In all the lower orders of creation the normal state is preserved. Health is the rule, and sickness the rare exception. Demand and supply are exactly balanced. The contraction of the voluntary muscles, and the expenditure of nervous power consequent on locomotion, the temperate use of the five senses, and the quiet, regular performance of the great organic processes, limit the life and the waste of the creature. But when the brain expands in the dome-like cranium of the human being, a new and incessant call is made on the reparative forces. The nervous system has its demands increased a hundred-fold. We think, and we exhaust; we scheme, imagine, study, worry, and enjoy, and proportionately we waste.
In the rude and primitive nations this holds good much less than among civilized people. Yet even among them, the faculties whose possession involves this loss have been ever exercised to repair it by artificial means. In the busy life of to-day how much more is this the case! Overworked brains and stomachs, underworked muscles and limbs, soon derange the balance of supply and demand. We waste faster than enfeebled digestion can well repair. We feel always a little depressed; we restore the equilibrium temporarily by stimulation,—some with alcohol and tobacco, others with coffee and tea. Now it is to these last means of supply that the name has been given of "accessory foods."
"Accessories are those by whose use the moulting and renewing (that is, the metamorphosis) of the organic structures are modified, so as best to accommodate themselves to required circumstances. They may be subdivided into those whicharrestand those whichincreasemetamorphosis." It is under the former class that are placed alcohol, sugar, coffee, and tea. Again, says Dr. Chambers,—"Not satisfied with the bare necessaries," (the common varieties of plastic and calorifacient food,) "we find that our species chiefly are inclined by asoi-disantinstinct to feed on a variety of articles the use of which cannot be explained as above; they cannot be found in the organism; they cannot, apparently, without complete disorganization, be employed to build up the body. These may be considered as extra diet, or called accessory foods….. These are what man does not want, if the protracting from day to day his residence on earth be the sole object of his feeding. He could live without them, grow without them, think, after a fashion, without them. A baby does. Would he be wise to try and imitate it?
"Thus, there is no question but that easily assimilable brown meat is the proper food for those whose muscular system is subjected to the waste arising from hard exercise; and if plenty of it is to be got, and the digestive organs are in sufficiently good order to absorb enough to supply the demand, it completely covers the deficiency. Water, under these circumstances, is the best drink; and a 'total abstainer,' with plenty of fresh meat, strong exercise, and a vigorous digestion, will probably equal anybody in muscular development. But should the digestion not be in such a typical condition, should the exercise be oversevere and the victuals deficient, then the waste must be limited by some arrester of metamorphosis; if it is not, the system suffers, and the man is what is called 'overworked.'…. Intellectual labor also exercises the demand for food, and at the same time, unfortunately, injures the assimilating organs; so that, unless a judicious diet is employed, waste occurs which cannot be replaced."
Waste, we may be told, is life, and the rapidity of change marks the activity of the vital processes. True, if each particle consumed is at once and adequately replaced. Beyond that point, let the balance once tend to over-consumption, and we approach the confines of decay. Birds live more and faster than men, and insects probably most of all; yet many of the latter are ephemeral.
Every-day experience had long pointed to the recurring coincidence, that, of the annual victims of pulmonary consumption, few were to be found among the habitual consumers of ardent spirits. Science volunteered the explanation, that alcohol supplied a hydro-carbonaceous nutriment similar to that furnished by the cod-liver oil, which, serving as fuel, spared the wasting of the tissues, just in proportion to its own consumption and assimilation. Other aid it was supposed to lend, by stimulating the function of nutrition to renewed energy. Later investigations have proved that it exercises a yet more important influence as an arrester of metamorphosis. It was on arriving at this conclusion, that Dr. Böcker was led to institute a series of careful experiments to determine the influence of water on the physical economy, and the real value of salt, sugar, coffee, tea, and other condiments, as articles of food. "The experimenter appears to have used the utmost precision, and details so conscientiously the mode adopted of making his estimates, that additional knowledge may perhaps alter the conclusions drawn, but can never diminish the value of the experiments." They are not open to the objections of mistaken sensations, and honest, though ludicrous, misapprehension of fallible symptoms, to which the testing of drugs homeopathically is liable, and of which another instance has just occurred in London, in the "proving" of the new medicinal agent, gonoine. They rather resemble in accuracy a quantitative, as well as a qualitative, analysis. We will cite first the experiments on tea, and quote from the interesting narrative of Dr. Chambers.
"After Dr. Böcker had determined by some preliminary trials what quantity of food and drink was just enough to satiate his appetite without causing loss of weight to his body,—that is to say, was sufficient to cover exactly the necessary outgoings of the organism,—he proceeded to special experiments, in which, during periods of twenty-four hours, he took the amount of victuals ascertained by the former trials.
"The first set of the first series of experiments consists of seven observations, of twenty-four hours' duration each, in the months of July and August, with three barely sufficient mealsper diem, in quantities as nearly equal each day as could be managed, and only spring-water to drink. The second set comprises the same number of observations in August, September, and October, under similar circumstances, except that infusion of tea, drunk cold, was taken instead of plain water.
"Each day there are carefully recorded" qualitative and quantitative analyses of the excretions,—estimates of "the amount of insensible perspiration, and of expired carbonic acid,—the quickness of respiration,—the beats of the pulse,—together with accurate notes of the duration of bodily exercise in the open air, the loss of weight of the whole body, the general feelings, and the circumstances, thermometric, barometric, and meteoric, under which the observations are taken.
"A second series of seventeen experiments of equal duration were made, and at a different time of year, so as to answer the question, which might arise, as to whether the season made any difference."
In these experiments similar observations and records are made as previously, "under the three following circumstances, namely: while taking tea as an ordinary drink, on the days immediately following the leaving it off, and on other days when it was not taken."
"A third series, of four experiments, was also made during four fasts of thirty-six hours each—two with water only, and two with tea to drink.
"In the following particulars, all the three series so entirely coincide, that the conclusions will be set down as general deductions from the whole.
"Tea, in ordinary doses, has not any effect on the amount of carbonic acid expired, the frequency of the respirations, or of the pulse."
Obviously, then, it is not with reference to the heat-producing function that we can look upon tea as in any sense a nutriment; and if it causes no saving of carbon, its effects must be sought in checking some other waste, or in the less consumption of nitrogen. The pulse, and hence the respiration, are unaltered; for the two great processes of circulation and aëration of the blood are interdependent functions, and have, in health, a definite ratio of activity one with the other. As a nervous stimulant, tea in excess will, as we all know, produce an exaltation of the action of the heart, amounting in some persons to a painful and irregular palpitation. No such result seems to follow its moderate use.
"The loss by perspiration is limited by tea." This seems, at first, contrary to common experience, as the sensible perspiration produced by several cups of warm tea is a familiar fact to all tea-drinkers. That this effect is wholly owing to the warmth of the mixture, it being drunk usually in hot infusion or decoction, was pointed out long since by Cullen. Tea limits perspiration, perhaps, by the astringent action of the tannin which it contains,—of which more hereafter. What is saved by limiting perspiration? Water, largely; carbonic acid, in considerable amount; ammonia (a nitrogenized substance;) salts of soda, potash and lime, and a trace of iron, all in quantities minute, to be sure, but to be counted in the aggregate of arrest of metamorphosis.
But the great fact which establishes tea as an arrester of the change of tissue is, that its use diminishes remarkably the amount of nitrogen thrown off by the excretions, specially destined to remove that element, when in excess, from the system. "We have before called attention to the fact, that an indispensable component of plastic food, by which alone the tissues are repaired, is nitrogen. By a chemico-vital process, nitrogen builds up and is incorporated in the tissues. Nitrogen, again, is one of the resulting components of the change of tissue. This element forms a large part of the effete particles which are rejected on accumulation from such change or waste. That a less amount is excreted by the tea-drinker, when similar quantities are ingested, the weight and plumpness of the body remaining undiminished the while, is proof of the slower change of tissue which takes place under the modifying influence of tea. The importance of this effect we shall presently see.
"In the first series of experiments, the daily allowance of food, though less copious on the tea days, was more nitrogenized, and nitrogen also was taken in as theine. Yet, in spite of this, the quantity thrown off in twenty-four hours was nearly agrammeless than on the water days. Still more strikingly is this shown in the days of complete fast, when pure spring-water is seen to cause a greater loss of nitrogen than infusion of tea, in spite of the supply of nitrogen contained in the latter. The difference also is seen to exist in spite of an increased amount of bodily exercise."
As final deductions from these experiments, there result, first, "that, when the diet is sufficient, the bodyismore likely to gain weight when tea is taken than when not"; second, "that, when the diet isinsufficient, tealimitsvery muchthe loss of weightthereby entailed."
A set of experiments made by Dr. Lehmann are parallel with these. They exhibit the effects of coffee on the excretion of phosphorus, chloride of sodium, (common salt,) and nitrogen. If less full than Dr. Böcker's, they appear to be equally accurate, and more complete in showing the separate actions of the several constituents of coffee. It would be tedious to the general reader to follow them in detail, and we shall avail ourselves of the briefresuméof Dr. Chambers.
"First,—Coffee produces on the organism two chief effects, which it is very difficult to connect together,—namely, the raising the activity of the vascular and nervous systems, and protracting remarkably the decomposition of the tissues. Second,—that it is the reciprocal modifications of the specific actions of the empyreumatic oil and cafeine contained in the bean which call forth the stimulant effects of coffee, and therefore those peculiarities of it which possess importance in our eyes,—such as the rousing into new life the soul prostrated by exertion, and especially the giving it greater elasticity, and attuning it to meditation, and producing a general feeling of comfort. Third,—that the protraction of metamorphic decomposition which this beverage produces in the body is chiefly caused by the empyreumatic oil, and that the cafeine only causes it when it is taken in larger quantity than usual. Fourth,—that cafeine (in excess) produces increased action of the heart, rigors, headache, a peculiar inebriation, delirium, and so on. Fifth,—that the empyreumatic oil (in excess) causes perspirations, augmented activity of the understanding, which may end in irregular trains of thought, restlessness, and incapacity for sleep."
It follows that both the active elements of the coffee-berry are necessary to insure its grateful effects,—that the volatile and odorous principle alone protracts decomposition,—and that careful preparation in roasting and decocting are essential to secure the full benefits of it as a beverage.
It would be difficult to overestimate the practical importance of these results. They raise coffee and tea from the rank of stimulants to that of food,—from idle luxuries to real agents of support and lengthening of life. Henceforth the economist can hear of their increasing consumption without a regret. The poor may indulge in them, not as extravagant enjoyments, but practical goods. The cup of tea, which is the sole luxury of their scanty meal, lessens the need for more solid food; it satisfies the stomach, while it gladdens the heart. It saves them, too, the waste of those nitrogenized articles of food which require so much labor and forethought to procure. The flesh meats and the cereals, which contain the largest amounts of this requisite of organic life, are always the dearest articles of consumption. Certainly it is not as positive nutriment that we recommend the use of coffee and tea; for although they contain a relatively large amount of nitrogen, that supply can be better taken in solid food. Their benefit is two-fold. While they save more than enough of the waste of tissue to justify their use as economical beverages, they supply a need of the nervous system of no small importance. They cheer, refresh, and console. They thus fill a place in the wants of humanity which common articles of food cannot, inasmuch as they satisfy the cravings of the spirit as well as of the flesh.
We have before attempted to show that the human race is liable to a peculiar and constant waste from the development of the nervous system, and that the body has to answer for the labor of the mind. At first thought, we shall find it difficult to appreciate the endless vigilance and activity of the brain. Like the other organisms which possess a proper nervous system, man carries on the common organic processes of life with a regularity and unfailing accuracy which seem to verge on the mechanical forces, or to be, at least, automatic. All habitual voluntary acts by repetition become almost automatic, or require no perceptibly distinct impulse of the will. When we emerge from this necessary field of labor, we come to those functions peculiar to the proper brain. Here all is continual action. Thought, imagination, will, the conflicting passions, language, and even articulation, claim their first impulse from the nervous centre. The idlest reverie, as well as the most profound study, taxes the brain. That distinguishing attribute of man can almost never rest. In sleep, to be sure, we find a seeming exception. Then only its inferior portion remains necessarily at work to supervise the breathing function. Yet we know that we have often dreamed,—while we do not know how often we fail to recall our dreams. The duality of the cerebrum may also furnish a means of rest in all trivial mental acts. Still, the great demands of the mind upon the nervous tissues remain. And it is these losses which may be peculiarly supplied by the nervous stimulants. Such are coffee and tea. Common nutrition by common food, and particularly the adipose and phosphatic varieties, nourishes nerve tissue, no doubt, as gluten and fibrine do muscle. But the stimulants satisfy temporarily their pressing needs, and enable them to continue their labors without exhaustion. Reacting again upon the rest of the body, they invigorate the processes of ordinary nutrition; for whatever rests or stimulates the nerve proportionately refreshes and vitalizes the tissues which it supplies.
It would be curious and well worth while to follow out the peculiar connection between the use of coffee and the excretion of phosphorus, which has been before hinted at. Other experiments of Dr. Böcker prove sugar to be a great saver of the phosphates, and hence of bone,—which affords, at least, a very plausible reason for the instinctive fondness of children for sweets, during the building portion of their lives.
In exhausting labors, long-continued exposure, and to insure wakefulness, the uses of coffee and tea have long been practically recognized by all classes. The sailor, the trapper, and the explorer value them even above alcohol; and in high latitudes we are assured of their importance in bracing the system to resist the rigors of the Arctic winter.
There is of course, as in all human history, another side of this picture. Abuse follows closely after use. The effects of the excessive employment of nervous stimulants in shaking the nerves themselves, and in impairing digestion, are too familiar to need description. Yet even here abuse is not followed by those terrible penalties which await the drunkard or the opium-eater. Idiosyncrasy, too, may forbid their use; and this is not very rare. As strengtheners and comforters of the average human system, however, they have no superiors, and none others are so largely used.
It is a little singular that the active principles of coffee and tea are probably identical,—no more so, however, than the marvellous similarity of starch, gum, and sugar, or other chemical wonders. They have been called cafeine and theine, respectively. They are azotized, and contain quite a marked amount of nitrogen. Chemically, they consist of carbon 19, hydrogen 10, nitrogen 4, oxygen 4. Some allowance is therefore to be made for them as plastic food.
This peculiar principle (theine) is also found in the leaves of theIlex Paraguayensis, or Paraguay tea, used in South America, as a beverage.
"Good black tea contains of theine from 2.00 to 2.13 per cent.Coffee-leavescontain of theine from 1.15 to 1.25 per cent.Paraguay tea contains of theine from 1.01 to 1.23 per cent.The coffee-berry a mean of 1.00 per cent.
"Besides the theine and the essential oils, which latter give the aroma of the plants, there is contained in both coffee and tea a certain amount of difficultly soluble vegetable albumen, and in the latter, especially, a large quantity of tannin. Roasting renders volatile the essential oil of the coffee-berry. The tea-leaf, infused for a short time, parts with its essential oil, and a small portion of alkaloid, (theine,) a good deal of which is thrown away with the grounds. If it stands too long, or is boiled, more indeed is got out of it, but an astringent, disagreeable drink is the result. The boiling of coffee extracts all its oil and alkaloid too, and, when it is drunk with the grounds, allows the whole nutriment to be available. Even when strained, it is clearly more economical than tea."
Roasted coffee is a powerful deodorizer, also. This fact is familiarly illustrated by its use in bar-rooms; and it might be made available for other purposes.
The cost and vast consumption of coffee and tea have made the inducements to adulterate them very great. The most harmless form, is the selling of coffee-grounds and old tea-leaves for fresh coffee and tea. There is no security in buying coffee ready-ground; and we always look at the neat little packages of it in the grocers' windows with a shudder. Beans and peas we have certainly tasted in ground coffee. The most fashionable adulteration, and one even openly vaunted as economical and increasing the richness of the beverage, is with the root of the wild endive, or chicory. Roasted and ground, it closely resembles coffee. It contains, however, none of the virtues of the latter, and has nothing to recommend it but its cheapness. The leaves of the ash and the sloe are used to adulterate tea. They merely dilute its virtues, without adding any that are worth the exchange.
The coffee-tree is a native of Ethiopia or Abyssinia. Bruce tells us that the nomad tribes of that part of Africa carry with them, in crossing deserts on hostile expeditions, only balls of pulverized roasted coffee mixed with butter. One of these as large as a billiard-ball keeps them, they say, in strength and spirits during a whole day's fatigue, better than a loaf of bread or a meal of meat. The Arabs gave the first written account of coffee, and first used it in the liquid form. Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," mentions it as early as 1621. "The Turks have a drink they call coffee, (for they use no wine,)—so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter, which they sip up as warm as they can suffer, because they find by experience that that kind of drink, so used, helpeth digestion and procureth alacrity."
The coffee-tree reaches a height of from six to twelve feet, and when fully grown much resembles the apple-tree. Its leaves are green all the year; and in almost all seasons, blossoms and green and ripe fruit may be seen on the same tree at the same time. When the blossom falls, there springs from it a small fruit, green at first, red when ripe, and under its flesh, instead of a stone, is the bean or berry we call coffee. "It has but recently become known by Europeans that the leaves of the coffee-plant contain the same essential principle for which the berries are so much valued. In Sumatra, the natives scarcely use anything else. The leaves are cured like tea. And the tree will produce leaves over a much largerhabitatthan it will berries." Should the decoction of the leaves prove as agreeable as that of the berry, we shall have a much cheaper coffee; though it remains to be proved that they contain the essential oil as well as the cafeine.
The coffees of Java, Ceylon, and Mocha are most esteemed. The quantities produced are quite limited. Manila and Arabia together give less than 4,500 tons. Cuba yields 5,000 tonsper annum; St. Domingo, 18,000; Ceylon and the British East Indies, 16,000; Java, 60,000; and Brazil, 142,000. Yet, in 1774, a Franciscan friar, named Villaso, cultivated a single coffee-tree in the garden of the convent of San Antonio, in Brazil. In the estimates for 1853, we find that Great Britain consumes 17,500 tons; France, 21,500; Germany, (Zollverein), 58,000; and the United States, about 90,000 tons. It is worth remarking how small is the comparative consumption of tea in France. The importation of tea for 1840 was only 264,000 kilogrammes (less than 600,000 pounds).
In Asia, coffee is drunk in a thick farinaceous mixture. With us the cup of coffee is valued by its clearness. We generally drink it with sugar and milk. The French with their meals use it as we do,—but after dinner, invariably without milk (café noir). And we would suggest to the nervous and the dyspeptic, who do not want to resign the luxury of coffee, or to whom its effects as an arrester of metamorphosis are beneficial, that when drunk on a full stomach its effects upon the nerves are much less felt than when taken fasting or with the meals.
In the consumption of tea the United States rank next to Great Britain. Tea is the chief import from China into this country. The tea-plant flourishes from the equator to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude; though it grows best between the twenty-third and the twenty-fifth parallels. Probably it can be successfully cultivated in our Southern States. Mr. Fortune considers that all varieties of tea are derived from the same plant. Other authorities say that there are two species, the green and the black,—Thea viridisandThea Bohea. This point is yet unsettled. Tea is grown in small, shrub-like plantations, resembling vineyards. As it is a national beverage, certain localities are as much valued for choice varieties as are the famous vintage-hills and slopes of Southern France. The buds and the leaves are used; and there are three harvestings,—in February, April, and June. The young, unfolded buds of February furnish the "Youi" and "Soumlo," or "Imperial Teas." These are the delicate "Young Hysons" which we are supposed to buy sometimes, but most of which are consumed by the Mandarins. Souchong, Congo, and Bohea mark the three stages of increasing size and coarseness in the leaves. Black tea is of the lowest kind, with the largest leaves. In gathering the choicer varieties, we are told on credible authority that "each leaf is plucked separately; the hands are gloved; the gatherer must abstain from gross food, and bathe several times a day." Many differences in the flavor and color of green and black teas are produced by art. Mr. Fortune says of green tea, that "it has naturally no bloom on the leaf, and a much more natural color. It is dyed with Prussian blue and gypsum. Probably no bad effects are produced. There is no foundation for the suspicion that green tea owes its verdure to an inflorescence acquired from plates of copper on which it is curled or dried. The drying-pans are said to be invariably of sheet-iron." We drink our tea with milk or sugar, or both, and always in warm infusion. In Russia, it is drunk cold,—in China, pure; in Ava, it is used as a pickle preserved in oil.
It would be improper not to notice, finally, the moral effect of coffee- and tea-drinking. How much resort to stronger stimulants these innocent beverages prevent can be judged only by the weakness of human nature and the vast consumption of both.
* * * * *
When the little white-headed country-boy of an inland farmstead lights upon a book which shapes his course in life, five times out of six the volume of his destiny will turn out to be "Robinson Crusoe." That wonderful fiction is one of the servants of the sea,—a sort of bailiff, which enters many a man's house and singles out and seizes the tithe of his flock. Or rather, cunning old De Foe,—like Odusseus his helmet, wherewith he detected the disguised Achilles among the maids-of-honor,—by his magic book, summons to the service of the sea its predestined ones. Why is it, but from a difference in blood and soul, that the sea gets its own so surely? The farmer's sons grow up about the fireside, do chores together, together range the woods for squirrels, woodchucks, chestnuts, and sassafras, go to the same "deestrick-school," and succeed to the same ambitions and hopes. Reuben, the first-born, comes in due time to the care of the paternal acres and oxen. Simeon, Dan, Judah, Benjamin, and the rest, grow up and emigrate to Western clearings. Levi, it may be, pale, thoughtful Levi, sees other fields "white to harvest," and struggles up through a New England academy- and college-education, to find a seat in the lecture-rooms of Andover, and to hope for a pulpit hereafter. But Joseph, the pet and pride of the household,—what becomes of him? Unlucky little duck! why could he not go "peeping" at the heels of the maternal parent with his brother and sister biddies? Why must he be born with webbed toes, and run at once to the wash-tub, there to make nautical experiments with walnut-shells?
I know why the boys of a seaport-town take kindly to the water. All the birds of the shore are something marine, and their table-flavor is apt to be fishy. We youngsters, who were rocked to sleep with the roar of the surf in our ears,—one wall of whose play-room was colored in blue edged with white, in striking contrast with the peaceful green of the three other sides,—who have many a night lain warm in bed and listened to the distant roll of a sea-chorus and the swinging tramp of a dozen jolly blue-jackets,—we whose greatest indulgence was a sail with Old Card,theboatmanpar excellence,—we who knew ships, as the farmer's boy knows his oxen, before we had mastered the multiplication-table,—it is not strange that we should take kindly to salt water. So, too, all along the lovely "fiords" of Maine, in the villages which cluster about the headlands of Essex, in the brown and weather-mossed cottages which dot the white sands of Cape Cod, by the southern shore of Long Island, wherever the sea and the land meet, the boy grows up drawing into his lungs the salt air, which passes in Nature's mysterious alchemy into his blood, so that he can never wholly disown his birthright. But what is it that draws from the remote inland the predestinate children of the deep?
Poor little Joseph! he tries to slip along with the others; but when the holiday comes, instinct takes him straight to the mill-pond, there to construct forbidden rafts and adventure contraband voyages. The best-worn page of his Malte-Brun Geography is that which treats the youthful student to a packet-passage to England. He can tell the names of all islands, capes, and bays; but ask him the boundaries of Bohemia or Saxony, the capitals of Western States, and down he goes to the foot of the class. Thus it continues awhile, till, after a fracas at school, or a neglected duty on the farm, or similar severance of the bonds of home, Master Joe may be seen trudging along the dusty seaport-highway, in a passion of tears, but with a resolute heart, and an ever-deepening conviction that he must go on, and not back.
Then there is another class,—the poetical, dreamy adventurer, to whom the sea beckons in every white Undine that rises along the beaches of a moonlight night, to whom it calls in that mournful and magic undertone heard only by those who love and listen. These do not often run away to go to sea; they prefer to voyage genteelly in yachts or packet-ships, and, if the impulse be very strong, will get a commission in the navy. However, if circumstances compel a Tapleyan "coming out strong," they will sometimes face their work, and that right nobly; for there is nowhere that gentle blood so tells as at sea. The utter absence of all sham or room for sham brings out true and noble qualities as well as mean and selfish ones. For ordinary work, one man's muscle is as good as another's. It is only when the time of trial comes,—when the volunteers are called to man the boat that is to venture through the wild seas to pick off the crew of a foundering wreck,—"when the jerking, slatting sail overhead must be got in somehow," though topmast and yard and sail may go any minute,—when the quailing mate or frightened captain dares notordermen to all but certain death, and still less dares tolead,—then it is, when the lives of all hang on the heroism of one, that the good blood will assert itself.
Then there is the class who aresentto sea,—scapegraces all. The alternative is not unfrequently the one of which Dr. Johnson chose the other side. The Doctor beingsans questiona landsman,henever saw, we warrant, any resemblance to fore and main and mizzen in the three spires of Litchfield. But the Doctor, not being a scamp, was not compelled to choose. Many another is not so well off. Like little boys who are sent to school, they learn what they learn from pretty much the same motive. Sometimes they turn out good and gallant men; but not often does it reform a man who is unfit for the shore to dispatch him to sea. If there are any vices he does not carry with him, they are commonly to be had dog- and dirt-cheap at the first port his ship makes.
Then, last of all, there is a large and increasing class whogetto sea. They fall into the calling, they cannot tell how; they continue in it, they cannot tell why. Some have friends who would rescue them, if they could; others have no friend, no home, no nationality even, the pariahs of the sea, sullen, stupid, and broken-down, burnt-out shells of men, which the belaying-pin of some brutal or passionate mate crushes into sudden collapse, or which the hospital duly consigns to the potter's field.
There is a popular idea of the sailor, which, beginning at the lowest note of the gamut, with the theatrical and cheap-novelist mariner, runs up its do-re-mi with authors, preachers, public speakers, reformers, and legislators, but always in the wrong key. There is no use in making up an ideal of any class; but if you must have one, let it be of an extinct class. It does not much harm to construct horrible plesiosaurians from the petrified scales we dig out of a coal-mine or chalk-pit; but when it comes to idealizing the sea-serpent, who winters at the Cape Verds and summers at Nahant, it is a serious matter. For the love of Agassiz, give us true dimensions or none.
So, too, fancy Greeks and Romans may be ever preferable to the true Aristophanic or Juvenalian article,—imaginary Cavaliers or Puritans not at all hard to swallow,—but ideal sailors, why in the world must we bear them, when we can get the originals so cheaply? When the American "Beggar's Opera" was put upon the stage, "Mose" stepped forward, the very impersonation of the Bowery. If it was low, it was at least true, a social fact. But the stage sailor is not as near probability as even the stage ship or the theatrical ocean. He is a relic of the past,—a monstrous compound out of the imperfect gleanings of the Wapping dramatists of the last century. Yet all those who deal with this character of the sailor begin upon the same false notion. In their eyes the seaman is a good-natured, unsophisticated, frank, easy-going creature, perfectly reckless of money, very fond of his calling, unhappy on shore, manly, noble-hearted, generous to a degree inconceivable to landsmen. He is a child who needs to be put in leading-strings the moment he comes over the side, lest he give way to an unconquerable propensity of his to fry gold watches and devour bank-notes,à la sandwich, with his bread and butter.
With this theory in view, all sorts of nice schemes are set forward for the sailor, and endless are the dull and decorous substitutes for the merriment or sociability of his favorite boarding-house, and wonderful are the schemes which are to attract the nautical Hercules to choose the austere virtue and neglect the rollicking and easy-going vice. Beautiful on paper, admirable in reports, pathetic in speeches,—all pictorial with anchors and cables and polar stars, with the light-house of Duty and the shoals of Sin. But meanwhile the character of the merchant-marine is daily deteriorating. More is done for the sailor now by fifty times than was done fifty years ago; yet who will compare the crews of 1858 with those of 1808?
There are many reasons for this change, and one is Science. That which always makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, and which can be made to restore the lost equilibrium in a higher civilization only by the strong pressure of an enlightened Christianity, has been at work upon the sea. Columbus sailed out of Palos in a very different looking craft from the "Great Republic." The Vikings had small knowledge of taking a lunar, and of chronometers set by Greenwich time. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, when he so gallantly and piously reminded his crew that "heaven was as near by sea as on land," was sitting in the stern of a craft hardly so large as the long-boat of a modern merchantman. Yet the modern time does not give us commanders such as were of old, still less such seamen. Science has robbed the sea of its secret,—is every day bearing away something of the old difficulties and dangers which made the wisest head and the strongest arm so dear to their fellows, which gave that inexpressible sense of brotherhood. Science has given us the steamship,—it has destroyed the sailor. The age of discovery is closing with this century. Up to the limits of the ice-fields, every shore is mapped out, every shoal sounded. Not only does Science give the fixed, but she is even transferring to her charts the variable features of the deep,—the sliding current, the restless and veering wind.
The personal qualities which were once needed for the sea-service are fast passing away. The commander or the master needs no longer to lean upon his men, or they to trust in him. He wants drudges, not shipmates,—obedient, active drudges,—men who can be drilled to quick execution of duty, even as in a machine the several parts. The navy is manned after this pattern; but there is a touchstone which sharpens the edge dulled with routine,—the touchstone of war. When the time comes that the drum-tap calls to quarters, and the decks are strewn with sand,—when with silence as of the grave, fore and aft, the frigate moves stately and proud into the line of her adversaries' fire, then it is that the officer and the man meet face to face, and the awful truth of battle compels them to own their common brotherhood. The merchant-service has few such exigencies. The greater the size of the ship, the greater the number of the crew. The system of shipping-offices and outfitters breaks up almost all the personal contact between master and men. They come on board at the hour of sailing. A gang of riggers, stevedores, or lightermen work the vessel into the stream. A handful of boosy wretches are bundled into the forecastle, and as many more rolled, dead-drunk, into their bunks, to sleep off their last spree. The mates are set to the task of dragooning into order the unruly mass. Half the men have spent their advance, and mean to run as soon as the ship arrives. They intend to do as little as they can,—to "soger," and shirk, and work against the ship all they can. The captain cares only to make a quick passage and get what he can out of the crew. Community of interest there is none. Brutal authority is pitted against sullen discontent.
In the old days of the little white-headed farmer's boy's dreams, there were discovery and trading-ships sailing into unknown seas, and finding fairy islands never visited before. There were savages to trade with,—to fight with, it might be. There were a thousand perils and adventures that called for all the manly and ennobling qualities both of generous command and loyal obedience. It was a point of honor to stick by ship and captain while ship and captain remained to stick by; for the success of a voyage depended on such mutual trust and help. But now where is the sea's secret? There is hardly a square league of water which has not been sailed over. Find an island large enough to land a goat upon, and you will find it laid down in the charts,—and, if it be only far enough south, a Stonington sealer at anchor under its lee, or a New Bedford whaler's crew ashore picking up drift-wood. Where are the old dangers of the sea? We are fast learning to calculate for the storms, and to run from them. Steam-frigates have ended forever the pirates of the Spanish Main. The long, low, black schooner, which could sail dead to windward through the pages of the cheap "yellow-covers," and the likeness of which sported its skull and crossbones on the said covers, is to be met with nowhere else. Neither the Isle of Pines nor the numberless West India keys know her or her romantic commander any more.
The relations of trade, too, have changed with the changes of Science. We were once gathered with the group of travellers who are wont to smoke the cigar of peace beside the pilot-house of one of our noble Sound steamers. As we rounded the Battery and sped swiftly up the East River, the noblest avenue of New York, lined with the true palaces of her merchant-princes,—an avenue which by its solid and truthful architecture half atones for the flimsiness of its land structures,—as we passed the ocean steamships lying at the "Hook," the sea-captains about me began to talk of the American triumphs of speed. "They say to the Englishmen now," said one, "that we're going to take the berths out of the 'Pacific.'" (She had just made the then crack passage.) "When the English fellows ask, 'What for?'—they say, 'Because Collins intends to run her for a day-boat.'" This extravaganza raised a laugh; but one of the older brethren shook his head solemnly and sadly. "It's all very well," said he; "but what with a steamer twice a week, and your telegraph to New Orleans, they know what's going on at Liverpool as well as if they were at Prince's Dock. It don't pay now to lay a week alongside the levee on the chance of five cents for cotton."
It was a text that suggested a long homily. The shipmaster was degraded from his old position of the merchant's friend, confidential agent, and often brother-merchant. He was to become a mere conductor, to take the ship from port to port. No longer identified with the honor and success of a great and princely house, with the old historic kings of the Northwest Coast, or of Canton, or of Calcutta, he sinks into a mere navigator, and a smuggler of Geneva watches or Trench embroideries.
We state facts. Thus much has Science done to deteriorate the men of the sea. It has robbed them of all the noblest parts of their calling. It has taken away the spirit of adventure, the love of enterprise, and the manly spirit which braved unknown dangers. It has destroyed their interest by its new-modelling of trade; it has divided labor, and is constantly striving to solve the problem, How to work a ship without requiring from the sailor any courage or head-work, or anything, in short, but mere muscle. It interferes with the healthful relations of officer and man. The docks of Liverpool are a magnificent work, but they necessitate the driving of the seaman from his ship into an atmosphere reeking with pollution. The steam-tugs of New York are a wonderful convenience, but they help to further many a foul scheme of the Cherry-Street crimps and land-sharks.
For all this Science owes a remedy. It must be in a scientific way. We have indicated some of the leading causes of the decline of the seaman's character. The facts are very patent. Step into any shipping-office, or consult any sea-captain of your acquaintance, and you will have full evidence of what we say.
The remedy must not be outside the difficulty. You may build "Bethels" into which the sailor won't come, and "Homes" where he won't stay, distribute ship-loads of tracts, and scatter Bibles broadcast, but you will still have your work to do. The Bethel, the Home, and the Bible are all right, but they are for the shore, and the sailor's home is on the sea. It points an address prettily, no doubt, to picture a group of pious sailors reading their Bibles aloud of a Sunday afternoon, and entertaining each other with profound theological remarks, couched in hazy nautical language. But what is the real truth of the case? It may be a ship close-hauled, with Cape Horn under her lee,—all hands on deck for twelve hours,—sleet, snow, and storm,—the slide over the forecastle hatchway,—no light below by which to make out a line even of the excellent type of the American Bible Society, and on deck a gale blowing that would take the leaves bodily out of any book short of a fifteenth-century folio,—this, with the men now reefing and now shaking out topsails and every other thing, as the gale rages or lulls, in the hope of working to windward of certain destruction.
The remedy, to be effectual, must touch the seaman's calling. It is of no use to appeal to his better nature, if he hasn't any. If you make a drudge and a beast of him, you can't do him much good by preaching at him. The working of the present system is, that there are afloat a set of fellows who are a sort of no-countrymen. Like the beach-combers of the Pacific, they have neither country, home, nor friends, and are as different from the old class of American sailors as thecondottierefrom the loyal soldier. Let the navigation-laws be enforced first of all, and see that the due proportion of the crews of every ship be native-born. Let the custom-house protections be no longer the farce they are,—where a man who talks of "awlin haft the main tack" is set down as a native of Martha's Vineyard, and his messmate, who couldn't say "peas" without betraying County Cork, is permitted to hail from the interior of Pennsylvania. Let the ship-owners combine (it is for their interest) to do away with the whole body of shipping-agents, middlemen, and land-sharks. Jack will take his pleasure ashore,—you can't help that; and perhaps so would you, Sir, after six months of "old horse" and stony biscuit, with a leaky forecastle and a shorthanded crew. Jack will take his pleasure, and that in ways we may all of us object to; but, for Heaven's sake, break up a system of which the whole object is to degrade the man into the mere hack of a set of shore harpies. Do not leave him in the hands of those whom you are now permitting to combine with you to clear him out as swiftly as possible, and then dispatch him to sea. Let the captains ship their own crews on board the ship, and do away with the system of advances. But, at any rate, do learn to treat the sailor as if he were not altogether a fool. He has sense, plenty of it, shrewd, strong, common sense, and more real gentlemanly feeling than we on shore generally suppose, a good deal of faith, and certain standing principles of sea-morality. But at the same time he has prejudices and whims utterly unaccountable to men living on shore. He will forfeit one or two hundred dollars of wages to run from a ship and captain with which he can find no fault. He will ship the next day in a worse craft for smaller wages. You cannot understand his impulses and moods and grievances till you see them from a forecastle point of view.
It may be that Science will solve the riddle by casting aside the works and improvements of a thousand years,—the "wave line," the spar, the sail, and all,—and with them the men of the sea. It may be that "Leviathans" will march unheedinglythroughthe mountain waves,—that steam and the Winans's model will obliterate old inventions and labors and triumphs. Blake and Raleigh and Frobisher and Dampier may be known no more. The poetry and the mystery of the sea may perish altogether, as they have in part. Out of the past looks a bronzed and manly face; along the deck of a phantom-ship swings a square and well-knit form. I hear, in memory, the ring of his cheerful voice. I see his alert and prompt obedience, his self-respecting carriage, and I know him for the man of the sea, who was with Hull in the "Constitution" and Porter in the "Essex." I look for him now upon the broad decks of the magnificent merchantmen that lie along the slips of New York, and in his place is a lame and stunted, bloated and diseased wretch, spiritless, hopeless, reckless. Has he knowledge of a seaman's duty? The dull sodden brain can carry the customary orders of a ship's duty, but more than that it cannot. Has he hopes of advancement? His horizon is bounded by the bar and the brothel. A dog's life, a dog's berth, and a dog's death are his heritage.
The old illusion still prevails and has power over little towheaded Joseph on the Berkshire interval. It will not prevail much longer. It is fast yielding to the power of facts. The Joes of next year may run from home in obedience to the planetary destiny which casts their horoscope in Neptune, but they will not run to the forecastle. We shall have officers and men of a different class,—the Spartan on the quarter-deck, the Helot in the forecastle. We have it now. A story of brutal wrong on shipboard startles the public. A mutiny breaks out in the Mersey, and a mate is beaten to death, and we wonder why the service is so demoralized. The story could be told by a glance at the names upon the shipping-papers. The officers are American,—the men are foreigners, blacks, Irish, Germans, non-descripts, but hopelessly severed from the chances of the quarter-deck. The law may interpose a strong arm, and keep the officer from violence, the men from mutiny. We may enact a Draconian code which shall maintain a sullen and revengeful order upon the seas, but all fellowship and mutual helpfulness are gone. When the day of trial comes,—the wreck, the fire, the leak,—subordination is lost, and every man scrambles for his own selfish safety, leaving women and children to the flames and the waves. Why is it that ships, dismasted, indeed, but light and staunch, are so often found rolling abandoned on the seas? It is the daily incident of our marine columns. I have been told by an old shipmaster, how, when he was a young mate, his ship was dismasted on the Banks of Newfoundland, on a voyage to Europe. The captain had been disabled and the vessel was leaking. He came into command. But in those days men never dreamed of leaving their ship till she was ready to leave them. They rigged jury-masts, and, under short canvas and working at the pumps, brought their craft to the mouth of Plymouth Harbor. The pilot demanded salvage, and was refused leave to come on board. The mate had been into that port before, was a good seaman and a sharp observer, and he took his vessel safely to her anchorage himself, rather than burden his owners with a heavy claim. Captains and mates will not now-a-days follow that lead, because they cannot trust their men, because with every emergency themoraleof the forecastle is utterly gone.
For all this there is of course no universal panacea. Nor do I believe that legislation will much help the matter. The common-law of the seas, well carried out by competent courts of admiralty, is better than many statutes. For emergencies require extraordinary powers and a wide discretion. There can be no divided rule in a ship. But if every man know his place and his duty, and none overstep it, there will come thereof successful and happy voyages. There must be discipline, subordination, and law. The republican theory stops with the shore. "Obey orders, though you break owners," is the Magna Charta of the main. This can be well and wisely carried out only with some homogeneity of the ship's company, with a community of feeling and a community of interest. Everybody who has been off soundings knows, or ought to know, the difference between things "done with a will" and "sogering." If it be important on land to adjust the relations of employer and employed, it is doubly important on the sea, where the peril and the privation are great. For it is a hard life, a life of unproductive toil, that oftenest shows no results while accomplishing great ends. It cannot be made easy. The gale and the lee-shore are the same as when the sea-kings of old dared them and did battle with them in the heroic energy of their old Norse blood. The wet, the cold, the exposure must be, since you cannot put a Chilson's furnace into a ship's forecastle, nor wear India-rubbers and carry an umbrella when you go aloft. But men will brave all such discomforts and the attendant perils with a hearty delight, if you will train up the right spirit in them. Better the worst night that ever darkened off Hatteras, than the consumption-laden atmosphere of the starving journeyman-tailor's garret, the slow inhalation of pulverized steel with which the needle-maker draws his every breath! The sea's work makes a man, and leaves him with his duty nobly done, a man at the last. Courage, loyal obedience, patient endurance, the abnegation of selfishness,—these are the lessons the sea teaches. Why must the shore make such diabolical haste and try such fiendish ingenuity to undo them? The sea is pure and free, the land is firm and stable,—but where they meet, the tide rises and falls, leaving a little belt of sodden mud, of slippery, slimy weeds, where the dead refuse of the sea is cast up to rot in the hot sun. Something such is the welcome the men of the sea get from that shore which they serve. Into this Serbonian bog between them and us we let them flounder, instead of building out into their domain great and noble piers and wharves, upon which they can land securely and come among us.
Some years ago, a young scholar was led to step forth from his natural sphere into the forecastle of a merchantman. No quarrel with the world, no romantic fancy, drove him thither, but a plain common-sense purpose. He saw what he saw fairly, and he has told the tale in a volume which, for picturesque clearness, vigor, and manly truthfulness, will scarcely find its equal this side the age of Elizabeth. He owed it to the sea, for the sea gave him health, self-reliance, and fearlessness, and that persistent energy which saved him from becoming that which elegant tastes and native refinement make of too many of our young men, a mere literary or socialdilettante, and raised him up to be a champion of right, a chivalrous defender of the oppressed, whose name has honored his calling. His book was an effort in the right direction. By that we of the land were brought nearer to those to whom this country owes so much, its merchant-seamen. But we want more than the work, however noble, of one man. We want the persistent and Christian interest in the elevation of the seaman of every man who is connected with his calling. We do not want a Miss-Nancyish nor Rosa-Matildan sentimentalism, but a good, earnest, practical handling of the matter. We call our merchants princes. If wealth and lavish expenditure make the prince, they are, indeed, fit peers of Esterhazy or Lichtenstein. But the true princely heart looks after the humblest of its subjects. When the poor of Lyons were driven from their homes by the flooded Rhone, Louis Napoleon urged his horse breast-deep into the tide to see with his own eyes that his people were thoroughly rescued. The merchant whose clippers have coined him gold should spare more than a passing thought upon the men who hung over the yards and stood watchful at the wheel. England's earls can afford to look after the toiling serfs in their collieries; the patricians of New York and Boston might read as startling a page as ever darkened a Parliamentary Blue-book, with a single glance into Cherry and Ann Streets.
For a thousand years the Anglo-Saxon race has been sending its contributions to the nation of the Men of the Sea. Ever since the Welshman paddled his coracle across Caernarvon Bay, and Saxon Alfred mused over the Danish galley wrecked upon his shore, each century has been adding new names of fame to the Vikings' bead-roll. Is the list full? has Valhalla no niche more for them? and must the men of the sea pass away forever? If it must be so,—it must.Che sarà sarà. But if there is no overruling Fate in this, but only the working of casual causes, it is somebody's care that they be removed. In almost all handicrafts and callings the last thirty years have wrought a vast and rapid deterioration of the men who fill them. Machinery, the boasted civilizer, is the true barbarizer. The sea has not escaped. Its men are not what the men of old were. The question is, Can we let them go?—can they be dispensed with among the elements of national greatness?
Passing fair is Venice, but she sits in lonely widowhood in the deserted Adriatic. Amalfi crouches under her cliffs in the shame of her poverty. The harbors of Tyre and Carthage are lonesome pools. They tell their own story. When the men of the sea no longer find a home or a welcome on the shore,—when they are driven to become the mere hirelings who fight the battles of commerce, like other hirelings they will serve beneath the flag where the pay and the provant are most abundant. The vicissitudes of traffic are passing swift in these latter days; and it does not lie beyond the reach of a possible future that the great commercial capitals of the Atlantic coast may be called to pause in their giddy race, even before they have rebuilded the Quarantine Hospital, or laid the capstone of the pharos of Minot's Ledge.
* * * * *
The song-sparrow has a joyous note,The brown thrush whistles bold and free;But my little singing-bird at homeSings a sweeter song to me.
The cat-bird, at morn or evening, singsWith liquid tones like gurgling water;But sweeter by far, to my fond ear,Is the voice of my little daughter.
Four years and a half since she was born,The blackcaps piping cheerily,—And so, as she came in winter with them,She is called our Chicadee.
She sings to her dolls, she sings alone,And singing round the house she goes,—Out-doors or within, her happy heartWith a childlike song o'erflows.
Her mother and I, though busy, hear,—With mingled pride and pleasure listening,—And thank the inspiring Giver of song,While a tear in our eye is glistening.
Oh! many a bird of sweetest songI hear, when in woods or meads I roam;But sweeter by far than all, to me,Is my Chicadee at home.
* * * * *
22,728, Five Hundred and Fifty-First St., } New York, June 1, 1858. }
Dear Don Bobus,—I see that you have been Christian enough to send my last letter to "The Atlantic Monthly," and that the editors of that famous work have confirmed my opinion of their high taste by printing it. Your disposition of my MSS. I do not quarrel with; although it must be regarded in law as an illegal liberty, inasmuch as the Court of Chancery has decided that a man does not part with property in his own letters merely by sending them; but I ask permission to hint that your conduct will acquire a certain graceful rotundity, if you will remit to me in current funds the munificent sum of money which the whole-souled and gentlemanly proprietors—pardon the verbal habits of my humble calling!—have without doubt already remitted to you.Pecunia prima quaerenda, virtus post nummos. Mind you, I do not expect to be as well paid as Sannazarius.
"Who the deuse was he?" I hear you growling.
My dear Iberian friend, I really thought that you knew everything; but I find that you have set up for an Admirable Crichton upon an inadequate capital. Know, then, that a great many years ago Sannazarius—never mind who he was,—I do not justly know, myself—wrote an hexastich on the city of Venice, and sent it to the potent Senators of that moist settlement. It was as follows:—
"Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undisStare urbem et toti ponere jura mari.Nunc mihi Tarpeias quantumvis, Jupiter, arces,Objice, et ilia tui moenia Martis, ait;Sic Pelago Tibrim praefers; urbem aspice utramque,Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos."
Which may be liberally rendered thus:—
When sea-faring Neptune saw Venice well-foundedAnd stiffly coercing the Adrian main,The jolly tar cried, in a rapture unbounded:"Why, d—ash my eyes, Jove, but I have you again;You may boast of your city, and Mars of his walling;But while I'm afloat, I'll stick to it that mineBeats yours into rope-yarn in spite of your bawling,Just as snuffy old Tiber is flogged by the brine;And he who the difference cannot discernIs a lob-sided lubber from bowsprit to stern.
"Very free, indeed!" you will say. It might have been worse, if I had staid at college a year or two longer, or if I had been elevated to a place in the Triennial Catalogue,—thus:
PAULUS POTTER, LL.D., S.T.D.; Barat.V. Gubernator, Lit. Hum. Prof.,e Cong., Praeses Rerumpub. Foed., A.B.Yal., M.D. Dart., D.D. Dart., P.D.V. Mon., etc., etc., etc.
I have put myself downstelliger, because it is certain, that, after obtaining all the above honors, if not an inmate of the cold and silent tomb, I should be false to my duties as a member of society, and a nuisance to my fellow-creatures. The little anachronism of translating after being translated you will also pardon; and talking of the tomb, let us return to Sannazarius. I pray that your nicely noble nose may not be offended by the tarry flavor of my version. You will find the Latin in Howell's "Survey of Venice," 1651,—a book so thoroughly useless, and so scarce withal, that I am sure it must be in your library. By the way, as you have written travels in all parts of this and other worlds, without so much as stirring from your arm-chair, and have calmly and coolly published the same, I must quote to you the rebuke of Howell, who says, "He would not have adventured upon the remote, outlandish subject, had he not bin himself upon the place; had he not had practicall conversation with the people of whom he writes." This veracious person very properly dedicated his book to the saints in Parliament assembled, many of whom had, soon after, ample leisure for perusing the fat folio. Nor is it perfectly certain that you have read the book, although you may own it; since it is your sublime pleasure to collect books like Guiccardini's History, which somebody went to the galleys rather than read through.
But let us return, my dear Bobus, to the money question. Know, then, that the Sannazarian performance above quoted, so different from the language of the malignant and turbaned Turks, filled with rapture the first Senator and the second Senator and all the other Senators mentioned in Act I., Scene 3, of "Othello," so that, in grand committee, and, for all I know to the contrary, with Brabantio in the chair, they voted to the worthy author a reward of three hundred zechins, or, to state it cambistically in our own beloved Columbian currency, $1,233.20,—this being the highest literary remuneration upon record, if we except the untold sums lavished by "The New York Blotter" upon the fascinating author of "Steel and Strychnine; or, the Dagger and the Bowl." But as we have had enough of Sannazarius, let us leave him with the gentle hope that his check was cashed in specie at the Rialto Bank, and that he made a good use of the money.
Now, dear Don, in the great case of Virtuevs. Money, I appear for the defendant. Confound Virtue, say I, and the whole tribe of the Virtuous! I am as weary of both as was that sensible Athenian of hearing Aristides calledThe Just; and if I had been there, and a legal voter, I know into which box my humble oyster-shell would have been plumped. Such was the vile, self-complacent habit of the Athenians, that I suspect the best fellows then were not good fellows at all. And what did the son of Lysimachus make by being recalled from banishment? He died so poor, that he was buried at the public charge, and left a couple of daughters as out-door pensioners upon public charity. The Athenians, I aver, were a duncified race; and it would have pleased me hugely to have been in the neighborhood when Alcibiades rescinded his dog's charming tail,—a fine practical protest, although unpleasant to the dog. Virtue may be well enough by way of variety; but for a good, steady, permanent pleasure, commend me to Avarice! Yes, O my Bobus, I, who was once, as to money, "still in motion of raging waste," and, like Timon, "senseless of expense,"—I, who have many a time borrowed cash of you with amiable recklessness, and have never asked you to take it back again,—I, who have had many a race with the constable, and have sometimes been overtaken,—I, who have in my callow days spoken disrespectfully of Mammon in several charming copies of verses,—I am waxing sordid. I am for the King of Lydia against Solon. How do I know that the insolent Cyras was not blandished out of his bloodthirsty intention of roasting his deposed brother by a little cash which the son of Gyges had saved out of the wide, weltering wreck of his wealth, and had concealed in his boots? Royal palms were not wholly free fromprurituseven then. Why has this silly world still persisted in putting long ears upon Midas? I do not know whether he sang better or worse than Apollo; and I am sure it is much better, and bespeaks more sense, to play the flute ill than to play it well. Depend upon it, his Majesty of Phrygia has been very much abused by the mythologists. With that particular skill of his, during an epidemic of thebrevitas pecuniaria, (Angl.shorts,) he would have been just the person to coax into one's house of accompt, at five minutes before two o'clock in the afternoon, to work a little involuntary transmutation,—to change the coal-scuttle into ingots, and the ruler into a great, gorged, glitteringrouleau. So little would his auricular eccentricity have hindered his welcome, that I verily believe he would have been heartily received, if he had come with ensanguined chaps straight from the pillory, and had left both ears nailed to the post.
Don't talk to me about filthy lucre! Pray, when would Sheikh Tâhâr, that eminent Koordish saint, have become convinced that he was a great sinner, if they had not carried about the contribution-boxes in the little New England churches? Do you think it has cost nothing to demonstrate to the widows of Scindiah the folly ofsuttee? Don't you know that it has been an expensive work to persuade the Khonds of Goomsoor to give up roasting each other in the name of Heaven? Very fine is Epictetus,—but wilt he be your bail? Will Diogenes bring home legs of mutton? Can you breakfast upon the simple fact that riches have wings and use them? Can you lunch uponvanitas vanitatum? Are loaves and fishes intrinsically wicked? As for Virtue, we have the opinion of Horace himself, that it is viler than the vilest weed, without fortune to support it. Poets, of all men, are supposed to live most easily upon air; and yet, Don Bob, is not a fat poet, like Jamie Thomson, quite likely, although plumper than beseems a bard, to be ten thousand times healthier in his singing than my Lord Byron thinning himself upon cold potatoes and vinegar? Do you think that Ovid cuts a very respectable figure, blubbering on the Euxine shore and sending penitential letters to Augustus and afterward to Tiberius? He was a poor puppy, and as well deserved to have three wives as any sinner I ever heard of. Don't you think, that, if the cities of Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos, and Athens had given over disputing about the birthplace of the author of the "Iliad" and other poems, and had "pooled in" a handsome sum to send him to a blind asylum, it would have been a sensible proceeding? Do you think Milton would have written less sublimely, if he had been more prosperous? Do you think Otway choking, or Hudibras Butler dying by inches of slow starvation, pleasant to look upon? Are we to keep any terms with the thin-visaged jade, Poverty, after she has broken down a great soul like John Dryden's? That is a very foolish notion which has so long and so universally prevailed, that a poet must, by the necessity of the case, be poor. David was reckoned an eminent bard in his day, and he was a king; and Solomon, another sweet singer, was a king also. Depend upon it, no man sings, or thinks, or, if he be a man, works, the worse for being tolerably provided for in basket and pocket-money.
Objectively considered, I say that there is not in this world a sadder sight, one so touchingly suggestive of departed joys, departed never to return, as a pocketbook, flat, planed, exenterated, crushed by the elephantine foot of Fate,—nor is there one so ridiculous, inutile, impertinent, possibly reproachful and disagreeably didactic. Think of it, Don Bob,—for you in your day, as I in mine, have seen it. 'Tis so much leather stripped from the innocent beast, and cured and colored and polished and stamped to no purpose,—with a prodigious show of empty compartments, like banquet-halls deserted. It has a clasp to mount guard over nothing,—a clasp made of steel digged from the bowels of the earth, and smelted and hammered and burnished, only to keep watch and ward after the thief has made his visit leisurely. 'Tis an egregious chaos. 'Tis an absurd vacuum. To make it still more unpleasant, there are your memoranda. You are reminded that upon Thursday last you purchased butter flavous, or chops rosy; but where is hint, sign, direction, or instruction touching the purchase of either upon Thursday next? How much would it have helped poor Belisarius, in his sore estate, if he had kept a record of his household expenses, as my friend Minimus does? By the same token, he sometimes makes odd misentries, pious figurative fictions, in order to save the feelings of Mrs. Minimus, who is auditor-general and comptroller of the household. And speaking of Belisarius, just fancy the hard fate of that gallant and decayed soldier! Figure him left naked by the master whom he had served so well, crying out for a beggarlyobolus! Now this, you must know, was one of the least respectable coins of ancient times, being of about the value of one farthing sterling. If the poor man had got his battered old helmet full of them, the ponderous alms would not have driven the wolf gaunt and grinning many paces from his squalid home,—always admitting that he had any home, however squalid, to crawl into at sunset. And how often he crouched and whined, white-headed and bare-headed all day, and did not get alepton(which was, in value, thirty-one three hundred thirty-sixths of an English farthing) for his pains! 'Tis such a pitiful story, that I am truly glad that the eminent German scholar, Nicotinus of Heidelberg, in his work upon the Greek Particle, has pretty clearly shown (Vol. xxviii. pp. 2850 to 5945) that the story may be regarded as a myth, illustrating the great, eternal, and universal danger of ultimate seediness, in which the most prosperous creatures live. And just think of Napoleon squabbling about wine with Sir Hudson Lowe,—the hero of Areola, without courage enough to hang himself. Now you will notice, my dear friend, that he did not lose his dignity, until, with true British instinct, they took away his cash, and even opened his letters to confiscate his remittances. He should have hidden the imperial spoons in a secret pocket. He should, at least, have saved a sixpence wherewithal to buy Mr. Alison.
You may think, dear Don, that my views are exceedingly sordid. I readily admit that all the philosophy and poetry, and I suppose I must add the morality, of the world are against me. I know that it is prettier to turn up one's nose at ready cash. I have not found, indeed, that for the poetical pauper, in his proper person, the world, whether sentimental or stolid, has any deep reverence. Will old Jacob Plum, who lives on an unapproachably high avenue,—his house front and his heart of the same material,—and who made two mints of money in the patentpoudrette, come to my shabby little attic in Nassau Street, and ask me to dinner simply because "The Samos (Ill.) Aristarchean" has spoken with condescending blandness of my poems? I know that Miss Plum dotes upon my productions. I know that she pictures me to herself as a Corydon in sky-blue smalls and broad-brimmed straw hat, playing elegies in five flats, or driving the silly sheep home through the evening shades. Now, whatever else I may be, I am not that. I keep my refinement for gala-days; I do not shave, because I would save sixpences; I do not wear purple and fine linen. I should be a woful disappointment to Mistress Plum: for I like beer with my beef, and a heart-easing tug at my pipe afterwards; and as for the album, we should never get along at all, for I have too much respect for poetry to write it for nothing. But if I have not wholly escaped the shiftlessness and improvidence of my vocation,—if I have never rightly comprehended the noble maxim, "A penny saved is a penny gained," (which cannot in rigid mathesis be true, because by saving the penny you miss the enjoyment: that is, half-and-half, chops, or cheese, which the penny aforesaid would purchase; so that the penny saved is no better than pebbles which you may gather by the bushel upon any shore,)—if I like to haunt Old Tom's, and talk of politics and poetry with the dear shabby set who nightly gather there, and are so fraternally blind to the holes in each other's coats,—why it is all a matter between myself and Mrs. Potter, and perhaps the clock. We have a good, stout, manly supper,—no Apician kickshaws, the triumphs of palate-science,—no nightingales' tongues, no peacocks' brains, no French follies,—but just a rasher or so, in its naked and elegant simplicity. Montaigne's cook, who treated of his art with a settled countenance and magisterial gravity, would have turned his nose skyward at our humble repast; and he would have cast like scorn upon that to which Milton with such charming grace invited his friend, in one of those matchless sonnets which make us weep to think that the author did not write a hundred of them. But Montaigne's cook may follow his first master, the late Cardinal Caraffa, to that place where there will always be fire for his saucepans! The epicures of Old Tom's would deal very crisply with that spit-bearing Italian, or his shade, should it appear to them. We are not very polished, but most of us could give hints to men richer than we can hope to be of a wiser use of money than the world is in any danger of witnessing. There is Old Sanders, the proof-reader,—"Illegitimate S." we call him,—who knows where there is an exquisite black-letter Chaucer which he pants to possess, and which he would possess, were it not for a fear of Mrs. Sanders and a tender love of the little Sanderses. There is young Smooch,—he who smashed the Fly-Gallery in "The Mahlstick" newspaper, and was not for a moment taken in by the new Titian. There is Crosshatch, who has the marvellous etching by Rembrandt, of which there are only three copies in the world, and which he will not sell,—no, Sir,—not to the British Museum. There is Mr. Brevier Lead, who has in my time successively and successfully smitten and smashed all the potentates, big and little, of Europe, and who has in his museum a wooden model of the Alsop bomb. Give them money, and Sanders will rebuild and refurnish the Alexandrian Library,—Smooch will bid every young painter in America reset his palette and try again,—and Brevier Lead will be fool enough to start a newspaper upon his own account, and, while his purse holds out to bleed, will make it a good one. But until all these high and mighty things happen,—until we come into our property,—we must make the best of matters. I know a clever Broadway publisher, who, if I were able to meet the expenses, would bring out my minor poems in all the pomp of cream-laid paper, and with all the circumstance of velvet binding, with illustrations by Darley, and with favorable notices in all the newspapers. I should cut a fine figure, metaphorically, if not arithmetically speaking; whereas my farthing rush-light is now sputtering, clinkering, and guttering to waste, and all because I have not a pair of silver snuffers. If you wish me to move the world, produce your lever! Your wealthy bard has at least audience; and if he cannot sing, he may thank his own hoarse throat, and not the Destinies.