And here is the opportunity for fraud. In five minutes an article is coated with silver in every part, inside and out; and that mere "blush" of silver, as the platers term it, will receive as brilliant a polish, and look as well (for a month) as if it were solid plate. Nay, it will look rather better; since the silver deposited by this exquisite process is perfectly pure, while the silver employed in solid ware is of the coin standard,—one tenth alloy. The plater can deposit upon his work as little silver as he chooses, either by weakening his solution, or by leaving the articles in it for a very short time; and no man can detect the cheat with certainty except by an expensive and troublesome process. Nor will it suffice for the operator to attend to the strength of his solutions, and keep his eye upon the clock. As in certain conditions of the atmosphere we can scarcely get a spark from the electrical machine, so there are times when the galvanic battery works feebly, and when the silvering goes on much more slowly than usual. To guard against errors from this cause, there is no sure resource but a system of careful weighings. In such establishments as that of the Gorham Company of Providence, Tiffany's or Haughwout's of New York, Bailey's of Philadelphia, and Bigelow Brothers and Kennard's, or Palmer and Batchelder's, of Boston, each article is weighed before it is immersed in the solution, its weight is recorded, and it is allowed to remain in the solution until it has taken on the whole of the precious metal it was designed to receive.

There was a lawsuit the other day in New York, which turned upon the quantity of silver deposited upon sundry gross of forks and spoons. The plater agreed to put upon them twelve ounces of silver to the gross, which is about as much as is ever deposited upon spoons or forks. If he had performed his contract, he would have spread over each table-spoon about as much silver as there is in a ten-cent piece; and such is the nature of silver that these spoons would have worn well for five or six years. In fact, there are no better plated spoons yet in use than these were designed to be. The plater meant to comply with the usages of the trade. He meant to put upon those spoons the quantity of silver which, in the trade, stands for twelve ounces to the gross, which is about ten ounces to the gross. Such, was probably his virtuous intention, and he supposed he had carried out that intention. But when the spoons were put to the test, it was discovered that upon one hundred and forty-four table-spoons there were but three ounces and a half of silver. It came out on the trial that the plater never weighed his work, and trusted wholly to the length of time he left it in the solution. He appeared to be honestly indignant at the testimony showing that his spoons, which had been left four hours subject to the action of the battery, had acquired only a film of silver. To the eye of the purchaser, these spoons would have presented precisely the same appearance as the best plated ware in existence. For two or three months, or even for six months, they would have retained their brilliancy. What their appearance would have been at the end of a year or two we need not say, for most readers have encountered the spectacle in their pilgrimage through a world which is said to resemble plated articles of this quality in being "all a fleeting show."

Every one is familiar with the gold lining that is now so generally seen in silver vessels. This is laid on by the same process as that which covers the outside with silver. The vessel is filled with a solution of gold, and in this solution a thin plate of gold is suspended. The electric current being made to pass through the interior thus prepared, the liquid bubbles up like soda-water, and in three or four minutes enough gold is deposited upon the inside surface for the purpose designed. When this is accomplished, nothing remains but to polish the vessel, within and without, and we have a piece of ware which is silver when we look at it, and golden when we drink from it.

The obstacle to the introduction of the superior plated ware now made by the Gorham Company is its costliness. The best plated ware costs five times as much as the worst, and one fourth as much as solid silver. We saw the other day three large salvers, which, at a distance of six feet, looked very nearly alike. All of them bore a most brilliant polish, and all were elaborately decorated. One of them was a trashy article, made of an alloy of lead and tin, covered with a "blush" of silver. It had been stamped out and shaped at one blow by a stamping-machine, and left in the silver solution subject to the action of the battery for perhaps fifteen minutes. It was very heavy, and when it was suspended and struck it gave forth a dull leaden sound. The price of this abomination was thirty-seven dollars and a half, and it would last, with careful occasional usage, for a year. Daily use would disclose its real quality in a few weeks. Another of these salvers was of solid silver, to which no objection could be made except that its price was nine hundred and fifty dollars. The third was of that superior plated ware introduced recently by the Gorham Company of Providence. The base of this article was the metal now called nickel silver,—a mixture of copper, nickel, and zinc,—3 very hard and ringing compound, perfectly white, and capable of a high polish. Upon this hard surface as much silver had been deposited as upon the best Sheffield plated ware, which is about as much as can be smoothly put upon it by the electro-plating process. When this salver was struck, it rang like a bell, and it would not bend under the weight of a man. Such a salver, used continually, will retain its lustre for a whole generation, and when, after that long period, it begins to lose its silver coating, it can be re-silvered and made as good as ever. But the price of this article was two hundred dollars,—more than five times the cost of the leaden trash, and a fourth of the price of the solid salver. Nevertheless, plated ware of this quality is the only kind which it is good economy to buy. There are few more extravagant purchases we can make in housekeeping than lead and brass ware, covered with a film of silver so thin that one ounce of the precious metal can actually be spread over two acres of it.

One fact can easily be borne in mind: good serviceable plated articles cost, and must cost, from one fourth to one third as much as similar articles of solid silver. Anything of a much lower standard than this is trash and vulgarity.

For our part, we prefer good plated ware to solid plate. In plated ware we can now have all the beauty of form, all the brilliancy of surface, all the durability and utility of solid silver, without its excessive costliness, without appearing to be guilty of ostentation, without putting our neighbors to shame, and without offering a perpetual temptation to burglars.



WHAT WE FEEL.

It would seem to be folly for any one to maintain that grass is not green, that sugar is not sweet, that the rose has no odor and the trumpet no tone. A man would seem to be out of his senses deliberately to doubt what the world thinks to be simple truths. Yet this paper will deliberately question these truths. It will endeavor to demonstrate that the greenness, the sweetness, the fragrance, the music, are not inherent qualities of the objects themselves, but are cerebral sensations, whose existence is limited to the senses of organized beings.

Is grass green? First let us inquire what green is,—what color is. Light is now understood to be an undulation of the interstellar ether, that inconceivably rare, elastic expanse of matter which occupies all space,—an undulation communicated by the incandescent envelope of suns. It moves with such wondrous rapidity as to traverse hundreds of thousands of miles in a second. Such is the generally received explanation of the phenomenon of light; but there is much yet to be explained for which this simple undulation of matter seems to be an insufficient cause. These waves of motion have different lengths and rates of velocity; but the union of them all gives to the human eye the impression of white light. When a prism intercepts their flow, it, so to speak, assorts these differing waves; and, being separated, they then impress the eye with the color of the spectrum, the retina being differently affected by the differing velocities with which it is touched by the ethereal waves. Color, then, is the sensation of the brain, responsive to the touch of the motion of ether; and the brain is only thus affected when these waves are thrown back from some object to the eye. The multiplicity of tints and hues are reflections from the objects which appear to possess them as structural characters. Some of the waves pass into the objects and through them, others are arrested by them and absorbed, others rebound from them like a ball from a wall; and these last, breaking upon the optic nerve, give to it certain sensations which we designate as colors. A wave of a certain velocity and length gives us a certain sensation which we call blue; another awakens the sensation we call yellow. The two series of waves, mingling, produce a new sensation which we call green. The necessity of reflection for the production of these sensations is evident. The mingled waves have no color in their incident flow; but, striking some object, these waves become separated, some being absorbed, and the reflected ones produce the peculiar sensation we call color.

We know that these varying conditions of light which affect us as color have an absolute being. The photographer carries on his nice operations behind a yellow screen undisturbed, when the substitution of a pink one would at once allow of the chemical action of the other rays of light on his plate, to the destruction of his image. Still, the pink and the yellow, as colors, are brain sensations. We feel them with our eyes, and the feeling they awaken we call color. The optic nerve receives the undulations of ether thrown back from grass, and the peculiar sensation thus awakened by their touch is called green. The color is not a part of the grass, not a quantitative constituent, like its carbon or silex. The grass has no color, because color is something existent in the eye of the beholder, not in the object awakening that something by its peculiar mode of reflecting light. A looking-glass does not possess, as a constituent part, the image of a human face; but that face, when put before it, appears to be a part of the glass; and if no looking-glass had ever existed except with a certain face before it, that face would be just as much a part of the glass as the color green is of grass. They both reflect. Some people are color-blind. They cannot perceive any difference between the rose and the leaves around it. Color is inconceivable to them. Let us suppose, then, that all men were color-blind. They would be fully cognizant of light, shadow, darkness; but the nicer sensations of the brain which we call colors would be utterly unknown to senses unable to feel their delicate touch. At the same time, the different undulations of the different colors might have been detected by other means than the sense of sight, as unseen gases have been discovered by the chemist. And we cannot say that Nature may not possess an inconceivable variety of influences inappreciable by our senses. We say grass is green; but is it always so? What varying colors does it possess under the varying light to which it is exposed. The same grass is light green in the sun, dark green in the shadow, almost black in the twilight, and at night what color is it? We may say that it is green, but that we cannot see it. By no means. If greenness were an inherent attribute, it would be persistent. The weight, density, chemical construction, and size of the plant do not change from midday to midnight. They are identical in the dark and the light. But the color depends entirely on the character of light poured upon it; as that color is only a peculiar reflection of that light, or part of it, and that reflection is only green when it stimulates an optic nerve to a sensation peculiar to its touch. The same grass becomes yellow or brown in autumn, possessing then new powers of absorption and reflection. The very limited capacity of the eye to receive sensation from light rays is proved by the discovery that the spectrum possesses other rays, called heat-rays, which the eye cannot perceive. Only about a third of the spectrum is visible to the eye. The other portion appears in the form of heat, inappreciable by the optic nerve as light.

Color, therefore, is not a physical thing,—a quantity in Nature. Her beauty and glory, visible in her tints and hues, are in the brain of the observer,—a play of light reflected from the myriad objects upon which it breaks in infinite diversity of ethereal wavelet's. One may see colors which do not exist as undulations. For example, let one look fixedly at a brilliant red object for a while, and then close his eyes. He will behold an image of the same object of a green color. This green color, then, is a sensation in the optic nerve, which, being powerfully stimulated by the red, undergoes a reaction, resulting in a sensation similar to that which it would experience were it looking at the object in green. The color green, in this case, is certainly only nervous sensation. As light is now known to be the motion of matter, color, as the result of light, must inevitably be limited by it. The touch of the light-waves upon our nerves causes certain contractions which we call color, the contractions ceasing when the touch is withdrawn. A pane of green glass will cast upon a white marble a green light. Let us suppose that this play of light had always existed, so far as those two objects were concerned. The marble would appear to be permanently green, and not white; and if we had not a simple way of removing the light, we should certainly say it was green marble. Could we as effectually change the play of light which causes grass to appear green, we should at once demonstrate as readily, that its color was an appearance to the eye, not a part of the grass itself. It is very probable that we are extensively deceived in this way,—that many appearances in nature are only simulations which we have no means of detecting. Isomerism in minerals has been discovered,—a state in which quite different physical properties are coexistent with identity of component parts. What we always see, and what seems to be permanent, we naturally accept as a physical fact; and yet we can understand that our senses may, in many instances, be the sport of appearances which, because permanent, we conceive to be reality. Thus color is a cerebral sensation only, and grass is not green.

Is sugar sweet? That sugar has certain chemical constituents which go to make up a saccharine compound we know. But what evidence have we of its sweetness, except that the nerves of taste are peculiarly affected when brought in contact with it. Its sweetness is not measurable in the chemist's scales. It can be analyzed, and its constituent elements accurately defined. But sweetness is not one of those elements. The test of that is the tongue. Pure sugar of milk has scarce any sweetness at all; nevertheless, it is pure sugar. The influence which it has on the nerves of taste is only different from that of cane-sugar. Destroy the nice nervous connection between the tongue and the brain, and sweetness disappears. A severe cold will accomplish this, and while the touch of the sugar is felt, the delicate sympathy which is awakened by the sugar and is felt in the brain as sweetness is destroyed. The sweetness, like the color, is a nervous sensation. We can conceive of a development of the nerves of taste which might receive a host of new impressions from contact with objects now tasteless. The saccharine compound does exist as a chemical quantity, and has a special effect on the nerves of taste, exciting them peculiarly, the result of the excitement being the idea of sweetness.

Is the rose fragrant? The sense of smell is indeed only a continuation of that of taste. In smelling, the nerves are touched by only infinitesimally small particles of the substances reaching them, and are only able to receive an impression from this excessive distribution. This is also true of taste, to a certain degree, as it is impossible to fully perceive a flavor until the substance is tolerably comminuted, as we smack our lips to obtain it. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the whole of taste may not lie in the capabilities of different substances for great subdivision of particles. If quartz could be made to dissolve into excessively minute particles as readily as sugar, it might have its own special flavor. Some odors are offensive in dense quantities which are highly agreeable when wafted to us in delicate atoms,—musk, for instance. The rose secretes a volatile oil, the wonderfully small atoms of which, on touching the nerves of smell, communicate a peculiar sensation. This odor, like the sweetness, exists only in the nerves affected; and a trifling disaffection of the nerves suffices to destroy it entirely. The chemist can also analyze the oil, but he does not enumerate in its elements odor. In fact, we have no words to express the sensation of smell. We say sweet, sour, bitter; but have no terms to express the differing sensations produced on us by the rose, lily, violet, and pink. Their oily atoms awaken different sensations in the delicate nerves they touch. The sensation awakened may be due to chemical action induced by them in the system. But whether chemical or physical, the result of their touch is a motion of matter, an impulse communicated to the brain, the sensation of the organ being—the reception of this initiative force being—what we designate as odor. The fragrance of the rose lies, then, in the contractions of special nerves, which thus respond to the touch of the oily particles that are blown against them.

Does the trumpet sound? A vibration of matter causes the surrounding air to vibrate in consonance with it; and the waves of air thus created, breaking against the auditory nerve, awaken a peculiar sensation which we call sound. The trumpet, vibrating variously, as the valves are moved and the air forced through it, initiates waves of air of different lengths; and as they are communicated to the surrounding air with amazing rapidity, they successively strike the listener's ear. As the waves of light touch the optic nerve, so do the grosser waves of air touch the auditory nerve. But sound is only a recognized sensation when the waves of air are within a certain measurement, a maximum and minimum of length. The rush of a whirlwind has no sound, except when arrested by some object, and smaller waves of the vast billows of rolling air are created. We say that the wind roars. But the tremendous currents above us, which sweep along the vast masses of vapor, are noiseless until they touch the earth, and some little trifling eddies are made in their lower sweep by hills and trees and houses. It is then only noise. The ear requires yet smaller waves of air to experience the sensation of tone. The lowest note of a piano has barely enough of it to give a definite idea. As the waves become shorter, the ear begins to be pleasantly affected, and the realm of music is reached. Within a certain restricted length of air-waves lies all of the pleasurable sensation which we call musical tone. But as we rise in the scale the tone begins to become uncertain, until the highest note of the instrument is again indefinite noise. The attenuated tone-waves of Nature are also inappreciable by the auditory nerves, and an obscure hum or buzz is all that can be perceived, until, finally, the eye detects motion which the ear utterly fails to perceive as sound. The results of the air-waves are appreciable by sight and feeling; but the waves which are heard are not those which create the disturbance in nature we see and feel. The wild gust which seizes a tree and bows it to the earth is only heard when the branches it sways, or the leaves which it rustles, give out a secondary and far more attenuate series of waves. A locust, on a warm, sunny day, will agitate the air around him with a series of waves which affect the ear far more powerfully than the wind which sighs in the waving trees above him. Thus sound is the answering sensation of the auditory nerve to the touch of air-waves; and these waves must be within certain circumscribed limits of magnitude to awaken that sensation at all. The greater or less violence with which they strike the ear causes them to appear loud or soft. We can imagine a development of the nerves, or of the ear apparatus, which might allow them to be influenced by waves of greater volume and less rapid flow, and also by those of diminished size and accelerated movement The trumpet then does not sounds the ear sounds, and in the ear alone lies the music that it makes. The deaf man, whose auditory nerves are not sensitive to air-waves, sees the clouds move and the trees sway, the brook ripple and the trumpeter with his tube at his lips; but the air-waves they all create pass by him, and sound is inconceivable. That sound is a mere nervous sensation is further proved by the fact that we have disturbances of the auditory nerve which we call singing in the ears. No waves of air create this disagreeable music. It arises from some affection of the nerve, which irritates it to a vibration similar to that which it undergoes when air-waves of a certain intensity reach it.

We say the sound rolled on, the odor was wafted, the color was printed, our language and our thoughts implying that the sound, the odor, the color, are things, when in reality they are all mere sensations, answering to the touch of physical agents. All sensation is nerve-motion. Outer stimulus, applied to the nerves, causes contractions which, communicating with the brain, give the idea of color or taste or sound.

The sense of feeling is a recognition of the existence of objects by a duller perception than the others, though all of the senses attain their perceptions by feeling, in the strict meaning of the word. We say things feel hard or soft, the varying density of the objects being the cause of the varying sensations they awaken. Smoothness and roughness are varying outlines of surface, existing as physical conformation; the pleasurable or disagreeable sensations awakened in us by contact being due to the greater or less irritation of the nerves of feeling that attrition with it occasions. Motion is absolutely necessary to give us an ides of the density or configuration of an object. The mere touch of that object is insufficient to possess us with its nature. Iron and down are indistinguishable, unless we, to a certain extent, manipulate them. Glass would be indistinguishable from sand-paper did we not to a certain extent pass our fingers over the different surfaces. Mere touch would not suffice. We have the evidence of all of our senses to prove to us the nature of an object. It tastes or smells or vibrates or is colored; the varied sensations thus awakened combining to give us our totality of conception. The rose reflects light-waves which the eye feels red; it emits oil-particles which the nose feels fragrant; it touches our tongue, and feels pleasantly; it touches our fingers, and feels soft and smooth. It exists in nature as a physical structure, and its existence is evident to us through the various sensations it creates in different nerves of our bodies, and through them alone.

One of the ancient philosophies maintained that all Nature is but the phantasm of our senses. Had it, after first granting that the senses themselves were evidences of matter and motion, maintained that Nature was only evident to us through them, it would have been simple truth. Our perceptions of Nature are limited to the capacity of our nervous structure. We frequently make the mistake of endowing matter with attributes which it does not possess, and which are resident only in the impression communicated to us by forces emanating from it, the forces being we know not what. And we can understand that there may be forces in nature as powerful as those which we perceive by our senses, but which are utterly unrecognized by them. We can understand that it were possible for organized beings to possess fifty instead of five senses, which might receive from nature other impressions and awaken other emotions as beautiful and as beneficent as those arising from sight and hearing.



SONNET.

Rather, my people, let thy youths parade Their woolly flocks before the rising sun; With curds and oat-cakes, when their work is done, By frugal handmaids let the board be laid; Let them refresh their vigor in the shade, Or deem their straw as down to lie upon, Ere the great nation which our sires begun Be rent asunder by hell's minion, Trade! If jarring interests and the greed of gold, The corn-rick's envy of the mined hill, The steamer's grudge against the spindle's skill,— If things so mean our country's fate can mould, O, let me hear again the shepherds trill Their reedy music to the drowsing fold!



LITERATURE AS AN ART.

As one looks forward to the America of fifty years hence, the main source of anxiety appears to be in a probable excess of prosperity, and in the want of a good grievance. We seem nearly at the end of those great public wrongs which require a special moral earthquake to end them. Except to secure the ballot for woman,—a contest which is thus far advancing very peaceably,—there seems nothing left which need be absolutely fought for; no great influence to keep us from a commonplace and perhaps debasing success. There will, no doubt, be still need of the statesman to adjust the details of government, and of the clergyman to keep an eye on private morals, including his own. There will also be social and religious changes, perhaps great ones; but there are no omens of any very fierce upheaval. And seeing the educational value to this generation of the reforms for which it has contended, and especially of the antislavery enterprise, one must feel an impulse of pity for our successors, who seem likely to have no convictions that they can honestly be mobbed for.

Can we spare these great tonics? It is the experience of history that all religious bodies are purified by persecution, and materialized by peace. No amount of accumulated virtue has thus far saved the merely devout communities from deteriorating, when let alone, into comfort and good dinners. This is most noticeable in detached organizations,—Moravians, Shakers, Quakers, Roman Catholics,—they all go the same way at last; when persecution and missionary toil are over, they enter on a tiresome millennium of meat and pudding. To guard against this spiritual obesity, this carnal Eden, what has the next age in reserve for us? Suppose forty million perfectly healthy and virtuous Americans, what is to keep them from being as uninteresting as so many Chinese?

I know of nothing but that aim which is the climax and flower of all civilization, without which purity itself grows dull and devotion tedious,—the pursuit of Science and Art. Give to all this nation peace, freedom, prosperity, and even virtue, still there must be some absorbing interest, some career. That career can be sought only in two directions,—more and yet more material prosperity on the one side. Science and Art on the other. Every man's aim must either be riches, or something better than riches. Now the wealth is to be respected and desired, nor need anything be said against it. And certainly nothing need be said in its behalf, there is such a vast chorus of voices steadily occupied in proclaiming it. The Instincts of the American mind will take care of that; but to advocate the alternative career, the striving of the whole nature after something utterly apart from this world's wealth,—it is for this end that a stray voice is needed. It will not take long; the clamor of the market will re-absorb us to-morrow.

It can scarcely be said that Science and Art have as yet any place in America; or if they have, it is by virtue of their prospective value, as with the bonds of a Pacific railway. I use the ordinary classification, Science and Art, though it is literature only of which I now aim to speak. For under one of these two heads all literature must fall; it may be either a contribution to science through its matter, or to art through its form. The form of literature is usually called style and of the highest kind of literature, called poetry or belles-lettres, the style is an essential, and almost the essential part. It is in this aspect that the matter is now to be considered,—literature as an art.

The latest French traveller, Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, says well, that, for what he calls the academic class—or class devoted to pure literature—there is as yet no place in America. Such a class must conceal itself, he says, beneath the politician's garb, or the clergyman's cravat. We may observe that, when our people speak of literature, they are very apt to mean a newspaper article, or perhaps a sermon, or a legal plea. One editor said that it could be no more asserted that literature was ill paid in America, since Governor Andrew received ten thousand dollars for an argument against the prohibitory liquor law. Even in our largest cities, there are scarcely the rudiments of a literary class, apart from the newspapers. Now, journalism is an invaluable outlet for the leisure time of a literary man; but his main work must be given to something else, or his vocation must change its name. He needs the experience of journalism, as he needs that of the lyceum and the caucus,—nay, as he needs the gymnasium and the wherry,—to keep himself healthy and sound. But when he gives the main energy of his life to either, though he may not cease to be useful, he ceases to be a literary man.

It is useless to complain that, in America, Science is preceding Art; that is inevitable. As yet there is a shrinking even from pure science,—that is, from all science which is not directly marketable; and while this is so, art must be still further postponed. We have hitherto valued science for its applications, natural history as a branch of agriculture, mathematics for the sake of life-assurance tables, and even a college education as a training for members of Congress. Just so far as any of these departments have failed of these ends, there is a tendency to disparage them. We are a little like the President Dupaty of the French Assembly, who told the astronomer Laplace that he considered the discovery of a new planet to be far less important than that of a new pudding, as we have already more planets than we know what to do with, while we never can have puddings enough. We are now outgrowing this limited view of science, but in regard to literature the delusion still remains; if it is anything more than an amusement, it must afford solid information; it is not yet owned that it has value for itself, as an art. Of course, all true instruction, however conveyed, is palatable; to a healthy mind the Mecanique Celeste is good reading; so is Mill's "Political Economy," or De Morgan's "Formal Logic." But words are available for something which is more than knowledge. Words afford a more delicious music than the chords of any instrument; they are susceptible of richer colors than any painter's palette; and that they should be used merely for the transportation of intelligence, as a wheelbarrow carries brick, is not enough. The highest aspect of literature assimilates it to painting and music. Beyond and above all the domain of use lies beauty, and to aim at this makes literature an art.

A book without art is simply a commodity; it may be exceedingly valuable to the consumer, very profitable to the producer, but it does not come within the domain of pure literature. It is said that some high legal authority on copyright thus cites a case: "One Moore had written a book which he called 'Irish Melodies,'" and so on. Now, as Aristotle defined the shipbuilder's art to be all of the ship but the wood, so the literary art displayed in Moore's Melodies was precisely the thing ignored in this citation.

To pursue literature as an art is not therefore to be a mathematician nor a political economist; still less to be a successful journalist, like Greeley, or a lecturer with a thousand annual invitations, like Gough. These careers have really no more to do with literature than has the stage or the bar. Indeed, a man may earn twenty thousand dollars a year by writing "sensation stories," and have nothing to do with literature as an art. But to devote one's life to perfecting the manner, as well as the matter, of one's work; to expatriate one's self long years for it, like Motley; to overcome vast physical obstacles for it, like Prescott or Parkman; to live and die only to transfuse external nature into human words, like Thoreau; to chase dreams for a lifetime, like Hawthorne; to labor tranquilly and see a nation imbued with one's thoughts, like Emerson,—this it is to pursue literature as an art.

There is apparently something in the Anglo-Saxon mind which causes a slight shrinking from art as such, perhaps associating it with deception or frivolity,—which tolerates it, and, strange to say, even produces it in verse, but really shrinks from it in prose. Across the water, this tendency seems to increase. Just as an Englishman is ashamed to speak well, and pooh-poohs all oratory, so he is growing ashamed even to write well, at least in anything beyond a newspaper; and we on this side have emancipated our tongues more than our pens. What stands between Americans and good writing is usually want of culture; we write as well as we know how, while in England the obstacle seems to be merely a boorish whim. The style of English books and magazines is growing far less careful than ours,—less finished, less harmonious, more slipshod, more slangy. What second-rate American writer would see any wit in describing himself, like Dean Alford in his recent book on language, as "an old party in a shovel"? These bad examples are to be regretted; for doubtless ten times as many original works are annually published in England as in America, and we have an hereditary right to seek from that nation those models of culture for which we must now turn to France.

In a late English magazine, there is an elaborate attempt to prove the inferiority in manliness of the French mind as compared with the English. "Frenchmen are less manly, and Frenchwomen less womanly, than English men and women." And one of the illustrations seriously offered is this: "In literature they think much of the method, style, and what they themselves call the art of making a book."

The charge is true. In France alone among living nations is literature habitually pursued as an art; and, in consequence of this, despite the seeds of all decay which imperialism sows, French prose-writing has no rival in contemporary literature. We cannot fully recognize this fact through translations, because only the most sensational French books appear to be translated. But as French painters and actors now habitually surpass all others even in what are claimed as the English qualities,—simplicity and truth,—so do French prose-writers excel. To be set against the brutality of Carlyle and the shrill screams of Ruskin, there is to be seen across the Channel the extraordinary fact of an actual organization of good writers, the French Academy, whose influence all nations feel. Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and, in short, throughout literature. What is there in any other language, for instance, to be compared with the voluminous writings of Sainte-Beuve, ranging over all history and literature, and carrying into all that incomparable style, so delicate, so brilliant, so equable, so strong,—touching all themes, not with the blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand of steel?

In the average type of French novels, one feels the superiority to the English in quiet power, in the absence of the sensational and exaggerated, and in keeping close to the level of real human life. They rely for success upon perfection of style and the most subtile analysis of human character; and therefore they are often painful,—just as Thackeray is painful,—because they look at artificial society, and paint what they see. Thus they dwell often on unhappy marriages, because such things grow naturally from the false social system in France. On the other hand, in France there is very little house-breaking, and bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about them; whereas, if you subtract these from the current English novels, what is there left?

Germany furnishes at present no models of prose style; and all her past models, except perhaps Goethe and Heine, seem to be already losing their charm. Yet for knowledge we still go to Germany, and there is a certain exuberant wealth that can even impart fascination to a bad style, as to that of Jean Paul. Such an author may therefore be very useful to a student who can withstand him, which poor Carlyle could not. There was a time, it is said, when English and American literature seemed to be expiring of conventionalism. Carlyle was the Jenner who inoculated and saved us all by this virus from Germany, and then died of his own disease. It now seems a privilege, perhaps, to be able to remember the time when all literature was in the inflammatory stage of this superinduced disorder; but does any one now read Carlyle's French Revolution? Every year now shows that the whole trick of style with which it was written was false from beginning to end. For surely no style can be permanently attractive that is not simple.

Simplicity must be the first element of literary art. This assertion will no doubt run counter to the common belief. Most persons have an impression of something called style in writing,—as they have an impression of something called architecture in building,—as if it were external, superadded, whereas it is in truth the very basis and law of the whole. There is the house, they think, and, if you can afford it, you put on some architecture; there is the writing, and a college-bred man is expected to put on some style. The assumption is, that he is less likely to write simply. This shows our school-boy notions of culture. A really cultivated person is less likely to waste words on mere ornamentation, just as he is less likely to have gingerbread-work on his house. Good taste simplifies. Men whose early culture was deficient are far more apt to be permanently sophomoric than those who lived through the sophomore at the proper time and place. The reason is, that the habit of expression, in a cultivated person, matures as his life and thought mature; but when a man has had much life and very little expression, he is confused by his own thoughts, and does not know how much to attempt or how to discriminate. When such a person falls on honest slang, it is usually a relief, for then he uses language which is fresh and real to him; whereas such phrases in a cultivated person usually indicate mere laziness and mental undress. Indeed, almost all slang is like parched corn, and should be served up hot, or else not at all.

But it is evident that mere simplicity of style is not enough, for there is a manner of writing which does not satisfy us, though it may be simple and also carefully done. Such, for instance, is the prose style of Southey, which was apparently the model for all American writing in its day. We see the result in the early volumes of the North American Review, whose traditions of rather tame correctness were what enabled us to live through the Carlyle epoch with safety. The aim of this style was to avoid all impulse, brilliancy, or surprise,—to be perfectly colorless; it was a highly polished smoothness, on which the thoughts slid like balls. But style is capable of something more than smoothness and clearness; you see this something more when you turn from Prescott to Motley, for instance; there is a new quality in the page,—it has become alive. Freshness is perhaps the best word to describe this additional element; it is a style that has blood in it. This may come from various sources,—good health, animal spirits, outdoor habits, or simply an ardent nature. It is hard to describe this quality, or to give rules for it; the most obvious way to acquire it is to keep one's life fresh and vigorous, to write only what presses to be said, and to utter that as if the world waited for the saying. Where lies the extraordinary power of "Jane Eyre," for instance? In the intense earnestness which vitalizes every line; each atom of the author's life appears to come throbbing and surging through it; every sentence seems endowed with a soul of its own, and looks up at you with human eyes.

The next element of literary art may be said to be structure. So strong in the American mind is the demand for system and completeness, that the logical element of style, which is its skeleton, is not rare among us. But this is only the basis; besides the philosophical structure of a statement which comes by thought, there is an artistic structure which implies the education of the taste. So, in the human body, there is a symmetry of the bony frame, and there is a further symmetry of the rounded flesh which should cover it; and in literature it is not enough to have a perfectly framed logical skeleton,—there should be also a well-proportioned beauty of utterance, which is the flesh. Unless this inward and outward structure exist, although a book may be never so valuable, it hardly comes within the domain of literary art.

These different types of structure may perhaps be illustrated by three different books, all belonging to the intermediate ground between science and art. I should say that Buckle's "History of Civilization," with all its wealth and vigor, is exceedingly loose-jointed in all its logical structure, and also very defective in its literary structure, although it happens to have an element of freshness which is rare in such a work, and carries the reader along. Darwin's "Origin of Species" is better; that has at the bottom a strong logic, whether conclusive or otherwise, but is so rambling and confused in its merely literary statement, that it does itself no justice. A third book, Huxley's "Lectures," combines with its logic a power of clear and symmetrical statement that gives it a rare charm, and makes it a contribution, not to science alone, but to literature.

In what is called poetry, belles-lettres or pure literature, the osseous structure is of course hidden; and the symmetry suggested is always that of taste rather than of logic, though logic must be always implied, or at least never violated. In some of the greatest modern authors, however, there are limitations or drawbacks to this symmetry. Margaret Fuller said admirably of her favorite Goethe, that he had the artist's hand, but not the artist's love of structure; and in all his prose writings one sees a certain divergent and centrifugal habit, which completely overpowers him before the end of "Wilhelm Meister," and shows itself even in the "Elective Affinities," which is, so far as I know, his most perfect prose work.

In Emerson, again, one observes a similar defect; his unit of structure is the sentence, and the periods seem combined merely by the accident of juxtaposition; each sentence is a pearl, and the whole essay is so much clipped from the necklace; but it is fastened at neither end, and the beads roll off.

Yet it is not enough for human beauty to possess symmetry of structure, within and without: there must be a beautiful coloring also, wealth of complexion, fineness of texture. So the next element of literary art lies in the choice of words. Style must have richness and felicity. Words in a master's hands seem more than words; he can double or quadruple their power by skill in using; and this is a result so delightful, as to give to certain authors a value out of all proportion to their thought. There are books which are luxuries, livres de luxe, whose pages seem builded of more potent words than those of common life. Keats, for example, in poetry, and Landor in prose, are illustrations of this; and perhaps the representative instance, in all English literature, of the prismatic resources of mere words is the poem of "The Eve of St. Agnes." But thus to be crowned monarch of the sunset, to trust one's self with full daring in these realms of glory, demands such a balance of endowments as no one in English literature save Shakespeare has attained.

In choosing words, it is to be remembered that there is not a really poor one in any language; each had originally some vivid meaning, but most of them have been worn smooth by passing from hand to hand, and hence the infinite care required in their use. "Language," says Max Mueller, "is a dictionary of faded metaphors"; and every writer who creates a new image, or even reproduces an old one by passing it through a fresh mind, enlarges this vast treasure-house. And this applies not only to words of beauty, but to words of wit. "All wit," said Mr. Pitt, "is true reasoning "; and Rogers, who preserved this saying, added, that he himself had lived long before making the discovery that wit was truth.

A final condition of literary art is thoroughness, which must be shown both in the preparation and in the revision of one's work. The most brilliant mind yet needs a large accumulated capital of facts and images, before it can safely enter on its business, Coleridge went to Davy's chemical lectures, he said, to get a new stock of metaphors. Addison, before beginning the Spectator, had accumulated three folio volumes of notes. "The greater part of an author's time," said Dr. Johnson, "is spent in reading in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book." Unhappily, with these riches comes the chance of being crushed by them, of which the agreeable Roman Catholic writer, Digby, is a striking recent example. There is no satisfaction in being told, as Charles Lamb told Godwin, that "you have read more books that are not worth reading than any other man"; nor in being described, as was Southey by Shelley, as "a talking album, filled with long extracts from forgotten books on unimportant subjects." One must not have more knowledge than one can keep in subjection; but every literary man needs to accumulate a whole tool-chest in his memory, and another in his study, before he can be more than a journeyman at his trade.

Yet the labor of preparation is not, after all, more important than that of final revision. The feature of literary art which is always least appreciated by the public, and even by young authors, is the amount of toil it costs. But all the standards, all the precedents of every art, show that the greatest gifts do not supersede the necessity of work. The most astonishing development of native genius in any direction, so far as I know, is that of Mozart in music; yet it is he who has left the remark, that, if few equalled him in his vocation, few had studied it with such persevering labor and such unremitting zeal. There is still preserved at Ferrara the piece of paper on which Ariosto wrote in sixteen different ways one of his most famous stanzas. The novel which Hawthorne left unfinished—and whose opening chapters when published proved so admirable—had been begun by him, as it appeared, in five different ways. Yet how many young collegians have at this moment in their desks the manuscript of their first novel, and have considered it a piece of heroic toil if they have once revised it!

It is to rebuke this literary indolence, and to afford a perpetual standard of high art, that the study of Greek ought to be retained in our schools. The whole future of our literature may depend upon it; to abandon it is deliberately to forego the very highest models. There is no other literature which so steadily reproaches a young writer,—nothing else by which he may sustain himself till he forms a high standard of his own. Not that he should attempt direct imitations, which are almost always failures as such, however attractive in other respects; witness Swinburne's "Atalanta." But the true use of Greek literature is perpetually to remind us what a wondrous thing literary art may be,—capable of what range of resources, of what thoroughness in structure, of what perfection in detail. It is a remarkable fact, that the most penetrating and fearless of all our writers, Thoreau,—he who made Nature his sole mistress, and shook himself utterly free from human tradition,—yet clung to Greek literature as the one achievement of man that seemed worthy to take rank with Nature, pronouncing it "as refined, as solidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself."

These are the qualities of style that seem most obviously important,—simplicity, freshness, structure, choice of words, and thoroughness both of preparation and of finish. Yet, in aiming at literary art, it must be remembered that all the cardinal virtues go into a good style, while each of the seven deadly sins tends to vitiate a bad one. What a charm in the merit of humility, for instance, as it is sometimes seen in style, leading to a certain self-restraint and moderation of tone, however weighty the argument! How great the power of an habitual under-statement, on which in due season one strong thought rises like an ocean-crest, and breaks, and sweeps onward, lavishing itself in splendor! What a glorious gift of heaven would have been the style of Ruskin, for instance, could he but have contained himself, and put forth only half his strength, instead of always planting, in the words of old Fuller, "a piece of ordnance to batter down an aspen-leaf"!

It would be hardly safe to illustrate what has been said by any multiplication of examples from our own literature. Yet perhaps there will be no danger in saying that America has as yet produced but two authors of whom we may claim that their style is in all respects adequate to their wants, and the perfect vehicle of their thought. It is not always the greatest writers of whom this is true, for one's demands upon the vehicle of thought are in proportion to his thoughts, and great ideas strain language more than small ones. We cannot say of either Emerson or Thoreau, for instance, that his style is adequate to his needs, because the needs are immense, and Thoreau, at least, sometimes disdains effort. But the only American authors, perhaps, whose style is an elastic garment that fits all the uses of the body, are Irving and Hawthorne.

This has no reference to the quality of their thought, as to which in Irving we feel a slight mediocrity; no matter, there is the agreeable style, and it does him all the service he needs. By its aid he reached his limit of execution, and we can hardly imagine him, with his organization, as accomplishing more. But in Hawthorne we see astonishing power, always answered by the style, and capable of indefinite expansion within certain lateral limits. His early solitude narrowed his affinities, and gave a kind of bloodlessness to his style; clear in hue, fine in texture, it is apt to want the mellow tinge which indicates a robust and copious life. Even such a criticism seems daring, in respect to anything so beautiful; and I can conceive of no other defect in the style of Hawthorne.

Perhaps the conclusion of the whole matter may seem to be that literary art is so lofty a thing as to be beyond the reach of any of us; as the sage in Rasselas, discoursing on poetry, only convinces his hearers that no one ever can be a poet. After so much in the way of discouragement, it should be added,—what the most limited experience may teach us all,—that there is no other pursuit so unceasingly delightful. As some one said of love, "all other pleasures are not worth its pains." But the literary man must love his art, as the painter must love painting, out of all proportion to its rewards; or rather, the delight of the work must be its own reward. Any praise or guerdon hurts him, if it bring any other pleasure to eclipse this. The reward of a good sentence is to have written it; if it bring fame or fortune, very well, so long as this recompense does not intoxicate. The peril is, that all temporary applause is vitiated by uncertainty, and may be leading you right or wrong. Goethe wrote to Schiller, "We make money by our poor books."

The impression is somehow conveyed to the young, that there exists somewhere a circle of cultivated minds, gifted with discernment, who can distinguish at a glance between Shakespeare and Tupper. One may doubt the existence of any such contemporary tribunal. Certainly there is none such in America. Provided an author says something noticeable, and obeys the ordinary rules of grammar and spelling, his immediate public asks little more; and if he attempts more, it is an even chance that it leads him away from favor. Indeed, within the last few years, it has come to be a sign of infinite humor to dispense with even these few rules, and spell as badly as possible. Yet even if you went to London or to Paris in search of this imaginary body of critics, you would not find them; there also you would find the transient and the immortal confounded together, and the transient often uppermost. Even a foreign country is not always, as has been said, a contemporaneous posterity. It is said that no American writer was ever so warmly received in England as Artemus Ward. It is only the slow alembic of the years that finally eliminates from this vast mass of literature its few immortal drops, and leaves the rest to perish.

I know of no tonic more useful for a young writer than to read carefully, in the English Reviews of sixty or seventy years ago, the crushing criticisms on nearly every author of that epoch who has achieved lasting fame. What cannot there be read, however, is the sterner history of those who were simply neglected. Look, for instance, at the career of Charles Lamb, who now seems to us a writer who must have disarmed opposition, and have been a favorite from the first. Lamb's "Rosamond Gray" was published in 1798, and for two years was not even reviewed. His poems appeared during the same year. In 1815 he introduced Talfourd to Wordsworth as his own "only admirer." In 1819 the series of "Essays of Elia" began, and Shelley wrote to Leigh Hunt that year: "When I think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see how unnoticed remain things of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame?" These Essays were published in a volume in 1823; and Willis records that when he was in Europe, ten years later, and just before Lamb's death, "it was difficult to light upon a person who had read Elia."

This brings us to a contemporary instance. Willis and Hawthorne wrote early, side by side, in "The Token," about 1827, forty years ago. Willis rose at once to notoriety, but Mr. S. G. Goodrich, the editor of the work, states in his autobiography, that Hawthorne's contributions "did not attract the slightest attention." Ten years later, in 1837, these same sketches were collected in a volume, as "Twice-Told Tales"; but it was almost impossible to find a publisher for them, and when published they had no success. I well remember the apathy with which even the enlarged edition of 1842 was received, in spite of the warm admiration of a few; nor was it until the publication of "The Scarlet Letter," in 1850, that its author could fairly be termed famous. For twenty years he was, in his own words, "the obscurest man of letters in America"; and it is the thought to which the mind must constantly recur, in thinking of Hawthorne, How could any combination of physical and mental vigor enable a man to go on producing works of such a quality in an atmosphere so chilling?

Probably the truth is, that art precedes criticism, and that every great writer creates or revives the taste by which he is appreciated. True, we are wont to claim that "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin"; but it sometimes takes the world a good while to acknowledge its poor relations. It seems hard for most persons to recognize a touch of nature when they see it. The trees have formed their buds in autumn every year since trees first waved; but you will find that the great majority of persons have never made that discovery, and suppose that Nature gets up those ornaments in spring. And if we are thus blind to what hangs conspicuously before our eyes for the whole long winter of every year, how unobservant must we be of the rarer phases of earthly beauty and of human life? Keep to the conventional, and you have something which all have seen, even if they disapprove; copy Nature, and her colors make art appear incredible. If you could paint the sunset before your window as gorgeous as it is, your picture would be hooted from the walls of the exhibition. If you were to write into fiction the true story of the man or woman you met yesterday, it would be scouted as too wildly unreal. Indeed, the literary artist may almost say, as did the Duke of Wellington when urged to write his memoirs, "I should like to speak the truth; but if I did, I should be torn in pieces."

Therefore the writer, when he adopts a high aim, must be a law to himself, bide his time, and take the risk of discovering, at last, that his life has been a failure. His task is one in which failure is easy, when he must not only depict the truths of Nature, but must do this with such verisimilitude as to vindicate its truth to other eyes, And since this recognition may not even begin till after his death, we can see what Rivarol meant by his fine saying, that "genius is only great patience," and Buffon, by his more guarded definition of genius as the aptitude for patience.

Of all literary qualities, this patience has thus far been rarest in America. Therefore, there has been in our literature scarcely any quiet power; if effects are produced, they must, in literature as in painting, be sensational, and cover acres of canvas. As yet, the mass of our writers seek originality in mere externals; we think, because we live in a new country, we are unworthy of ourselves if we do not Americanize the grammar and spelling-book. In a republic, must the objective case be governed by a verb? We shall yet learn that it is not new literary forms we need, but only, fresh inspiration, combined with cultivated taste. The standard of good art is always much the same; modifications are trifling. Otherwise we could not enjoy any foreign literature. A fine phrase in AEschylus or Dante affects us as if we had read it in Emerson. A structural completeness in a work of art seems the same in the Oedipus Tyrannus as in "The Scarlet Letter." Art has therefore its law; and eccentricity, though sometimes promising as a mere trait of youth, is only a disfigurement to maturer years. It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote "Leaves of Grass," only that he did not burn it afterwards. A young writer must commonly plough in his first crop, as the farmer does, to enrich the soil. Is it luxuriant, astonishing, the wonder of the neighborhood; so much the better,—in let it go!

Sydney Smith said, in 1818, "There does not appear to be in America, at this moment, one man of any considerable talents." Though this might not now be said, we still stand before the world with something of the Swiss reputation, as a race of thrifty republicans, patriotic and courageous, with a decided turn for mechanical invention. What we are actually producing, even to-day, in any domain of pure art, is very little; it is only the broad average intelligence of the masses that does us any credit. And even this is easily exaggerated. The majority of members of Congress talk bad grammar; so do the majority of public-school teachers. I do not mean merely that they speak without elegance, but that in moments of confidence they say "We was," and "Them things," and "I done it." With the present predominance of merely scientific studies, and the increasing distaste for the study of language, I do not see how this is to diminish. For all that, there are already visible, in the American temperament, two points of great promise in respect to art in general, and literary art above all.

First, there is in this temperament a certain pliability and impressibility, as compared with the rest of the Anglo-Saxon race; it shows a finer grain and a nicer touch. If this is not yet shown in the way of literature, it is only because the time has not come. It is visible everywhere else. The aim which Bonaparte avowed as his highest ambition for France, to convert all trades into arts, is being rapidly fulfilled all around us. There is a constant tendency to supersede brute muscle by the fibres of the brain, and thus to assimilate the rudest toil to what Bacon calls "sedentary and within-door arts, that require rather the finger than the arm." It is clear that this same impulse, in higher and higher applications, must culminate in the artistic creation of beauty.

And to fortify this fine instinct, we may trust, secondly, in the profound earnestness which still marks our people. With all this flexibility, there is yet a solidity of principle beneath, that makes the subtile American mind as real and controlling as that of the robust race from which it sprang. Though the present tendency of our art is towards foreign models, this is but a temporary thing. We must look at these till we have learned what they can teach, but a race in which the moral nature is strongest will be its own guide at last.

And it is a comfort thus to end in the faith that, as the foundation of all true greatness is in the conscience, so we are safe if we can but carry into science and art the same earnestness of spirit which has fought through the great civil war and slain slavery. As "the Puritan has triumphed" in this stern contest, so must the Puritan triumph in the more graceful emulations that are to come; but it must be the Puritanism of Milton, not of Cromwell only. The invigorating air of great moral principles must breathe through all our literature; it is the expanding spirit of the seventeenth century by which we must conquer now.

It is worth all that has been sacrificed in New England to vindicate this one fact, the supremacy of the moral nature. All culture, all art, without this, must be but rootless flowers, such as flaunt round a nation's decay. All the long, stern reign of Plymouth Rock and Salem Meeting-House was well spent, since it had this for an end,—to plough into the American race the tradition of absolute righteousness, as the immutable foundation of all. This was the purpose of our fathers. There should be here no European frivolity, even if European grace went with it. For the sake of this great purpose, history will pardon all their excesses,—overwork, grim Sabbaths, prohibition of innocent amusements, all were better than to be frivolous. And so, in these later years, the arduous reforms into which the life-blood of Puritanism has passed have all helped to train us for art, because they have trained us in earnestness, even while they seemed to run counter to that spirit of joy in which art has its being. For no joy is joyous which has not its root in something noble. In what awful lines of light has this truth been lately written against the sky! What graces might there not have been in that Southern society before the war? It had ease, affluence, leisure, polished manners, European culture,—all worthless; it produced not a book, not a painting, not a statue; it concentrated itself on politics, and failed; then on war, and failed; it is dead and vanished, leaving only memories of wrong behind. Let us not be too exultant; the hasty wealth of New York may do as little. Intellect in this age is not to be found in the circles of fashion; it is not found in such society in Europe, it is not here. Even in Paris, the world's capital, imperialism taints all it touches; and it is the great traditions of a noble nation which make that city still the home of art. We, a younger and cruder race, yet need to go abroad for our standard of execution, but our ideal and our faith must be our own.



A YOUNG DESPERADO.

When Johnny is all snugly curled up in bed, with his rosy cheek resting on one of his scratched and grimy little hands, forming altogether a perfect picture of peace and innocence, it seems hard to realize what a busy, restive, pugnacious, badly ingenious little wretch he is! There is something so comical in those funny little shoes and stockings sprawling on the floor,—they look as if they could jump up and run off, if they wanted to,—there is something so laughable about those little trousers, which appear to be making vain attempts to climb up into the easy-chair,—the said trousers still retaining the shape of Johnny's little legs, and refusing to go to sleep,—there is something, I say, about these things, and about Johnny himself, which makes it difficult for me to remember that, when Johnny is awake, he not unfrequently displays traits of character not to be compared with anything but the cunning of an Indian warrior, combined with the combative qualities of a trained prize-fighter.

I'm sure I don't know how he came by such unpleasant propensities. I am myself the meekest of men. Of course, I don't mean to imply that Johnny inherited his warlike disposition from his mother. She is the gentlest of women. But when you come to Johnny—he's the terror of the whole neighborhood.

He was meek enough at first,—that is to say, for the first six or seven days of his existence. But I verily believe that he wasn't more than eleven days old when he showed a degree of temper that shocked me,—shocked me in one so young. On that occasion he turned very red in the face,—he was quite red before,—doubled up his ridiculous hands in the most threatening manner, and finally, in the impotency of rage, punched himself in the eye. When I think of the life he led his mother and Susan during the first eighteen months after his arrival, I shrink from the responsibility of allowing Johnny to call me father.

Johnny's aggressive disposition was not more early developed than his duplicity. By the time he was two years of age, I had got the following maxim by heart: "Whenever J. is particularly quiet, look out for squalls." He was sure to be in some mischief. And I must say there was a novelty, an unexpectedness, an ingenuity, in his badness that constantly astonished me. The crimes he committed could be arranged alphabetically. He never repeated himself. His evil resources were inexhaustible. He never did the thing I expected he would. He never failed to do the thing I was unprepared for. I am not thinking so much of the time when he painted my writing-desk with raspberry jam, as of the occasion when he perpetrated an act of original cruelty on Mopsey, a favorite kitten in the household. We were sitting in the library. Johnny was playing in the front hall. In view of the supernatural stillness that reigned, I remarked, suspiciously, "Johnny is very quiet, my dear." At that moment a series of pathetic mews was heard in the entry, followed by a violent scratching on the oil-cloth. Then Mopsey bounded into the room with three empty spools strung upon her tail. The spools were removed with great difficulty, especially the last one, which fitted remarkably tight. After that, Mopsey never saw a work-basket without arching her tortoise-shell back, and distending her tail to three times its natural thickness. Another child would have squeezed the kitten, or stuck a pin in it, or twisted her tail; but it was reserved for the superior genius of Johnny to string rather small spools upon it. He never did the obvious thing.

It was this fertility and happiness, if I may say so, of invention, that prevented me from being entirely dejected over my son's behavior at this period. Sometimes the temptation to seize him and shake him was too strong for poor human nature. But I always regretted it afterwards. When I saw him asleep in his tiny bed, with one tear dried on his plump velvety cheek and two little mice-teeth visible through the parted lips, I couldn't help thinking what a little bit of a fellow he was, with his funny little fingers and his funny little nails; and it didn't seem to me that he was the sort of person to be pitched into by a great strong man like me.

"When Johnny grows older," I used to say to his mother, "I'll reason with him."

Now I don't know when Johnny will grow old enough to be reasoned with. When I reflect how hard it is to reason with wise grown-up people, if they happen to be unwilling to accept your view of matters, I am inclined to be very patient with Johnny, whose experience is rather limited, after all, though he is six years and a half old, and naturally wants to know why and wherefore. Somebody says something about the duty of "blind obedience," I can't expect Johnny to have more wisdom than Solomon, and to be more philosophic than the philosophers.

At times, indeed, I have been led to expect this from him. He has shown a depth of mind that warranted me in looking for anything. At times he seems as if he were a hundred years old. He has a quaint, bird-like way of cocking his head on one side, and asking a question that appears to be the result of years of study. If I could answer some of those questions, I should solve the darkest mysteries of life and death. His inquiries, however, generally have a grotesque flavor. One night, when the mosquitoes were making lively raids on his person, he appealed to me, suddenly: "How does the moon feel when a skeeter bites it?" To his meditative mind, the broad, smooth surface of the moon presented a temptation not to be resisted by any stray skeeter.

I freely confess that Johnny is now and then too much for me. I wish I could read him as cleverly as he reads me. He knows all my weak points; he sees right through me, and makes me feel that I am a helpless infant in his adroit hands. He has an argumentative, oracular air, when things have gone wrong, which always upsets my dignity. Yet how cunningly he uses his power! It is only in the last extremity that he crosses his legs, puts his hands into his trousers-pockets, and argues the case with me. One day last week he was very near coming to grief. By my directions, kindling-wood and coal are placed every morning in the library grate, in order that I may have a fire the moment I return at night. Master Johnny must needs apply a lighted match to this arrangement early in the forenoon. The fire was not discovered until the blower was one mass of red-hot iron, and the wooden mantelpiece was smoking with the intense heat.

When I came home, Johnny was led from the store-room, where he had been imprisoned from an early period, and where he had employed himself in eating about two dollars' worth of preserved pears.

"Johnny," said I, in as severe a tone as one could use in addressing a person whose forehead glistened with syrup,—"Johnny, don't you remember that I have always told you never to meddle with matches?"

It was something delicious to see Johnny trying to remember. He cast one eye meditatively up to the ceiling, then he fixed it abstractedly on the canary-bird, then he rubbed his ruffled brows with a sticky hand; but really, for the life of him, he couldn't recall any injunctions concerning matches.

"I can't, papa, truly, truly," said Johnny at length. "I guess I must have forgot it."

"Well, Johnny, in order that you may not forget it in future—"

Here Johnny was seized with an idea. He interrupted me.

"I'll tell you what you do, papa,—you just put it down in writin'."

With the air of a man who has settled a question definitely, but at the same time is willing to listen politely to any crude suggestions that you may have to throw out, Johnny crossed his legs, and thrust his hands into those wonderful trousers-pockets. I turned my face aside, for I felt a certain weakness creeping into the corners of my mouth. I was lost. In an instant the little head, covered all over with yellow curls, was laid upon my knee, and Johnny was crying, "I'm so very, very sorry!"

I have said that Johnny is the terror of the neighborhood. I think I have not done the young gentleman an injustice. If there is a window broken within the radius of two miles from our house, Johnny's ball, or a stone known to come from his dexterous hand, is almost certain to be found in the battered premises. I never hear the musical jingling of splintered glass, but my porte-monnaie gives a convulsive throb in my breast-pocket. There is not a doorstep in our street that hasn't borne evidences in red chalk of his artistic ability; there isn't a bell that he hasn't rung and run away from at least three hundred times. Scarcely a day passes but he falls out of something, or over something, or into something. A ladder running up to the dizzy roof of an unfinished building is no more to be resisted by him than the back platform of a horse-car, when the conductor is collecting his fare in front.

I should not like to enumerate the battles that Johnny has fought during the past eight months. It is a physical impossibility, I should judge, for him to refuse a challenge. He picks his enemies out of all ranks of society. He has fought the ash-man's boy, the grocer's boy, the rich boys over the way, and any number of miscellaneous boys who chanced to stray into our street.

I can't say that this young desperado is always victorious. I have known the tip of his nose to be in a state of unpleasant redness for weeks together. I have known him to come home frequently with no brim to his hat; once he presented himself with only one shoe, on which occasion his jacket was split up the back in a manner that gave him the appearance of an over-ripe chestnut bursting out of its bur. How he will fight! But this I can say,—if Johnny is as cruel as Caligula, he is every bit as brave as Agamemnon. I never knew him to strike a boy smaller than himself. I never knew him to tell a lie when a lie would save him from disaster.

At present the General, as I sometimes call him, is in hospital. He was seriously wounded at the battle of The Little Go-Cart, on the 9th instant. On returning from my office yesterday evening, I found that scarred veteran stretched upon a sofa in the sitting-room, with a patch of brown paper stuck over his left eye, and a convicting smell of vinegar about him.

"Yes," said his mother, dolefully, "Johnny's been fighting again. That horrid Barnabee boy (who is eight years old, if he is a day) won't let the child alone."

"Well," said I, "I hope Johnny gave that Barnabee boy a thrashing."

"Didn't I, though?" cries Johnny, from the sofa. "I bet!"

"O Johnny!" says his mother.

Now, several days previous to this, I had addressed the General in the following terms:—

"Johnny, if I ever catch you in another fight of your own seeking, I shall cane you."

In consequence of this declaration, it became my duty to look into the circumstances of the present affair, which will be known in history as the battle of The Little Go-Cart. After going over the ground very carefully, I found the following to be the state of the case.

It seems that the Barnabee Boy—I speak of him as if he were the Benicia Boy—is the oldest pupil in the Primary Military School (I think it must be a military school) of which Johnny is a recent member. This Barnabee, having whipped every one of his companions, was sighing for new boys to conquer, when Johnny joined the institution. He at once made friendly overtures of battle to Johnny, who, oddly enough, seemed indisposed to encourage his advances. Then Barnabee began a series of petty persecutions, which had continued up to the day of the fight.

On the morning of that eventful day the Barnabee Boy appeared in the school-yard with a small go-cart. After running down on Johnny several times with this useful vehicle, he captured Johnny's cap, filled it with sand, and dragged it up and down the yard triumphantly in the go-cart. This made the General very angry, of course, and he took an early opportunity of kicking over the triumphal car, in doing which he kicked one of the wheels so far into space that it has not been seen since.

This brought matters to a crisis. The battle would have taken place then and there; but at that moment the school-bell rang, and the gladiators were obliged to give their attention to Smith's Speller. But a gloom hung over the morning's exercises,—a gloom that was not dispelled in the back row, when the Barnabee Boy stealthily held up to Johnny's vision a slate, whereon was inscribed this fearful message:—



Johnny got it "put down in writin'" this time!

After a hasty glance at the slate, the General went on with his studies composedly enough. Eleven o'clock came, and with it came recess, and with recess the inevitable battle.

Now I do not intend to describe the details of this brilliant action, for the sufficient reason that, though there were seven young gentlemen (connected with the Primary School) on the field as war correspondents, their accounts of the engagement are so contradictory as to be utterly worthless. On one point they all agree,—that the contest was sharp, short, and decisive. The truth is, the General is a quick, wiry, experienced old hero; and it didn't take him long to rout the Barnabee Boy, who was in reality a coward, as all bullies and tyrants ever have been, and always will be.

I don't approve of boys fighting; I don't defend Johnny; but if the General wants an extra ration or two of preserved pear, he shall have it!

* * * * *

I am well aware that, socially speaking, Johnny is a Black Sheep. I know that I have brought him up badly, and that there is not an unmarried man or woman in the United States who wouldn't have brought him up very differently. It's a great pity that the only people who know how to manage children never have any! At the same time, Johnny is not a black sheep all over. He has some white spots. His sins—if wiser folks had no greater!—are the result of too much animal life. They belong to his evanescent youth, and will pass away; but his honesty, his generosity, his bravery, belong to his character, and are enduring qualities. The quickly crowding years will tame him. A good large pane of glass, or a seductive bell-knob, ceases in time to have attractions for the most reckless spirit. And I am quite confident that Johnny will be a great statesman, or a valorous soldier, or, at all events, a good citizen, after he has got over being A Young Desperado.



REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

The First Canticle [Inferno] of the Divine Comedy of DANTE ALIGHIERI. Translated by THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS. Boston: De Vries, Ibarra, and Company.

While we must own that we have no sympathy with the theory of free translation, we recognize the manifold merits of execution in this work, and accept it as one which, together with Mr. Longfellow's version of the whole of Dante's Divina Commedia, and Mr. Norton's translation of the Vita Nuova, will make the present year memorable in our literature. It does not necessarily stand in antagonism to works executed in a spirit entirely different, and we shall make no comparison of it with the "Inferno" by Mr. Longfellow, the admirers of which will be among the first to feel its characteristic and very striking excellences.

In substituting the decasyllabic quatrain for the triple rhyme of the Italian, we suppose Dr. Parsons desired rather to please the reader's ear with a familiar stanza, than to avoid the difficulties (exaggerated, we think, by critics) of the terza rima, and he could certainly have chosen no more felicitous form after once departing from that of his original. He has almost re-created the stanza for his purpose, giving it new movement, and successfully adapting to the exigencies of dialogue and of narrative what has hitherto chiefly been associated with elegiac and didactic poetry. Something of this may be seen in the following passages (from the description of the transit through the frozen circle of Caina), which moreover appear to us among the best sustained of the version.

"And as a frog squats croaking from a stream, With nose put forth, what time the village maid Oft in her slumber doth of gleaning dream, Stood in the ice there every doleful shade. Livid as far as where shame paints the cheek, And doomed their faces downward still to hold. Chattering like storks, their weeping eyes bespeak Their aching hearts, their mouths the biting cold."

"A thousand visages I saw, by cold Turned to dog-faces; horror chills me through Whenever of those frozen fords I think. And as we nearer to the centre drew, Towards which all bodies by their weight must sink, There, as I shivered in the eternal chill, Trampling among the heads, it happed, by luck, Or destiny—or, it may be, my will— Hard in the face of one my foot I struck. Weeping he cried, 'What brings thee bruising us? Unless on me fresh vengeance thou wouldst pile For Mont' Aperti, why torment me thus?' And I: 'My Master, wait for me awhile, That I through him may set one doubt at rest; Then, if thou bid me hasten on, I will.' My leader stopped; and I the shade addressed Who kept full bitterly blaspheming still, 'Say, who art thou whose tongue so foully speaks?' 'Nay, who art thou that walk'st the withering air Of Antemora, smiting others' cheeks That, wert thou living, 't were too much to bear?' 'Living I am; and thou, if craving fame, Mayst count it precious,'—this was my reply,— 'That I with other notes record thy name.' He answered thus: 'Far other wish have I. Trouble me now no longer,—get thee gone: Thine is cold flattery in this waste of Hell.' At this his hindmost hairs I fastened on, And cried, 'Thy name! I'll force thee now to tell. Or not one hair upon thy head shall grow.' He answered thus: 'Although thou pluck me bare, I'll neithertell my name, nor visage show; Nay, though a thousand times thou rend my hair,'

"I held his tresses in my fingers wound, And more than one tuft had I twitched away As he, with eyes bent down, howled like a hound; When one cried out, 'What ails thee, Bocca? say,— Canst thou not make enough clack with thy jaws, But thou must bark too! What fiend pricks thee now?' 'Aha!' said I, 'henceforth I have no cause To bid thee speak, thou cursed traitor thou! I'll shame thee, bearing truth of thee to men.' 'Away!' he answered: 'what thou wilt, relate: But, shouldst thou get from hence with breath again, Mention him too so ready with his prate."

The encounter of Dante with Farinata and Cavalcante in their fiery tombs is also painted with such animated and fortunate strokes that we must reproduce some of them here:—

"'O Tuscan! thou who com'st with gentle speech. Through Hell's hot city, breathing from the earth, Stop in this place one moment, I beseech: Thy tongue betrays the country of thy birth. Of that illustrious land I know thee sprung, Which in my day perchance I somewhat vexed.' Forth from one vault these sudden accents rung, So that I trembling stood with fear perplexed. Then as I closer to my master drew. 'Turn back! what dost thou?' he exclaimed in haste; 'See! Farinata rises to thy view; Now mayst behold him upward from his waist.'

"Full in his face already I was gazing, While his front lowered, and his proud bosom swelled, As though even there, amid his burial blazing, The infernal realm in high disdain he held."

In this scene, however, the radical defect of Dr. Parsons's work appears: it is unequal, and unsustained even in some of its best parts. It seems scarcely credible that the poet who could produce the grand lines just given, could also mar the whole effect of the father's frantic appeal to know if his son Guido be no longer alive, by putting in his mouth the melodramatic words,