extremely struck by the freshness and naturalness of what he said,—that there is something delightful in hearing an unhackneyed speaker,—that to speak with entire fluency looks professional,—it is like a barrister or a clergyman. Thus you may lighten the mortification of a disappointed man; and what you say will receive considerable credence. It is wonderful how readily people believe anything they would like to be true.

* * * * *

I was walking this afternoon along a certain street, coming home from visiting certain sick persons, and wondering how I should conclude this essay, when, standing on the pavement on one side of the street, I saw a little boy four years old crying in great distress. Various individuals, who appeared to be Priests and Levites, looked, as they passed, at the child's distress, and passed on without doing anything to relieve it. I spoke to the little man, who was in great fear at being spoken to, but told me he had come away from his home and lost himself, and could not find his way back. I told him I would take him home, if he could tell me where he lived; but he was frightened into utter helplessness, and could only tell that his name was Tom, and that he lived at the top of a stair. It was a poor neighborhood, in which many people live at the top of stairs, and the description was vague. I spoke to two humble decent-looking women who were passing, thinking they might gain the little thing's confidence better than I; but the poor little man's great wish was just to get away from us,—though, when he got two yards off, he could but stand and cry. You may be sure he was not left in his trouble, but that he was put safely into his father's hands. And as I was coming home, I thought that here was an illustration of something I have been thinking of all this afternoon. I thought I saw in the poor little child's desire to get away from those who wanted to help him, though not knowing where to go when left to himself, something analogous to what the immature human being is always disposed to. The whole teaching of our life is leading us away from our early delusions and follies, from all those things about us which have been spoken of under the similitude which need not be again repeated. Yet we push away the hand that would conduct us to soberer and better things, though, when left alone, we can but stand and vaguely gaze about us; and we speak hardly of the growing experience which makes us wiser, and which ought to make us happier too. Let us not forget that the teaching which takes something of the gloss from life is an instrument in the kindest Hand of all; and let us be humbly content, if that kindest Hand shall lead us, even by rough means, to calm and enduring wisdom,—wisdom by no means inconsistent with youthful freshness of feeling, and not necessarily fatal even to youthful gayety of mood,—and at last to that Happy Place where worn men regain the little child's heart, and old and young are blest together.



REMINISCENCES OF STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.

I do not propose to enter upon a discussion of the question that now agitates the entire population of Brandon township, Vermont,—namely, whether Douglas was born in the Pomeroy or the Hyatt mansion. It is enough for our purpose to record the fact that he was born, and apparently well born,—as, from the statement of Ann De Forrest, his nurse, he first appeared a stalwart babe of fourteen pounds weight.

He lived a life of sensations; and that he commenced early is clearly shown by the fact that he was a subject of newspaper comment when but two months old. At that age he had the misfortune to lose his father, who, holding the baby boy in his arms, fell back in his chair and died, while Stephen, dropping from his embrace, was caught from the fire, and thus from early death, by a neighbor, John Conant, who opportunely entered the room at the moment. And here let me say, that for generations back the ancestors of Douglas were sturdy men, of physical strength and mental ability. His grandfather was noted for his strong practical common sense, which, rightly applied, with industry, made him in middle life the possessor of wealth, and the finest farm on Otter Creek. This, however, in later years was gradually taken from him, by means which had better, perhaps, remain unmentioned. The father of Stephen was a physician of more than ordinary talent and of much culture. He had attained but to early manhood, when a sudden attack of heart-disease removed him from life, and compelled his widow, with her infant boy, to face the world alone.

A bachelor brother of the Widow Douglas took her and the baby to his farm, where, for several years, the one mourned the loss of her husband, while the other grew in strength and muscle. The earlier developments of the boy were characteristic, and typical of those in later life. He was very quick, magnetic in his temperament, and full to the brim with wit and humor. Beyond his uncle's farm ran the far-famed Otter Creek, whose waters, in my boyhood, were forbidden me, as inevitably leading the incautious bather to "a life of misery and a premature death." There it was, however, that Stephen earned his earliest triumphs. It is a long pull across the Otter Pond, and the schoolmaster's last charge was always, "Keep this side of the rock in the middle,—don't try to cross"; but reckless then of life as since in politics, self-confident and daring as always, Douglas, of all the boys, alone dared disobey the charge, and succeeded in reaching safely the opposite shore.

His companions, sons of farmers well to do in the world, were preparing to enter college; and Douglas, the best scholar in his class, the finest mathematician in the township, and who without instruction had mastered the Latin Grammar and "Viri Romae," applied to his uncle for permission to join them. The uncle, however, never noted for much liberality either of brain or pocket, having taken to himself a wife and gotten to himself a boy, was unable to see the necessity of giving the orphan a college education, and pitilessly bound him to a worthy deacon of the church, as an apprentice to the highly respectable, but rarely famous, trade of cabinet-making. In this Douglas did well. It has been stated elsewhere that "he was not fond of his trade," and that "his spirit pined for loftier employment." Possibly. But for all that he succeeded in it, and these lines are being written on a mahogany table made by him while an apprentice at Brandon. It is a strong, substantial, two-leaved table, with curiously carved legs terminating in bear's-feet, the claws of which display an intimate acquaintance on the part of the maker with the physiological formation of those appendages, and a more than ordinary amount of dexterity in the handling of tools. It was while in this occupation that he gained the sobriquet of the "Tough 'Un." He was nearly seventeen years of age, and, though not handsome, was very intelligent and bright in his appearance, so that he was able to compete successfully for the smiles and favors of a young country lass who reigned the belle of the village. This did not suit the "mittened" ones, and they determined to draw young Douglas into a controversy which should result in a fight,—he, of course, to be the defeated party. The night chosen for the onslaught was the "singing-school night," and the time the homeward walk of Stephen from the house of the fair object of contention. The crowd met him at the corner store. From jests to jibes, from taunts to blows, was then, as ever, an easy path; and in reply to some unchivalric remark concerning his lady-love, Douglas struck the slanderer with all his might. Immediately a ring was formed, and kept, until Douglas rose the victor, and without further ceremony pitched into one of the lookers-on, and stopped not until he, too, was soundly thrashed, when, with flashing eye and clenched fist, he said,—"Now, boys, if that's not enough, come on, and I'll take you all together!" At this juncture, the good old Deacon, who had been trying cider in the cellar of the store, came along, and, taking Stephen by the arm, said,—"Well, Steve, you are a tough 'un! What! whipped two, and want more? Come home, my boy, come home!" He was allowed ever after to go and come with his bright-eyed beauty, unmolested, and for years was known there and in the neighboring townships as the "Tough 'Un." Here, too, he gained the reputation of being a good fellow, a whole-souled friend, and a jolly companion. He would read, and his favorite works were those telling of the triumphs of Napoleon, the conquests of Alexander, and the wars of Caesar.

He was still desirous of a collegiate education, and it is undoubtedly true that constant application to his books, when he should have been resting from the labors of the day, brought upon him an illness, the severity of which compelled him to abandon his employment and return to his uncle's house. There he obtained permission to take a course of classical studies at the academy, a permission of which he availed himself with enthusiasm. He was then a fine, well-built youth, foremost in plays, active in all country excursions, and ever popular with his elders. Indeed, this last trait followed him through life; and when those of his own age were at sword's-point with him, he was sure of finding friends and favor amongst such as were older and wiser than himself. His mother, about this time, married a lawyer of wealth and position, residing in the interior of New York, who, appreciating the talent of the boy, aided him in his laudable endeavors to obtain an education, and sent him to the academy at Canandaigua in that State. There Douglas was soon among the first. He was the most popular speaker of them all, pleasing old and young, and causing the hall of the academy to be filled with an interested audience whenever it was known that he was to be the orator of the night. His love of humor and his keen sense of the ludicrous aided him not a little in the quick repartee, for which he was then, as since, noted. He was far from idle during the three years of his life at Canandaigua; for, besides applying himself with untiring energy and zeal to the pursuit of a classical course at the academy, he devoted much of his time to reading in the law office of the Messrs. Hubbell. His examiners for the bar stated that they had never before met a student who in so short a time made such proficiency; and while they took pleasure in complimenting him, they also extended to him the privileges which are accorded by rule only to those who have pursued a complete collegiate course. This was especially gratifying and stimulating to Douglas, who remarked to a fellow-student that for the wealth of a continent he would not have had his "mother die without hearing that intelligence of her son's progress."

At the age of twenty, Douglas commenced, with the fairest prospects, the practice of law in the beautiful village of Cleveland, Ohio. Hardly had the paint on his "shingle" become dry, when a sudden attack of bilious fever prostrated him, and confined him to his room for months. He was thoroughly restless; he pined for action; and when his physician said to him, "Sir, if you allow yourself to fret in this manner, you will certainly frustrate my efforts, and die," he replied, "Not now, Doctor; there's work ahead for me." Upon his recovery, he found himself in a situation such as would crush the spirit of ninety-nine men in a hundred. He was weak, with but a few dollars, with no friends, in a region of country that did not promise him health, and with no knowledge of other localities. He paid his debts and left the place. He wandered, literally, from town to town, until his means were gone and his strength well-nigh exhausted, when, on a bright Wednesday morning in the month of November, 1833, he reached the village of Winchester, Illinois.

In his head were his brains, in his pocket his cash resources, namely, thirty-seven and a half cents, and in a checkered blue handkerchief his school-books and his wardrobe. He knew no one there, he had no plan of action, and, foot-sore, with heavy heart, he leaned against a post in the public square, and for the first time in his life gave way to gloomy forebodings. He had, however, entered the town where his fortunes were to mend, his life to receive new vigor, and his successful career to begin.

While standing thus, he noticed at the farther end of the square a crowd of people, and walked towards them. On a platform stood a red-faced, burly auctioneer, with a straw hat and a loud voice, who was arguing with some one in the crowd of expectant buyers the impossibility of proceeding with the sale without a clerk to aid him. He was in the heat of the discussion, when his eye fell upon the intelligent face and fragile form of young Douglas, to whom he beckoned,—when the following dialogue ensued.

Auctioneer. I say, boy, you look like you're smart; can you figure?

Douglas. I can, Sir.

Auctioneer. Will a couple of dollars a day hire you, till we finish this sale?

Douglas. And board?

At which reply the crowd laughed, and the auctioneer, who thought he had found a treasure, said,—

"Yes, and board; tumble up and go to work."

Whereupon, Douglas, whose legs were weak, whose stomach was empty, and whose head fairly ached with nervous excitement, mounted the platform, began his work as deputy-auctioneer, and laid the foundations of a popularity in that section which increased with his years and strengthened with his success. The sale for which he was hired continued three days, and attracted the residents of the place and the farmers from the neighboring towns, all of whom were favorably impressed by the bright look, the quick, earnest manner, the frequent humorous remarks, and the unvarying courtesy of the young clerk. In the evenings, when gathered about the huge iron stove in the bar-room of the hotel, and the doings, good or bad, of "Old Hickory" were the theme of discussion, one and all sat quiet, listening with admiration, if not with conviction, to the conversation of the youthful politician, who at that time was a great admirer of General Jackson.

With the same tact and adaptability to circumstances which were characteristic of him through life, Douglas determined to make use of these people; and so dexterously did he manage, that, before he had been with them a week, he had produced upon their minds the impression that he was of all men the best suited to teach their district school the ensuing winter. He dined with the minister, rode out with the doctor, and took tea with the old ladies. He talked politics with the farmers, recounted adventures to the young men, and, if my informant is trustworthy, was in no way shy of the young ladies. The zeal with which he sang on Sunday, and the marked attention which he paid to the sermonizings of the dominic, advanced him so far in the affections of the honest people of that rural town, that, had he asked their wealth, their prayers, or their votes, he would have had no difficulty in obtaining them.

There are no reasons for believing, that, as a schoolmaster, he was particularly well qualified. He did very well however, and satisfied the entire township, so that, had he been content with that that very honorable, but somewhat inconspicuous life, he might doubtless have remained there until this day. Up to this period he had been a strict temperance man. No intoxicating drink had as yet passed his lips; and an early experiment with a pipe had so sickened him, that he had resolved never again to attempt it. It would have been well for him, had he adhered to that resolve; but, like many other politicians, he thought it necessary, in the days of his early public life, to mix with the crowd, to join the bar-room circle, to tell his story and sing his song, to smoke, and generally to conform to all those demands of pot-house oracles which have perhaps elevated the few, but without doubt destroyed the many. His aim then was popularity. He did his best as a teacher, giving his spare time to the law. Before the Justices' Court he argued frequently, and commonly with success. There he gained reputation, and having been elected member of the legislature, he determined to devote his life thenceforth to what seemed to him kindred pursuits, politics and law.

In the latter his successes were frequent. At first he was employed, naturally, in minor cases; but it was soon discovered that no one at the bar was his equal in the dexterous management of a knotty point, the successful defence of a desperate villain, or the game of bluff with judge, jury, or opposing counsel. His cases were such as developed his cunning, his ingenuity, and tact, rather than tested his learning or research; and it is doubtful if he would, in the practice of law alone, have achieved more than a local distinction, and that not in all respects a desirable one. In the wording of the State Statutes he was well read, and he often availed himself of his remarkable memory to the entire discomfiture of an opponent, whose technical error, quickly detected by the watchful ear of Douglas, would be turned against him with great effect. So constant was his success in the defence of criminal cases, that it was deemed well, by the powers that were, to elevate him to the position of prosecuting attorney for the first district of the State. This was done in 1835, when he was but twenty-two years of age. At that time he was of singularly prepossessing appearance and popular manners. The people were fond and proud of him; and when he made his acknowledgments to them for the above-mentioned token of their confidence, he so excited them by his oratory, that they took him from the platform, raised him upon their shoulders, and bore him in triumph about the town, while hundreds followed, shouting, "Hurra for little Doug!" "Three cheers for the Little Giant!" "We'll put you through!" and "You'll be President yet!"

The judges of the Supreme Court thought that a great mistake had been made; and one of them, who in later years was one of Mr. Douglas's warmest friends, did not hesitate to say that the election was wrong. "What business", asked he, "has this boy with such an office? He is no lawyer, and has no books." Indeed, he met with no little opposition from his brethren at the bar, but none that in any way impeded his progress in the affections of the people, or disheartened him in his efforts after loftier place. Judge Morton relates, that at no time was Douglas found unprepared. "His indictments were always properly drawn, his evidence complete, and his arguments logical." Before a jury he was in his element. There he could indulge in story-telling, in special pleading, and in all the intricate devices which beguile sober men of their senses, and prove black white or good evil. From judge to jury, from the highest practitioner to the lowest pettifogger, there soon came to be but one impression. He was acknowledged to be the champion of the Illinois bar.

His career upon the bench, to which he was soon after elevated, was brilliant, because energetic, and successful, because he never permitted contingencies to thwart a predetermination, and because that coolness and grit which enabled him to whip a second sneering boy while he was yet a youth had become a settled trait of his character. It was during the sitting of his court, that the notorious Joe Smith was to be tried for some offence against the people of the State. Mob-law had taken matters somewhat under its charge in the West; and the populace, fearing that Smith, in this particular instance, might manage to slip from the hands of justice, determined to take him from the court-house and hang him. They even went so far as to erect a gallows in the yard, and, having entered the court-room, demanded from the sheriff the person of the prisoner. Judge Douglas was in his seat; the room was filled with the infuriated mob and its sympathizers; Smith sat pale and trembling in his box; while the sheriff, after vainly attempting to quell the disturbance, fell powerless and half-fainting on the steps. "Sheriff," shouted the judge, "clear the court!" It was easier said than done. Five hundred determined men are not to be thwarted by a coward, and such the sheriff proved. It was a trying moment. The life of Smith per se was not worth saving, but the dignity of the court must be upheld, and Douglas saw at a glance that he had but a moment in which to do it. "Mr. Harris," said he, addressing a huge and sinewy Kentuckian, "I appoint you sheriff of this court. Select your deputies. Clear this court-house. Do it, and do it now." He had chosen the right man. Right and left fell the foremost of the mob; some were pitched from the windows, others jumped thence of their own accord; and soon the entire crowd, convinced of the judge's determination to maintain order, rushed pell-mell from the court-room, while Smith, who had unperceived made his way up to the feet of the judge, laid his head upon his knee and wept like a child. "Never," said Douglas, "was I so determined to effect a result as then. Had Smith been taken from my protection, it would have been only when I lay dead upon the floor." The fact that he had no right to appoint a sheriff was not one of the "points of consideration." "How shall I execute my will?" was probably the only question that suggested itself to his mind at the time, and the logic of the answer in no way troubled him. The dignity of the bench was always upheld by Judge Douglas during the sitting of the court; but he was no stickler for form or ceremony elsewhere.

A friend tells an amusing anecdote illustrative of his daring and somewhat foolhardy spirit, even in mature life. Mr. Douglas, then a judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, was one of a number of passengers who, on the crack steamboat "Andrew Jackson," were going down the Mississippi. The steamer was detained several hours at Natchez, where she was supplied with wood and water, and during the delay a huge, hard-fisted boatman, somewhat the worse for a poor article of strychnine whiskey, made himself very conspicuous and exceedingly obnoxious by the continual iteration of his intense desire to fight some one. He was fearful that he would "ruin," if his pugilistic wants were not immediately attended to, and in manner more earnest than agreeable invited one and all to "come ashore and have the conceit taken out" of them. From the descriptive catalogue he gave of his own merits, the passengers gathered that he was "a roarer," "a regular bruiser," "half alligator, half steamboat, half snapping-turtle, with a leetle dash of chain-lightning thrown in," and were evidently afraid of him; when the Judge, who had been quietly smoking on the deck, stepped out upon the quay, and, approaching the bully, said, with a peculiarly dry manner,—

"Who might you be, my big chicken, eh?"

"I'm a high-pressure steamer," roared the astonished boatman.

"And I'm a snag," replied Douglas, as he pitched into him; and before the fellow had time to reflect, he lay sprawling in the mud.

A loud shout, mingled with derisive laughter, burst from the spectators, all of whom knew the Judge; and while the discomfited braggart limped sorely off, the passengers carried Douglas to the bar, where, for hours after, a general series of jollifications ensued, and he who a few days before had sat the embodiment of judicial dignity on the supreme bench now vied with a motley crowd of steamboat-passengers in song and story. As a judge he was as he should be; but he was a judge only while literally on the bench.

The decisions of Judge Douglas were recognized always as able and impartial; but his habit of "log-rolling," or, as the extreme Westerners call it, "honey-fugling" for votes and support, had so grown upon him, that his sincere friends feared lest he would sink too low, and in the end defeat himself. He had ascertained, however, that success was in the gift of the multitude, and to them he ever remained faithful.

Had Mr. Douglas been born four months sooner than he was, he would have been a Senator of the United States in 1842, when his age would have been thirty years; but owing to the fact that he would not be thirty until April of the following year, his friends found it would be unadvisable to elect him. In November, 1843, however, he was elected to the House, after passing through one of the most exciting canvasses ever known in the West. Everywhere he met the people on the stump. That seemed to be his appropriate forum, and the only position in which he could indulge in his peculiarly popular style of oratory. His greatest achievement during that Congress was his speech in defence of General Jackson,—a speech begun when the seats and halls were comparatively empty, but concluded in the presence of an overwhelming audience. After the adjournment of Congress, delegations from many of the States were sent to a monster Jackson Convention held at Nashville, and Mr. Douglas was a member of the Illinois Committee. By invitation, he stopped at the Hermitage. Hundreds of others were calling to pay their respects to the old hero, and to congratulate him upon his triumph, when Douglas entered. He was short and plain, and attracted little attention, till presented by Governor Clay of Alabama. On the announcement of his name, the General raised his still brilliant eyes, and gazed for a moment on the countenance of the Judge, still retaining his hand.

"Are you the Mr. Douglas of Illinois who delivered a speech last session on the subject of the fine imposed on me for declaring martial law at New Orleans?" he asked.

"I have delivered a speech in the House on that subject," replied Douglas.

"Then stop," said the General; "sit down here beside me; I desire to return you my thanks for that speech."

And then, in the presence of that distinguished company, the aged soldier expressed his gratitude for the words so kindly and justly spoken, and assured him of his great obligations. At the conclusion of the interview, Douglas, who was unable to utter a word, grasped convulsively the aged veteran's hand and left the hall.

At his death. General Jackson left all his papers to Mr. Blair, the editor of the Washington "Globe," and among them was a printed copy of the speech, with this indorsement, written and signed by himself:—"This speech constitutes my defence: I lay it aside as an inheritance for my grandchildren."

In the famous Compromise struggle of 1850, Judge Douglas developed great strength of will and wonderful executive ability. With Henry Clay he was on the most friendly terms, and that statesman once said of him, that he knew of "no man so entirely an embodiment of American ideas and American institutions as Mr. Douglas." It is well known that to Senator Douglas belongs the credit of initiating the great "Compromise Bill," and that, though reported by Mr. Clay as from the Select Committee of the Senate, it was in reality the California and Territorial Bills drawn up by Mr. Douglas, united. It was at his own suggestion that this was done; and when Mr. Clay objected, on the ground that it would be unfair for the Committee to claim the credit which belonged exclusively to another, he rebuked him, and asked by what right he (Mr. Clay) jeoparded the peace and harmony of the nation, in order that this or that man might receive the credit due for the origin of a bill. Mr. Clay was so struck by the manner and observation, of Mr. Douglas, that he grasped his hand and said,—"You are the most generous man living! I will unite the bills, and report them; but justice shall nevertheless be done to you as the real author of the measures." It has been.

Some time after this, he had occasion, to visit Chicago, and his friends were desirous that he should address the people in defence of the principle involved in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. On Saturday night he appeared before his audience in the open square in front of North Market Hall. His opponents had been more active than his friends. Ten thousand roughs, determined to make trouble, had assembled there; and when the speaker appeared, they saluted him with groans, cat-calls, ironical cheers, and noises of all kinds. That sort of thing in no way annoyed him. He was used to it. On similar occasions he had by wit and good-humor succeeded in gaining a respectful and generally an enthusiastic hearing, and he expected to do so now. He was mistaken. For four hours the contest raged between them. He entreated, he threatened, he laughed at them, told stories, bellowed with the entire volume of his sonorous voice, but without success. They defied and insulted him, until the clock in a neighboring church-tower tolled forth the midnight hour. "Gentlemen," said Douglas, taking out his watch, and advancing to the front of the stand, "it is Sunday morning. I have to bid you farewell. I am going to church, and you—can go to ——." Whereupon, he retired, and the crowd followed, hooting, jeering, and screaming, until they left him at the door of his hotel.

No man living possessed warmer friends than Mr. Douglas. I saw tears of sorrow fall from the eyes of hard-featured Western men, when at the Charleston Convention it became evident that he could not receive the Presidential nomination. Hard words were spoken and hard blows were given in his cause there, and subsequently at Baltimore; and it is doubtful if ever caucusing or struggles for success insured more bitter or lasting hatreds than were engendered during the prolonged contests at those places. The result of that strife, the subsequent canvassing of the country in search of friends and votes, and the ultimate defeat, worked wonderful changes in him, morally and physically. All that in years past he had looked for, all he had struggled for, seemed put forever beyond his reach; and he was from that hour a different man. Fortunately for him, gloriously for his reputation, the people of the South saw fit to rebel; and Douglas, espousing the side of the right, has died a patriot. There had always been a feeling of friendship existing between Mr. Lincoln and Judge Douglas; and the manner in which the latter acted just prior to the Inauguration, and the gallant part he sustained at that time, as well as afterwards, served to increase their mutual regard and esteem. It was my good-fortune to stand by Mr. Douglas during the reading of the Inaugural of President Lincoln. Rumors had been current that there would be trouble at that time, and much anxiety was felt by the authorities and the friends of Mr. Lincoln as to the result. "I shall be there," said Douglas, "and if any man attacks Lincoln, he attacks me, too." As Mr. Lincoln proceeded with his address, Judge Douglas repeatedly remarked, "Good!" "That's fair!" "No backing out there!" "That's a good point!" etc.,—indicating his approval of its tone, as subsequently he congratulated the reader and indorsed the document.

At the Inauguration Ball, all were waiting the arrival of the Presidential party. Much feeling had been created in the city by the announcement that Washington people did not intend to patronize the affair, and it was feared that it might fall through. Presently the band struck up "Hail Columbia," and President Lincoln with his escort entered the room, followed by Mrs. Lincoln, who was supported by Judge Douglas. A more significant demonstration of friendship and of personal interest could not possibly be suggested; and Mr. Douglas, that night, by his genial manner, his cordial sympathy with the personnel of the new Administration, and the effectual snubbing which he thereby gave to the pretentious movers in Washington society, won for himself many friends, and the gratitude of all the Republicans present.

About two months since, while in the telegraph office at Washington, I saw Mr. Douglas. Accosting him, I asked what course he thought the President should pursue towards the sympathizers with the South who remained in that city. "Well," replied he, "if I were President, I'd convert or hang them all within forty-eight hours. However, don't be in a hurry. I've known Mr. Lincoln a longer time than you have, or than the country has; he'll come out right, and we will all stand by him."

The President was, in return, a warm friend of Mr. Douglas. I had occasion to inquire of him if he had, as was reported in the newspapers, tendered to Judge Douglas the position of Brigadier-General. "No, Sir," said Mr. Lincoln, "I have not done so; nor had I thought of doing so until to-night, when I saw it suggested in the paper. I have no reason to believe Mr. Douglas would accept it. He has not asked it, nor have his friends. But I must say, that, if it is well to appoint brigadier-generals from the civil list, I can imagine few men better qualified for such a position than Judge Douglas. For myself, I know I have not much military knowledge, and I think Douglas has. It was he who first told me I should have trouble at Baltimore, and, pointing on the map, showed me the route by Perryville, Havre de Grace, and Annapolis, as the one over which our troops must come. He impressed on my mind the necessity of absolutely securing Fortress Monroe and Old Point Comfort, and, in fact, I think he knows all about it." The President continued at some length to refer to the aid, counsel, and encouragement he had received from Judge Douglas, intimating that the relations subsisting between them were of the most amicable and pleasant nature.

It was evidently the purpose of Mr. Douglas, during the present crisis, to impress upon the country the fact, that at the outset he had declared himself a Union man, faithful to the Constitution and the upholding of its powers.

Mr. Douglas has left many friends and many opponents, but few enemies. Careless of money, he died poor. Generous to recklessness, he permitted his estate to become incumbered and taken from him. Early in life he aimed at personal popularity, and obtained it. In later years he desired legal honors, and they were his. Successful in all he undertook, he raised his ambition to the highest post among his fellows, and its possession became the sole object of his life. For its attainment he gave everything, yielded everything, did everything, and became everything, without success. In all things he was extreme. His loves and hates were strong. His habits, however they may be estimated, were apparent to all. His life—was it a failure?

His death I will but mention. It has plunged a loving family into sorrow, and taken from a party its leader. Thousands of sentences gratifying to his friends are written about his greatness, and the sacredness of his memory; and no word will be uttered here to offend them. He shall himself close this paper, and I will be the medium of conveying in his behalf a message to his fellow-countrymen,—a message which he spoke into the ear of his watchful wife, for the future guidance of his orphan children:—

"Reviving slightly, he turned easily in his bed, and with his eyes partially closed, and his hand resting in that of Mrs. Douglas, he said, in slow and measured cadence,—

"'TELL THEM TO OBEY THE LAWS AND SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.'"



OUR RIVER.

(FOR A SUMMER FESTIVAL AT "THE LAURELS" ON THE MERRIMACK.)

Once more on yonder laurelled height The summer flowers have budded; Once more with summer's golden light The vales of home are flooded; And once more, by the grace of Him Of every good the Giver, We sing upon its wooded rim The praises of our river:

Its pines above, its waves below, The west wind down it blowing, As fair as when the young Brissot Beheld it seaward flowing,— And bore its memory o'er the deep To soothe a martyr's sadness, And fresco, in his troubled sleep, His prison-walls with gladness.

We know the world is rich with streams Renowned in song and story, Whose music murmurs through our dreams Of human love and glory: We know that Arno's banks are fair, And Rhine has castled shadows, And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr Go singing down their meadows.

But while, unpictured and unsung By painter or by poet, Our river waits the tuneful tongue And cunning hand to show it,— We only know the fond skies lean Above it, warm with blessing, And the sweet soul of our Undine Awakes to our caressing.

No fickle Sun-God holds the flocks That graze its shores in keeping; No icy kiss of Dian mocks The youth beside it sleeping: Our Christian river loveth most The beautiful and human; The heathen streams of Naiads boast, But ours of man and woman.

The miner in his cabin hears The ripple we are hearing; It whispers soft to homesick ears Around the settler's clearing: In Sacramento's vales of corn, Or Santee's bloom of cotton, Our river by its valley-born Was never yet forgotten.

The drum rolls loud,—the bugle fills The summer air with clangor; The war-storm shakes the solid hills Beneath its tread of anger: Young eyes that last year smiled in ours Now point the rifle's barrel, And hands then stained with fruits and flowers Bear redder stains of quarrel.

But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on, And rivers still keep flowing,— The dear God still his rain and sun On good and ill bestowing. His pine-trees whisper, "Trust and wait!" His flowers are prophesying That all we dread of change or fate His love is underlying.

And thou, O Mountain-born!—no more We ask the Wise Allotter Than for the firmness of thy shore, The calmness of thy water, The cheerful lights that overlay Thy rugged slopes with beauty, To match our spirits to our day And make a joy of duty.



AGNES OF SORRENTO.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ARTIST MONK.

On the evening when Agnes and her grandmother returned from the Convent, as they were standing after supper looking over the garden parapet into the gorge, their attention was caught by a man in an ecclesiastical habit, slowly climbing the rocky pathway towards them.

"Isn't that brother Antonio?" said Dame Elsie, leaning forward to observe more narrowly. "Yes, to be sure it is!"

"Oh, how glad I am!" exclaimed Agnes, springing up with vivacity, and looking eagerly down the path by which the stranger was approaching.

A few moments more of clambering, and the stranger met the two women at the gate with a gesture of benediction.

He was apparently a little past the middle point of life, and entering on its shady afternoon. He was tall and well proportioned, and his features had the spare delicacy of the Italian outline. The round brow, fully developed in all the perceptive and aesthetic regions,—the keen eye, shadowed by long, dark lashes,—the thin, flexible lips,—the sunken cheek, where, on the slightest emotion, there fluttered a brilliant flush of color,—all were signs telling of the enthusiast in whom the nervous and spiritual predominated over the animal.

At times, his eye had a dilating brightness, as if from the flickering of some inward fire which was slowly consuming the mortal part, and its expression was brilliant even to the verge of insanity.

His dress was the simple, coarse, white stuff-gown of the Dominican friars, over which he wore a darker travelling-garment of coarse cloth, with a hood, from whose deep shadows his bright mysterious eyes looked like jewels from a cavern. At his side dangled a great rosary and cross of black wood, and under his arm he carried a portfolio secured with a leathern strap, which seemed stuffed to bursting with papers.

Father Antonio, whom we have thus introduced to the reader, was an itinerant preaching monk from the Convent of San Marco in Florence, on a pastoral and artistic tour through Italy.

Convents in the Middle Ages were the retreats of multitudes of natures who did not wish to live in a state of perpetual warfare and offence, and all the elegant arts flourished under their protecting shadows. Ornamental gardening, pharmacy, drawing, painting, carving in wood, illumination, and calligraphy were not unfrequent occupations of the holy fathers, and the convent has given to the illustrious roll of Italian Art some of its most brilliant names. No institution in modern Europe had a more established reputation in all these respects than the Convent of San Marco in Florence. In its best days, it was as near an approach to an ideal community, associated to unite religion, beauty, and utility, as ever has existed on earth. It was a retreat from the commonplace prose of life into an atmosphere at once devotional and poetic; and prayers and sacred hymns consecrated the elegant labors of the chisel and the pencil, no less than the more homely ones of the still and the crucible. San Marco, far from being that kind of sluggish lagoon often imagined in conventual life, was rather a sheltered hotbed of ideas,—fervid with intellectual and moral energy, and before the age in every radical movement. At this period, Savonarola, the poet and prophet of the Italian religious world of his day, was superior of this convent, pouring through all the members of the order the fire of his own impassioned nature, and seeking to lead them back to the fervors of more primitive and evangelical ages, and in the reaction of a worldly and corrupt Church was beginning to feel the power of that current which at last drowned his eloquent voice in the cold waters of martyrdom. Savonarola was an Italian Luther,—differing from the great Northern Reformer as the more ethereally strung and nervous Italian differs from the bluff and burly German; and like Luther he became in his time the centre of every living thing in society about him. He inspired the pencils of artists, guided the counsels of statesmen, and, a poet himself, was an inspiration to poets. Everywhere in Italy the monks of his order were travelling, restoring the shrines, preaching against the voluptuous and unworthy pictures with which sensual artists had desecrated the churches, and calling the people back by their exhortations to the purity of primitive Christianity.

Father Antonio was a younger brother of Elsie, and had early become a member of the San Marco, enthusiastic not less in religion than in Art. His intercourse with his sister had few points of sympathy, Elsie being as decided a utilitarian as any old Yankee female born in the granite hills of New Hampshire, and pursuing with a hard and sharp energy her narrow plan of life for Agnes. She regarded her brother as a very properly religious person, considering his calling, but was a little bored with his exuberant devotion, and absolutely indifferent to his artistic enthusiasm. Agnes, on the contrary, had from a child attached herself to her uncle with all the energy of a sympathetic nature, and his yearly visits had been looked forward to on her part with intense expectation. To him she could say a thousand things which she instinctively concealed from her grandmother; and Elsie was well pleased with the confidence, because it relieved her a little from the vigilant guardianship that she otherwise held over the girl. When Father Antonio was near, she had leisure now and then for a little private gossip of her own, without the constant care of supervising Agnes.

"Dear uncle, how glad I am to see you once more!" was the eager salutation with which the young girl received the monk, as he gained the little garden. "And you have brought your pictures;—oh, I know you have so many pretty things to show me!"

"Well, well, child," said Elsie, "don't begin upon that now. A little talk of bread and cheese will be more in point. Come in, brother, and wash your feet, and let me beat the dust out of your cloak, and give you something to stay Nature; for you must be fasting."

"Thank you, sister," said the monk; "and as for you, pretty one, never mind what she says. Uncle Antonio will show his little Agnes everything by-and-by.—A good little thing it is, sister."

"Yes, yes,—good enough,—and too good," said Elsie, bustling about;—"roses can't help having thorns, I suppose."

"Only our ever-blessed Rose of Sharon, the dear mystical Rose of Paradise, can boast of having no thorns," said the monk, bowing and crossing himself devoutly.

Agnes clasped her hands on her bosom and bowed also, while Elsie stopped with her knife in the middle of a loaf of black bread, and crossed herself with somewhat of impatience,—like a worldly-minded person of our day, who is interrupted in the midst of an observation by a grace.

After the rites of hospitality had been duly observed, the old dame seated herself contentedly in her door with her distaff, resigned Agnes to the safe guardianship of her uncle, and had a feeling of security in seeing them sitting together on the parapet of the garden, with the portfolio spread out between them,—the warm twilight glow of the evening sky lighting up their figures as they bent in ardent interest over its contents. The portfolio showed a fluttering collection of sketches,—fruits, flowers, animals, insects, faces, figures, shrines, buildings, trees,—all, in short, that might strike the mind of a man to whose eye nothing on the face of the earth is without beauty and significance.

"Oh, how beautiful!" said the girl, taking up one sketch, in which a bunch of rosy cyclamen was painted riding out of a bed of moss.

"Ah, that indeed, my dear!" said the artist, "Would you had seen the place where I painted it! I stopped there to recite my prayers one morning; 't was by the side of a beautiful cascade, and all the ground was covered with these lovely cyclamens, and the air was musky with their fragrance.—Ah, the bright rose-colored leaves! I can get no color like them, unless some angel would bring me some from those sunset clouds yonder."

"And oh, dear uncle, what lovely primroses!" pursued Agnes, taking up another paper.

"Yes, child; but you should have seen them when I was coming down the south side of the Apennines;—these were everywhere so pale and sweet, they seemed like the humility of our Most Blessed Mother in her lowly mortal state. I am minded to make a border of primroses to the leaf in the Breviary where is the 'Hail, Mary!'—for it seems as if that flower doth ever say, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord!'"

"And what will you do with the cyclamen, uncle? does not that mean something?"

"Yes, daughter," replied the monk, readily entering into that symbolical strain which permeated all the heart and mind of the religious of his day,—"I can see a meaning in it. For you see that the cyclamen puts forth its leaves in early spring deeply engraven with mystical characters, and loves cool shadows, and moist, dark places, but comes at length to wear a royal crown of crimson; and it seems to me like the saints who dwell in convents and other prayerful places, and have the word of God graven in their hearts in youth, till these blossom into fervent love, and they are crowned with royal graces."

"Ah!" sighed Agnes, "how beautiful and how blessed to be among such!"

"Thou sayest well, dear child. Blessed are the flowers of God that grow in cool solitudes, and have never been profaned by the hot sun and dust of this world!"

"I should like to be such a one," said Agnes. "I often think, when I visit the sisters at the Convent, that I long to be one of them."

"A pretty story!" said Dame Elsie, who had heard the last words,—"go into a convent and leave your poor grandmother all alone, when she has toiled night and day for so many years to get a dowry for you and find you a worthy husband!"

"I don't want any husband in this world, grandmamma," said Agnes.

"What talk is this? Not want a good husband to take care of you when your poor old grandmother is gone? Who will provide for you?"

"He who took care of the blessed Saint Agnes, grandmamma."

"Saint Agnes, to be sure! That was a great many years ago, and times have altered since then;—in these days girls must have husbands. Isn't it so, brother Antonio?"

"But if the darling hath a vocation?" said the artist, mildly.

"Vocation! I'll see to that! She sha'n't have a vocation! Suppose I'm going to delve, and toil, and spin, and wear myself to the bone, and have her slip through my fingers at last with a vocation? No, indeed!"

"Indeed, dear grandmother, don't be angry!" said Agnes. "I will do just as you say,—only I don't want a husband."

"Well, well, my little heart,—one thing at a time; you sha'n't have him till you say yes willingly," said Elsie, in a mollified tone.

Agnes turned again to the portfolio and busied herself with it, her eyes dilating as she ran over the sketches.

"Ah! what pretty, pretty bird is this?" she asked.

"Knowest thou not that bird, with his little red beak?" said the artist. "When our dear Lord hung bleeding, and no man pitied him, this bird, filled with tender love, tried to draw out the nails with his poor little beak,—so much better were the birds than we hard-hearted sinners!—hence he hath honor in many pictures. See here,—I shall put him into the office of the Sacred Heart, in a little nest curiously built in a running vine of passion-flower. See here, daughter,—I have a great commission to execute a Breviary for our house, and our holy Father was pleased to say that the spirit of the blessed Angelico had in some little humble measure descended on me, and now I am busy day and night; for not a twig rustles, not a bird flies, nor a flower blossoms, but I begin to see therein some hint of holy adornment to my blessed work."

"Oh, Uncle Antonio, how happy you must be!" said Agnes,—her large eyes filling with tears.

"Happy!—child, am I not?" said the monk, looking up and crossing himself. "Holy Mother, am I not? Do I not walk the earth in a dream of bliss, and see the footsteps of my Most Blessed Lord and his dear Mother on every rock and hill? I see the flowers rise up in clouds to adore them. What am I, unworthy sinner, that such grace is granted me? Often I fall on my face before the humblest flower where my dear Lord hath written his name, and confess I am unworthy the honor of copying his sweet handiwork."

The artist spoke these words with his hands clasped and his fervid eyes upraised, like a man in an ecstasy; nor can our more prosaic English give an idea of the fluent naturalness and grace with which such images melt into that lovely tongue which seems made to be the natural language of poetry and enthusiasm.

Agnes looked up to him with humble awe, as to some celestial being; but there was a sympathetic glow in her face, and she put her hands on her bosom, as her manner often was when much moved, and, drawing a deep sigh, said,—

"Would that such gifts were mine!"

"They are thine, sweet one," said the monk. "In Christ's dear kingdom is no mine or thine, but all that each hath is the property of the others. I never rejoice so much in my art as when I think of the communion of saints, and that all that our Blessed Lord will work through me is the property of the humblest soul in his kingdom. When I see one flower rarer than another, or a bird singing on a twig, I take note of the same, and say, 'This lovely work of God shall be for some shrine, or the border of a missal, or the foreground of an altar-piece, and thus shall his saints be comforted.'"

"But," said Agnes, fervently, "how little can a poor young maiden do! Ah, I do so long to offer myself up in some way to the dear Lord, who gave himself for us, and for his Most Blessed Church!"

As Agnes spoke these words, her cheek, usually so clear and pale, became suffused with a tremulous color, and her dark eyes had a deep, divine expression;—a moment after, the color slowly faded, her head drooped, and her long, dark lashes fell on her cheek, while her hands were folded on her bosom. The eye of the monk was watching her with an enkindled glance.

"Is she not the very presentment of our Blessed Lady in the Annunciation?" said he to himself. "Surely, this grace is upon her for this special purpose. My prayers are answered.

"Daughter," he began, in a gentle tone, "a glorious work has been done of late in Florence under the preaching of our blessed Superior. Could you believe it, daughter, in these times of backsliding and rebuke there have been found painters base enough to paint the pictures of vile, abandoned women in the character of our Blessed Lady; yea, and princes have been found wicked enough to buy them and put them up in churches, so that the people have had the Mother of all Purity presented to them in the guise of a vile harlot. Is it not dreadful?"

"How horrible!" said Agnes.

"Ah, but you should have seen the great procession through Florence, when all the little children were inspired by the heavenly preaching of our dear Master. These dear little ones, carrying the blessed cross and singing the hymns our Master had written for them, went from house to house and church to church, demanding that everything that was vile and base should be delivered up to the flames,—and the people, beholding, thought that the angels had indeed come down, and brought forth all their loose pictures and vile books, such as Boccaccio's romances and other defilements, and the children made a splendid bonfire of them in the Grand Piazza, and so thousands of vile things were consumed and scattered. And then our blessed Master exhorted the artists to give pencils to Christ and his Mother, and seek for her image among pious and holy women living a veiled and secluded life, like that our Lady lived before the blessed Annunciation. 'Think you,' he said, 'that the blessed Angelico obtained the grace to set forth our Lady in such heavenly wise by gazing about the streets on mincing women tricked out in all the world's bravery?—or did he not find her image in holy solitudes, among modest and prayerful saints?'"

"Ah," said Agnes, drawing in her breath with an expression of awe, "what mortal would dare to sit for the image of our Lady!"

"Dear child, there be women whom the Lord crowns with beauty when they know it not, and our dear Mother sheds so much of her spirit into their hearts that it shines out in their faces; and among such must the painter look. Dear little child, be not ignorant that our Lord hath shed this great grace on thee. I have received a light that thou art to be the model for the 'Hail, Mary!' in my Breviary."

"Oh, no, no, no! it cannot be!" said Agnes, covering her face with her hands.

"My daughter, thou art very beautiful, and this beauty was given thee not for thyself, but to be laid like a sweet flower on the altar of thy Lord. Think how blessed, if, through thee, the faithful be reminded of the modesty and humility of Mary, so that their prayers become more fervent,—would it not be a great grace?"

"Dear uncle,"—said Agnes, "I am Christ's child. If it be as you say,—which I did not know,—give me some days to pray and prepare my soul, that I may offer myself in all humility."

During this conversation Elsie had left the garden and gone a little way down the gorge, to have a few moments of gossip with an old crony. The light of the evening sky had gradually faded away, and the full moon was pouring a shower of silver upon the orange-trees. As Agnes sat on the parapet, with the moonlight streaming down on her young, spiritual face, now tremulous with deep suppressed emotion, the painter thought he had never seen any human creature that looked nearer to his conception of a celestial being.

They both sat awhile in that kind of quietude which often falls between two who have stirred some deep fountain of emotion. All was so still around them, that the drip and trickle of the little stream which fell from the garden wall into the dark abyss of the gorge could well be heard as it pattered from one rocky point to another, with a slender, lulling sound.

Suddenly the reveries of the two were disturbed by the shadow of a figure which passed into the moonlight and seemed to rise from the side of the gorge. A man enveloped in a dark cloak with a peaked hood stepped across the moss-grown garden parapet, stood a moment irresolute, then the cloak dropped suddenly from him, and the Cavalier stood in the moonlight before Agnes. He bore in his hand a tall stalk of white lily, with open blossoms and buds and tender fluted green leaves, such as one sees in a thousand pictures of the Annunciation. The moonlight fell full upon his face, revealing his haughty yet beautiful features, agitated by some profound emotion. The monk and the girl were both too much surprised for a moment to utter a sound; and when, after an instant, the monk made a half-movement as if to address him, the cavalier raised his right hand with a sudden authoritative gesture which silenced him. Then turning toward Agnes, he kneeled, and kissing the hem of her robe, and laying the lily in her lap, "Holiest and dearest," he said, "oh, forget not to pray for me!" He rose again in a moment, and, throwing his cloak around him, sprang over the garden wall, and was heard rapidly descending into the shadows of the gorge.

All this passed so quickly that it seemed to both the spectators like a dream. The splendid man, with his jewelled weapons, his haughty bearing, and air of easy command, bowing with such solemn humility before the peasant girl, reminded the monk of the barbaric princes in the wonderful legends he had read, who had been drawn by some heavenly inspiration to come and render themselves up to the teachings of holy virgins, chosen of the Lord, in divine solitudes. In the poetical world in which he lived all such marvels were possible. There were a thousand precedents for them in that devout dream-land, "The Lives of the Saints."

"My daughter," he said, after looking vainly down the dark shadows upon the path of the stranger, "have you ever seen this man before?"

"Yes, uncle; yesterday evening I saw him for the first time, when sitting at my stand at the gate of the city. It was at the Ave Maria; he came up there and asked my prayers, and gave me a diamond ring for the shrine of Saint Agnes, which I carried to the Convent to-day."

"Behold, my dear daughter, the confirmation of what I have just said to thee! It is evident that our Lady hath endowed thee with the great grace of a beauty which draws the soul upward towards the angels, instead of downward to sensual things, like the beauty of worldly women. What saith the blessed poet Dante of the beauty of the holy Beatrice?—that it said to every man who looked on her, 'Aspire!'[A] Great is the grace, and thou must give special praise therefor."

[Footnote A: I cannot forbear quoting Mr. Norton's beautiful translation of this sonnet in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1859:—

"So gentle and so modest doth appear My lady when she giveth her salute, That every tongue becometh trembling mute, Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare, And though she hears her praises, she doth, go Benignly clothed with humility, And like a thing come down she seems to be From heaven to earth, a miracle to show. So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh her, She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes Which none can understand who doth not prove. And from her lip there seems indeed to move A spirit sweet and in Love's very guise, Which goeth saying to the soul, 'Aspire!'"]

"I would," said Agnes, thoughtfully, "that I knew who this stranger is, and what is his great trouble and need,—his eyes are so full of sorrow. Giulietta said he was the King's brother, and was called the Lord Adrian. What sorrow can he have, or what need for the prayers of a poor maid like me?"

"Perhaps the Lord hath pierced him with a longing after the celestial beauty and heavenly purity of paradise, and wounded him with a divine sorrow, as happened to Saint Francis and to the blessed Saint Dominic," said the monk. "Beauty is the Lord's arrow, wherewith he pierceth to the inmost soul, with a divine longing and languishment which find rest only in him. Hence thou seest the wounds of love in saints are always painted by us with holy flames ascending from them. Have good courage, sweet child, and pray with fervor for this youth; for there be no prayers sweeter before the throne of God than those of spotless maidens. The Scripture saith, 'My beloved feedeth among the lilies.'"

At this moment the sharp, decided tramp of Elsie was heard reentering the garden.

"Come, Agnes," she said, "It is time for you to begin your prayers, or, the saints know, I shall not get you to bed till midnight. I suppose prayers are a good thing," she added, seating herself wearily; "but if one must have so many of them, one must get about them early. There's reason in all things."

Agnes, who had been sitting abstractedly on the parapet, with her head drooped over the lily-spray, now seemed to collect herself. She rose up in a grave and thoughtful manner, and, going forward to the shrine of the Madonna, removed the flowers of the morning, and holding the vase under the spout of the fountain, all feathered with waving maiden-hair, filled it with fresh water, the drops falling from it in a thousand little silver rings in the moonlight.

"I have a thought," said the monk to himself, drawing from his girdle a pencil and hastily sketching by the moonlight. What he drew was a fragile maiden form, sitting with clasped hands on a mossy ruin, gazing on a spray of white lilies which lay before her. He called it, The Blessed Virgin pondering the Lily of the Annunciation.

"Hast thou ever reflected," he said to Agnes, "what that lily might be like which the angel Gabriel brought to our Lady?—for, trust me, it was no mortal flower, but grew by the river of life. I have often meditated thereon, that it was like unto living silver with a light in itself, like the moon,—even as our Lord's garments in the Transfiguration, which glistened like the snow. I have cast about in myself by what device a painter might represent so marvellous a flower."

"Now, brother Antonio," said Elsie, "if you begin to talk to the child about such matters, our Lady alone knows when we shall get to bed. I am sure I'm as good a Christian as anybody; but, as I said, there's reason in all things, and one cannot always be wondering and inquiring into heavenly matters,—as to every feather in Saint Michael's wings, and as to our Lady's girdle and shoe-strings and thimble and work-basket; and when one gets through with our Lady, then one has it all to go over about her mother, the blessed Saint Anne (may her name be ever praised!). I mean no disrespect, but I am certain the saints are reasonable folk and must see that poor folk must live, and, in order to live, must think of something else now and then besides them. That's my mind, brother."

"Well, well, sister," said the monk, placidly, "no doubt you are right. There shall be no quarrelling in the Lord's vineyard; every one hath his manner and place, and you follow the lead of the blessed Saint Martha, which is holy and honorable."