'Not feeling any vocation for the character of prophet, I shall take care not to recount here, in advance, events that are about to happen. I marvel at people who are so sure of their facts. The future has not the least obscurity for them; it has much for me. I confine myself to protesting against the positive assertions which have contributed but too greatly to mislead the opinion of Europe. My humbles theory is this: the defeat of the South is probable; the return of the conquered South to the Union is possible.'

But while 'political or military vaticination' is proverbially unsafe, and therefore to be carefully avoided by all judicious inquirers, and especially by practical statesmen, it must at the same time be admitted that some of the general laws controlling such events are well understood; and whenever all the facts of a case are known and appreciated, and the laws applicable fully comprehended, then it is possible to anticipate the results of that particular combination with absolute certainty. Other causes may interfere, and modify these results—may accelerate of postpone them, or entirely absorb and conceal them in the general issue of complicated affairs. Yet the particular results themselves are not, and cannot be defeated or annulled. They are merely transformed by a sort of 'composition and resolution' of social and political causes, exactly similar to that which takes place in mechanics, when two or more forces not concurrent in direction, impel a body in a line altogether different from that in which either of the forces may have acted. Every physical impulse, it is said, which is initiated anywhere on the earth, is felt to the extremities of our solar system—every motion of the smallest particle of matter communicating its effect, however inappreciable, to the most distant planet, and as far beyond as the power of gravitation may extend. It is precisely so with all social events, even those of the most insignificant character. Every one of them has its appropriate influence, which is indestructible; and they all combine to make up the great whole of human action, the results of which at any specific period are only the necessary and inevitable consequences of all antecedent facts.

It was the opinion of that most accomplished political philosopher, Burke, that 'politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings, but to human nature, of which reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part,'—the meaning of which is, simply, that the reasonings do not comprehend, as premises, all the complicated facts which enter into any important political problem, and hence the conclusion in such cases cannot be absolutely certain, and ought not to be implicitly received. It would be extremely difficult to explain how politics could be adjusted to human nature without the exercise of reason, which alone can regulate the process of adjustment. But we may certainly claim that, in the lapse of nearly a century since Burke wrote, the reason has been considerably enlightened, and something more has been learned of human nature itself, its apparently capricious and irregular phenomena having been ascertained to be the subjects of systematic order, as complete as that which prevails in all other departments of nature. The laws of social existence and development have been to some extent discovered, and recognized as being uniform in their operation, so that the natural and necessary course of human events may be anticipated, though as yet in a dim and imperfect way. The present age is fruitful of many wonders; but the greatest of them all is this important truth, which has just begun fairly to dawn upon mankind. It is already so firmly established, that no intelligent man who is fully up with the knowledge of his epoch, can admit the least doubt that all events, however complicated, whether social, political, military, or of any other kind, are controlled by general laws, as uniform and certain in their operation as the laws of astronomy, of physics, or of chemistry. The complexity of conditions under which they operate, makes these laws extremely difficult of discovery and of application. But the infinite combinations of influences which press on minds of individual members of society, and make the acts of each one of them apparently uncertain and arbitrary, exhibit a truly wonderful degree of uniformity, when considered in their operation on the whole mass of a nation. It is by the investigation of these wide and general effects, that the great laws of human action and development are ascertained. Their actual existence is absolutely certain. But after all, in the present state of our knowledge, with all the light afforded by such history as we have of the past, and with all the experience of the present generation, the sum and substance of what we can claim is no more than this: that some influences of a social and political nature may be traced to their certain results, though, from the intricacy of all social facts, their vast extent in a great nation, and especially when international interests are concerned, and from our necessarily imperfect acquaintance with all these varied, multiplex, and powerful conditions, we cannot always foresee what conflicting causes will intervene to counteract, modify, and control the actual issue. It is therefore only in the most general way that anything can be said with reference to the future in social or political affairs.

In two former articles contributed to THE CONTINENTAL, we have endeavored to point out 'the causes of the rebellion,' finding them in events and conditions contemporaneous with the birth of our institutions, and in the necessary antagonism of social and political principles naturally developed in the progress of our country, and embodied in appropriate but conflicting forms. If we have been successful in designating the real causes, and tracing their operation through successive stages, down to the tremendous and calamitous events of the present day, we may hope to follow these causes, to some extent, in their further development, and in their necessary action on the destiny of the nation. We can at least mark the direction of the stream of affairs as it rolls grandly before us; and while we may not know precisely through what regions it will take its course, or by what rapids and over what cataracts it will be hurried and precipitated with furious and destructive force, we can nevertheless pronounce with confidence that it will finally make its way, in spite of all obstructions, to the broad and peaceful ocean of amelioration, into which all the currents of human action, however turbid, and filled with wrecks of human work and genius, eventually pour their inevitable tribute. We can even look through the mists of time which limit mortal vision, and catch some glimpses of the bloody current, observing where it disappears in gloom and shadow, only to come forth again in the distance as a shining river, glistening in the sunlight of peace and prosperity, and bearing on its bosom the full-freighted ark of a mighty nation, resting from war, reunited, and reawakened to the animating sense of a glorious destiny. Though the present generation should be compelled to struggle and labor, through its whole term of existence, with immense sacrifice and suffering, such are the elements involved in the contest, that nothing but good to the nation, which is surely destined to survive, can come out of it in the end.

The whole history of our country, its origin, the peculiar organization of our institutions, and their gradual growth and development down to the present day, seem to have been arranged and ordered for the very purpose of engendering this contest between slavery and freedom. If this statement be too strong, we may at least assert that no better conditions for that purpose could have been devised, by human wisdom at all events, than those which existed at every stage of our progress, from the beginning of our existence as a people, to the culmination of this long-smouldering strife. The germs of freedom and slavery, which we know were planted in the infancy of our republic, found in the circumstances surrounding them the most favorable conditions for their respective growth and expansion. Each found ample opportunity to flourish according to its nature and necessities, modified, it may be, but not destroyed, by the unfavorable institutions which coexisted with it. The organization of separate colonies, and afterward of separate States, measurably independent, afforded these two irreconcilable systems full opportunity for complete development, and rendered it possible for them to maintain, each, a distinct existence in different localities, and to unfold their respective natures and tendencies, with comparatively little interference of the one with the other. Thus slavery soon became extinct in Massachusetts, and died out rather more slowly in the other Free States of the original thirteen. It flourished in Maryland and Virginia, and later, from peculiar circumstances, it grew rank, with unexampled fecundity, in the Carolinas and Georgia. Had the Government of the United States been consolidated, the conditions of slavery and free labor would have been wholly different; and it is reasonable to infer that the course of development of the respective systems would have been materially modified, if not altogether changed. We may pronounce with certainty that the institution would not have become extinct in the whole country as soon as it did in Massachusetts, or, indeed, in any one of the present Free States; but we cannot assert that the converse of this proposition would have been true, and that the Government, as a centralized power, would have abolished slavery more certainly, and sooner, than the most backward of the separate States may now be expected to do, under the complex forms of our present Constitution. In a consolidated government, the power of the majority would have been competent to effect fundamental and universal changes, even to the extent of abolishing slavery; but without the existence of separate States, with their independent local legislation and administrations, the gradual undermining and destruction of the old system would have been a process of extreme procrastination and difficulty. It would have been a gigantic undertaking, convulsing the whole nation whenever attempted, and yet demanding the exercise of its united authority for its accomplishment. We should not have had the effective antagonism of the Free against the Slave States, nor the demonstration which results from the striking contrasts between the two systems in their effects on civilization, in all its forms of intelligence, enterprise, wealth, and improvement. Contiguous States, with separate jurisdictions, admitted a divergence of customs, laws, and institutions, remarkable in its character, and fraught with momentous consequences to the whole sisterhood. Nothing like this could have occurred under the consolidated form. It is true, according to the principles we have heretofore enounced as having been established by universal history and experience, slavery must have disappeared eventually, alike in a consolidated or a federal form of government; for it is now well understood by all enlightened thinkers, that different forms of polity may either facilitate or embarrass the natural development of society, but cannot actually create or altogether destroy the tendency to improvement. This tendency is innate in man, and independent of all forms of government, though not wholly unaffected by them. But in our vast country, under a centralized system, however democratic, it would have been far more difficult to initiate the work of emancipation, on account of the magnitude and unity of the power to be moved, and for want of those points d'appui afforded by the local organization and independent authority of the states in a confederacy. Our own experience, and the recent example of Russia, may serve to convince us that a consolidated representative republic would probably have been less favorable to the abolition of slavery than an imperial and despotic government. The serf-owners of Russia, had the question been submitted to them, would have been as little disposed to vote for the destruction of their system, as the slave-holders of America have shown themselves inclined to submit to the voice of the majority under our republican institutions.

Thus, it was characteristic of our peculiar political forms, that they gave opportunity for the complete trial of each of the two plans of social organization which grew out of the early introduction of African slaves into the colonies. For while it seems to be clear that the federal system was most favorable to the disappearance of slavery from those localities where circumstances made emancipation easy and advantageous, it is equally plain that it afforded full scope to the growth and influence of the system of servile labor, wherever, from climatic conditions, it was peculiarly profitable, and otherwise adapted to the productions of the region, and to the prevailing sentiments of the people. The confederated form of government, therefore, almost of necessity originated the antagonism of Free States against Slave States; while, at the same time, and from the same cause, it enabled the opposite sections to give infinitely greater force and effect to this antagonism, than would have been possible under any other constitutional conditions. Rebellion might possibly have been initiated within the bosom of a consolidated republic, and such a government might well have been broken into two or more fragments; but this would have been far less likely to happen in that case than in existing circumstances. At all events, there would have been no room for the dangerous doctrine of secession, and that plausible pretext would have been wanting to the incipient rebellion; nor would there have been anything equivalent to the State organizations which unfortunately afforded the ready means of immediate and most effective combination. The inestimable advantages of our complex political system in avoiding the necessary despotism of consolidated government, by establishing local legislation and administration in a number of partially independent States, were in some measure counterbalanced by a natural tendency to discord among the parts, and a capacity for independent action in support and perpetuation of dangerous divergencies of opinion and policy. If some States could repudiate slave labor, and gradually build the fabric of their prosperity on the safer basis of universal education, others could, with equal disregard of everything but their own will and fancied interests, cherish and encourage the original system of servile subordination and compulsory ignorance of the laboring class, with which all the States started into their career of independence at the commencement of the Revolution. And, unhappily, both parties to this discordant social action were unrestrained by any constitutional obligation, or by any common authority whatever, in the indulgence, within their respective limits, of mutual hatred and vituperation, with all those numberless and exasperating injuries which no law can either notice or redress. These conflicting capabilities, with their attendant dangers, lurked in the body of our political organization from the very beginning. They were born with it; they grew with its growth, and strengthened with its strength, until the fatal hour when rebellion undertook the wicked work of its destruction. Whatever may be the actual issue of the struggle—whether the attempted dismemberment shall prove a success or a disastrous failure—the effect of the civil war on the character of our institutions must be commensurate with the organic character of the causes out of which it arose. So profound a disturbance of the existing social order, so vast an upheaval of the very foundations of the whole political fabric, must either rend it into fragments, and make necessary a complete reconstruction, or must cause it to settle down upon a basis firmer and more lasting than that on which it has hitherto rested. We think it almost absolutely certain that the latter result will be brought out in the end. It cannot be possible that our system will be utterly destroyed; and if, against all human probabilities, it should be momentarily overthrown, it will rise again hereafter in greater splendor and power, by reason of the very calamity through which it will have passed.

The federative system, on this continent, will never be abandoned; it will be far more likely to be extended much beyond its present limits, even including that immense territory which has been the theatre of its origin and glorious progress down to the present day. Its superiority over any system of consolidated power on a large scale, is beyond all doubt, inasmuch as it provides effectually for the perfect freedom of local legislation and administration, and for the full participation of all the parts in the government of the whole, as to those questions which concern the general interests. But in this very distribution of powers always consisted the greatest difficulty and the most threatening peril; for nothing but actual experience, long continued, could adjust to each other with perfect accuracy the nicely balanced parts of this complicated political machinery. The principle of local independence is naturally liable to exaggeration and abuse. The State authorities have ever shown a tendency to claim absolute sovereignty, and to array their will against the authority of the Federal Government. This troublesome question, forever recurring in the important exigencies of our national life, has never been definitely settled, and perhaps it could not be, except under the pressure of a great and critical emergency like the present. One of the most important consequences of the rebellion will therefore be to dispose of this question forever—to settle the boundaries of the local and general authorities, and to fix them permanently and unalterably. This might possibly have been accomplished in the appointed way, by conventions and explanatory amendments to the Constitution. But such proceedings would have been subject to all the uncertain contingencies and delays involved in partisan struggles and popular elections, and to all the imperfections of halfway measures and expedients of compromise, born amid angry contentions, and bartered for by ambitious aspirants to place and power. By no other means could a complete and adequate arrangement of the difficulty be brought about so effectually as by the terrible lessons of this lamentable civil war. Nothing else would have been so well calculated to clear the eyes of the people of all illusions, and to give them an accurate insight into the character and demands of the crisis. Great disasters, which destroy the fortunes of men, and disturb the prosperity of nations, never fail to awaken the human soul, and impart to it some new and important truths. The sufferings and calamities of the war are indeed great and overwhelming; yet there will be some compensation for them all, in the sad experience we shall gain, and in the stability which will result to our sorely tried institutions in the future. Even if, against all apparent possibilities, the rebellious States should finally conquer their independence, not only the old Government, but even the new one itself, or the batch of new ones that will spring up, will have learned the most salutary lessons from the whole course of this sanguinary struggle. No sundering of such ties as have always heretofore existed among these States can ever take place peaceably. Both we and our enemies will have been taught the never-to-be-forgotten truth that secession is civil war. And we should probably have reason thereafter to add to this sad lesson the still more solemn and portentous one, that permanent separation of these States is nothing more or less than perpetual war, with the accompaniments of large standing armies, vast public debts, oppressive taxes, loss of liberty, and progressive decline of civilization. This state of things would, however, eventually cure itself. What is called the balance of power in Europe has been brought to its present condition of imperfect stability only through centuries of war. What bloody commotions should we experience before the conditions of stable equilibrium could be attained by the warring States of our broken Union? Each petty fragment of the discordant mass would contain within itself the germs of precisely such a struggle as we are now passing through. For though the Confederate Government may have ostensibly recognized the actual sovereignty of the separate States composing it, and thereby pretended to establish the principle of secession as a right, the war will not have reached its termination before that doctrine will be practically and effectually destroyed in the very contest for its assertion. At the moment of its apparent triumph, secession itself would expire; for so strong a government will be indispensable to this achievement, and to the maintenance of the new power, that the very principle which presided at its birth will be suspended and destroyed by the paramount necessities of its existence and condition. Any one of the deluded States which might in that case attempt to assert this right, would soon find, in renewed calamities, the folly and danger of the theory on which it is founded.

Nothing but the hope of foreign intervention has sustained the cause of the rebellion until the present time; and the realization of that hope can alone keep up its vitality, and give it success in the future. The disparity of strength and numbers in the two sections is decisive of the whole case, if they be left to conclude the fight themselves. The question is one of means and men, of resources and endurance; and when we consider the effects of the blockade, and of the probably action of the slaves under the policy of the President, or even under the ordinary progress of the war, no great length of time can be required to bring the contest to an issue, even if the armies of the Union should not at once succeed in overwhelming the enemy and taking possession of his country. In spite of discouraging delays and military blunders, and of all the waste of life and means which have hitherto marked the conduct of the war, the great struggle is still progressing rapidly, though silently, in other fields than those of battle, and with other weapons than bayonets and artillery. The sinews of war are gradually becoming shrivelled in the arm of the rebellion. Every bale of cotton locked up in the ports of the South, or hidden in its thickets and ravines, or given to the flames by ruthless hands of the guerillas, is so much strength withheld from the enemy, and, in the vast aggregate, will eventually be equivalent to the overthrow of his armies and the capture of his cities. The large number of slaves rushing to our lines, and the still greater number rendered restless under restraint, and preparing to escape, may be expected, in any other year, to make even his supply of bread precarious, and still further to paralyze his strength and destroy his means of resistance. But in addition to these accumulating difficulties and misfortunes, our armies are everywhere moving down upon him apparently with irresistible force, and threaten to anticipate the slower, but not less certain work of physical exhaustion. He is hard pressed in Virginia, where his pretended capital is again menaced; he is driven out of Kentucky and Missouri, and is fast receding before our victorious forces in Tennessee. We have penetrated into Mississippi, and await only the swelling of the waters to capture its last stronghold, Vicksburg, when the great valley from Cairo to New Orleans will be in our possession, and the rebel confederacy will be sundered through its very spine. We hold important points on the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf, including the great metropolis of the South, New Orleans, and the whole coast of Texas.

By her own energies alone, these losses can never be recovered by the South. Without aid from abroad, there is not the remotest possibility of prolonging the contest for another year, much less of establishing the Confederate Government on any permanent basis. And even with such interference, supposing it to be successful, the career of the new power would be brief, and full of trouble. It would merely exchange its position of equality in the old Union, for one of degrading dependence and subserviency to some one of the great European Governments. The system of slavery could not be preserved. The demoralization has already gone too far; and no French sovereign or English administration could safely venture to interfere in our quarrel for the purpose of upholding that institution. In the midst of a dissolving social organization, this exhausted and fragmentary American power, galvanized into temporary vitality by the sinister aid of foreign arms, would be compelled to undertake the task of determining its boundaries, defending its frontiers, and reorganizing its chaotic society. All this would have to be accomplished in the presence of a still powerful adversary, jealous of her own rights, and ever ready to assert them, as opportunity would permit, in the face of all opposition. European affairs are not yet so thoroughly adjusted, and the peace of that continent established on so firm a basis, that complications may not be anticipated at almost any moment, which would at once free America from the disgraceful trammels of foreign intervention. It is doubtful whether such a movement from Europe could be successful, even under all the deplorable difficulties which now beset our country. Let any one of those Governments lay its hand on the United States, and revolution would probably hasten to rear its awful head, and so arouse the people of the continent as to shake and endanger the very thrones which now seem to be most firmly established. The unfriendly blow aimed at us might possibly react upon its authors, and transfer to them the misfortunes and disorders which now afflict this country. So just a retribution is not beyond the probabilities of the present situation in Europe, whether intervention should come from the English aristocracy or from the French emperor. The instincts of the people, everywhere, are on our side; their strong arms may not be slow to vindicate the judgment they pronounce, and to follow the sentiments and sympathies which animate their generous hearts.

But in spite of all difficulties and discouragements, at home or abroad, we firmly believe our righteous cause will eventually prevail, and the Union be restored to even more than its former glory. The overthrow of the power of the rebellion, the utter exhaustion of all its resources, and the frightful derangement of its entire social economy, will leave the people of the South in a condition of helplessness which will render further resistance impracticable. An immediate resumption of hostilities will be effectually prevented by the military force which will necessarily be maintained for some time after the close of the final campaign of the war; and before the strength of the rebellious States can be recruited for another similar contest, new ideas will be engendered, and new sentiments of attachment to the Union may be expected to grow up and take the place of that unnatural bitterness which has exasperated the war and prolonged its horrors. An inevitable change of institutions in the South, with moderate and conciliatory measures on the part of the North, will serve gradually to heal the dangerous wound, self-inflicted, which has so nearly destroyed the very existence of the fairest and most favored part of our country. In the end, a homogeneous society will extend over the whole Union, and new vigor will be infused into our political organization, by reason of its recovery from the terrible disease by which it has been attacked and for a time utterly prostrated. The alterative effects of this critical danger overcome, and of the treatment rendered necessary, will doubtless be one of the most important consequences of the rebellion.

The dogma of secession, as applied to our complex government, is inconsistent with reason, and has often been effectually refuted by argument. But sophistry, stimulated by ambition, was ever ready to renew the controversy, and to perpetuate it in all the forms of vicious logic and plausible ratiocination. The appeal to force, however, has done something more than refute an argument; it has already discomfited the whole theory, and it will not end short of the utter annihilation of the very idea of secession as a right, and as a remedy for any evils, fancied or real, which may be suffered or imagined under our Government. After the close of the war, when men look back to its bloody fields and its awful sacrifices, they will be amazed at the insane folly which permitted them to consider the great American Union, with its honorable history, its wonderful progress, its immense power, and its proud standing among the nations, as a mere league among petty states, to be dissolved at pleasure—as a thing to be broken into fragments, and to be divided among ambitious aspirants, to be made the sport of domestic faction, or of foreign rapacity and domination, changing its form and proportions with every change of popular feeling and every restless movement of popular discontent. These fatal delusions will be made to disappear forever, and in their place there will remain in the minds of men the image of a majestic Government, tried in the furnace of civil war, made solid and immovable by its grand and successful efforts to resist the threatened overthrow of its power, and becoming paternal by the recovery of its wonted strength, which will permit and require the exercise of magnanimous forbearance even toward those misguided citizens who have raised their traitorous hands against it. Thus, with the awe and fear which will be inspired by the tremendous energy put forth to conquer the rebellion—an energy which will appear only so much the greater and more imposing in proportion to the difficulties and dangers met and overcome—there will be mingled the better sentiments of love and veneration for a Government which re-establishes order, secures protection to all civil rights, and restores, unimpaired, the liberties which have been disregarded for a time, in order that they might be permanently saved. To the people of the United States, the Union will be what it never was before, and what it never could have been without the sad experience it is undergoing now. Not that any change of form need be effected, or any violence done to the principles on which our system is founded. The change will be solely in the spirit in which our institutions will be administered, arising from the altered sentiments and feelings of the whole people. They will see their Government in a new light—a light thrown on it by the grand events of the rebellion, revealing capabilities and powers not hitherto known to exist, and exhibiting it as the sole refuge in times of commotion and danger, standing unmoved amidst the storm, impregnable to all its violence. In the public recognition, by universal acquiescence, it will be considered stronger than before; and this transformation will be as much a change in the minds of the people as in the character and functions of the Government itself.

There is, however, no good reason why the central power should acquire inordinate strength, and absorb any part of the legitimate functions of the local governments. A more liberal interpretation of the Constitution will somewhat extend the federal powers, and there will necessarily be greater intensity in the exercise of acknowledged authority; nevertheless, consolidation need not be the subject of serious apprehension. At the beginning of the war, when the Union was sorely beset with the most imminent dangers, the executive power was extended far beyond its ordinary limits; and perhaps this excess of action has been in some cases too long continued, and has been made to embrace objects not legitimately within the emergency which originally justified the departure. But even under present circumstances, there can be no just cause for alarm. There can be no real danger, until the people shall have become either overawed and silenced by terror, or careless and indifferent to the encroachments on liberty. Such is evidently very far from being the case now. The recent elections have shown how entirely free is the expression of opinion, and how completely untrammelled the political action of the people, who, in this instance, have been charged with following their leaders even beyond the bounds of just opposition, into the dangerous position of giving encouragement to the enemy. Both parties, however, place their own peculiar construction on these popular decisions, and it is difficult to determine, with any accuracy, what is their actual import. We only know that so extensive a change, affecting the position of many of the largest States, indicates a serious dissatisfaction of some kind; though it is by no means probable that the people have intended to sanction the extreme and mischievous views of some of the candidates, who, here and there, have secured their election. Factious divisions in the loyal States, at this critical period, would be ruinous to the cause of the Union. They would distract the public mind and weaken the arm of the Government, so as to endanger its success in the war. There is no indication of any such intention on the part of the people, whatever may be the designs of some of those who have been successful leaders of this threatening opposition. And the only effect which ought to follow the recent popular demonstration is to admonish the Government, and check it in those errors which are only too natural in the mighty contest in which it is now engaged. The necessity for decision, vigor, and courage, is indeed apparent; and the temptation to go beyond the limits even of proper martial energy, is perhaps a sufficient excuse for those in power, whose deep sense of responsibility and honest zeal in a holy cause may sometimes lead them astray. It is not always given to men in high position to remain cool and calm in great emergencies, and to take comprehensive views of the requirements of so tremendous a contest, as its aspects vary from time to time. The necessary exercise of military authority for the preservation of the Government, however harsh and severe it may be, will be everywhere justified, and even applauded. But there are limits which even military license ought to respect; and when the executive authorities go beyond the bounds of reason and necessity, they ought themselves to be grateful to those who may have the courage to throw themselves into the breach and sternly resist the violation of right. The men in power ought to reflect that they are always liable to be surrounded by subservient partisans, whose fears or selfish purposes may induce them to applaud, when they ought to condemn and reprove. Unfortunately, when such parasites are listened to and rewarded, there is little hope of just and patriotic action; and this state of things leaves no channel of escape, through which the public discontent can be manifested, except that of partisan opposition, which, in the existing crisis, is perhaps more dangerous even than the evil it pretends to condemn and cure. While party divisions, in the midst of dangers such as now threaten us, are greatly to be deplored, we can, nevertheless, derive some satisfaction from results which otherwise we cannot altogether approve. All the essential principles of freedom still remain, through this great trial, undestroyed and unsuppressed by terrorism; and the popular patriotism and sound common sense, though liable to be misled at first, will eventually pronounce a just and enlightened judgment. Parasites and flatterers may shrink from the task of dissent; but the great heart of the people will find some means of expression; and happy will be our country if their honest warnings, given upon 'the sober second thought,' shall be noticed and duly heeded. There will then be no danger of any serious invasions of liberty, or of any permanent absorption of the proper constitutional functions of the States by the Federal Government. Doubtless the central power will be, and ought to be strengthened. Its standing army will necessarily be larger than before the rebellion; the public debt will be greatly increased; the taxes will be heavier; and the revenue and disbursements larger. Though its functions will remain essentially the same in nature, they will have a broader sweep and a greater power. This enlargement of its ordinary action will naturally invest it with all the means and capacities necessary for its own protection, and without any change of the Constitution, it will be recognized as the true embodiment of our permanent nationality, forever paramount in its appointed sphere and appropriate functions to those of the individual States composing it. The sum and substance of the change will be merely that the centripetal and centrifugal forces of the system will have become so completely adjusted to each other, that from this time forward the eternal equilibrium of the whole will be secured. The States will not be shorn of any power rightfully theirs, and necessary for their safety and progress; but they will be fixed in definite orbits, with the limits of their authority distinctly circumscribed and established.

All social changes, sooner or later, produce their appropriate effects on political institutions; and no results of the rebellion will be more prominent and important than those which will follow the inevitable disappearance of slavery. A new system of labor will be inaugurated in the border States, as well as in those now in rebellion. The great act of emancipation may not be immediate; nor is it by any means desirable it should be. So radical a change in the condition of millions of uneducated men would be quite as inconvenient, and, indeed, disastrous to themselves, for the time being, as to their present owners. Society itself would be thrown into the utmost confusion, and all the resources of both parties would be temporarily much diminished, if not nearly destroyed. But, whether suddenly or gradually, this fundamental change must take place; for it is self-evident that slavery cannot survive the present struggle. The proclamation of the President, which is to take effect on the 1st of January next, will make emancipation more complete and speedy; but the same result would have followed the stubborn resistance of the rebels, even without that momentous act. It would be a mischievous error to believe that emancipation was originally the aim and object of the war on the part of the Union, and that the liberation of slaves, which was sure to follow its progress, is the direct act of our authorities, and not the proper consequence of the rebellion itself. A war waged for and on account of slavery—for its increase and perpetuation—necessarily, by its own nature, puts that institution at stake, and risks it on the contingency of failure. Compelled, in defence of the national unity, to carry the war into the heart of the Southern States, the world acquiesces in that sound and necessary policy, which releases the slaves, and sets them free forever, as fast as they come within the protection of our armies. The proclamation is a measure of the same nature, intended to destroy the resources of the enemy, and to wound him in his most vulnerable point. But it can accomplish little more than the previous policy; for the slumbering hopes of the slaves were aroused by the first gun fired at Charleston in the beginning of the struggle. Every movement of armies, and every bloody battle, which has since taken place, has only served to inflame their desire for freedom, and to fix their determination to obtain it. They have received and gladly welcomed the obscure idea, that, in some way, this sanguinary conflict was initiated for their benefit, and will not end without their complete emancipation. In this they are not mistaken. The final suppression of the rebellion by military force will be the perfect consummation of that end, accomplished through the treason and wicked folly of the South herself. If she persevere in her stubborn resistance to the authority of the Union, the great measure of liberation will be the result of her own blind and wilful acts of madness, and this as well through their natural and necessary consequences as by the terms and import of the President's proclamation. Let slavery destroy itself. It is a just and righteous judgment that, in its atrocious effort to destroy the nation, it should accomplish chiefly, if not solely, its own violent and bloody death. Such retribution often attends the commission of great crimes; but it seldom happens that effects so momentous for good flow from the infliction which seems intended only for punishment.

Under all circumstances, with or without the proclamation, slavery must disappear soon after the suppression of the rebellion. From that time, the States will become more and more homogeneous in their social organization. This will tend to promote unanimity among them all, and therefore, by an obvious process, to strengthen the rightful power of the Federal Government. The vast extent of our country, comprising so many varieties of condition and climate, and such diversities of production, rising through every grade of elevation, from the Atlantic seacoast to the central mountains, and thence again descending to the shores of the Pacific, with mighty rivers running through nearly twenty parallels of latitude—this magnificent seat of republican power affords the most unbounded resources for industry in all its employments, and for commercial interchange of productions on the most gigantic scale. With free labor prevailing everywhere throughout this vast and splendid region of the temperate zone, no limits can be assigned to the national progress. The population, wealth, activity, and intelligence of the most favored among the Free States at the present day, can alone offer the measure and example of what the whole will be in the full maturity of the new system. No European complexities of inter-state relations, no oppressive restrictions on domestic commerce, no fatal divergencies of opinion and feeling, no important differences of language and literature—none of these obstructions to harmony and progress will interfere with the continental development and glorious destiny of our Federal Union. All that the earth yields from her teeming surface, or from her deep-embowelled mines; all that enterprise can accomplish with exhaustless means, the best facilities, and the most stupendous objects; and all that genius can create, when stimulated by the richest rewards and the freest opportunities for untrammelled exertion, will supply us with the means and materials for an almost infinite variety of pursuits and occupations; but, at the same time, the essential unity of our complex institutions will be maintained, and their power extended and exalted by the homogeneity and uniformity of social conditions which will prevail more and more with the lapse of years and the succession of generations. The blood of all kindred races will be mingled with advantage in the veins of the cosmopolitan American; religions will be harmonized and unified by the most fraternal liberality and unbounded toleration; and the common enlightenment of the whole people by means of universal education will exalt them to a condition of unexampled power and prosperity. Just as dissensions among the States tend to weaken the central power, their uniform and cordial cooeperation will give immense strength to the whole. Nor will this increase of power be at all dangerous, because it will be only the legitimate consequence of the greater progress and prosperity of the States themselves. To whatever height the greatness of the Union may attain, it will be determined exactly by that of the States which compose it—the pyramid of its power being made up of theirs, which are but the enduring blocks of which the mighty structure is built.

If social unity and political strength will be promoted by the suppression of the rebellion and the disappearance of slavery, the ties of our Union will be made stronger also by other causes. Emerging from the war victorious, not only without being seriously injured, but with eventual and speedy increase of power, the Union will command the respect of foreign nations in a higher degree than ever before. Those European nations, or rather their rulers and nobles, who now in their malignant envy hope for the permanent dismemberment of America, will then hail her resuscitation with a zeal which will be none the less advantageous to us for being forced from them in spite of their present hate and detraction. If the division of our country would destroy its influence abroad, and subject the parts to constant intrigues and interference from foreign powers, the restoration of the Union with even more than its former glory will give us unexampled weight in the counsels of mankind. Our unexpected and astounding exhibition of military power, our thorough command of the American continent, and its immense resources, hardly yet begun to be developed, and the unlimited prosperity which the future will assuredly bring us, cannot fail to strike the minds of European thinkers, and to awaken deep interest among the European people. The stream of immigration, interrupted by the war, will be renewed with at least its former fulness, and will keep pace with the demands of our country for labor and population. The South may then be expected to receive her full share of this increase by people from abroad, and will then commence that process of condensing and permanently fixing her population, without which she can never attain any high position in the scale of civilization.

The large public debt destined to be incurred, may be expected to have some influence in preventing immigration and improvement; but unless the war shall unfortunately linger far beyond the period at which its end is now anticipated, the liabilities of the Government will not be so great as to prevent the speedy return of our usual prosperity. A different and far better system of taxation will be required—one more favorable to commerce and at the same time equally productive, or at least sufficiently so to meet all our liabilities and provide for the extinguishment of the debt within a reasonable time. One of the advantages attending this great debt and modifying its certain evils and burdens, will be the necessity of devising a stable revenue system, intended solely to provide means for sustaining the Government and meeting the public obligations. Periodical changes, often depending on party ascendency and popular elections, have hitherto marked the financial policy of our Government. So long as the sources of revenue were superabundant and the demands of the Treasury very moderate, we could well afford to make experiments, and even to depart from the true principles of taxation, or at least to do so without any very serious or ruinous consequences. Now, however, when the public expenditure is about to be vastly increased, and when it will be for the first time really felt by the people, it will become the first duty of our rulers to study the extent and true character of our resources, and to adjust the burdens of taxation, with all practicable fairness, to the respective capacities of all classes and interests. We may expect to have a system stable and permanent in its principles, if not in its details; and the basis of this system will be a wise arrangement of duties on imports, which must, from various reasons, ever form the great bulk of our taxes.

It is not an American maxim that a great public debt is a public blessing; nor is it likely that an educated and eminently practical people like ours will ever accept that mischievous paradox. Yet if it be desirable that our large public debt should be widely scattered among the people, so that every man may be directly interested in maintaining the public credit and the stability of the Government, the present system, now but imperfectly adapted to that object, might easily be made to accomplish it fully. If the Treasury notes recently issued were the only paper circulation in the country—that is to say, if the banks were prohibited, by taxation or otherwise, from making any issues of their own—the Government might increase their amount to at least five hundred millions, with even less than the present depreciation, and would thus enjoy the benefit of a loan to that amount without the payment of any interest. As it is now, the banks get the advantage of a great part of this extensive loan, and at the same time perform a function which properly belongs to the Government—that of furnishing a currency for the people. By the proposed system, the entire community would be interested in this part of the public debt, and would doubtless find the circulating medium much safer and better than that now manufactured by the numberless banks chartered by the States. The issue of these notes by State institutions was always an evasion of that clause of the Constitution which prohibits the States from issuing bills of credit, and is plainly against the spirit and intention of the instrument. If our public debt should, in this way, eventually drive all bank notes out of circulation and banish them forever, it will have accomplished a valuable work in restoring the true construction of the Constitution, and, in this particular at least, will have proved a public blessing. It will be very easy, in the course of time, to redeem the Treasury notes, and gradually to substitute for them a species of national paper based on actual deposits, which will afford all the conveniences with none of the dangers of the present system, by which the local banks virtually establish the currency of the country, flooding it with all varieties of paper, without uniformity of value, with no adequate control or regulation of its quantity, thus producing periodical convulsions and robbing the people of their hard-earned savings.

If the rebellion, by the burdens which it leaves behind, shall bring about these two results—the adoption of a wise and permanent system of revenue, and the establishment of a sound currency by the prohibition of all bank circulation—it will have accomplished ends only inferior in importance to the two primary consequences, the overthrow of the principle of secession and the destruction of slavery. Thus, this tremendous convulsion would bring out of the chaos a new order in the political world, by annihilating secession, and by perpetuating the Union and banishing all fear of its dissolution; in the social, by substituting free men for slaves; in the financial, by a permanent adjustment of tariffs and taxation; and in the commercial, by the prohibition of bank paper and the substitution of a safe and uniform currency.



'I;' OR, SUMMER IN THE CITY.'

'I love the sweet security of streets.'—CHARLES LAMB.

'I,' my charming friend, do not fully sympathize with the late Mr. Lamb's statement, as quoted above; which statement I always have believed partially owed its origin to its very tempting alliterative robe.

For myself, I do not particularly like the 'sweet security of streets,' but vastly prefer 'a boundless contiguity of shade,' especially during the present month—August—or

'A life on the ocean wave.'

I do not mean a permanent residence there—that would be liable to be damp and unhealthy, and altogether too insecure to be 'sweet;'—but when I say a 'life on the ocean wave,' it is merely my poetical license for a cottage at Newport. (I wish, indeed, that I had any but a poetical one for such a possession!)

But what folly for me to talk of a cottage there! when my limited income does not even admit of a cot in the cheapest of seaside inns.

Gentle reader! shrink not from me when, in addition to this melancholy confidence, I also announce to you that I live in town—in 'Boston town,' to be accurate—during August! I belong to the 'lower orders of society;' and my only Newport is the Public Garden, or a walk to Longwood, and, when I am very affluent, a horse-car drive to Savin hill, where a teaspoonful of sea view is administered to the humble wayfarer.

Yes! I positively did exist in the city, not only through the month of August, but all the summer days of all the summer months. I mention August in the city, because I know that has a peculiarly God-forgotten and forsaken sound.

I should soon cease to exist anywhere, I fancy, if I did not stay in town, for (horror No. 2!) I work at a trade in order to earn my daily bread and coffee! What my particular trade is, I am not going to divulge—that shall remain a delicious mystery (the only delicious thing about it); only this much I will confide: I do not, a la Mr. Frederick Altamont, 'sweep the crossing.' Unhappy Altamont! he did not appreciate the sweet security of streets.

'Poor thing!' you exclaim, 'work at a trade?'

Rest tranquil, fair one; the phrase doubtless sounds harshly to your delicate, aristocratic ears. (Oh, what lovely earrings!) Be tranquil! I do not work very hard; my hands are perhaps so audacious as to be as small, as white, and as soft as your own.

But I have to 'work reg'lar,' every week day of all the months of every year; and when the time arrives for me to go into the country, I shall not return again to Boston; for I shall go to a land from whence no traveller returns. Apropos of this rather dismal topic: A queer cousin of mine, 'Sans Souci,' who has a taste for 'morbid anatomy,' was the other day enjoying himself with Mr. Smith, the cheerful sexton of the King's Chapel. These two were 'down among the dead men,' under the church, when Mr. Smith apologized for leaving my cousin, on the plea that he had a previous engagement to take a young gentleman into the country—a delicate way of stating that he was about to convey a body out to Mount Auburn!

Some fine day, I too shall take a drive with some Mr. Smith—not, of course, the S. C. Smith, for, as I have mentioned, 'I' belong to the 'lower orders.'

Now let me tell you of my Newport, and of what mitigations there are for the poor wretches who pass their summer in the city, to whom the joys of Sharon, Saratoga, the Hudson, and of Lake George are as impossible as though these delightful resorts were in other planets. Perhaps, like Mr. T. A.'s 'good Americans,' they have a vague hope that when they die they can visit these famous places! For myself, I long ago made out my 'visiting list.' Oh, bless you! as soon as I shall be 'out of the body,' I shall start on the most delightful tour (no bother about the luggage, checks, or couriers!); it will be years and years before I fairly 'settle down' in that

'bright particular star'

I have selected for my permanent residence. Yes! you horrible madame! oh, you horrible madame, who express your fears that I shall 'never be settled,' speaking of me as if I were the coffee in your coffee-pot—(only, of course, such a well-regulated dame's coffee is never anything but quite clear and settled)—yes, to relieve your poor, narrow mind, I can bid you hope that in another and pleasanter world I fully expect to be—'settled.' I tell you this beforehand, for I am very sure that you won't go to the same planet, and therefore will never have the satisfaction of knowing the fact from personal observation.

But what am I about? Building castles in the skies! Mr. Editor Leland, as usual, protests against my sad lack of con-cen-tra-tion! Let us concentrate, therefore, my beloved hearers! With or without sugar? Oh, I was beginning to tell you about Newport—my Newport, the Public Garden of Boston, alias Hub-opolis—which you, poor things! belonging to the 'higher orders' and living on Arlington, Berkely, Clarendon, and the Duke of Devonshire streets, never have a chance to see in its Augustan pomp and glory. In fact, till this summer, its 'pomp and glory' were quite concealed by dust and ashes; but now, thanks to the 'City Fathers,' it is

'Ye land of flowers.'

Let me describe it to you; for though your dwellings are directly opposite, yet, custom compelling you to leave them before the flower season begins, you in reality know less of it than I do, living in a street whose name must not be mentioned to ears polite. 'Tis far from the Beacon 'haunts of men,' far from the Garden, and uncommonly far from the Common. I rise betimes on these summer mornings, and, before I go to my work, shaking off the dust of my obscure street, I enter your sacred precincts, oh, F. F. B.'s! Bless you, it can do you no harm, for even your boudoirs do not look out at me; their eyes are shuttered to all such vulgar sights. It was impertinent, but this morning I pitied you (you!) that you could not see the wondrous beauty of the—city in August!

The morning was gloriously beautiful: it might have been the sister to that one born so long ago, on which its Creator looked, and said that it was 'good.' I actually forgot that I had no position; I imagined I had, for the very brightest beauty filled my soul—I saw angels ascending and descending (not Beacon street, as in the winter season) the charmed air around me. 'Ye land of flowers,' indeed! All of them mine—mine, though I must not pluck the humblest one. In truth, I had no desire to do so. Why should I take the lovely creatures from their beautiful home, to the close, dull room where I must sit all the bright day? Let me rather think of them fresh, free, and happy there, as I often think of a golden-haired child in heaven; one so dear to my heart of hearts, I bless God that I can think of her there with the angels who stand nearest the Throne—and far, far away the weary paths that I must tread to the end. But if heaven had not wanted another cherub, and she had been left to be the flower of my life, think you I could have seen her beauty wither in the dull room to which I must hasten in an hour? No! a thousand times no! I should leave her with her sisters in the garden here, with her cousins, the birds and butterflies, while I worked for both. Lilies must neither 'toil nor spin.' How idly I am dreaming! She is far away from this worky-day world; I shall never see her again, but in dreams, as now! Little sister! with starry eyes, and soft curls clustering around the sweet infant face; so many nights the same bright vision—with the same wreath which I myself placed on her head, of May's pale flowers, and she the palest. Only lilies of the valley, I remember, seemed fitting for my darling's brow, or to grow on

ANNIE'S GRAVE.

Bright Roses, wither on the spray! Your sweetness mocks the doom Of her whose cheeks, so pale to-day, Were rivals of your bloom.

Sweet Violets, I charge ye, fade! Wear not those robes of blue, For eyes are closed which Nature made Of a more lovely hue.

Pale Lilies, sad and drooping low, With perfume like her breath, On Annie's grave alone shall grow, Fair flower, plucked by Death.

* * * * *

Call it an affectation, if you will, but I never take a flower from its home without a slight twinge of pain. I know it suffers! However, I have no scruples in accepting flowers after they are plucked by others. So pray do not hesitate about sending me that superb bouquet, which you intended to send me to-morrow! Have you never observed the brutal habit which 'some persons' have, of recklessly attacking shrubs and flowers, as though they were rank weeds (or secessionists), and, without in the least enjoying their spoils, tossing their quivering, trembling victims aside, before they are dead or even withered? Such are not worthy of flowers, excepting French flowers, which are not supposed to suffer. Oh, my countrywomen! would that they did suffer a little from our neglect.

Do you know who Lacoontola is? I have made her acquaintance this summer, and find it one of the compensations for passing the summer in town.

She is to be found at the City Library—'Lacoontola, or, The Fatal Ring,' translated from the Sanscrit. Go there for her, I pray you, and you will admire with me the exquisite description of her tenderness to these 'flower people,' as Mrs. Mann calls them.

But, pardon! You who belong to the 'highest orders' must be already intimate with Mlle. Lacoontola, for she is highly connected: her papa was a king (quite equal in position to Mr. Abe Lincoln); her mamma, I regret to state, though a very charming person, was an actress or goddess, or something in that line. Lacoontola, however, in spite of her papa's indiscretion, married a prince, and was, in fact, perfectly genteel and quite religious. Before her marriage, she appears to have 'lived in the woods' the year round; her wardrobe being 'turu-lural.' She used to wear the 'dearest' little zouave of the 'tender bark' of the 'Aurora tree.'

'Rich and rare were the gems she wore,'

for her bracelets were the 'long perfumed stems of the waterlilies!' and in her hair the lotus flower, in place of a lace barbe!

There is a very beautiful description of Lacoontola's love and tender treatment of all the flowers and shrubs—her companions—and of all dumb animals. (On dit that the prince was henpecked by Mrs. L.!)

This wild girl had a human love for the forest flowers; she says to thee, Madhari Creeper: 'Oh, most radiant of twining plants, receive my embraces, and return them with thy flexible arms: from this day, though at a distance, I shall forever be thine.' How unconventional! I fancy Mlle. L. must have inherited this style of conversation from her mamma; all very well, when confined to flowers and 'creeping' things; but one day, as she was out walking, she met 'by chance—the usual way,' Prince Dashuranti, and our young lady said pretty much the same sort of thing to him as to the 'Creeper,' falling violently in love with him at first sight. It struck H. R. H. as a little peculiar—rather extraordinary in a well-bred miss; but as it was leap year, and learning that she was the only child, and would inherit all of papa's immense fortune, he married her 'off-hand;'—well, that very afternoon at four o'clock—by the sundial. You see it didn't take so long 'in those days,' to get the trousseau, and all 'the things' in readiness. Papa raised his sceptre-wand, and mumbled some infernal gibberish—and, lo! all the trees and shrubs blossomed instanter, with the 'sweetest loves' of things trimmed with 'real point;'—well, with something just as delicious to the soul of a young (or middle-aged) maiden on the eve of matrimony. There was no necessity, either, for an order to Bigelow Bros., Boston—since, if Dushuranti wished to present her with a pair of bracelets on her wedding day, he had but to 'push out' on the pond, and get some waterlilies!

The 'gibberish' in which the old gentleman is said to have invoked the backwoods 'Chandlers' and 'Hoveys,' I will obligingly translate for you, as possibly you may not be able to read it in the original Sanscrit! Oh! don't tell me that you 'won't trouble me,' and all that. I will bore you, and nobody can save you!

'Hear, O ye trees of this hallowed forest, hear and proclaim that Lacoontola is going to the palace of her wedded lord. She who drank not, though thirsty, before you were watered; she who cropped not, through affection for you, one of your fresh leaves, though she would have been pleased with such an ornament for her locks; she whose chief delight was in the season when your branches are sprayed with flowers,' &c., &c. Should you like a photograph of this charming person, Lacoontola, taken by Black & Batchelder, at the time of her marriage, 'Williams & Everett' can oblige you. You will perceive, from her picture, that she is not too fond of dress, or a 'slave to fashion.'

'Rappacini's daughter' (one of Hawthorne's Mosses) was a morbid 'Lacoontola.' She loved her flowers,—'not wisely, but too well!' She became a sort of exterminatrix—a strychninus young person! From the poisonous arsenic embraces of her garden loves, she acquired, you remember, her fatal, glowing beauty—beauty altogether 'too rich for use, for earth too dear,' since it consigned the 'party' ensnared by it to the silent tomb!

'Rappacini's daughter,' indeed! Lovely girl-woman, seated at yonder bay window (to be accurate, the 'Back Bay window'!), playing with your ten cherub children; your tropical 'midsummer-night's-dream' beauty recalls Beatrice (Hawthorne's Beatrice I mean). How many have you slain, my love? And Madame Grundy echoes: 'Their name is legion!' 'A quick brunette, well moulded, falcon-eyed'! As in the description of Beatrice, one is reminded 'of all rich and intense colors'—the purple-black hair, the crimson cheek, the scarlet lips. And the eyes? ah! gazing into those wonderful eyes, one forgets the color they wear, in trying to interpret their language! 'Cleopatra!' who would not be an Antony for thee? I would not!

I have unconsciously interrupted a lady in her morning bath!—the 'stone lady' of the fountain. She seems to be looking for her Turkish towel, judging from her anxious expression! Rather a good-looking person—quite pretty, if only she would go to Summer street and purchase a black silk. Dress, I fancy, would improve 'her style of beauty.' Poor thing! it's rather a long walk to take, a la 'Lacoontola'! I must lend her my waterproof, only she appears already to be water-proved! How she must envy the coloring and the clothes of my beautiful dame of the window!

But my hour is passing away! 'Resurgam'—as the sun incorrectly remarked this morning—and go on my way, rejoicing to say 'bon jour' to all my dear flower friends. And first, the 'Asters'—they always were rich, you know, from 'John Jacob' down; but this summer, malgre taxes and curtailment of incomes and go-comes, the family appear in unprecedented splendor. What gorgeous Organdies! all quilled in the fashion—but not by Madame Peinot: her cunning right hand, with all its cunning, ne'er quilled so exquisitely. Those graceful, fragile Petunias (what a family of sisters!), in their delicate glaze silks (ratherish decollete!), and the Superbia, Empress 'Gladiolus,' in brocade of such daring hues, may call the Asters 'stiff and prudish' in their quilled muslins; but, what say the Asters in return? Ah! what do they not say?

The Verbenas seem fairly delirious this morning, as though the consciousness of their own beauty made them run wildly from their beds into the paths, to say to the passers-by, with their bright little faces:

'See! am I not charming?'

Well, you are pretty—very pretty; but I care not for you as for your plainer stepsister, the 'sweet-scented Verbena.' She has a pale, sad face; but she has a soul, which you have not, poor things! for perfume is the soul of 'flower people.'

But, who wants gold? Lives there a man with purse so full who does not want it? Well, then, snatch that heap of sunshine, that dazzling Coreopsis, and be off before the policeman turns into this path. Ah, ye Daylilies! You break my heart with your moonlight faces. Standing apart from the world-flowers, like novices in their white veils, who offer the incense of their beauty to Heaven—oh! give a little of your perfume to a poor un-otto-of-rosed mortal—breathe on me, and I can laugh at the costly 'Wood Violet,' 'Eglantine,' and 'Rose,' with which Harris & Chapman scent their patronesses—to be dollared in return!

Daylilies, your perfume is too subtle, too vague, to be coined or 'cabined, cribbed, confined' in scent bottles.

Ah! the flowering Mosses; they seem to be having one eternal picnic with the Myrtles and Verbenas, playing forever that dear-to-children game of 'Tag'! Some are arrayed in Solferino velvets, rather heavy for this warm day! Prettier these, in soft rose-colored robes, and this, in a

'Oh! call me fair, not pale'—

well, almost pale robe, the very climax of delicacy: the faintest thought of rose color alone prevents one from calling it lily-white. I am reminded of you, O flower-named friend! Vision of loveliness! which has in a few never-to-be-forgotten days oasised my Sahara life. Now I have reached the pond—my Lake George! It is fresh and breezy this morning, after last night's thunder-shower, and the mimic waves are impatiently breaking over the thus-far-shalt-thou-go stone. I cannot blame them for rushing over that green sward to give a morning kiss to the blushing 'Forget-me-nots,' and just say to them, 'Remember me!'

Yes; I have a few crumbs of time left to sit in the rustic arbor and give one lingering look behind, that I may carry a picture with me when I go to my work.

How fortunate it is for one that these flowers are Londoners in their habits, and pass August in the city! I can go to their receptions daily, if I choose; they are always at home to the poorest, the most unfashionable; they keep no 'visiting book' in their hall.

Hark! the bell rings seven o'clock. There is a 'knocking at the gate' of my fairy land; it warns me that I must be on my Washington-street way, to earn my bread.

Bien! my first meal of to-day has been satisfactory. Heaven hath sent me all manner of manna for breakfast—and for lunch? a banana. Yes; on my way 'down town' I shall pass the Studio Building, where the B.'s live; I will buy one of them, but shall also steal—many glances at the Hamburg grapes, those peachiest of peaches, bombastic blackberries, and, O Pomona! such pears.

I escape! purse uninjured, only bananared. I reach Winter street, where I must turn my back on the Common pleasures of Boston life—but yet, one glance at that seductive window of the corner store, which, indeed, is nearly all window. Flowers are there, of course,—flowers from January to January; any poor devil can have a temporary conservatory at that window, 'all for nothing;' I ought to pay a yearly tax for the pleasure I steal in that way. The woman who carries my portmonnaie, only permits me to open it for the 'necessaries' of life: the luxuries of hot-house grapes and flowers ever wear for me that fatal label: 'Touch not, taste not.' Bread and cologne are, of course, the first necessities of life; in rolls and religion I am a Parkerite; in cologne, I swear by 'Mrs. Taylor'! Beacon street, I beg that you won't faint at this horrible disclosure!

Who is 'Mrs. Taylor'? and echo answers, 'We haven't the faintest odor of an idea!' None know her but to praise, wherever she may be. With Sancho Panza we say, 'Blessings on the man who invented Mrs. Taylor at seventy-five cents per—the hock bottle. I catch a glimpse of her long neck, stretching up among the roses and Geraniums: my cologne nature can't resist that sight! I obey the syren's call, though it will leave me a beggar, but with Mrs. T. in my chaste-embrace.

'The man I work for' treats me, for some reason, with 'distinguished consideration.' Though I may sometimes be a little after the required hour, it's all right; and though he's a Yankee, no questions are asked! I still have a precious quarter remaining—not of a dollar, but of time. I have in my purse one postage stamp; but that will warrant a visit to Loring's! One must have books as well as bread and cologne. O LORING! what an institution art thou! Name dear to all classes, from Madame ——, who steps from her carriage, to the pretty shop-girl, who always wants Mrs. Southworth's last—and worst—novel.

Who, indeed, 'so poor' as not 'to do him reverence,' and find two cents per day, when for that sublimely small sum one can get a companion for any and every mood,

'Grave to gay, from lively to severe?'

But will 'LORING'S' be open at this early dawn? 'Open,' indeed! one does not catch him napping; yes, open and so inviting! A literary public garden so fresh and clean, as

'Just washed in a shower.'

In the rear, behind the desk, one is always sure of finding at least two roses, and on the desk a vase of flowers is certainly to be seen—the offering of some one of the hundreds of admirers who go to Loring's, nominally for some entertaining book—and they always find one!

'What book did you say, miss?' asks Fleur de Marie. ('Where does she get those lilies and roses? I saw none like them in the garden this morning. Ah! many of the dames who enter here from their carriages would also like to ask my question—since they do not seem to find them even at Newport!) 'If you please, what book?' again inquire the Roses.

'Oh!' I answer, 'I was looking, and forgot what I came for; is 'Out of his Head' in yet?'

The fair librarian evidently thinks I am out of mine. Ah! would that I were, and out of my whole body; but no! ingrate that I am, to-day I should be content—simply to be; even a cabbage ought to be happy in such perfect summer weather. T. B. Aldrich is in—as much as he ever is supposed to be; but I recall now that I read his sketchy book the other night, while I was brushing my hair, giving it a sort of 'good time generally,' letting it run wild a little before going to sleep. I read 'Pierre Antoine's Date Tree' quite through, and liked—the last part very much indeed. There are some people whom I am always very glad to have visit me, because I feel so 'dreadful glad' when they go away. So, also, it compensates one to read certain books for the sake of the delicious sensation one experiences on finishing them! What a pile of 'Les Miserables,' Fantine? C'est assez miserable. The 'Hunchback' is the least deformed of Hugo's offspring; but I read that last Sunday morn—no; I mean last Saturday evening; for I went to church on Tremont street, last Sunday. What's this? it looks as tempting as a banana, and is not unlike one in color. 'Melibaeus in London,' in the summer, too: good! I'll take that, it shall 'assist' the banana at my lunch. I hurry out of this 'little heaven,' murmuring, as I depart: 'LORING, live forever!'

Lady Macbeth undoubtedly alluded to you when she says:

'We fail? there's no such word as fail!'

I believe the Macbeths, and, in fact, everybody but Loring, has failed during the war times. McClellan certainly has—not succeeded.

The police (those gentlemen of elegant leisure) do not even suspect how much I have stolen, and what treasures I am carrying off before nine o'clock A. M.! All the splendors of the early morning are mine; they will gild the dull grey of my working hours. What a stock of perfumes stolen from the garden! they will sweeten the 'business air' of Washington street. The fountain's glistening spray will sprinkle the dusty walk to 'the shop.'

I have not yet told you of the kisses taken—not from Fera's, but from the cherry-ripe lips of two lovely children, with whom I formed an intimacy in the garden by the pond; they were 'sailing' their mimic boats there. I almost wished

'I were a boy again,'

and had a boat to sail! These children had such a brave and haughty beauty, and their dress being of purple and fine linen, I supposed their name must be Berkeley or Clarendon, but was grieved to learn from the artless darlings that it was Muggins! However, their kisses were unexceptionable, whatever their origin may have been.

But what a 'heap' of Beauty I stole in my return walk through Beaconstreet mall! No wonder those magnificent elms are in love with each other, and embrace over the people's heads! When I come into my fortune, I intend, early the next morning, before breakfast, to make the first use of my 'funds' in purchasing Mr. George Ticknor's house. (Of course, he will not object.) I shall then laugh at the mill-dam principalities and powers when I look from my library windows down that long vista of noble trees. Come and see me when I am settled there! You shall have a warm welcome in winter, and a cool one in summer. And now, fare thee well, whoever thou art, who hast kindly walked with me to the door of—my 'place of business.' I will not ask you to enter there. I can worry through the day: unseen companions go with me to soothe and cheer; so do not pity me that I am what I am—'nobody,' living 'nowhere.' You have seen that the Angel of Beauty disdains not to appear in my humble path—and sometimes hovers so near, I can almost touch her wings!

And so God be w'ye! Little joys to you are great joys to me. There be those above you, 'kinges and princes and greate emperours,' to whom your luxuries and badges would seem as little as mine are to you. When you are beautiful, you adorn my street; when you are unlovely, I—pass you by. Bon jour la compagnie!



THE IVY.

'Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Fairies, begone, and be all ways away. So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist,—the female Ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. Oh, how I love thee; how I dote on thee!'

Midsummer Night's Dream, act iv., scene 1.

'The bearers of the thyrsus (bound with Ivy) are many, but the Bacchantae are few.'—Orphic saying.

If, among plants, the Rose is unmistakably feminine, from the delicate complexion of its flower, the Ivy is not less so from the tender sentiment of attachment expressed by its whole form and life. In her infinite array of poetic symbols, Nature has given us nothing so exquisitely typical of all that is best in woman, as that which may be found in the graceful curves and in the firm strength of this vine. In youth and beauty, she clings to the husband tree or parental wall for support, and, like a wife or daughter, conceals defects, and imparts a softer shadowing and contour to the support, without which she herself had never risen to light and life. Time passes on. The oak grows old, the wall is shattered by lightning; but the Ivy, now strong and firm, shelters the limbs or binds together the tottering walls with greater care than before, and covers decay and rifts with fresh care—aided by the younger daughter-vines.

This simile has occurred to poets in all lands, in all ages. In an old Chinese poem (JOLOWICZ, der Poetische Orient, s. 7) we are told that 'in the south there lives a tree, the Ivy Ko clings and winds around it, bringing the most excellent of joys and happiness in excess.' Owing to this natural and most palpable resemblance, the ancient Greeks caused the officiating priest in the temple to present to a bridal pair, on entering, a twig of Ivy, 'as a symbolical wish that their love, like it, might ever continue fresh.' It was a beautiful thought, and one which was not lost sight of in the ecclesiastical and architectural symbolism of the middle ages. 'It is,' says FRIEDREICH (Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur, Sec. 103), 'as an ever-greening plant, a type of life, of love, and of marriage.' It is, therefore, with both truth and propriety that the modern floral lexicons give the vitis hedera, or Ivy, as expressing 'Female affection—I have found one true heart.'

As with all plants, or, indeed, with all natural objects known to the ancients, the Ivy was the subject of a myth or religious allegory, and in investigating this myth, we find ourselves in a labyrinth of strange mystery. The ordinary works on mythology, indeed, inform the reader that it was the plant sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine, because, as Loudon states, 'this wine is found at Nyssa, the reputed birthplace of Bacchus, and in no other part of India.' 'It is related,' he continues, 'that when Alexander's army, after their conquest of Babylon, arrived at this mountain, and found it covered with laurel and Ivy, they were so transported with joy (especially when they recognized the latter plant, which is a native of Thebes), that they tore up the Ivy by the roots, and, twining it around their heads, burst forth into hymns to Bacchus, and prayers for their native country.'

But there is a deeper significance to the Ivy, even as there is a deeper and more solemn mystery and might around the primeval Bacchus. To us he is merely the wine-god, but to the ancient Initiated in the orgies and mysteries he was—as were each of the gods in their turn—the central divinity, the lord of light, and the giver of life. For, as it was concisely said in the spirit of pantheistic abstraction: 'Nothing can be imagined which is not an image of God;' so it was not possible to conceive a divinity who was not in himself all the other divinities. Thus we find that Bacchus was male, female, and at the same time an absolute ONE without regard to sex; or, in other words, he was the ancient trinity.

'Tibi enim inconsumpta juventus. Tu puer aeternus, tu formosissimus alto Conspiceris coelo, tibi, cum sine cornibus adstas Virgineum caput est.'

OVID, Met. l. 4.

For, as the great mystery of all religion, or of all being, is life, and as life, like blood, is most aptly typified by reviving and inspiring wine, it was not wonderful that renewed strength, generation, and birth should gather around the incarnation of the vine, and that the cup should become the holiest of symbols. Like the ark, the chest or coffer, the egg, and a thousand other receptive or containing objects, the cup appeared to the ancient Initiated as a womb, or as the earth, taking in and giving forth life. It was in this spirit that NONNUS, in the fifth century, wrote The Dyonisiacs, a vast poem on Bacchus, in forty-eight books; 'a magnificent assemblage of the emblematical legends of Egypt,' and in which modern criticism has discovered a creative grandeur, a beautiful wildness of fancy, and a romantic spirit, such as were combined in no other one poem of antiquity.

Bacchus was thus the lord of life, and that in a vividly real sense—the sense of intoxication, of keenly thrilling pleasure, of wild delight, and headlong rushing joy. He was fabled to have given men the grape and wine—but to the Initiated of the mystery and orgie there was higher and more intoxicating wine than that of the grape—the wine of wild inspiration, drawn from the keenest relish of beauty, of nature, of knowledge, and of love. Drunk with this wine of the soul, the Moenad and Bacchante rushed forth into lonely forests, amid rocks, by silent lake, and streamlet lone, and cried in frantic joy, bewildered with passion, to the Great Parent, or shouted in praise: 'Bacche, Evoe, Bacche!'

'Then chaunted rose The song of Bacchic women: all the band Of shaggy Satyrs howled with mystic voice, Preluding to the Phrygian minstrelsy Of nightly orgies. Earth around them laughed; The rocks reechoed; shouts of revelling joy Shrilled from the Naiads, and the river nymphs Sent echoes from their whirlpool-circled tides, Flowing in silence; and beneath the rocks Chanted Sicilian songs, like preludes sweet, That through the warbling throats of Syren nymphs, Most musical drop of honey from their tongues.'

NONNUS.

For all this wild joy, all this exquisite union of all the pleasures known to man, whether in the mad embraces of passionate nymphs, in draining wine, in tasting the fresh honeycomb, in wild dances under green leaves, in feasting, or in song, Bacchus was the centre, and the Cup the symbol. And this cup—the absolutely feminine type—the Iona which forms the nucleus of so great and so curious a family of words in the Indo-Germanic and Shemitic languages—was fabled to have been formed from the wood of Ivy. Let the reader hear this double sex of Bacchus in mind; he will find it recurring again in the myth of Ivy. 'We must,' says CREUZER (Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Voelker), 'think of ALL things, if we would not see the Bacchic genii in their mysterious rites, from a one-sided point of view. Not only Bacchus himself, but his male and female companions must each, like their lord on earth, appear in different forms. For the mysteries loved the antique, the pregnant-with-meaning, i. e. that which has a really symbolical fulness, and supplies full food for thought.' And again: 'It would have been very strange if the Man-Woman had not also appeared in this mysterious array of forms. In his origin, Bacchus is an Indian god, and to the Hindus the world was bi-sexed.' Thus we find in the Ivy, as his sacred plant, a curious and beautiful symbol, in whose trailing embraces the ancient East and West are bound together.

If the Ivy cup was held to typify female nature, so too were the leaves of that plant emblematical of the receptive sex. The thyrsus, the distinctive object borne by the worshippers of Bacchus, was a phallic or male symbol, the characteristic portion of which was wreathed and buried in Ivy leaves; signifying the union of the sexes. It is curious to observe that this regarding the Ivy as characteristic of the feminine principle, found its way among the Druids, and was transmitted from them to the Christian and Christmas ceremonies of the middle ages. In these we always find that the thorned holly is spoken of as male, and the Ivy as female. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1779, a correspondent relates a ceremony, which is still preserved in some parts of England. 'The girls, from five or six to eighteen years old, were assembled in a crowd, burning an uncouth effigy, which they called a holly-boy, and which they had stolen from the boys; while in another part of the village, the boys were burning what they called an Ivy-girl, which they had stolen from the girls. The ceremony of each burning was attended with huzzas and other acclamations, according to the receipt of custom in all such cases.'[1]

There is but one legend in all the legends of the gods; but one solution, though the enigmas be thousandfold; and the myth of the Ivy is only a repetition of that of Bacchus and of all the immortals—the endless allegory of birth and death, male and female, winter and spring. Kissos—the Greek word for Ivy—was a young faun beloved by Bacchus, who accompanied the god of the Cup and of life, in all his strange adventures. Mad with wine, Kissos once at an orgie danced until he fell dead. Then his lord, grieving bitterly, raised the beloved form in his arms, and, changing it to Ivy, wreathed it around his brow. It is the old story of death and revival.

But we may expect to find of course a feminine goddess, or demi-goddess, whose name includes the same root as Kissos—and she appears in Kiseis, one of the nymphs to whom Bacchus gave the infant Bacchus to be brought up. For her reward, she was placed by Bacchus among the stars—in the constellation of the weeping Hyades—that she might have a place in heaven. Apropos of which we may quote the words of the quaint old Jesuit GALTRUCHIUS, saying that 'Bacchus was brought up with the Nymphs, which teacheth us that we must mix Water with our Wine.'[2]

We also find that Kisaea, was, at Epidaurus, one of the names of Minerva. Notwithstanding the apparent dissimilarity between the wild god of wine and the goddess of calm wisdom, it was still taught in the mysteries that they had an affinity in more than one lower form, and, of course, an identity in their highest. 'The temple of Bacchus,' says Galtruchius, 'was next to Minerva's, to express how useful Wine is to revive the Spirits, and enable our Fancy to Invent.'[3] In the older worship, Minerva was one with Venus, Diana, Proserpine—the generating female principle of love and of beauty being of course predominant. 'In this unity or identity of barbarian divinities,' says Creuzer (Symbolik, IV. Theil), ('to speak like the Greeks') 'we must, however, seek for the source of that variety which made the Greeks so rich in gods; and what had in Hellas been separated into so many, remained by the 'barbarians' single and undivided. Therefore the older a Greek local worship might be, so much the more did it in this resemble the barbarian. * * So we have truly learned in Argos, Laconia, Dodona, and Sicily, * * that Proserpine was one and the same with Venus and Diana, and the identity with Minerva may also be proved.' For the proof I refer the reader to his work. With Venus, however, Bacchus had amours, begetting Priapus. Certain it is that the Ivy Kissos appears in both male and female names.

But as the Ivy formed the cup—kissubion—into which life entered, and from which it was drained as wine; so, too, from its wood was made the sacred chest (kiste) in which, in the Dyonisiac mysteries, the same secret was preserved under the form of a serpent, while in the Eleusinian it hid the dread pomegranate which Persephone had tasted. For they were all one and the same, this wine and serpent and pomegranate—the type of life and of knowledge—of human birth, and human intellect—of the world's generation and of eternal wisdom. The fruit of which Adam ate, the bread and wine of the holy supper of the mysteries of all lands in all ages, the pomegranate, whose seeds, once eaten, kept the soul in another life beyond death, all have one meaning—and this meaning was that of infinite revival, endless begetting, the renewal of nature—and with this the knowledge of the great mystery which sets the soul free. 'Eritis sicut Deus.'

It was no small honor for a single plant to have furnished the wreath of Bacchus, the wood of his cup, emblematic of the human body containing his life-blood, and the material for the chest of the great mysteries—meaning also the body and the world. I think, however, that its philological root may also be possibly found in the Greek noun kissa, and the verb kissao, implying strange and excessive passionate longing. Such yearning would well become the Bacchantae, the wild children of desire and of Nature. It is longing or desire which leads to renewing life, which constitutes love, which flashes like fire and light through the beautiful, and pours forth the wine, and breaks the bread, and causes the rose-blush to bloom, and the nymphs to cry amid the mountains, Evoe Bacche!

Coming down from the pagan mysteries into lower and more literal forms, the Ivy preserved two meanings. It was already the vine of life, and the early Christians laid it in the coffins of their departed, as the emblem of a new life in Christ.[4] It had hung upon the limbs of naked nymphs, convulsed in passionate orgies, as a type of vitality renewed by pleasure—it was now wreathed at Christmas-tide over quaint columns and tracery-laden Gothic windows and arches, as a sign—they knew not exactly of what—but guessed, naturally enough, and rightly, that it typified as an undying winter-plant the resurrection. And they sang its praises in many a brave carol:

IVY, chief of trees it is, Veni coronaberis.

The most worthy she is in town,— He who says other says amiss; Worthy is she to bear the crown; Veni coronaberis.

IVY is soft and meek of speech, Against all woe she bringeth bliss; Happy is he that may her reach: Veni coronaberis.

IVY is green, of color bright, Of all trees the chief she is; And that I prove will now be right: Veni coronaberis.

IVY, she beareth berries black; God grant to all of us his bliss, For then we shall nothing lack: Veni coronaberis.

Very quaint is the following fragment:

Holly and Ivy made a great party, Who should have the mastery In lands where they go.

Then spake Holly, 'I am fierce and jolly, I will have the mastery In lands where we go.'

Then spake Ivy, 'I am loud and proud, And I will have the mastery In lands where we go.'

Then spake Holly, and bent him down on his knee, 'I pray thee, gentle Ivy, Essay me no villany In lands where we go.'

Old Christmas Carol.

'Good wine needs no bush,' says an old proverb; but is it generally known that the 'bush' in question, used as a sign for wine, was a bunch of Ivy? The custom went from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Germany, and so on westward. Very different is this use of the evergreen vine in taverns, from that of adorning churches—the one meaning a mere invitation to drink, while the other reminds the believer that, as the Ivy lives through the bitter winter, so shall our souls endure through cold death and live again in Christ, even as He passed through the grave to live in 'eternal bloom.' Yet to those who have mastered the legend of Bacchus, there is no absolute difference between the two, when studied with regard to their origin. It is worth remarking that among the ancients the impression prevailed that the Ivy was the plant of joyousness, of triumphant strength, and of life, even as Bacchus was the lord of joy. And at a later day, long after the association with genial Bacchus was forgotten, the Ivy in popular lay and legend, and quaint custom and holiday rite, still by some inexplicable association always seemed to the multitude to be sweet and gentle, noble and dear. It is such a feeling of love, derived from old traditions and old worships, long forgotten, which makes the stork and the house-cricket and the robin and dragon-fly and swallow so dear to children and grown people in many parts of Europe. The rose is gone, but the perfume still lingers in the old leaves of the manuscript. And the reader who comprehends this may also comprehend the tender affection for the Ivy expressed in the old Christmas carols which I have quoted, and which, without such comprehension, seem absurd enough; while with it, they appear truly beautiful and touching.