'Faithful among the faithless found.'

But, supposing for the moment that the majority of the citizens of the rebel States are, of their own free will, participators in the rebellion; where is the grant of power to Congress to establish a government in any of the rebel States? No clause of the Constitution gives it; and by the express terms of that instrument, 'all powers not granted by it to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' But, while no such power is granted by the Constitution to the Federal Government, it is, we think, strictly forbidden by that clause of the instrument which declares that 'the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' Would this injunction be complied with if Congress were to establish, directly, a government of its own over the rebel States? Would it not rather be a transgression of the provision? The essential nature of a republican government is that it is elective; but a Congressional government would be directly the reverse; for it takes the power from the hands of the people and places it in the hands of the national council. Mark the form of the expression, too, that the republican form of government is to be guaranteed, not merely by Congress or the executive, but by the United States; as if to pledge the whole power of the nation, of whatever kind, to protect this priceless blessing, through all coming time, to the use and benediction of all ages. Notice, too, to whom the guarantee runs—not to the territory now composing the State, but to the State its very self—ei ipsi; as if the Constitution could not contemplate such a thing as a State being struck out of existence, under whatever phrase, whether of 'State forfeiture,' 'State suicide,' or 'State abdication,' even if treason were attempted by those in power. The Constitution still terms it a State. Is not the present precisely the event, or rather one of the events, which it contemplates and provides for? The doctrine of 'State Rights,' whether as contemplated and maintained by Calhoun in the days of Nullification, or as declared by Jefferson Davis and his compeers in treason, we abhor utterly, whenever and wherever it may lift its serpent head, and whether supported by Southern men with Southern principles, or by Northern men with no principles. But a true and indisputable doctrine of State Rights there is, which ought to be as jealously maintained and guarded as the doctrine of National Sovereignty. The Atlantic author asserts that, because the State offices in the rebel States have been vacated, therefore Congress has the authority to govern them, and intimates that all powers not reserved to the respective States belong to Congress, because there is no other to wield them. This is not true. Every power possessed of the Federal Government must be actually granted. It must attach to that Government, not because it belongs to no other, but because it is granted by the Constitution.

Our author quotes Mr. Phillimore as saying 'a state, like an individual, may die, by its submission and the donation of itself to another country.' Very true; but the word state must, in that sense, be equivalent to nation; and our author admits that a State cannot perform the first act necessary to be done in so giving itself away, viz., withdrawing itself from the Union. If, therefore, it cannot withdraw itself from the authority of the Federal Government, very clearly it cannot donate itself to the self-styled Confederate Government. If a thief sell or give his ill-gotten possession to another, it in no way affects the right of the owner. He cannot give away that which he does not own; and so of a State. Another error into which the Atlantic author has fallen, is that, in assigning the three sources of Congressional power, 'ample and hospitable,' he enumerates as one of them 'the necessity of the case;' but, as we have already seen, Congress possesses no powers but those expressly granted by the Constitution. If Congress may assert its authority in this instance, from the necessity of the case, and be itself the judge of that necessity, when no authority is given by the instrument, which expressly declares that all powers not granted by it are reserved, where are we to find a limit, and why may not that body assert itself in any number of instances, until, at length, the rights of the States are wholly absorbed by the overmastering power of the Federal Government? There is but one rightful source of authority to Congress, and that is the Constitution, which itself so declares, and which is the supreme law of the land.

But the true course to be pursued is, we think, to allow the rebel States (as indeed we cannot help doing) to be governed by the military power until such time as a civil government can be maintained, and then for the whole Government of the United States, legislative, judicial, and executive, to stand by, as the constitutionally appointed guardian, and permit THE PEOPLE to elect their own State officers. Whether the conventions of the people are called by law of Congress or by proclamation of the President, would seem to be immaterial, though the latter seems the least cumbersome method. Thus the rebel States would pass from rebel forms to constitutional ones, in a legal and formal manner. Sooner or later this must be done, even if, for a time, provisional governments are instituted; for no Congressional government can be an elective government, and hence not a constitutional one, because the elective principle is necessary to a republican form of government. But if, under the clause of the Constitution which enjoins upon the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to each State, conventions of the people be called to elect their own officers, they are at once put in possession of their constitutional rights. And how can a State be readmitted to a Union which it has never left?

The writer has no pet theory to maintain, but is, like the writer in the Atlantic, 'in search of truth;' and the views here expressed are the result, not merely of closet reflection, but of observation and experience in the seceded States, while 'marching under the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union.' If only, through this baptism of blood, the nation, freed at last from the blighting curse of slavery, and purified into a better life, shall lift her radiant forehead from the dust, and, crowned with the diadem of freedom, go on her glorious way rejoicing, the writer will count his past sufferings and shattered health only as the small dust in the balance compared with the priceless blessings of peace, freedom, and national unity, which they may have contributed, however slightly, to purchase. Only to have contributed, however little, something for the peace—something for the glory—something for the permanence, beautiful and bright—of those institutions which are for America the pride of the past and the hope of the future, will be a joy through life and a consolation in death.



THE MOUND BUILDER.

INTRODUCTION.

All over Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and other Western States—but chiefly over these—are the monumental remains of an ancient race, long anterior to the present race of Indians, concerning whom we have no other record than that which is afforded by their mounds, earthworks, fortifications, temples, and dwelling places. Even these cannot at first be distinguished and identified the one from the other; and it takes a person skilled in such lore to determine the character and uses of the various mounds and groups of mounds, which he meets with at all points, and in all directions, as he traverses the wilderness.

I have lived a long time in the woods and prairies, following the occupation of a hunter, but with ulterior antiquarian and natural-history objects and purposes. From the time when I first heard of the mounds, which was in the year 1836, when I entertained, in my chambers in New York, an old frontiersman from Chicago—a fine, brave fellow, whose whole life was a romance of the highest and noblest kind—I resolved that as soon as fortune should favor me with leisure and opportunity, I would make a first-hand investigation of these curious antiquities, and try if I could render an intelligent exposition of their meaning. Twenty years passed away, and I was no nearer to the accomplishment of my purpose than I was in that notable year 1836, when the apocalypse of the West and its mystic mound seals were first revealed to me. At last, about four years ago, all things being favorable, I struck my tents in the big city—the wonderful Arabian Nights city of New York!-and, taking a sorrowful leave of my friends and literary associates, I set off for the region round about the Black River in Wisconsin. Here, among the bluffs and forests, within hailing distance of a prairie of some hundred thousand acres, I bought a well-cultivated farm of two hundred and eighty acres, bounded on the south by a deep, romantic ravine, at the bottom of which ran a delightful stream of water, full of trout, always cool and delicious to drink, and never known to be dry even in the fiercest summer droughts. A large log cabin, with a chimney opening in the kitchen, capable of conveying the smoke and flames of half a cord of wood burning at once on the hearthstones, and having other commodious conveniences, was my headquarters, and I intended it to be my permanent home. But thereby hangs a tale—which, though interesting enough, and full of romantic and startling episodes, I will not here and now relate, as being somewhat extraneous to the subject matter before us.

I had no sooner made all the dispositions necessary to the good husbanding of the farm, than I hired a half breed, well known in those parts, and subsequently a Winnebago Indian, to whose wigwam the half breed introduced me at my request. And with these two, the one a veritable savage, and the other very nearly related to him, I set off with a wagon, a yoke of oxen, a large tent, and abundance of provisions, on a journey of mound discoveries.

I have only space here to say that we traversed the whole of the north and west of the State of Wisconsin, and through the chief parts of Minnesota and Iowa; and that subsequently, about, eighteen months afterward, we visited the region of the Four Lakes, of which Madison is the centre, where there are hundreds of mounds, arranged in nearly every form and of nearly every animal device, which we had found in our previous travels.

I made drawings of all the remarkable groups which I met with; and, without going into particulars, I may give you some idea of their likelihood in the following summary: Mounds arranged in circles of three circles, with a large earthwork in the inner one; the outer circle containing sixty mounds, the second thirty, the first fifteen. I examined the earthwork, and found in it, about four feet below the surface, remains of charcoal and charred bones, burnt earth, and considerable quantities of mica. It had evidently been an altar or sacrificial mound—and I afterward, upon examination, found many such—but they were always enclosed by other mounds; and these (the outer mounds) contained nothing but earth, although there was this remarkable peculiarity about them, that the earth of which they were composed was altogether of a different nature from the surrounding earth, and must have been brought to that spot, as the old Druids brought the enormous blocks of stone which composed their temples and altars at Stonehenge, from an unknown distance.

Other mounds were arranged in squares, triangles, and parallelograms. Others, in a series of successive squares, about three feet apart, having an opening to the east and west, and terminating in a square of about fourteen feet in the centre, where a truncated mound is sure to be erected.

Others, formed a good deal like a Minie rifle ball, but with a more pointed apex, running on both sides of the earth effigy of a monstrous bear for upward of forty rods.

Others, shaped like an eagle with outstretched wings, having walls of earthwork two feet high, of oblong shape, and enclosed on all sides except at the east and west, where there are entrances of about four feet in width.

Others, composed of hundreds of tons of earth, shaped like a tortoise, with truncated mounds all around it.

Others, fashioned like men, and Titans at that, some lying prone upon the prairie, others in the act of walking. The limbs clearly defined, the body vast and well moulded, like a huge colossus. One near Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin, discovered by Mr. William H. Canfield, and reported to the Philosophical Society by Mr. Lapham, of Milwaukee, was visited also by us. It is two hundred and fourteen feet in length; the head thirty feet long, the body one hundred feet, and the legs eighty-four. The head lies toward the south, and the motion (for he is represented in the act of walking) is westward. All the lines of this most singular effigy are curved gracefully, much care having very clearly been bestowed upon its construction. The head is ornamented with two projections or horns, giving a comical expression to the whole figure.

Near the old military road, about seven miles east of the Blue Mounds, in Dare County, Wisconsin, we found another man effigy. It lies in an east and west direction, the head toward the west, and the arms and legs extended. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet long, one hundred and forty feet from the extremity of one arm to that of the other. The body is thirty feet in breadth, and is most carefully moulded and rounded; the head twenty-five feet; the elevation above the surface of the prairie nearly six feet.

On the north side of the Wisconsin River, about four miles west of the village of Muscoda, we heard of and found another human effigy. Its peculiarity was that it had two heads, and they reclined with a certain grace over the shoulders. The arms were not in proportion, nor fully represented. Length of body fifty feet, legs forty feet, arms one hundred and thirty feet; lying north and south, the head southward.

Others, a kind of hybrids, half man half beast or bird.

Others, representing birds with outstretched wings, like the forked-tail hawk or swallow.

Others, eagles without heads.

Others, coiled snakes, or outstretched snakes.

Others, elk or deer.

Clusters of mounds star shaped, seven in number, with the sun-shaped mound in the centre.

Others, representing mathematical symbols.

On the banks of the Black River, near the Ox Bow, are the remains of an elevated road, about three feet high and seven feet wide, extending for miles, intersected near the river by the great Indian war path. The settlers call it the Railroad, and it has all the appearance of a work of this nature, and is strongly and carefully built—a fine remain of the old mound builders' time.

Long lines of mounds, extending for scores and probably hundreds of miles, nearly all of the same shape, varying in their distance from each other from one to four miles.

Circular mounds of a base of two hundred feet, and a height of twenty feet.

Others, two hundred yards long, from ten to twenty feet wide, and from two to three feet high—these last, also, having an open space through them, as if intended for an entrance gate.

Others, in the form of rabbits, badgers, bears, and birds; others, of unknown monstrous animals.

We examined in all thirty-nine mounds; and in one, at the very base, on the floor of the natural earth upon which the mound was built (the soil of the mound being, as I said, always of a different character to the surrounding soil) we discovered and carried away with us the perfect skeleton of a man, with a few arrow heads made of flint, and a tobacco pipe, made also of stone, with a very small and narrow bowl, having a device on it like some of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt or old India.

In twelve we found skeletons, male and female, of the present race of Indians, with their bows and arrows, or, as was the case in four instances, their rifles and knives and tobacco pipes; some of these last elaborately carved in red stone. In Iowa we dug into a large mound, and discovered fragments of an ancient pottery, with the colors burned into the material, and various bones and skulls, arrow heads, and a flint knife, and saw.

We saw the painted rocks, also, on the Mississippi shores, near Prairie du Chien—said to be of an immemorial age—and the questions, Who was this old mound builder—whence did he come—when did he vanish from this continent? have haunted me ever since. That he was the primitive man of this planet, I think there is good reason to believe. Go where we will, to what portion soever of the earth, we shall find these mound evidences of his existence. In Asia, Europe, Africa, and all along the backbone of the American continent, he has established his record. Yet no one knows anything about him: all tradition even of him and of his works is lost. When Watkinson started from the middle of Asia to visit the newly acquired country of Russia—the beautiful, fruitful, invaluable country of the Amoor—he was confronted at the very outset by a cluster of seven of these very mounds, and his book, from that time forth, extending over thousands of miles, is full of descriptions of these unknown earthworks. I have no doubt they mark the progressive geographical movements of a race of men who came from Asia. From Behring's Strait to the Gulf they can easily be traced.

But I have said enough, and will stop here.



THE MOUND BUILDER.

Who art thou? old Mound Builder! Where dost thou come from? Womb of what country, Womb of what woman Gave birth to thee? Who was thy sire? Who thy sire's sire? And who were his forbears? Cam'st thou from Asia? Where the race swarms like fireflies, Where many races mark. As with colored belts, its tropics! What pigment stained thy skin? Was it a red, or wert thou Olive-dyed, or brassy? Handsome thou couldst hardly have been, With those high cheek-bones, That mighty jaw, and its grim chops, That long skull, so broad at the back parts, That low, retreating forehead! Doubtless thine eyes were dark, Like fire-moons set in their sockets; Doubtless thine hair was black, Coarse, matted, long, and electric; Thy skeleton that of a giant! Well fleshed, well lashed with muscles, As with an armor of iron; And doubtless thou wert a brave fellow, On the old earth, in thy time.

I think I know thee, old Mole! Earth delver, mound builder, mine worker! I think I have met thee before, In times long since, and forgotten; Many thousands of years, it may be, Or ever old Noah, the bargeman, Or he, the mighty Deucalion, Wroth with the world as he found it, Uprose in a passion of storm And smote with his fist the sluices, The water sluices of Cloudland— Locked in the infinite azure— Drowning the plains and mountains, The shaggy beasts and hybrids, The nameless birds—and the reptiles, Monstrous in bulk and feature, Which alone were thy grim contemporaries. Here, in the State of Wisconsin, In newly discovered America, I, curious to know what secrets Were hid in the mounds of thy building, Have gone down into their chambers, Into their innermost grave-crypts, Unurning dry bones and skulls, Fragments of thy mortality! Oftentimes near to the surface Of these thy conical earth-runes, —For who shall tell their secret?— Meeting with strange interlopers, Bodies of red Winnebagoes, Each with its bow and its arrows, Each with its knife and its war gear, Its porphyry-carved tobacco pipe, Modern, I know by the fashioning. Often, I asked of them, As they lay there so silently, So stiff and stark in their bones, What right they had in these old places, Sacred to dead men of a race they knew not? And oh! the white laughters, The wicked malice of the white laughters Which they laughed at me, With their ghastly teeth, in answer! Was never mockery half so dismal! As if it were none of my business. Nor was it; save that I liked grimly to plague them, To taunt them with their barbarity, That they could not so much as dig their own graves, But must needs go break those of the dead race, Their far superiors, and masters in craft and lore! And bury themselves there, just out of sight, Where the vulture's beak could peck them, Were he so obscenely minded, And the wolf could scrape them up with his foot.

Curious for consideration All this with its dumb recordings! Very suggestive also, The meeting of him, the first-born, Who lived before the rainbow Burst from the womb of the suncloud, In the Bible days of the Deluge— The meeting very suggestive Of him, with the red Winnebago, Such immemorial ages, Cartooned with mighty empires, Lying outstretched between them. He, the forerunner of cities

—His mounds their type and rudiment— And he, the fag-end of creation, Meaningless sculpture of journeymen, Doomed to the curse of extinction. Curious, also, that I, An islander from far-off Britain Should meet them, Or, the rude scrolls of them. Both together in these wilds, Round about the region of the Black River, Cheek by jowl in a grave.

Who was the builder of the grave? A primitive man, no doubt, Of the stone era, it may be, For of stone are his implements. And not of metal-work, nor the device of fire. He may have burrowed for lead And dug out copper ore, Dark-green as with emerald rust, from the mines Long since forsaken, and but newly found By the delvers at Mineral Point. He, or his subsequents, issue of him, I know not; and, soothe to say, Shall never know.

Neither wilt thou ever know Anything of me, old Mound Builder! Of the race of Americans, nothing, Who now, and ever henceforth, Own, and shall own, this continent! Heirs of the vast wealth of time Since thou from the same land departed; New thinkers, new builders, creators Of life, and the scaffolds of life, For far-off grand generations! This skull which I handle!— How long has the soul left it tenantless? And what did the soul do in its house, When this roof covered it? Many things, many wonderful things! It wrote its primeval history Is earthworks and fortifications, In animal forms and pictures, In symbols of unknown meaning.

I know from the uncouth hieroglyphs, And the more finished records, That this soul had a religion, Temples, and priests, and altars: I think the life-giver, the sun, Was the god unto whom he sacrificed. I think that the moon and stars Were the lesser gods of his worship; And that the old serpent of Eden Came in for a share of devotion.

I find many forms of this reptile, Scattered along the prairies, Coiled on the banks of the rivers, In Iowa, and far Minnesota, And here and there, in Wisconsin. Now he is circular, Gnawing his tail, like the Greek symbol, Suggesting infinite meanings Unto the mind of a modern Crammed with the olden mythologies. Now, uncoiled in the sunlight, He stretches himself out at full length In all his undulate longitude. His body is a constellation of mounds, Artfully imitative, From the fatal tail to the more fatal head. Overgrown they are with grass, Short, green grass, thick and velvety, Like well cared-for lawns, With strange, wild flowers glittering, Made up of alien mould Brought hither from distant regions.

Curiously I have considered them, Many a time in the summer, Lying beside them under the flaming sky, Smoking an old tobacco pipe, Made by one of these moundsmen. Who in his time had smoked it, Perchance over the council fire, Or in the dark woods where he had gone a-hunting; In war time—in peaceful evenings, With his squaw by his side, And his brood of dusky papposins Playing about in the twilight Under the awful star-shadows.

It seemed that I was very close to him, at such times; And that his thick-ribbed lips, —Gone to dust for unknown centuries— Had met mine inscrutably, By a magic hid in the pipestem, Making me his familiar and hail fellow. Almost I felt his breath, And the muffled sound of his heart-beats; Almost I grasped his hand, And shook the antediluvian, With a shake of grimmest fellowship Trying to cozen him of his grim secret. But sudden the gusty wind came, Laughing away the illusion, And I was alone in the desert.

If he could only wake up now, And confront me—that ancient salvage! Resurgated, with his faculties All quick about him, and his memories, What an unheard-of powwow Could I report to you, O friends of mine! Who look for some revelation, Some hint of the strange apocalypse, Which the wit of this man, living So near to the prime of the morning, So near to the gates of the azure, The awful gates of the Unseen— Whence all that is seen proceeded— Hath wrought in this new-found country! I wonder if he would remember Anything about the Land of the Immortals. Something he would surely find In the deeps of his consciousness To wake up a dim reminiscence. Dreamy shadows might haunt him, Shadows of beautiful faces, and of terrible; Large, lustrous eyes, full of celestial meanings, Looking up at him, beseeching him, From unfathomable abysses, With glances which were a language. The finalest secrets and mysteries, Behind every sight, and sound, and color, Behind all motions, and harmonies, Which floated round about him, Archetypes of the phenomenal!

Or, it might be, that coming suddenly in his mind Upon some dark veil, as of Isis, He lifts it with a key-thought, Or the sudden memory of an arcane sign, And beholds the gardens of Living Light, The starry platform, palaces, and thrones— The vast colossi, the intelligences Moving to and fro over the flaming causeways Of the kingdoms beyond the gates— The infinite arches And the stately pillars, Upbuilt with sapphire suns And illuminated with emerald and ruby stars, Making cathedrals of immensity For the everlasting worship without words.

All, or some, of the wondrous, impenetrable picture-land: The crimson seas, Flashing in uncreated light, Crowded with galleons On a mission to ports where dwell the old gods And the mighty intellects of the Immortals. The ceaseless occupations, The language and the lore; The arts, and thoughts, the music, and the instruments; The beauty and the divine glory of the faces, And how the Immortals love, Whether they wed like Adamites, Or are too happy to wed, Living in single blessedness! Well, I know it is rubbish, The veriest star-dust of fancy, To think of such a thing as this Being a memorial heirloom of the fore-world, Such rude effigies of men, Such clodbrains, as these poor mound builders!

Their souls never had any priority in the life of them; No background of eternity Over which they had traversed From eon to eon, Sun-system to sun-system, Planets and stars under them, Planets and stars over them; Now dwelling on immeasurable plains of azure Bigger than space, Dazzling with the super-tropical brightness Of passionate flowers without a name, In all the romance of color and beauty— Now, in the cities celestial, Where they made their acquaintances With other souls, which had never been incarnated, But were getting themselves ready By an intuitive obedience To a well-understood authority, Which had never spoken, To take upon themselves the living form Of some red-browed, fire-eyed Mars-man, Some pale-faced, languishing son Of the Phalic planet Venus, Or wherever else it might be, In what remote star soever Quivering on shadowy battlements. Along the lines of the wilderness, Of worlds beyond worlds, These souls were to try their fortunes.

Surely, no experience of this sort Ever happened unto them, Although one would like to invest them With the glory of it, for the sake of the soul. But they were, to speak truth of them, A sort of journeyman work, Not a Phidian statuary, But a first cast of man, A rude draft of him; Huge gulfs, as of dismal Tartarus, Separating him from the high-born Caucasian. He, a mere Mongolian, As good, perhaps, in his faculties, As any Jap. or Chinaman— But not of the full-orbed brain, Star-blown, and harmonious With all sweet voices as of flutes in him, And viols, bassoons, and organs; Capable of the depths and circumferences of thought, Of sphynxine entertainments, And the dramas of life and death.

A plain fellow, and a practical, With picture in him and symbol, And thus not altogether clay-made, But touched with the fire of the rainbow, And the finger of the first light, Waiting for the second and the third light, Expectant through the ages, And disappointed; Never receiving more, But going down, at last, a dark man, And a lonely, through the dark galleries Of death, and behind the curtain Where all is light.

I like to think of him, and see his works: I like to read him in his mounds, And think I can make out a good deal of his history. He was a half-dumb man, Very sorrowful to see, But brave, nevertheless, and bravely Struggling to fling out his thoughts, In a kind of dumb speech; Struggling, indeed, after poetry Daedalian forms, and eloquence; Ambitious of distinguishing himself In the presence of wolves and bisons And all organic creatures; Of making his claim good Against these, his urgent disputants, That he was lord of the planet.

If he could not write books, He could scrawl the earth with his record: He could make hieroglyphs, Constellations of mounds and animals, Effigies of unnamable things, Monsters, and hybrids unnatural, Bred of grotesque fancies; and man-forms. These last, none of your pigmies A span long in the womb, And six feet, at full growth, out of it— But bigger in chest and paunch, In the girth of his muscular shackle-bones, Round his colossal shoulders, Round his Memnonian countenance, Over the dome of his skull-crypts— From crown to foot of his body— Than grimmest of old Welsh giants, Grimmest of Araby ogres!

Many a time talking with gray hunters, Who leaned on their rifles against a tree, And made the bright landscape And the golden morning fuller of gold and brightness By the contrast of their furrowed faces, Their shaggy eyebrows, And the gay humor laughing in their eyes, Their unkempt locks, their powder horns, and buskins, And the wild attire, in general, of their persons— Many a time have I heard them Tell of these man-effigies Lying prone on the floors of the prairie. And, in my whim for correspondence, And perpetual seeking after identities, I have likened them to the stone sculptures, in cathedrals, Cut by pious hands out of black marble, Memorial resemblances of holy abbots, Of Christian knights, founders of religious houses, Of good lords of fair manors, Who left largess to these houses, Beneficed the arched wine-cellars With yearly butts of canary, Or, during their lifetime, Beautified the west front with stately windows Of colored glass, emblazoned with Scripture stories, The sunlight in shadowy reflections painting the figures With blue and gold and crimson Upon the cold slabs of the pavement.

These effigies, stiff, formal, Rudely fashioned, and of poor art, All of them lying, black and stark, Like a corpse-pageantry visioned in some monk's dream, Lying thus, in the transepts, On the cold, gray floor of the cathedral.

A curious conceit, truly! But the prairie is also consecrated, And quite as sacred I think it As Rome's most holy of holies. It blossoms and runs over with religion. These meek and beautiful flowers! What sweet thoughts and divine prayers are in them! These song birds! what anthems of praise Gush out of their ecstatic throats! I pray you, also, tell me, What floors, sacred to what dead, Can compare with the elaborate mosaic work Of this wide, vast, outstretching floor of grass? As good a place, I take it, For the mound builder to make his man-effigies Out of the mould in, As the cathedral is, for its artists To make man-effigies out of the black marble! And the thought, too, is the same! The thought of the primeval savage of the stone era, Roaming about in these wilds, Before the beautiful Christ Made the soul more beautiful, Revealed the terror of its divine forces, Announced its immortality, And was nailed on a tree for His goodness! While the monk, therefore, lay yet in the pagan brain, And' Time had not so much as thought Of sowing the seed for his coming— While his glorious cathedral, which, as we now know it, Is an epic poem built in immortal stone, Had no archetype except in the dreams of God, Dim hints of it, lying like hopeless runes In the forest trees and arches, Its ornamentations in the snow drifts, and the summer leaves and flowers— No doubt, the mound-builder's man, put in effigy on the prairie, Had been a benefactor, in his way and time; Or, a great warrior; or learned teacher Of things symbolized in certain mound-groups, And which, from their arrangement, Appertain, it would seem, to mysteries, And ghostly communications. They thought to keep green his memory, The worship of him and his good deeds, Unto the end of time, Throughout all generations. The holy men, born of Christ, All Christendom but the development of him, And all the world his debtor; Even God owing him more largely Than He has thought fit to pay back, Taking the immense credit Of nigh two thousand years! These holy men, so born and cultured, Could think of no way wiser, Of no securer method Of preserving the memory of their saints, And of those who did good to them, Than this rude, monumental way of the savage. So singular is man, So old-fashioned his thinkings, So wonderful and similar his sympathies! Everywhere the same, with a difference; Cast in the same moulds, Of the same animal wants, and common mind, Of the same passions and vices, Hating, loving, killing, lying— A vast electrical chain Running through tradition, and auroral history, Up through the twilights, And blazing noons, Through vanishing and returning twilights, Through azure nights of stars— Epochs of civilization— Unto the calmer glory, Unto the settled days, Unto the noble men— Nunc formosissimus annus!

Thus do I, flinging curiously the webs of fancy Athwart the time-gulfs, and the ages, Reconcile, after a kind, the primitive savage of America With the wonderful genealogies— Upsprung from the vital sap Of the great life-tree, Igdrasil! Thick and populous nations Heavily bending its branches, Each in its autumn time of one or two thousand years, Like ripe fruits, fully developed and perfected, From the germ whence they proceeded; Nourished by strong saps of vitality, By the red, rich blood of matured centuries, By passionate Semitic sunlights; Beautiful as the golden apples of the Hesperides! Radiating, also, a divine beauty, The flower-blossom and the aroma, The final music, of a ripe humanity, Whereof each particular nation Was in its way and turn The form and the expression,

Grand autumns were some of them! Grand and beautiful, like that of Greece, Whose glorious consummation always reminds me Of moving statues, music, and richest painting and architecture: Her landscapes shimmering in golden fire-mists, Which hang over the wondrously colored woods, In a dreamy haze of splendor; Revealing arched avenues, and tiny glades, Cool, quiet spots, and dim recesses, Green swards, and floral fairy lands, Sweeping to the hilltops; Illuminating the rivers in their gladsome course, And the yellow shadows of the rolling marshes, And the cattle of the farmer as they stand knee-deep Switching their tails by the shore; Lighting up the singing faces, The sweet, laughing, singing faces, Of the merry, playful brooks, Now running away over shallows, Now into gurgling eddies; Now under fallen trees, Past beaver dams long deserted; Now under shady banks, Lost in the tangled wood-growths; Quivering now with, their laughter, Out in the open meadow, Flowing, singing and laughing, Over the weeds and rushes, Flowing and singing forever!

Plastic and beautiful, and running over With Schiller's 'play impulse,' was the genius of Greece, Of which her institutions and civility were the embodiment. Other autumn times of the nations Were calm and peaceful, Symbolized above, as fruit on the branches Of the life-tree, Igdrasil! And when their time came, They dropped down silently, Like apples from their boughs on the autumn grass; Silently dropped down, on moonlight plains, In the presence of the great company of the stars, And the flaming constellations, Which evermore keep solemn watch over their graves. Others were blown off suddenly, And prematurely—all the elements enraged against them; And others, like the Dead Sea fruit, Were rotten at the heart before their prime!

The old mound builder stands at the base of the tree, At the base of the wonderful tree Igdrasil, And the mighty branches thereof, Which hang over his head in flame-shadows, Germinated, and blossomed with nations, In other lands, in another hemisphere Far away, over the measureless brine, From the mother earth where he was planted, Where he grew and flourished, And solved the riddle of life, And tried death, And the riddle beyond death.

He thought this passionate America, With its vast results of physical life, Its beautiful and sublime portraitures, Its far-sweeping prairies, rolling in grassy waves Like the green billows of an inland sea— Its blue-robed mountains Piercing the bluer heavens with their peaks— Its rivers, lakes, and forests— A roomy, and grand-enough earth to inhabit, Without thought of anything beyond it.

And yet he is related to all That was, and is, and shall be! That idea which was clothed in his flesh Is fleshed in I know not how many Infinite forms and varieties, In every part of the earth, In this day of my generation. But the flesh is a little different, And here and there the organism a nobler one, And the idea bigger, broader, deeper, Of a more divine quality and diapason. He is included in us, as the lesser in the greater; All our enactments are repetitions of his; Enlarged and adorned; And we pass through all his phases, Some time or other, in our beginnings— Through his, and an infinity of larger ones— And we have the same inevitable endings.



A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE:

ITS POSSIBILITY, SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY, AND APPROPRIATE CHARACTERISTICS

The idea of the possibility and desirableness of a universal language, scientifically constituted; a common form of speech for all the nations of mankind; for the remedy of the confusion and the great evil of Babel, is not wholly new. The celebrated Leibnitz entertained it. It was, we believe, glanced at among the schemes of Lord Monboddo. Bishop Wilkins devoted years of labor to the accomplishment of the task, and thought he had accomplished it. He published the results of his labors in heavy volumes, which have remained, as useless lumber, on the shelves of the antiquarian, or of those who are curious in rare books. A young gentleman of this city, of a rare genius, by the name of Fairbank, who died by a tragical fate a few years since, labored assiduously to the same end. A society of learned men has recently been organized in Spain, with their headquarters at Barcelona, devoted to the same work. Numerous other attempts have probably been made. In all these attempts, projects, and labors, the design has never transcended the purpose of Invention. The effort has been simply to contrive a new form of speech, and to persuade mankind to accept it;—a task herculean and hopeless in its magnitude and impracticability; but looking still in the direction of the supply of one of the greatest needs of human improvement. The existence of no less than two or three thousand different languages and idioms on the surface of the planet, in this age of railroad and steamship communication, presents, obviously, one of the most serious obstacles to that unification of humanity which so many concurrent indications tend, on the other hand, to prognosticate.

Another and different outlook toward a unity of speech for the race comes up from a growing popular impression that all existing languages must be ultimately and somewhat rapidly smelted into one by the mere heat and attrition of our intense modern international intercourse. Each nationality is beginning to put forth its pretensions as the proper and probable matrix of the new agglomerate, or philological pudding-stone, which is vaguely expected to result. The English urge the commercial supremacy of their tongue; the French the colloquial and courtly character of theirs; the Germans the inherent energy and philosophical adaptation of the German; the Spanish the wide territorial distribution and the pompous euphony of that idiom; and so of the other nationalities.

Both invention, which is the genius of adaptation, and the blending influence of mere intercourse, may have their appropriate place as auxiliaries, in the reconstruction of human speech, in accordance with the exigencies of the new era which is dawning on the world; but there is another and far more basic and important element, which may, and perhaps we may say must, appear upon the stage, and enter into the solution. This is the element of positive Scientific Discovery in the lingual domain. It may be found that every elementary sound of the human voice is inherently laden by nature herself with a primitive significance; that the small aggregate of these meanings is precisely that handful of the Primitive Categories of all Thought and all Being which the Philosophers, from Aristotle up to Kant, have so industriously and painfully sought for. The germ of this idea was incipiently and crudely struggling in the mind of the late distinguished philologist, Dr. Charles Kreitser, formerly professor of languages in the University of Virginia, and author of numerous valuable articles in Appletons' 'Cyclopaedia;' the most learned man, doubtless, that unfortunate Hungary has contributed to our American body of savans. This element of discovery may, in the end, take the lead, and immensely preponderate in importance over the other two factors already mentioned as participating in the solution of a question of a planetary language. The idea certainly has no intrinsic improbability, that the normal language of mankind should be matter of discovery as the normal music of the race has been already. There was an instinctual and spontaneous development of music in advance of the time when science acted reflectively upon the elements and reconstituted it in accordance with the musical laws so discovered. Why may we not, why ought we not even to expect, analogically, that the same thing will occur for speech?

Setting aside, however, for the present occasion, the profounder inquiry into the inherent significance of sounds, and into all that flows logically from that novel and recondite investigation, we propose at present to treat in a more superficial way the subject indicated in the title of this article—A Universal Language; its Possibility, Scientific Necessity, and Appropriate Characteristics.

The expansion of the scope of science is at this day such that the demand for discriminating technicalities exceeds absolutely the capacity of all existing language for condensed and appropriate combinations and derivations. Hence speech must soon fail to serve the new developments of thought, unless the process of word-building can be itself proportionately improved; unless, in other words, a new and scientifically constructed Language can be devised adequate to all the wants of science. It would seem that there should occur, in the range of possibilities, the existence of the Plan in Nature of a New and Universal Language, copious, flexible, and expressive beyond measure; competent to meet the highest demands of definition and classification; and containing within itself a natural, compact, infinitely varied, and inexhaustible terminology for each of the Sciences, as ordained by fixed laws preexistent in the nature of things.

This language should not then be an arbitrary contrivance, but should be elaborated from the fundamental laws of speech, existing in the constitution of the universe and of man, and logically traced to this special application. This knowledge of the underlying laws of speech should determine the mode of the combination of Elementary Sounds into Syllables and Words, and of Words into Sentences naturally expressive of given conceptions or ideas. Such a language would rest on discovery, in that precise sense in which discovery differs from invention, and would have in itself infinite capacities and powers of expression, and again of suggesting thought; and might perhaps come to be recognized as the most stupendous discovery to which the human intellect is capable of attaining. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' The Word, or the Logos, is the underlying or hidden Wisdom of which speech is the external utterance or expression. Who can say how profoundly and intimately the underlying and hitherto undiscovered Laws of Speech may be consociated with the basic Principles of all truth embedded in the Wisdom-Nature of God himself? The old Massonites had a faith, derived from certain mystical utterances of the Greek Philosophers, that whosoever should discover the right name for anything, would have absolute power over that thing. The Wisdom of Plato and the deeper Wisdom of Christ meet and are married to each other in the conception of John when he makes the startling assertion that the Logos, the Logic, the Law, the Word, is synonymous with God himself.

The possibilities of the existence of such a language, divinely and providentially prepared in the constitution of things, and awaiting discovery, begins to be perceived, if the conception of the existence of an absolutely universal analogy be permitted fairly to take possession of the mind. Such an infinite scheme of analogy, rendering the same principles alike applicable in all spheres, must itself, in turn, rest upon a Divine Unity of Plan reigning throughout the Universe, the execution of which Plan is the act or the continuity of the acts of Creation. The Religious Intuition of the Race has persistently insisted upon the existence of this Unity, to the conception of which the scientific world is only now approximatingly and laboriously ascending.

If there be such Analogy in Nature furnishing an echo and an image in every department of Being of all that exists in every other department of Being, certainly that Analogy must be most distinct and clearly discoverable as between the Elements, or the lowest and simplest Constituents of Being in each Sphere. The lowest and simplest elements of Language are Oral Sounds, which in written Languages are represented by Letters, and constitute the Alphabets of those Languages. The Alphabets of Sound must be clearly distinguished from the mere Letter-Alphabets by which the Sounds are variously represented. The Sound-Alphabets (the Scales of Phonetic Elements) of any two Languages differ only in the fact that one of the Languages may include a few Sounds which are not heard in the other, or may omit a few which are.

The Mouth, the Larynx (a cartilaginous box at the top of the windpipe), and the Nose—the compound organ of speech—constitute an instrument, capable, like the accordeon, for instance, of a certain number of distinct touches and consequent vocal effects, which produce the sounds heard in all existing Languages. The total of the possible sounds so produced or capable of production may be called the Crude or Unwinnowed Alphabet of Nature, or the Natural Alphabet of Human Language generically or universally considered. Thus, for instance, the sound represented in English and the Southern European Languages generally, by the letter m, is made by the contact of the two lips, while at the same time the sounding breath so interrupted is projected upon the sounding board of the head through the nose, whence resounding, it is discharged outwardly, this process giving to the sound produced that peculiar effect called nasal or nose-sound; and precisely this sound can be produced by the voice in no other way. This sound is, nevertheless, heard in nearly all Languages, although there are a few imperfect savage dialects which are destitute of it. The production of this sound, as above described, will be obvious to the reader if he will pronounce the word my, and will attend to the position of the lips when he begins to utter the word. Let him attempt to say my, without closing the lips, and the impossibility of doing so will be apparent. The production of the sound is therefore mechanical and local; and the number of sounds to be produced by the organ fixed and limited, therefore, by Nature herself. The very limited number of possible sounds may be guessed by the fact that of sounds produced by completely closing the two lips, there are only three, namely, p, b, m, in all the Languages of the earth (as in p-ie, b-y, m-y).

It is the same with all the other vocal sounds. They are necessarily produced at certain fixed localities or Seats of Sound, in the mouth, and by a certain fixed modulation or mechanical use of the Organs of Speech. At least they are produced in and are confined to certain circumscribed regions of the mouth, and so differ in the method of their production as to be appropriately distributed into certain Natural Classes: as Vowels and Consonants; Labials (Lip Sounds); Linguo-dentals (Tongue-Teeth Sounds); Gutturals (Back-Mouth or Throat Sounds), etc., etc.

From the whole number of sounds which it is possible to produce—the whole Crude Natural Alphabet—one Language of our existing Languages selects a certain number less than the whole, and another Language doing the same, it happens that while they mainly coincide, they, so to speak, shingle over each other at random, and it follows: 1. That the Number of Sounds in different Languages is not uniform; 2. That of any two Languages compared, one will chance to have several sounds not heard in the other; and, 3. The erroneous impression is made upon the casual and superficial observer that in the aggregate of all Languages there must be an immense number of sounds; whereas, in fact, the total Alphabet of Vocal Sounds in nature, like the Gamut of Colors or Musical Tones, is quite limited, if we attend only to those which distinctly differ, or stand at appropriate and appreciable distances from each other.

Further to illustrate: Assume that there are, capable of being clearly discriminated by the human ear, say sixty-four or seventy-two distinct Elementary Sounds of the human voice, in all—as many, for example, as there are Chemical Elements; some existing Languages select and make use of twenty, some of twenty-four, some of thirty, and some of forty of these sounds, omitting the rest.

But—and here is a very important point and a real discovery in this investigation—it will be found, if closely attended to, that a certain selection of one half of this number, say thirty-two or thirty-six of these sounds, embraces the whole body of vocal elements usually occurring in all the forms of speech on the planet; the remaining half consisting of rare, exceptional, and, we may nearly say, useless sounds. This statement will again be better understood by analogy with what regards the Elements of Chemistry. Just about one half of the known elements of matter occur with frequency, and enter into useful and ordinary combinations to produce the great mass of known substances. The remaining half are unfrequent, obscure, and relatively unimportant; some of them never having been seen even by many of our most eminent chemists. Even should a few new elements be discovered, it cannot be anticipated that any one of them should prove to be of leading importance, like oxygen, carbon, or sulphur.

On the other hand, should some future great chemical discovery realize the dream of the alchemists, and enable us to transmute iron into gold, and indeed every chemical Element into every other chemical Element (convertible identity), still the sixty-four (nearly) Chemical Elements now known would remain the real Elements of Organic and Inorganic Compounds, in a sense just as important as that in which they are now so regarded. The now known Elements would still continue to constitute The Crude Natural Alphabet of Matter, and be correspondential with The Crude Natural Alphabet of Sounds in Language. The transmutability of one element into another indefinitely, would not, in any but a certain absolute or transcendental sense, cause the Elements to be regarded as one, or as any less number than now. It would be, on the contrary, a fact precisely corresponding with the actual and well-known transmutability of speech-sounds into each other as occurs in the phenomena of Etymology and Comparative Philology. This is so extensive, as now understood by Comparative Philologists, that it would be hardly difficult to prove that every sound is capable of being transmuted into every other sound, either directly or through intermediates; and yet we do not in the least tend to cease to regard the several sounds as they stand as the real Elements of Speech.

It is this transmutability of Correspondential Elements in another sphere of Being, which bases the presumption, or gives to it at least countenance from a new quarter, that the metals and other chemical Elements may be actually convertible substances by means of processes not yet suspected or sufficiently understood. The more careful study of the Analogy with the Elements of other spheres, and perhaps specifically with the Elements of Language, under the presiding influence of larger scientific generalizations and views than those which now prevail in the scientific world, may be, and, it would even seem, ought to be the means of revealing the law of Elementary Transmutations in the Chemical Domain. The expectation of a future discovery of the resolution of the existing Elements of Matter, and their convertibility even, is reviving in the chemical field, and even so distinguished a chemist and thinker as Professor Draper does not hesitate to sustain its probability by the weight of his authority and belief. The process by which the transmutation of Elements is actually effected in Language, is by Slow and Continued Attrition. These very words suggest a process but little resorted to in chemical experiment, but which probably intervenes in the Laboratory of Nature, when she makes the diamond out of a substance, simple carbon, the most familiarly known to chemistry, but out of which the human chemist is entirely unable by any process known to him to produce that precious gem.

Whether this particular hint is of any value or not, one thing is certain, that it is in the direction of Universal and Comparative Science—the analogical echo of the parts of one Domain of Being with the parts of another Domain and of all other Domains of Being; of the phenomena of one Science with the phenomena of other Sciences; and especially as among the Elements of each—that we must look for the next grand advances in Scientific Discovery. The world urgently requires the existence of a new class of scientific students who shall concern themselves precisely with these questions of the relations and the indications of unity between the different Sciences; not to displace, but to transcend and to cooerdinate the labors of that noble Army of Scientific Specialists, with which Humanity is now so extensively and so happily provided.

The Select Lingual Alphabet of Nature, as distinguished from the Crude Natural Alphabet above described, is then the expurgated scale of sounds, say thirty-two; the sounds of usual occurrence in polished languages; one half of the whole number; the residuum after rejecting an equal number of obscure, unimportant, or barbarous sounds, of possible production and of real occurrence in some of the cruder Languages, and as crude elements even in the more refined Languages now extant. The two sounds of th in English, as in thigh and thy (the theta of the Greek), and the two shades of the ch-sound in German, as in nach and ich, are instances of crude sounds in refined Languages, for which other Languages, more fastidious for Euphony, as French and Italian for example, naturally substitute t, d, and k (c). The obscure and crude sounds would always retain, however (in respect to the idea of a Universal Alphabet), a subordinate place and value, and should be gathered and represented in a Supplementary Alphabet for special and particular uses.

It has been the mistake of Phoneticians and Philologians, heretofore, to recognize no difference in the relative importance of sounds. They have sought, through every barbarous dialect, as well as every refined tongue, and gathered by the drag-net of observation, every barbarous and obscure as well as every polite sound which by any accident ever enters into the constitution of speech. The clucks of Hottentot Tribes and the whistle heard in some of the North American Languages have been reckoned in, upon easy terms, with the more serviceable and euphonious members of the Phonetic family, and mere trivial shades of sounds were put upon the same footing as the pivotal sounds themselves. This is as if certain obdurate compounds were introduced in the first instance among Chemical Elements—which subsequent analysis may even prove to be the case in respect to some substances that we now recognize as Elements—and then, by assigning to the least important of Elements the same rank, and giving to them the same attention as to the most important, the number were augmented beyond the practical or working body of Elements, and our treatises upon Chemistry encumbered by a mass of useless matter. Or again, it is as if among the Elements of Music were included all conceivable sounds, as the squeal, the shriek, the sob, etc.; and as if, in addition to this, the least intervals, the quarter tones for instance, were ranked as the musical equals of the whole tones.

If it should prove a matter of fact, as capable of exact scientific demonstration as any other, that the Consonant and Vowel Elements of Oral Language are, in a radical and important sense, repetitory of, or correspondential with, Musical Tones or the Elements of Music, as well as with Chemical Elements, and these again with the Elements of Numerical Calculation, of Form, or the Science of Morphology, and, in fine, with the Prime Metaphysical Elements of Being, or the first Categories of Thought, perhaps we may by such speculations catch a glimpse of the possibilities of a great lingual discovery, having the attributes here indicated. Why should not the Elements of Speech have been brought by Nature herself into some sort of parallelism with the Elements of Thought which it is the special province of Speech to represent? Why, again, should not the Prime Elements of every new domain of Being be merely a Repetition in new form of the Prime Elements of the Universe, as a whole, and of those especially of Language, its representative domain?—Language being the literal word, as Universal Law is the Logos or the Word par excellence, and Divine. In that event, every speech-element would be of necessity inherently charged with the precise kind and degree of meaning specifically relating it, first to one of the Prime Elements of Being, metaphysically considered, and then, by an echo of resemblance, to one of the Prime Elements of every subordinate domain of Being throughout the Universe. The Combinations of the Letter-Sounds would then constitute words exactly, simply, and naturally expressive of any combination of the Elements of Being, either, first, in the Universal domain, or, secondly, in any subordinate domain, physical or psychical. In this way a grand and wonderful system of technicals would be wrought out for all the sciences—provided by Nature herself, and discovered, only, by man. It is at least certain that if a grand Science of Analogy is ever to be discovered, capable of Unifying all our knowledges, an anticipation vaguely entertained by our most advanced scientific minds, it must be sought for primarily among the simplest elements of every domain of science, or, what is the same thing, every domain of Thought and Being. It is alike certain that heretofore the first step even has never been rightly taken among the men of science to investigate in that direction. The failure of all those who have entertained the idea of a Universal Analogy as a basis of Scientific Unity, has resulted from the fact that, drawn rapidly along by the beauty of their conceptions, they have attempted to rush forward into the details of their subject, and have lost themselves in the infinity of these, without the wisdom and patience to establish a basis for their immense fabric in the exact discovery and knowledge of Elements. They have hastened forward to the limbs and twigs and leaves and flowers and fruitage, without having securely planted the roots of their scientific tree in the solid earth. Such was the case with Oken, the great German Physio-Philosopher and Transcendental Anatomist, the pupil of Hegel, who exerted a profound influence over the scientific mind of Germany for thirty years, but has now sunk into disrepute for want of just that elementary and demonstrative discovery of first Elements, and the rigorous adhesion to such perceptions of that kind as were partially entertained by him and his school of powerful thinkers and scientists.

To repeat the leading idea above, which is so immensely pregnant with importance, and, perhaps we may add, so essentially new: The combinations of Speech-Elements—in a perfect and normal Language for the Human Race, which we are here assuming that Nature should have provided, and which may be only awaiting discovery—when they should be rightly or scientifically arranged into words and sentences, would be exactly concurrent and parallel with the combinations of the Prime Elements of Thought and Being in the Real Universe; so that each word, so formed, would become exactly charged with the kind and amount of meaning contained in the thing named or the conception intended. An idea will thus be obtained by the reader, somewhat vague, no doubt, at first, but which would become perfectly distinct, as the subject should be gradually unfolded, of the way in which a universal language naturally expressive of Thoughts and Feelings, and capable of unlimited expansion, might perhaps be evolved from a profound understanding of the Analogies of the Universe. It is important, however, in order that this theory, now when it is first presented, should not unnecessarily prejudice cautious and conservative minds, and seem to them wholly Utopian, to guard it by the additional statement that, while such a language might be appropriately denominated Universal, there is a sense in which it would still not be so; or, in other words, that it could only become Universal by causing to coalesce with its own scientifically organized structure, the best material already wrought out, and existing as natural growth in the dead and living languages now extant; by absorbing them, so to speak, in itself. It would have no pretension, therefore, directly to supersede any of the existing languages, nor even ultimately to dispense with the great mass of the material found in any of them.

It is a common prejudice among the learned that Language is a growth, and cannot in any sense be a structure; in other words, that it is purely the subject of the instinctive or unthoughted development of man, and not capable of being derived from reflection, or the deliberate application of the scheming faculty of the intellect. A little reflection will show that this opinion is only a half truth. It is certain that language has received its primitive form and first development by the instinctive method. It is equally true, however, that even as respects our existing languages, they have been overlaid by a subsequent formation, originating with the development of the Sciences, due wholly to reflection on the scheming faculty of man, and already equal in extension to the primitive growth. The Nomenclature of each of the Sciences has been devised by the reflective genius of individuals, and arbitrarily imposed, so to speak, upon the Spoken and Written Languages of the World, as they previously existed. From the cabinets and books of the learned, they gradually pass into the speech of the laity, and become incorporated with the primitive growth. If, instead of the Carbonate of Soda, the Protoxide of Nitrogen, and other Chemical Technicalities arbitrarily formed in modern times from the ancient Greek Language, terms which the ancient Greeks themselves never heard nor conceived of, we had words derived from similar combinations of Anglo-Saxon or German Roots; if, for instance, for Protoxide of Nitrogen, we had the First-sour-stuffness, or the First-sharp-thingness of Salt-petreness, and so throughout the immense vocabulary of chemistry, what an essentially different aspect would the whole English Language now wear! Had Lavoisier, therefore, chosen the Anglo-Saxon or the German as the basis of the chemical nomenclature now in use, we can readily perceive how the intellectual device of a single savant, would, ere this time, have sent a broad current of new development through the heart of all the advanced Languages of the earth; of a different kind wholly, but no more extensive, no more novel, and truly foreign to the primitive instinctual growth of those Languages, no more purely the result of intellectual contrivance, than the current of development to which he actually did give origin.

Lavoisier chose the dead Greek as a fountain from which to draw the elements of his new verbal compounds, assigning to those elements arbitrarily new volumes of meaning, and constructing from them, with no other governing principle than his own judgment of what seemed best, a totally new Language, as it were, adequate to the wants of the new Science. Still, despite these imperfections in the method, the demand, with the growth of the new ideas, for a new expansion of the powers of Language, in a given direction, made the contrivance of the great chemist a successful interpolation upon the speech-usages of the world. It is certainly not therefore inconceivable—because of any governing necessity that Language should be a purely natural growth—that other and greater modifications of the speech of mankind may occur; when—not an arbitrary contrivance upon an imperfect basis and of a limited application is in question, but—when a real discovery, the revelation of the true scientific bases of Language, and limitless applications in all directions, should be concerned.

On the other hand, the extent of the practical applications of strictly scientific principles to the Structure of Language is subject to limitation. Even mathematics, theoretically the most unlimited of the existing Sciences, is practically limited very soon by the complexity of the questions involved in the higher degrees of equations. In the same manner, while it may be possible to construct a Scientific Language adequate to all the wants of Language, in which exactness is involved; that is to say, capable of classifying and naming every object and idea in the Universe which is itself capable of exact classification and definition, still there remains an immense sphere, an equal half, it may be said, of the Universe of objects and conceptions, which have not that susceptibility; which are, in other words, so complex, so idiosyncratic, or so vague in their nature, that the best guide for the formation of an appropriate word for their expression is not Intellect or Reflection, but that very Instinct which has presided over the formation of such Languages as we now have. We may accurately define a triangle or a cube, and might readily bring them within the range of a Universal Language scientifically constructed; but who would venture to attempt by any verbal contrivance to denote the exact elements of thought and feeling which enter into the meaning of the verbs to screech or to twinge?

There is, therefore, ample scope and a peremptory demand for both methods of lingual development. The New Scientific Language herein suggested would be universal within the limit within which Science itself is universal. But there is another sphere within which Science, born of the Intellect, has only a subordinate sway, and in which instinct, or that faculty which, in the higher aspect of it, we denominate Intuition, is supreme. This faculty has operated as instinct in the first stage of the growth of Language, the Natural or Instinctual; it should now give place to the Intellect, in the second stage, the Scientific; after which it should regain its ascendency as Intuition, in the final finish and perfectionment of the Integral Speech of Mankind, the Artistic.

Such a Language would be, to all other Languages, precisely what a unitary Science would be to all the special Sciences; and we have seen how it might happen that the same discovery should furnish both the Language and the Science. Without rudely displacing any existing Language, it would, besides filling its own central sphere of uses, furnish a rallying point of unity between them all. It would ally them to itself, not by the destruction of their several individualities, but by developing the genius of each to the utmost. It would enrich them all, by serving as the common interpreter between them, until each would attain something of the powers of all, or at least the full capacity for availing itself of the aid of all others, and chiefly of the central tongue, in all those respects in which in consequence of its own special character it should remain individually defective. The new Scientific and Central Language might thus plant itself in the midst of the Languages; gradually assimilate them to itself; drawing at the same time an augmentation of its own materials from them, until they would become mere idioms of it, and finally, perhaps, in a more remote future, disappear altogether as distinct forms of speech, and be blended into harmony in the bosom of the central tongue.

The resources of Language for the formation of new words, by the possible euphonic combination of elementary sounds, is as nearly infinite as any particular series of combinations usually called infinite; all such series having their limitations, as in the case of the different orders of the Infinite in the calculus which are limited by the fact that there are different orders. Yet, notwithstanding that this inexhaustible fountain of Phonetic wealth exists directly at hand, none of these resources have ever been utilized by any scientific arrangement and advice. Only so many verbal forms as happen to have occurred in any given language, developed by the chance method, in the Greek, for instance, are chosen as a basis, and employed as elements for the new verbal formatives now coming into use with such astonishing rapidity in all the sciences. For instance, let us take the consonant combination kr (or cr), and add the following series of vowels: i (pronounced ee), e (pronounced a), a (pronounced ah), o (pronounced aw), u (pronounced uh), o (pronounced o), and u (pronounced oo); and we construct the following series of euphonic triliteral roots:

Kri (Kree)

Kre (Kra or Kray)

Kra (Krah)

Kro (Kraw)

Kru (Kruh)

Kro (Kro)

Kru (Kroo).

Let us now add the termination o, and we have the following list of formatives:

Kri-o (Kree-o)

Kre-o (Kra-o)

Kra-o (Krah-o)

Kro-o (Kraw-o)

Kru-o (Kruh-o)

Kro-o (Kro-o)

Kru-o (Kroo-o).

Of these verbal forms only two occur in any of the well-known Southwestern Languages of Europe, namely, Creo, I CREATE, of the Latin, Italian, etc., and Crio, I REAR, of the Spanish. The other forms are entirely unused. Of any other simple series of Euphonic combinations, such as Phonetic art can readily construct, there is the same wasteful neglect, and, in consequence of this total failure of the scientific world to extract these treasures of Phonic wealth lying directly beneath their feet, they are driven to such desperate devices as that of naming the two best-known and most familiar order of fishes, those usually found on our breakfast tables, Acanthopterygii Abdominales, and Malacopterygii Subbrachiati; and the common and beautiful bird called bobolink is Dolichonyx Orixyvora. For the same reason—the entire absence of any economical and systematized use of our phonetic materials by the scientific world—the writer found himself, recently, in attempting certain generalizations of the domain of science, stranded almost at the commencement, upon such verbal shoals as Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus; and the subsequent steps in the mere naming of discriminations simple enough in themselves, became wholly impossible. The urgent necessity existing, therefore, for the radical intervention of Science in the discovery of true principles applicable to the construction of its own tools and instruments, can hardly be denied or questioned.

The immense condensation of meaning, and the consequent compactness and copiousness of which a Language based on a meaning inherently contained by analogy in the simplest elements of sound would be susceptible, would give to such a Language advantages as the instrument of thought and communication, which are but very partially illustrated in the superiority of printing by movable types over manuscript, for the rapid multiplication of books.

In the compound words of existing Languages each root-word of the combination has a distinct meaning, and the joint meaning of the parts so united is the description or definition of the new idea; thus in German, Finger is FINGER, and Hut is HAT, and Finger-hut (FINGER-HAT) is a thimble; Hand is HAND, Schue is SHOE, and Hand-schue is a glove, etc. So in English, Wheel-barrow, Thunder-storm, etc. The admirable expressiveness of such terms, and the great superiority in this respect of Languages like the Sanscrit, Greek, German, etc., in which such self-defining combinations are readily formed, over Spanish, Italian, French, and other derivative languages, the genius of which resists combination, is immediately perceived and acknowledged. But if we analyze any one of these compound words, Finger-hut, for instance, we shall perceive that while each of the so-called elements of combination, Finger and Hut, has a distinct meaning, which enters into the more specific meaning of the compound, yet they are not, in any true sense, elements, or, in other words, that they are not the ultimate elements of the compound words. Finger is itself constituted, in the first instance, of two syllables, Fing and er, which, in accordance with the same principle upon which the compound word Finger-hut is organized, should describe the thing signified, as would be the case if Fing meant HAND, and er meant CONTINUATION. Finger would then mean HAND-CONTINUATION, and Finger-hut (thimble) would then be a HAND-CONTINUATION-HAT. But, again, Fing consists of three elementary sounds, f-i-ng, er of two, e-r, and hut of three, h-u-t. Suppose now that the primary sound f had been scientifically discovered to be correspondential throughout all the realms of Nature and of Thought with Superiority, High-position, or Upperness; i with centrality, or main body, and ng with member or branch; the syllable Fing would then signify UPPER-BODY-BRANCH, a very proper description of the arm. Suppose that e signified, in the same way, flat, palm-like ideas and things generally and that r alone signified continuation; then er would signify PALM-CONTINUATION, and Finger would signify an UPPER-BODYBRANCH-PALM-CONTINUATION, or, in other words, a Palm-continuation of an upper-body-branch, and would so be completely descriptive of, at the same time that it would denote, a Finger. Suppose, again, that h signified inherently rotundity or roundness; u, closeness; and t, roof or covering; then hut would signify ROUND-CLOSED-COVER, a proper description of a hat; and Finger-hut would then mean AN-UPPER-BODY-BRANCH-PALM-CONTINUATION-ROUND-CLOSED-COVER, or the round-closed-cover of a palm-continuation of a superior limb or branch of the body. It will be at once perceived how, with such resources of signification at command, compounds like Acanthopterygii to signify thornfins, Malacopterygii Subbrachiati, to signify Under-arm soft fins, or Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus, to signify things in unorganized form, having a resemblance to man, would soon come to be regarded as the lingual monsters which they really are.

The difference between commencing the composition of words by the real elements of speech, represented by single letters, each charged with its own appropriate meaning, and conveying that meaning into every compound into which it should enter, from commencing the composition by assuming long words already formed in some existing language, as Anthropos (Greek word for man), Acanthos (Greek word for spine), Keron (Greek word for fin or wing), etc., as the first element of the new compounds, is infinite in its results upon the facility, copiousness, and expressiveness of the terminology evolved. It is like the difference of man working by the aid of the unlimited resources of tools and machinery and the knowledge of chemistry, on the one hand, and man working with his unaided bare hands, and in ignorance of the nature of the substances he employs, on the other hand. The scientific world has not hitherto known how to construct the lingual tools and instruments which are indispensable to its own rapidly augmenting and complicated operations; to analyze and apply the lingual materials at its command; and to simplify and unify the nomenclatures of all the sciences, in order to quicken a thousandfold the operation of all the mental faculties, in the perception and exact vocal indication of all the infinitely numerous close discriminations and broad generalizing analogies with which nature abounds.

It is hardly necessary to say that the particular meanings assigned above to the single sounds in the analysis of the German word Finger-hut, are not assumed in any sense to be the real meanings of the vocal elements involved. The whole case is supposititious, and assumed merely to illustrate the unused possibilities of Language in the construction of significant words, and especially in the construction of scientific technicalities. To found a real Language of this kind, it would be necessary, first, to work up patiently to the true meanings of the Elementary Sounds of Human Speech, and then to the analogy of those meanings with the elements of universal being (the categories of the understanding, etc.), and finally of these again with the elements of each of the special Sciences.

Could such a discovery be actually accomplished; should it prove to be the simple fact of nature that every sound of the human voice is Nature's chosen vehicle for the communication of an equally elementary idea; and that the Combinations of the Elementary Sounds into Words do inherently and necessarily, so soon as these primitive meanings and the law of their combination are known, produce words infinite in number and perfect in structure, naturally expressive of every precise idea of which the human mind is capable, it becomes perfectly conceivable how a Natural Universal Language would be evolved by discovery alone. The creation of the Language would belong to Nature as truly and absolutely—in a sense, more truly and absolutely—than our existing instinctual Languages. It would be in fact the normal Language of Humanity, from which, for the want of such a discovery, mankind has been unnaturally debarred. The fact would prove to be that we have ever been banished from our true vernacular, and have been, all our lives, speaking foreign or strange tongues, from which we have only to recur or come home. May we not, therefore, found in Science the rational expectation, that in due time, from a Lingual Paradise Lost in the remote Past, we may recur to a Lingual Paradise Regained, in literal fulfilment of the promise of prophecy, that all the nations of the earth shall be of one speech?



A SUMMER'S NIGHT.

[Translated literally from the original Polish of Count S. Krasinski, by Prof. Podbielski; prepared for THE CONTINENTAL by Martha Walker Cook.]

'O'er this sad world Death folds his gloomy pall, Bright buds hatch worms, flowers die, and woe shrouds all.'

MALIZEWSKI.

'Oh, look on me, my fellow countrymen, From the same Fatherland! On me, so young, Passing o'er the last road, gazing for the last time On Helios—to see him rise no more for ever! In his cold cradle Death rolls all asleep; Me living he conducts to his black shores; Me wretched! unbetrothed! upon whose ears No bridal chant has ever hymned its joys, Stern Acheron alone calls to his side, And Death must be my icy Bridegroom now!'

SOPHOCLES: Antigone.

CHAPTER I.

I behold her as they lead her forth, with myrtle wreath upon her brow, and floating drapery of snow. She moves slowly, as if in fear, and the church rises like a vast cemetery before her eyes. Charmed with her modest loveliness, men smile on her as she glides forward, while children, changed into little angels, strew fresh flowers before her. The bishop and attendant priests look bright in gay dalmatics; and throngs of people crowd round, praising, envying, and wishing bliss. She alone is silent, with long lashes shading her downcast eyes, as she leans on the arms of her maidens.

Weariness is in every movement of her slight form, her nerves seem unstrung, and the rays of soul gleam vague and troubled through the expanded pupils of her blue eyes; it were indeed hard to divine whether plaint or prayer would breathe through the half-open lips. As she passes on before the shrines and chapels she lifts her hand, as if intending to make the sign of the cross, but she seems without energy to complete the symbols, and they fall broken and half formed in the air. Inclining her head before the Mother of God, she bends as if about to kneel, but, her strength evidently failing her, she moves tremblingly on toward the sanctuary, and the Great Altar in its gloomy depths looms before her like a sepulchre.

There, encircled by relations and friends, with pride and pleasure beaming from his aged eyes, her father awaits her; and well may he be proud, for never had God given to declining years a lovelier child. She shines upon the sunset of his life with the growing lustre of the evening star, and never has its light beamed dim upon him until this very hour. He will not, however, think of this momentary eclipse now, for this same hour will see the fulfilment of his brightest dreams. In his joy and pride he exclaims to the friends around him: 'Look on my child; how young, pure, and innocent she is—trembling in the ignorance of her approaching happiness!' Then he gazes wistfully, far as his eye can reach, down the long aisles of the church, to ascertain if the bridegroom yet appears, and, seeing him not, his gray eyebrows fall, and settle into a frown.

* * * * *

But peace soon again smoothes his broad forehead. Alas! the illusions of the old stand round their petrifying souls like statues of granite; no earthly power avails to strike them down, and death alone can break them. The young see their dreams floating in the air, while shifting rainbows play above them as they rise and melt upon the view. But the hopes of the old grow hard and stony as they near the grave; their desires assume the form of realities. The harsh rock of bygone experience stands between them and the truths of the present. Seating themselves immovably upon it, the surging life-stream hurtles on far below, bearing them not forward on its hurrying flow. Withered garlands and the ashes of once fiery hearts drift on; shattered wrecks, with torn sails and broken masts, driven and tossed by eternal whirlwinds, appear and vanish in the river's rush; but the old remain motionless above. The hot rain of stars forever falling there dies out with dull moan, while the glad waves and white foam laugh as the ruined wrecks toss helplessly in the strong winds; but the aged heed it not: they have grown into one with the rock of the past, they build air castles over the roaring depths, they look upon the waves, as they surge into each other, as stable altars of peace and happiness. They command their sons and daughters to vow faith in the light of the past, but ere the oath is fully spoken, the altar is under other skies, encircled by other horizons!

* * * * *

Surrounded by friends in gay attire, the bridegroom, full of life and vigor, rushes into the church. He wears a national dress, but his nation is not that of the old man. The crowd disperse from right to left as he passes on, greeting him with lowly bows: scarcely deigning to return the courtesy, he clatters up the aisle with rapid stride, and stands by the side of the kneeling bride. He places his lips to the ear of the old man, and whispers to him; they converse in low tones, the old man with an air of regal authority, the young one gesturing rapidly with his hands.

The bishops now slowly approach, the tapers are lighted upon the altar, a solemn silence falls upon the holy temple, two hands, two souls are to be united forever! A shiver of awe thrills through the assembly.

* * * * *

The beams of the setting sun pour in through the stained panes of the windows their lines of crimson light, as if streams of blood were flowing through the church. Deepening in the approaching twilight, they fall in their dying splendor on the brow of a man who stands alone in one of the side chapels. The figure of a dead hero extended upon a monument lies near him, as, immovable as the statue itself, he stands with his gaze riveted upon the altar whence the bishop addresses the bride. The crimson light falling full upon him betrays the secrets of his soul, his noble brow tells of fierce struggle within, but neither prayer, sigh, nor groan escapes him. His lips are closely pressed together, while suppressed anguish writhes them into a stern smile—but the streams of ruby light which had shone on his face for the moment, fade in the twilight, and he is lost in the gloom of the deepening shadows.

* * * * *

But when the vows were all spoken, the ceremonies over, when the bridegroom raised up the bride, and she fell into the arms of her father, when he bore her onward to the gates of the church, with thousands of tapers following after, when the crowd dispersed, and the sounds of the footsteps were dying away in the distance, and the cathedral grew still as the grave, holding only the dead and the few half-living monks moving darkly in its depths—the man on whom had shone the crimson light leaves the chapel, comes up the aisle, strikes his breast, and falls forward on the steps of the altar, rises suddenly, and again falls, then seats himself, while the lights from behind the great crucifix of silver shine down solemnly upon him. His face is turned away from the holy things of the sanctuary; his eyes gaze afar, past the gates through which the bride had vanished. He sees the blue night-sky, and a single star sparkling upon it, and as he looks upon the star, he takes a sword from under his cloak, draws the steel from the scabbard, and, still gazing upon the star, sharpens it on his whetstone. Thus, with widely opened eye, yet seeing, hearing nothing, the somnambulist, wrapped in deep, magnetic sleep, strides on in the moonlight, possessed by a power of which he is not conscious, which may stain his hands with blood, or hold him back from the verge of an abyss. Passion drinks its glow from the rays of the sun; it may lead us safely, or drive us far astray!

* * * * *

A monk approaches the man kneeling before the high altar, and says:

'Brother, whosoever thou mayst be, go to rest, and do not disturb the peace of the Lord.'

The man answers nothing. Another draws near him, saying:

'Away from the church; be not guilty of sacrilege!'

The man makes no reply. A third monk stands beside him and says:

'I excommunicate thee, and the steel which thou darest to draw at the very foot of the cross.'

The culprit then rises, and replies:

'I waited for these words, that the stroke might be certain, and the blow mortal.'

He leaves the church slowly—slowly, as if counting his own footfalls, knowing them to be his last on earth!

* * * * *

Meanwhile the night falls so softly, the skies hang so transparently above, the air is so tranquil, that the soul trembles with delight, and the heart unconsciously forebodes happiness. The stars peer up above the mountains, like the eyes of angels flashing through the blue spaces of the heavens. Swathed in her bands of darkness, and breathing up to them the perfume of her flowers and the sighs of her lovers, the earth seems grateful to them for their golden glances. A fitting night, surely, for a bridal so illustrious as the one we have just seen; a long spring will bloom from it upon the aged father. What more could he ask for his children? His new son in high favor with the emperor, lord of lands and serfs; his daughter, good and beautiful as an angel, goes not portionless into the house of her husband, but is the sole heiress of immense estates. What maiden would not envy her; what youth not wish to take his place? And the thoughts of the old man run pleasantly on: he thinks how happily his days will flow, blessed with the smiles of his daughter, and surrounded by the splendor of his son. He already sees the little grandchildren springing up before him; flowers blooming along the pathway leading to his grave.

* * * * *

A splendid festival is to take place in his castle; few princes would be able to give such an entertainment. The grounds are illumined as if it were day, barrels of pitch are everywhere burning, torches are blazing high upon his walls, windows and doors are thrown open, harps sound and trumpets thunder, mazourkas swell upon the ear, and the gay groups twine, twist, reel, half mad with joyous excitement. The old man strays through the lighted halls, and converses with his guests. Tears tremble in his eyes. Ah, many tears had gathered there in the troubled days of his life, through its hours of sweat and blood, but they are all passing now into these drops of gratitude to God who has brought him to this happy time in which past sorrows are all to be forgotten. Moving out upon his wide porticos, he pours coins from dishes of silver to the people below. Returning, he places clusters of diamonds on the young bosoms of the bridesmaids. Servants follow his footsteps, bending under the wealth they bear, handing to him glittering swords and golden chains, ostrich plumes, and Turkish scymitars, which, in memory of the day, he distributes among his guests. Sometimes he stops to take a chalice from the hands of a page, and wets his lips with Tokay, greeting his guests as he moves courteously on, wishing to warm all with the sunshine of his own happiness.

* * * * *

He enters now the central dome of the castle, lined with exotic trees and perfumed plants; the vaulted roof is corniced with wrought marble, emblazoned with escutcheons of his ancestors, unsullied, glorious, holy! Stopping at the entrance, he looks for his child: she is not among the dancers, nor in the throngs of the spectators. The bridegroom is indeed there, amusing himself with the various beauties present; and, for the second time in this happy day, the forehead of the old man lowers in grief or anger. He makes his way through the crowd, passes on through the orange trees, in the niches between which stand the now deserted seats rich in broidered tapestry. He lingers among them seeking his child, when he suddenly stops as if stricken with fierce pain. He has found her now; she is sitting quite alone, gazing sadly on a bunch of roses lying on her knee: dreamily she picks off the perfumed leaves, until the bare stems and thorns alone remain in her fragile hands. The old man silently approaches her. Suppressing his emotion, he says, with gentle voice:

'How happy thy poor mother would have been to-day, my daughter! Ah, why was it not the will of God she should have blessed this bridal hour!'

She raises her head, crushing the remains of the roses in her trembling hands, and in her confusion tries to fasten them on the hem of her dress: the sharp little stems plant themselves there, but stain its snow with the blood they had torn from the unconscious fingers.

'Why weepest thou, my child? It cannot surely be the memory of thy mother which so moves thee: thou hast never seen her—she went to the fathers in the very hour in which thou camest to me. Look, daughter, thou woundest thyself!'

He takes her hand in his, and softly draws from it the sharp thorns.

'O father, it is not that which pains me! Forgive me—it is that—only that, my father.'

She stands silently before him—great tears were falling slowly down her cheeks. He leans heavily upon her arm:

'Thou must support me now, child, for I grow old and frail, my knees tremble under me; be thou my stay!'