We, sighing, said, "Our Pan is dead;His pipe hands mute beside the river;—Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,But Music's airy voice is fled.Spring mourns as for untimely frost;The bluebird chants a requiem;The willow-blossom waits for him;—The Genius of the wood is lost."Then from the flute, untouched by hands,There came a low, harmonious breath:"For such as he there is no death;—His life the eternal life commands;Above man's aims his nature rose:The wisdom of a just contentMade one small spot a continent,And tuned to poetry Life's prose."Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild,Swallow and aster, lake and pine,To him grew human or divine,—Fit mates for this large-hearted child.Such homage Nature ne'er forgets,And yearly on the coverlid'Neath which her darling lieth hidWill write his name in violets.[pg 287]"To him no vain regrets belong,Whose soul, that finer instrument,Gave to the world no poor lament,But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.O lonely friend! he still will beA potent presence, though unseen,—Steadfast, sagacious, and serene:Seek not for him,—he is with thee."
We, sighing, said, "Our Pan is dead;His pipe hands mute beside the river;—Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,But Music's airy voice is fled.Spring mourns as for untimely frost;The bluebird chants a requiem;The willow-blossom waits for him;—The Genius of the wood is lost."
We, sighing, said, "Our Pan is dead;
His pipe hands mute beside the river;—
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,
But Music's airy voice is fled.
Spring mourns as for untimely frost;
The bluebird chants a requiem;
The willow-blossom waits for him;—
The Genius of the wood is lost."
Then from the flute, untouched by hands,There came a low, harmonious breath:"For such as he there is no death;—His life the eternal life commands;Above man's aims his nature rose:The wisdom of a just contentMade one small spot a continent,And tuned to poetry Life's prose.
Then from the flute, untouched by hands,
There came a low, harmonious breath:
"For such as he there is no death;—
His life the eternal life commands;
Above man's aims his nature rose:
The wisdom of a just content
Made one small spot a continent,
And tuned to poetry Life's prose.
"Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild,Swallow and aster, lake and pine,To him grew human or divine,—Fit mates for this large-hearted child.Such homage Nature ne'er forgets,And yearly on the coverlid'Neath which her darling lieth hidWill write his name in violets.
"Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild,
Swallow and aster, lake and pine,
To him grew human or divine,—
Fit mates for this large-hearted child.
Such homage Nature ne'er forgets,
And yearly on the coverlid
'Neath which her darling lieth hid
Will write his name in violets.
"To him no vain regrets belong,Whose soul, that finer instrument,Gave to the world no poor lament,But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.O lonely friend! he still will beA potent presence, though unseen,—Steadfast, sagacious, and serene:Seek not for him,—he is with thee."
"To him no vain regrets belong,
Whose soul, that finer instrument,
Gave to the world no poor lament,
But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.
O lonely friend! he still will be
A potent presence, though unseen,—
Steadfast, sagacious, and serene:
Seek not for him,—he is with thee."
The circumstances of a first meeting so color long years of acquaintanceship, that, should these circumstances be comic in their nature, the intercourse which follows partakes much of the grotesque. Thus, perhaps, it is, that the misfortunes of Edward Martin, apart from the whimsical demeanor of the man himself, provoke in my memory a smile rather than a sigh.
Some years ago, journeying on foot through Northern Connecticut, it became necessary for me to stop overnight at the quiet inn of Deacon S——.
Sharon I had visited, fair as Berkshire, but less an old story; I had lingered about the twin lakes of Salisbury; I had carried away many sweet memories of Warramaug and its mountain; and I now found myself in the neighborhood of Gramley Bridge, eager for fresh water, clean towels, and the plenty of a country tea-table,—not averse to strawberry short-cake, or the snowy delights of cottage-cheese.
It was rapidly growing dark, when, as I hurried on toward my cheerful welcome, a bend in the road brought me in sight of a figure that filled me with curiosity and amazement.
"Was it a man?A devil infernal?An angel supernal?"
"Was it a man?
A devil infernal?
An angel supernal?"
Was it were-wolf spectral, or bear aboriginal? It lived and moved, and, as I cautiously neared the spot, I seemed to recognize a human being in the singular form,—stooping, squatting, and groping before me.
The man, for such it proved, was performing most wondrous gymnastics upon the ground,—smelling here, smelling there, too agile to be tipsy, too silent to be mad. I had no desire to be alone in a lonely road at nightfall with a maniac, and I was not sorry when my nearer approach resolved these strange phenomena into a well-dressed pedestrian on all-fours in the middle of a dusty highway.
He rose as I approached, and I smiled to see that the spectacles astride his handsome nose were minus one lens. He seemed half blind and wholly bewildered. I looked at once for the lost glass, and there it lay shining at me from the very spot where he had been so industriously peering. He laughed grimly as I handed it to him, fitted his treasure into its wonted rim, took out his watch, and with a low chuckle said,—
"Twenty-five minutes is a long time to search for a bit of such small circumference. Thank you. Do you go to the Deacon's?"
"Yes."
"So do I."
We walked on together in silence, till we reached our journey's end,—I too tired, he too reserved, too preoccupied, or too shy, to speak again; but when, at last, we were seated with our cigars on the Deacon's door-step, he turned suddenly to me and asked,—
[pg 288]
"Are you fond of the country?"
"Why, yes! What else is there?" I answered, laughing.
"Ah, you are an artist!"
"I hope to be one."
"Its a bad business," said he, testily,—"a very bad business. If I were you, I would give it up."
"Have you ever tried it?"
"Tried it?" he ejaculated, kicking the gravel-walk,—"yes, and everything else, I believe. If I thought it would do you any good, I would give you the benefit of my experience; but you'd only laugh, and make a good story of it to your wife."
"Alas! I have no such incumbrance."
"The worse for you, if you have genius and the modesty of genius. A true artist, who seeks to interpret Nature in its purest and most exquisite relations, who penetrates the deepest temples of the woods and the silent sanctuaries of the mountains, must be a true, pure, and good man. He must be a happy man,—happy in a sweet and natural way. A man whose life is passed in a daily delight that gently stirs without feverish excitement will be tender and most lovely to women. Heoughtto marry."
"Did you ever write poetry?" I asked.
"I began to compose when I was six years old. I wrote a poem on the sea, commencing,—
'O thou earthly sea,Every person thinks of thee,—The sailor, and the busy bee,And the Chinese drinking tea!'
'O thou earthly sea,
Every person thinks of thee,—
The sailor, and the busy bee,
And the Chinese drinking tea!'
I thought it very fine. I have written many things since then, and they seemed good to me at the time. I would not venture to say how they struck others."
He smiled pleasantly.
"Do not be frightened by the shadow of a possible wife from unfolding your history," said I. "Chance has thrown us together; befriend me with your experience."
"Take warning, then, if need be.
"In college I was thought 'a very able fellow,' one 'who held the pen of a ready writer'; and I graduated as vain of my supposed talents as a young miss of her first conquest.
"My earliest literary essay was in a new magazine, which, as it was just rising into notice, would be, I imagined, greatly assisted by my condescension. It was a charity, indeed, to give my support to this fledgling, and I sent to it a long article, entitled, 'The Cultivated, as Moving and Educational Powers.' My manuscripts were returned, with this quiet bit of advice:—'Before "X.Y.Z." institutes any other reforms, we would advise him to reperuse his English Grammar.' Far from having a salutary effect, this rebuff only rankled in my soul. I determined to revenge myself on the paltry malignant who dared to despise my efforts. I therefore wrote a slashing criticism for one of the evening papers, demolishing (as I thought) the delinquent periodical, and denouncing its whole corps of writers as frivolous and almost illiterate. My satire was returned, being too personal for publication.
"Just at this time I chanced to fall in love with Miss Ellen Wilson, now Mrs. Martin. Fancying my passion unrequited, I poured forth my feelings in ten melancholy stanzas, beginning,—
'Oh! what avails it, if the spring be bright?'
'Oh! what avails it, if the spring be bright?'
These verses were very morbid and dreary, but they were published in the 'Tri-Weekly Tribune,' and 'Hope revived again.'
"The drama I next deemed worthy of my attention, and wrote a play, the plot of which I thought quite new and original. A large fortune is left to my hero, who forthwith becomes enamored of a fair damsel; but, fearful lest the beloved object should worship his money more than his merits, he disguises himself in a wig and blue spectacles, becomes tutor to her brother, and wins her affections while playing pedagogue. On her acknowledging her attachment, he flings his disguises into the sea, and, in the wildness of his joy at being adored for his profundity in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, German, Mathematics,[pg 289]Natural Science, and Civil Engineering, folds his loved one in his arms, and springs into the surf, where both are drowned.
"This, you see, was quite new."
"Quite," I replied, laughing.
"I published it at my own expense, and I must say I have yet to receive the first remittance for this truly original work.
"During the next season, I met with Hans Andersen's inimitable 'Märchen,' and, immediately setting myself to work, I wrote 'Uncle Job's Legacies,' a series of children's tales, full, as I fondly fancied, of poetry, pleasantry, and information. I sent them to 'The Juvenile Weekly,' then published in the city. They were accepted with a profusion of thanks; and in a few days I called, by request, at the office, expecting large compensation for services so eagerly received.
"I went up a dirty staircase, into a mean, slovenly back-office, where a small, uncleanly man sat tipped back in his chair, picking his teeth. He seemed the personification ofnonchalance, impudence, and conceit. As I entered, he looked up with a lazy insolence, which, had I been a woman, would have brought a hot flush of indignation to my face, and, on my mentioning my name, he rose and extended a very dirty hand.
"'Glad to see you, Sir,—hope you'll continue your contributions,—Uncle Job,—good idea, Sir,—love the little ones? So do we, Sir,—work very hard for them,—don't pay at all,—poor business,—pure charity,—that's all.'
"'But you don't mean to say,' I exclaimed, 'that your contributors are expected to work from charity?'
"'Glad to pay them, if we could, but we can't afford it,—more contributions than we can use,—best authors in the country write for us,—pure love for the little ones, I assure you.'
"'Will you give me my manuscripts?' I said. 'I do not vouchsafe to bestow my time and thoughts for nothing. If you do not pay, I can offer them to others who do.'
"'You won't find a child's paper in the United States that pays,' he growled. 'We don't care for contributions. Me and my partner writes most of the articles ourselves.'
"'Will you give me my manuscripts?' I said again, anxious to put an end to the interview, and disgusted with the fellow's falsehood.
"'Hallo! Mortimer, do you know where them are?'
"'Sorry I can't oblige you,' said a fat man, dirtier and greasier than the first, emerging from an inner den; 'they're gone to press.'
"'If you tell me any more lies,' cried I, becoming furious, 'I shall take measures that you will not at all relish. If you will notgiveme my manuscripts, I shalltakethem'; and, suiting the action to the word, I snatched them from a shelf, where they lay conspicuous, and carried them off without further parley.
"This cured me for a while of all literary ambition. But the unquiet spirit within me would not rest, and during the following summer I wrote a sentimental tale, full of aspirations, large adjectives, and soft epithets. It was accepted by a well-known monthly, then supposed to be in the height of its prosperity. This was a grain of comfort, and I looked forward confidently to a long future of remuneration and renown, when a letter of regret arrived from the fair editress, returning my story, and explaining, that, being unable to meet her engagements, the magazine had been sold to pay her debts.
"This was bad; but my story was my own, and I accordingly despatched it to 'The Salmagundian,' a periodical of the highest reputation. There it was published, praised, and further contributions requested. Several weeks passed away. I indited a poem, entitled, 'Past and Future, or, Golden and Leaden Hours.' This also appeared in print, and my thirst for fame was beginning to be satisfied, when a polite note reached me from 'The Salmagundian' office, begging for another tale, and offering to pay[pg 290]me inback numbers of the magazine. I wrote no more."
"Art beguiled you then, perhaps?"
"Alas, yes, the siren! I had taken lessons from a very clever colorist, and was thoroughly imbued with his enthusiasm. 'I, too, am a painter,' I took for my motto; and, hiring a small studio in —— Street, I bought a large canvas, on which I sketched out a picture which cost me much money, more time, and many anxious thoughts.
"It represented the interior of a church, at the dim end of which a marriage was being solemnized. In the foreground, a group of ten people, in anomalous costumes, was gathered round a youth supposed to be a rejected and despairing lover, who had fallen on the ground in a swoon. It was very affecting, I thought.—it would be very effective. Weresheto see it, she would be stung with remorse,—she would behold the probable effects of her present indifference,—she would relent.
"No one knew of my painting. I would keep it a profound secret, till it was a complete and glorious success. So I worked on in my quiet studio, draping before a cheval-glass for my women, attitudinizing and agonizing for my men, until the last touches were on, the varnish dry, and it was all ready for the Spring Exhibition. Then came doubts and speculations. Would it be accepted? Was it good, after all? Would Ellen like it? How would it seem among so many others? Should I take her to look at it? Should I tell her it was mine? Who would buy it?
"I had hired my studio under an assumed name, and under an assumed name sent my picture to the Academy. Now, when I went to see it, I found it, by some strange chance, hung next to a beautiful portrait by Huntington. The juxtaposition gave me a new idea. I saw at once what a villanous daub mine was, and went away oppressed with shame and a new-found modesty. Some time after this I strolled again into the Exhibition, in the hope of finding Miss Wilson; as I entered the vestibule, I met her coming out.
"'Oh, Mr. Martin!' she exclaimed, 'I am just going away, but Imustturn back, and show you thefunniestpicture! So theatrical! So distorted!'
"'Does it hang next to a lady in a purple shawl, by Huntington?'
"'Yes. Of course I might have known you would appreciate it, you are such a good critic of pictures. Isn't it the very worst specimen of art you ever saw?'
"Can you imagine my feelings?"
"I think I can."
"This was not all, however. That afternoon I went to my now forsaken studio, previous to taking my departure from it forever. I was carefully packing my materials, when I heard a knock at the door. I opened it, and an elderly, shrewd-looking man walked into the room.
"'Are you T. Markham Worthington?' he asked.
"'I am a friend of his.'
"'Authorized to sell his picture in the Academy, Number ——?'
"'Yes.'
"'How much does he ask for it?'
"'How much are you willing to give?'
"'Not more than twenty-five dollars,'
"'That will do. Where shall it be sent?'
"He paid the money, wrote the address, and, bowing, left the studio. Twenty-five dollars just paid for the frame. Who had bought my picture? I looked at the card:—
'PARKER J. SPERRY,'Yankee Pie Depot,'126 —— Street.'"
'PARKER J. SPERRY,
'Yankee Pie Depot,
'126 —— Street.'"
"Did you ever paint again?"
"Once only. I made a portrait of my sister-in-law, and sent it to her in a gorgeous frame. I happened to go into her sitting-room, one morning, when she was out, and found my picture hanging with its face to the wall. I turned it round. Directly across the mouth was pasted a white label, on which I saw neatly[pg 291]printed in India-ink,—'Queen of the Deplorables.' I took it home with me, and hung it in my library as a lesson to me for all future time.
"So," said Martin, throwing away the of his third cigar, "you have heard my experience. May you profit by it! I am now in the pork-packing business, and make a handsome income for my wife and two children. To-morrow I go to New York, to bring them into these wilds for change of air. And now, good night."
FLORESTAN'S STORY.
FLORESTAN'S STORY.
In every person's memory there are niches fixed, and in those niches are sacred persons. These are such as never obtruded themselves upon you, staining the pane through which their light shone with their own images, but who became perfectly transparent to the word they uttered, the song they sang, or the work they did. Such a sacred person to me is the gifted woman who first interpreted for me Schumann's Albums. Many years ago it was, as she told me, that she one day stood unperceived in the half-open door of her master, near the lesson-hour, and heard him softly rendering a theme which stole far into places of her heart, which had been awaiting its spell unconsciously. Presently he felt that there was a listener, and, hastily brushing away a tear, he placed the music in a far corner of the room, away from hisrépertoire. She confessed, that, afterward, when he was not present, she had looked on that which he evidently desired to conceal; she saw written, in pencil, upon it, "Sternenkranz." Thenceforth shops and catalogues were ransacked, but no "Sternenkranz" was found,—the word was evidently her master's own fancy; so she summoned all her heroism, one day, when Herr Otto complained of her indifference to the pieces he set before her, and informed him that she should perish at his feet, unless he would give her "Sternenkranz." Of course her guilt was manifest, and Herr Otto, in a spasm of anger at "prying women," as he called them, brought out the treasure, and with it others of a very rare album of Schumann's, to which he had given no names, leaving them to whisper their own names to each soul that could receive them: Star-Wreath it might be to one, Bower of Lilies to another. It was the same as with that white stone which the Seer of Patmos saw,—within it "a name written which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it."
This piece was to the lady a touch of consecration. Thenceforth she was known among us as "the Schumannite woman." I verily believe that to-day, next to the divine Clara herself, she is the best interpreter of Robert Schumann's works living; and if the love she has obtained for him is not as universal, it is just as fervent. Many silent and holy hours have I sat communing, through her, with him whom the Germans love to call their Tone-Poet; and the music remained to clothe with the full vesture of romance the meagre paragraphs of the journals which hinted his love, his sorrow, and at length his insanity and death. More, however, I longed to know of him,—of the wedlock of these Brownings of music; and more I came to know, in the way which, with this preface, I now proceed to relate.
[pg 292]
A bitter December evening found me tumbling through snow and ice to accommodate a certain lyceum in one of our Northwestern cities. Cold winds from over the Lakes made me wish that the Modern Athens had kept its lecture-system at home; for it has always seemed to me, that, wherever this has gone, her eastern storms have gone with it. Such ugly thoughts were shamed, however, by the beaming welcome which shone from the face of the kindest of landladies, and at length completely thawed out of me by the glowing fire to which she introduced me, and which animated the coziest of rooms. Why has not some poet celebrated the experience of thawing? How deliciously each fibre of the thawee responds to the informing ray, evolving its own sweet sensation of release until all unite in a soft choral reverie! Carried thus, in a few moments, from the Arctic to the Tropic, I thought, as dear Heine says, my "sweet nothing-at-all thoughts," until a subtile breath of music won me back to life.
Heavens! what is that? A strain, strong and tender, pressed its way into the room, soothed my temples, then broke over me in a shower of pearls. Confused, I started up; and it was some moments before I understood that the music proceeded from the room adjoining mine in the hotel. Not altogether unfamiliar was the theme; the priestess of whom I have spoken had once brought it from the Holy of Holies, when she was appointed to stand; and now, remembering, I broke out with the word, "Florestan!"
As I uttered it, the music ceased with the dreary fall of an octave. Whether the musician had heard the exclamation, or whether such a terrible termination was in the music, I knew not: the latter was quite probable, for, alas! such fearful Icarus-falls are not rare in poor Schumann's music. However, I did not consider long, but, rising quickly, passed into the hall, and knocked gently at the door of the next room.
"Enter," replied a voice, eagerly, but softly.
Enter I did, and stood before a man of about forty winters. His face was so swart that I could see only the German in the blue eye, and at once imagined that a stream of Plutonic fire had streamed into his veins from some more Oriental race. I stammered out an apology for my intrusion, but told him how irresistible were such subtile threads as Schumann's "Carnival" had projected through the walls which separated our rooms.
"Florestan," I said, "was too much for me."
Then his eye lighted up as might that of some Arctic voyager, which, having for bleak months rested only on the glittering scales of the ice-dragon coiled about him, is suddenly filled with the warm spread of the Polar Sea. Taking my hand, he said,—
"In me, wanderer that I am,—in me, with theHeimwehin my heart never to be stilled but in that home where Schumann has already gone,—you see Florestan."
"Louis Boehner!"
Filled with wonder, and scarcely knowing what I did, I took a little piece of paper which he unwrapped from many folds and placed in my hand. On it these words were written:—
"Peace and joy attend thee, Louis Boehner! and mayst thou never want for such a friend as thou hast been toROBERT SCHUMANN."
"Peace and joy attend thee, Louis Boehner! and mayst thou never want for such a friend as thou hast been to
ROBERT SCHUMANN."
I could say no word; never have I felt a profounder emotion than when, at this moment, I drew so near one whose brow Art had crowned with a living halo.
Students of German music and composers will need no word to bring before them the fulness of this incident. But to others I may briefly mention some facts connected with Schumann's "Carnival, orScènes Mignonnes, on Four Notes." Not by any means representing the pure depths of Schumann's soul, this strange[pg 293]medley is yet pregnant with historic associations. The composer wrote it in his young days, stringing twenty-two little pieces on four letters composing the name of Asch, a town of Saxony, "whither," according to Sobolewski, "Schumann's thoughts frequently strayed, because at that time there was an object there interesting to his sensitive soul." In the letters A, S, C, H, it must be remembered that the H in German stands for our B natural, and S oresfor E flat. The Leipsic "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" was begun and for ten years edited by Schumann,—in what spirit we may gather from his own words:—"The musical state of Germany, at that time, was not very encouraging. On the stage Rossini yet reigned, and on the piano Herz and Hünten excluded all others. And yet how few years had passed since Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert lived among us! True, Mendelssohn's star was ascending, and there were wonderful whispers of a certain Pole, Chopin; but it was later that these gained their lasting influence. One day the idea took possession of our young and hot heads,—Let us not idly look on; take hold, and reform it; take hold, and the Poetry of Art shall be again enthroned!" Then gathered together a Protestant-league of music, whose Luther and Melancthon in one was Schumann. The Devil at which they threw their inkstands and semi-breves was thePhilistines, which is the general term amongst German students, artists, poets, etc., for prosaic, narrow, hard, ungenial, commonplace respectabilities. "Young Germany" was making itself felt in all coördinate directions: forming new schools of plastic Art in Munich and Dresden,—a sharp and spirited Bohemian literature at Frankfort, under the lead of Heine and Boerne; and now, music being the last to yield in Germany, because most revered, as it is with religion in other countries, a new vitality brought together in Kühne's cellar in Leipsic the revolutionists, "who talked of Callot, Hoffmann, and Jean Paul, of Beethoven and Franz Schubert, and of the three foreign Romanticists beyond the Rhine, the friends of the new phenomenon in French poetry, Victor Hugo." This was theDavidsbund, or League of David (the last of the "Scènes Mignonnes" is named "Marche desDavidsbündlercontre les Philistines"). An agreeable writer in the "Weimarer Somitagsblatt" has given us a fine sketch of this company, which we will quote.
"The head of the table was occupied by a lively, flexible man of middle age, intellectual in conversation, and overflowing with sharp and witty remarks. He was the instructor of more than one of the young musicians around him, who all listened to his observations with profound attention. He was very fond of monopolizing the conversation and suffering himself to be admired. For he called many a young, highly promising musician his pupil, and had, besides, the certain consciousness of having moulded his daughter Clara, at that time a girl of fourteen, into a prodigy, whose first appearance delighted the whole world, and whose subsequent artist-activity became the pride of her native city, Leipsic. By his side sat a quiet, thoughtful young man of twenty-three, with melancholy eyes. But lately a student in Heidelberg, he had now devoted himself entirely to music, had removed to Leipsic and was now a pupil of the 'old schoolmaster,' as the father of Clara Wieck liked to be called. Young Robert Schumann had good reason to be melancholy. After long struggles, he had only been able to devote himself entirely to music comparatively late in life, and had been obliged to pass a part of his precious youth in studies which were as uncongenial as possible to his artist-spirit. He had finally decided for the career of avirtuoso, and was pursuing the study of the piano with an almost morbid zeal, when the disabling of one of his fingers, a consequence of his over-exertions, obliged him to give up this career forever. He did not yet suspect that this accident would prove fortunate for him in the end, by directing him to[pg 294]his true vocation, composition. Perhaps, too, it was the first germ of love, in the garb of admiration for the wondrous talent of Clara, which made young Robert so quiet and dreamy. His companions were all the more lively. There sat the eccentric Louis Boehner,1who long ago had served as the model for E.T.A. Hoffmann's fantastic pictures. Here J.P. Lyser, a painter by profession, but a poet as well, and a musician besides. Here Carl Bauck, the indefatigable, yet unsuccessful composer of songs,—now, in his capacity of critic, the paper bugbear of the Dresden artists. He had just returned from Italy, and believed himself in possession of the true secret of the art of singing, the monopoly of which every singing-master is wont to claim for himself. C.F. Becker, too, the eminent organist and industrious collector, belonged to this circle, as well as many more young and old artists of more or less merit and talent."2
Florestan then stood before me; and with him, although invisible, stood that sacred circle, which had unconsciously borne within it the germs of so many future sorrows and glories.
"With him," said Louis Boehner, "I began life, when we were boys together at Heidelberg; with him I stood when the dawn of a better day, which since has blessed hill and vale, was glowing for his eye alone; this breast held his sorrows and his hopes, when he was struggling to reach his Clara; these hands saved him when in his madness he cast himself into the Rhine; these eyes dropped their hot tears on his eyelids when they were closed in death."
Overcome by his emotion, he sat down and sobbed aloud.
At that moment, hearing my name called loudly in the hall, I went out, and was informed that my audience was waiting at the Lyceum, and had been waiting nearly fifteen minutes!
Next morning, bright and early, I was in the artist-pilgrim's room, listening to that which it thrilled him to tell and me to hear. And first he told me the story of Schumann's love.
The "old schoolmaster," Wieck, trained his daughter more ambitiously than judiciously; and, indeed, none but one of the elect would ever have survived the tasks imposed on her childhood. Indeed, she had no childhood: at the piano she was kept through all the bright days, roving only from scale to scale, when she should have been roving from flower to flower. At length her genius asserted itself, and she entered into her destiny; thenceforth flowers bloomed for her out of exercise-books, and she could touch the notes which were sun-bursts, and those which were mosses beneath them. From this training she came before the best audience in Germany, and stood a sad-eyed, beautiful child of fourteen summers, and by acclamation was crowned the Queen of the Piano. Franz Liszt remembered his enthusiasm of that period, and many years afterward wrote in his extravagant way,—"When we heard Clara Wieck in Vienna, fifteen years ago, she drew her hearers after her into her poetic world, to which she floated upward in a magical car drawn by electric sparks and lifted by delicately prismatic, but nervously throbbing winglets." At her performance of Beethoven's F Minor Sonata, Grillparzer was inspired to write the following verses:—
"A weird magician, weary of the world,In sullen humor locked his charms all upWithin a diamond casket, firmly clasped,And threw the key into the sea, and died.The manikins here tried with all their might;In vain! no tool can pick the flinty lock;His magic arts still slumber, like their master.A shepherd's child, along the sea-shore playing,[pg 295]Watches the waves, in hurrying, idle chase.Dreaming and thoughtless, as young maidens are,She dippeth her white fingers in the flood,And grasps, and lifts, and holds it! 'Tis the key.Up springs she, up, her heart still beating higher.The casket glances, as with eyes, before her.The key fits well, up flies the lid. The spiritsAll mount aloft, then bow themselves submissiveTo this their gracious, innocent, sweet mistress,Who with white fingers guides them in her play."
"A weird magician, weary of the world,
In sullen humor locked his charms all up
Within a diamond casket, firmly clasped,
And threw the key into the sea, and died.
The manikins here tried with all their might;
In vain! no tool can pick the flinty lock;
His magic arts still slumber, like their master.
A shepherd's child, along the sea-shore playing,
Watches the waves, in hurrying, idle chase.
Dreaming and thoughtless, as young maidens are,
She dippeth her white fingers in the flood,
And grasps, and lifts, and holds it! 'Tis the key.
Up springs she, up, her heart still beating higher.
The casket glances, as with eyes, before her.
The key fits well, up flies the lid. The spirits
All mount aloft, then bow themselves submissive
To this their gracious, innocent, sweet mistress,
Who with white fingers guides them in her play."
The first, perhaps, to recognize the surpassing ability of that child was the young editor of the "Zeitschrift." Robert Schumann. On her first appearance, he wrote,—"Others make poetry,—she is a poem." And soon afterward,—"She early lifted the veil of Isis. The child looks calmly up,—the man would, perhaps, be dazzled by the brilliancy."
From this moment there was an elasticity and purpose about the young composer, the secret of which no one knew, not even himself. Like one caught in the whorls of some happy dream, who will not pause to ask, "Whither?" he poured out before this child the half-revealed hopes striving within him; an equal spell was woven about her ingenuous and earnest heart, and their souls were joined in that purple morning; in due time they were to be ratherclenched, through pain. It was under this baptismal touch of Love that Schumann wrote his first sonata,—"Florestan and Eusebius." It gained him at once a fame with all from whom fame was graceful.
In the light of this period of his life must be interpreted those wonderful little "pieces" which mystify whilst they fascinate; without it their meaning is as strange as their names. Often did he say,—"I can write only where my life is in unison with my works." "Listen now to these," said Florestan, as he opened an album and struck the piano; "these are the voices of a new life." The "Alternatives," with song, "My peace is o'er"; "Evening Thoughts"; "Impromptus," (whose first theme was written by Clara): these; seemed like the emotion of some newly winged aspirant released from its chrysalis, resting on its first flower. But faster than planets through the abysses Love moves on. Florestan ceased, and there was a long silence; and then he told the unspeakable portion of his story by performing these two: "Sternenkranz," "Warum." Who has ever scaled the rapture of the former, or fathomed the pathos of the latter? Every summit implies its precipice; and the star-wreath that crowned Love was snatched at by the Fate which soon burdened two hearts with the terrible questioning,Wherefore?
Thus: before these two were fully conscious of the love they bore each other, the shrewd eye of old Wieck had caught a glimpse of what was coming to pass. He had educated this girl to be an artist to bringhimfame; alas, it must be confessed that he thought also of certain prospective thalers. Willing as he was that all Leipsic should admire his daughter, he did not like the enthusiasm of the "Zeitschrift." He then began to warn Clara against "this Faust in modern garb, who, when he had gained one finger, would soon have the whole hand, and finally the poor soul into the bargain!" Stupid old schoolmaster, thou shouldst have known that it is Mephistopheles, and not Faust, that women hate!
The old man, finding that his warnings were of no avail, forbade all acquaintance, forbade Robert's visits to his house. Then, inaugurating at once Clara's career as avirtuoso, he took her to Vienna.
No wonder, that, when she appeared there, it was to be as the priestess of Beethoven. It takes something besides an academy to train artists up to Beethoven. Robert was forbidden to write to her; but the "Schwärmibriefe of Eusebius to Chiara," utterly unintelligible to the general reader of the "Zeitschrift,"[pg 296]who, doubtless, fancied that its editor had gone mad, were quite clear to a certain little lady in Vienna, who consequently pined less than her father had anticipated.
"Amid all our musical soul-feasts," he writes, "there always peeps out an angel-face, which more than resembles a certain Clara. Why art thou not with us? (Warum!) And how thou wilt have thought of us last night, from the 'Meeresstille' to the flaming close of the A major symphony! I also thought of thee then, Chiara, pure one, bright one, whose hands are stretched towards Italy, whither thy longing draws thee, but thy dreamy eye still turned to us."
At length a sun-burst. In 1840 appeared the first number of Schumann's "Myrthen," whose dedication,Seiner geliebten Braut, breaks forth in the passionate and beautiful song,—"Thou my soul, O thou my heart!"
But this wordBrautmeans Bride in the German sense of "affianced"; and although the joy of this relation passed over Schumann like the breath of a Tropic, bringing forth, amongst other gorgeous fruits, his glorious First Symphony, which some one has well called the Symphony of Bliss, yet, ere this bliss was more than an elusive vision, the two passed through fierce wildernesses, and drank together of bitter Marahs. "But of all this," said Florestan, "you will know, if you have the right to know, from these,"—his "Voice from afar," and his "Night-Pieces."
Neither of us dared break the silence claimed by these exquisite pieces when they ceased; we shook hands and parted without a word.
But another mystery about the loved and lost master, which I longed to have revealed, would not let me leave the city. In the afternoon I sought Boehner, and asked him to walk with me. As soon as we had alluded to the one subject that bound us together, I requested him to tell me, what had not yet been given to the world, the details of Schumann's insanity and death.
Then, as one who takes up a heavy burden to bear it, he proceeded:—
"The heart of Robert Schumann was a lyre so delicate, and with strings so sensitive, that the effect of his pains and his joys, both always in extremes, was as if you gave an Æolian harp to be swept now by a cold north-wind and now by a hot sirocco. His spirit wore on to the confines of his flesh, and was not warmly covered thereby, but only veiled. Under his grief he seemed stronger; but when his joy came, when Clara was his own, and went through Europe with him, giving expression to the voices within, which, to him, had been unutterable,—then we saw that the emotions which would have been safe, had they been suffered to well up gently from the first, could come forth now only as a fierce and perhaps devastating torrent."Schumann saddened his intimate friends by times of insanity, five or six years before the world at large knew anything of it. At such times he imagined himself again cruelly separated from the patient and tender being who never left his side; and he would write pieces full of distractions, in the midst of each of which, however, some touchingly beautiful theme would float up, like a fair island through seething seas. Then there were longer intervals, of seven and eight months, in which he was perfectly sane; at which times he would write with a wearing persistence which none could restrain: he would put our advice aside gently, saying,—'A long life is before me; but it must be lived in a few years.' And, indeed, the works which have reached farthest into hearts that loved him most deeply date from these times. I remember, that, when he sat down to compose his last symphony, he said,—'It is almost accomplished; but the invisible mansion needs another chamber.'"Once when I was at Frankfort, Clara Schumann sent me this word: 'Hasten.' I left all my affairs, and came to[pg 297]watch for many months beside this beloved one. It was not a wild delirium which had taken possession of him; the only fit of that kind was that in which he tried to drown himself in the Rhine,—at the time when the papers got hold of the terrible secret. His insanity was manifested in his conviction that he was occupied by the souls of Beethoven and Schubert. Much in the manner of your American mediums, he would be seized by a controlling power,—would snatch a pencil, and dash out upon paper the wildest discords. These we would play for him, at his request, from morning till night,—during much of which time he would seem to be in a happy trance. Of this music no chord or melody was true; they were jangling memories of his earlier works."One day he called his wife and myself, and took our hands in his own:—'Beethoven says that my earthly music is over; it cannot be understood here; he writes for angels, and I shall write for them.' Then, turning to me, he said,—'Louis, my friend, farewell! This is my last prayer for you,'—handing me the paper which I have shown you; 'and now leave us, to come again and kiss me when I am cold.'"Then I left him alone with his Clara."A month from that time, Schumann was no more."
"The heart of Robert Schumann was a lyre so delicate, and with strings so sensitive, that the effect of his pains and his joys, both always in extremes, was as if you gave an Æolian harp to be swept now by a cold north-wind and now by a hot sirocco. His spirit wore on to the confines of his flesh, and was not warmly covered thereby, but only veiled. Under his grief he seemed stronger; but when his joy came, when Clara was his own, and went through Europe with him, giving expression to the voices within, which, to him, had been unutterable,—then we saw that the emotions which would have been safe, had they been suffered to well up gently from the first, could come forth now only as a fierce and perhaps devastating torrent.
"Schumann saddened his intimate friends by times of insanity, five or six years before the world at large knew anything of it. At such times he imagined himself again cruelly separated from the patient and tender being who never left his side; and he would write pieces full of distractions, in the midst of each of which, however, some touchingly beautiful theme would float up, like a fair island through seething seas. Then there were longer intervals, of seven and eight months, in which he was perfectly sane; at which times he would write with a wearing persistence which none could restrain: he would put our advice aside gently, saying,—'A long life is before me; but it must be lived in a few years.' And, indeed, the works which have reached farthest into hearts that loved him most deeply date from these times. I remember, that, when he sat down to compose his last symphony, he said,—'It is almost accomplished; but the invisible mansion needs another chamber.'
"Once when I was at Frankfort, Clara Schumann sent me this word: 'Hasten.' I left all my affairs, and came to[pg 297]watch for many months beside this beloved one. It was not a wild delirium which had taken possession of him; the only fit of that kind was that in which he tried to drown himself in the Rhine,—at the time when the papers got hold of the terrible secret. His insanity was manifested in his conviction that he was occupied by the souls of Beethoven and Schubert. Much in the manner of your American mediums, he would be seized by a controlling power,—would snatch a pencil, and dash out upon paper the wildest discords. These we would play for him, at his request, from morning till night,—during much of which time he would seem to be in a happy trance. Of this music no chord or melody was true; they were jangling memories of his earlier works.
"One day he called his wife and myself, and took our hands in his own:—'Beethoven says that my earthly music is over; it cannot be understood here; he writes for angels, and I shall write for them.' Then, turning to me, he said,—'Louis, my friend, farewell! This is my last prayer for you,'—handing me the paper which I have shown you; 'and now leave us, to come again and kiss me when I am cold.'
"Then I left him alone with his Clara.
"A month from that time, Schumann was no more."
Out under the glowing sunset, I clasped hands parting with Louis Boehner, and said, as my voice would let me.—"Take this paper, and when you would have a friend, such as you have been to Robert Schumann, come and help me to be that friend."
Two questions are concerned in the social problem of our time. One is, Will the people of African descent work for a living? and the other is, Will they fight for their freedom? An affirmative answer to these must be put beyond any fair dispute before they will receive permanent security in law or opinion. Whatever may be the theses of philosophers or the instincts of the justest men, the general sense of mankind is not likely to accord the rights of complete citizenship to a race of paupers, or to hesitate in imposing compulsory labor on those who have not industry sufficient to support themselves. Nor, in the present development of human nature, is the conscience of great communities likely to be so pervasive and controlling as to restrain them from disregarding the rights of those whom it is perfectly safe to injure, because they have not the pluck to defend themselves. Sentiment may be lavished upon them in poetry and tears, but it will all be wasted. Like all unprivileged classes before them, they will have their full recognition as citizens and men when they have vindicated their title to be an estate of the realm, and not before. Let us, then, take the world as we find it, and try this people accordingly. But it is not pertinent to any practical inquiry of our time to predict what triumphs in art, literature, or government they are to accomplish, or what romance is to glow upon their history. No Iliad may be written of them and their woes. No Plutarch may gather the lives of their heroes. No Vandyck may delight to warm his canvas with their forms. How many or how few astronomers like Banneker, chieftains like Toussaint, orators like Douglass they may have, it is not worth while to conjecture. It is better to dismiss these fanciful discussions. To vindicate their title to a fair chance in the[pg 298]world as a free people, it is sufficient, and alone sufficient, that it appear to reasonable minds that they are in good and evil very much like the rest of mankind, and that they are endowed in about the same degree with the conservative and progressive elements of character common to ordinary humanity.
It is given to the people of this country and time, could they realise it, to make a new chapter of human experience. The past may suggest, but it can do little either in directing or deterring. There is nothing in the gloomy vaticinations of Tocqueville, wise and benevolent as he is, which should be permitted to darken our future. The mediæval antagonisms of races, when Christianity threw but a partial light over mankind, and before commerce had unfolded the harmony of interests among people of diverse origin or condition, determine no laws which will fetter the richer and more various development of modern life. Nor do the results of emancipation in the West Indies, more or less satisfactory as they may be, afford any measure of the progress which opens before our enfranchised masses. The insular and contracted life of the colonies, cramped also as they were by debt and absenteeism, has no parallel in the grand currents of thought and activity ever sweeping through the continent on which our problem is to be solved.
In the light of these views, the attempt shall be made to report truthfully upon the freedmen at Port Royal. A word, however, as to the name. Civilization, in its career, may often be traced in the nomenclatures of successive periods. These people were first called contrabands at Fortress Monroe; but at Port Royal, where they were next introduced to us in any considerable number, they were generally referred to as freedmen. These terms are milestones in our progress; and they are yet to be lost in the better and more comprehensive designation of citizens, or, when discrimination is convenient, citizens of African descent.
The enterprise for the protection and development of the freedmen at Port Royal has won its way to the regard of mankind. The best minds of Europe, as well as the best friends of the United States, like Cairnes and Gasparin, have testified much interest in its progress. An English periodical of considerable merit noticed at some length "Mr. Pierce's Ten Thousand Clients." In Parliament, Earl Russell noted it in its incipient stage, as a reason why England should not intervene in American affairs. The "Revue des Deux Mondes," in a recent number, characterizes the colony as "that small pacific army, far more important in the history of civilization than all the military expeditions despatched from time to time since the commencement of the civil war."
No little historical interest covers the region to which this account belongs. Explorations of the coast now known as that of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, involving the rival pretensions of Spain and France, were made in the first half of the sixteenth century. They were conducted by Ponce de Leon, Vasquez, Verrazani, and Soto, in search of the fountain of perpetual youth, or to extend empire by right of discovery. But no permanent settlement by way of colony or garrison was attempted until 1562.
In that year,—the same in which he drew his sword for his faith, and ten years before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in which he fell the most illustrious victim,—Admiral Coligny, the great Protestant chief, anxious to found beyond the seas a refuge for persecuted Huguenots, fitted out the expedition of Jean Ribault, which, after a voyage of over three months across the ocean and northward along the coast, cast anchor on May 27th in the harbor of Port Royal, and gave it the name which it retains to this day. That year was also to be ever memorable for another and far different enterprise, which was destined to be written in dark and perpetual lines on human history. Then it was that John[pg 299]Hawkins sailed for Africa in quest of the first cargo of negroes ever brought to the New World. The expedition of Ribault was the first visit of Europeans to Port Royal or to any part of South Carolina, and the garrison left by him was the first settlement under their auspices ever made on this continent north of Mexico. There is not space or need to detail here the mutiny and suffering of this military colony, their abandonment of the post, the terrible voyage homeward, or the perseverance of Coligny in his original purpose. Nor is it within the compass of this narrative to recount the fortunes of the second garrison, which was founded on the St. John's, the visit of John Hawkins in 1565 with timely relief, the return of Ribault from France and his sad fate, the ferocity of Melendez against all heretic Frenchmen, and the avenging chivalry of Dominic de Gourges. The student is baffled in attempts to fix localities for the deeds and explorations of this period, even with the help of the several accounts and the drawings of Le Moyne; and, besides, these later vicissitudes did not involve any permanent occupation as far north as Port Royal, that region having been abandoned by the French, and being then visited by the Spanish only for trade or adventure.
Some merchants of Barbados, in 1663, sent William Hilton and other commissioners to Florida, then including Port Royal, to explore the country with reference to an emigration thither. Hilton's Narration, published in London the year after, mentions St. Ellens as one of the points visited, meaning St. Helena, but probably including the Sea Islands under that name. The natives were found to speak many Spanish words, and to be familiar enough with the report of guns not to be alarmed by it. The commissioners, whose explorations were evidently prompted by motives of gain, close a somewhat glowing description of the country by saying, "And we could wish that all they that want a happy settlement of our English nation were well transported thither."
Hitherto England had borne no part in exploring this region. But, relieved of her civil wars by the Restoration, she began to seek colonial empire on the southern coast of North America. In 1663, Charles II. granted a charter to Clarendon, Monk, Shaftsbury,—each famous in the conflicts of those times,—and to their associates, as proprietors of Carolina. The genius of John Locke, more fitted for philosophy than affairs, devised a constitution for the colony,—an idle work, as it proved. In 1670, the first emigrants, under Governor William Sayle, arrived at Port Royal, with the purpose to remain there; but, disturbed probably with apprehensions of Spanish incursions from Florida, they removed to the banks of the Ashley, and, after another change of site, founded Charleston.
In 1682, a colony from Scotland under Lord Cardross was founded at Port Royal, but was driven away four years later by the Spanish. No permanent settlement of the Beaufort district appears to have succeeded until 1700. This district is divided into four parishes, St. Peter's, St. Luke's, St. Helena, and Prince William, being fifty-eight miles long and thirty-two broad, and containing 1,224,960 acres. St. Helena parish includes the islands of St. Helena, Ladies, Port Royal, Paris, and a few smaller islands, which, together with Hilton Head, make the district occupied by our forces. The largest and most populous of these islands is St. Helena, being fifteen miles long and six or seven broad, containing fifty plantations and three thousand negroes, and perhaps more since the evacuation of Edisto. Port Royal is two-thirds or three-quarters the size of St. Helena, Ladies half as large, and Hilton Head one-third as large. Paris, or Parry, has five plantations, and Coosaw, Morgan, Cat, Cane, and Barnwell have each one or two. Beaufort is the largest town in the district of that name, and the only one at Port Royal in our possession. Its population, black and white, in time of peace may have been[pg 300]between two and three thousand. The first lots were granted in 1717. Its Episcopal church was built in 1720. Its library was instituted in 1802, had increased in 1825 to six or eight hundred volumes, and when our military occupation began contained about thirty-five hundred.
The origin of the name Port Royal, given to a harbor at first and since to an island, has already been noted. The name of St. Helena, applied to a sound, a parish, and an island, originated probably with the Spaniards, and was given by them in tribute to Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, whose day in the calendar is August 18th. Broad River is the equivalent of La Grande, which was given by Ribault. Hilton Head may have been derived from Captain Hilton, who came from Barbados. Coosaw is the name of a tribe of Indians. Beaufort is likely to have been so called for Henry, Duke of Beauford, one of the lord proprietors, while Carolina was a province of Great Britain.
The Beaufort District is not invested with any considerable Revolutionary romance. In 1779, the British forces holding Savannah sent two hundred troops with a howitzer and two field-pieces to Beaufort. Four companies of militia from Charleston with two field-pieces, reinforced by a few volunteers from Beaufort, repulsed and drove them off. The British made marauding incursions from Charleston in 1782, and are said to have levied a military contribution on St. Helena and Port Royal Islands.
There are the remains of Indian mounds and ancient forts on the islands. One of these last, it is said, can be traced on Paris Island, and is claimed by some antiquaries to be the Charles Fort built by Ribault. There are the well-preserved walls of one upon the plantation of John J. Smith on Port Royal Island, a few miles south of Beaufort, now called Camp Saxton, and recently occupied by Colonel Higginson's regiment. It is built of cemented oyster-shells. Common remark refers to it as a Spanish fort, but it is likely to be of English construction. The site of Charles Fort is claimed for Beaufort, Lemon Island, Paris Island, and other points.
The Sea Islands are formed by the intersection of the creeks and arms of the sea. They have a uniform level, are without any stones, and present a rather monotonous and uninteresting scenery, spite of the raptures of French explorers. The creeks run up into the islands at numerous points, affording facilities for transportation by flats and boats to the buildings which are usually near them. The soil is of a light, sandy mould, and yields in the best seasons a very moderate crop, say fifteen bushels of corn and one hundred or one hundred and thirty pounds of ginned cotton to the acre,—quite different from the plantations in Mississippi and Texas, where an acre produces five or six hundred pounds. The soil is not rich enough for the cultivated grasses, and one finds but little turf. The coarse saline grasses, gathered in stacks, furnish the chief material for manure. The long-fibred cotton peculiar to the region is the result of the climate, which is affected by the action of the salt water upon the atmosphere by means of the creeks which permeate the land in all directions. The seed of this cotton, planted on the upland, will produce in a few years the cotton of coarser texture; and the seed of the latter, planted on the islands, will in a like period produce the finer staple. The Treasury Department secured eleven hundred thousand pounds from the islands occupied by our forces, including Edisto, being the crop, mostly unginned, and gathered in storehouses, when our military occupation began.
The characteristic trees are the live-oak, its wood almost as heavy as lignum-vitæ, the trunk not high, but sometimes five or six feet in diameter, and extending its crooked branches far over the land, with the long, pendulous, funereal moss adhering to them,—and the palmetto, shooting up its long, spongy stem thirty or forty feet, unrelieved by[pg 301]vines or branches, with a disproportionately small cap of leaves at the summit, the most ungainly of trees, albeit it gives a name and coat-of-arms to the State. Besides these, are the pine, the red and white oak, the cedar, the bay, the gum, the maple, and the ash. The soil is luxuriant with an undergrowth of impenetrable vines. These interlacing the trees, supported also by shrubs, of which the cassena is the most distinguished variety, and faced with ditches, make the prevailing fences of the plantations. The hedges are adorned in March and April with the yellow jessamine, (jelseminum,)—the cross-vine (bignonia,) with its mass of rich red blossoms,—the Cherokee rose, (loevigata,) spreading out in long waving wreaths of white,—and, two months later, the palmetto royal, (yucca gloriosa,) which protects the fence with its prickly leaves, and delights the eyes with its pyramid-like clusters of white flowers. Some of these trees and shrubs serve a utilitarian end in art and medicine. The live-oak is famous in shipbuilding. The palmetto, or cabbage-palmetto, as it is called, resists destruction by worms, and is used for facing wharves. It was employed to protect Fort Moultrie in 1776, when bombarded by the British fleet; and the cannon-balls were buried in its spongy substance. The moss (tillandsia usneoides) served to calk the rude vessel of the first French colonists, longing for home. It may be used for bedding after its life has been killed by boiling water, and for the subsistence of cattle when destitute of other food. The cassena is a powerful diuretic.
The game and fish, which are both abundant and of desirable kinds, and to the pursuit of which the planters were much addicted, are described in Eliot's book. Russell's "Diary" may also be consulted in relation to fishing for devil and drum.
The best dwellings in Beaufort are capacious, with a piazza on the first and second stories, through each of which runs a large hall to admit a free circulation of air. Only one, however, appeared to have been built under the supervision of a professional architect. Those on the plantations, designed for the planters or overseers, were, with a few exceptions, of a very mean character, and a thriving mechanic in New England would turn his back on them as unfit to live in. Their yards are without turf, having as their best feature a neighboring grove of orange-trees. One or two dwellings only appear to be ancient. Indeed, they are not well enough built to last long. The estates upon Edisto Island are of a more patrician character, and are occasionally surrounded by spacious flower-gardens and ornamental trees fancifully trimmed.
The names of the planters indicated mainly an English origin, although some may be traced to Huguenot families who sought a refuge here from the religious persecutions of France.
The deserted houses were generally found strewn with religious periodicals, mainly Baptist magazines. This characteristic of Southern life has been elsewhere observed in the progress of our army. Occasionally some book denouncing slavery as criminal and ruinous was found among those left behind. One of these was Hewatt's history of South Carolina, published in 1779, and reprinted in Carroll's collection. Another was Gregoire's vindication of the negro race and tribute to its distinguished examples, translated by Warden in 1810. These people seem, indeed, to have had light enough to see the infinite wrong of the system, and it is difficult to believe them entirely sincere in their passionate defence of it. Their very violence, when the moral basis of slavery is assailed, seems to be that of a man who distrusts the rightfulness of his daily conduct, has resolved to persist in it, and therefore hates most of all the prophet who comes to confront him for his misdeeds, and, if need be, to publish them to mankind.
Well-authenticated instances of cruelty to slaves were brought to notice without[pg 302]being sought for. The whipping-tree is now often pointed out, still showing the place where it was worn by the rope which bound the sufferer to it. On the plantation where my own quarters were was a woman who had been so beaten when approaching the trials of maternity as to crush out the life of the unborn child. But this planter had one daughter who looked with horror on the scenes of which she was the unwilling witness. She declared to her parents and sisters that it was hell to live in such a place. She was accustomed to advise the negroes how best to avoid being whipped. When the war began, she assured them that the story of the masters that the Yankees were going to send them to Cuba was all a lie. Surely a kind Providence will care for this noble girl! This war will, indeed, emancipate others than blacks from bonds which marriage and kindred have involved. But it is unpleasant to dwell on these painful scenes of the past, constant and authentic as they are; and they hardly concern the practical question which now presses for a solution. Nor in referring to them is there any need of injustice or exaggeration. Human nature has not the physical endurance or moral persistence to keep up a perpetual and universal cruelty; and there are fortunate slaves who never received a blow from their masters. Besides, there was less labor exacted and less discipline imposed on the loosely managed plantations of the Sea Islands than in other districts where slave-labor was better and more profitably organized and directed.
The capture of Hilton Head and Bay Point by the navy, November 7th, 1861, was followed by the immediate military occupation of the Sea Islands. In the latter part of December, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, whose foresight as a statesman and humane disposition naturally turned his thoughts to the subject, deputed a special agent to visit this district for the purpose of reporting upon the condition of the negroes who had been abandoned by the white population, and of suggesting some plan for the organization of their labor and the promotion of their general well-being. The agent, leaving New York January 13th, 1862, reached that city again on his way to Washington on the 13th of February, having in the mean time visited a large number of the plantations, and talked familiarly with the negroes in their cabins. The results of his observations, in relation to the condition of the people, their capacities and wishes, the culture of their crops, and the best mode of administration, on the whole favorable, were embodied in a report. The plan proposed by him recommended the appointment of superintendents to act as guides of the negroes and as local magistrates, with an adequate corps of teachers. It was accepted by the Secretary with a full indorsement, and its execution intrusted to the same agent. The agent presented the subject to several members of Congress, with whom he had a personal acquaintance, but, though they listened respectfully, they seemed either to dread the magnitude of the social question, or to feel that it was not one with which they as legislators were called upon immediately to deal. The Secretary himself, and Mr. Olmsted, then connected with the Sanitary Commission, alone seemed to grasp it, and to see the necessity of immediate action. It is doubtful if any member of the Cabinet, except Mr. Chase, took then any interest in the enterprise, though it has since been fostered by the Secretary of War. At the suggestion of the Secretary, the President appointed an interview with the agent. Mr. Lincoln, who was then chafing under a prospective bereavement, listened for a few moments, and then said, somewhat impatiently, that he did not think he ought to be troubled with such details,—that there seemed to be an itching to get negroes into our lines; to which the agent replied, that these negroes were within them by the invitation of no one, being domiciled there before we commenced occupation. The President then[pg 303]wrote and handed to the agent the following card:—
"I shall be obliged if the Sec. of the Treasury will in his discretion give Mr. Pierce such instructions in regard to Port Royal contrabands as may seem judicious."A. LINCOLN."Feb. 15, 1862."
"I shall be obliged if the Sec. of the Treasury will in his discretion give Mr. Pierce such instructions in regard to Port Royal contrabands as may seem judicious.
"A. LINCOLN.
"Feb. 15, 1862."
The President, so history must write it, approached the great question slowly and reluctantly; and in February, 1862, he little dreamed of the proclamations he was to issue in the September and January following. Perhaps that slowness and reluctance were well, for thereby it was given to this people to work out their own salvation, rather than to be saved by any chief or prophet.
Notwithstanding the plan of superintendents was accepted, there were no funds wherewith to pay them. At this stage the "Educational Commission," organized in Boston on the 7th of February, and the "Freedmen's Relief Association," organized in New York on the 20th of the same month, gallantly volunteered to pay both superintendents and teachers, and did so until July 1st, when the Government, having derived a fund from the sale of confiscated cotton left in the territory by the Rebels, undertook the payment of the superintendents, the two societies, together with another organized in Philadelphia on the 3d of March, and called the "Port Royal Relief Committee," providing for the support of the teachers.
When these voluntary associations sprang into being to save an enterprise which otherwise must have failed, no authoritative assurance had been given as to the legal condition of the negroes. The Secretary, in a letter to the agent, had said, that, after being received into our service, they could not, without great injustice, be restored to their masters, and should therefore be fitted to become self-supporting citizens. The President was reported to have said freely, in private, that negroes who were within our lines, and had been employed by the Government, should be protected in their freedom. No official assurance of this had, however, been given; and its absence disturbed the societies in their formation. At one meeting of the Boston society action was temporarily arrested by the expression of an opinion by a gentleman present, that there was no evidence showing that these people, when educated, would not be the victims of some unhappy compromise. A public meeting in Providence, for their relief, is said to have broken up without action, because of a speech from a furloughed officer of a regiment stationed at Port Royal, who considered such a result the probable one. But the societies, on reflection, wisely determined to do what they could to prepare them to become self-supporting citizens, in the belief, that, when they had become such, no Government could ever be found base enough to turn its back upon them. These associations, it should be stated, have been managed by persons of much consideration in their respective communities, of unostentatious philanthropy, but of energetic and practical benevolence, hardly one of whom has ever filled or been a candidate for a political office.
There was a pleasant interview at this time which may fitly be mentioned. The venerable Josiah Quincy, just entered on his ninety-first year, hearing of the enterprise, desired to see one who had charge of it. I went to his chamber, where he had been confined to his bed for many weeks with a fractured limb. He talked like a patriot who read the hour and its duty. He felt troubled lest adequate power had not been given to protect the enterprise,—said that but for his disability he should be glad to write something about it, but that he was living "the postscript of his life"; and as we parted, he gave his hearty benediction to the work and to myself. Restored in a measure to activity, he is still spared to the generation which fondly cherishes his old age; and recently, at the organization of the Union Club, he read to his fellow-citizens,[pg 304]gathering close about him and hanging on his speech, words of counsel and encouragement.
On the morning of the 3d of March, 1862, the first delegation of superintendents and teachers, fifty-three in all, of whom twelve were women, left the harbor of New York, on board the United States steam-transport Atlantic, arriving at Beaufort on the 9th. It was a voyage never to be forgotten. The enterprise was new and strange, and it was not easy to predict its future. Success or defeat might be in store for us; and we could only trust in God that our strength would be equal to our responsibilities. As the colonists approached the shores of South Carolina, they were addressed by the agent in charge, who told them the little he had learned of their duties, enjoined patience and humanity, impressed on them the greatness of their work, the results of which were to cheer or dishearten good men, to settle, perhaps, one way or the other, the social problem of the age,—assuring them that never did a vessel bear a colony on a nobler mission, not even the Mayflower, when she conveyed the Pilgrims to Plymouth, that it would be a poorly written history which should omit their individual names, and that, if faithful to their trust, there would come to them the highest of all recognitions ever accorded to angels or to men, in this life or the next,—"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me."
This first delegation of superintendents and teachers were distributed during the first fortnight after their arrival at Beaufort, and at its close they had all reached their appointed posts. They took their quarters in the deserted houses of the planters. These had all left on the arrival of our army, only four white men, citizens of South Carolina, remaining, and none of those being slaveholders, except one, who had only two or three slaves. Our operations were, therefore, not interfered with by landed proprietors who were loyal or pretended to be so. The negroes had, in the mean time, been without persons to guide and care for them, and had been exposed to the careless and conflicting talk of soldiers who chanced to meet them. They were also brought in connection with someemployésof the Government, engaged in the collection of cotton found upon the plantations, none of whom were doing anything for their education, and most of whom were in favor of leasing the plantations and the negroes upon them asadscripti gleboelooking forward to their restoration to their masters at the close of the war. They were uncertain as to the intentions of the Yankees, and were wondering at the confusion, as they called it. They were beginning to plant corn in their patches, but were disinclined to plant cotton, regarding it as a badge of servitude. No schools had been opened, except one at Beaufort, which had been kept a few weeks by two freedmen, one bearing the name of John Milton, under the auspices of the Rev. Dr. Peck. This is not the place to detail the obstacles we met with, one after another overcome,—the calumnies and even personal violence to which we were subjected. These things occurred at an early period of our struggle, when the nation was groping its way to light, and are not likely to occur again. Let unworthy men sleep in the oblivion they deserve, and let others of better natures, who were then blind, but now see, not be taunted with their inconsiderate acts. The nickname of Gibeonites, applied to the colonists, may, however, be fitly remembered. It may now justly claim rank with the honored titles of Puritan and Methodist. The higher officers of the army were uniformly respectful and disposed to coöperation. One of these may properly be mentioned. Our most important operations were in the district under the command of Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens, an officer whose convictions were not supposed to be favorable to the enterprise, and who, during the political contest of 1860, had been the chairman of the National Breckinridge Committee. But such was his honor as a gentleman, and his sense of the[pg 305]duty of subordination to the wishes of the Government, that his personal courtesies and official aid were never wanting. He received his mortal wound at Chantilly, Virginia, on the first of September following, and a braver and abler officer has not fallen in the service.