An', ez fer this Palfrey,[21] we thought wen we'd gut him in,He'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in;Supposin' wedidknow thet he wuz a peace man?Does he think he can be Uncle Sammle's policeman,An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot,Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he's quiet?Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, efIt leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff;Wedon't go an' fight it, nor aint to be driv on,Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on; 190Ef it aint jest the thing thet's well pleasin' to God,It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad;The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerieAn' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery;In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster,An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster;An' old Philip Lewis—thet come an' kep' school hereFer the mere sake o' scorin his ryalist rulerOn the tenderest part of our kingsin futuro—Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau, 200Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings,How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins,An' turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries,Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tooleries.[22]You say, 'We'd ha' seared 'em by growin' in peace,A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these'?Who is it dares say thet our naytional eagleWon't much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal,Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter,'ll bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she'd ough' to? 210Wut's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller,You've put me out severil times with your beller;Out with it! Wut? Biglow? I say nothin' furder,Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder;He's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is,He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses;Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it,Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it;Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes,Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes, 220Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it's the cornerOur libbaty rests on, the mis'able scorner!In short, he would wholly upset with his ravagesAll thet keeps us above the brute critters an' savages,An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusionsThe holl of our civerlized, free institutions;He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, the Courier,An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to Foorier;I'll be——, thet is, I mean I'll be blest,Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest; 230I sha'nt talk withhim, my religion's too fervent.Good mornin', my friends, I'm your most humble servant.
[Into the question whether the ability to express ourselves in articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings, School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses, Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven by milk-and-water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the furious bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive formations being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new deluge without fear, though it rain figures (simulacra, semblances) of speech forty days and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens. Thus is my coat, as it were, without buttons by which any but a vernacular wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer garments with hooks and eyes?
This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation (being infected with the Second Advent delusion) assured me that he had received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the single wall which protected people of other languages from the incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken down.
In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made the discovery thatnothingtakes longer in the saying than anything else, for asex nihilo nihil fit, so from one polypusnothingany number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the attention ofviva vocedebaters and controversialists the admirable example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichæan antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids are a divinely granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue, books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian bog yield to the advances of firm arable land.
The sagacious Lacedæmonians, hearing that Tesephone had bragged that he could talk all day long on any given subject, made no more ado, but forthwith banished him, whereby they supplied him a topic and at the same time took care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of earshot.
I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that particular does not so well merit the epithetcold blooded, by which naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Faneuil Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public resort.—H.W.]
No. V
[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the following verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to give freedom to seventy men and women, fellow-beings and fellow-Christians. Had Tripoli, instead of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking, the unhappy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I question whether the Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District Attorney so benighted as ours at the seat of government. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow himself to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope against sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean can cleanse the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little Key.Ahenea clavis, a brazen Key indeed!
Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this burlesque, seems to think that the light of the nineteenth century is to be put out as soon as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery is touched, he sets up his scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the North, but I should conjecture that something more than a pumpkin-lantern is required to scare manifest and irretrievable Destiny out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the apron-string of the Past. The Past is a good nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or later, even though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future holds out her arms and asks us to come to her.
But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often enough, that little boys must not play with fire; and yet, if the matches be taken away from us, and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs get into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down our dignity along with it.
Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if it be great statesmanship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title. He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the old Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods, but he could not wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake which bound the universe together; and when he smote the Earth, though with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head.
And in old times, doubtless, the giantswerestupid, and there was no better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords. But things have wonderfully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, that have the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a bygone age. On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past.—H.W.]
MR. EDITER, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took & Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun speak thut dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is dreffle backerd up This way
ewers as ushul
'Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder!It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs;Fer how could we trample on 't so, I wonder,Ef 't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs?'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he:—'Human rights haint no moreRight to come on this floor,No more 'n the man in the moon,' sez he.
'The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin,'An' you've no idee how much bother it saves; 10We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin',We'reusedto layin' the string on our slaves,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Mister Foote,'I should like to shootThe holl gang, by the gret horn spoon!' sez he.
'Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on,It's sutthin' thet's—wha' d' ye call it?—divine,—An' the slaves thet we ollersmakethe most out onAir them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line,' 20Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—'Fer all that,' sez Mangum,''Twould be better to hang 'emAn' so git red on 'em soon,' sez he.
'The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies,Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree;It puts all the cunninest on us in office,An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—'Thet's ez plain,' sez Cass, 30'Ez thet some one's an ass,It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon,' sez he.
'Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression,But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth,Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression)To make cussed free with the rights o' the North,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—'Yes,' sez Davis o' Miss.,'The perfection o' blissIs in skinnin' thet same old coon,' sez he. 40
'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion,It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe;Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!)Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe?'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Mister Hannegan,Afore he began agin,'Thet exception is quite oppertoon,' sez he.
'Gennle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar,Yourmerit's quite clear by the dut on your knees, 50At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color;You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Mister Jarnagin,'They wun't hev to larn agin,They all on 'em know the old toon,' sez he.
'The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin,'North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance;No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin,But theydusell themselves, ef they git a good chance,' 60Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Atherton here,'This is gittin' severe,I wish I could dive like a loon,' sez he.
'It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom,An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head,An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em,'ll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—'Yes, the North,' sez Colquitt, 70'Ef we Southeners all quit,Would go down like a busted balloon,' sez he.
'Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin'In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine,All the wise aristoxy's atumblin' to ruin,An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—'Yes,' sez Johnson, 'in FranceThey're beginnin' to danceBeëlzebub's own rigadoon,' sez he. 80
'The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery,Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blestNot to welcome with proud hallylugers the eryWen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—'Oh,' sez Westcott o' Florida,'Wut treason is horriderThen our priv'leges tryin' to proon?' sez he.
'It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpintsStick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled; 90We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints,Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth sha'n't be spiled,'Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—'Ah,' sez Dixon H. Lewis,'It perfectly true isThet slavery's airth's grettest boon,' sez he.
[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and, though this be not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs, and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction. I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,—Our fathers knew no better!Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal forethought and wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence, the certain result. Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by the Caucasian race.
In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with the undethronable majesty of countless æons, says,—SPEAK! The Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes,—SPEAK! Nature, through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,—SPEAK! From the soul's trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,—SPEAK! But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., say—BE DUMB!
It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connection, whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall be parted, the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., will be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?Quem patronum rogaturus?
There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an ideal!
Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it barely manage torub and go?Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others say shallnotcease. I would by no means deny the eminent respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a wrestling match, I cannot help having my fears for them.
Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos.
No. VI
[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I preface the following satire with an extract from a sermon preached during the past summer, from Ezekiel xxxiv. 2: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.' Since the Sabbath on which this discourse was delivered, the editor of the 'Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss' has unaccountably absented himself from our house of worship.
'I know of no so responsible position as that of the public journalist. The editor of our day bears the same relation to his time that the clerk bore to the age before the invention of printing. Indeed, the position which he holds is that which the clergyman should hold even now. But the clergyman chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the world, and to throw such seed as he has clear over into that darkness which he calls the Next Life. As ifnextdid not meannearest, and as if any life were nearer than that immediately present one which boils and eddies all around him at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls! Who taught him to exhort men to prepare for eternity, as for some future era of which the present forms no integral part? The furrow which Time is even now turning runs through the Everlasting, and in that must he plant, or nowhere. Yet he would fain believe and teach that we aregoingto have more of eternity than we have now. Thisgoingof his is like that of the auctioneer, on whichgonefollows before we have made up our minds to bid,—in which manner, not three months back, I lost an excellent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has come to pass that the preacher, instead of being a living force, has faded into an emblematic figure at christenings, weddings, and funerals. Or, if he exercise any other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain theologic dogmas, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels with astaboy!"to bark and bite as 'tis their nature to," whence that reproach ofodium theologicumhas arisen.
'Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily, sometimes with a congregation of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and never so much as a nodder, even, among them! And from what a Bible can he choose his text,—a Bible which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft can shut and clasp from the laity,—the open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of God! Methinks the editor who should understand his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that title of [Greek: poimaen laon], which Homer bestows upon princes. He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the elegant tourist and crawled over by the hammering geologist, he must find his tables of the new law here among factories and cities in this Wilderness of Sin (Numbers xxxiii. 12) called Progress of Civilization, and be the captain of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order.
'Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even the shadow ofSinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to construe Moses by Joe Smith.He takes up the crook, not that the sheep may be fed, but that he maynever want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton.
Immemor, O, fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum!
For which reason I would derive the nameeditornot so much fromedo, to publish, as fromedo, to eat, that being the peculiar profession to which he esteems himself called. He blows up the flames of political discord for no other occasion than that he may thereby handily boil his own pot. I believe there are two thousand of these mutton-loving shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many have even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the duties consequent thereon? Here and there, haply, one. Nine hundred and ninety-nine labor to impress upon the people the great principles ofTweedledum, and other nine hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal earnestness the gospel according toTweedledee.'—H.W.]
I du believe in Freedom's cause,Ez fur away ez Payris is;I love to see her stick her clawsIn them infarnal Phayrisees;It's wal enough agin a kingTo dror resolves an' triggers,—But libbaty's a kind o' thingThet don't agree with niggers.
I du believe the people wantA tax on teas an' coffees, 10Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,—Purvidin' I'm in office;For I hev loved my country senceMy eye-teeth filled their sockets,An' Uncle Sam I reverence,Partic'larly his pockets.
I du believe inanyplanO' levyin' the texes,Ez long ez, like a lumberman,I git jest wut I axes; 20I go free-trade thru thick an' thin,Because it kind o' rousesThe folks to vote,—an' keeps us inOur quiet custom-houses.
I du believe it's wise an' goodTo sen' out furrin missions,Thet is, on sartin understoodAn' orthydox conditions;—I mean nine thousan' dolls. per ann.,Nine thousan' more fer outfit, 30An' me to recommend a manThe place 'ould jest about fit.
I du believe in special waysO' prayin' an' convartin';The bread comes back in many days,An' buttered, tu, fer sartin;I mean in preyin' till one bustsOn wut the party chooses,An' in convartin' public trustsTo very privit uses. 40
I du believe hard coin the stuffFer 'lectioneers to spout on;The people's ollers soft enoughTo make hard money out on;Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,An' gives a good-sized junk to all,—I don't carehowhard money is,Ez long ez mine's paid punctooal.
I du believe with all my soulIn the gret Press's freedom, 50To pint the people to the goalAn' in the traces lead 'em;Palsied the arm thet forges yokesAt my fat contracts squintin',An' withered be the nose thet pokesInter the gov'ment printin'!
I du believe thet I should giveWut's his'n unto Cæsar,Fer it's by him I move an' live,Frum him my bread an' cheese air; 60I du believe thet all o' meDoth bear his superscription,—Will, conscience, honor, honesty,An' things o' thet description.
I du believe in prayer an' praiseTo him that hez the grantin'O' jobs,—in every thin' thet pays,But most of all in CANTIN';This doth my cup with marcies fill,This lays all thought o' sin to rest,— 70Idon'tbelieve in princerple,But oh, Iduin interest.
I du believe in bein' thisOr thet, ez it may happenOne way or t'other hendiest isTo ketch the people nappln';It aint by princerples nor menMy preudunt course is steadied,—I scent wich pays the best, an' thenGo into it baldheaded. 80
I du believe thet holdin' slavesComes nat'ral to a Presidunt,Let 'lone the rowdedow it savesTo hev a wal-broke precedunt:Fer any office, small or gret,I couldn't ax with no face,'uthout I'd ben, thru dry an' wet,Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface.
I du believe wutever trash'll keep the people in blindness,— 90Thet we the Mexicuns can thrashRight inter brotherly kindness,Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ballAir good-will's strongest magnets,Thet peace, to make it stick at all,Must be druv in with bagnets.
In short, I firmly du believeIn Humbug generally,Fer it's a thing thet I perceiveTo hev a solid vally; 100This heth my faithful shepherd ben,In pasturs sweet heth led me,An' this'll keep the people greenTo feed ez they hev fed me.
[I subjoin here another passage from my before-mentioned discourse.
'Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown-paper wrapper!
'Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on horseback or dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over the magnetic wires, troop all the famous performers from the four quarters of the globe. Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they seem all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and officiates as showman. Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper, and you will see a mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the Infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth, and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into the dark Beyond.
'Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and hour-glass in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suffice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess, not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also.
'Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.
'Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents, of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;—I hold in my hand the ends of myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes, in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them? Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And, strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet, (Acts x. 11, 12) in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken victuals.'—H.W.]
No. VII
[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which preeminently distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly he called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and wellnigh extinct in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors.Nihil humanum a me alienum puto;I am curious about even John Smith. The desire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the same magnet) is that of communicating the unintelligence we have carefully picked up.
Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world, or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who have an itch to tell us about themselves,—as keepers of diaries, insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to impart information concerning other people,—as historians, barbers, and such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about nothing at all,—as novelists, political orators, the large majority of authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those who are communicative from motives of public benevolence,—as finders of mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a chalk one, but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our cackle or our cluck.Omnibus hoc vitium est. There are different grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a back-yard, another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.
To one or another of these species every human being may safely be referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human. I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which, sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every question, the great law ofgive and takeruns through all nature, and if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read in every face I meet a standing advertisement of information wanted in regard to A.B., or that the friends of C.D. can hear something to his disadvantage by application to such a one.
It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that epistolary correspondence was first invented. Letters (for by this usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds. First, there are those which are not letters at all—as letters-patent, letters dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration, Pliny's letters, letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad, from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters generally, which are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are real letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D.Y., the first letters from children (printed in staggering capitals), Letters from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake of the writer or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious. There are, besides, letters addressed to posterity,—as epitaphs, for example, written for their own monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to the student of the entirely dark ages. The letter of our Saviour to King Abgarus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace 755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of the Sanhedrim of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A.D. 35, that of Galeazzo Sforza's spirit to his brother Lodovico, that of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus to the D——l, and that of this last-mentioned active police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At presentsat prata biberunt. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters and round-robins also conform themselves.—H.W.]
Deer Sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about 'em. this here 1 wich I send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef madgustracy.—H.B.
Dear Sir,—You wish to know my notionsOn sartin pints thet rile the land;There's nothin' thet my natur so shunsEz bein' mum or underhand;I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creeturThet blurts right out wut's in his head.An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,It is a nose thet wunt be led.
So, to begin at the beginnin'An' come direcly to the pint, 10I think the country's underpinnin'Is some consid'ble out o' jint;I aint agoin' to try your patienceBy tellin' who done this or thet,I don't make no insinooations,I jest let on I smell a rat.
Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,But, ef the public think I'm wrong,I wunt deny but wut I be so,—An' fact, it don't smell very strong; 20My mind's tu fair to lose its balanceAn' say wich party hez most sense;There may be folks o' greater talenceThet can't set stiddier on the fence.
I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin''Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth;I leave a side thet looks like losin',But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both;I stan' upon the Constitution,Ez preudunt statesman say, who've planned 30A way to git the most profusionO' chances ez towarethey'll stand.
Ez fer the war, I go agin it,—I mean to say I kind o' du,—Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,The best way wuz to fight it thru';Not but wut abstract war is horrid,I sign to thet with all my heart,—But civlyzationdoosgit forrid 39Sometimes upon a powder-cart.
About thet darned Proviso matterI never hed a grain o' doubt.Nor I aint one my sense to scatterSo 'st no one couldn't pick it out;My love fer North an' South is equil,So I'll jest answer plump an' frank,No matter wut may be the sequil,—Yes, Sir, Iamagin a Bank.
Ez to the answerin' o' questions,I'm an off ox at bein' druv, 50Though I ain't one thet ary test shuns'll give our folks a helpin' shove;Kind o' permiscoous I go itFer the holl country, an' the groundI take, ez nigh ez I can show it,Is pooty gen'ally all round.
I don't appruve o' givin' pledges;You'd ough' to leave a feller free,An' not go knockin' out the wedgesTo ketch his fingers in the tree;Pledges air awfle breachy cattle 61Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,—Ez long 'z the people git their rattle,Wut is there fer 'em to grout about?
Ez to the slaves, there's no confusionInmyidees consarnin' them,—Ithink they air an Institution,A sort of—yes, jest so,—ahem:DoIown any? Of my meritOn thet pint you yourself may jedge; 70All is, I never drink no sperit,Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
Ez to my princerples, I gloryIn hevin' nothin' o' the sort;I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory,I'm jest a canderdate, in short;Thet's fair an' square an' parpendiclerBut, ef the Public cares a figTo hev me an'thin' in particler,Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-Wig. 80
Ez we're a sort o' privateerin',O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer,An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin'I'll mention inyourprivit ear;Ef you gitmeinside the White House,Your head with ile I'll kin' o' 'nintBy gittin'youinside the LighthouseDown to the eend o' Jaalam Pint.An' ez the North hez took to brustlin'At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, 90I'll tell ye wut'll save all tusslin'An' give our side a harnsome boost,—Tell 'em thet on the Slavery questionI'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth;This gives you a safe pint to rest on,An' leaves me frontin' South by North.
[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds,—namely, letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic, on the eve of an election, may safely enough be called a republic of letters. Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the attacks of its opponents than a letter from its candidate.Litera scripta manet, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his candidacy, with thecordon sanitaireof a vigilance committee. No prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places; outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions the General was saved.Parva componere magnis, I remember, that, when party-spirit once ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party detected so many and so grave improprieties (he had modelled it upon the letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage), that he not only lost his election, but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism and I know not what (the widow Endive assured me that he was a Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge), was forced to leave the town. Thus it is that the letter killeth.
The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing is to convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful amount and variety of significance.Omne ignotum pro mirifico. How do we admire at the antique world striving to crack those oracular nuts from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in only one of which can I so much as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I have noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each lethiferal to all the rest.Non nostrum est tantas componere lites, yet I have myself ventured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the then preceptor of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord's day immediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like taking an unfair advantage, did I not add that he had made provision in his last will (being celibate) for the publication of a posthumous tractate in support of his own dangerous opinions.
I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so nearly to the ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, among the Greeks, the eating of beans was strictly forbidden to all such as had it in mind to consult those expert amphibologists, and this same prohibition on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used as ballots. That other explication,quod videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi existimaret, though supportedpugnis et calcibusby many of the learned, and not wanting the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions, and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning, and then select whatever can be imagined the most opposite thereto. In this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the questioning of candidates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the chief point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or what he will do, but whether he can be elected.Vos exemplaria Græca nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.
But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular (the asking of questions being one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be hoped for, and our candidates will answer, whether they are questioned or not, I would recommend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of the Scythians an Macrobii, or confined to the language of signs, like the famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then convey a suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one eye, or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated upon by their respective constituencies. These answers would be susceptible of whatever retrospective construction the exigencies of the political campaign might seem to demand, and the candidate could take his position on either side of the fence with entire consistency. Or, if letters must be written, profitable use might be made of the Dighton rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every fresh decipherer of which is enabled to educe a different meaning, whereby a sculptured stone or two supplies us, and will probably continue to supply posterity, with a very vast and various body of authentic history. For even the briefest epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous. There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of Cæsar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatoryveniandvidi. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship, experience, and the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability to write will follow? At present, there may be death in pothooks as well as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bowstring, and all the dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a flourish.—H.W.]
No. VIII
[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, amiles emeritus, to the bosom of his family.Quantum mutatus!The good Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is necessary to the perfect development of Humanity. He had given him a brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that stewardship? The State, or Society (call her by what name you will), had taken no manner of thought of him till she saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar-ends, lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole loathsome next-morning of the bar-room,—an own child of the Almighty God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged babe; and now there he wallows, reeking, seething,—the dead corpse, not of a man, but of a soul,—a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the sky yearns down to him,—and there he lies fermenting. O sleep! let me not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a slumber! By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, 'My poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig and plant and build for me'? Not so, but, 'Here is a recruit ready-made to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying unprofitably idle.' So she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and sends him off, with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a destroyer.
I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and, with the rest, stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall, at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,—a force which not merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an impulse all through the infinite future,—a contrivance, not for turning out pins, or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a pin; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant with my own soul,—In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra Christum, non ita..—H.W.]
I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me,Exacly ware I be myself,—meanin' by thet the holl o' me.Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither,(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither,)Now one on 'em's I dunno ware;—they thought I wuz adyin',An' sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin';I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther,Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t'other,Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be;It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me: 10There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,—The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to in the true one;So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't begA gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.
I've lost one eye, but thet's a loss it's easy to supplyOut o' the glory thet I've gut, fer thet is all my eye;An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it; 20Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins,Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,An' not allowmyselfto be no gret put out about it.Now, le' me see, thet isn't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam,To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em:Ware's my left hand? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't;I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't;It aint so bendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't.I've hed some ribs broke,—six (I b'lieve),—I haint kep' no account on'em; 30Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em.An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mindOne thet I couldn't never break,—the one I lef' behind;Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your inventionAn' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension,An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to beConsoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be;There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet's woodenCan be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'.
I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder, 40With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder;Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o'Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water,Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation,An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation,Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin',Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin'.Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em,An' desput rivers run about a beggin' folks to dam 'em;Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver 50Thet you could take, an' no one couldn't hand ye in no bill fer;—Thet's wut I thought afore I went, thet's wut them fellers told usThet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us;I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters,An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors;But sech idees soon melted down an' didn't leave a grease-spot;I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles wouldn't come nigh a V spot;Although, most anywares we've ben, you needn't break no locks,Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks.I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs 60O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs,But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded)How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded.The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewterOur Preudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her;Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so's not a drop 'ould dreenout,Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the holl kit bust clean out,The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves an' tea an' kiver'ould all come downkerswosh!ez though the dam bust in a river.Jest so 'tis here; holl months there aint a day o' rainy weather, 70An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' heads togetherEz t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot,—'Twould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot.The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to leave here,One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's the shakin' fever;It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one,Nor 'taint so tiresome ez it wuz with t'other leg an' arm on;An' it's a consolation, tu, although it doosn't pay,To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way.'Tworn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin-makin',— 80One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin',—One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes,—Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes.But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed,—Thet's an investment, arter all, thet mayn't turn out so bad;But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I ollers found the thanksGut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks;The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on,—Wenever gat a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on;An' spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its 90Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits;Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one,You wouldn't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun;We git the licks,—we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers;Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers.It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't,An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't;But glory is a kin' o' thingIsha'n't pursue no furder,Coz thet's the off'cers' parquisite,—yourn's on'y jest the murder.
Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one 100Thing in the bills we aint bed yit, an' thet's the GLORIOUS FUN;Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume weAll day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy.I'll tell ye wutmyrevels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em;Wenever gut inside the hall: the nighest everIcomeWuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, itseemeda cent'ry)A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry,An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses,A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o' glasses:I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin'rals hed inside; 110All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried,An' not a hunderd miles away from ware this child wuz posted,A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted;The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to meWuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee.
They say the quarrel's settled now; for my part I've some doubt on 't,'t'll take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean on 't;At any rate I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin',The on'y chance thet's left to me is politics or writin';Now, ez the people's gut to hev a milingtary man, 120An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I've hit upon a plan;The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T,An' ef I lose, 'twunt hurt my ears to lodge another flea;So I'll set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office,(I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies;Fer ez tu runnin' fer a place ware work's the time o' day,You know thet's wut I never did,—except the other way;)Ef it's the Presidential cheer fer wich I'd better run,Wut two legs anywares about could keep up with my one?There aint no kin' o' quality in can'idates, it's said, 130So useful eza wooden leg,—except a wooden head;There's nothin' aint so poppylar—(wy, it 's a parfect sinTo think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy Anny's pin;)—Then I haint gut no princerples, an', sence I wuz knee-high,I neverdidhev any gret, ez you can testify;I'm a decided peace-man, tu, an' go agin the war,—Fer now the holl on 't's gone an' past, wut is there to gofor?Ef, wile you're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should begTo know my views o' state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG!Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt 140An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT!Thet kin' o' talk I guess you'll find'll answer to a charm,An' wen you're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm;Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous lookAn' tell 'em thet's precisely wut I never gin nor—took!
Then you can call me 'Timbertoes,'—thet's wut the people likes;Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes;Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please,—I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees;'Old Timbertoes,' you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite boldon, 150There's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git hold on;It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embodyThet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy;It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mindOf all right-thinkin', honest folks thet mean to go it blind;Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em,Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIRDOFREDUM:Them's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses,An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes.
There's one thing I'm in doubt about: in order to be Presidunt, 160It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt;The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a fellerMust own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller.Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes,Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes),But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe,You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby,An' then to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to sayThey hate an' cus the very thing they vote fer every day,Say you're assured I go full butt fer Libbaty's diffusion 170An' make the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion;—But, golly! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin'!I'll be more 'xplicit in my next.Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.
[We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balance-sheet stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following result:—
B. SAWIN, Esq.,in account with(BLANK) GLORY.
Cr.By loss of one leg……………………………………….. 20" do. one arm………………………………………… 15" do. four fingers…………………………………….. 5" do. one eye………………………………………… 10" the breaking of six ribs…………………………………. 6" having served under Colonel Cushing one month……………… 44———-100Dr.To one 675th three cheers in Faneuil Hall……………………. 30" do. do. on occasion of presentation of sword to Colonel Wright.. 25To one suit of gray clothes (ingeniously unbecoming)………….. 15" musical entertainments (drum and fife six months)…………… 5" one dinner after return………………………………….. 1" chance of pension……………………………………….. 1" privilege of drawing longbow during rest of natural life……. 23———100
It should appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast curiously the reverse of the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other places. His primary object seems to have been the making of his fortune.Quærenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos. He hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation.Quid, non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames?The speculation has sometimes crossed my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between quarterly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a money-tree, might have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing problem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready-churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are assured of in South America, and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere; and I have seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and innutritious. Of trees bearing men we are not without examples; as those in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive-tree, growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop, for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so zealous? In thesylvaof our own Southern States, the females of my family have called my attention to the china-tree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, therefore, be classed among the trees producing necessaries of life,—venerabile donum fatalis virgæ. That money-trees existed in the golden age there want not prevalent reasons for our believing. For does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow oneverybush, implya fortiorithat there were certain bushes which did produce it? Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that money is therootof all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to infer that the aforesaid species of tree first degenerated into a shrub, then absconded underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In favorable exposures it may be conjectured that a specimen or two survived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides; and, indeed, what else could that tree in the Sixth Æneid have been with a branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory, for the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other more profitable and too foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there were, in more primitive and happier times, shops where money was sold,—and that, too, on credit and at a bargain,—I take to be matter of demonstration. For what but a dealer in this article was that Æolus who supplied Ulysses with motive-power for his fleet in bags? what that Ericus, King of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap? what, in more recent times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable breezes? All which will appear the more clearly when we consider, that, even to this day,raising the windis proverbial for raising money, and that brokers and banks were invented by the Venetians at a later period.
And now for the improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after I had first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and archæological theories, as I was passing,haec negotia penitus mecum revolvens, through one of the obscure suburbs of our New England metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a signboard,—CHEAP CASH-STORE. Here was at once the confirmation of my speculations, and the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past, or stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Sawin, as he looked through the dirty pane of the recruiting-office window, or speculated from the summit of that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so cunning to raise up. Already had my Alnaschar-fancy (even during that first half-believing glance) expended in various useful directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a proposed volume of discourses. Already did a clock ornament the tower of the Jaalam meeting-house, a gift appropriately, but modestly, commemorated in the parish and town records, both, for now many years, kept by myself. Already had my son Seneca completed his course at the University. Whether, for the moment, we may not be considered as actually lording it over those Baratarias with the viceroyalty of which Hope invests us, and whether we are ever so warmly housed as in our Spanish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that I found that signboard to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by reason of immense flights of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon their prey even in the very scales), which purchase I made not only with an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative reproof of that too frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of chronology, will often persuade me that the happy sceptre of Saturn is stretched over this Astræa-forsaken nineteenth century.