In fact, all the variability among domesticated Species is due to the fostering care, or, in its more extravagant freaks, to the fancies of man, and it has never been observed in the wild Species, where, on the contrary, everything shows the closest adherence to the distinct, well-defined, and invariable limits of the Species. It surely does not follow, that, because the Chinese can, under abnormal conditions, produce a variety of fantastic shapes in the Golden Carp, therefore water, or the physical conditions established in the water, can create a Fish, any more than it follows, that, because they can dwarf a tree, or alter its aspect by stunting its growth in one direction and forcing it in another, therefore the earth, or the physical conditions connected with their growth, can create a Pine, an Oak, a Birch, or a Maple. I confess that in all the arguments derived from the phenomena of domestication, to prove that all animals owe their origin and diversity to the natural action of the conditions under which they live, the conclusion does not seem to me to follow logically from the premises. And the fact that the domesticated animals of all races of men, equally with the white race, vary among themselves in the same way and differ in the same way from the wild Species, makes it still more evident that domesticated varieties do not explain the origin of Species, except, as I have said, by showing that the intelligent will of man can produce effects which physical causes have never been known to produce, and that we must therefore look to some cause outside of Nature, corresponding in kind, though so different in degree, to the intelligence of man, for all the phenomena connected with the existence of animals in their wild state. So far from attributing these original differences among animals to natural influences, it would seem, that, while a certain freedom of development is left, within the limits of which man can exercise his intelligence and his ingenuity, not even this superficial influence is allowed to physical conditions unaided by some guiding power, since in their normal state the wild Species remain, so far as we have been able to discover, entirely unchanged,—maintained, it is true, in their integrity by the circumstances that were established for their support by the power that created both, but never altered by them. Nature holds inviolable the stamp that God has set upon his creatures; and if man is able to influence their organization in some slight degree, it is because the Creator has given to his relations with the animals he has intended for his companions the same plasticity which he has allowed to every other side of his life, in virtue of which he may in some sort mould and shape it to his own ends, and be held responsible also for its results.
The common sense of a civilized community has already pointed out the true distinction in applying another word to the discrimination of the different kinds of domesticated animals. They are called Breeds, and Breeds among animals are the work of man;—Species were created by God.
* * * * *
Many and many a year ago,—To say how many I scarcely dare,—Three of us stood in Strasburg streets,In the wide and open square,Where, quaint and old and touched with the goldOf a summer morn, at stroke of noonThe tongue of the great Cathedral tolled,And into the church with the crowd we strolledTo see their wonder, the famous Clock.Well, my love, there are clocks a many,As big as a house, as small as a penny;And clocks there be with voices as queerAs any that torture human ear,—Clocks that grunt, and clocks that growl,That wheeze like a pump, and hoot like an owl,From the coffin shape with its brooding faceThat stands on the stair, (you know the place,)Saying, "Click, cluck," like an ancient hen,A-gathering the minutes home again,To the kitchen knave with its wooden stutter,Doing equal work with double splutter,Yelping, "Click, clack," with a vulgar jerk,As much as to say, "Just see me work!"
But of all the clocks that tell Time's bead-roll,There are none like this in the old Cathedral;Never a one so bids you standWhile it deals the minutes with even hand:For clocks, like men, are better and worse,And some you dote on, and some you curse;And clock and man may have such a wayOf telling the truth that you can't say nay.
So in we went and stood in the crowdTo hear the old clock as it crooned aloud,With sound and symbol, the only tongueThe maker taught it while yet 't was young.And we saw Saint Peter clasp his hands,And the cock crow hoarsely to all the lands,And the Twelve Apostles come and go,And the solemn Christ pass sadly and slow;And strange that iron-legged procession,And odd to us the whole impression,As the crowd beneath, in silence pressing,Bent to that cold mechanic blessing.
But I alone thought far in my soulWhat a touch of genius was in the whole,And felt how graceful had been the thoughtWhich for the signs of the months had sought,Sweetest of symbols, Christ's chosen train;And much I pondered, if he whose brainHad builded this clock with labor and painDid only think, twelve months there are,And the Bible twelve will fit to a hair;Or did he say, with a heart in tune,Well-loved John is the sign of June,And changeful Peter hath April hours,And Paul the stately, October bowers,And sweet, or faithful, or bold, or strong,Unto each one shall a month belong.
But beside the thought that under it lurks,Pray, do you think clocks are saved by their works?
To win such love as Arthur Hugh Clough won in life, to leave so dear a memory as he has left, is a happiness that falls to few men. In America, as in England, his death is mourned by friends whose affection is better than fame, and who in losing him have met with an irreparable loss. Outside the circle of his friends his reputation had no large extent; but though his writings are but little known by the great public of readers, they are prized by all those of thoughtful and poetic temper to whose hands they have come, as among the most precious and original productions of the time. To those who knew him personally his poems had a special worth and charm, as the sincere expression of a character of the purest stamp, of rare truthfulness and simplicity, not less tender than strong, and of a genius thoroughly individual in its form, and full of the promise of a large career. He was by Nature endowed with subtile and profound powers of thought, with feeling at once delicate and intense, with lively and generous sympathies, and with conscientiousness so acute as to pervade and control his whole intellectual disposition. Loving, seeking, and holding fast to the truth, he despised all falseness and affectation. With his serious and earnest thinking was joined the play of a genial humor and the brightness of poetic fancy. Liberal in sentiment, absolutely free from dogmatism and pride of intellect, of a questioning temper, but of reverent spirit, faithful in the performance not only of the larger duties, but also of the lesser charities and the familiar courtesies of life, he has left a memory of singular consistency, purity, and dignity. He lived to conscience, not for show, and few men carry through life so white a soul.
A notice of Mr. Clough understood to be written by one who knew him well gives the outline of his life.
"Arthur Hugh Clough was educated at Rugby, to which school he went very young, soon after Dr. Arnold had been elected head-master. He distinguished himself at once by gaining the only scholarship which existed at that time, and which was open to the whole school under the age of fourteen. Before he was sixteen he was at the head of the fifth form, and, as that was the earliest age at which boys were then admitted into the sixth, had to wait for a year before coming under the personal tuition of the headmaster. He came in the next (school) generation to Stanley and Vaughan, and gained a reputation, if possible, even greater than theirs. At the yearly speeches, in the last year of his residence, when the prizes are given away in the presence of the school and the friends who gather on such occasions, Arnold took the almost unexampled course of addressing him, (when he and two fags went up to carry off his load of splendidly bound books,) and congratulating him on having gained every honor which Rugby could bestow, and having also already distinguished himself and done the highest credit to his school at the University. He had just gained a scholarship at Balliol, then, as now, the blue ribbon of undergraduates.
"At school, although before all things a student, he had thoroughly entered into the life of the place, and before he left had gained supreme influence with the boys. He was the leading contributor to the 'Rugby Magazine'; and though a weakness in his ankles prevented him from taking a prominent part in the games of the place, was known as the best goal-keeper on record, a reputation which no boy could have gained without promptness and courage. He was also one of the best swimmers in the school, his weakness of ankle being no drawback here, and in his last half passed the crucial test of that day, by swimming from Swift's (the bathing-place of the sixth) to the mill on the Leicester road, and back again, between callings over.
"He went to reside at Oxford when the whole University was in a ferment. The struggle of Alma Mater to humble or cast out the most remarkable of her sons was at its height. Ward had not yet been arraigned for his opinions, and was a fellow and tutor of Balliol, and Newman was in residence at Oriel, and incumbent of St. Mary's.
"Clough's was a mind which, under any circumstances, would have thrown itself into the deepest speculative thought of its time. He seems soon to have passed through the mere ecclesiastical debatings to the deep questions which lay below them. There was one lesson—probably one only—which he had never been able to learn from his great master, namely, to acknowledge that there are problems which intellectually are not to be solved by man, and before these to sit down quietly. Whether it were from the harass of thought on such matters which interfered with his regular work, or from one of those strange miscarriages in the most perfect of examining machines, which every now and then deprive the best men of the highest honors, to the surprise of every one Clough missed his first class. But he completely retrieved this academical mishap shortly afterwards by gaining an Oriel fellowship. In his new college, the college of Pusey, Newman, Keble, Marriott, Wilberforce, presided over by Dr. Hawkins, and in which the influence of Whately, Davidson, and Arnold had scarcely yet died out, he found himself in the very centre and eye of the battle. His own convictions were by this time leading him far away from both sides in the Oxford contest; he, however, accepted a tutorship at the college, and all who had the privilege of attending them will long remember his lectures on logic and ethics. His fault (besides a shy and reserved manner) was that he was much too long-suffering to youthful philosophic coxcombry, and would rather encourage it by his gentle 'Ah! you think so?' or, 'Yes, but might not such and such be the case?'"
Clough was at Oxford in 1847,—the year of the terrible Irish famine, and with others of the most earnest men at the University he took part in an association which had for its object "Retrenchment for the sake of the Irish." Such a society was little likely to be popular with the comfortable dignitaries or the luxurious youth of the University. Many objections, frivolous or serious as the case might be, were raised against so subversive a notion as that of the self-sacrifice of the rich for the sake of the poor. Disregarding all personal considerations, Clough printed a pamphlet entitled, "A Consideration of Objections against the Retrenchment Association," in which he met the careless or selfish arguments of those who set themselves against the efforts of the society. It was a characteristic performance. His heart was deeply stirred by the harsh contrast between the miseries of the Irish poor and the wasteful extravagance of living prevalent at Oxford. He wrote with vehement indignation against the selfish pleas of the indifferent and the thoughtless possessors of wealth, wasters of the goods given them as a trust for others. His words were chiefly addressed to the young men at the University,—and they were not without effect. Such views of the rights and duties of property as he put forward, of the claims of labor, and of the responsibilities of the aristocracy, had not been often heard at Oxford. He was called a Socialist and a Radical, but it mattered little to him by what name he was known to those whose consciences were not touched by his appeal. "Will you say," he writes toward the end of this pamphlet, "this is all rhetoric and declamation? There is, I dare say, something too much in that kind. What with criticizing style and correcting exercises, we college tutors perhaps may be likely, in the heat of composition, to lose sight of realities, and pass into the limbo of the factitious,—especially when the thing must be done at odd times, in any case, and, if at all, quickly. But if I have been obliged to write hurriedly, believe me, I have obliged myself to think not hastily. And believe me, too, though I have desired to succeed in putting vividly and forcibly that which vividly and forcibly I felt and saw, still the graces and splendors of composition were thoughts far less present to my mind than Irish poor men's miseries, English poor men's hardships, and your unthinking indifference. Shocking enough the first and the second, almost more shocking the third."
It was about this time that the most widely known of his works, "The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich, a Long-Vacation Pastoral," was written. It was published in 1848, and though it at once secured a circle of warm admirers, and the edition was very soon exhausted, it "is assuredly deserving of a far higher popularity than it has ever attained." The poem was reprinted in America, at Cambridge, in 1849, and it may be safely asserted that its merit was more deeply felt and more generously acknowledged by American than by English readers. The fact that its essential form and local coloring were purely and genuinely English, and thus gratified the curiosity felt in this country concerning the social habits and ways of life in the mother-land, while on the other hand its spirit was in sympathy with the most liberal and progressive thought of the age, may sufficiently account for its popularity here. But the lovers of poetry found delight in it, apart from these characteristics,—in its fresh descriptions of Nature, its healthy manliness of tone, its scholarly construction, its lively humor, its large thought quickened and deepened by the penetrating imagination of the poet.
"Any one who has read it will acknowledge that a tutorship at Oriel was not the place for the author. The intense love of freedom, the deep and hearty sympathy with the foremost thought of the time, the humorous dealing with old formulas and conventionalisms grown meaningless, which breathe in every line of the 'Bothie,' show this clearly enough. He would tell in after-life, with much enjoyment, how the dons of the University, who, hearing that he had something in the press, and knowing that his theological views were not wholly sound, were looking for a publication on the Articles, were astounded by the appearance of that fresh and frolicsome poem. Oxford (at least the Oriel common room) and he were becoming more estranged daily. How keenly he felt the estrangement, not from Oxford, but from old friends, about this time, can be read only in his own words." It is in such poems as the "Qua Cursum Ventus," or the sonnet beginning, "Well, well,—Heaven bless you all from day to day!" that it is to be read. These, with a few other fugitive pieces, were printed, in company with verses by a friend, as one part of a small volume entitled, "Ambarvalia," which never attained any general circulation, although containing some poems which will take their place among the best of English poetry of this generation.
"Qua Cursum Ventus.
"As ships, becalmed at eve, that layWith canvas drooping, side by side,Two towers of sail at dawn of day,Are scarce long leagues apart descried:
"When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,And all the darkling hours they plied,Nor dreamt but each the self-same seasBy each was cleaving side by side:
"E'en so——But why the tale revealOf those whom, year by year unchanged,Brief absence joined anew to feel,Astounded, soul from soul estranged?
"At dead of night their sails were filled,And onward each rejoicing steered:Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!
"To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,Through winds and tides one compass guides:To that, and your own selves, be true!
"But, O blithe breeze! and O great seas!Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,On your wide plain they join again,Together lead them home at last!
"One port, methought, alike they sought,One purpose hold where'er they fare:O bounding breeze! O rushing seas!At last, at last, unite them there!"
"In 1848-49 the revolutionary crisis came on Europe, and Clough's sympathies drew him with great earnestness into the struggles which were going on. He was in Paris directly after the barricades, and in Rome during the siege, where he gained the friendship of Saffi and other leading Italian patriots." A part of his experiences and his thoughts while at Rome are interwoven with the story in his "Amours de Voyage," a poem which exhibits in extraordinary measure the subtilty and delicacy of his powers, and the fulness of his sympathy with the intellectual conditions of the time. It was first published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for 1858, and was at once established in the admiration of readers capable of appreciating its rare and refined excellence. The spirit of the poem is thoroughly characteristic of its author, and the speculative, analytic turn of his mind is represented in many passages of the letters of the imaginary hero. Had he been writing in his own name, he could not have uttered his inmost conviction more distinctly, or have given the clue to his intellectual life more openly than in the following verses:—
"I will look straight out, see things, not try toevade them:Fact shall be Fact for me; and the Truth theTruth as ever,Flexible, changeable, vague, and multiformand doubtful."
Or, again,—
"Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards,opens all locks,Is notI will, butI must. I must,—I must,—and I do it."
And still again,—
"But for the steady fore-sense of a freer andlarger existence,Think you that man could consent to becircumscribed here into action?But for assurance within of a limitless oceandivine, o'erWhose great tranquil depths unconsciousthe wind-tost surfaceBreaks into ripples of trouble that come andchange and endure not,—But that in this, of a truth, we have ourbeing, and know it,Think you we men could submit to live andmove as we do here?"
"To keep on doing right,—not to speculate only, but to act, not to think only, but to live,"—was, it has been said, characteristic of the leading men at Oxford during this period. "It was not so much a part of their teaching as a doctrine woven into their being." And while they thus exercised a moral not less than an intellectual influence over their contemporaries and their pupils, they themselves, according to their various tempers and circumstances, were led on into new paths of inquiry or of life. Some of them fell into the common temptations of an English University career, and lost the freshness of energy and the honesty of conviction which first inspired them; others, holding their places in the established order of things, were able by happy faculties of character to retain also the vigor and simplicity of their early purposes; while others again, among whom was Clough, finding the restraints of the University incompatible with independence, gave up their positions at Oxford to seek other places in which they could more freely search for the truth and express their own convictions.
It was not long after his return from Italy that he became Professor of English Language and Literature at University College, London. He filled this place, which was not in all respects suited to him, until 1852. After resigning it, he took various projects into consideration, and at length determined to come to America with the intention of settling here, if circumstances should prove favorable. In November, 1852, he arrived in Boston. He at once established himself at Cambridge, proposing to give instruction to young men preparing for college, or to take on in more advanced studies those who had completed the collegiate course. He speedily won the friendship of those whose friendship was best worth having in Boston and its neighborhood. His thorough scholarship, the result of the best English training, and his intrinsic qualities caused his society to be sought and prized by the most cultivated and thoughtful men. He had nothing of insular narrowness, and none of the hereditary prejudices which too often interfere with the capacity of English travellers or residents among us to sympathize with and justly understand habits of life and of thought so different from those to which they have been accustomed. His liberal sentiments and his independence of thought harmonized with the new social conditions in which he found himself, and with the essential spirit of American life. The intellectual freedom and animation of this country were congenial to his disposition. From the beginning he took a large share in the interests of his new friends. He contributed several remarkable articles to the pages of the "North American Review" and of "Putnam's Magazine," and he undertook a work which was to occupy his scanty leisure for several years, the revision of the so-called Dryden's Translation of Plutarch's Lives. Although the work was undertaken simply as a revision, it turned out to involve little less labor than a complete new translation, and it was so accomplished that henceforth it must remain the standard version of this most popular of the ancient authors.
But all that made the presence of such a man a great gain to his new friends made his absence felt by his old ones as a great loss. In July, 1853, he received the announcement that a place had been obtained for him by their efforts in the Education Department of the Privy Council, and he was so strenuously urged to return to England, that, although unwilling to give up the prospect of a final settlement in America, he felt that it was best to go home for a time. Some months after his return he was married to the granddaughter of the late Mr. William Smith, M.P. for Norwich. He established himself in a house in London, and settled down to the hard routine-work of his office. In a private letter written not long after his return, he said,—"As for myself, whom you ask about, there is nothing to tell about me. I live on contentedly enough, but feel rather unwilling to be re-Englished, after once attaining that higher transatlantic development. However,il faut s'y soumettre, I presume,—though I fear I am embarked in the foundering ship. I hope to Heaven you'll get rid of slavery, and then I shouldn't fear but you would really 'go ahead' in the long run. As for us and our inveterate feudalism, it is not hopeful."
In another letter about this time, he wrote,—"I like America all the better for the comparison with England on my return. Certainly I think you are more right than I was willing to admit, about the position of the poorer classes here. Such is my first reimpression. However, it will wear off soon enough, I dare say; so you must make the most of my admissions."
Again, a little later, he wrote,—"I do truly hope that you will get the North erelong thoroughly united against any further encroachments. I don't by any means feel that the slave-system is an intolerable crime, nor do I think that our system here is so much better; but it is clear to me that the only safe ground to go upon is that of your Northern States. I suppose the rich-and-poor difficulties must be creeping in at New York, but one would fain hope that European analogies will not be quite accepted even there."
His letters were reflections of himself,—full of thought, fancy, and pleasant humor, as well as of affectionateness and true feeling. Their character is hardly to be given in extracts, but a few passages may serve to illustrate some of these qualities.
"Ambrose Philips, the Roman Catholic, who set up the new St. Bernard Monastery at Charnwood Forest, has taken to spirit-rappings. He avers,inter alia, that a Buddhist spirit in misery held communication with him through the table, and entreated his confessor, Father Lorraine, to say three masses for him. Pray, convey this to T—— for his warning. For, moreover, it remains uncertain whether Father Lorraine did say the masses; so that perhaps T——'s deceased co-religionist is still in the wrong place."
Some time after his return, he wrote,—"Really, I may say I am only just beginning to recover my spirits after returning from the young and hopeful and humane republic, to this cruel, unbelieving, inveterate old monarchy. There are deeper waters of ancient knowledge and experience about one here, and one is saved from the temptation of flying off into space; but I think you have, beyond all question, the happiest country going. Still, the political talk of America, as one hears it here, is not always true to the best intentions of the country, is it?"
Writing on a July day from his office in Whitehall, he says, after speaking of the heat of the weather,—"Time has often been compared to a river: if the Thames at London represent the stream of traditional wisdom, the comparison will indeed be of an ill odor; the accumulated wisdom of the past will be proved upon analogy to be as it were the collected sewage of the centuries; and the great problem, how to get rid of it."
In March, 1854, he wrote,—"People talk a good deal about that book of Whewell's on the Plurality of Worlds. I recommend Fields to pirate it. Have you seen it? It is to show that Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, etc., are all pretty certainly uninhabitable,—being (Jupiter, Saturn, etc., to wit) strange washy limbos of places, where at the best only mollusks (or, in the case of Venus, salamanders) could exist. Hence we conclude we are the only rational creatures, which is highly satisfactory, and, what is more, quite Scriptural. Owen, on the other hand, I believe, and other scientific people, declare it a most presumptuous essay,— conclusions audacious, and reasoning fallacious, though the facts are allowed; and in that opinion I, on the ground that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the inductive philosophy, incline to concur."
Of his work he wrote,—"Well, I go on in the office,operose nihil agenda, veryoperose, and verynihiltoo. For lack of news, I send you a specimen of my labors."—"We are here going on much as usual, —occupied with nothing else but commerce and the money-market. I do not think any one is thinking audibly of anything else."—"I have read with more pleasure than anything else that I have read lately Kane's Arctic Explorations, i.e., his second voyage, which is certainly a wonderful story. The whole narrative is, I think, very characteristic of the differences between the English and the American-English habits of command and obedience."
In the autumn of 1857, after speaking of some of the features of the Sepoy revolt, he said,—"I don't believe Christianity can spread far in Asia, unless it will allow men more than one wife,—which isn't likely yet out of Utah. But I believe the old Brahmin 'Touch not and taste not, and I am holier than thou, because I don't touch and taste,' may be got rid of. As for Mahometanism, it is a crystallized monotheism, out of which no vegetation can come. I doubt its being good even for the Central negro."
March, 1859. "Excuse this letter all about my own concerns. I am pretty busy, and have time for little else: such is our fate after forty. My figure 40 stands nearly three months behind me on the roadway, unwept, unhonored, and unsung, anoctavum lustrumbound up and laid on the shelf. 'So-and-so is dead,' said a friend to Lord Melbourne of some author. 'Dear me, how glad I am! Now I can bind him up.'"
It was not until 1859 that the translation of Plutarch, begun six years before, was completed and published. It had involved much wearisome study, and gave proof of patient, exact, and elegant scholarship. Clough's life in the Council-Office was exceedingly laborious, and for several years his work was increased by services rendered to Miss Nightingale, a near relative of his wife. He employed "many hours, both before and after his professional duties were over, to aid her in those reforms of the military administration to which she has devoted the remaining energies of her overtasked life." For this work he was the better fitted from having acted, during a period of relief from his regular employment, as Secretary to a Military Commission appointed by Government shortly after the Crimean War to examine and report upon the military systems of some of the chief Continental nations. But at length his health gave way under the strain of continuous overwork. He had for a long time been delicate, and early in 1861 he was obliged to give up work, and was ordered to travel abroad. He went to Greece and Constantinople, and enjoyed greatly the charms of scenery and of association which he was so well fitted to appreciate. But the release from work had come too late. He returned to England in July, his health but little improved. In a letter written at that time he spoke of Lord Campbell's death, which had just occurred. "Lord Campbell's death is rather the characteristic death of the English political man. In the Cabinet, on the Bench, and at a dinner-party, busy, animated, and full of effort to-day, and in the early morning a vessel has burst. It is a wonder they last so long." But of himself he says, in words of striking contrast,—"My nervous energy is pretty nearly spent for to-day, so I must come to a stop. I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be strong again for another good spell of work." After a happy three weeks in England, he went abroad again, and spent some time with his friends the Tennysons in Auvergne and among the Pyrenees. In September he was joined by his wife in Paris, and thence went with her through Switzerland to Italy. He had scarcely reached Florence before he became alarmingly ill with symptoms of a low malaria fever. His exhausted constitution never rallied against its attack. He sank gradually away, and died on the 13th of November. "I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be strong again for another good spell of work." That hope is accomplished;—
"For sure in the wide heaven there is roomFor love, and pity, and for helpful deeds."
He was buried in the little Protestant cemetery at Florence, a fit resting-place for a poet, the Protestant Santa Croce, where the tall cypresses rise over the graves, and the beautiful hills keep guard around.
"Every one who knew Clough even slightly," says one of his oldest friends, "received the strongest impression of the unusual breadth and massiveness of his mind. Singularly simple and genial, he was unfortunately cast upon a self-questioning age, which led him to worry himself with constantly testing the veracity of his own emotions. He has delineated in four lines the impression which his habitual reluctance to converse on the deeper themes of life made upon those of his friends who were attracted by his frank simplicity. In one of his shorter poems he writes,—
'I said, My heart is all too soft;He who would climb and soar aloftMust needs keep ever at his sideThe tonic of a wholesome pride.'
That expresses the man in a very remarkable manner. He had a kind of proud simplicity about him singularly attractive, and often singularly disappointing to those who longed to know him well. He had a fear, which many would think morbid, of leaning much on the approbation of the world. And there is one remarkable passage in his poems in which he intimates that men who live on the good opinion of others might even be benefited by a crime which would rob them of that evil stimulant:—
'Why, so is good no longer good, but crimeOur truest, best advantage, since it lifts usOut of the stifling gas of men's opinionInto the vital atmosphere of Truth,Where He again is visible, though in anger.'
"So eager was his craving for reality and perfect sincerity, so morbid his dislike even for the unreal conventional forms of life, that a mind quite unique in simplicity and truthfulness representsitselfin his poems as
'Seeking in vain, in all my store,One feeling based on truth.'
"Indeed, he wanted to reach some guaranty for simplicity deeper than simplicity itself. We remember his principal criticism on America, after returning from his residence in Massachusetts, was, that the New-Englanders were much simpler than the English, and that this was the great charm of New-England society. His own habits were of the same kind, sometimes almost austere in their simplicity. Luxury he disliked, and sometimes his friends thought him even ascetic.
"This almost morbid craving for a firm base on the absolute realities of life was very wearing in a mind so self-conscious as Clough's, and tended to paralyze the expression of a certainly great genius. He heads some of his poems with a line from Wordsworth's great ode, which depicts perfectly the expression often written in the deep furrows which sometimes crossed and crowded his massive forehead:—
'Blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized.'
"Nor did Clough's great powers ever realize themselves to his contemporaries by any outward sign at all commensurate with the profound impression which they produced in actual life. But if his powers did not, there was much in his character that did produce its full effect upon all who knew him. He never looked, even in time of severe trial, to his own interest or advancement. He never flinched from the worldly loss which his deepest convictions brought on him. Even when clouds were thick over his own head, and the ground beneath his feet seemed crumbling away, he could still bear witness to an eternal light behind the cloud, and tell others that there is solid ground to be reached in the end by the weary feet of all who will wait to be strong. Let him speak his own farewell:—
'Say not the struggle nought availeth,The labor and the wounds are vain,The enemy faints not nor faileth,And as things have been things remain.
'Though hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;It may be, in yon smoke concealed,Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,And but for you possess the field.
'For though the tired wave, idly breaking,Seems here no tedious inch to gain,Far back, through creek and inlet making,Came, silent flooding in, the main.
'And not through eastern windows only,When daylight comes, comes in the light;In front the sun climbs slow,—how slowly!But westward—look! the land is bright.'"
We have many precedents upon the part of the "Guardian of Civilization," which may or may not guide us. Not to return to that age "whereunto the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," "the day of King Richard our grandfather," and to the Wars of the Roses, we will begin with the happy occasion of the Restoration of King Charles of merry and disreputable fame. Since he came back to his kingdoms on sufferance and as a convenient compromise between anarchy and despotism, he could hardly afford the luxury of wholesale proscription. What the returning Royalists could, they did. It was obviously unsafe, as well as ungrateful, to hang General Monk in presence of his army, many of whom had followed the "Son of the Man" from Worcester Fight in hot pursuit, and had hunted him from thicket to thicket of Boscobel Wood. But to dig up the dead Cromwell and Ireton, to suspend them upon the gallows, to mark out John Milton, old and blind, for poverty and contempt, was both safe and pleasant. And civilization was guarded accordingly. One little bit of comfort, however, was permitted. Scotland had been the Virginia of his day, and Charles had the satisfaction of hearing that the Whigs, who had betrayed and sold his father, and who had (a far worse offence) made himself listen to three-hours' sermons, were chased like wild beasts among the hills, after the defeat of Bothwell Brigg. But what Charles could not do was permitted to his brother. After the rebellion of Monmouth was put down, the West of England was turned to mourning. From the princely bastard who sued in agony and vain humiliation, to the clown of Devon forced into the rebel ranks,—from the peer who plotted, to the venerable and Christian woman whose sole crime was sheltering the houseless and starving fugitive, there was given to the vanquished no mercy but the mercy of Jeffreys, no tenderness but the tenderness of Kirk.
But the House of Stuart was not always to represent the side of victory. Thirty years after the Rout of Sedgemoor, the son of James, whose name was clouded by rumor with the same stain of spuriousness as that of his unfortunate cousin, was proclaimed by the Earl of Mar. The Jacobites were forced to drink to the dregs the cup of bitterness they had so gladly administered to others. Over Temple Bar and London Bridge the heads of the defeated rebels bore witness to the guardianship of civilization as understood in the eighteenth century.
Another thirty years brings us to the landing of Moidart, the rising of the clans, the fall of Edinburgh and Carlisle, the "Bull's Run" at Prestonpans, and the panic of London. If we are anxious to guard our civilization according to Hanoverian precedents, there is one name commonly given to the Commander-in-chief at Culloden which Congress should add to the titles it is preparing against McClellan's successful advance. The "Butcher Cumberland" not only hounded on his troops with the tempting price of thirty thousand pounds for the Pretenderdead or alive, but every adherent of the luckless Jefferson Davis of that day was in peril of life and wholesale confiscation. The House of Hanover not only broke the backbone of the Rebellion, but mangled without mercy its remains.
We come now, in another thirty years, to the next struggle of England with a portion of her people. It is impossible, as well as unfair, to say what might have been done with "Mr. Washington, the Virginia colonel," and Mr. Franklin, the Philadelphia printer, had they not been able to determine their own destiny. We can only surmise, by referring to two well-known localities in New York, the "Old Sugar-House" and the "Jersey Prison-Ship," how paternally George III was disposed then to resume his rights. And without disposition to press historic parallels, we cannot but compare Arnold and Tryon's raid along the south shore of Connecticut with a certain sail recently made up the Tennessee River to the foot of the Muscle Shoals by the command of a modern Connecticut officer.
But as we were spared the necessity of testing the royal clemency to the submitted Provinces of North America, we had better pass on twenty years to the era of the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. In this country the Irishman need not "fear to speak of '98," and in this country he still treasures the memory of the whippings and pitch-caps of Major Beresford's riding-house, and other pleasant souvenirs of the way in which, sixty years ago, loyalty dealt with rebellion. There is no inherent proneness to treason in the Hibernian nature, as Corcoran and the Sixty-Ninth can bear witness; nor is Pat so fond of a riot that he cannot with fair play be a—well, a good citizen. Yet at home he has been so "civilized" by his British guardian as to be in a chronic state of discontent and fretfulness.
We must, however, hasten to our latest precedent,—England in India. The Sepoy Rebellion had some features in common with our own. It was inaugurated by premeditated military treachery. It seized upon a large quantity of Government munitions of war. It only asked "to be let alone." It found the Government wholly unprepared. But it was the uprising of a conquered people. The rebels were in circumstances, as in complexion, much nearer akin to that portion of our Southern citizens which hasnotrebelled, and which has lost no opportunity of seeking our lines "to take the oath of allegiance" or any other little favor which could be found there. We do not defend their atrocities, although a plea in mitigation might be put in, that these "were wisely planned to break the spell which British domination had woven over the native mind of India," and that they were part of that decided and desperate policy which was designed to forever bar the way of reconstruction. But toward the recaptured rebels there was used a course for which the only precedent, so far as we know, was furnished by that highly civilized guardian, the Dey of Algiers. These prisoners of war were in cold blood tied to the muzzles of cannon and blown into fragments. The illustrated papers of that most Christian land which is overcome with the barbarity of sinking old hulks in a channel through which privateers were wont to escape our blockade furnished effective engravings "by our own artist" of the scene. Wholesale plunder and devastation of the chief city of the revolt followed. The rebellion was put down, and put down, we may say, without any unnecessary tenderness, any womanish weakness for the rebels.
We have thus established what we believe is called by theologians acatenaof precedents, coming down from the days of the Commonwealth to our own time. It covers about the whole period of New England history. And we next propose to ask the question, how far it may be desirable to be bound by such indisputable authority.
Is it too late to reopen the question, and to retry the issue between sovereign and rebel, less with respect to ancient and immemorial usage, and more according to eternal principle? We answer, No. The same power that enables us to master this rebellion will give us original and final jurisdiction over it.
But one principle asserts itself out of the uniform coarse of history. The restoration of the lawful authority over rebels does not restore them to their oldstatus. They are at the pleasure of the conquering power. Rights of citizenship, having been abjured, do not return with the same coercion which demands duties of citizenship. Thus, to illustrate on an individual scale, every wrong-doer isipso factoa rebel. He forfeits, according to due course of law, a measure of his privileges, while constrained to the same responsibility of obedience. His property is not exempt from taxes because he is in prison, but his right of voting is gone; he cannot bear arms, but he must keep the peace, he must labor compulsorily, and attend such worship as the State provides. In short, he becomes a ward of the State, while not ceasing to be a member. His inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable only so long as he remained obedient and true to the sovereign. Now this is equally true on the large scale as on the small. The only difficulty is to apply it to broad masses of men and to States.
It may not be expedient to try South Carolina collectively, but we contend that the application of the principle gives us the right. Corporate bodies have again and again been punished by suspension of franchise, while held to allegiance and duties.
The simple question for us is, What will it be best to do? The South may save us the trouble of deciding for the present a part of the many questions that occur. We may put down the Confederate Government, and take military occupation. We cannot compel the Southerners to hold elections and resume their share in the Government. It can go on without them. The same force which reopens the Mississippi can collect taxes or exact forfeitures along its banks. If Charleston is sullen, the National Government, having restored its flag to Moultrie and Sumter, can take its own time in the matter of clearing out the channel and rebuilding the light-houses. If a secluded neighborhood does not receive a Government postmaster, but is disposed to welcome him with tarry hands to a feathery bed, it can be left without the mails. The rebel we can compel to return to his duties; if necessary, we can leave him to get back his rights as he best may.
But we are the representatives of a great political discovery. The American Union is founded on a fact unknown to the Old World. That fact is the direct ratio of the prosperity of the parts to the prosperity of the whole. It is the principle upon which in every community our life is built. We cannot, therefore, afford to have any part of the land languishing and suffering. We are fighting, not for conquest, for we mean to abjure our power the moment we safely can,—not for vengeance, for those with whom we fight are our brethren. We are compelled by a necessity, partly geographical and partly social, into restoring a Union politically which never for a day has actually ceased.
Let us advert to one fact very patent and significant. We have heard of nearly all our successes through Rebel sources. Even where it made against them, they could not help telling us (we do not say thetruth, for that is rather strong, but) thenews. Never did two nations at war know one-tenth part as much of each other's affairs. Like husband and wife, the two parts of the country cannot keep secrets from one another, let them try ever so hard. And the end of all will be that we shall know and respect one another a great deal better for our sharp encounter.
But this necessity of union demands of the Government, imperatively demands, that it take whatever step is necessary to its own preservation. It is as with a ship at sea,—all must pull together, or somebody must go overboard. There can be no such order of things as anagreed state of mutiny,—forecastle seceding from cabin, and steerage independent of both.
Not only is rebellion to be put down, therefore, but to be kept from coming up again. It is obvious to every one, not thoroughly blinded by party, how it did come up. The Gulf States were coaxed out, the Border States were bullied or conjured out. A few leading men, who had made the science of political management their own, got the control of the popular mind. One great secret of their success was their constant assumption that what was to be done had been done already. It is the very art of the veteran seducer, who ever persuades his victim that return is impossible, in order that he may actually make it so. North Carolina, as one expressively said, "found herself out of the Union she hardly knew how." Virginia was dragged out. Tennessee was forced out. Missouri was declared out. Kentucky was all but out. Maryland hung in the crisis of life and death under the guns of Fort McHenry. In South Carolina alone can it be said that any fair expression of the popular will was on the Secession side. The Rebellion was the work of a governing class, all whose ideas and hopes were the aggrandizement of their own order. Terrorism opened the way, reckless lying made the game sure. If any one is inclined to doubt this, let him look at the sway which Robespierre and his few associates exercised in Paris. Some seventy executions delivered that great city from its nightmare agony of months. A dozen resolute, united men, with arms and without scruples, could seize almost any New England village for a time, provided they knew just what they wanted to do. Decision and energy are master-keys to almost most all doors not fortified by Hobbs's patent locks. A party of tipsy Americans one night stormed a Parisian guard-house, disarmed the sentry, and sent the guard flying in desperate fear, thinking that a generalémentewas in progress. Now one issue of the Rebellion must be to put down, not only this governing class, but also the system from which it springs. We have no such class at the North. We can have no such class. The very collision of interests, the rivalries of trade, the thousand-and-one social relations, all neutralize each other, are checks and counterchecks, which, like the particles in a vessel of water, always tend toward the level of an equilibrium. Two men meet in their lodge as Odd-Fellows, but they are opponents on "town-meeting day." Two partners in business are, one the most bitter of Calvinists, and the other the most progressive of Universalists. Dr. A. and the Rev. Mr. B. pull asunder the men whom 'Change unites. But with the Southerner of the governing class it is not so. One sympathy, more potent than any other can be, leagues them all. All are masters of the Helot race upon which their success and station are built. It is a living relation, the most powerful and vital which can bind men together, that sense of authority borne by the few over the many.
The Norman barons after the Conquest, the Spanish conquerors in Mexico and Peru, the Englishmen of the days of Clive and Hastings in India, are all examples of that thorough concentration of strength which must arise in the conflicts of races. Republics have fallen through their standing armies. The proprietary class at the South was the most dangerous of standing armies, for it was disciplined to the use of power night and day. The overthrow of the Rebellion will to a great degree ruin this class. But since it is one not founded on birth or culture, but simply on white blood and circumstance, (for no Secessionist is so fierce as your converted Northerner,) it cannot fall like the Norman nobility in the Wars of the Roses, or waste by operation of climate like the masters of Mexico and Hindostan. It renews itself whenever it touches slave-soil. That gives it life. We contend that Government must for its own preservation go to the root of the matter. And we cannot see that there is any Constitutional difficulty. There are probably not ten slave-proprietors in the South whom it has not the right to arrest, try, and hang, for high-treason. Of course, every one can see the practical difficulty, as well as the manifest folly, of doing this. But if it has that right toward these individuals, it certainly may say, by Act of Congress, if we choose, that it will not waive it except upon conditions which shall secure it from any further trouble. It seems to us fully within our power. And we will use an illustration that may help to show what we mean. President Lincoln has no right to require of any citizen of the United States that he take the temperance-pledge. But suppose a murderer who has taken life in a fit of drunkenness applies for pardon to the Executive. The Executive, Governor or President, as the case may be, may surely then impose that condition before commuting the sentence or releasing the prisoner. Now the Nation stands toward the Rebels in a like attitude. It may be good policy to take them back as fast as they submit, it may be Christian magnanimity to make the way as easy as possible for their return, but they have no right to come back to anything but a prison and hard labor for life. Many of them have trebly forfeited their lives,—as traitors, as deserters from the naval and military service, and as paroled prisoners who have broken their parole. And therefore we say, since we cannot deal with all the individuals, we must deal with the masses, and that in their corporate capacity. If South Carolina is a sovereign State, is in the Union as a feudal chief in his king's court, with power to carry from York to Lancaster and from Lancaster to York his subject vassals, then South Carolina has dared the hazard of rebellion, and her political head is forfeit.
It is next to be asked, what these conditions are to be. And that is not to be answered in a breath. That they can have but one result, emancipation, is a foregone conclusion; but the mode of reaching it is not so easily determined. A cotton-loaded ship took fire at sea. It would have been easy to pump in water enough to drown the fire. But the captain said, "No," for that would swell the bales to such an extent as to open every seam and start every timber. So with, the ship now carrying King Cotton: you may indeed quench the fire, but you may possibly turn the ship inside out into the bargain.
But something we have a right to insist on. We have it, over and above the Constitutional right shown just now, upon the broad principle of necessity. Slavery has proved itself a nuisance. Just as we say to the owner of a bone-boiling establishment, "You poison the air; we cannot live here; you must go farther off,"—and if a fever break out which can be clearly traced to that source, we say it emphatically: so now Slavery having proved itself pestilential, we say, "March!"
We are not disposed,à laStaten Island, to burn down our yellow-feverish neighbor's house. We will give everybody time to pack up. We will make up a little purse for any specially hard case which the removal may show. But stay and be plague-stricken we will no longer; nor are we disposed to spend our whole income in burning sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal to keep out infection. And certainly, when by neglect to pay ground-rent, or other illegality, the owner of our nuisance hasforfeitedhis right to stay, no mortal can blame us for taking the strictest and most decisive steps known to the law to remove him.
Agnes entered the city of Rome in a trance of enthusiastic emotion, almost such as one might imagine in a soul entering the heavenly Jerusalem above. To her exalted ideas she was approaching not only the ground hallowed by the blood of apostles and martyrs, not merely the tombs of the faithful, but the visible "general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven." Here reigned the appointed representative of Jesus,—and she imagined a benignant image of a prince clothed with honor and splendor, who was yet the righter of all wrongs, the redresser of all injuries, the friend and succorer of the poor and needy; and she was firm in a secret purpose to go to this great and benignant father, and on her knees entreat him to forgive the sins of her lover, and remove the excommunication that threatened at every moment his eternal salvation. For she trembled to think of it,—a sudden accident, a thrust of a dagger, a fall from his horse might put him forever beyond the pale of repentance,—he might die unforgiven, and sink to eternal pain.
If any should wonder that a Christian soul could preserve within itself an image so ignorantly fair, in such an age, when the worldliness and corruption in the Papal chair were obtruded by a thousand incidental manifestations, and were alluded to in all the calculations of simple common people, who looked at facts with a mere view to the guidance of their daily conduct, it is necessary to remember the nature of Agnes's religious training, and the absolute renunciation of all individual reasoning which from infancy had been laid down before her as the first and indispensable prerequisite of spiritual progress. To believe,—to believe utterly and blindly,—not only without evidence, but against evidence,—to reject the testimony even of her senses, when set against the simple affirmation of her superiors,—had been the beginning, middle, and end of her religious instruction. When a doubt assailed her mind on any point, she had been taught to retire within herself and repeat a prayer; and in this way her mental eye had formed the habit of closing to anything that might shake her faith as quickly as the physical eye closes at a threatened blow. Then, as she was of a poetic and ideal nature, entirely differing from the mass of those with whom she associated, she had formed that habit of abstraction and mental reverie which prevented her hearing or perceiving the true sense of a great deal that went on around her. The conversations that commonly were carried on in her presence had for her so little interest that she scarcely heard them. The world in which she moved was a glorified world,—wherein, to be sure, the forms of every-day life appeared, but appeared as different from what they were in reality as the old mouldering daylight view of Rome is from the warm translucent glory of its evening transfiguration.
So in her quiet, silent heart she nursed this beautiful hope of finding in Rome the earthly image of her Saviour's home above, of finding in the head of the Church the real image of her Redeemer,—the friend to whom the poorest and lowliest may pour out their souls with as much freedom as the highest and noblest. The spiritual directors who had formed the mind of Agnes in her early days had been persons in the same manner taught to move in an ideal world of faith. The Mother Theresa had never seen the realities of life, and supposed the Church on earth to be all that the fondest visions of human longing could paint it. The hard, energetic, prose experience of old Jocunda, and the downright way with which she sometimes spoke of things as a trooper's wife must have seen them, were repressed and hushed, down, as the imperfect faith of a half-reclaimed worldling,—they could not be allowed to awaken her from the sweetness of so blissful a dream. In like manner, when Lorenzo Sforza became Father Francesco, he strove with earnest prayer to bury his gift of individual reason in the same grave with his family name and worldly experience. As to all that transpired in the real world, he wrapped himself in a mantle of imperturbable silence; the intrigues of popes and cardinals, once well known to him, sank away as a forbidden dream; and by some metaphysical process of imaginative devotion he enthroned God in the place of the dominant powers, and taught himself to receive all that came from them in uninquiring submission, as proceeding from unerring wisdom. Though he had begun his spiritual life under the impulse of Savonarola, yet so perfect had been his isolation from all tidings of what transpired in the external world that the conflict which was going on between that distinguished man and the Papal hierarchy never reached his ear. He sought and aimed as much as possible to make his soul like the soul of one dead, which adores and worships in ideal space, and forgets forever the scenes and relations of earth; and he had so long contemplated Rome under the celestial aspects of his faith, that, though the shock of his first confession there had been painful, still it was insufficient to shake his faith. It had been God's will, he thought, that where he looked for aid he should meet only confusion, and he bowed to the inscrutable will, and blindly adored the mysterious revelation. If such could be the submission and the faith of a strong and experienced man, who can wonder at the enthusiastic illusions of an innocent, trustful child?
Agnes and her grandmother entered the city of Rome just as the twilight had faded into night; and though Agnes, full of faith and enthusiasm, was longing to begin immediately the ecstatic vision of shrines and holy places, old Elsie commanded her not to think of anything further that night. They proceeded, therefore, with several other pilgrims who had entered the city, to a church specially set apart for their reception, connected with which were large dormitories and a religious order whose business was to receive and wait upon them, and to see that all their wants were supplied. This religious foundation is one of the oldest in Rome; and it is esteemed a work of especial merit and sanctity among the citizens to associate themselves temporarily in these labors in Holy Week. Even princes and princesses come, humble and lowly, mingling with those of common degree, and all, calling each other brother and sister, vie in kind attentions to these guests of the Church.
When Agnes and Elsie arrived, several of these volunteer assistants were in waiting. Agnes was remarked among all the rest of the company for her peculiar beauty and the rapt enthusiastic expression of her face.
Almost immediately on their entrance into the reception-hall connected with the church, they seemed to attract the attention of a tall lady dressed in deep mourning, and accompanied by a female servant, with whom she was conversing on those terms of intimacy which showed confidential relations between the two.
"See!" she said, "my Mona, what a heavenly face is there!—that sweet child has certainly the light of grace shining through her. My heart warms to her."
"Indeed," said the old servant, looking across, "and well it may,—dear lamb come so far! But, Holy Virgin, how my head swims! How strange!—that child reminds me of some one. My Lady, perhaps, may think of some one whom she looks like."
"Mona, you say true. I have the same strange impression that I have seen a face like hers, but who or where I cannot say."
"What would my Lady say, if I said it was our dear Prince?—God rest his soul!"
"Mona, itisso,—yes," added the lady, looking more intently,—"how singular!—the very traits of our house in a peasant-girl! She is of Sorrento, I judge, by her costume,—what a pretty one it is! That old woman is her mother, perhaps. I must choose her for my care,—and, Mona, you shall wait on her mother."
So saying, the Princess Paulina crossed the hall, and, bending affably over Agnes, took her hand and kissed her, saying,—
"Welcome, my dear little sister, to the house of our Father!"
Agnes looked up with strange, wondering eyes into the face that was bent to hers. It was sallow and sunken, with deep lines of ill-health and sorrow, but the features were noble, and must once have been, beautiful; the whole action, voice, and manner were dignified and impressive. Instinctively she felt that the lady was of superior birth and breeding to any with whom she had been in the habit of associating.
"Come with me," said the lady; "and this—your mother"—she added.
"She is my grandmother," said Agnes.
"Well, then, your grandmother, sweet child, shall be attended by my good sister Mona here."
The Princess Paulina drew the hand of Agnes through her arm, and, laying her hand affectionately on it, looked down and smiled tenderly on her.
"Are you very tired, my dear?"
"Oh, no! no!" said Agnes,—"I am so happy, so blessed to be here!"
"You have travelled a long way?"
"Yes, from Sorrento; but I am used to walking,—I did not feel it to be long,—my heart kept me up,—I wanted to come home so much."
"Home?" said the Princess.
"Yes, to my soul's home,—the house of our dear Father the Pope."
The Princess started, and looked incredulously down for a moment; then noticing the confiding, whole-hearted air of the child, she sighed and was silent.
"Come with me above," she said, "and let me attend a little to your comfort."
"How good you are, dear lady!" said Agnes.
"I am not good, my child,—I am only your unworthy sister in Christ"; and as the lady spoke, she opened the door into a room where were a number of other female pilgrims seated around the wall, each attended by a person whose peculiar care she seemed to be.
At the feet of each was a vessel of water, and when the seats were all full, a cardinal in robes of office entered, and began reading prayers. Each lady present, kneeling at the feet of her chosen pilgrim, divested them carefully of their worn and travel-soiled shoes and stockings, and proceeded to wash them. It was not a mere rose-water ceremony, but a good hearty washing of feet that for the most part had great need of the ablution. While this service was going on, the cardinal read from the Gospel how a Greater than they all had washed the feet of His disciples, and said, "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet." Then all repeated in concert the Lord's Prayer, while each humbly kissed the feet she had washed, and proceeded to replace the worn and travel-soiled shoes and stockings with new and strong ones, the gift of Christian love. Each lady then led her charge into a room where tables were spread with a plain and wholesome repast of all such articles of food as the season of Lent allowed. Each placed herprotégéeat table, and carefully attended to all her wants at the supper, and afterwards dormitories were opened for their repose.
The Princess Paulina performed all these offices for Agnes with a tender earnestness which won upon her heart. The young girl thought herself indeed in that blessed society of which she had dreamed, where the high-born and the rich become through Christ's love the servants of the poor and lowly,—and through all the services she sat in a sort of dream of rapture. How lovely this reception into the Holy City! how sweet thus to be taken to the arms of the great Christian family, bound together in the charity which is the bond of perfectness!
"Please tell me, dear lady," said Agnes, after supper, "who is that holy man that prayed with us?"
"Oh, he—he is the Cardinal Capello," said the Princess.
"I should like to have spoken with him," said Agnes.
"Why, my child?"
"I wanted to ask him when and how I could get speech with our dear Father the Pope,—for there is somewhat on my mind that I would lay before him."
"My poor little sister," said the Princess, much perplexed, "you do not understand things. What you speak of is impossible. The Pope is a great king."
"I know he is," said Agnes,—"and so is our Lord Jesus,—but every soul may come to him."
"I cannot explain to you now," said the Princess,—"there is not time to-night. But I shall see you again. I will send for you to come to my house, and there talk with you about many things which you need to know. Meanwhile, promise me, dear child, not to try to do anything of the kind you spoke of until I have talked with you."
"Well, I will not," said Agnes, with a glance of docile affection, kissing the hand of the Princess.
The action was so pretty,—the great, soft, dark eyes looked so fawn-like and confiding in their innocent tenderness, that the lady seemed much moved.
"Our dear Mother bless thee, child!" she said, laying her hand on her head, and stooping to kiss her forehead.
She left her at the door of the dormitory.
The Princess and her attendant went out of the church-door, where her litter stood in waiting. The two took their seats in silence, and silently pursued their way through the streets of the old dimly-lighted city and out of one of its principal gates to the wide Campagna beyond. The villa of the Princess was situated on an eminence at some distance from the city, and the night-ride to it was solemn and solitary. They passed along the old Appian Way over pavements that had rumbled under the chariot-wheels of the emperors and nobles of a by-gone age, while along their way, glooming up against the clear of the sky, were vast shadowy piles,—the tombs of the dead of other days. All mouldering and lonely, shaggy and fringed with bushes and streaming wild vines through which the night-wind sighed and rustled, they might seem to be pervaded by the restless spirits of the dead; and as the lady passed them, she shivered, and, crossing herself, repeated an inward prayer against wandering demons that walk in desolate places.
Timid and solitary, the high-born lady shrank and cowered within herself with a distressing feeling of loneliness. A childless widow in delicate health, whose paternal family had been for the most part cruelly robbed, exiled, or destroyed by the reigning Pope and his family, she felt her own situation a most unprotected and precarious one, since the least jealousy or misunderstanding might bring upon her, too, the ill-will of the Borgias, which had proved so fatal to the rest of her race. No comfort in life remained to her but her religion, to whose practice she clung as to her all; but even in this her life was embittered by facts to which, with the best disposition in the world, she could not shut her eyes. Her own family had been too near the seat of power not to see all the base intrigues by which that sacred and solemn position of Head of the Christian Church had been traded for as a marketable commodity. The pride, the indecency, the cruelty of those who now reigned in the name of Christ came over her mind in contrast with the picture painted by the artless, trusting faith of the peasant-girl with whom she had just parted. Her mind had been too thoroughly drilled in the non-reflective practice of her faith to dare to put forth any act of reasoning upon facts so visible and so tremendous,—she rather trembled at herself for seeing what she saw and for knowing what she knew, and feared somehow that this very knowledge might endanger her salvation; and so she rode homeward cowering and praying like a frightened child.
"Does my Lady feel ill?" said the old servant, anxiously.
"No, Mona, no,—not in body."
"And what is on my Lady's mind now?"
"Oh, Mona, it is only what is always there. To-morrow is Palm Sunday, and how can I go to see the murderers and robbers of our house in holy places? Oh, Mona, what can Christians do, when such men handle holy things? It was a comfort to wash the feet of those poor simple pilgrims, who tread in the steps of the saints of old; but how I felt when that poor child spoke of wanting to see the Pope!"
"Yes," said Mona, "it's like sending the lamb to get spiritual counsel of the wolf."
"See what sweet belief the poor infant has! Should not the head of theChristian Church be such as she thinks? Ah, in the old days, when theChurch here in Rome was poor and persecuted, there were popes who wereloving fathers and not haughty princes."
"My dear Lady," said the servant, "pray, consider, the very stones have ears. We don't know what day we may be turned out, neck and heels, to make room for some of their creatures."
"Well, Mona," said the lady, with some spirit, "I'm sure I haven't said any more than you have."
"Holy Mother! and so you haven't, but somehow things look more dangerous when other people say them.—A pretty child that was, as you say; but that old thing, her grandmother, is a sharp piece. She is a Roman, and lived here in her early days. She says the little one was born hereabouts; but she shuts up her mouth like a vice, when one would get more out of her."
"Mona, I shall not go out to-morrow; but you go to the services, and find the girl and her grandmother, and bring them out to me. I want to counsel the child."
"You may be sure," said Mona, "that her grandmother knows the ins and outs of Rome as well as any of us, for all she has learned to screw up her lips so tight"