"Tut! tut!" says the Doctor,—"you are both too angry for a straight story. Come with me."
And taking each by the hand, he led them through the garden and house, directly into his study. There he opens a closet-door, with the sharp order, "Step in here, Reuben, until I hear Philip's story." This Phil tells straight-forwardly,—how he was passing through the orchard with a pocketful of apples, which a neighbor's boy had given, and how Reuben came upon him with swift accusation, and then the fight. "But he hurt me more than I hurt him," says Phil, wiping his nose, which showed a little ooze of blood.
"Good!" says the Doctor,—"I think you tell the truth."
"Thank you," says Phil,—"I know I do, Doctor."
Next Reuben is called out.
"Do youknowhe took the apples?" asks the Doctor.
"Don't know," says Reuben,—"but he was by the place, and the stones thrown down."
"And is that sufficient cause, Reuben, for accusing your friend?"
At which, Reuben, shifting his position uneasily from one foot to the other, says,—
"I believe he did, though."
"Stop, Sir!" says the Doctor in a voice that makes Reuben sidle away.
"Here," says Phil, commiserating him in a grand way, and beginning to discharge his pockets on the Doctor's table, "he may have them, if he wants them."
Reuben stares at them a moment in astonishment, then breaks out with a great tremor in his voice, but roundly enough,—
"By George! they're not the same apples at all. I'm sorry I told you that, Phil."
"Don't say 'By George' before me, or anywhere else," says the Doctor, sharply. "It's but a sneaking oath, Sir; yet" (more gently) "I'm glad of your honesty, Reuben."
At the instigation of the parson they shake hands; after which he leads them both into his closet, beckoning them to kneel on either side of him, as he commends them in his stately way to Heaven, trusting that they may live in good-fellowship henceforth, and keep His counsel, who was the great Peacemaker, always in their hearts.
Next morning, when Reuben goes to reconnoitre the place of his buried treasure, he finds all safe, and taking the better half of the fruit, he marches awaywith a proud step to the Elderkin house. The basket is for Phil. But Phil is not at home; so he leaves the gift, and a message, with a short story of it all, with the tender Rose, whose eyes dance with girlish admiration at this stammered tale of his, and her fingers tremble when they touch the boy's in the transfer of his little burden.
Reuben walks away prouder yet; is not this sweet-faced girl, after all, Amanda?
There come quarrels, however, with the academy teacher not so easily smoothed over. The Doctor and the master hold long consultations. Reuben, it is to be feared, has bad associates. The boy makes interest, through Nat Boody, with the stage-driver; and one day the old ladies are horrified at seeing the parson's son mounted on the box of the coach beside the driver, and putting his boyish fingers to the test of four-in-hand. Of course he is a truant that day from school, and toiling back footsore and weary, after tea, he can give but a lame account of himself. He brings, another time, a horrid fighting cur, (as Miss Eliza terms it in her disgust,) for which he has bartered away the new muffler that the spinster has knit. He thinks it a splendid bargain. Miss Johns and the Doctor do not.
He is reported by credible witnesses as loitering about the tavern in the summer nights, long after prayers are over at the parsonage, and the lights are out: thus it is discovered, to the great horror of the household, that by connivance with Phil he makes his way over the roof of the kitchen from his chamber-window to join in these night forays. After long consideration, in which Grandfather Handby is brought into consultation, it is decided to place the boy for a while under the charge of the latter for discipline, and with the hope that removal from his town associates may work good. But within a fortnight after the change is made, Grandfather Handby drives across the country in his wagon, with Reuben seated beside him with a comic gravity on his face; and the old gentleman, pleading the infirmities of age, and giving the boy a farewell tap on the cheek, (for he loves him, though he has whipped him almost daily,) restores him to the paternal roof.
At this crisis, Squire Elderkin—who, to tell truth, has a little fear of the wayward propensities of the parson's son in misleading Phil—recommends trial of the discipline of a certain Parson Brummem, who fills the parish-pulpit upon Bolton Hill. This dignitary was a tall, lank, leathern-faced man, of incorruptible zeal and stately gravity, who held under his stern dominion a little flock of two hundred souls, and who, eking out a narrow parochial stipend by the week-day office of teaching, had gained large repute for his subjugation of refractory boys.
A feeble little invalid wife cringed beside him along the journey of life; and it would be pitiful to think that she had not long ago entered, in way of remuneration, upon paths of pleasantness beyond the grave.
Parson Brummem received Brother Johns, when he drove with Reuben to the parsonage-door, on that wild waste of Bolton Hill, with all the unction of manner that belonged to him; but it was so grave an unction as to chill poor Reuben to the marrow of his bones. A week's experience only dispersed the chill when the tingle of the parson's big rod wrought a glow in him that was almost madness. Yet Reuben chafed not so much at the whippings—to which he was well used—as at the dreariness of the new home, the melancholy waste of common over which March winds blew all the year, the pinched faces that met him without other recognition than, "One o' Parson Brummem's b'ys." Nor indoors was the aspect more inviting: a big red table, around which sat six fellow-martyrs with their slates and geographies; a tall desk, at which Brummem indited his sermons; and from time to time a little side-door opening timidly, through which came a weary woman's voice, "Ezekiel, dear, one minute!" at which the great man strides thither, and lends, his great ear to the family council.
Ah, the long, weary mornings, when the sun, pouring through the curtainless south windows a great blaze upon the oaken floor, lights up for Reuben only the cobwebbed corners, the faded roundabouts of fellow-martyrs, the dismal figures of Daboll, the shining tail-coat of Master Brummem, as he stalks up and down from hour to hour, collecting in this way his scattered thoughts for some new argumentative thrust of the quill into the sixthly or the seventhly of his next week's sermon! And the long and weary afternoons, when the sun with a mocking bounty pours through the dusty and curtainless windows to the west, lighting only again the gray and speckled roundabouts of the fagging boys, the maps of Malte-Brun, and the shining forehead of the Brummem!
There is a dismal, graceless, bald air about town and house and master, which is utterly revolting to the lad, whose childish feet had pattered beside the tender Rachel along the embowered paths of Ashfield. The lack of congeniality affronts his whole nature. In the keenness of his martyrdom, (none the less real because fancied,) the leathern-faced, gaunt Brummem takes the shape of some Giant Despair with bloody maw and mace,—and he, the child of some Christiana, for whose guiding hand he gropes vainly: she has gone before to the Celestial City!
The rod of the master does not cure the chronic state of moody rebellion into which Reuben lapses, with these fancies on him. It drives him at last to an act of desperation. The lesson in Daboll that day was a hard one; but it was not the lesson, or his short-comings in it,—it was not the hand of the master, which had been heavy on him,—but it was a vague, dismal sense of the dreariness of his surroundings, of the starched looks that met him, of the weary monotony, of the lack of sympathy, which goaded him to the final overt act of rebellion,—which made him dash his leathern-bound arithmetic full into the face of the master, and then sit down, burying his face in his hands.
The stern doctrines of Parson Brummem had taught him, at least, a rigid self-command. He did not strike the lad. But recovering from his amazement, he says, "Very well, very well, Master Reuben, we will sleep upon this"; and then, tapping at the inner door, "Keziah, make ready the little chamber over the hall for Master Johns: he must be by himself to-night: give him a glass of water and a slice of dry bread: nothing else, Sir," (turning to Reuben now,) "until you come to me to-morrow at nine, in this place, and ask my pardon"; and he motions him to the door.
Reuben staggers out,—staggers up the stairs into the dismal chamber. It looks out only upon a bald waste of common. Shortly after, a slatternly maid brings his prison fare, and, with a little kindly discretion, has added secretly a roll of gingerbread. Reuben thanks her, and says, "You're a good woman, Keziah; and I say, won't you fetch me my cap, there's a good un; it's cold here." The maid, with great show of caution, complies; a few minutes after, the parson comes, and, looking in warningly, closes and locks the door outside.
A weary evening follows, in which thoughts of Adèle, of nights at the Elderkins', of Phil, of Rose, flash upon him, and spend their richness, leaving him more madly disconsolate. Then come thoughts of the morning humiliation, of the boys pointing their fingers at him after school.
"No, they sha'n't, by George!"
And with this decision he dropped asleep; with this decision ripened in him, he woke at three in the morning,—waited for the hall clock to strike, that he might be sure of his hour,—tied together the two sheets of Mistress Brummem's bed, opened the window gently, dropped out his improvised cable, slid upon it safely to the ground, and before day had broken or any of the townsfolk were astir, had crossed all the more open portion of the village, and by sunrise had plunged into the wooded swamp-land which lay three miles westward toward the river.
Four years ago there appeared in this magazine two articles upon the Great Lakes and their Harbors.[E]In these papers the commercial importance of the Lakes was set forth, and it was shown that their commerce was at that time nearly equal in amount to the whole foreign trade of the country. Within those four years the relative value of these two branches of commerce has greatly changed. The foreign trade, under the efforts of open foes and secret enemies, has fallen off very largely. A committee of the New York Board of Trade, in an appeal to the Secretary of the Navy for protection against British pirates, made the statement, that the imports into that port during the first quarter of 1860, in American vessels, were $62,598,326,—in foreign vessels, $30,918,051; and that in 1863, during the same period, the imports in American vessels were $23,403,830,—in foreign vessels, $65,889,853;—in other words, that in three years of war, our navigation on the ocean had declined more than one half, and that of foreign nations had increased in nearly the same proportion.
The two great branches of internal trade before the war consisted of the trade of the Lakes and the canals leading from them to the seaboard, and the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The latter branch being interrupted or destroyed by the Rebellion, it follows that at the present time the principal commerce left to the Atlantic cities is that of the Great Lakes and the States about them, usually known as the Northwest.
This commerce amounts at present to at least twelve hundred millions of dollars annually, and increases so rapidly that all estimates of its prospective value have hitherto fallen far short of the truth. It employs about two thousand vessels and twenty thousand sailors, besides four great lines of railroad. It sends to the seaboard one hundred million bushels of grain, two million hogs, and half a million of cattle, composing the principal part of the food of the Atlantic States, (it being well known that the wheat crop of New York would hardly feed her people for one third of the year, and that that of New England is sufficient for only about three weeks' consumption,) and affording a large surplus for exportation.
In a memorial of the Hon. S. B. Ruggles of New York to President Lincoln, on the enlargement of the New York canals, he says,—"The cereal wealth yearly floated on these waters now exceeds one hundred million bushels. It is difficult to present a distinct idea of a quantity so enormous. Suffice it to say, that the portion of it (about two thirds) moving to market on the Erie and Oswego Canals requires a line of boats more than forty miles long to carry it." On the Lakes it requires a fleet of five thousand vessels carrying twenty thousand bushels each. If loaded in railroad-cars of the usual capacity, it would take two hundred and fifty thousand of them, or a train more than one thousand miles in length. The four great lines from the Lakes to the seaboard would each have to run four hundred cars a day for half the year to carry this grain to market. Speaking of the grain-trade, Mr. Ruggles says,—"Its existence is a new fact in the history of man. In quantity, it already much exceeds the whole export of cereals from the Russian Empire, the great compeer of the United States, whose total export of cereals was in 1857 but forty-nine million bushels, being less than half the amount carried in 1861 upon the American Lakes. It was the constant aim of ancient Rome,even in the zenith of its power, to provision the capital and the adjacent provinces from the outlying portions of the empire. The yearly crop contributed by Egypt was fifteen million bushels. Under the prudent administration of the Emperor Severus, a large store of corn was accumulated and kept on hand, sufficient to guard the empire from famine for seven years. The total amount thus provided was but one hundred and ninety million bushels. The product of 1860 in the five Lake States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, was three hundred and fifty-four million bushels."
Another branch of the Lake trade, which is yet in its infancy, but which promises to reach vast proportions in a few years, is the iron and copper trade of Lake Superior. In 1864 about two hundred and forty-eight thousand tons of iron ore and seventeen thousand tons of copper ore and metal were shipped from that lake,—enough to load thirteen hundred and twenty-five vessels of two hundred tons burden. This trade has wholly grown up within the last ten years.
Let the Erie and Oswego Canals be again enlarged, as advocated so ably by Mr. Ruggles, let the railroad lines be equipped with double tracks, and this trade of the Lake country will still follow them up and outstrip their efforts. The man is now living in Chicago, hardly past middle age, who, less than thirty years ago, shipped the first invoice of grain from that city which now ships fifty millions; and should he live to the common age of mankind, he will probably see the shipment of a hundred millions from that port alone.
The population of Illinois has doubled in each of the last two decades, and there is no reason why it should not continue to do so in the next. That would give it in 1870 about three and a half millions of people, most of them farmers and producers, and farmers who, by help of their fertile soil, the ease of its cultivation, and the general use of agricultural machinery, are able to produce a very large amount of grain or meat to the working hand.
These fleets of sail-vessels and steamers, and these railroad-trains which go Eastward thus loaded with grain and provisions, return West with freight more various, though as valuable. The teas, silks, and spices of India, the coffee of Brazil, the sugar and cigars of Cuba, the wines and rich fabrics of France, the varied manufactures of England, and the products of the New England workshops and factories, all find a market in the Northwest.
What, then, is the proper and sufficient outlet of this commerce? The Canadians, although their share of it is only one quarter as large as our own, have shown us the way. They have constructed canals connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario, and others around the rapids of the St. Lawrence. Let us do the same on the American side, so that vessels may load in Chicago or Milwaukee, and deliver their cargoes in New York, Boston, or Liverpool, without breaking bulk. To Europe this is the shorter route, as the figures will show:—
Distance from Chicago to New York by lakes, canal, and river1,500milesDistance from New York to Liverpool2,980"——4,480"Distance from Chicago to Montreal by Welland Canal1,348milesDistance from Montreal to Liverpool2,740"——4,088"
The St. Lawrence River is the natural outlet of the Lakes, and, if rendered accessible to us by canals, must be the cheapest outlet. It is well known that a few years ago corn was worth on the prairies of Illinois only ten cents per bushel, when the same article was selling in New York at seventy cents, six sevenths of the price being consumed in transportation. The consequence was, that many farmers found it more for their interest to use their surplus corn for fuel than to sell it for ten cents. The great disturbance in values caused by the war, and the vast demand for grain and forage for the army, have reduced this disproportion in prices very much for the time, but it may be looked for again on the return of peace.
Now it would seem that one of themost important questions to be settled in this country is how to cheapen food. If, by the construction of these canals to give access to the St. Lawrence, grain can be laid down in New York ten cents a bushel cheaper than it now is done, the saving on the present shipments of breadstuffs from the Lakes would be ten millions of dollars annually. It is probable, however, that the saving in freight would be much greater than this, if the canals were built of sufficient capacity to admit the largest class of Lake vessels. This direct trade between the Upper Lakes and Europe was commenced a few years before the breaking out of the Rebellion, and was beginning to assume important proportions, when the war put a stop to it, as it has to so much of our foreign commerce.
While the present article was in preparation, the bill for the construction of these canals passed the House of Representatives, as also one for the deepening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, concerning which the report of the Hon. Isaac N. Arnold of Illinois, chairman of the committee of the House on the defence of lakes and rivers, thus remarks:—"The realization of the grand idea of a ship-canal from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, for military and commercial purposes, is the great work of the age. In effect, commercially, it turns the Mississippi into Lake Michigan, and makes an outlet for the Great Lakes at New Orleans, and of the Mississippi at New York. It brings together the two great systems of water communication of our country,—the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and the canals connecting the Lakes with the ocean on the east, and the Mississippi and Missouri, with all their tributaries, on the west and south. This communication, so vast, can be effected at small expense, and with no long delay. It is but carrying out the plan of Nature. A great river, rivalling the St. Lawrence in volume, at no distant day was discharged from Lake Michigan, by the Illinois, into the Mississippi. Its banks, its currents, its islands, and deposits can still be easily traced, and it only needs a deepening of the present channel for a few miles, to reopen a magnificent river from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi."
It is a very important point, in considering this question of the enlargement of existing canals and the construction of new ones, that they have, under the new conditions of naval warfare, come to be an important element in the harbor defences of the Lakes. We have the testimony of Captain Ericsson himself, whose Monitor vessels have already done so much for the country, as to this availability. He writes,—"An impregnable war-vessel, twenty-five feet wide and two hundred feet long, with a shot-proof turret, carrying a gun of fifteen inch calibre, with a ball of four hundred and fifty pounds, and capable of destroying any hostile vessel that can be put on the Lakes, will draw, without ammunition, coal, or stores, but six feet and six inches water, and consequently will need only a canal wide and deep enough to float a vessel of those dimensions, with locks of sufficient size to pass it."
Great Britain has already secured to herself the means of access to the Lakes by her system of Canadian canals, and the Military Committee of the House express the opinion, that, in case of a war with that power, "a small fleet of light-draught, heavily armed, iron-clad gunboats, could, in one short month, in despite of any opposition that could be made by extemporized batteries, pass up the St. Lawrence, and shell every city and village from Ogdensburg to Chicago. At one blow it could sweep our commerce from that entire chain of lakes. Such a fleet would have it in its power to inflict a loss to be reckoned only by hundreds of millions, so vast is the wealth thus exposed to the depredations of a maritime enemy." We were saved from such a blow, a few months ago, only by the failure of the Rebel agents in Canada to procure, either by purchase or piracy, a swift armed steamer.
Ever since the War of 1812, England has been preparing, in the event of anotherwar, to strike at this, our vital point. In 1814 the Duke of Wellington declared "that a naval superiority on the Lakes is asine qua nonof success in war on the frontier of Canada." Years before, William Hall, Governor of the Northwestern Territory, made the same declaration to our Government, and the capture of Detroit by the British in 1812 was due to their failure to respond to his appeal for a naval force. In 1817 the Lakes were put on a peace establishment of one gun on each side, which was a good bargain for England, she having at that time larger interests on the Lakes than the United States. Now ours exceed hers in the ratio of four to one.
What said the London "Times" in January, 1862, in reference to the Trent excitement? "As soon as the St. Lawrence opens again there will be an end of our difficulty. We can then pour into the Lakes such a fleet of gunboats, and other craft, as will give us the complete and immediate command of those waters. Directly the navigation is clear, we can send up vessel after vessel without any restriction, except such as are imposed by the size of the canals. The Americans would have no such resource. They would have no access to the Lakes from the sea, and it is impossible that they could construct vessels of any considerable power in the interval that would elapse before the ice broke up. With the opening of spring the Lakes would be ours."
This is just what the English did in the War of 1812. They secured the command of the Lakes at the beginning of the war, and kept it and that of all the adjacent country, till Perry built a fleet on Lake Erie, with which he wrested their supremacy from them by hard fighting. Let us not be caught in that way a second time.
There is a party in the country opposed to the enlargement of these canals. It is represented in Congress by able men. Their principal arguments are the following: First, that there is no military necessity for the enlargement; that materials for building gunboats can be accumulated at various points on the Lakes, to be used in the event of war. Secondly, that by sending a strong force to destroy the Canadian canals, the enemy's gunboats can be prevented from entering the Lakes. A third argument is, that it is useless to attempt to contend with England, the greatest naval power in the world; that we shall never have vessels enough to afford a fleet on the coast and one on the Lakes; that England would never allow us to equal her in that respect, and that it would be changing the entire policy of the nation to attempt it. A fourth argument which we have seen gravely stated against the canal enlargements is, that the mouth of the St. Lawrence is the place to defend the Lakes, and that, if that hole were stopped, the rats could not enter.
In reply to the first of these arguments, the above quotation from the London "Times" shows that the British Government well know the importance of striking the first blow, and that long before our gunboats could be launched that blow would have been delivered.
As to the second, we may be sure that the Canadian canals would be defended with all the power and skill of England; and we know, by the experience of the last four years, the difference between offensive and defensive warfare, both sides being equally matched in fighting qualities.
The third argument is the same used by Jefferson and his party before the War of 1812. He thought that to build war vessels was only to build them for the British, as they would be sure to take them. As to changing the policy of the nation, by increasing our navy, let us hope that it is already changed, and forever. Its policy has heretofore been a Southern policy, a slaveholders' policy; it has discouraged the navy, and kept it down to the smallest possible dimensions, because a navy is essentially a Northern institution. You cannot man a navy with slaves or mean whites; it must have a commercial marine behind it, and that the South never had. Our navy ought never again to be inferiorin fighting strength to that of England. In that way we shall always avoid war.
As to the plan of defending the Lakes at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, we would ask this question: If the blockade of Wilmington was a task beyond the power of our navy, how would it be able to blockade an estuary from fifty to a hundred miles in width?
With these enlarged canals, by which gunboats and monitors could be moved from the Atlantic and the Mississippi to the Lakes, andvice versa, and by the system of shore defences recommended some years ago by General Totten, namely, strong fortifications at Mackinaw, perfectly commanding those straits, and serving as a refuge to war steamers, works at the lower end of Lake Huron, at Detroit, and at the entrance of Niagara River, these waters will be protected from all foreign enemies. Lake Ontario will also need a system of works to protect our important canals and railroads, which in many places approach so near the shore as to be in danger from an enterprising enemy. It is recommended by the Military Committee, that a naval depot should be established at Erie, as the most safe and suitable harbor on the lake of that name.
If, as is probable, a naval station and depot should be thought necessary on the Upper Lakes, the city of Milwaukee has strong claims to be chosen for its site. There is the best and safest harbor on Lake Michigan, so situated as to be easily defended, in the midst of a heavily timbered country, accessible to the iron and copper of Lake Superior and the coal of Illinois. Milwaukee enjoys one of the cheapest markets for food, together with a very healthy climate. Finally, she is connected by rail with the great Western centres of population, so that all the necessary troops for her defence could be gathered about her at twenty-four hours' notice.
It may be well here to remark, that as yet the Northwest has had little assistance from the General Government. Large sums of money have annually been laid out in the defences of the seaboard, both North and South, while this immense Lake region has had the annual appropriation of one eighteen pounder! Every small river and petty inlet on the Southern coast, whence a bale of cotton or a barrel of turpentine could be shipped, has had its fort; while the important post of Mackinaw, the Gibraltar of the Lakes, is garrisoned by an invalid sergeant, who sits solitary on its ruinous walls.
The result at which we arrive is, that these canal enlargements would at once be valuable, both as commercial and military works. They have a national importance, in that they will assist in feeding and defending the nation. The States interested in them have a population of ten millions, they have seventy-one representatives in Congress, and they have furnished fully one half the fighting-men who have gone to defend our flag and protect our nationality in the field. How that work has been done, let the victorious campaigns of Grant and Sherman attest. Those great leaders are Western men, and their invincible columns, who, from Belmont to Savannah, have, like Cromwell's Ironsides, "never met an enemy whom they have not broken in pieces," are men of Western birth or training.
FOOTNOTES:[E]See Nos. for February and March, 1861,—Vol. VII. pp. 226, 313.
[E]See Nos. for February and March, 1861,—Vol. VII. pp. 226, 313.
[E]See Nos. for February and March, 1861,—Vol. VII. pp. 226, 313.
A lily anchored by the Spanish main,Swaying and shining in the surge of youth,Yet holding in thy breast the gold of truth,—Such didst thou seem above the waves of pain,And through the stormy turbulence of war,Until we heard thy patriot voice afar!Now, Sister, with the burning heart of Spain,We speak to thee from this New England strand,And grasp and hold thee with a firm right hand!For thou hast touched our people with thy word,—Only a gentle woman's word, but oneWith the great work our Nation has begun.By Liberty thy earnest soul was stirred,And waked and urged Estremadura's menTo pour the heroic wine of life again.As in the dawn of Summer flits a birdFrom his low nest and springs into the air,Hurrying a double concert and a prayer,—So Liberty, with thy sweet voice allied,Walks in thy footsteps, with her laurel strowsThy footway, with thy trustful spirit glows.Esteem her friendship with unwavering pride!Teach thou thy children what the years have brought,Wisdom and love superior to thy thought!Once thou hast said, "All men may win her side,But women never!" Sister, do not fear,Recall thy words, since Love has made truth clear.For Love is master, and we know no other,Save self-compelling service to the right,Which is but Love in the seraphic sight.Teach this thy sons and to each man thy brother,—A secret learned in silent joys of home,A secret whence the lights of being come.So guided by this lamp, O wife and mother,Turn thine eyes hither to the Western shore,Where red streams run and iron thunders roar!We watch the star of Freedom slowly riseAnd glimmer through the changes of the time,While errors beat their low retreating chime.We ask for nought, we need not to be wise,We find both men and women at their post,Equal and different in one mighty host.Divided suffering, unity of cries,—Divided labor, unity of life,—Divided struggle, one reward for strife.As autumn winds sweep over tossing seasAnd reach the happy shore, and fling the flowersAnd lower each gorgeous head by their rude powers,—So sweep the winds of war through quiet leasAnd bend our budding treasures in the dust,Yet Freedom's cause shall neither mar nor rust.The seed shall spring where none can thirst or freeze,Shall bear a floweret fairer than the old,As lilies shine before all blossoms told:A liberty for woman in her home,Bound by the only chains which give her peace,—Immortal chains which death may not release:A liberty where Justice wide may roam,And Reverence sit the chief at every feast,With Love as master, and Contempt as least:A liberty where the oppressed may come,The black and white, the woman and the man,And recognize themselves in Heaven's wide planThen while the morning odors of the seaBlow from the westward and caress thy brow,Remember where thy loving sisters bow:Perchance beneath the hand of Victory,Which leaves a tear and then a silentness,While crowds move by forgetful of one less;Or where a burst of gracious ecstasyRising shall fill the eastward flitting air,And with thy spirit mount the hills of prayer.
A lily anchored by the Spanish main,Swaying and shining in the surge of youth,Yet holding in thy breast the gold of truth,—
Such didst thou seem above the waves of pain,And through the stormy turbulence of war,Until we heard thy patriot voice afar!
Now, Sister, with the burning heart of Spain,We speak to thee from this New England strand,And grasp and hold thee with a firm right hand!
For thou hast touched our people with thy word,—Only a gentle woman's word, but oneWith the great work our Nation has begun.
By Liberty thy earnest soul was stirred,And waked and urged Estremadura's menTo pour the heroic wine of life again.
As in the dawn of Summer flits a birdFrom his low nest and springs into the air,Hurrying a double concert and a prayer,—
So Liberty, with thy sweet voice allied,Walks in thy footsteps, with her laurel strowsThy footway, with thy trustful spirit glows.
Esteem her friendship with unwavering pride!Teach thou thy children what the years have brought,Wisdom and love superior to thy thought!
Once thou hast said, "All men may win her side,But women never!" Sister, do not fear,Recall thy words, since Love has made truth clear.
For Love is master, and we know no other,Save self-compelling service to the right,Which is but Love in the seraphic sight.
Teach this thy sons and to each man thy brother,—A secret learned in silent joys of home,A secret whence the lights of being come.
So guided by this lamp, O wife and mother,Turn thine eyes hither to the Western shore,Where red streams run and iron thunders roar!
We watch the star of Freedom slowly riseAnd glimmer through the changes of the time,While errors beat their low retreating chime.
We ask for nought, we need not to be wise,We find both men and women at their post,Equal and different in one mighty host.
Divided suffering, unity of cries,—Divided labor, unity of life,—Divided struggle, one reward for strife.
As autumn winds sweep over tossing seasAnd reach the happy shore, and fling the flowersAnd lower each gorgeous head by their rude powers,—
So sweep the winds of war through quiet leasAnd bend our budding treasures in the dust,Yet Freedom's cause shall neither mar nor rust.
The seed shall spring where none can thirst or freeze,Shall bear a floweret fairer than the old,As lilies shine before all blossoms told:
A liberty for woman in her home,Bound by the only chains which give her peace,—Immortal chains which death may not release:
A liberty where Justice wide may roam,And Reverence sit the chief at every feast,With Love as master, and Contempt as least:
A liberty where the oppressed may come,The black and white, the woman and the man,And recognize themselves in Heaven's wide plan
Then while the morning odors of the seaBlow from the westward and caress thy brow,Remember where thy loving sisters bow:
Perchance beneath the hand of Victory,Which leaves a tear and then a silentness,While crowds move by forgetful of one less;
Or where a burst of gracious ecstasyRising shall fill the eastward flitting air,And with thy spirit mount the hills of prayer.
Since, in modern literature, there are so few really good comedies that we may count them all upon our fingers, a man who has written two must be worth knowing. We ask permission to introduce Jean François Regnard to those who do not know him.
He comes recommended by the great critic Boileau, who liked him, quarrelled with him, and made up again. Forty years later, Voltaire wrote that the man who did not enjoy Regnard was not capable of appreciating Molière. Then came M. de La Harpe, the authority in such matters for two generations: he devotes a chapter to Regnard, and calls him the worthy successor of Molière. And Béranger, in his charming autobiography, an epilogue worthy of the noble part he had played upon the stage of the world, speaks of the unflagging gayety and abundant wit of Regnard's dialogue, and of his lively and graceful style. "In my opinion," he adds, "Regnard would be the first of modern comedians, if Molière had not been given to us."
In spite of the idle complainings into which authors are betrayed by the pleasure human nature takes in talking about self to attentive listeners, all who are familiar with the history of the brethren of the quill know, that, as a class, they have had a large share of the good things of the earth,—cheerful occupation, respected position, comfortable subsistence, and long life. France, in particular, has been thePays de Cocagneof book-makers for the last two hundred years. Neither praise, pay, nor rank has been wanting to those who deserved them. But in the long line oflittérateurswho have flourished since Cardinal Richelieu founded the Academy, few were so fortunate as Regnard. He entered upon his career with wealth, health, and a jovial temperament: three supreme blessings he kept through life.
He was born in Paris in 1655, three years before Molière brought his company from the provinces to the Hôtel de Bourbon, and opened the new theatre with the "Précieuses Ridicules." Regnard's father, a citizen of Paris and a shopkeeper, died when his son was a lad, leaving him one hundred and twenty thousand livres,—a fortune for a man of the middle class at that period. Like most independent young fellows, Regnard made use of his money to travel. He went to Italy, and spent a year in the famous cities of the Peninsula,—but returned home with thirty thousand additional livres in his pocket, won at play. He soon went back to the land of pleasure and of luck. At Bologna he fell in love with a lady from the South of France, whom he calls Elvire. The lady was married, the husband was with her; they were travellers like himself. Regnard joined the party, and sailed with them from Civita Vecchia in an English ship bound for Toulon. The vessel was captured, off Nice, by a Barbary corsair, and brought into Algiers; the crew and passengers were sold to the highest bidder. One Achmet Talem paid fifteen hundred livres for Regnard, and one thousand for the lady. This low price might lead us to imagine that the Moorish taste in beauty differed from that of Regnard; but the Algerine market may have been overstocked with women on the day of sale. Achmet took his new chattels to Constantinople. Perceiving Regnard's talent forragoûtsand sauces, he made a cook of him. What became of Elvire history has omitted, perhaps discreetly, to relate. After two years of toil and ill-treatment, Regnard received money from home to buy his freedom. He paid twelve thousand livres for himself and the fair Provençale. Achmet more than quadrupled his investment, and no doubt thought slavery a divine institution.
In Paris once more, Regnard hung his chains in his library and was preparingto lead a comfortable life with Elvire, when the superfluous husband, whose death had been reported, most unseasonably reappeared. He had been ransomed by the Mathurins, a religious order, who believed it to be the duty of Christians to deliver their fellow-men from bondage,—Abolitionists of the seventeenth century, who, strange as some of us may think it, were honored by their countrymen and the Christian world. Regnard yielded gracefully the right he had acquired by purchase to the prior claim of the husband, and made preparations for another journey. With two compatriots, De Fercourt and De Corberon, he traversed the Low Countries and Denmark and crossed over to Stockholm. The King of Sweden received the travellers graciously and proposed a visit to Lapland. Furnished with the royal letters of recommendation, they sailed up the Gulf of Bothnia to Torneo, and thence pushed north by land until they came to Lake Tornœtrask. Eighteen miles from the lower end of the lake they ascended a high mountain which they named Metavara, "from the Latin wordmetaand the Finlandic wordvara, which means rock: that is to say, the rock of limits." "We were four hours in climbing to the top by paths which no mortal had as yet known. When we reached it, we perceived the whole extent of Lapland, and the Icy Ocean as far as the North Cape, on the side it turns to the west. This may, indeed, be called arriving at the end of the world and jostling the axle of the pole (se frotter à l'essieu du pôle)." Here they set up a tablet of stone they had brought with their luggage,—monument éternel, Regnard says. "It shall make known to posterity that three Frenchmen did not cease to travel northward until the earth failed them; that, in spite of the difficulties they encountered, which would have turned back most others, they reached the end of the world and planted their column; the ground was wanting, but not the courage to press on." These sounding verses were cut upon the eternal monument:—
"Gallia nos genuit; vidit nos Africa; GangemHausimus, Europamque oculis lustravimus omnem;Casibus et variis acti terrâque marique,Hic tandem stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis.De Fercourt, De Corberon, Regnard.Anno 1681, die 22 Augusti."
"Gallia nos genuit; vidit nos Africa; GangemHausimus, Europamque oculis lustravimus omnem;Casibus et variis acti terrâque marique,Hic tandem stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis.De Fercourt, De Corberon, Regnard.Anno 1681, die 22 Augusti."
"The inscription will never be read, except by the bears," Regnard adds. A melancholy thought to the French mind! If nobody saw it or talked about it, half the pleasure of the exploit was gone. The Frenchmen had foreseen this difficulty, and had taken their precautions. Four days' journey to the southward stood an ancient church, near which the Lapps held their annual fair. In this church, in a conspicuous position, they had already deposited the same verses, carved upon a board. In 1718, thirty-six years after, another French traveller, La Motraye, read the lines upon the stone tablet,—too late to gratify Regnard.
"Travellers' stories,"—"A beau mentir qui vient de loin,"—these proverbs date from the seventeenth century. It was not expected of such adventurous gentlemen that they should tell the simple truth, any more than we expect veracity from sportsmen. We listen without surprise and disbelieve without a smile. Some exaggeration, too, was pardonable to help out the verse; but "nobis ubi defuit orbis" goes beyond a reasonable license. The mountainMetavarais in Lat. 68° 30'; the North Cape in 71° 10'. There were still one hundred and fifty miles of solidorbisbefore Regnard and his friends; and they had need of optics sharp to see the Cape from the spot they stood upon.
The 27th of September found the three Arctic explorers back again in Stockholm. Thence they took boat for Dantzic, travelled in Poland, Hungary, and Austria, and left Vienna for Paris a few months before the famous siege, when Sobieski, the "man sent from God whose name was John," routed the Turks and delivered Christendom forever from the fear of the Ottoman arms.
Before this time Regnard must have heard that Duquesne had avenged hisAfrican sufferings. In the autumn of 1681 the Huguenot Admiral shelled Algiers from bomb-ketches, then used for the first time. The Dey was forced to surrender. His lively conquerors treated him with the honors of wit as well as of war. They made amotfor him, of the kind they get up so cleverly in Paris. When the Turk is told how much it had cost the great monarch of France to fit out the fleet which had just reduced a part of his city to ashes, he exclaims, amazed at the useless extravagance,—"For half the money I would have burned the whole town."
Cervantes was a slave in Algiers a hundred years before Regnard, and no doubt used his experience in the story of the Captive in "Don Quixote." Regnard also worked his African materials up into a tale,—"La Provençale,"—and varnished them with the sentimentality fashionable in his day. Zelmis (himself) is a conquering hero; women adore him. He is full of courage, resources, and devotion to one only,—Elvire,—who is beautiful as a dream, and dignified as the wife of a Roman Senator. The King of Algiers is on the quay when the captives are brought ashore. He falls in love with Elvire on the spot, and adds her to his collection. But his passion is respectful and pure. Aided by Zelmis, she escapes from the harem. They are retaken and brought back; but instead of the whipping usually bestowed upon returned runaways, the generous king, despairing of winning Elvire's affections, gives her her liberty. In the mean time Zelmis has had his troubles. His master has four wives, beautiful as houris. All four cast eyes of flame upon the well-favored infidel. Faithful to Elvire, Zelmis of course defends himself as heroically as Joseph. The ladies revenge the slight in the same way as the wife of Potiphar. The attractive Frenchman is condemned to impalement, when his consul interferes with a ransom, and he is released just in time to embark for France with Elvire.
Although Regnard often alludes with pride to his travels, the sketch he has left of them is meagre and uninteresting, and written in a harsh and awkward style. Lapland was aterra incognita,—Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia not much better known; yet this clever young Parisian has little to relate beyond a few names, which he generally misspells or misplaces. No descriptions of town or country or scenery; no traits of manners, character, or customs, except a dull page on the sorcery and the funeral ceremonies of the Lapps. The only eminent man he notices is Evelius, the astronomer of Dantzic,—one of the foreignsavansof distinction on whom Louis XIV. bestowed pensions in his grand manner, omitting to pay them after the second year. Regnard seems to have written to let his countrymen know where he had been,—not to tell them what he had seen. Had he made ever so good a book out of his really remarkable journey, little notice would have been taken of it. Voyages and travels were looked upon as a dull branch of fiction,—not nearly so amusing or improving as cockney excursions from one town of France to another in the neighborhood, described after the manner of Bachaumont and Chapelle: not sentimental journeys, by any means; eating, drinking, and sleeping are the points of interest:—