One day, when my senses began to settle a little, and things began to take shape again, I asked for Monsieur. He came and stood at my bedside.
"Christine," said he, "you have no faith in my power of making angels. I have not made one of you. Being divided in our theories, we will divide our earthly goods. We will part. Should you as a woman deem it your duty to inform against me, I shall not think it wrong. I shall bear it as a philosopher. You have no proof, you can substantiate nothing; but it may be a satisfaction. I do not understand women; therefore I cannot tell."
"Monsieur," I answered, "leave it to God to fill His heaven as He thinks best. He has not invited your assistance; neither has He invited me to avenge Him. Since He does not punish, dare I invade His prerogative?"
And we did not part.
We will live together in peace, we said, and the past shall be utterly forgotten; shall not a whole lifetime of unwavering rectitude atone for this one crime?
I accepted my fate,—weakly, in the dread of poverty, in the horror of disgrace, shrinking within myself with the secret thrust upon me. I said we are all the makers of our own destiny, and there is nothing supernatural in life. If this course is best and wisest in my judgment, nothing evil will come of it. I said this, ignorant of the mystery of existence, and inexperienced in that subtile power which penetrates all the windings and turnings of humanity, searching out hidden things,—the Purifier, and the Avenger, allotting to each one his portion of bitterness, his inexorable punishment. "We will live together in peace": it was the thought of a sudden moment of fervor, which overleaped the dreary length of life, and assumed to compass the repentance of a whole existence in a single day.
But destiny holds always in store its retribution. God suffers no dropped stitches in the web of His universe, and the smallest truth evaded, the least wretch neglected, will surely be picked up again in the unending circle that is winding its certain thread around all beings, connecting by invisible links the most insignificant chances with the most significant events.
When I said we will be one, we will endure together, I thought that so, in my enduring strength, I could bear up whatever burden came. I know not how, by what invisible process, the load which I had lifted to my shoulders grew into leaden heaviness,—heavy, heavy, like the weight of some dead soul resting its lifeless shape upon my living spirit, till I staggered under the unbearable presence. I had doomed myself to stand side by side, to work hand in hand with guilt, to feel hourly the dread lest in some moment of frenzy engendered by the dumb anguish within me I might betray the secret whose rust was eating into my soul, and shriek out my misery in the ears of all men.
Monsieur, seeing me grow thin and pale, declared that I must have a change, I must go somewhere, to the sea-shore. To the sea-shore! No, I would not go to the sea-shore, or to any other shore; a stranded vessel, I could not struggle from the place of shipwreck.
Monsieur grew vexed and anxious, when I stubbornly shook my head. And when week after week I still refused, he grew strangely uneasy. I had better go; if I would not go alone, he would go with me, shut up the shop, and take a holiday.
I considered the matter that day. The project was a wild one; at this busiest season of the year, it would be an injury to our business. And what might the neighbors say? It might lead them to unpleasant suspicions. We were not popular among them. No, it would not do.
I explained this to Monsieur very calmly at the supper-table. His face was pale and quiet as usual. He did not interrupt me. When I concluded, he rose as if he would go out, but turning back suddenly and striking the table with his clenched fist,—
"God!" he exclaimed. "Woman would you see me die like a dog? The neighbors! for all I know, they have got me at their finger-ends now,—the vile rabble! That old hag, Madame Justine, at the ribbon-shop below,—some demon possessed her to look out that night when SHE came crawling home. She noted her well with her greedy eyes; some onesolike my dear first wife, she told me. There is mischief and death in her eyes. She knows or guesses too much."
"What can she guess?" I asked; "she has only lately come into the neighborhood."
In answer to this, Monsieur informed me that she professed to have been an old friend of his wife's, who, in times gone by, half bewildered with her troubles, had probably dropped many unguarded words in this woman's presence. Madame C—— had died (to her old home) while this woman was away on a visit. "Ah!" she said, "she had her misgivings many a time. Did the same doctor attend Madame C—— who prescribed for little Jacques?Heought to be hung, then. Ah, well, if all men had their deserts, she knew many things that would hang some folks who looted all fair and square, and held their guilty heads higher than their neighbors."
"Well?" I said.
"Well!—you women are so virtuous, you have no mercy, Madame. Go, hang—go, drown the wretch who comes under the malediction of the ladies! Oh, there is nothing too hard for him! And this one owed me a grudge lately about a mistake,—a little mistake I made in an account with her, and would not alter because I thought it all right."
The preparations were going on silently and steadily that night. I would go anywhere now, anything would I do, to escape the fate whose stealthy footsteps were tracking us out. Well I knew, that, once in the power of the law, its firm grasp would wrest every secret from the deepest depths where it was hidden. Once out of the city, we could readily take flight, if immediate danger threatened.
The doors were all closed; the trunks stood corded in the hall. I was down-stairs, getting the silver together. Monsieur was in his room, packing up his medicine-chest. There was no weakness in my nerves now, no trembling in my limbs. I was determined. While thus engaged, pausing a moment amid the light tinkle of the silver spoons, I thought I heard footsteps in the saloon above. Softly ascending the stairs, I met Monsieur at the door. He had come down under the same impression, that some one was walking in the saloon, still holding in his hand the tiny cup in which he measured his medicines. It was full, and Monsieur carried it very carefully, as, opening the door, he looked cautiously about. Nothing stirred; all was silent as death; and walking forward toward the fountain, he straightened himself up, and his white face flushed as he said in a whisper,—
"Christine, everything is ready. We are safe yet; we shall escape. Once away, we will never return to this doomed place, let what will come of it. Yes, I am certain that we shall escape!"
Monsieur took a step forward as he said this, and stood transfixed. The light shook which he held in his hand, as if a strong wind had passed over it; his eye quailed; his cheek blanched to ghastly whiteness. I thought that undue excitement had brought on a fainting-fit of some kind, and was stooping to dip my hands in the water and bathe his forehead, when I saw, distinctly, like a white mist in the darkness, a visible shape sitting solemn upon the basin-edge; the room was very dim, and the falling spray fell over the shape like a weeping-willow, yet my eyes discerned it clearly. Oh, it was no dream that I had dreamed in my young days long ago! That little figure was no stranger to my vision, no stranger to the changeless waterfall. Did Monsieur see it also? He stood close beside the fountain now, with his face towards the spectre. The tiny cup in his hand fell from the loosened fingers down into the water; a lonely gold-fish, swimming there, turned over on its golden side and floated motionless upon the surface.
I scarcely noticed this, for, at the time, I heard the knob of the shop-door turn quickly, and the door was shaken violently. It was probably the night-watchman going his rounds; but, in my alarm and excitement, I thought we were betrayed. I stepped swiftly to the door, and pushed an extra bolt inside.
"Monsieur!" I cried, under my breath, "hide! hide yourself! Quick! in the name of Heaven!"
But he did not answer, and, hastening to his side, I saw the faint outlines of that shadowy visitant growing indistinct and disappearing. As it vanished, Monsieur turned deliberately toward me; his eyes were clear, the faintness was over; his voice was grave and steady, as he said,—
"Christine! I have seen it. It is the warning of death. There is no future and no escape for me. The retribution is at hand,"—and stooping swiftly down, he lifted the tiny cup brimming to his lips. "Go you," he said, huskily, "to the sea-shore. I have an errand elsewhere."
In the morning came the officers of justice; my dim eyes saw them, my ears heard unshrinking their stern voices demanding Monsieur C——. I did not answer; I pointed vaguely forward; and forward they marched, with a heavy tramp, to where the one whom they were seeking lay prone upon the marble floor, his head hanging nervelessly down over the water. He had been arrested by a Higher Power. Monsieur C—— was dead.
The word of the Lord by nightTo the watching Pilgrims came,As they sat by the sea-side,And filled their hearts with flame.
God said,—I am tired of kings,I suffer them no more;Up to my ear the morning bringsThe outrage of the poor.
Think ye I made this ballA field of havoc and war,Where tyrants great and tyrants smallMight harry the weak and poor?
My angel,—his name is Freedom,Choose him to be your king;He shall cut pathways east and west,And fend you with his wing.
Lo! I uncover the landWhich I hid of old time in the West,As the sculptor uncovers his statue,When he has wrought his best.
I show Columbia, of the rocksWhich dip their foot in the seasAnd soar to the air-borne flocksOf clouds, and the boreal fleece.
I will divide my goods,Call in the wretch and slave:None shall rule but the humble,And none but Toil shall have.
I will have never a noble,No lineage counted great:Fishers and choppers and ploughmenShall constitute a State.
Go, cut down trees in the forest,And trim the straightest boughs;Cut down trees in the forest,And build me a wooden house.
Call the people together,The young men and the sires,The digger in the harvest-field,Hireling, and him that hires.
And here in a pine state-houseThey shall choose men to ruleIn every needful faculty,In church, and state, and school.
Lo, now! if these poor menCan govern the land and sea,And make just laws below the sun,As planets faithful be.
And ye shall succor men;'T is nobleness to serve;Help them who cannot help again;Beware from right to swerve.
I break your bonds and masterships,And I unchain the slave:Free be his heart and hand henceforth,As wind and wandering wave.
I cause from every creatureHis proper good to flow:So much as he is and doeth,So much he shall bestow.
But, laying his hands on anotherTo coin his labor and sweat,He goes in pawn to his victimFor eternal years in debt.
Pay ransom to the owner,And fill the bag to the brim.Who is the owner? The slave is owner,And ever was. Pay him.
O North! give him beauty for rags,And honor, O South! for his shame;Nevada! coin thy golden cragsWith Freedom's image and name.
Up! and the dusky raceThat sat in darkness long,—Be swift their feet as antelopes,And as behemoth strong.
Come, East, and West, and North,By races, as snow-flakes,And carry my purpose forth,Which neither halts nor shakes.
My will fulfilled shall be,For, in daylight or in dark,My thunderbolt has eyes to seeHis way home to the mark.
The live man of the old Revolution, the daring Hotspur of those troublous days, was Anthony Wayne. The live man to-day of the great Northwest is Lewis Wallace. With all the chivalric clash of the stormer of Stony Point, he has a cooler head, with a capacity for larger plans, and the steady nerve to execute whatever he conceives. When a difficulty rises in his path, the difficulty, no matter what its proportions, moves aside; he does not. When a river like the Ohio at Cincinnati intervenes between him and his field of operations, there is a sudden sound of saws and hammers at sunset, and the next morning beholds the magic spectacle of a great pontoon-bridge stretching between the shores of Freedom and Slavery, its planks resounding to the heavy tread of almost endless regiments and army-wagons. Is a city like Cincinnati menaced by a hungry foe, striding on by forced marches, that foe sees his path suddenly blocked by ten miles of fortifications thoroughly manned and armed, and he finds it prudent, even with his twenty thousand veterans, to retreat faster than he came, strewing the road with whatever articles impede his haste. Some few incidents in the career of such a man, since he has taken the field, ought not to be uninteresting to those for whom he has fought so bravely; and we believe his services, when known, will be appreciated, otherwise we will come under the old ban against Republics, that they are ungrateful.
While returning from New York at the expiration of a short leave of absence, the first asked for since the beginning of the war, General Wallace was persuaded by Governor Morton to stump the State of Indiana in favor of voluntary enlistments, which at that time were progressing slowly. Wallace went to work in all earnestness. His idea was to obtain command of the new levies, drill them, and take them to the field; and this idea was circulated throughout the State. The result was, enlisting increased rapidly; the ardor for it rose shortly into a fever, and has not yet abated. Regiments are still forming, shedding additional lustre upon the name of patriotic Indiana.
General Wallace was thus engaged when the news was received from Morgan of the invasion of Kentucky by Kirby Smith. All eyes turned at once to Governor Morton, many of whose regiments were now ready to take the field, if they only had officers to lead them. Wallace came promptly to the Governor's assistance, and offered to take command of a regiment for the crisis. His offer was accepted, and he was sent to New Albany, where the Sixty-Sixth Indiana was in camp. In twelve hours he mustered it, paid its bounty money, clothed and armed it, and marched it to Louisville. Brigadier-General Boyle was in command of Kentucky. Wallace, who is a Major-General, reported to him at the above-named city, and a peculiar scene occurred.
"General Boyle," said Wallace, "I report to you the Sixty-SixthIndiana Regiment."
"Who commands it?" asked the General.
"I have that honor, Sir," was the reply.
"You want orders, I suppose?"
"Certainly."
"It is a difficult matter for me," said Boyle. "I have no right to order you."
"That difficulty is easily solved," Wallace replied, with characteristic promptness. "I come to report to you as a Colonel. I come to take orders as such."
General Boyle consulted with his Adjutant-General, and the result wasa requestthat General Wallace would proceed to Lexington with his command. Here was exhibited the ready, self-sacrificing spirit of a true patriot: he did not stand and wait until he could find the position to which his high rank entitled him, but stepped into the place where he could best and quickest serve his country in her hour of peril.
While Wallace was still at the railway-station, he received an order from General Boyle, putting him in command of all the forces in Lexington. Here was a golden opportunity for our young commander. What higher honor could be coveted than to relieve the brave Morgan, pent up as he was with his little army in the mountain-gorges of the Cumberland? The idea fired the soul of Wallace, and he pushed on to Lexington. But here he was sadly disappointed. He found the forces waiting there inadequate to the task: instead of an army, there were only three regiments. He telegraphed for more troops. Indiana and Ohio responded promptly and nobly. In three days he received and brigaded nine regiments and started them toward the Gap.
No one but an experienced soldier, one who has indeed tried it, can conceive of the labor involved in such an undertaking. The material in his hands was, to say the best of it, magnificentlyraw. Officers, from colonels to corporals, brave though they might be as lions, knew literally nothing of military affairs. The men had not learned even to load their guns. Companies had to be led, like little children, by the hand as it were, into their places in line of battle. There was no cavalry, no artillery. It happened, however, that guns, horses, and supplies intended for Morgan at the Gap were in depot at Lexington. Then Wallace began to catch a glimpse of dawn through the dark tangle of the wilderness. Some kind of order, prompt and immediate, must be forced out of this chaos; and it came, for the master-spirit was there to arrange and compel. He mounted several hundred men, giving them rifles instead of sabres. He manned new guns, procuring harness and ammunition for them from Louisville. Where there were no caissons, he supplied wagons. But his regiments were not his sole reliance; he is a believer in riflemen, a fighting class of which Kentucky was full. These he summoned to his assistance, and was met by a ready and hearty response: they came trooping to him by hundreds. Among others, Garrett Davis, United States Senator, led a company of Home-Guards to Lexington. In this way General Wallace composed, or rather improvised a little army, and all without help, his regular staff being absent, mostly in Memphis.
"Kentucky has not been herself in this war," exclaimed GeneralWallace; "she must be aroused; and I propose to do it thoroughly."
"How will you do it?" asked a skeptic.
"Easily enough, Sir. Kentucky has a host of great names. Kentuckians believe in great names. It is to this tune that the traitors have carried them to the field against us. I will take with me to the field all the men living, old and young, who have made those names great. Buckner took the young Crittendens and Clays; by Heaven, I'll take their fathers!"
"But they can't march."
"I'll haul them, then."
"They can be of no service in that way."
"But the magic of their names!" exclaimed Wallace. "What will the young Kentuckians say, when they hear John J. Crittenden, Leslie Combs, Robert Breckenridge, Tom Clay, Garrett Davis, Judge Goodloe, and fathers of that kind, are going down to battle with me?"
The skeptics held their peace.
General Wallace now constituted a volunteer staff. Wadsworth, M.C. from Maysville district, was his adjutant-general. Brand, Gratz, Goodloe, and young Tom Clay were his aids. Old Tom Clay, John J. Crittenden, Leslie Combs, Judge Goodloe, Garrett Davis, were all prepared and going, when General Wallace was suddenly relieved of his command by General Nelson.
Without instituting any comparison between these two generals, it is enough to say that the supersession of Wallace by Nelson at that moment was most unfortunate and untimely, as the sequel proved, fraught as it was with disastrous consequences. The circumstances were these.
Scott's Rebel cavalry had whipped Metcalf's regiment of Loyalists at Big Hill, some twelve or fifteen miles beyond Richmond, Kentucky, and followed them to within four miles of that town, where they were stopped by Lenck's brigade of infantry. The affair was reported to Wallace, with the number and situation of the enemy. He at once took prompt measures to meet the exigence of the situation. He could throw Lenck's and Clay's brigades upon the Rebel front; the brigade at Nicholasville could take them in flank by crossing the Kentucky River at Tatt's Ford; while, by uniting Clay Smith's command with that of Jacob, thenen routefor Nicholasville, he could plant seventeen hundred cavalry in their rear between Big Hill and Mount Vernon.
The enemy at this time were at least twenty miles in advance of their supports, and a night's march would have readily placed the several forces mentioned in position to attack them by daylight. This was Wallace's plan,—simple, feasible, and soldier-like. All his orders were given. A supply-train with extra ammunition and abundant rations was in line on the road to Richmond. Clay's brigade was drawn up ready to move, and General Wallace's horse was saddled. He was writing a last order in reference to the city of Lexington in his absence, and directing the officer left in charge to forward regiments to him at Richmond as fast as they should arrive, when General Nelson came and instantly took the command. Fifteen minutes more and General Wallace would have been on the road to Richmond to superintend the execution of his plan of attack. The supersession was, of course, a bitter disappointment; yet he never grumbled or demurred in the least, but, like a true soldier who knows his duty, offered that evening to serve his successor in any capacity, a generosity which General Nelson declined. The well-conceived plan which Wallace had matured failed for the simple reason, that, instead of marching to execute it that night, as common sense would seem to have dictated, Nelson did not leave Lexington until the next day at one o'clock; and at daylight, when the attack was to have been made, the Rebel leader, Scott, discovered his danger, and wisely retreated, finding nobody in his rear. The result was, Nelson went to Richmond and was defeated. It is possible that the same result might have followed Wallace; but by those competent to judge it is thought otherwise.
He had a plan adapted to the troops he was leading, who, although very raw, would have been invincible behind breastworks, as American troops have always shown themselves to be. Wallace never intended arraying these inexperienced men in the open field against the veteran troops of the Rebels. Neither did he intend they should dig. He had collected large quantities of intrenching tools, and was rapidly assembling a corps of negroes, nearly five hundred of whom he had already in waiting in Morgan's factory, all prepared to follow his column, armed with spades and picks. In Madison County he intended getting at least five hundred more. "I will march," he said, "like Cæsar in Gaul, and intrench my camp every night. If I am attacked at any time in too great numbers, I can drop back to my nearest works, and wait for reinforcements." Such was his plan, and those who know him believe firmly that he could have been at the Cumberland Gap in time not only to succor our little army there, but to have prevented the destruction and evacuation of that very important post.
Wallace, finding himself thus suddenly superseded, his plans ignored, and his voluntary service bluffly refused, left Lexington for Cincinnati. While there the Battle of Richmond was fought, the disastrous results of which are still too fresh in the public mind to require repeating. Nelson, who did not arrive upon the field until the day was about lost, and only in time to use his sword against his own men in a fruitless endeavor to rally them, received a flesh-wound, and hastened back the same night to Cincinnati, leaving many dead and wounded on the field, and thousands of our brave boys prisoners to be paroled by the Rebels. These are simple matters of record, and are not here set down in any spirit of prejudice, or to throw a shadow upon the memory of the misguided, unfortunate, but courageous Nelson.
At this juncture General Wallace was again ordered to Lexington, this time by General Wright, a general whose gentlemanly bearing in all capacities makes him an ornament to the American army. Wallace was ordered thither to resume command of the forces; but on arriving at Paris, the order was countermanded, and he was sent back to take charge of the city of Cincinnati. Shrewdly suspecting that our forces would evacuate Lexington, he hastened to his new post. General Wright was at that time in Louisville. On his way back, Wallace was asked by one of his aids,—
"Do you believe the enemy will come to Cincinnati?"
"Yes," was the reply. "Kirby Smith will first go to Frankfort. He must have that place, if possible, for the political effect it will have. If he gets it, he will surely come to Cincinnati. He is an idiot, if he does not. Here is the material of war,—goods, groceries, salt, supplies, machinery, etc.,—enough to restock the whole bogus Confederacy."
"What are you going to do? You have nothing to defend the city with."
"I will show you," was the reply.
Within the first half-hour after his arrival in Cincinnati, General Wallace wrote and sent to the daily papers the following proclamation, which fully and clearly develops his whole plan.
"The undersigned, by order of Major-General Wright, assumes command ofCincinnati, Covington, and Newport.
"It is but fair to inform the citizens, that an active, daring, and powerful enemy threatens them with every consequence of war; yet the cities must be defended, and their inhabitants must assist in the preparation.
"Patriotism, duty, honor, self-preservation, call them to the labor, and it must be performed equally by all classes.
"First. All business must be suspended at nine o'clock to-day. Every business-house must be closed.
"Second. Under the direction of the Mayor, the citizens must, within an hour after the suspension of business, (ten o'clock, A.M.,) assemble in convenient public places ready for orders. As soon as possible they will then be assigned to their work.
"This labor ought to be that of love, and the undersigned trusts and believes it will be so. Anyhow, it must be done.
"The willing shall be properly credited; the unwilling promptly visited. The principle adopted is, Citizens for the labor, soldiers for the battle.
"Third. The ferry-boats will cease plying the river after four o'clock, A.M., until further orders.
"Martial law is hereby proclaimed in the three cities; but until they can be relieved by the military, the injunctions of this proclamation will be executed by the police.
"LEWIS WALLACE,"Maj.-Gen'r'l Commanding."
Could anything be bolder and more to the purpose? It placed Cincinnati under martial law. It totally suspended business, and sent every citizen, without distinction, to the ranks or into the trenches. "Citizens for labor, soldiers for battle," was the principle underlying the whole plan,—a motto by which he reached every able-bodied man in the metropolis, and united the energies of forty thousand people,—a motto original with himself, and for which he should have the credit.
Imagine the astonishment that seized the city, when, in the morning, this bold proclamation was read,—a city unused to the din of war and its impediments. As yet there was no word of an advance of the enemy in the direction of Cincinnati. It was a question whether they would come or not. Thousands did not believe in the impending danger; yet the proclamation was obeyed to the letter, and this, too, when there was not a regiment to enforce it. The secret is easy of comprehension: it was the universal confidence reposed in the man who issued the order; and he was equally confident, not only in his own judgment, but in the people with whom he had to deal.
"If the enemy should not come after all this fuss," said one of theGeneral's friends, "you will be ruined."
"Very well," he replied; "but they will come. And if they do not, it will be because this same fuss has caused them to think better of it."
The ten days ensuing will be forever memorable in the annals of the city of Cincinnati. The cheerful alacrity with which the people roseen masseto swell the ranks and crowd into the trenches was a sight worth seeing, and being seen could not readily be forgotten.
Here were the representatives of all nations and classes. The sturdy German, the lithe and gay-hearted Irishman, went shoulder to shoulder in defence of their adopted country. The man of money, the man of law, the merchant, the artist, and the artisan swelled the lines hastening to the scene of action, armed either with musket, pick, or spade. Added to these was seen Dickson's long and dusky brigade of colored men, cheerfully wending their way to labor on the fortifications, evidently holding it their especial right to put whatever impediments they could in the northward path of those whom they considered their own peculiar foe. But the pleasantest and most picturesque sight of those remarkable days was the almost endless stream of sturdy men who rushed to the rescue from the rural districts of the State. These were known as the "Squirrel-Hunters." They came in files numbering thousands upon thousands, in all kinds of costumes, and armed with all kinds of fire-arms, but chiefly the deadly rifle, which they knew so well bow to use. Old men, middle-aged men, young men, and often mere boys, like the "minute-men" of the old Revolution, they left the plough in the furrow, the flail on the half-threshed sheaves, the unfinished iron upon the anvil,—in short, dropped all their peculiar avocations, and with their leathern pouches full of bullets and their ox-horns full of powder, poured into the city by every highway and by-way in such numbers that it seemed as if the whole State of Ohio were peopled only with hunters, and that the spirit of Daniel Boone stood upon the hills opposite the town beckoning them into Kentucky. The pontoon-bridge, which had been begun and completed between sundown and sundown, groaned day and night with the perpetual stream of life all setting southward. In three days there were ten miles of intrenchments lining the hills, making a semicircle from the river above the city to the banks of the river below; and these were thickly manned from end to end, and made terrible to the astonished enemy by black and frowning cannon. General Heath, with his twenty thousand Rebel veterans, flushed with their late success at Richmond, drew up before these formidable preparations, and deemed it prudent to take the matter into serious consideration before making the attack.
Our men were eagerly awaiting their approach, thousands in rifle-pits and tens of thousands along the whole line of the fortifications, while our scouts and pickets were skirmishing with their outposts in the plains in front. Should the foe make a sudden dash and carry any point of our lines, it was thought by some that nothing would prevent them from entering Cincinnati.
But for this also provision was made. The river about the city, above and below, was well protected by a flotilla of gun-boats improvised from the swarm of steamers which lay at the wharves. A storm of shot and shell, such as they had not dreamed of, would have played upon their advancing columns, while our regiments, pouring down from the fortifications, would have fallen upon their rear. The shrewd leaders of the Rebel army were probably kept well posted by traitors within our own lines in regard to the reception prepared for them, and, taking advantage of the darkness of night and the violence of a thunder-storm, made a hasty and ruinous retreat. Wallace was anxious to follow them, and was confident of success, but was overruled by those higher in authority.
The address which he now published to the citizens of Cincinnati,Covington, and Newport was manly and well-deserved. He said,—
"For the present, at least, the enemy has fallen back, and your cities are safe. It is the time for acknowledgments. I beg leave to make you mine. When I assumed command, there was nothing to defend you with, except a few half-finished works and some dismounted guns; yet I was confident. The energies of a great city are boundless; they have only to be aroused, united, and directed. You were appealed to. The answer will never be forgotten. Paris may have seen something like it in her revolutionary days, but the cities of America never did. Be proud that you have given them an example so splendid. The most commercial of people, you submitted to a total suspension of business, and without a murmur adopted my principle, 'Citizens for labor, soldiers for battle.' In coming times, strangers viewing the works on the hills of Newport and Covington will ask, 'Who built these intrenchments? You can answer, 'We built them.' If they ask, 'Who guarded them?' you can reply, 'We helped in thousands.' If they inquire the result, your answer will be, 'The enemy came and looked at them, and stole away in the night.' You have won much honor. Keep your organizations ready to win more. Hereafter be always prepared to defend yourselves.
"LEWIS WALLACE,"Maj.-Gen'r'l."
It can safely be claimed for our young General, that he was the moving spirit which inspired and directed the people, and thereby saved Cincinnati and the surrounding cities, and, in the very face of Heath and his victorious horde from Richmond, organized a new and formidable army. That the citizens fully indorsed this was well exemplified on the occasion of his leading back into the metropolis a number of her volunteer regiments when the danger was over. They lined the streets, crowded the doors and windows, and filled the air with shouts of applause, in honor of the great work he had done.
In writing this notice of Wallace and the siege, we have had no intention to overlook the services of his co-laborers, especially those rendered to the West by the gallant Wright, who holds command of the department. The writer has attempted to give what came directly under his own observation, and what he believes to be the core of the matter, and consequently most interesting to the public.
In the old Cathedral of Winchester stand the tombs of kings, with dates stretching back to William Rufus and Canute; here, too, are the marble effigies of queens and noble ladies, of crusaders and warriors, of priests and bishops. But our pilgrimage led us to a slab of black marble set into the pavement of the north aisle, and there, under the grand old arches, we read the name of Jane Austen. Many-colored as the light which streams through painted windows, came the memories which floated in our soul as we read the simple inscription: happy hours, gladdened by her genius, weary hours, soothed by her touch; the honored and the wise who first placed her volumes in our hand; the beloved ones who had lingered over her pages, the voices of our distant home, associated with every familiar story.
The personal history of Jane Austen belongs to the close of the last and the beginning of the present century. Her father through forty years was rector of a parish in the South of England. Mr. Austen was a man of great taste in all literary matters; from him his daughter inherited many of her gifts. He probably guided her early education and influenced the direction of her genius. Her life was passed chiefly in the country. Bath, then a fashionable watering-place, with occasional glimpses of London, must have afforded all the intercourse which she held with what is called "the world." Her travels were limited to excursions in the vicinity of her father's residence. Those were days of post-chaises and sedan-chairs, when the rush of the locomotive was unknown. Steam, that genie of the vapor, was yet a little household elf, singing pleasant times by the evening fire, at quiet hearthstones; it has since expanded into a mighty giant, whose influences are no longer domestic. The circles of fashion are changed also. Those were the days of country-dances and India muslins; the beaux and belles of "the upper rooms" at Bath knew not the whirl of the waltz, nor the ceaseless involvements of "the German." Yet the measures of love and jealousy, of hope and fear, to which their hearts beat time, would be recognized to-night in every ballroom. Infinite sameness, infinite variety, are not more apparent in the outward than in the inward world, and the work of that writer will alone be lasting who recognizes and embodies this eternal law of the great Author.
Jane Austen possessed in a remarkable degree this rare intuition. The following passage is found in Sir Walter Scott's journal, under date of the fourteenth of March, 1826:—"Read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's finely written novel of 'Pride and Prejudice.' That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me." This is high praise, but it is something more when we recur to the time at which Sir Walter writes this paragraph. It is amid the dreary entries in his journal of 1826, many of which make our hearts ache and our eyes overflow. He read the pages of Jane Austen on the fourteenth of March, and on the fifteenth he writes, "This morning I leave 39 Castle Street for the last time." It was something to have written a book sought for by him at such a moment. Even at Malta, in December, 1831, when the pressure of disease, as well as of misfortune, was upon him, Sir Walter was often found with a volume of Miss Austen in his hand, and said to a friend, "There is a finishing-off in some of her scenes that is really quite above everybody else."
Jane Austen's life-world presented such a limited experience that it is marvellous where she could have found the models from which she studied such a variety of forms. It is only another proof that the secret lies in the genius which seizes, not in the material which is seized. We have been told by one who knew her well, that Miss Austen never intentionally drew portraits from individuals, and avoided, if possible, all sketches that could be recognized. But she was so faithful to Nature, that many of her acquaintance, whose characters had never entered her mind, were much offended, and could not be persuaded that they or their friends had not been depicted in some of her less attractive personages: a feeling which we have frequently shared; for, as the touches of her pencil brought out the light and shades very quietly, we have been startled to recognize our own portrait come gradually out on the canvas, especially since we are not equal to the courage of Cromwell, who said, "Paint me as I am."
In the "Autobiography of Sir Egerton Brydges" we find the following passage: it is characteristic of the man:—
"I remember Jane Austen, the novelist, a little child. Her mother was a Miss Leigh, whose paternal grandmother was a sister of the first Duke of Chandos. Mr. Austen was of a Kentish family, of which several branches have been settled in the Weald, and some are still remaining there. When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected she was an authoress; but my eyes told me that she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, with cheeks a little too full. The last time, I think, I saw her was at Ramsgate, in 1803; perhaps she was then about twenty-seven years old. Even then I did not know that she was addicted to literary composition."
We can readily suppose that the spheres of Jane Austen and Sir Egerton could not be very congenial; and it does not appear that he was ever tempted from the contemplation of his own performances, to read her "literary compositions." A letter from Robert Southey to Sir Egerton shows that the latter had not quite forgotten her. Southey writes, under the dale of Keswick, April, 1830:—
"You mention Miss Austen; her novels are more true to Nature, and have (for my sympathies) passages of finer feeling than any others of this age. She was a person of whom I have heard so much, and think so highly, that I regret not having seen her, or ever had an opportunity of testifying to her the respect which I felt for her."
A pleasant anecdote, told to us on good authority in England, is illustrative of Miss Austen's power over various minds. A party of distinguished literary men met at a country-seat; among them was Macaulay, and, we believe, Hallam; at all events, they were men of high reputation. While discussing the merits of various authors, it was proposed that each should write down the name of that work of fiction which had given him the greatest pleasure. Much surprise and amusement followed; for, on opening the slips of paper,sevenbore the name of "Mansfield Park,"—a coincidence of opinion most rare, and a tribute to an author unsurpassed.
Had we been of that party at the English country-house, we should have written, "Thelastnovel by Miss Austen which we have read"; yet, forced to a selection, we should have named "Persuasion." But we withdraw our private preference, and, yielding to the decision of seven wise men, place "Mansfield Park" at the head of the list, and leave it there without further comment.
"Persuasion" was her latest work, and bears the impress of a matured mind and perfected style. The language of Miss Austen is, in all her pages, drawn from the "wells of English undefiled." Concise and clear, simple and vigorous, no word can be omitted that she puts down, and none can be added to heighten the effect of her sentences. In "Persuasion" there are passages whose depth and tenderness, welling up from deep fountains of feeling, impress us with the conviction that the angel of sorrow or suffering had troubled the waters, yet had left in them a healing influence, which is felt rather than revealed. Of all the heroines we have known through a long and somewhat varied experience, there is not one whose life-companionship we should so desire to secure as that of Anne Elliot. Ah! could she also forgive our faults and bear with our weaknesses, while we were animated by her sweet and noble example, existence would be, under any aspect, a blessing. This felicity was reserved for Captain Wentworth. Happy man! In "Persuasion" we also find the subtle Mr. Elliot. Here, as with Mr. Crawford in "Mansfield Park," Miss Austen deals dexterously with the character of a man of the world, and uses a nicer discernment than is often found in the writings of women, even those who assume masculine names.
"Emma" we know to have been a favorite with the author. "I have drawn a character full of faults," said she, "nevertheless I like her." In Emma's company we meet Mr. Knightley, Harriet Smith, and Frank Churchill. We sit beside good old Mr. Woodhouse, and please him by tasting his gruel. We walk through Highbury, we are patronized by Mrs. Elton, listen forbearingly to the indefatigable Miss Bates, and take an early walk to the post-office with Jane Fairfax. Once we found ourselves actually on "Box Hill," but it did not seem half so real as when we "explored" there with the party from Highbury.
"Pride and Prejudice" is piquant In style and masterly in portraiture. We make perhaps too many disagreeable acquaintances to enjoy ourselves entirely; yet who would forego Mr. Collins, or forget Lady Catherine de Bourgh, though each in their way is more stupid and odious than any one but Miss Austen could induce us to endure. Mr. Darcy's character is ably given; a very difficult one to sustain under all the circumstances in which he is placed. It is no small tribute to the power of the author to concede that she has so managed the workings of his real nature as to make it possible, and even probable, that a high-born, high-bred Englishman of Mr. Darcy's stamp could become the son-in-law of Mrs. Bennet. The scene of Darcy's declaration of love to Elizabeth, at the Hunsford Parsonage, is one of the most remarkable passages in Miss Austen's writings, and, indeed, we remember nothing equal to it among the many writers of fiction who have endeavored to describe that culminating point of human destiny.
"Northanger Abbey" is written in a fine vein of irony, called forth, in some degree, by the romantic school of Mrs. Radcliffe and her imitators. We doubt whether Miss Austen was not over-wise with regard to these romances. Though born after the Radcliffe era, we well remember shivering through the "Mysteries of Udolpho" with as quaking a heart as beat in the bosom of Catherine Morland. If Miss Austen was not equally impressed by the power of these romances, we rejoice that they were written, as with them we should have lost "Northanger Abbey." For ourselves, we spent one very rainy day in the streets of Bath, looking up every nook and corner familiar in the adventures of Catherine, and time, not faith, failed, for a visit to Northanger itself. Bath was also sanctified by the presence of Anne Elliot. Our inn, the "White Hart," (made classic by the adventures of various well-remembered characters,) was hallowed by exquisite memories which connected one of the rooms (we faithfully believed it was our apartment) with the conversation of Anne Elliot and Captain Harville, as they stood by the window, while Captain Wentworth listened and wrote. In vain did we gaze at the windows of Camden Place. No Anne Elliot appeared.
"Sense and Sensibility" was the first novel published by Miss Austen. It is marked by her peculiar genius, though it may be wanting in the nicer finish which experience gave to her later writings.
The Earl of Carlisle, when Lord Morpheth, wrote a poem for some now forgotten annual, entitled "The Lady and the Novel." The following lines occur among the verses:—
"Or is it thou, all-perfect Austen? hereLet one poor wreath adorn thy early bier,That scarce allowed thy modest worth to claimThe living portion of thy honest fame:Oh, Mrs. Bennet, Mrs. Morris, too,While Memory survives, she'll dream of you;And Mr. Woodhouse, with abstemious lip,Must thin, but not too thin, the gruel sip;Miss Bates,ouridol, though the village bore,And Mrs. Elton, ardent to explore;While the clear style flows on without pretence,With unstained purity, and unmatched sense."
If the Earl of Carlisle, in whose veins flows "the blood of all the Howards," is willing to acknowledge so many of our friends, who are anything but aristocratic, our republican soul shrinks not from the confession that we should like to accompany good-natured Mrs. Jennings in her hospitable carriage, (so useful to our young ladies of sense and sensibility,) witness the happiness of Elinor at the parsonage, and the reward of Colonel Brandon at the manor-house of Delaford, and share with Mrs. Jennings all the charms of the mulberry-tree and the yew arbor.
An article on "Recent Novels," in "Fraser's Magazine" for December, 1847, written by Mr. G.H. Lewes, contains the following paragraphs:—"What we most heartily enjoy and applaud is truth in the delineations of life and character…. To make our meaning precise, we would say that Fielding and Miss Austen are the greatest novelists in our language…. We would rather have written 'Pride and Prejudice,' or 'Tom Jones,' than any of the 'Waverley Novels'…. Miss Austen has been called a prose Shakspeare,—and among others, by Macaulay. In spite of the sense of incongruity which besets us in the wordsproseShakspeare, we confess the greatness of Miss Austen, her marvellous dramatic power, seems, more than anything in Scott, akin to Shakspeare."
The conclusion of this article is devoted to a review of 'Jane Eyre,' and led to the correspondence between Miss Brontè and Mr. Lewes which will be found in the memoir of her life. In these letters it is apparent that Mr. Lewes wishes Miss Brontè to read and to enjoy Miss Austen's works, as he does himself. Mr. Lewes is disappointed, and felt, doubtless, what all true lovers of Jane Austen have experienced, a surprise to find how obtuse otherwise clever people sometimes are. In this instance, however, we think Mr. Lewes expected what was impossible. Charlotte Brontè could not harmonize with Jane Austen. The luminous and familiar star which comes forth into the quiet evening sky when the sun sets amid the amber light of an autumn evening, and the comet which started into sight, unheralded and unnamed, and flamed across the midnight sky, have no affinity, except in the Divine Mind, whence both originate.
The notice of Miss Austen, by Macaulay, to which Mr. Lewes alludes, must be, we presume, the passage which occurs in Macaulay's article on Madame D'Arblay, in the "Edinburgh Review," for January, 1843. We do not find the phrase, "prose Shakspeare," but the meaning is the same; we give the passage as it stands before us:—
"Shakspeare has neither equal nor second; but among writers who, in the point we have noticed, have approached nearest the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, as a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom,—Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edward Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. They have been all liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They are all young. They are all in love. Not any one of them has any hobby-horse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has any ruling passion, such as we read in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed."
Dr. Whately, the Archbishop of Dublin, in the "Quarterly Review," 1821, sums up his estimate of Miss Austen with these words: "The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure would have deserved well of mankind, had he stipulated it should be blameless. Those again who delight in the study of human nature may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions. Miss Austen introduces very little of what is technically called religion into her books, yet that must be a blinded soul which does not recognize the vital essence, everywhere present in her pages, of a deep and enlightened piety.
There are but few descriptions of scenery in her novels. The figures of the piece are her care; and if she draws in a tree, a hill, or a manor-house, it is always in the background. This fact did not arise from any want of appreciation for the glories or the beauties of the outward creation, for we know that the pencil was as often in her hand as the pen. It was that unity of purpose, ever present to her mind, which never allowed her to swerve from the actual into the ideal, nor even to yield to tempting descriptions of Nature which might be near, and yet aside from the main object of her narrative. Her creations are living people, not masks behind which the author soliloquizes or lectures. These novels are impersonal; Miss Austen never herself appears; and if she ever had a lover, we cannot decide whom he resembled among the many masculine portraits she has drawn.
Very much has been said in her praise, and we, in this brief article, have summoned together witnesses to the extent of her powers, which are fit and not few. Yet we are aware that to a class of readers Miss Austen's novels must ever remain sealed books. So be it. While the English language is read, the world will always be provided with souls who can enjoy the rare excellence of that rich legacy left to them by her genius.
Once in our lifetime we spent three delicious days in the Isle of Wight, and then crossed the water to Portsmouth. After taking a turn on the ramparts in memory of Fanny Price, and looking upon the harbor whence the Thrush went out, we drove over Portsdown Hill to visit the surviving member of that household which called Jane Austen their own.
We had been preceded by a letter, introducing us to Admiral Austen as fervent admirers of his sister's genius, and were received by him with a gentle courtesy most winning to our heart.
In the finely-cut features of the brother, who retained at eighty years of age much of the early beauty of his youth, we fancied we must see a resemblance to his sister, of whom there exists no portrait.
It was delightful to us to hear him speak of "Jane," and to be brought so near the actual in her daily life. Of his sister's fame as a writer the Admiral spoke understandingly, but reservedly.
We found the old Admiral safely moored in that most delightful of havens, a quiet English country-home, with the beauty of Nature around the mansion, and the beauty of domestic love and happiness beneath its hospitable roof.
There we spent a summer day, and the passing hours seemed like the pages over which we had often lingered, written by her hand whose influence had guided us to those she loved. That day, with all its associations, has become a sacred memory, and links us to the sphere where dwells that soul whose gift of genius has rendered immortal the name of Jane Austen.
* * * * *
"I order and declare that all persons held as slaves in the said designated States and parts of States are and hereafter shall be free,… and I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence."
Saint Patrick, slave to Milcho of the herdsOf Ballymena, sleeping, heard these words:"Arise, and fleeOut from the land of bondage, and be free!"
Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heavenThe angels singing of his sins forgiven,And, wondering, seesHis prison opening to their golden keys,
He rose a man who laid him down a slave,Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave,And outward trodInto the glorious liberty of God.
He cast the symbols of his shame away;And passing where the sleeping Milcho lay,Though back and limbSmarted with wrong, he prayed, "God pardon him!"
So went he forth: but in God's time he cameTo light on Uilline's hills a holy flame;And, dying, gaveThe land a saint that lost him as a slave.
O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumbWaiting for God, your hour, at last, has come,And freedom's songBreaks the long silence of your night of wrong!
Arise and flee! shake off the vile restraintOf ages! but, like Ballymena's saint,The oppressor spare,Heap only on his head the coals of prayer!
Go forth, like him! like him, return again,To bless the land whereon in bitter painYe toiled at first,And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed!
* * * * *
Our nation is now paying the price, not only of its vice, but also of its virtue,—not alone of its evil doing, but of its noble and admirable doing as well. It has of late been a customary cry with a certain class, that those who cherish freedom and advocate social justice are the proper authors of the present war. No doubt there is in this allegation an ungracious kind of truth; that is, had the nation been destitute of a political faith and of moral feeling, there would have been no contest. But were one lying ill of yellow-fever or small-pox, there would be the same sort of lying truth in the statement, that thelifein him, which alone resists the disease, is really its cause; since to yellow-fever, or to any malady, dead bodies are not subject. There is no preventive of disease so effectual as death itself,—no place so impregnable to pestilence as the grave. So, had the vitality gone out of the nation's heart, had that lamp of love for freedom and justice and of homage to the being of man, which once burned in its bosom so brightly, already sunk into death-flicker and extinction, then in the sordid and icy dark that would remain there could be no war of like nature with this that to-day gives the land its woful baptism of blood and tears. Oh, no! there would have been peace—andputrefaction: peace, but without its sweetness, and death, but without its hopes.
In one important sense, however, this war—hateful and horrible though it be—is the price which the nation must pay for its ideas and its magnanimity. If you take a clear initial step toward any great end, you thereby assume as a debt to destiny the pursuit and completion of your action; and should you fail to meet this debt, it will not fail to meet you, though now in the shape of retribution and with a biting edge. The seaman who has signed shipping-papers owes a voyage, and must either sail or suffer. The nation which has recognized absolute rights of man, and in their name assumed to shed blood, has taken upon itself the burden of a high destination, and must bear it, if not willingly, reluctantly, if not in joy and honor, then in shame and weeping.
Our nation, by the early nobility of its faith and action, assumed such a debt to destiny, and now must pay it. It needed not to come in this shape: there need have been no horror of carnage,—no feast of vultures, and carnival of fiends,—no weeping of Rachel, mourning for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not. There was required only a magnanimity in proceeding to sustain that of our beginning,—only a sympathy broad enough to take our little planet and all her human tribes in its arms, deep enough to go beneath the skin in which men differ, to the heart's blood in which they agree,—only pains and patience, faith and forbearance,—only a national obedience to that profound precept of Christianity which prescribes service to him that would be greatest, making the knowledge of the wise due to the ignorant, and the strength of the strong due to the weak. The costs of freedom would have been paid in the patient lifting up of a degraded race from the slough of servitude; and the nation would at the same time have avoided that slough of lava and fire wherein it is now ingulfed.
It was not to be so. History is coarse; it gets on by gross feeding and fevers, not by delicacy of temperance and wisdom of regimen. Our debt was to be paid, not in a pure form, but mixed with the costs of unbelief, cowardice, avarice. Yet primarily it is the cost, not of meanness, but of magnanimity, that we are now paying,—not of a base skepticism, but of a noble faith. For, in truth, normal qualities and actions involve costs no less than vicious and abnormal. Such is the law of the world; and it is this law of the costs of worthiness, of knowledge and nobility, of all memorable being and doing, that I now desire to set forth. Having obtained the scope and power of the law, having considered it also as applying to individuals, we may proceed to exhibit its bearing upon the present struggle of our Republic.
The general statement is this,—that whatever has a worth has also a cost. "The law of the universe," says a wise thinker, "is, Pay and take." If you desire silks of the mercer or supplies at the grocery, you, of course, pay money. Is it a harvest from the field that you seek? Tillage must be paid. Would you have the river toil in production of cloths for your raiment? Only pay the due modicum of knowledge, labor, and skill, and you shall bind its hand to your water-wheels, and turn all its prone strength into pliant service. Or perhaps you wish the comforts of a household. By payment of the due bearing of its burdens, you may hope to obtain it,—surely not otherwise. Do you ask that this house may be a true home, a treasury for wealth of the heart, a little heaven? Once more the word ispay,—pay your own heart's unselfish love, pay a generous trustfulness, a pure sympathy, a tender consideration, and a sweet firm-heartedness withal. And so, wherever there is a gaining, there is a warning,—wherever a well-being, a well-doing,—wherever a preciousness, a price of possession; and he who scants the payment stints the purchase; and he that will proffer nothing shall profit nothing; but he that freely and wisely gives shall receive as freely.
But thesedesideratawhich I have named are all prices either of ordinary use, of comfort, or felicity; and it is generally understood that happiness is costly: but virtue? Virtue, so far from costing anything, is often supposed to be itself a price that you pay for happiness. It is told us that we shall be rewarded for our virtue; what moralistic commonplace is more common than this? But rewarded for your virtue you are not to be; you are to pay for it; at least, payment made, rather than received, is the principal fact. He who is honest for reward is a knave without reward. He who asks pay for telling truth has truth only on his tongue and a double lie in his heart. Do you think that the true artist strives to paint well that he may get money for his work? Or rather, is not his desire to pay money, to pay anything in reason, for the sake of excellence in his art? And, indeed, what is worthier than Worth? What fitter, therefore, to be paid for? And that payment is made, even under penal forms, every one may see. For what did Raleigh give his lofty head? For the privilege of being Raleigh, of being a man of great heart and a statesman of great mind, with a King James, a burlesque of all sovereignty, on the throne. For what did Socrates quaff the poison? For the privilege of that divine sincerity and penetration which characterized his life. For what did Kepler endure the last straits of poverty, his children crying for bread, while his own heart was pierced with their wailing? For the privilege—in his own noble words—"of reading God's thoughts after Him,"—God's thoughts written in stellar signs on the scroll of the skies. And Cicero and Thomas Cromwell, John Huss and John Knox, John Rogers and John Brown, and many another, high and low, famed and forgotten, must they not all make, as it were, penal payment for the privilege of being true men, truest among true? And again I say, that, if one knows something worthier than Worth, something more excellent than Excellence, then only does he know something fitter than they to be paid for.
Paymentmayassume a penal form: do not think this its only form. And to take the law at once out of the limitations which these examples suggest, let me show you that it is a law of healthy and unlamenting Nature. Look at the scale of existence, and you will see that for every step of advance in that scale payment is required. The animal is higher than the vegetable; the animal, accordingly, is subject to the sense of pain, the vegetable not; and among animals the pain may be keener as the organization is nobler. The susceptibility not only to pain, but to vital injury, observes the same gradation. A little girdling kills an oak; but some low fungus may be cut and troubled and trampledad libitum, and it will not perish; and along the shores, farmers year after year pluck sea-weed from the rocks, and year after year it springs again lively as ever. Among the lowest orders of animals you shall find a creature that, if you cut it in two, straightway duplicates its existence and floats away twice as happy as before; but of the prick of a bodkin or the sting of a bee the noblest of men may die.
In the animal body the organs make a draft from the general vigors of the system just in proportion to their dignity. The eye,—what an expensive boarder at the gastric tables is that! Considerable provinces of the brain have to be made over to its exclusive use; and it will be remembered that a single ounce of delicate, sensitive brain, full of mysterious and marvellous powers, requires more vital support than many pounds of common muscle. The powers of the eye are great; it has a right to cost much, and it does cost. Also we observe that in this organ there is the exceeding susceptibility to injury, which, as we have observed, invariably accompanies powers of a lofty grade.
Noble senses cost much; noble susceptibilities cost vastly more. Compare oxen with men in respect to the amount of feeling and nervous wear and tear which they severally experience. The ox enjoys grass and sleep; he feels hunger and weariness, and he is wounded by that which goes through his hide. But upon the nerve of the man what an incessant thousandfold play! Out of the eyes of the passers-by pleasures and pains are rained upon him; a word, a look, a tone thrills his every fibre; the touch of a hand warms or chills the very marrow in his bones. Anticipation and memory, hope and regret, love and hate, ideal joy and sorrow and shame, ah, what troops of visitants are ever present with his soul, each and all, whether welcome guests or unwelcome, to be nourished from the resources of his bosom! And out of this high sensibility of man must come what innumerable stabs of quick agony, what slow, gasping hours of grief and pain, that to the cattle upon the hills are utterly unknown! But do you envy the ox his bovine peace? It is precisely that which makes him an ox, It is due to nothing but his insensibility,—by no means, as I take occasion to assure those poets who laud outward Nature and inferior creatures to the disparagement of man,—by no means due to composure and philosophy. The ox is no great hero, after all, for he will bellow at a thousandth part the sense of pain which from a Spartan child wrings no tear nor cry.
Yes, it is precisely this sensibility which makes man human. Were he incapable of ideal joy and sorrow, he, too, were brute. It is through this delicacy of conscious relationship, it is through this openness to the finest impressions, that he can become an organ of supernal intelligence, that he is capable of social and celestial inspirations. High spiritual sensibility is the central condition of a noble and admirable life; it is the hinge on which turn and open to man the gates of his highest glory and purest peace. Yet for this he must pay away all that induration of brutes and boors which sheds off so many a wasting excitement and stinging chagrin, as the feathers of the water-fowl shed rain.
In entering, therefore, upon any noble course of life, any generous and brave pursuit of excellence, understand, that, so far as ordinary coin is concerned, you are rather to pay, than to be paid, for your superiorities. Understand that the pursuit of excellence must indeed be brave to be prosperous,—that is, it is always in some way opposed and imperilled. Understand, that, with every step of spiritual elevation which you attain, some part of your audience and companionship will be left behind. Understand, that, if you carry lofty principles and philosophic intelligence into camps, these possessions will in general not be passed to your credit, but will be charged against you; and you must surpass your inferiors in their own kinds of virtue to regain what of popular regard these cost you. Understand, that, if you have a reverence for theoretical and absolute truth, less of common fortune will come to you in answer to equal business and professional ability than to those who do care for money, and do not care for truth. Are you a physician? Let me tell you that there is a possible excellence in your profession which will rather limit than increase your practice; yet that very excellence you must strive to attain, for your soul's life is concerned in your doing so. Are you a lawyer? Know that there is a depth and delicacy in the sense of justice, which will sometimes send clients from your office, and sometimes tie your tongue at the bar; yet, as you would preserve the majesty of your manhood, strive just for that unprofitable sense of justice,—unprofitable only because infinitely, rather than finitely, profitable. In a stormy and critical time, when much is ending and much beginning, and a great land is heaving and quivering with commingled agonies of dissolution and throes of new birth, are you a statesman of earnestness and insight, with your eye on the cardinal question of your epoch, its answer clearly in your heart, and your will irrevocably set to give it due enunciation and emphasis? Expect calumny and affected contempt from the base; expect alienation and misconstruction and undervaluing on the part of some who are honorable. Are you a woman rich in high aims, in noble sympathies and thrilling sensibilities, and, as must ever be the case with such, not too rich in a meet companionship? Expect loneliness, and wear it as a grace upon your brow; it is your laurel. Are you a true artist or thinker? Expect to go beyond popular appreciation;gobeyond it, or the highest appreciation you will not deserve. In fine, for all excellence expect andseekto pay.
No one ever held this law more steadily in view than Jesus; and when ardent young people came to him proposing pupilage, he was wont at once to bring it before their eyes. It was on such an occasion that he uttered the words, so simple and intense that they thrill to the touch like the string of a harp, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." Of like suggestion his question of the king going to war, who first sitteth down and consulteth whether he be able, and of the man about to build a house, who begins by counting the cost.
The cost,—question of this must arise; question of this must on all sides either be honestly met or dishonestly eluded. For observe, that attempt to escape payment for the purest values, no less than for the grossest,isdishonest. If one seek to compass possession of ordinary goods without compensation, we at once apply the opprobrious term oftheftorfraud. Why does the same sort of attempt cease to be fraudulent when it is carried up to a higher degree and applied to possessions more precious? If he that evades the revenue law of the State be guilty of fraud, what of him who would import Nature's goods and pay no duties? For Nature has her own system of impost, and permits no smuggling. There was a tax on truth ere there was one on tea or on silver plate. Character, genius, high parts in history are all assessed upon. Nature lets out her houses and lands on liberal terms; but resorts to distraint, if her dues be not forthcoming. Be sure, therefore, that little success and little honor will wait upon any would-be thieving from God. He who attempts to purloin on this high scale has set all the wit of the universe at work to thwart him, and will certainly be worsted sorely in the end.