Title: McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 2, January, 1896
Author: Various
Language: English
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  McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

  JANUARY, 1896

  Vol. VI, JANUARY, 1896, NO. 2



  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ILLUSTRATIONS
  ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Edited by Ida M. Tarbell.
    Lincoln's First Experiences in Illinois.
    In Charge of Denton Offutt's Store.
    The Clary's Grove Boys.
    Lincoln Studies Grammar.
    A Candidate for the General Assembly.
    The Black Hawk War.
    Lincoln a Captain.
    The Black Hawk Campaign.
    Electioneering for the General Assembly.
  EUGENE FIELD AND HIS CHILD FRIENDS. By Cleveland Moffett.
  POEMS OF CHILDHOOD, By Eugene Field.
    With Trumpet and Drum.
    The Delectable Ballad of the Waller Lot.
    The Rock-a-by Lady.
    "Booh!"
    The Duel.
    The Ride to Bumpville.
    So, So, Rock-a-by so!
    Seein' Things.
  A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low.
  THE DEFEAT OF BLAINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. By Murat Halstead.
  THE SILENT WITNESS. By Herbert D. Ward
  THE SUN'S LIGHT. By Sir Robert Ball,
  CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps,
    Life in Andover before the War.
  THE WAGER OF THE MARQUIS DE MÉROSAILLES. By Anthony Hope,
  MISS TARBELL'S LIFE OF LINCOLN.


  ILLUSTRATIONS

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861.
  THE KIRKHAM'S GRAMMAR USED BY LINCOLN AT NEW SALEM.
  A CLARY'S GROVE LOG CABIN.
  NANCY GREEN.
  DUTCH OVEN.
  LINCOLN IN 1858.
  JOHN POTTER.
  JOHN A. CLARY.
  SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE.
  ZACHARY TAYLOR.
  BOWLING GREEN'S HOUSE.
  THE BLACK HAWK.
  WHIRLING THUNDER.
  WHITE CLOUD, THE PROPHET.
  BLACK HAWK.
  LINCOLN IN 1860.
  BLACK HAWK WAR RELICS.
  MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON.
  MONUMENT AT KELLOGG'S GROVE.
  JOHN REYNOLDS, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS 1831-1834.
  ELIJAH ILES.
  A DISCHARGE FROM SERVICE IN BLACK HAWK WAR SIGNED BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
  MAP OF ILLINOIS IN 1832.
  A FACSIMILE OF AN ELECTION RETURN WRITTEN BY LINCOLN.
  VIEW OF THE SANGAMON RIVER NEAR NEW SALEM.
  EUGENE FIELD TELLING A STORY.
  THE LAST PORTRAIT OF EUGENE FIELD.
  LUCY ALEXANDER KNOTT.
  JAMES BRECKINRIDGE WALLER, JR.
  KENDALL EVANS.
  WILLIAM AND KENT CLOW.
  ROSWELL FRANCIS FIELD, EUGENE FIELD'S YOUNGEST SON.
  ELIZABETH WINSLOW,
  IRVING WAY, JR..
  KATHERINE KOHLSAAT.
  PARK YENOWINE,
  THE SABINE WOMEN.
  JACQUES LOUIS DAVID AS A YOUNG MAN.
  MICHEL GÉRARD AND HIS FAMILY.
  POPE PIUS VII.
  JUSTICE AND DIVINE VENGEANCE PURSUING CRIME.
  THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.
  HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
  PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.
  PRUD'HON.
  THE PRINCESS VISCONTI.
  THE COUNTESS REGNAULT DE SAINT-JEAN-D'ANGELY.
  THE ARRIVAL OF A DILIGENCE.
  BRUTUS CONDEMNING HIS SONS TO DEATH.
  THE BURIAL OF ATALA.
  MADAME LEBRUN AND HER DAUGHTER.
  FRANCIS I., KING OF FRANCE, AND CHARLES V., EMPEROR OF THE HOLY
    ROMAN EMPIRE.
  JAMES G. BLAINE.
  MR. BLAINE IN 1891.
  MR. BLAINE AT HIS DESK IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT.
  FACSIMILE OF THE LETTER WRITTEN BY MR. BLAINE TO MR. HALSTEAD.
  BLAINE'S GRAVE AT WASHINGTON, D.C..
  STATUE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.
  ANNA SYMMES HARRISON,
  THE SILENT WITNESS.
  "MOVE ON, WILL YER!"
  "AM--I--IMPRISONED BECAUSE I AM FRIENDLESS AND POOR?"
  "OH, MY GOD!" HE SOBBED. "MY GOD! MY GOD!"
  THE SUN'S CORONA.
  ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE AT 10.34 A.M.
  ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE AT 10.40 A.M.
  ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE AT 10.58 A.M.
  THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BUILDINGS, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS.
  PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS'S STUDY.
  VIEW LOOKING FROM THE FRONT OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS'S HOME.
  DR. EDWARDS A. PARK.
  THE PHYSICIAN RECEIVING THE PRINCESS IN THE MARQUIS'S SICKROOM.
  SHE STOLE UP AND SAW MONSIEUR DE MÉROSAILLES SITTING ON THE GROUND.
  LINCOLN IN 1863.
  LINCOLN IN 1854.
  LINCOLN IN FEBRUARY, 1860.



[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861.--NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.

From a photograph owned by Allen Jasper Conant, to whose courtesy
we owe the right to reproduce it here. This photograph was taken in
Springfield in the spring of 1861, by C.S. German.]



MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE


VOL. VI. JANUARY, 1896. NO. 2.



ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EDITED BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN AS STOREKEEPER AND SOLDIER IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

_This article embodies special studies of Lincoln's life in New Salem
made for this Magazine by J. McCan Davis_.


LINCOLN'S FIRST EXPERIENCES IN ILLINOIS.

It was in March, 1830, when Abraham Lincoln was twenty-one years of
age, that he moved from Indiana to Macon County, Illinois. He spent
his first spring in the new country helping his father settle. In the
summer of that year he started out for himself, doing various kinds of
rough farm work in the neighborhood until March of 1831, when he went
to Sangamon town, near Springfield, to build a flatboat. In April he
started on this flatboat for New Orleans, which he reached in May.
After a month in that city, he returned, in June, to Illinois, where
he made a short visit at his parents' home, now in Coles County, and
in July went to New Salem, to take charge of a store and mill owned by
Denton Offutt, who had employed him on the flatboat.[A] The goods for
the new store had not arrived when Lincoln reached New Salem. Obliged
to turn his hand to something, he piloted down the Sangamon and
Illinois rivers, as far as Beardstown, a flatboat bearing the family
and goods of a pioneer bound for Texas. At Beardstown he found
Offutt's goods waiting to be taken to New Salem. As he footed his
way home he met two men with a wagon and ox-team going for the goods.
Offutt had expected Lincoln to wait at Beardstown until the ox-team
arrived, and the teamsters, not having any credentials, asked Lincoln
to give them an order for the goods. This, sitting down by the
roadside, he wrote out; and one of the men used to relate that it
contained a misspelled word, which he corrected.


IN CHARGE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE.

The precise date of the opening of Denton Offutt's store is not known.
We only know that on July 8, 1831, the County Commissioners' Court of
Sangamon County granted Offutt a license to retail merchandise at New
Salem; for which he paid five dollars, a fee which supposed him to
have one thousand dollars' worth of goods in stock. When the oxen
and their drivers returned with the goods, the store was opened in a
little log house on the brink of the hill, almost over the river.

[Illustration: THE KIRKHAM'S GRAMMAR USED BY LINCOLN AT NEW
SALEM.--NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.]

The copy of Kirkham's Grammar studied by Lincoln belonged to a man
named Vaner. Some of the biographers say Lincoln borrowed [it,] but
it appears that he became the owner of the book, either by purchase
or through the generosity of Vaner, for it was never returned to the
latter. It is said that Lincoln learned this grammar practically by
heart. "Sometimes," says Herndon, "he would stretch out at full length
on the counter, his head propped up on a stack of calico prints,
studying it; or he would steal away to the shade of some inviting
tree, and there spend hours at a time in a determined effort to fix
in his mind the arbitrary rule that 'adverbs qualify verbs, adjectives
and other adverbs.'" He presented the book to Ann Rutledge [the story
of Ann Rutledge will appear in a future number of the Magazine], and
it has since been one of the treasures of the Rutledge family. After
the death of Ann it was studied by her brother, Robert, and is now
owned by his widow, who resides at Casselton, North Dakota. The title
page of the book appears above. The words, "Ann M. Rutledge is
now learning grammar," were written by Lincoln. The order on James
Rutledge to pay David P. Nelson thirty dollars and signed "A. Lincoln,
for D. Offutt," which is shown above, was pasted upon the front cover
of the book by Robert Rutledge. From a photograph made especially for
MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE.--_J. McCan Davis_.]

The frontier store filled a unique place. Usually it was a "general
store," and on its shelves were found most of the articles needed in a
community of pioneers. But to be a place for the sale of dry goods and
groceries was not its only function; it was a kind of intellectual
and social centre. It was the common meeting-place of the farmers, the
happy refuge of the village loungers. No subject was unknown there.
The _habitués_ of the place were equally at home in talking politics,
religion, or sport. Stories were told, jokes were cracked and laughed
at, and the news contained in the latest newspaper finding its way
into the wilderness was discussed. Such a store was that of Denton
Offutt. Lincoln could hardly have chosen surroundings more favorable
to the highest development of the art of story-telling, and he had not
been there long before his reputation for drollery was established.


THE CLARY'S GROVE BOYS.

But he gained popularity and respect in other ways. There was near the
village a settlement called Clary's Grove. The most conspicuous part
of the population was an organization known as the "Clary's Grove
Boys." They exercised a veritable terror over the neighborhood, and
yet they were not a bad set of fellows. Mr. Herndon, who had a cousin
living in New Salem at the time, and who knew personally many of the
"boys," says:

"They were friendly and good-natured; they could trench a pond, dig
a bog, build a house; they could pray and fight, make a village or
create a state. They would do almost anything for sport or fun, love
or necessity. Though rude and rough, though life's forces ran over
the edge of the bowl, foaming and sparkling in pure deviltry for
deviltry's sake, yet place before them a poor man who needed their
aid, a lame or sick man, a defenceless woman, a widow, or an orphaned
child, they melted into sympathy and charity at once. They gave all
they had, and willingly toiled or played cards for more. Though
there never was under the sun a more generous parcel of rowdies, a
stranger's introduction was likely to be the most unpleasant part of
his acquaintance with them."

[Illustration: A CLARY'S GROVE LOG CABIN,--NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.

From a water-color by Miss Etta Ackermann, Springfield, Illinois.
"Clary's Grove" was the name of a settlement five miles southwest of
New Salem, deriving its name from a grove on the land of the Clarys.
It was the headquarters of a daring and reckless set of young men
living in the neighborhood and known as the "Clary's Grove Boys." This
cabin was the residence of George Davis, one of the "Clary's Grove
Boys," and grandfather of Miss Ackermann. It was built seventy-one
years ago--in 1824--and is the only one left of the cluster of cabins
which constituted the little community.]

Denton Offutt, Lincoln's employer, was just the man to love to boast
before such a crowd. He seemed to feel that Lincoln's physical prowess
shed glory on himself, and he declared the country over that his clerk
could lift more, throw farther, run faster, jump higher, and wrestle
better than any man in Sangamon County. The Clary's Grove Boys, of
course, felt in honor bound to prove this false, and they appointed
their best man, one Jack Armstrong, to "throw Abe." Jack Armstrong
was, according to the testimony of all who remember him, a "powerful
twister," "square built and strong as an ox," "the best-made man that
ever lived;" and everybody knew the contest would be close. Lincoln
did not like to "tussle and scuffle," he objected to "woolling and
pulling;" but Offutt had gone so far that it became necessary to
yield. The match was held on the ground near the grocery. Clary's
Grove and New Salem turned out generally to witness the bout, and
betting on the result ran high, the community as a whole staking their
jack-knives, tobacco plugs, and "treats" on Armstrong. The two men
had scarcely taken hold of each other before it was evident that the
Clary's Grove champion had met a match. The two men wrestled long and
hard, but both kept their feet. Neither could throw the other, and
Armstrong, convinced of this, tried a "foul." Lincoln no sooner
realized the game of his antagonist than, furious with indignation,
he caught him by the throat, and holding him out at arm's length, he
"shook him like a child." Armstrong's friends rushed to his aid, and
for a moment it looked as if Lincoln would be routed by sheer force of
numbers; but he held his own so bravely that the "boys," in spite of
their sympathies, were filled with admiration. What bid fair to be
a general fight ended in a general hand-shake, even Jack Armstrong
declaring that Lincoln was the "best fellow who ever broke into the
camp." From that day, at the cock-fights and horse-races, which
were their common sports, he became the chosen umpire; and when the
entertainment broke up in a row--a not uncommon occurrence--he acted
the peacemaker without suffering the peacemaker's usual fate. Such was
his reputation with the "Clary's Grove Boys," after three months in
New Salem, that when the fall muster came off he was elected captain.

[Illustration: NANCY GREEN.

Nancy Green was the wife of "Squire" Bowling Green. Her maiden name
was Nancy Potter. She was born in North Carolina in 1797, and married
Bowling Green in 1818. She removed with him to New Salem in 1820, and
lived in that vicinity until her death in 1864. Lincoln was a constant
visitor in Nancy Green's home.]

Lincoln showed soon that if he was unwilling to indulge in "woolling
and pulling" for amusement, he did not object to it in a case of
honor. A man came into the store one day who used profane language
in the presence of ladies. Lincoln asked him to stop; but the man
persisted, swearing that nobody should prevent his saying what he
wanted to. The women gone, the man began to abuse Lincoln so hotly
that the latter finally said, coolly: "Well, if you must be whipped, I
suppose I might as well whip you as any other man;" and going outdoors
with the fellow, he threw him on the ground, and rubbed smartweed in
his eyes until he bellowed for mercy. New Salem's sense of chivalry
was touched, and enthusiasm over Lincoln increased.

[Illustration: DUTCH OVEN

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

Owned by Mrs. Ott, of Petersburg, Illinois. These Dutch ovens were in
many cases the only cooking utensils used by the early settlers. The
meat, vegetable, or bread was put into the pot, which was then placed
in a bed of coals, and coals heaped on the lid.]

His honesty excited no less admiration. Two incidents seem to have
particularly impressed the community. Having discovered on one
occasion that he had taken six and one-quarter cents too much from
a customer, he walked three miles that evening, after his store was
closed, to return the money. Again, he weighed out a half-pound of
tea, as he supposed. It was night, and this was the last thing he
did before closing up. On entering in the morning he discovered a
four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw his mistake, and closing up
shop, hurried off to deliver the remainder of the tea.

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1858.

After a photograph owned by Mrs. Harriet Chapman of Charleston,
Illinois. Mrs. Chapman is a grand-daughter of Sarah Bush Lincoln,
Lincoln's step-mother. Her son, Mr. R.N. Chapman of Charleston,
Illinois, writes us: "In 1858 Lincoln and Douglas had a series of
joint debates in this State, and this city was one place of meeting.
Mr. Lincoln's step-mother was making her home with my father and
mother at that time. Mr. Lincoln stopped at our house, and as he was
going away my mother said to him: 'Uncle Abe, I want a picture of
you.' He replied, 'Well, Harriet, when I get home I will have one
taken for you and send it to you.' Soon after, mother received the
photograph she still has, already framed, from Springfield, Illinois,
with a letter from Mr. Lincoln, in which he said, 'This is not a very
good-looking picture, but it's the best that could be produced from
the poor subject.' He also said that he had it taken solely for my
mother. The photograph is still in its original frame, and I am sure
is the most perfect and best picture of Lincoln in existence. We
suppose it must have been taken in Springfield, Illinois."]

[Illustration: JOHN POTTER.

From a recent photograph. John Potter, born November 10, 1808, was
a few months older than Lincoln. He is now living at Petersburg,
Illinois. He settled in the country one and one-half miles from New
Salem in 1820. Mr. Potter remembers Lincoln's first appearance in New
Salem in July, 1831. He corroborates the stories told of his store,
and of his popularity in the community, and of the general impression
that he was an unusually promising young man.]


LINCOLN STUDIES GRAMMAR.

As soon as the store was fairly under way Lincoln began to look about
for books. Since leaving Indiana, in March, 1830, he had had, in his
drifting life, little leisure or opportunity for study--though he had
had a great deal for observation. Nevertheless his desire to learn
had increased, and his ambition to be somebody had been encouraged.
In that time he had found that he really was superior to many of those
who were called the "great" men of the country. Soon after entering
Macon County, in March, 1830, when he was only twenty-one years old,
he had found he could make a better speech than at least one man who
was before the public. A candidate had come along where John Hanks and
he were at work, and, as John Hanks tells the story, the man made a
speech. "It was a bad one, and I said Abe could beat it. I turned down
a box, and Abe made his speech. The other man was a candidate--Abe
wasn't. Abe beat him to death, his subject being the navigation of
the Sangamon River. The man, after Abe's speech was through, took him
aside, and asked him where he had learned so much and how he could do
so well. Abe replied, stating his manner and method of reading, what
he had read. The man encouraged him to persevere."

He had found that people listened to him, that they quoted his
opinions, and that his friends were already saying that he was able
to fill any position. Offutt even declared the country over that "Abe
knew more than any man in the United States," and "some day he would
be President."

[Illustration: JOHN A. CLARY.

John A. Clary was one of the "Clary's Grove Boys." He was a son of
John Clary, the head of the numerous Clary family which settled in the
vicinity of New Salem in 1818. He was born in Tennessee in 1815 and
died in 1880. He was an intimate associate of Lincoln during the
latter's New Salem days.]

Under this stimulus Lincoln's ambition increased. "I have talked with
great men," he told his fellow-clerk and friend, Greene, "and I do not
see how they differ from others." He made up his mind to put himself
before the public, and talked of his plans to his friends. In order
to keep in practice in speaking he walked seven or eight miles to
debating clubs. "Practising polemics" was what he called the exercise.
He seems now for the first time to have begun to study subjects.
Grammar was what he chose. He sought Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster,
and asked his advice. "If you are going before the public," Mr. Graham
told him, "you ought to do it." But where could he get a grammar?
There was but one, said Mr. Graham, in the neighborhood, and that was
six miles away. Without waiting further information the young man rose
from the breakfast-table, walked immediately to the place, borrowed
this rare copy of Kirkham's Grammar, and before night was deep into
its mysteries. From that time on for weeks he gave every moment of his
leisure to mastering the contents of the book. Frequently he asked his
friend Greene to "hold the book" while he recited, and, when puzzled
by a point, he would consult Mr. Graham.

Lincoln's eagerness to learn was such that the whole neighborhood
became interested. The Greenes lent him books, the schoolmaster kept
him in mind and helped him as he could, and even the village cooper
let him come into his shop and keep up a fire of shavings sufficiently
bright to read by at night. It was not long before the grammar was
mastered. "Well," Lincoln said to his fellow-clerk, Greene, "if that's
what they call a science, I think I'll go at another." He had made
another discovery--that he could conquer subjects.

[Illustration: SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE.

From a photograph taken for this Magazine.

The building in which Lincoln clerked for Denton Offutt was standing
as late as 1836, and presumably stood until it rotted down. A slight
depression in the earth, evidently once a cellar, is all that remains
of Offutt's store. Out of this hole in the ground have grown three
trees, a locust, an elm, and a sycamore, seeming to spring from the
same roots, and curiously twined together; and high up on the sycamore
some genius has chiselled the face of Lincoln.]

Before the winter was ended he had become the most popular man in New
Salem. Although in February, 1832, he was but twenty-two years of age,
had never been at school an entire year in his life, had never made a
speech except in debating clubs and by the roadside, had read only the
books he could pick up, and known only the men who made up the poor,
out-of-the-way towns in which he had lived, "encouraged by his great
popularity among his immediate neighbors," as he says himself, he
decided to announce himself, in March, 1832, as a candidate for the
General Assembly of the State.

[Illustration: ZACHARY TAYLOR.

At the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, Zachary Taylor, afterwards
general in the Mexican War, and finally President of the United
States, was colonel of the First Infantry. He joined Atkinson at the
beginning of the war, and was in active service until the end of the
campaign.]


A CANDIDATE FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

The only preliminary expected of a candidate for the legislature of
Illinois at that date was an announcement stating his "sentiments with
regard to local affairs." The circular in which Lincoln complied with
this custom was a document of about two thousand words, in which he
plunged at once into the subject he believed most interesting to his
constituents--"the public utility of internal improvements."

[Illustration: BOWLING GREEN'S HOUSE.

From a photograph taken for this Magazine.

Bowling Green's log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, just under
the bluff, still stands, but long since ceased to be a dwelling-house,
and is now a tumble-down old stable. Here Lincoln was a frequent
boarder, especially during the period of his closest application to
the study of the law. Stretched out on the cellar door of his cabin,
reading a book, he met for the first time "Dick" Yates, then a
college student at Jacksonville, and destined to become the great "War
Governor" of the State. Yates had come home with William G. Greene
to spend his vacation, and Greene took him around to Bowling Green's
house to introduce him to "his friend, Abe Lincoln." Unhappily there
is nowhere in existence a picture of the original occupant of this
humble cabin. Bowling Green was one of the leading citizens of the
county. He was County Commissioner from 1826 to 1828; he was for many
years a justice of the peace; he was a prominent member of the Masonic
fraternity, and a very active and uncompromising Whig. The friendship
between him and Lincoln, beginning at a very early day, continued
until his death in 1842.--_J. McCan Davis_.]

At that time the State of Illinois--as, indeed, the whole United
States--was convinced that the future of the country depended on the
opening of canals and railroads, and the clearing out of the rivers.
In the Sangamon country the population felt that a quick way of
getting to Beardstown on the Illinois River, to which point the
steamer came from the Mississippi, was, as Lincoln puts it in his
circular, "indispensably necessary." Of course a railroad was the
dream of the settlers; but when it was considered seriously there was
always, as Lincoln says, "a heart-appalling shock accompanying the
amount of its cost, which forces us to shrink from our pleasing
anticipations." Improvement of the Sangamon River he declared the most
feasible plan. That it was possible, he argued from his experience
on the river in April of the year before (1831), when he made his
flatboat trip, and from his observations as manager of Offutt's
saw-mill. He could not have advocated a measure more popular. At
that moment the whole population of Sangamon was in a state of wild
expectation. Some six weeks before Lincoln's circular appeared, a
citizen of Springfield had advertised that as soon as the ice went
off the river he would bring up a steamer, the "Talisman," from
Cincinnati, and prove the Sangamon navigable. The announcement had
aroused the entire country, speeches were made, and subscriptions
taken. The merchants announced goods direct per steamship "Talisman"
the country over, and every village from Beardstown to Springfield was
laid off in town lots. When the circular appeared the excitement was
at its height.

[Illustration: THE BLACK HAWK.

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

After a portrait by George Catlin, in the National Museum at
Washington, D.C., and here reproduced by the courtesy of the director,
Mr. G. Brown Goode. Makataimeshekiakiak, the Black Hawk Sparrow,
was born in 1767 on the Rock River. He was not a chief by birth, but
through the valor of his deeds became the leader of his village. He
was imaginative and discontented, and bred endless trouble in
the Northwest by his complaints and his visionary schemes. He was
completely under the influence of the British agents, and in 1812
joined Tecumseh in the war against the United States. After the close
of that war, the Hawk was peaceable until driven to resistance by
the encroachments of the squatters. After the battle of Bad Axe he
escaped, and was not captured until betrayed by two Winnebagoes. He
was taken to Fort Armstrong, where he signed a treaty of peace, and
then was transferred as a prisoner of war to Jefferson Barracks, now
St. Louis, where Catlin painted him. Catlin, in his "Eight Years,"
says: "When I painted this chief, he was dressed in a plain suit of
buckskin, with a string of wampum in his ears and on his neck, and
held in his hand his medicine-bag, which was the skin of a black hawk,
from which he had taken his name, and the tail of which made him a
fan, which he was almost constantly using." In April, 1833, Black Hawk
and the other prisoners of war were transferred to Fortress Monroe.
They were released in June, and made a trip through the Atlantic
cities before returning West. Black Hawk settled in Iowa, where he and
his followers were given a small reservation in Davis County. He died
in 1838.]

[Illustration: WHIRLING THUNDER.

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

After a painting by R.M. Sully in the collection of the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin, and here reproduced through the
courtesy of the secretary, Mr. Reuben G. Thwaites. Black Hawk had
two sons; the elder was the Whirling Thunder, the younger the Roaring
Thunder; both were in the war, and both were taken prisoners with
their father, and were with him at Jefferson Barracks and at Fortress
Monroe and on the trip through the Atlantic cities. At Jefferson
Barracks Catlin painted them, and the pictures are in the National
Museum. While at Fortress Monroe the above picture of Whirling Thunder
was painted. A pretty anecdote is told of the Whirling Thunder. While
on their tour through the East the Indians were invited to various
gatherings and much done for their entertainment. On one of these
occasions a young lady sang a ballad. Whirling Thunder listened
intently, and when she ended he plucked an eagle's feather from his
head-dress, and giving it to a white friend, said: "Take that to your
mocking-bird squaw." Black Hawk's sons remained with him until his
death in 1838, and then removed with the Sacs and Foxes to Kansas.]


Lincoln's comments in his circular on two other subjects on which
all candidates of the day expressed themselves are amusing in their
simplicity. The practice of loaning money at exorbitant rates was then
a great evil in the West. Lincoln proposed a law fixing the limits of
usury, and he closed his paragraph on the subject with these words,
which sound strange enough from a man who in later life showed so
profound a reverence for law:

    "In cases of extreme necessity, there could always be means
    found to cheat the law; while in all other cases it would have
    its intended effect. I would favor the passage of a law on
    this subject which might not be very easily evaded. Let it be
    such that the labor and difficulty of evading it could only be
    justified in cases of greatest necessity."

A change in the laws of the State was also a topic which he felt
required a word. "Considering the great probability," he said, "that
the framers of those laws were wiser than myself, I should prefer not
meddling with them, unless they were attacked by others; in which case
I should feel it both a privilege and a duty to take that stand which,
in my view, might tend most to the advancement of justice."

[Illustration: WHITE CLOUD, THE PROPHET.

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

After a painting in the collection of the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin, and here reproduced through the courtesy of the secretary,
Mr. Reuben G. Thwaites. The chief of an Indian village on the Rock
River, White Cloud was half Winnebago, half Sac. He was false and
crafty, and it was largely his counsels which induced Black Hawk to
recross the Mississippi in 1832. He was captured with Black Hawk, was
a prisoner at both Jefferson Barracks and Fortress Monroe, and made
the tour of the Atlantic cities with his friends. The above portrait
was made at Fortress Monroe by R.M. Sully. Catlin also painted White
Cloud at Jefferson Barracks in 1832. He describes him as about forty
years old at that time, "nearly six feet high, stout and athletic." He
said he let his hair grow out to please the whites. Catlin's picture
shows him with a very heavy head of hair. The prophet, after his
return from the East, remained among his people until his death in
1840 or 1841.]

[Illustration: BLACK HAWK.

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

After an improved replica of the original portrait painted by R.M.
Sully at Fortress Monroe in 1833, and now in the museum of the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin, at Madison. It is reproduced through
the courtesy of the secretary of the society, Mr. Reuben G. Thwaites.]

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1860

From a photograph loaned by H.W. Fay of DeKalb, Illinois. After
Lincoln's nomination for the presidency, Alex Hesler of Chicago
published a portrait he had made of Lincoln in 1857. (See McCLURE'S
MAGAZINE for December, p. 13.) At the same time he put out a portrait
of Douglas. The contrast was so great between the two, and in the
opinion of the politicians so much in Douglas's favor, that they
told Hesler he must suppress Lincoln's picture; accordingly the
photographer wrote to Springfield requesting Lincoln to call and sit
again. Lincoln replied that his friends had decided that he remain
in Springfield during the canvass, but that if Hesler would come to
Springfield he would be "dressed up" and give him all the time he
wanted. Hesler went to Springfield and made at least four negatives,
three of which are supposed to have been destroyed in the Chicago
fire. The fourth is owned by Mr. George Ayers of Philadelphia. The
above photograph is a print from one of the lost negatives.]

The audacity of a young man in his position presenting himself as a
candidate for the legislature is fully equalled by the humility of the
closing paragraphs of his announcement:

    "But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Considering the great
    degree of modesty which should always attend youth, it is
    probable I have already been more presuming than becomes me.
    However, upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have
    spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or
    all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better
    only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so
    soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be
    ready to renounce them.

    "Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it
    be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so
    great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by
    rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall
    succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.
    I am young, and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have
    ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no
    wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My
    case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the
    county; and, if elected, they will have conferred a favor
    upon me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to
    compensate. But, if the good people in their wisdom shall see
    fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar
    with disappointments to be very much chagrined."

[Illustration: BLACK HAWK WAR RELICS.

Tomahawk. Indian Pipe. Powder-horn. Flintlock Rifle. Indian Flute.
Indian Knife.

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

This group of relics of the Black Hawk War was selected for us from
the collection in the museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society by
the Secretary, Mr. Reuben G. Thwaites. The coat and chapeau belonged
to General Dodge, an important leader in the war. The Indian relics
are a tomahawk, a Winnebago pipe, a Winnebago flute, and a knife. The
powder-horn and the flintlock rifle are the only volunteer articles.
One of the survivors of the war, Mr. Elijah Herring of Stockton,
Illinois, says of the flintlock rifles used by the Illinois
volunteers: "They were constructed like the old-fashioned rifle, only
in place of a nipple for a cap they had a pan in which was fixed an
oil flint which the hammer struck when it came down, instead of the
modern cap. The pan was filled with powder grains, enough to catch the
spark and communicate it to the load in the gun. These guns were all
right, and rarely missed fire on a dry, clear day; but unless they
were covered well, the dews of evening would dampen the powder, and
very often we were compelled to withdraw the charge and load them over
again. We had a gunsmith with us, whose business it was to look after
the guns for the whole regiment; and when a gun was found to be damp,
it was his duty to get his tools and 'draw' the load. At that time the
Cramer lock and triggers had just been put on the market, and my
rifle was equipped with these improvements, a fact of which I was very
proud. Instead of one trigger my rifle had two, one set behind the
other--the hind one to cock the gun, and the front one to shoot it.
The man Cramer sold his lock and triggers in St. Louis, and I was one
of the first to use them."]

Very soon after Lincoln had distributed his handbills, enthusiasm
on the subject of the opening of the Sangamon rose to a fever.
The "Talisman" actually came up the river; scores of men went to
Beardstown to meet her, among them Lincoln, of course; and to him was
given the honor of piloting her--an honor which made him remembered by
many a man who saw him that day for the first time. The trip was
made with all the wild demonstrations which always attended the first
steamboat. On either bank a long procession of men and boys on foot or
horse accompanied the boat. Cannons and volleys of musketry were
fired as settlements were passed. At every stop speeches were made,
congratulations offered, toasts drunk, flowers presented. It was
one long hurrah from Beardstown to Springfield, and foremost in
the jubilation was Lincoln, the pilot. The "Talisman" went as near
Springfield as the river did, and there tied up for a week. When
she went back Lincoln again had a conspicuous position as pilot. The
notoriety this gave him was quite as valuable politically, probably,
as was the forty dollars he received for his service financially.

[Illustration: MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON.

From a photograph in the war collection of Robert A. Coster.

Born in Kentucky in 1805. In 1825 graduated at West Point. Anderson
was on duty at the St. Louis Arsenal when the Black Hawk war broke
out. He asked permission to join General Atkinson, who commanded the
expedition against the Indians; was placed on his staff as Assistant
Inspector General, and was with him until the end of the war. Anderson
twice mustered Lincoln out of the service and in again. When General
Scott was sent to take Atkinson's place, Anderson was ordered to
report to the former for duty, and was sent by him to take charge of
the Indians captured at Bad Axe. It was Anderson who conducted Black
Hawk to Jefferson Barracks. His adjutant in this task was Lieutenant
Jefferson Davis. From 1835-37 Anderson was an instructor at West
Point. He served in the Florida War in 1837-38, and was wounded at
Molino del Rey in the Mexican War. In 1857 he was appointed Major of
the First Artillery. On November 20, 1860, Anderson assumed command
of the troops in Charleston Harbor. On April 14 he surrendered
Fort Sumter, marching out with the honors of war. He was made
brigadier-general by Lincoln for his service. On account of failing
health he was relieved from duty in October, 1861. In 1865 he was
brevetted major-general. He died in France in 1871.]

While the country had been dreaming of wealth through the opening of
the Sangamon, and Lincoln had been doing his best to prove that
the dream was possible, the store in which he clerked was "petering
out"--to use his own expression. The owner, Denton Offutt, had proved
more ambitious than wise, and Lincoln saw that an early closing by
the sheriff was probable. But before the store was fairly closed, and
while the "Talisman" was yet exciting the country, an event occurred
which interrupted all of Lincoln's plans.


THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

One morning in April a messenger from the governor of the State rode
into New Salem scattering a circular. It was an address from Governor
Reynolds to the militia of the northwest section of the State,
announcing that the British band of Sacs and other hostile Indians,
headed by Black Hawk, had invaded the Rock River country, to the great
terror of the frontier inhabitants; and calling on the citizens who
were willing to aid in repelling them, to rendezvous at Beardstown
within a week.

[Illustration: MONUMENT AT KELLOGG'S GROVE.

On June 24, 1832, Black Hawk attacked Apple River Fort, fourteen miles
east of Galena, Illinois, but was unable to drive out the inmates. The
next day he attacked a spy battalion of one hundred and fifty men
at Kellogg's Grove, sixteen miles further east. A detachment of
volunteers relieved the battalion, and drove off the savages, about
fifteen of whom were killed. The whites lost five men, who were buried
at various points in the grove. During the summer of 1886 the remains
of these men were collected and, with those of five or six other
victims of the war, were placed together under the monument here
represented.--See "The Black Hawk War," by Reuben G. Thwaites, Vol.
XII. in Wisconsin Historical Collections. This account of the Black
Hawk War is the most trustworthy, complete, and interesting which has
been made.]

The name of Black Hawk was familiar to the people of Illinois. He
was an old enemy of the settlers, and had been a tried friend of the
British. The land his people had once owned in the northwest of the
present State of Illinois had been sold in 1804 to the government of
the United States, but with the provision that the Indians should
hunt and raise corn there until it was surveyed and sold to settlers.

[Illustration: JOHN REYNOLDS, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS 1831-1834.

After a steel engraving in the Governor's office, Springfield,
Illinois. John Reynolds, Governor of Illinois from 1831 to 1834, was
born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, February 26, 1788. He was
of Irish parentage. When he was six months old his parents moved to
Tennessee. In 1800 they removed to Illinois. When twenty years old,
John Reynolds went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to college, where he spent
two years. He was admitted to the bar at Kaskaskia in 1812. In the war
of 1812 he rendered distinguished service, earning the title of "the
Old Ranger." He began the practice of law in the spring of 1814. In
1818 he was made an associate justice of the Supreme Court; in 1826 he
was elected a member of the legislature; and in 1830, after a stirring
campaign, he was chosen Governor of Illinois. The most important event
of his administration was the Black Hawk War. He was prompt in calling
out the militia to subdue the Black Hawk, and went upon the field
in person. In November, 1834, just before the close of his term as
Governor, he resigned to become a member of Congress. In 1837, aided
by others, he built the first railroad in the State--a short line of
six miles from his coal mine in the Mississippi bluff to the bank of
the river opposite St. Louis. It was operated by horse power. He again
became a member of the legislature in 1846 and 1852, during the latter
term being Speaker of the House. In 1860, in his seventy-third year,
he was an anti-Douglas delegate to the Charleston convention,
and received the most distinguished attentions from the Southern
delegates. After the October elections, when it became apparent that
Lincoln would be elected, he issued an address advising the support
of Douglas. His sympathies were with the South, though in 1832 he
strongly supported President Jackson in the suppression of the South
Carolina nullifiers. He died in Belleville in May, 1865. Governor
Reynolds was a quaint and forceful character. He was a man of much
learning; but in conversation (and he talked much) he rarely rose
above the odd Western vernacular, of which he was so complete a
master. He was the author of two books--one an autobiography, and the
other "The Pioneer History of Illinois."]

Long before the land was surveyed, however, squatters had invaded
the country, and tried to force the Indians west of the Mississippi.
Particularly envious were these whites of the lands at the mouth of
the Rock River, where the ancient village and burial place of the Sacs
stood, and where they came each year to raise corn. Black Hawk had
resisted their encroachments, and many violent acts had been committed
on both sides.

Finally, however, the squatters, in spite of the fact that the line of
settlement was still fifty miles away, succeeded in evading the real
meaning of the treaty and in securing a survey of the desired land at
the mouth of the river. Black Hawk, exasperated and broken-hearted at
seeing his village violated, persuaded himself that the village had
never been sold--indeed, that land could not be sold:

    "My reason teaches me," he wrote, "that land cannot be sold.
    The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and
    cultivate, as far as is necessary for their subsistence; and
    so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have the right
    to the soil, but if they voluntarily leave it, then any other
    people have a right to settle upon it. Nothing can be sold but
    such things as can be carried away."

Supported by this theory, conscious that in some way he did not
understand he had been wronged, and urged on by White Cloud, the
prophet, who ruled a Winnebago village on the Rock River, Black Hawk
crossed the Mississippi in 1831, determined to evict the settlers. A
military demonstration drove him back, and he was persuaded to sign a
treaty never to return east of the Mississippi. "I touched the goose
quill to the treaty, and was determined to live in peace," he wrote
afterward; but hardly had he "touched the goose quill" before his
heart smote him. Longing for his home; resentment at the whites;
obstinacy; brooding over the bad counsels of White Cloud and his
disciple Neapope, an agitating Indian who had recently been East to
visit the British and their Indian allies, and who assured Black Hawk
that the Winnebagoes, Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawottomies would
join him in a struggle for his land, and that the British would
send him "guns, ammunition, provisions, and clothing early in the
spring"--all persuaded the Hawk that he would be successful if he made
an effort to drive out the whites. In spite of the persuasion of many
of his friends and of the Indian agent in the country, he crossed the
river on April 6, 1832, and with some five hundred braves, his squaws
and children, marched to the Prophet's town, thirty-five miles up the
Rock River.

As soon as they heard of Black Hawk's invasion, the settlers fled in
a panic to the forts in the vicinity, and they rained petitions for
protection on Governor Reynolds. General Atkinson, who commanded a
company at Fort Armstrong, wrote the governor he must have help;
and accordingly on the 16th of April Governor Reynolds sent out
"influential messengers" with a sonorous summons. It was one of
these messengers riding into New Salem who put an end to Lincoln's
canvassing for the legislature, freed him from Offutt's expiring
grocery, and led him to enlist.

[Illustration: ELIJAH ILES, CAPTAIN OF COMPANY IN WHICH LINCOLN SERVED
AS PRIVATE IN BLACK HAWK WAR.

From a photograph made for this Magazine.

After a painting by the late Mrs. Obed Lewis, niece of Major Iles, and
owned by Mr. Obed Lewis, Springfield, Illinois. Elijah Iles was born
in Kentucky, March 28, 1796, and when young went to Missouri. There he
heard marvellous stories about the Sangamon Valley, and he resolved
to go thither. Springfield had just been staked out in the wilderness,
and he reached the place in time to erect the first building--a rude
hut in which he kept a store. This was in 1821. "In the early days in
Illinois," he wrote in 1883, "it was hard to find good material for
law-makers. I was elected a State Senator in 1826, and again for a
second term. The Senate then comprised thirteen members, and the House
twenty-five." In 1827 he was elected major in the command of Colonel
T. McNeal, intending to fight the Winnebagoes, but no fighting
occurred. In the Black Hawk War of 1832, after his term as a private
in Captain Dawson's company had expired, he was elected captain of a
new company of independent rangers. In this company Lincoln reenlisted
as a private. Major Iles lived at Springfield all his life. He died
September 4, 1883.]

There was no time to waste. The volunteers were ordered to be at
Beardstown, nearly forty miles from New Salem, on April 22d. Horses,
rifles, saddles, blankets were to be secured, a company formed. It was
work of which the settlers were not ignorant. Under the laws of
the State every able-bodied male inhabitant between eighteen and
forty-five was obliged to drill twice a year or pay a fine of one
dollar. "As a dollar was hard to raise," says one of the old settlers,
"everybody drilled."


LINCOLN A CAPTAIN.

Preparations were quickly made, and by April 22d the men were at
Beardstown. Here each company elected its own officers, and Lincoln
became a candidate for the captaincy of the company from Sangamon to
which he belonged.

His friend Greene gave another reason than ambition to explain his
desire for the captaincy. One of the "odd jobs" which Lincoln had
taken since coming into Illinois was working in a saw-mill for a man
named Kirkpatrick. In hiring Lincoln, Kirkpatrick had promised to
buy him a cant-hook to move heavy logs. Lincoln had proposed, if
Kirkpatrick would give him two dollars, to move the logs with a common
hand-spike. This the proprietor had agreed to, but when pay day came
he refused to keep his word. When the Sangamon company of volunteers
was formed, Kirkpatrick aspired to the captaincy; and Lincoln, knowing
it, said to Greene: "Bill, I believe I can now pay Kirkpatrick for
that two dollars he owes me on the cant-hook. I'll run against him for
captain;" and he became a candidate. The vote was taken in a field,
by directing the men at the command "march" to assemble around the man
they wanted for captain. When the order was given, three-fourths of
the men gathered around Lincoln.[B] In Lincoln's curious third-person
autobiography he says he was elected "to his own surprise;" and adds,
"He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so
much satisfaction."

[Illustration: A DISCHARGE FROM SERVICE IN BLACK HAWK WAR SIGNED BY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, AS CAPTAIN.]

The company was a motley crowd of men. Each had secured for his outfit
what he could get, and no two were equipped alike. Buckskin breeches
prevailed. There was a sprinkling of coon-skin caps, and the blankets
were of the coarsest texture. Flintlock rifles were the usual arm,
though here and there a man had a Cramer. Over the shoulder of each
was slung a powder-horn. The men had, as a rule, as little regard for
discipline as for appearances, and when the new captain gave an order
were as likely to jeer at it as to obey it. To drive the Indians out
was their mission, and any orders which did not bear directly on that
point were little respected. Lincoln himself was not familiar with
military tactics, and made many blunders of which he used to tell
afterwards with relish. One of these was an early experience in
drilling. He was marching with a front of over twenty men across
a field, when he desired to pass through a gateway into the next
inclosure.

"I could not for the life of me," said he, "remember the proper word
of command for getting my company _endwise_, so that it could get
through the gate; so, as we came near the gate, I shouted, 'This
company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on
the other side of the gate!'"

Nor was it only his ignorance of the manual which caused him trouble.
He was so unfamiliar with camp discipline that he once had his
sword taken from him for shooting within limits. Another disgrace he
suffered was on account of his disorderly company. The men, unknown to
him, stole a quantity of liquor one night, and the next morning were
too drunk to fall in when the order was given to march. For their
lawlessness Lincoln wore a wooden sword two days.

But none of these small difficulties injured his standing with the
company. Lincoln was tactful, and he joined his men in sports as well
as duties. They soon grew so proud of his quick wit and great strength
that they obeyed him because they admired him. No amount of military
tactics could have secured from the volunteers the cheerful following
he won by his personal qualities.

The men soon learned, too, that he meant what he said, and would
permit no dishonorable performances. A helpless Indian took refuge
in the camp one day; and the men, who were inspired by what Governor
Reynolds calls _Indian ill-will_--that wanton mixture of selfishness,
unreason, and cruelty which seems to seize a frontiersman as soon as
he scents a red man--were determined to kill the refugee. He had a
safe conduct from General Cass; but the men, having come out to kill
Indians and not having succeeded, threatened to take revenge on the
helpless savage. Lincoln boldly took the man's part, and though he
risked his life in doing it, he cowed the company, and saved the
Indian.

[Illustration: MAP OF ILLINOIS IN 1832, PREPARED SPECIALLY FOR
MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE.

[Transcriber's note: The map includes the following legend: The black
line indicates the route Lincoln is supposed to have followed with
the army as far as Whitewater, where he was dismissed. When the
army started from near Ottawa, after the 20th of June, to follow
the Indians up Rock River, Lincoln's battalion was sent towards the
northwest, and joined the main army near Lake Koshkonong early in
July. Soon after he went to Whitewater, where, about the middle of the
month, his battalion was disbanded, and he returned by foot and canoe
to New Salem. The dotted line shows the route he is supposed to have
taken. The towns named on the map are those with which Lincoln was
connected either in his legal or his political life.]


THE BLACK HAWK CAMPAIGN.

It was on the 27th of April that the force of sixteen hundred men
organized at Beardstown started out. The spring was cold, the roads
heavy, the streams turbulent. The army marched first to Yellow Banks
on the Mississippi, then to Dixon on the Rock River, which they
reached on May 12th. None but hardened pioneers could have
endured what Lincoln and his followers did in this march. They had
insufficient supplies; they waded in black mud for miles; they swam
rivers; they were almost never dry or warm; but, hardened as they
were, they made the march gayly. At Dixon they camped, and near here
occurred the first bloodshed of the war.

A body of about three hundred and forty rangers, not of the regular
army, under Major Stillman, asked to go ahead as scouts, to look for
a body of Indians under Black Hawk, rumored to be about twelve miles
away. The permission was given, and on the night of the 14th of
May Stillman and his men went into camp. Black Hawk heard of their
presence. By this time the poor old chief had discovered that the
promises of aid from the Indian tribes and the British were false,
and, dismayed, he had resolved to recross the Mississippi. When he
heard of the whites near he sent three braves with a white flag to ask
for a parley and permission to descend the river. Behind them he sent
five men to watch proceedings. Stillman's rangers were in camp when
the bearers of the flag of truce appeared. The men were many of them
half drunk, and when they saw the Indian truce-bearers, they rushed
out in a wild mob, and ran them into camp. Then catching sight of
the five spies, they started after them, killing two. The three who
reached Black Hawk reported that the truce-bearers had been killed
as well as their two companions. Furious at this violation of faith,
Black Hawk "raised a yell," and declared to the forty braves, all he
had with him, that they must have revenge. The Indians immediately
sallied forth, and met Stillman's band of over three hundred men,
who by this time were out in search of the Indians. Black Hawk, too
maddened to think of the difference of numbers, attacked the whites.
To his surprise the enemy turned, and fled in a wild riot. Nor
did they stop at their camp, which from its position was almost
impregnable; they fled in complete panic, _sauve qui peut_, through
their camp, across prairie and rivers and swamps, to Dixon, twelve
miles away, where by midnight they began to arrive. The first arrival
reported that two thousand savages had swept down on Stillman's camp
and slaughtered all but himself. Before the next night all but eleven
of the band had arrived.

Stillman's defeat, as this disgraceful affair is called, put all
notion of peace out of Black Hawk's mind, and he started out in
earnest on the warpath. Governor Reynolds, excited by the reports of
the first arrivals from the Stillman stampede, made out that night,
"by candle-light," a call for more volunteers, and by the morning of
the 15th had messengers out and his army in pursuit of Black Hawk. But
it was like pursuing a shadow. The Indians purposely confused their
trail. Sometimes it was a broad path, then it suddenly radiated to all
points. The whites broke their bands, and pursued the savages here and
there, never overtaking them, though now and then coming suddenly on
some terrible evidences of their presence--a frontier home deserted
and burned, slaughtered cattle, scalps suspended where the army could
not fail to see them.

This fruitless warfare exasperated the volunteers; they threatened
to leave, and their officers had great difficulty in making them obey
orders. On reaching a point in the Rock River, beyond which lay the
Indian country, a company under Colonel Zachary Taylor refused to
cross, and held a public indignation meeting, urging that they had
volunteered to defend the State, and had the right, as independent
American citizens, to refuse to go out of its borders. Taylor heard
them to the end, and then said: "I feel that all gentlemen here are
my equals; in reality, I am persuaded that many of them will, in a
few years, be my superiors, and perhaps, in the capacity of members of
Congress, arbiters of the fortunes and reputation of humble
servants of the republic, like myself. I expect then to obey them as
interpreters of the will of the people; and the best proof that I will
obey them is now to observe the orders of those whom the people have
already put in the place of authority to which many gentlemen around
me justly aspire. In plain English, gentlemen and fellow-citizens, the
word has been passed on to me from Washington to follow Black Hawk
and to take you with me as soldiers. I mean to do both. There are the
flatboats drawn up on the shore, and here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up
behind you on the prairie." The volunteers were quick-witted men,
and knew true grit when they met it. They dissolved their meeting and
crossed the river without Uncle Sam's men being called into action.

[Illustration: A FACSIMILE OF AN ELECTION RETURN WRITTEN BY LINCOLN AS
CLERK IN 1832. NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.

From the original now on file in the County Clerk's office,
Springfield, Illinois. The first civil office Lincoln ever held
was that of election clerk, and the return made by him, of which a
facsimile is here presented, was his first official document. The New
Salem election of September 20, 1832, has the added interest of having
been held at "the house of John McNeil," the young merchant who was
then already in love with Ann Rutledge, the young girl to whom Lincoln
afterwards became engaged. All the men whose names appear on this
election return are now dead except William McNeely, now residing at
Petersburg. John Clary lived at Clary's Grove; John R. Herndon was
"Row" Herndon, whose store Berry and Lincoln purchased, and at whose
house Lincoln for a time boarded; Baxter Berry was a relative of
Lincoln's partner in the grocery business, and Edmund Greer was a
school-teacher, and afterward a justice of the peace and a surveyor.
James Rutledge was the keeper of the Rutledge tavern and the father
of Ann Rutledge; Hugh Armstrong was the head of the numerous Armstrong
family; "Uncle Jimmy" White lived on a farm five miles from New Salem,
and died about thirty years ago in the eightieth year of his age;
William Green (spelled by the later members of the family with a
final "e") was the father of William G. Greene, Lincoln's associate
in Offutt's store; and as to Bowling Green, more is said elsewhere.
In the following three or four years, very few elections were held
at which Lincoln was not a clerk. It is a somewhat singular fact
that Lincoln, though clerk of this election, is not recorded as
voting.--_J. McCan Davis._]

The march in pursuit of the Indians led the army to Ottawa, where the
volunteers became so dissatisfied that on May 27th and 28th Governor
Reynolds mustered them out. But a force in the field was essential
until a new levy was raised; and a few of the men were patriotic
enough to offer their services, among them Lincoln, who on May 29th
was mustered in at the mouth of the Fox River by a man in whom, thirty
years later, he was to have a keen interest--General Robert Anderson,
commander at Fort Sumter in 1861. Lincoln became a private in Captain
Elijah Iles's company of Independent Rangers, not brigaded--a company
made up, says Captain Iles in his "Footsteps and Wanderings,"
of "generals, colonels, captains, and distinguished men from the
disbanded army." General Anderson says that at this muster Lincoln's
arms were valued at forty dollars, his horse and equipment at one
hundred and twenty dollars. The Independent Rangers were a favored
body, used to carry messages and to spy on the enemy. They had no
camp duties, and "drew rations as often as they pleased." So that as a
private Lincoln was really better off than as a captain.[C]

With the exception of a scouting trip to Galena and back, fruitful of
nothing more than Indian scares, Major Iles's company remained quietly
in the neighborhood of the Rapids of the Illinois until June 16th,
when Major Anderson mustered it out. Four days later, June 20th,
at the same place, he mustered Lincoln in again as a member of an
independent company under Captain Jacob M. Early. His arms were
valued this time at only fifteen dollars, his horse and equipment at
eighty-five dollars.[D] The army moved up Rock River soon after the
middle of June. Black Hawk was overrunning the country, and scattering
death wherever he went. The settlers were wild with fear, and most
of the settlements were abandoned. At a sudden sound, at the
merest rumor, men, women, and children fled. "I well remember these
troublesome times," says one old Illinois woman. "We often left our
bread dough unbaked to rush to the Indian fort near by." When Mr.
John Bryant, a brother of William Cullen Bryant, visited the colony in
Princeton in 1832, he found it nearly broken up on account of the
war. Everywhere the crops were neglected, for the able-bodied men were
volunteering. William Cullen Bryant, who travelled on horseback in
June from Petersburg to near Pekin and back, wrote home: "Every few
miles on our way we fell in with bodies of Illinois militia proceeding
to the American camp, or saw where they had encamped for the night.
They generally stationed themselves near a stream or a spring in the
edge of a wood, and turned their horses to graze on the prairie.
Their way was barked or girdled, and the roads through the uninhabited
country were as much beaten and as dusty as the highways on New York
Island. Some of the settlers complained that they made war upon the
pigs and chickens. They were a hard-looking set of men, unkempt and
unshaved, wearing shirts of dark calico and sometimes calico capotes."

Soon after the army moved up the Rock River, the independent spy
company, of which Lincoln was a member, was sent with a brigade to the
northwest, near Galena, in pursuit of the Hawk. The nearest Lincoln
came to an actual engagement in the war was here. The skirmish of
Kellogg's Grove took place on June 25th; Lincoln's company came up
soon after it was over, and helped bury the five men killed. It was
probably to this experience that he referred when he told a friend
once of coming on a camp of white scouts one morning just as the sun
was rising. The Indians had surprised the camp, and had killed and
scalped every man.

"I remember just how those men looked," said Lincoln, "as we rode up
the little hill where their camp was. The red light of the morning sun
was streaming upon them as they lay heads towards us on the ground.
And every man had a round red spot on the top of his head about as big
as a dollar, where the redskins had taken his scalp. It was frightful,
but it was grotesque; and the red sunlight seemed to paint everything
all over." Lincoln paused, as if recalling the vivid picture, and
added, somewhat irrelevantly, "I remember that one man had buckskin
breeches on."[E]

By the end of the month the troops crossed into Michigan
Territory--what is now Wisconsin--and July was spent in floundering
through swamps and stumbling through forests, in pursuit of the now
nearly exhausted Black Hawk. A few days before the last battle of
the war, that of Bad Axe on August 2d, in which the whites finally
massacred most of the Indian band, Lincoln's company was disbanded at
Whitewater, Wisconsin, and he and his friends started for home. The
volunteers in returning, in almost every case, suffered much from
hunger. Mr. Durly, of Hennepin, Illinois, who walked home from Rock
Island, says all he had to eat on the journey was meal and water baked
in rolls of bark laid by the fire. Lincoln was little better off. The
night before his company started from Whitewater he and one of his
mess-mates had their horses stolen; and, excepting when their more
fortunate companions gave them a lift, they walked as far as Peoria,
Illinois, where they bought a canoe, and paddled down the Illinois
River to Havana. Here they sold the canoe, and walked across the
country to New Salem.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE SANGAMON RIVER NEAR NEW SALEM.

The town lay along the ridge marked by the star.]


ELECTIONEERING FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Lincoln arrived only a few days before the election, and at once
plunged into "electioneering." He ran as "an avowed Clay man," and
the county was stiffly Democratic. However, in those days political
contests were almost purely personal. If the candidate was liked
he was voted for irrespective of principles. Around New Salem
the population turned in and helped Lincoln almost to a man. "The
Democrats of New Salem worked for Lincoln out of their personal regard
for him," said Stephen T. Logan, a young lawyer of Springfield, who
made Lincoln's acquaintance in the campaign. "He was as stiff as a man
could be in his Whig doctrines. They did this for him simply because
he was popular--because he was Lincoln."

It was the custom for the candidates to appear at every gathering
which brought the people out, and, if they had a chance, to make
speeches. Then, as now, the farmers gathered at the county-seat or at
the largest town within their reach on Saturday afternoons, to dispose
of produce, buy supplies, see their neighbors, and get the news.
During "election times" candidates were always present, and a regular
feature of the day was listening to their speeches. Public sales also
were gatherings which they never missed, it being expected that after
the "vandoo" the candidates would take the auctioneer's place.

Lincoln let none of these chances to be heard slip. Accompanied by his
friends, generally including a few Clary's Grove Boys, he always was
present. The first speech he made was after a sale at Pappsville. What
he said there is not remembered; but an illustration of the kind
of man he was, interpolated into his discourse, made a lasting
impression. A fight broke out in his audience while he was on the
stand, and observing that one of his friends was being worsted, he
bounded into the group of contestants, seized the fellow who had his
supporter down, threw him "ten or twelve feet," mounted the platform,
and finished the speech. Sangamon County could appreciate such
a performance; and the crowd that day at Pappsville never forgot
Lincoln.

His appearance at Springfield at this time was of great importance to
him. Springfield was not at that time a very attractive place. Bryant,
visiting it in June, 1832, said that the houses were not as good as at
Jacksonville, "a considerable proportion of them being log cabins,
and the whole town having an appearance of dirt and discomfort."
Nevertheless it was the largest town in the county, and among its
inhabitants were many young men of education, birth, and energy. One
of these men Lincoln had become well acquainted with in the Black
Hawk War--Major John T. Stewart,[F] at that time a lawyer, and, like
Lincoln, a candidate for the General Assembly. He met others at this
time who were to be associated with him more or less closely in the
future in both law and politics, such as Judge Logan and William
Butler. With these men the manners which had won him the day at
Pappsville were of no value; what impressed them was his "very
sensible speech," and his decided individuality and originality.

The election came off on August 6th. The first civil office Lincoln
ever held was that of clerk of this election. The report in his hand
still exists; as far as we know, it is his first official document.

Lincoln was defeated. "This was the only time Abraham was ever
defeated on a direct vote of the people," say his autobiographical
notes. He had a consolation in his defeat, however, for in spite of
the pronounced Democratic sentiments of his precinct, he received two
hundred and seventy-seven votes out of three hundred cast.[G]

_(Begun in the November number, 1895; to be continued.)_

[Footnote A: The story of Lincoln's first seventeen months in
Illinois, outlined in this paragraph, is told in MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE
for December.]

[Footnote B: This story of Kirkpatrick's unfair treatment of Lincoln
we owe to the courtesy of Colonel Clark E. Carr of Galesburg,
Illinois, to whom it was told several times by Greene himself.]

[Footnote C: William Cullen Bryant, who was in Illinois in 1832 at the
time of the Black Hawk War, used to tell of meeting in his travels in
the State a company of Illinois volunteers, commanded by a "raw youth"
of "quaint and pleasant" speech, and of learning afterwards that this
captain was Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln's captaincy ended on May 27th,
and Mr. Bryant did not reach Jacksonville, Illinois, until June 12th,
and as the nearest point he came to the army was Pleasant Grove, eight
miles from Pekin on the Illinois River, and that was at a time when
the body of Rangers to which Lincoln belonged was fifty miles away on
the rapids of the Illinois, it is evident that the "raw youth" could
not have been Lincoln, much as one would like to believe that it was.
See "Life of William Cullen Bryant," by Parke Godwin, vol. i. page
283. Also Prose of William Cullen Bryant, edited by Parke Godwin, vol.
ii. page 20.]

[Footnote D: See Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. x., for Major
Anderson's reminiscences of the Black Hawk War.]

[Footnote E: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Noah Brooks.]

[Footnote F: There were many prominent Americans in the Black Hawk
War, with some of whom Lincoln became acquainted. Among the best known
were General Robert Anderson; Colonel Zachary Taylor; General Scott,
afterwards candidate for President, and Lieut.-General; Henry Dodge,
Governor of the Territory of Wisconsin and United States Senator; Hon.
William L.D. Ewing and Hon. Sidney Breese, both United States Senators
from Illinois; William S. Hamilton, a son of Alexander Hamilton;
Colonel Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone; Lieutenant Albert Sydney
Johnston, afterwards a Confederate general. Jefferson Davis was not in
the war, as has been so often stated.]

[Footnote G: In the New Salem precinct, at the August election of
1832, exactly three hundred votes were cast. Of these Lincoln received
277. The facts upon this point are here stated for the first time.
The biographers as a rule have agreed that Lincoln received all of the
votes cast in the New Salem precinct except three. Mr. Herndon places
the total vote at 208; Nicolay and Hay, at 277; and Mr. Lincoln
himself, in his autobiography, has said that he received all but seven
of a total of 277 votes, basing his statement, no doubt, upon memory.
An examination of the official poll-book in the County Clerk's office
at Springfield shows that all of these figures are erroneous. The fact
remains, however--and it is a fact which has been commented upon by
several of the biographers as showing his phenomenal popularity--that
the vote for Lincoln was far in excess of that given any other
candidate. The twelve candidates, with the number of votes of each
were: Abraham Lincoln, 277; John T. Stewart, 182; William Carpenter,
136; John Dawson, 105; E.D. Taylor, 88; Archer G. Herndon, 84; Peter
Cartwright, 62; Achilles Morris, 27; Thomas M. Neal, 21; Edward
Robeson, 15; Zachariah Peters, 4; Richard Dunston, 4.

Of the twenty-three who did not vote for Lincoln, ten refrained from
voting for Representative at all, thus leaving only thirteen votes
actually cast against Lincoln. Lincoln is not recorded as voting. The
judges were Bowling Green, Pollard Simmons, and William Clary, and the
clerks were John Ritter and Mentor Graham.--_J. McCan Davis._]



[Illustration: EUGENE FIELD TELLING A STORY TO "SISSY" KNOTT AND
'LISBETH AND MARTHA WINSLOW.]



EUGENE FIELD AND HIS CHILD FRIENDS.[H]

BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT.


The form of the expressions of regard and regret called out on all
sides by the untimely death of Eugene Field, at his home in Chicago,
on November 4, 1895, makes clear that the character in which the
public at large knew and loved Mr. Field best was that of the poet of
child life. What gives his child-poems their unequalled hold on the
popular heart is their simplicity, warmth, and genuineness; and these
qualities they owe to the fact that Field himself lived in the
closest and fondest intimacy with children, had troops of them for
his friends, and wrote his poems directly under their suggestion and
inspiration. Mr. T.A. Van Laun of Chicago, who was one of Mr. Field's
closest friends, has kindly given me many reminiscences, and helped
me to much material, illustrating all sides of Mr. Field's life, among
others this fine relation with the children. A characteristic incident
occurred on Field's marriage day. The hour of the ceremony was all
but at hand, and the bridal party was waiting at the church for the
bridegroom to appear. But he did not come; and, after an anxious
delay, some of his friends went in search of him. They found him a
short distance away, engaged in settling a dispute that had arisen
among some street gamins over a game of marbles. There he was, down on
his knees in the mud, listening to the various accounts of the origin
of the quarrel; and it was only on the arrival of his friends that he
suddenly recollected his more pressing and more pleasant duties.

One day, as was often happening, Field received a letter written in
the scrawling hand of a child, which told him how the writer, a little
girl, had read most of his poems, spoke of the pleasure they had given
her, and said that when she grew up she intended to be just such a
writer as he was. Following his usual kindly custom, Field answered
this letter, telling the child of the beauties of nature that
surrounded him, of the twittering birds, and the lovely flowers he had
in sight from his window, and concluding: "Now I must go out and shoot
a buffalo for breakfast."

Dr. Gunsaulus of Chicago, who was one of Mr. Field's most intimate
friends, tells a story of Field's first visit to his house that shows
how quick the poet was to make himself at home with children. For
years the little ones in the Doctor's household had heard of Eugene
Field as a wonderful person; and when they were told that he had
come to see them their delight knew no bounds, and they ran into the
library to pay him homage. It was in the evening, and, presumably,
Field had already dined; but he told the children with his first
breath that he wanted to know where the cookery was. They, overjoyed
at being asked a service they were able to render, trooped out into
the kitchen with Field following. The store of eatables was duly
exposed, and Field seized upon a turkey, or what remained of one from
dinner, and carried it into the dining-room. There he seated himself
at table, with the children on his knees and about him, and fell to
with a good appetite, talking to the little ones all the time, telling
them quaint stories, and making them listen with all their eyes and
ears. Having thus become good friends and put them quite at their
ease, he spent the rest of the evening singing lullabies to them, and
reciting his verses. Naturally, before he went away the children
had given him their whole hearts. And this was his way with all the
children with whom he came in contact.

One day on the cars Mr. Field chanced to sit near a workingman who
had with him his wife and baby. The father, it seemed, had heard Field
lecture the night before, and had been deeply impressed. With great
deference he brought his child up to Field, and said: "Now, little
one, I want you to look at this gentleman. He is Mr. Field, and when
you grow up you'll be glad to know that once upon a time he spoke to
you." At this Field took the baby in his arms, and played with it
for an hour, to the surprise and, of course, to the delight of the
parents.

Of recent years Mr. Field rarely went to the office of the Chicago
"News," the paper for which during the last ten years he had written
a daily column under the title of "Sharps and Flats," but did most of
his work at his home in Buena Park, which he called the Sabine Farm.
Here he began his day about nine o'clock, by having breakfast served
to him in bed, after which he glanced through the papers, and then
settled himself to his writing, with feet high on the table, and his
pages before him laid neatly on a piece of plate glass. He wrote with
a fine-pointed pen, and had by him several different colored inks,
with which he would illuminate his capitals and embellish his
manuscript. The first thing he did was his "Sharps and Flats" column,
which occupied three or four hours, the task being usually finished
by one o'clock. His other work he did in the afternoons and evenings,
writing at odd hours, sometimes in the garden if the weather was
pleasant. He was much interrupted by friends dropping in to see him;
but, however busy, he welcomed whoever came, and would turn aside
good-naturedly from his manuscript to entertain a visitor or to hear a
story of misfortune. After dinner he retired to his "den" to read; for
he read constantly, whatever the distractions about him, and was much
given to reading in bed.

And of all his visitors the most constant and appreciative were
children. These he never sent away without some bright word, and
he rarely sent them away at all. Nowhere could they find such an
entertaining playmate as he--one who would tell them such wonderful
stories and make up such funny rhymes for them on the spur of the
moment, and romp with them like one of themselves. It was in the
homely incidents of these visits, and the like intimacy with his own
children, that he found the subjects for his poems. He could voice the
feelings of a child, because he knew child life from always living it.

On his own children he bestowed pet names--"Pinney," "Daisy,"
"Googhy," "Posey," and "Trotty;" and they almost forgot that they
had others. His eldest daughter, for instance, now a lovely girl of
nineteen, has remained "Trotty" from her babyhood, and "Trotty" she
will always be. At her christening Field had an argument with his
wife about the name they should give her. Mrs. Field wished her to be
called Frances, to which Field objected on the ground that it would
be shortened into Frankie, which he disliked. Then other names were
suggested, and, after listening to this one and that one, Field
finally said: "You can christen her whatever you please, but I shall
call her Trotty." "Pinney" was named from the comic opera "Pinafore,"
which was in vogue at the time he was born; and "Daisy" got his name
from the song, popular when he was born: "Oh My! A'int He a Daisy?"

A devotion so unfailing in his relations with children would,
naturally, show itself in other relations. His devotion to his wife,
for example, was of the completest. In all the world she was the one
woman he loved, and he never wished to be away from her. In one of his
scrap-books, under her picture, are written these lines:

  You are as fair and sweet and tender,
  Dear brown-eyed little sweetheart mine!
  As when, a callow youth and slender,
  I asked to be your valentine.

Often she accompanied him on his readings. Last summer it happened
that they went together to St. Joe, Missouri, the home of Mrs. Field's
girlhood. On their arrival, Mrs. Field's friends took possession of
her and carried her off to a lunch-party, where it was arranged that
Mr. Field should join her later. But he, left alone, was swept by his
thoughts back to the time when, a youth of twenty-one, he had here
paid court to the woman now his wife, then a girl of sixteen; and
so affected was he by these memories that, instead of going to the
lunch-party, he took a carriage, and all alone drove to the places
which he and she had been wont to visit in the happy time of their
love-making, especially to a certain lover's lane where they had taken
many a walk together.

[Illustration: THE LAST PORTRAIT OF EUGENE FIELD.

From a copyrighted photograph by Place & Coover, Chicago; reproduced
by permission of the Etching Publishing Co., Chicago.]

The day before Field's death the mail brought a hundred dollars in
payment for a magazine article he had written. It was in small bills,
and there was quite a quantity of them. As he lay in bed, Field spread
them out on the covers, and then called Mrs. Field. As she came in she
said: "Why, what are you doing with all that money?"

Field, laughing, snatched the bills up and tucked them under the
pillow, saying: "You shan't have it, this is my money." After his
death, the bills, all crumpled up, were found still under his pillow.

It was a common happening in the "News" office, while Mr. Field still
did his work there, for some ragged, unwashed, woe-begone creature,
too much abashed to take the elevator, to come toiling up the stairs
and down the long passage into one of the editorial rooms, where he
would blurt out fearfully, sometimes half defiantly, but always as if
confident in the power of the name he spoke: "Is 'Gene Field here?"
Sometimes an overzealous office-boy would try to drive one of these
poor fellows away, and woe to that boy if Field found it out. "I knew
'Gene Field in Denver," or, "I worked with Field on the 'Kansas City
Times,'"--these were sufficient pass-words, and never failed to call
forth the cheery voice from Field's room: "That's all right, show him
in here; he's a friend of mine." And then, after a grip of the hand
and some talk over former experiences--which Field may or may not have
remembered, but always pretended to--the inevitable half dollar or
dollar was forthcoming, and another unfortunate went out into the
world blessing the name of a man who, whether he was orthodox or not
in his religious views, always acted up to the principle that it is
more blessed to give than to receive.

[Footnote H: NOTE.--See a "Conversation" between Eugene Field and
Hamlin Garland, in which Mr. Field tells the story of his literary
life, McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for August, 1893. Also a series of portraits
of Eugene Field in McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for September, 1893. Price
fifteen cents.]



POEMS OF CHILDHOOD, BY EUGENE FIELD.


The choicest literary expression of Eugene Field's intimacy with
the children is found in four volumes published by Messrs. Charles
Scribner's Sons--"A Little Book of Western Verse," "Second Book of
Verse," "With Trumpet and Drum," and "Love-Songs of Childhood." It
is only a few years since the earliest of these was published; but no
books are better known, and they hold in the hearts of their readers
the same fond place that their author held in the hearts of the
children whose thoughts and adventures he so aptly and tenderly
portrayed. By the kind permission of the publishers, we reproduce
here a few of the best known of the poems, adding pictures of
the particular child friends of Mr. Field who inspired them. The
selections are from the last two volumes--"With Trumpet and Drum"
and "Love-Songs of Childhood." The pictures are from Mr. Field's own
collection, which chanced to be in New York at the time of his death;
and the identifying phrases quoted under several of them were written
on the backs of the photographs by Mr. Field's own hand.


WITH TRUMPET AND DRUM.

  With big tin trumpet and little red drum,
  Marching like soldiers, the children come!
  It's this way and that way they circle and file--
  My! but that music of theirs is fine!
  This way and that way, and after a while
  They march straight into this heart of mine!
  A sturdy old heart, but it has to succumb
  To the blare of that trumpet and beat of that drum!

  Come on, little people, from cot and from hall--
  This heart it hath welcome and room for you all!
  It will sing you its songs and warm you with love,
  As your dear little arms with my arms intertwine;
  It will rock you away to the dreamland above--
  Oh, a jolly old heart is this old heart of mine,
  And jollier still is it bound to become
  When you blow that big trumpet and beat that red drum.

  So come; though I see not _his_ dear little face
  And hear not _his_ voice in this jubilant place,
  I know he were happy to bid me enshrine
  His memory deep in my heart with your play--
  Ah me! but a love that is sweeter than mine
  Holdeth my boy in its keeping to-day!
  And my heart it is lonely--so, little folk, come,
  March in and make merry with trumpet and drum!


THE DELECTABLE BALLAD OF THE WALLER LOT.

  Up yonder in Buena Park
  There is a famous spot,
  In legend and in history
  Yelept the Waller Lot.

  There children play in daytime
  And lovers stroll by dark,
  For 'tis the goodliest trysting-place
  In all Buena Park.

  Once on a time that beauteous maid,
  Sweet little Sissy Knott,
  Took out her pretty doll to walk
  Within the Waller Lot.

  While thus she fared, from Ravenswood
  Came Injuns o'er the plain,
  And seized upon that beauteous maid
  And rent her doll in twain.

  Oh, 'twas a piteous thing to hear
  Her lamentations wild;
  She tore her golden curls and cried:
  "My child! My child! My child!"

  Alas, what cared those Injun chiefs
  How bitterly wailed she?
  They never had been mothers,
  And they could not hope to be!

  "Have done with tears," they rudely quoth,
  And then they bound her hands;
  For they proposed to take her off
  To distant border lands.

[Illustration: LUCY ALEXANDER KNOTT.--"HEROINE OF THE 'BALLAD OF THE
WALLER LOT'" (NOTE BY EUGENE FIELD ON PHOTOGRAPH).

From a photograph by Max Platz, Chicago.]

  But, joy! from Mr. Eddy's barn
  Doth Willie Clow behold
  The sight that makes his hair rise up
  And all his blood run cold.

  He put his fingers in his mouth
  And whistled long and clear,
  And presently a goodly horde
  Of cowboys did appear.

  Cried Willie Clow: "My comrades bold,
  Haste to the Waller Lot,
  And rescue from that Injun band
  Our charming Sissy Knott!
  "Spare neither Injun buck nor squaw,
  But smite them hide and hair!
  Spare neither sex nor age nor size,
  And no condition spare!"

  Then sped that cowboy band away,
  Full of revengeful wrath,
  And Kendall Evans rode ahead
  Upon a hickory lath.

  And next came gallant Dady Field
  And Willie's brother Kent,
  The Eddy boys and Robbie James,
  On murderous purpose bent.

  For they were much beholden to
  That maid--in sooth, the lot
  Were very, very much in love
  With charming Sissy Knott.

[Illustration: JAMES BRECKINRIDGE WALLER, JR.--"A 'WALLER LOT' COWBOY
OF RARE PROMISE" (NOTE BY EUGENE FIELD ON PHOTOGRAPH).

From a photograph by Gehrig & Windeatt, Chicago.]

  What wonder? She was beauty's queen,
  And good beyond compare;
  Moreover, it was known she was
  Her wealthy father's heir!

  Now when the Injuns saw that band
  They trembled with affright,
  And yet they thought the cheapest thing
  To do was stay and fight.

  So sturdily they stood their ground,
  Nor would their prisoner yield,
  Despite the wrath of Willie Clow
  And gallant Dady Field.

  Oh, never fiercer battle raged
  Upon the Waller Lot,
  And never blood more freely flowed
  Than flowed for Sissy Knott!

[Illustration: KENDALL EVANS.--"HE RODE A HICKORY LATH IN THE FAMOUS
BATTLE OF 'THE WALLER LOT'" (NOTE BY EUGENE FIELD ON PHOTOGRAPH).

From a photograph by Coover, Chicago.]

  An Injun chief of monstrous size
  Got Kendall Evans down,
  And Robbie James was soon o'erthrown
  By one of great renown.

  And Dady Field was sorely done,
  And Willie Clow was hurt,
  And all that gallant cowboy band
  Lay wallowing in the dirt.

  But still they strove with might and main
  Till all the Waller Lot
  Was strewn with hair and gouts of gore--
  All, all for Sissy Knott!

  Then cried the maiden in despair:
  "Alas, I sadly fear
  The battle and my hopes are lost,
  Unless some help appear!"

  Lo, as she spoke, she saw afar
  The rescuer looming up--
  The pride of all Buena Park,
  Clow's famous yellow pup!

[Illustration: WILLIAM AND KENT CLOW.--"TWO REDOUBTABLE HEROES OF 'THE
WALLER LOT'" (NOTE BY EUGENE FIELD ON PHOTOGRAPH).

  From a photograph by D.R. Coover, Chicago.]

  "Now, sick 'em, Don," the maiden cried,
  "Now, sick 'em, Don!" cried she;
  Obedient Don at once complied--
  As ordered, so did he.

  He sicked 'em all so passing well
  That, overcome by fright,
  The Indian horde gave up the fray
  And safety sought in flight.

  They ran and ran and ran and ran
  O'er valley, plain, and hill;
  And if they are not walking now,
  Why, then, they're running still.

  The cowboys rose up from the dust
  With faces black and blue;
  "Remember, beauteous maid," said they,
  "We've bled and died for you!

  "And though we suffer grievously,
  We gladly hail the lot
  That brings us toils and pains and wounds
  For charming Sissy Knott!"

  But Sissy Knott still wailed and wept,
  And still her fate reviled;
  For who could patch her dolly up--
  Who, who could mend her child?

  Then out her doting mother came,
  And soothed her daughter then;
  "Grieve not, my darling, I will sew
  Your dolly up again!"

  Joy soon succeeded unto grief,
  And tears were soon dried up,
  And dignities were heaped upon
  Clow's noble yellow pup.

  Him all that goodly company
  Did as deliverer hail--
  They tied a ribbon round his neck,
  Another round his tail.

  And every anniversary day
  Upon the Waller Lot
  They celebrate the victory won
  For charming Sissy Knott.

  And I, the poet of these folk,
  Am ordered to compile
  This truly famous history
  In good old ballad style.

  Which having done as to have earned
  The sweet rewards of fame,
  In what same style I did begin
  I now shall end the same.

  So let us sing: Long live the King,
  Long live the Queen and Jack,
  Long live the ten-spot and the ace,
  And also all the pack!


THE ROCK-A-BY LADY.

  The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby Street
  Comes stealing; comes creeping;
  The poppies they hang from her head to her feet,
  And each hath a dream that is tiny and fleet--
  She bringeth her poppies to you, my sweet,
  When she findeth you sleeping!

  There is one little dream of a beautiful drum--
  "Rub-a-dub!" it goeth;
  There is one little dream of a big sugar-plum,
  And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come
  Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum,
  And a trumpet that bloweth!

  And dollies peep out of those wee little dreams
  With laughter and singing;
  And boats go a-floating on silvery streams,
  And the stars peek-a-boo with their own misty gleams,
  And up, up, and up, where the Mother Moon beams,
  The fairies go winging!

  [Illustration: ROSWELL FRANCIS FIELD, EUGENE FIELD'S YOUNGEST SON
  AND THE INSPIRER OF "THE ROCK-A-BY LADY," "BOOH,"
  AND MANY OTHER POEMS IN THE VOLUME "LOVE-SONGS OF CHILDHOOD."

  From a photograph by Stein, Chicago.]

  Would you dream all these dreams that are tiny and fleet?
  They'll come to you sleeping;
  So shut the two eyes that are weary, my sweet,
  For the Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby Street,
  With poppies that hang from her head to her feet,
  Comes stealing; comes creeping.


"BOOH!"

  On afternoons, when baby boy has had a splendid nap,
  And sits, like any monarch on his throne, in nurse's lap,
  In some such wise my handkerchief I hold before my face,
  And cautiously and quietly I move about the place;
  Then, with a cry, I suddenly expose my face to view,
  And you should hear him laugh and crow when I say "Booh!"

  Sometimes the rascal tries to make believe that he is scared,
  And really, when I first began, he stared, and stared, and stared;
  And then his under lip came out and farther out it came,
  Till mamma and the nurse agreed it was a "cruel shame"--
  But now what does that same wee, toddling, lisping baby do
  But laugh and kick his little heels when I say "Booh!"

  He laughs and kicks his little heels in rapturous glee, and then
  In shrill, despotic treble bids me "do it all aden!"
  And I--of course I do it; for, as his progenitor,
  It is such pretty, pleasant play as this that I am for!
  And it is, oh, such fun! and I am sure that we shall rue
  The time when we are both too old to play the game of "Booh!"


THE DUEL.

  The gingham dog and the calico cat
  Side by side on the table sat;
  'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
  Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink!
  The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
  Appeared to know as sure as fate
  There was going to be a terrible spat.
  _(I wasn't there; I simply state
  What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)_

  The gingham dog went "bow-wow-wow!"
  The calico cat replied "mee-ow!"
  The air was littered, an hour or so,
  With bits of gingham and calico,
  While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
  Up with its hands before its face,
  For it always dreaded a family row!
  _(Now mind: I'm only telling you
  What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)_

[Illustration: ELIZABETH WINSLOW, TO WHOM THE POEM OF "THE DUEL" IS
DEDICATED.]

  The Chinese plate looked very blue,
  And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"
  But the gingham dog and the calico cat
  Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
  Employing every tooth and claw--
  In the awfullest way you ever saw--
  And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
  _(Don't fancy I exaggerate--
  I got my news from the Chinese plate!)_

  Next morning, where the two had sat
  They found no trace of dog or cat;
  And some folks think unto this day
  That burglars stole that pair away!
  But the truth about the cat and pup
  Is this: they ate each other up!
  Now what do you really think of that!
  _(The old Dutch clock it told me so,
  And that is how I came to know.)_

[Illustration: IRVING WAY, JR., TO WHOM THE POEM OF "THE RIDE TO
BUMPVILLE" is DEDICATED.

From a photograph by Leonard, Topeka, Kansas.]


THE RIDE TO BUMPVILLE.

  Play that my knee was a calico mare
  Saddled and bridled for Bumpville;
  Leap to the back of this steed, if you dare,
  And gallop away to Bumpville!
  I hope you'll be sure to sit fast in your seat,
  For this calico mare is prodigiously fleet,
  And many adventures you're likely to meet
  As you journey along to Bumpville.

  This calico mare both gallops and trots
  While whisking you off to Bumpville;
  She paces, she shies, and she stumbles, in spots,
  In the tortuous road to Bumpville!
  And sometimes this strangely mercurial steed
  Will suddenly stop and refuse to proceed,
  Which, all will admit, is vexatious indeed,
  When one is en route to Bumpville!

  She's scared of the cars when the engine goes "Toot!"
  Down by the crossing at Bumpville;
  You'd better look out for that treacherous brute
  Bearing you off to Bumpville!
  With a snort she rears up on her hindermost heels,
  And executes jigs and Virginia reels--
  Words fail to explain how embarrassed one feels
  Dancing so wildly to Bumpville.
  It's bumpytybump and it's jiggytyjog,
  Journeying on to Bumpville;
  It's over the hilltop and down through the bog
  You ride on your way to Bumpville;
  It's rattletybang over boulder and stump,
  There are rivers to ford, there are fences to jump,
  And the corduroy road it goes bumpytybump,
  Mile after mile to Bumpville!

  Perhaps you'll observe it's no easy thing
  Making the journey to Bumpville,
  So I think, on the whole, it were prudent to bring
  An end to this ride to Bumpville;
  For, though she has uttered no protest or plaint,
  The calico mare must be blowing and faint--
  What's more to the point, I'm blowed if I ain't!
  So play we have got to Bumpville.

[Illustration: KATHERINE KOHLSAAT. "TO HER," WROTE MR. FIELD ON THE
PHOTOGRAPH, "THE HUSH-A-BY SONG ENTITLED 'SO, SO, ROCK-A-BY SO,' IS
DEDICATED."]


SO, SO, ROCK-A-BY SO!

  So, so, rock-a-by so!
  Off to the garden where dreamikins grow;
  And here is a kiss on your winkyblink eyes,
  And here is a kiss on your dimpledown cheek,
  And here is a kiss for the treasure that lies
  In a beautiful garden way up in the skies
  Which you seek.
  Now mind these three kisses wherever you go--
  So, so, rock-a-by so!

  There's one little fumfay who lives there, I know,
  For he dances all night where the dreamikins grow;
  I send him this kiss on your droopydrop eyes.
  I send him this kiss on your rosyred cheek.
  And here is a kiss for the dream that shall rise
  When the fumfay shall dance in those far-away skies
  Which you seek.
  Be sure that you pay those three kisses you owe--
  So, so, rock-a-by so!

  And, by-low, as you rock-a-by go,
  Don't forget mother who loveth you so!
  And here is her kiss on your weepydeep eyes,
  And here is her kiss on your peachypink cheek,
  And here is her kiss for the dreamland that lies
  Like a babe on the breast of those far-away skies
  Which you seek--
  The blinkywink garden where dreamikins grow--
  So, so, rock-a-by so!

[Illustration: PARK YENOWINE, "THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN," WROTE MR. FIELD
ON THE PHOTOGRAPH, "TO WHOM 'SEEIN' THINGS AT NIGHT' IS DEDICATED."

From a photograph by Stein, Milwaukee.]


SEEIN' THINGS.

  I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
  An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
  I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,
  For when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,
  Mother tells me "Happy dreams!" and takes away the light,
  An' leaves me lyin' all alone an' seein' things at night!

  Sometimes they're in the corner, sometimes they're by the door,
  Sometimes they're all a-standin' in the middle uv the floor;
  Sometimes they are a-sittin' down, sometimes they're walkin' round
  So softly an' so creepy-like they never make a sound!
  Sometimes they are as black as ink, an' other times they're white--
  But the color ain't no difference when you see things at night!

  Once, when I licked a feller 'at had just moved on our street,
  An' father sent me up to bed without a bite to eat,
  I woke up in the dark an' saw things standin' in a row,
  A-lookin' at me cross-eyed an' p'intin' at me--so!
  Oh, my! I wuz so skeered that time I never slep' a mite--
  It's almost alluz when I'm bad I see things at night!

  Lucky thing I ain't a girl, or I'd be skeered to death!
  Bein' I'm a boy, I duck my head an' hold my breath;
  An' I am, oh! _so_ sorry I'm a naughty boy, an' then
  I promise to be better an' I say my prayers again!
  Gran'ma tells me that's the only way to make it right
  When a feller has been wicked an' sees things at night!

  An' so, when other naughty boys would coax me into sin,
  I try to skwush the Tempter's voice 'at urges me within;
  An' when they's pie for supper, or cakes 'at 's big an' nice;
  I want to--but I do not pass my plate f'r them things twice!
  No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slowly out o' sight
  Than I should keep a-livin' on an' seein' things at night!



[Illustration: THE SABINE WOMEN. FROM A PAINTING BY DAVID.

The legend of the Sabine women is familiar. In the early days of Rome,
Romulus, the city's founder and first king, finding his subjects much
lacking in wives, invited the Sabines, a neighboring people, into the
city for a feast and games; and in the midst of the sport, he and his
followers seized the Sabine mothers and daughters by force of arms,
and married them out of hand. David's picture represents the seizure.
Classical subjects were especially preferred by David and his school.]



A CENTURY OF PAINTING.

NOTES BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL.--THE ART OF FRANCE IN THE BEGINNING
OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--DAVID AND HIS FOLLOWERS.

BY WILL H. LOW.


When the potter's daughter of remote antiquity first drew the incised
line around her lover's shadow cast upon the wall by the accomplice
sun, art had its birth. Before that time primitive man had
endeavored--with who knows what desire to leave behind him some trace
of his passage upon earth--to make upon bones rude tracings of
his surroundings. The proof of the universality of art is in these
manifestations, of which the logical outcome was the complete and
splendid art of Greece. Through the sequence of Byzantine art we
come to Giotto, who, a shepherd's son under the skies of Italy, was
reinspired at the source of nature, and became the first painter as
we to-day know painting. From Giotto descends in direct line the great
family of artists who, in the service of the spiritual and temporal
sovereigns of the earth, shed illustration upon their craft and
undying lustre on their names until the old order, changing, giving
way to the new, enfranchised art in the great upheaval of the latter
part of the eighteenth century.

It is well, in order to understand the position in which this great
revolution left art, to briefly consider the conditions preceding
it. Painting, up to the end of the seventeenth century, had been
essentially the handmaiden of religion; and religion in its turn had
been so closely allied to the state that, when declining faith let
down the barriers, art took for the first time its place among the
liberal professions whose first duty is to find in the necessities
of mankind a reason for their existence. Small wonder, then, that,
accustomed to be fostered and encouraged, to be held aloof from the
material necessity of earning their daily bread, the artists of this
period sought protection from the only class which in those days
had the leisure to appreciate or the fortune to encourage them. The
people, the "general public," as we say to-day, did not exist, except
as a mass of patient workers in the first part, as a clamorous rabble
demanding its rights in the latter part, of the century. Hence the
patronage of art, its very existence, depended on the pleasure of the
nobility, and naturally enough its themes were measured according to
the tastes of its patrons. Much that was charming was produced, but
never before did art portray its epoch with such great limitations.
The persistent blindness to the signs and portents gathering thick
about them which characterized the higher classes of the time, may be
felt in its art; of the great outside world, of the hungry masses so
soon to rise in rebellion, nothing is seen. One may walk through the
palaces at Versailles, may search through the pictures of the epoch in
the Louvre, or linger at Sans Souci in Potsdam--where Frederick filled
his house with sculptured duchesses in classical costume playing
at Diana, and covered his walls with Watteaus and his ceilings with
decorations by Pesne, a less worthy Frenchman--and remain in complete
ignorance of hungry Jacques, who, with pike-staff and guillotine, was
so soon to change all that and usher in the period of the Revolution,
Before the evil day dawned for the gilded gentry of France, however,
the British colonies in America, influenced by the teachings of the
precursors of the French Revolution, and aided by their isolation,
were to establish their independence.

[Illustration: JACQUES LOUIS DAVID AS A YOUNG MAN. FROM A PAINTING BY
HIMSELF.

The exact date of this picture is unknown; but it was, presumably,
painted before 1775, when David, having received the Prix de Rome,
went to Italy for the first time. It was given to the Louvre, where it
now is, by the painter Eugene Isabey in 1852; David had presented it
to the elder Isabey, also a painter.]

It was undoubtedly at this time, when revolt was in the air and man
was preoccupied with his primal right to liberty of existence, that
art was given the bad name of a luxury. Until its long prostitution
throughout the seventeenth century, its mission had been noble; but
now, coincident to the fall of the old _régime_, the people, from an
ignorance which was more their misfortune than their fault, confounded
art with luxuries more than questionable, in which their whilom
superiors had indulged while they lacked bread. With the curious
assumption of Spartan virtue which rings with an almost convincing
sound of true metal through so many of the resolutions passed by the
National Convention of France, in the days following the holocaust of
the Reign of Terror, there was serious debate as to whether pictures
and statues were to be permitted to exist or their production
encouraged.

This debate must have fallen strangely on the ears of one of the
members of the Convention, who had already made his power as an artist
felt, and who was from that time for more than forty years to be the
directing influence, not only of French art, but of painting on the
Continent in general. This man, Jacques Louis David, in point of fact
was soon practically to demonstrate to his colleagues that art had
as its mission other aims than those followed by the painters of the
preceding generations. It fell that Lepelletier, one of the members of
the Convention, was assassinated, and David's brush portrayed him as
he lay dead; and the picture, being brought into the legislative hall,
moved the entire assembly to a conviction that the art of the painter
struck a human chord which vibrated deep in the heart of man.

[Illustration: MICHEL GÉRARD AND HIS FAMILY. FROM A PAINTING BY DAVID.

Michel Gérard was a member of the National Assembly, the body which
ruled France in the first years of the Revolution, from 1789 to 1791.
The picture represents him in the midst of his family, attired with
the simplicity affected by the Revolutionary leaders at that time.]

But a little later, when Marat, "the Friend of Man," was stricken
down, a voice rose in the Convention, "Where art thou, David?" And
again, responding to the call, he painted the picture of the dead
demagogue lying in his bath, his pen in hand, a half-written screed on
a rude table improvised by placing a board across the tub; and again
the picture, more eloquent, more explanatory of character and of
epoch than any written page of history, was a convincing argument that
painting was not a plaything.

Born August 21, 1748, a man over fifty years of age when this century
commenced, David may yet be considered entirely our own; for the ideas
of his country, despite minor influences that have affected modern
art, have prevailed in the art of all other countries, and these
principles were largely formulated by him. France has been throughout
this century the only country which has steadfastly encouraged art,
with a system of education unsurpassed in any epoch, and by the
maintenance of a standard which, however rebellious at times, every
serious artist has been and is obliged to acknowledge. A cousin--or,
as some authorities have it, a grand-nephew--of Boucher (the artist
who best typifies the frivolity of the art of the eighteenth century,
so that there is grim humor in the thought that this iconoclast was of
his blood), David was twenty-seven years of age when, in 1775, he won
the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to go to Italy for four years at
the expense of the government. He was the pupil of Vien, a painter
whose chief merit it was to have inspired his pupil with a hatred of
the frivolous Pompadour art of the epoch; and David only obtained the
coveted prize after competing five successive years. It is instructive
to learn that of this first sojourn at Rome almost nothing remains in
the way of painting; for the young artist, endowed with the patience
which is, according to Goethe, synonomous with genius, devoted all his
time to drawing from the antique.

It was here and during this time, doubtless, that he formed his
conviction that painting of the highest type must conform to classical
tradition--that all nature was to be remoulded in the form of antique
sculpture. But it was also at this time, and owing to his stern
apprenticeship to the study of form, that he acquired the mastery of
drawing which served him so well when in the presence of nature; and
with no other preoccupation than to reproduce his model, he painted
the people of his time and produced his greatest works. For by a
strange yet not unprecedented contradiction, David's fame to-day
rests, not upon the great classical pictures which were the admiration
of his time and by which he thought to be remembered, but on the
portraits which, with his mastery of technical acquirement, he painted
with surprising truth and reality.

The time was propitious, however, for David. France, the seeds of
revolution germinating in its soil, looked upon the Republic of Rome
as the type from which a system could be evolved that would usher in
a new day of virtuous government; and when, after a second visit to
Rome, David returned home with a picture representing the oath of the
Horatii, Paris received him with open arms. The picture was exhibited,
and viewed by crowds, burning, doubtless, in their turn to have
weapons placed in their hands with which to conquer their liberties.
This was in 1786; but years after, in the catalogue of the Salon
of 1819, we read this note: "The Oath of the Horatii, the first
masterpiece which restored to the French school of painting the purity
of antique taste."

At the outbreak of the Revolution David abandoned painting; and
on January 17, 1793, as a member of the Convention, voted for the
execution of Louis XVI. It was during this period that were painted
his pictures of Lepelletier and Marat, in which his cold, statuesque,
and correct manner was revivified and warmed to life--paradoxically
enough, to paint death. A friend of Robespierre, he was carried down
at the overthrow of the "little lawyer from Arras," and imprisoned
in the Luxembourg. His wife--who had left him at the outset of his
political life, horrified at the excesses of the time--now rejoined
him in his misfortune; and inspired by her devotion, David made the
first sketch of the Sabine women.

Released from prison October 26, 1795, he returned to his art; and
in 1800 the Sabines was exhibited in a room in the Louvre, where it
remained for more than five years, during which time it constantly
attracted visitors, and brought to the painter in entrance fees more
than thirteen thousand dollars. Early in the career of Napoleon, David
had attracted his attention; and he had vainly endeavored to induce
the artist to accompany him on the Egyptian campaign. On the accession
of Napoleon as Emperor, therefore, we find in the Salon catalogues,
"Monsieur David, first painter to his Imperial Majesty," in place of
plain "Citizen David" of the Revolutionary years.

Napoleon ordered from David four great paintings. The Coronation and
the Distribution of Flags alone were painted when the overthrow of the
Empire, and the loyalty of David to his imperial patron, caused him to
be exiled in 1816. He went to Brussels, where, on December 29, 1825,
he died. The Bourbons, masters of France, refused to allow his body to
be brought back to his country; but Belgium gave him a public funeral,
after which he was laid to rest in the Cathedral of Brussels.

[Illustration: POPE PIUS VII. FROM A PAINTING FROM LIFE BY DAVID, NOW
IN THE LOUVRE.

Pius VII. was the Pope who, in 1804, consecrated Napoleon I. as
Emperor of France. Later he opposed Napoleon's aggressions, and was
imprisoned for it, first in Italy and afterwards in France. In 1814
he recovered his freedom and his dominions, temporal as well as
spiritual. The above picture is, perhaps, the best example of what may
be termed the official portrait (as the preceding picture is of the
familiar portrait) of David. It was painted in 1805, in the apartment
assigned to the Pope in the Tuileries.]

This dominant artistic influence of France in the first quarter of
this century is not entirely extinguished to-day. The classical spirit
has never been entirely absent from any intellectual manifestation of
the French; but in David and his pupils it was carried to an extremity
against which the painters of the next generation were to struggle
almost hopelessly. Time, which sets all things right, has placed
David in his proper place; and while to-day we may admire the immense
knowledge of the man as manifested in the great classical pictures,
like the Horatii, the Sabines, or the Leonidas at Thermopylæ,
we remain cold before their array of painted statues. His
portraits--Marat, the charming sketch of Madame Recamier, his own
portrait as a young man, the group of Michel Gérard and his family,
and the Pope Pius VII.--give the touch of nature which is needed to
kindle the fire of humanity in this man of iron.

[Illustration: JUSTICE AND DIVINE VENGEANCE PURSUING CRIME. FROM A
PAINTING BY PRUD'HON.

This picture was painted for the Criminal Court of the Palace of
Justice in Paris. At the time of the Restoration in 1816 the picture
was replaced by a crucifix, and removed to the Luxembourg gallery,
where it remained until 1823, when it was placed in the Louvre. It is
considered Prud'hon's masterpiece.]

It is as though nature had wished a contrast to this coldly
intellectual type that there should have existed at the same time
a painter who, seeking at the same inexhaustible fountain-head of
classicism, found inspiration for an art almost morbid in excess of
sentiment. Pierre Prud'hon was born at Cluny in Burgundy, April 4,
1758, the son of a poor mason who, dying soon after the boy's birth,
left him to the care of the monks of the Abbey of Cluny. The pictures
decorating the monastery visibly affecting the youth, the Bishop of
Macon placed him under the tuition of one Desvoges, who directed
the school of painting at Dijon. Here his progress was rapid, but at
nineteen the too susceptible youth married a woman whose character and
habits were such that his life was rendered unhappy thenceforward.

In 1780 Prud'hon went to Paris to prosecute his studies; and there,
two years after, was awarded a prize, founded by his province, which
enabled him to go to Rome. It is characteristic of the man that, in
the competition for this prize, he was so touched by the despair of
one of his comrades competing with him that he repainted completely
his friend's picture--with such success that it was the friend to
whom the prize was awarded, and who, but for a tardy awakening of
conscience, would have gone to Rome in his place.

The judgment rectified, Prud'hon went to Rome, where he stayed seven
years, studying Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and above all Correggio,
whose influence is manifest in his work, and returned to Paris in
1789. Unknown, and timid by nature, he attracted little attention, and
for some years gained his living by designing letter-heads, visiting
cards, which were then of an ornate description, and the many trifles
which constitute a present resource to the unsuccessful painter even
to-day.

[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. FROM A PAINTING BY
PRUD'HON.

This picture was ordered by the Emperor Napoleon for the chapel of
the Tuileries. It was exhibited in the Salon of 1819, and, after the
Revolution of 1848, was removed from the Tuileries to the Louvre,
where it has since remained.]

It was not until 1796 that some of the charming drawings which he had
made commenced to attract attention. A series of designs illustrating
Daphnis and Chloe, for the publishing house of Didot _ainé_,
were particularly noticeable; and through this work he made the
acquaintance of M. Frochot, by whose influence he received a
commission for a decoration for the palace of St. Cloud, which is now
placed in the Louvre.

[Illustration: HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. FROM A DRAWING BY PRUD'HON.

This charming drawing, which forms part of the collection in the
Louvre, is a study for a projected painting, and is, by its grace of
line and composition, peculiarly typical of the painter. Hector, about
to depart for his combat with Ajax, and having bidden farewell to
Andromache, his wife, desires to embrace his son. But the child,
frightened at the emotion of which he is witness, takes refuge in his
mother's arms.]

Life now became somewhat easier, and in 1803--having long been
separated from his wife--a talented young woman, Mlle. Mayer, became
his pupil, and relations of a more tender character were established.
The pictures of Mlle. Mayer are influenced by her master to a degree
that makes them minor productions of his own; and her unselfish,
though unconsecrated, devotion to him makes up the sum of the little
happiness which he may have had.

In 1808 Prud'hon's picture of Justice and Divine Vengeance pursuing
Crime was ordered for the Palace of Justice, and was shown at the
Salon of that year, where the presence of David's Sabines and its
influence as shown in many of the productions of his pupils were not
enough to rob Prud'hon of a legitimate success, and the cross of the
Legion of Honor was accorded him. The Assumption of the Virgin was
exhibited in 1819; but before that Prud'hon had been made a member of
the Institute, and (it passed for a distinction) drawing-master to the
Empress Marie Louise.

Many pictures, all characterized by a subtile charm, were produced
during this happy period; but in 1821 Mlle. Mayer, preyed upon by her
false position, committed suicide, and Prud'hon lingered in continual
sorrow until February 16, 1823, when he died. The work of Prud'hon
covers a wide range, of which not the least important are the drawings
which he made with a lavish hand. As has been observed, he was a true
child of his time, and the classic influence is strongly felt in his
work; but translated through his temperament, it is no longer lifeless
and cold. It is eloquent of the early ages of the world, when life was
young and maturity and age bore the impress of a simple life, little
perplexed by intricate problems of existence. Throughout his work,
in the recreation of the myths of antiquity or in the rarer
representation of Christian legend, his style is sober and
dignified--as truly classic as that of David; but permeating it all
is the indescribable essence of beauty and youth, the reflection,
undoubtedly, of a man who, rarely fortunate, capable of grave
mistakes, has nevertheless left much testimony to the love and esteem
in which he was held.

François Gérard, one of the many faithful followers of David, was born
May 4, 1770, at Rome, where his father had gone in the service of the
ambassador of France. He went to France in his twelfth year, and at
sixteen was enrolled in the school of David. As a docile pupil he
entered the competition for the Roman prize in 1789; but Girodet
having obtained the first place, a second prize was awarded, and the
next year the death of his father prevented him from finishing his
competition picture; so that he is one of the exceptions amongst
David's pupils, inasmuch as he did not obtain the Prix de Rome. In
1790, however, he accompanied his mother, who was an Italian, to
her native country. But his sojourn there was short, as in 1793
he solicited the influence of David to save him from the general
conscription; which was done by naming him a member of the
Revolutionary tribunal. By taking refuge in his studio and feigning
illness, he avoided the exercise of his judicial functions; and the
storm passing away, he exhibited in 1795 a picture of Belisarius which
attracted attention.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN. FROM A PAINTING BY PRUD'HON,
IN THE LOUVRE.]

In 1806 Napoleon made him the official portrait painter attached
to his court, and ordered the picture of the battle of Austerlitz,
finished in 1810. This and indeed all of Gérard's pictures are marked
by all the defects of David's methods, and lack the virile quality of
his master. His portraits, however, have many qualities of grace and
good taste, and his success in France was somewhat analogous to that
of Lawrence in England. Under the Restoration his vogue continued; in
1819 he was given the title of baron; and, dying in Paris on January
11, 1837, he left as his legacy to the art of his time no less
than twenty-eight historical pictures, many of great dimensions,
eighty-seven full-length portraits, and over two hundred smaller
portraits, representing the principal men and women of his time. The
portraits of the Countess Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely and of the
Princess Visconti are both excellent specimens of the work of this
estimable painter.

[Illustration: PRUD'HON. FROM A PEN DRAWING BY HIMSELF.]

Of the pictures which testify to the industry and talent of
Louis-Léopold Boilly, who was born at La Bassée, near Lille, on July
5, 1761, the Louvre possesses but one specimen; namely, the Arrival of
a Diligence before the coach-office in Paris. This is undoubtedly due
to the fact that with the preoccupation of the public mind with the
events of the time, and the prevailing taste for great historical
pictures, Boilly's art, so sincere and so intimate in character, was
underestimated. It is certainly not due to any lack of industry on the
part of the painter. Even at the age of eleven years he undertook to
paint, for a religious fraternity of his native town, two pictures
representing the miracles of St. Roch. These still exist, and they are
said to be meritorious. His facility in seizing the resemblance of
his sitter was evidently native, for when only thirteen years of age,
without instruction of any kind, he left his parents, and established
himself as a portrait painter first at Douai and afterwards at Arras.
In 1786 he went to Paris, where he lived until his death. Here
he painted a great number of pictures of small size, representing
familiar scenes of the streets and of the homes of Paris, and an
incredible number of portraits.

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS VISCONTI. FROM A PAINTING BY
FRANÇOIS-PASCAL-SIMON (BARON) GÉRARD.

The picture gives an interesting study of the costume of the First
Empire, and is a work conceived in the style of the time when the
recent publication of "Corinne" by Madame de Staël had influenced the
popular taste. The original painting is now in the Louvre.]

A valiant craftsman, happy in his work, following no school but that
of nature, careless of official honor (which came to him only when,
late in life, on the demand of the Academy, the government accorded
him the cross of the Legion of Honor in 1833), his life was
uneventful. But his little pictures pleased the people who saw
themselves so truthfully depicted, and to-day they are more highly
esteemed than are the works of many of his at-the-time esteemed
contemporaries. He painted for seventy-two years, produced more
than five thousand portraits, an incredible number of pictures and
drawings, and died, his brush in hand, on January 5, 1845. The
little picture of the Arrival of a Diligence presents, with exquisite
truthfulness, a Paris unlike the brilliant city of our day, the
Paris where Arthur Young in his travels in 1812 notes the absence of
sidewalks; a city inhabited by slim ladies dressed _à la Grecque_, and
by high-stocked gentlemen content to travel by post. It is a canvas of
more value than the pretentious and tiresome historical compositions
of the time, and suggests the reflection that many of the David pupils
might have been better employed in putting their scientific accuracy
of drawing to the service of rendering the life which they saw about
them, instead of producing the arid stretches of academy models posing
as Hector or Romulus.

Guillaume-Guillon Lethière, a painter in whose veins there was an
admixture of negro blood, would hardly have echoed the sentiments
of this last paragraph, as he lived and worked in the factitious
companionship of the Greeks and Romans. So clearly, however, does the
temperament of a painter inspire the character of his work that we
may be glad that this was the case; for, of his school, Lethière alone
infuses into his classicism something of the turbulent life which
marked his own character.

[Illustration: THE COUNTESS REGNAULT DE SAINT-JEAN-D'ANGELY. FROM A
PAINTING BY BARON GÉRARD, IN THE LOUVRE.]

Born in Guadeloupe January 10, 1760, coming to Paris when very young,
he took the second prize of Rome in 1784, with a picture of such merit
that the regulation was infringed and he was given leave to go to Rome
at the same time as the winner of the first prize. His first picture
was exhibited in the form of a sketch in the Salon of 1801; and not
until eleven years after was the great canvas of Brutus Condemning his
Sons to Death shown at the Salon of 1812. The other picture by which
he is best known, the Death of Virginia, is, like the preceding, in
the Louvre; and though the sketch of this was exhibited in 1795, the
picture only took definite form in 1828.

[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF A DILIGENCE. FROM A PAINTING BY
LOUIS-LÉOPOLD BOILLY.

This picture, now in the Louvre, is the only example of this artist's
work shown there, and is particularly interesting as showing the Paris
of 1803, when the streets had no sidewalks. The scene is laid at
the place of arrival and departure of the coaches which from Paris
penetrated into all parts of France, and were the only means of
transport or communication.]

Meanwhile Lethière had travelled much in England and Spain, and had
been for ten years director of the French School of Fine Arts in Rome.
His life was adventurous, and it is told of him that he was often
involved in quarrels, and fought a number of duels with military
officers because, humble civilian that he was, he yet dared to wear
the mustache! In 1822 he returned definitely to Paris, where he was
made a member of the Institute and professor in the School of Fine
Arts, and where he died April 21, 1832. The quality of his work is
well characterized by Charles Blanc, who writes of it "as producing
the effect of a tragedy sombre and pathetic."

The picture of the Burial of Atala, from Châteaubriand's well-known
story, is interesting as showing the methods of the David school
applied to subjects of less heroic mould than the master and his
disciples were wont to treat. Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy Trioson,
born at Montargis January 3, 1767, was one of the most convinced
adherents of his master David; and while competing for the Prize
of Rome, which he won in 1789, was accustomed each morning before
beginning his work to station himself in front of David's picture of
the Horatii as before a shrine, invoking its happy influence. Such
devotion received its official reward, and after five years spent
in Rome his great (and tiresome) picture of the Deluge met with
the greatest favor, and in 1810 was awarded the medal for the best
historical picture produced in the preceding decade. The Burial of
Atala, painted in 1808, is, however, a work of charm in composition
and sentiment; and though in color it is dry and uninteresting, is
not unworthy of the popularity which it has enjoyed from the vantage
ground of the Louvre for more than four-score years. Girodet died in
Paris, December 9, 1824, after having received all the official honors
which France can award to a painter.

The charming face of Marie-Anne-Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who, with
the arms of her daughter encircling her, smiles on us here, was
undoubtedly not painted in this century, as the painter was born
in Paris April 16, 1755, and it is as a young mother that she has
represented herself. But as its author lived until March 30, 1842,
she should undoubtedly figure among the painters of this century. From
early girlhood until old age,

    "_Lebrun, de la beauté le peintre et le modèle._"

as Laharpe sang, was, though largely self-taught, a formidable
concurrent to painters of the sterner sex. Married when very young
to Lebrun, a dealer in pictures and critic of art, a pure marriage of
convention, she left France shortly before the Revolution, and went
to Italy. Before her departure she was high in favor at the court, and
painted no less than twenty portraits of Marie Antoinette.

[Illustration: BRUTUS CONDEMNING HIS SONS TO DEATH. FROM A PAINTING BY
LETHIÈRE.

Brutus led in overthrowing the tyranny of Tarquin the Proud and
establishing a republic in Rome. He was then elected one of the
two consuls. His two sons were detected in a conspiracy to restore
Tarquin, and he, as consul, himself condemned them to death.]

[Illustration: THE BURIAL OF ATALA. FROM A PAINTING BY GIRODET, IN THE
LOUVRE.

Atala, the heroine of a romance by Châteaubriand, was the daughter of
a North American Indian chief, passionately in love with the chief
of another tribe, with whom she fled into the desert. But having been
religiously vowed to virginity by her mother, she remains faithful to
the vow, and finally in despair poisons herself.]

[Illustration: MADAME LEBRUN AND HER DAUGHTER. FROM A PAINTING BY
MADAME LEBRUN HERSELF.

This picture, painted for a private patron, passed, at the period of
the French Revolution, into the possession of the French nation, and
is now in the Louvre. There is in the Louvre also another by Madame
Lebrun, representing herself and her daughter, one which the artist
bequeathed to the Louvre at her death, in 1842. Of the two, while
both are charming, the one here printed represents the painter at her
best.]

Fortune favored her in Italy, whence she went to Vienna, Prague,
Dresden, and Berlin. In each and every capital the same success,
due to her talent, beauty, and amiability, followed her; and at last
arriving in St. Petersburg, she remained there until 1801, when she
returned to Paris. Some time after, she visited England, where she
remained three years, and then returned by way of Holland to France
in 1809. The Academy of France and the academies of all other European
countries admitted her to membership.

Indefatigable as a worker during her long career, she produced an
immense number of portraits; and while she painted comparatively few
subject pictures, she arranged her models in so picturesque a fashion
that, as in the example here given, her portraits have great charm of
composition. With a virile grasp of form, tempered though it be with
grace, Madame Lebrun offers an interesting example of woman's work
in art; and, while she has nothing to concede to the painters of her
time, is no less interesting as showing that by force of native
talent the woman of the early part of the century had in her power the
conquest of nearly all the desired rights of the New Woman. She has
left extremely interesting memoirs of her life, written in her old
age, and there are many anecdotes bearing testimony to her wit. One of
these goes back to the time when Louis XVIII., then a youth, enlivened
the sittings for his portrait by singing, quite out of tune. "How do
you think I sing?" inquired he. "Like a prince," responded the amiable
artist.

With Antoine Jean Gros we come to the last and the greatest of the
pupils of David. Born in Paris March 16, 1771, he competed but once,
in 1792, for the Prix de Rome, was unsuccessful, but undertook the
voyage thither on his own slender resources the next year. Italy was
in a troubled state--he who troubled all Europe in the early years
of the century being there at the head of his army; and in 1796, at
Genoa, Gros attracted the attention of Madame Bonaparte. It was she
who proposed that Gros should paint Napoleon; and Gros consequently
went to Milan, and after the battle of Arcole painted the hero
carrying the tricolor across the bridge at the head of his grenadiers.
The picture pleased Bonaparte, who had it engraved, and gave Gros a
commission to collect for the Louvre the chief artistic treasures of
Italy. These functions occupied him until 1801, during which period,
however, he executed a number of successful portraits.

Returning to Paris after nine years, he painted the Hospital at
Jaffa, representing Napoleon visiting the fever-stricken soldiers.
The success of this picture, exhibited in 1804, was very great; and
it remains Gros's best title to remembrance. In it is something of
the reality poetized and seen through the eyes of an artist which
characterizes the work of Eugene Delacroix.

The force of David, however, was too great for Gros; at fifty years of
age we find him demanding counsel of the master, who sternly bids him
leave his "futile subjects," and devote his time to great historical
epochs of the past. When David was sent into exile in 1816, it was to
Gros that he confided the direction of his school; and this task, and
the production of immense canvases like the Battle of the Pyramids,
filled his life. The picture here reproduced, the Visit of Charles the
Fifth and Francis the First to the Tombs of the Kings in the Cathedral
of St. Denis, was painted in 1812.

[Illustration: FRANCIS I., KING OF FRANCE, AND CHARLES V., EMPEROR OF
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, VISITING THE TOMBS OF THE FRENCH KINGS AT ST.
DENIS. FROM A PAINTING BY BARON GROS, IN THE LOUVRE.

Between 1520 and 1545 all Europe was kept in distress and turmoil by
a quarrel between Francis I. and Charles V., the chief subject of
contention being the duchy of Milan, which Charles held and Francis
claimed. Four separate wars were waged by Francis against Charles,
all of them unsuccessful. But their majesties had intervals of outward
friendship, and in one of these Francis invited Charles, then setting
out from Spain for the Low Countries, to pass through France and visit
him. The visit was duly paid, was one of great state and ceremony,
and from it is derived the incident portrayed in the above picture.
Francis is the figure in the centre; Charles, suited in black,
standing at his right.]

The revolt which was already making itself felt in French art was
a thorn in the flesh of the sensitive Gros. In vain were all the
artistic honors showered upon him. In 1824 he was made a baron; since
1816 he had been a member of the Institute; and the crosses of most of
the orders of Europe, and the medals of all the exhibitions were his.
Nevertheless, about him younger painters revolted. In his secret soul,
doubtless, he felt sympathy with their methods. But the commands of
the terrible old exile of Brussels were still in his ears.

Finally a portrait of King Charles X., the decorations in the Museum
of Sovereigns, and a picture exhibited in the Salon of 1835 were in
turn harshly criticized by the press, which looked with favor on the
younger men; and Gros, full of years, and of honors which had brought
fortune in their train, was found drowned in a little arm of the Seine
near Meudon, June 26, 1835. In despair he had taken his own life. With
him died David's greatest pupil and a part of David's influence. But
that portion of the teachings of the master most consonant with
French character is not without effect to-day. Less strong than in the
generation following David, absolutely extinct if we are to believe
the extremists among the men of to-day, it yet remains a leaven to the
fermenting mass of modern production. Perhaps its healthy influence
is the best monument to the man who "restored to France the purity of
antique taste."



[Illustration: JAMES G. BLAINE.

From a photograph by Handy, Washington.]



THE DEFEAT OF BLAINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

BY MURAT HALSTEAD.


The fame of Blaine does not decline, but increases and will endure.
It was not his destiny to fill the greater office created by our
Constitution, but with a distinction exceeding that of the majority of
Presidents, he is enrolled, with Clay, Webster, and Seward, among the
illustrious Secretaries of State. The defeat of James G. Blaine for
the Presidency in 1884 will rank among the memorable disappointments
and misfortunes of the people with that of Henry Clay, forty years
before.

Late in the week before the meeting of the Chicago National Republican
Convention in 1884, I received in Cincinnati a telegram from Mr.
Blaine requesting me to call on him in Washington, where he lived on
the opposite side of Lafayette Square from that of the celebrated
old house where he spent his last days. He was engaged on his "Twenty
Years in Congress." I called on him the day after his despatch reached
me, making haste, for I was about to go to Chicago; and he first said
he feared he had sent for me on an insufficient errand, and after
a moment's pause began to speak of the approaching convention, and
quickly used the expression--"I am alarmed."

[Illustration: MR. BLAINE IN 1891.

This is accounted one of the best portraits of Mr. Blaine in
existence. It is from a photograph taken at Bar Harbor in the autumn
of 1891 by Mr. A. von Mumm Schwartzenstein, then _Charge d'Affaires_
of the German Empire at Washington, and is here reproduced by the kind
permission of Mr. W.E. Curtis.]

"Concerning what are you frightened?" I inquired; and added: "You
surely are not afraid you are not going to be nominated?"

He responded with a flash of his eyes and a smile: "Oh, no; I am
afraid I shall be nominated, and have sent for you for that reason,
and want you to assist in preventing my nomination." I shook my head,
and Mr. Blaine asked: "Why not?"

I said I had not been so long in his confidence and known by his
friends to be of them, to venture upon such an enterprise as working
in opposition. If I should appear actively against him, no matter how
I presented the matter, the easy answer to any argument of mine would
be that I had relapsed into personal antagonism to him. I then said:
"I have not heard of this;" and asked: "Are there many who know that
you are against your candidacy?" He said he had talked freely to
that effect, and mentioned William Walter Phelps as one who was fully
acquainted with his views, and also Colonel Parsons, of the Natural
Bridge, Virginia, then in the house. I said: "Mr. Blaine, I think
it is too late. I have looked over the field, and your nomination is
almost certain--the drift is your way. Why precisely do you object,
and what exactly do you think should happen?" He replied in his
rapid way with much feeling, and I believe his very words were: "The
objection to my nomination is that I cannot be elected. With the South
solid against us we cannot succeed without New York, and I cannot
carry that State. There are factions there and influences before
voting and after voting, such that the party cannot count upon
success with me. I am sure of it--I have thought it all over, and my
deliberate judgment is as I tell you. I know, too, where I am strong
as well as where I am weak--and we might, if we should get into the
campaign with my name at the head of the ticket, think we were going
to win. We would get to believing it, perhaps, but we should miss it
in the end, if not by a great deal, just a little. With everything
depending on New York," he continued, "it would be a mistake to
nominate me. This is not new to me--I have weighed all the chances.
Besides"--and here he kindled--"why should we let the country go into
the hands of Democrats when we can name a ticket that is certain to be
elected--one that would sweep every Northern State?"

"What is it?" I asked.

The answer came with vivid animation: "William T. Sherman and Robert
T. Lincoln." This idea was instantly amplified. "The names of Sherman
and Lincoln put together would be irresistible. That ticket would
elect itself. We should have a campaign of marching and song. We need
the inspiration, and 'Marching Through Georgia' and 'We Are Coming,
Father Abraham,' would give it. We must not lose this campaign, and I
am alarmed by the prospect of losing it in my name."

"But," I interposed, "it is the report and the public opinion that
General Sherman would not consent to be a candidate; that he would
throw the party down that would nominate him. Why not try the other
Sherman?"

Mr. Blaine's response was that John Sherman would have the like
difficulty in carrying New York that he would have himself. The
element of military heroism was wanting. He had written to General
Sherman on the subject, and of course the General thought he could
not consent to be President--for that was what it amounted to--but his
reasoning was fallacious. If General Sherman had the question put to
him--whether to be President himself or turn the office over to the
Democratic party, with the Solid South dominant--he would see his duty
and do it, though his reluctance was real.

I said General Sherman could not consent to appear in competition with
his brother John at Chicago, though he had a funny way of looking
on John in West Point style as a "politician," and that was an
insuperable difficulty; and that, Mr. Blaine did not seem to have
thought of as a serious element in the case, but he realized the force
of it. I was anxious to hear more about the correspondence between
Blaine and General Sherman; but was only told that the letter to the
General was a call to consider that circumstances might arise, and
should do so, in which the General's sense of duty could be appealed
to, and be as strong as that to take up arms had been when the Union
demanded defenders.

[Illustration: MR. BLAINE AT HIS DESK IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT.

From a photograph by Miss F.B. Johnston.]

Arrived at Chicago, I soon ascertained that Mr. Blaine had been doing
a good deal of talking of the same kind I had heard, but he had
not been able to impress the more robust of those favorable to his
nomination with the view that he should be heeded. They insisted that
he was not wise, but timid; that he did not like war and would do too
much for peace; that he especially miscalculated when he said he could
not carry New York, for he was the very man who could carry it;
that his personal force was far beyond his own estimation; that his
intuitions were like those of a woman, but were not infallible; that
his singing the campaign was a fancy; that "Marching Through
Georgia" would wear out, and was of the stuff of dreams. Mr. Blaine's
accredited friends felt that things had gone too far to permit a
change to be contemplated. They were half mad at Blaine for his
Sherman and Lincoln proposal, which was confidentially in the air,
regarding it as not favorable to themselves. They said they could
carry the country more certainly with Blaine than Sherman, for Sherman
was an uncertain political quantity, and might turn out to be almost
the devil himself. Some of them said he would proclaim martial law and
annihilate the Constitution! They were sure the force of the celebrity
of General Sherman in a campaign had been overestimated by Blaine, who
had the caprice and high color in his imagination that produce
schemes too fine for success. In a word, Sherman and Lincoln were not
practical politicians. Blaine's idea was not politics, but poetry.
What they wanted was the magnetism and magic of Blaine. The country
was at any rate safely in the hands of the Republican party. They had
nearly lost the election because they had not nominated Blaine eight
years before, and won with Garfield because he was a Blaine man. The
wisdom of the Republican politicians was thus against Blaine's ticket
so far as it was known; and those favorable to President Arthur, John
Sherman, John A. Logan, and George F. Edmunds did not give the least
credit to the statement that Blaine did not want the nomination. His
rumored objection to making the race--of course the real reasons
were not known--was regarded as a mere "play" in politics, if not
altogether fantastic; and they pursued their own courses heedless of
the real conditions. There was a singular complication of errors of
judgment in the Blaine opposition. The friends of Arthur took the
complimentary resolutions from a majority of the States to mean his
nomination. In truth, the significance of that unanimity was quite
otherwise. Ohio was not solid for Sherman. It is a State that has been
very hard to manage in national conventions--was so in the time when
Chase was the Republican leader--divided in '60, nominating Lincoln,
and rarely presented a front without a flaw for a national candidate.
The energy of Logan's friends was not sufficiently supported to give
confidence. The reformers by profession and of prominence were for
Edmunds; and they were a body of men who had force, if judiciously
applied, to have carried the convention, provided they divested
themselves of the peculiarities of extreme elevation that prevent
efficiency. While they assumed to have soared above practical politics
and to abhor the ways of the "toughs" in championing candidates, they
subordinated their own usefulness to a sentiment that was limited to
a senator--Mr. Edmunds. It was clear at an early hour that the
nomination of Mr. Edmunds was impossible. He was put into the combat
by Governor Long with a splendid speech, and the mellow eloquence of
George William Curtis was for him, and Carl Schurz was a counsellor
who upheld the banner of the lawyer statesman of Vermont. The
conclusion was to stick to Edmunds; and they stuck until the last, and
frittered away their influence. They were in such shape they might,
by going in force, at a well-selected time and in a dramatic way, have
carried the convention with them. They could not, however, get their
own consent to go for Logan, or Arthur, or either of the Shermans; and
so Blaine was overruled and nominated.

He did a wonderful work in the campaign, and was himself apparently
satisfied at last that his apprehensions as to New York had been
unwarranted. Still his words came back to me often during the heat of
the summer and the fierce contest. "I cannot carry New York; we shall
lose it, perhaps by just a little--but we shall lose it;" and so we
did. As the vote was counted the plurality of Mr. Cleveland over Mr.
Blaine in the decisive State was one thousand and forty-seven. Gail
Hamilton says, in her "Life of Blaine," of the New York election, that
there was a plurality claimed on election day for Cleveland of
fifty thousand, and "the next day the figures came down to seventeen
thousand; then to twelve thousand; the next day to five thousand, and
at length dwindled to four hundred and fifty-six." The election was on
the 4th, and it was nearly two weeks before a decision was announced.
General Butler "openly proclaimed that the New York vote for himself
was counted to Cleveland." The "just a little" by which Blaine was
beaten was on the face of the returns one thousand and forty-seven,
and John Y. McKane was ten years afterward convicted of frauds that
were perpetrated as he willed, that amounted to thousands. There was
a fraud capacity in the machines of many times the plurality by which
Blaine was defeated, and there never was a rational doubt that it was
exerted. A change of six hundred votes would have given the Plumed
Knight the Presidency, and outside the Solid South he had a popular
majority, "leaving out the protested vote of New York and Brooklyn, of
nearly half a million." Mr. Blaine, when it became known that the New
York vote was held to be against him, and civil war was threatened
if the returns were rectified, telegraphed to friends asking their
opinion of the New York situation; and I had the honor to be one
consulted. My reply was that the New York influences that had
prevailed to cause the declaration of a plurality for Cleveland
would be sufficient to maintain that determination. Then came the
opportunity of those unkindly toward Mr. Blaine to charge him with
forcing himself on the Republican party and ruining it with his
reckless candidacies, and I thought the facts within my knowledge
should be given the public, and wrote to General Sherman, asking him
to allow me to publish the correspondence between himself and Blaine,
proving that the nomination, instead of being forced by Blaine for
himself, was forced upon him; and I wrote to Blaine also, to the same
effect. I received from the General the remarkable letters following:

GENERAL SHERMAN TO MR. HALSTEAD.

    912 GARRISON AVENUE,

    ST. LOUIS, MO., _November 17, 1884._

    DEAR HALSTEAD:--After my former letter, when I went to put the
    newspaper slip into my scrap-book, I discovered my mistake
    in attributing the article to the "Louisville" instead of the
    "London Times." My opinion is nevertheless not to contest the
    matter, as the real truth will manifest itself.[I]

    I think Arthur could have carried the Republicans past the
    last election[J]--but no man can tell what issues would have
    been made in case of his nomination. So the wisest conclusion
    is to accept gracefully the actual result, and to profit
    by the mistakes and accidents sure to attend the new
    administration, handicapped as it will surely be by the hot
    heads of the South. Truly yours,

    W.T. SHERMAN.


    912 GARRISON AVENUE,

    ST. LOUIS, MO., _November 21, 1884._

    DEAR HALSTEAD:--I have yours of the 19th. The letter of Blaine
    to me was meant as absolutely confidential, and of course I
    would not allow any person to see it without his consent. I
    am not sure that I would, even with his consent, because
    I believe the true policy is to look ahead and not behind.
    Blaine's letter without any answer would be incomplete, and
    surely I will not have my letter published, as it contained
    certain points purely personal which the public has no right
    to. New questions will arise, and these will give you plenty
    of occupation without raking up the past.

    Wishing you always all honor and fame, I am,

    Truly yours,

    W.T. SHERMAN.

The letters that passed between Blaine and Sherman have appeared
in Gail Hamilton's "Biography of Blaine," but have not commanded
attention according to their interest, because they have not
been framed by the relation of the circumstances that gave them
significance and that are supplied in this article.


MR. BLAINE TO GENERAL SHERMAN.

    (Confidential.)

    Strictly and absolutely so.

    WASHINGTON, D.C., _May 25, 1884._

    MY DEAR GENERAL:--This letter requires no answer. After
    reading it carefully, file it away in your most secret drawer,
    or give it to the flames.

    At the approaching convention in Chicago it is more than
    possible--it is indeed not improbable--that you may be
    nominated for the Presidency. If so you must stand your hand,
    accept the responsibility, and assume the duties of the place
    to which you will surely be chosen if a candidate. You must
    not look upon it as the work of the politicians. If it comes
    to you, it will come as the ground-swell of popular demand;
    and you can no more refuse than you could have refused to obey
    an order when you were a lieutenant in the army. If it comes
    to you at all, it will come as a call of patriotism. It would,
    in such an event, injure your great fame as much to decline it
    as it would for you to seek it. Your historic record, full
    as it is, would be rendered still more glorious by such an
    administration as you would be able to give the country. Do
    not say a word in advance of the convention, no matter who may
    ask you. You are with your friends, who will jealously guard
    your honor.

    Do not answer this.

    JAMES G. BLAINE.


GENERAL SHERMAN TO MR. BLAINE.

    ST. LOUIS, _May 28, 1884._

    HON. J.G. BLAINE.

    MY DEAR FRIEND:--I have received your letter of the 25th;
    shall construe it as absolutely confidential, not intimating
    even to any member of my family that I have heard from you;
    and though you may not expect an answer, I hope you will not
    construe one as unwarranted. I have had a great many letters
    from all points of the compass to a similar effect, one or
    two of which I have answered frankly; but the great mass
    are unanswered. I ought not to subject myself to the cheap
    ridicule of declining what is not offered; but it is only fair
    to the many really able men who rightfully aspire to the high
    honor of being President of the United States to let them know
    that I am not, and must not be construed as, a rival. In every
    man's life there occurs an epoch when he must choose his
    own career, and when he may not throw the responsibility,
    or tamely place his destiny in the hands of friends. Mine
    occurred in Louisiana when, in 1861, alone in the midst of a
    people blinded by supposed wrongs, I resolved to stand by the
    Union as long as a fragment of it survived to which to cling.
    Since then, through faction, tempest, war, and peace, my
    career has been all my family and friends could ask. We are
    now in a good home of our choice, with reasonable provision
    for old age, surrounded by kind and admiring friends, in a
    community where Catholicism is held in respect and veneration,
    and where my children will naturally grow up in contact
    with an industrious and frugal people. You have known and
    appreciated Mrs. Sherman from childhood, have also known each
    and all the members of my family, and can understand, without
    an explanation from me, how their thoughts and feelings should
    and ought to influence my action; but I will not even throw
    off on them the responsibility. I will not, in any event,
    entertain or accept a nomination as a candidate for President
    by the Chicago Republican convention, or any other convention,
    for reasons personal to myself. I claim that the Civil War,
    in which I simply did a man's fair share of work, so perfectly
    accomplished peace, that military men have an absolute right
    to rest, and to demand that the men who have been schooled in
    the arts and practice of peace shall now do their work equally
    well. Any senator can step from his chair at the Capitol into
    the White House, and fulfil the office of President with more
    skill and success than a Grant, Sherman or Sheridan, who were
    soldiers by education and nature, who filled well their office
    when the country was in danger, but were not schooled in
    the practices by which civil communities are, and should be,
    governed. I claim that our experience since 1865 demonstrates
    the truth of this my proposition. Therefore I say that
    "patriotism" does not demand of me what I construe as a
    sacrifice of judgment, of inclination, and of self-interest.
    I have my personal affairs in a state of absolute safety and
    comfort. I owe no man a cent, have no expensive habits
    or tastes, envy no man his wealth or power, [have] no
    complications or indirect liabilities, and would account
    myself a fool, a madman, an ass, to embark anew, at sixty-five
    years of age, in a career that may, at any moment, [become]
    tempest-tossed by the perfidy, the defalcation, the
    dishonesty, or neglect of any one of a hundred thousand
    subordinates utterly unknown to the President of the United
    States, not to say the eternal worriment by a vast host of
    impecunious friends and old military subordinates. Even as it
    is, I am tortured by the charitable appeals of poor distressed
    pensioners; but as President, these would be multiplied beyond
    human endurance. I remember well the experience of Generals
    Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes and Garfield, all
    elected because of their military services, and am warned, not
    encouraged, by their sad experiences. No--count me out. The
    civilians of the United States should, and must, buffet with
    this thankless office, and leave us old soldiers to enjoy the
    peace we fought for, and think we earned.

    With profound respect, your friend,

    W.T. SHERMAN.


[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF THE LETTER WRITTEN BY MR. BLAINE TO MR.
HALSTEAD JUST AFTER MR. BLAINE'S DEFEAT FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN 1884,
AND NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED--THE SAME LETTER THAT IS EMBODIED IN THE
TEXT OF THIS ARTICLE ON PAGE 169.]

[Illustration: CONTINUATION OF FACSIMILE OF LETTER.]

[Illustration: CONTINUATION OF FACSIMILE OF LETTER.]

There is intrinsic evidence that these letters were not written with a
thought of possible publication. That which General Sherman says
about Catholicism could only have been told to a close and sympathetic
friend. Mrs. Sherman and Mr. Blaine were cousins, and their mothers
were Catholics. Mrs. Sherman was one whose devotion to the Church was
intense; and General Sherman could not endure the thought that her
religion should be subjected to such discussions as were certain to
arise in a Presidential campaign. She was a very noble and gifted
woman, and the happiness of herself and husband in their domestic life
was beautiful and elevated.

James G. Blaine was nearer the Presidency than any other man who did
not reach the office. It was by a very narrow margin that he
missed the nomination in Cincinnati in 1876; and the opposition he
encountered there from Republican editors was regretted by all of
them, because they believed when the storm ceased that he had been
accused excessively, sensationally, and maliciously, and condemned--by
those who did not appreciate his vindication--on evidence that was
indicated but not presented--on letters supposed to have been taken
from the original package, and that were not produced because they
never existed. The investigations were largely instigated and carried
on to continue agitation with the purpose to strike down a brilliant
man whose genius gave him almost incredible promotion, and to assail
him because he was lofty and aspiring. The personal fight that he made
in Congress when cruelly set upon was one of the most effective that
ever took place in a public body. A competent observer, who was a
spectator of the scene in the House when the Mulligan letters were
read, said as Blaine came down the aisle, the letters in his hand,
and called upon all the millions of his countrymen to be witnesses: "I
thought his fist was going right up through the dome." Unhappily, his
exciting experiences in the course of these fierce controversies, with
the conduct of his Cincinnati campaign, and the sultry weather, caused
his prostration, attended with hours of unconsciousness, just at
the critical time when the delegates were assembling in national
convention. The local influences; the Republican editorial antagonism;
the enthusiastic efforts for Bristow; the strenuous perseverance of
Morton of Indiana; the prestige of Conkling, backed with the high
favor of Grant; the solidity of Ohio for Hayes--all would have been
overwhelmed but for the incident of the fall of Blaine in a swoon at
the door of the church which he was in the habit of attending and that
he was about to enter with his wife. It is reasonable to believe,
if he had been the candidate that year, he could have carried the
election unequivocally, and that his administration would have vastly
strengthened the Republican party. It is due President Hayes, however,
to say that his administration of the great office was an era of good
for the country, and that he was succeeded by a Republican; but the
fact of a disputed Presidency had a far-reaching evil influence, and
prevented showing fair play in New York in 1884. Blaine lost in his
illness coincident with the Cincinnati convention the confidence of
the country in his firm health and strength, and that handicapped him
to his grave. Perhaps it is even more important that he lost faith
in himself as a strong man, and had almost a superstition that if he
became President it would be for him personally a fatality. And yet
he was intellectually a growing man for fifteen years after his
Cincinnati defeat. His greater works, his most influential ideas, the
full fruition of his gifts, were after that catastrophe.

Mr. Blaine was so strong and so weak, so delicate and so tenacious,
that he was as constant a puzzle to those who loved him as to his
enemies, to the best-informed as to the most ill-informed. Those
very near to him took the liberty of laughing at him about his two
overcoats, and his going to bed and sending for a doctor in the
afternoon, and getting off with gayety to the opera in the evening;
about an alleged indigestion followed by eating a confection that
would have tested the hardihood of a young candy-eater. One who
studied him with affection wrote of him that he had an association
of qualities giving at once sensitiveness and endurance, and we were
indebted to this for the faculties, the capacities, that made up
the man whose influence had been so remarkable and his popularity a
phenomenon. He was of fine sensibilities, and there was nothing on
earth or in the air that did not tell him something. He was like an
instrument of music that a breath would move to melody, and that was
ever in tune for any wind that blew, and yet had patient strength, and
wore like steel. He had a rare make-up of refinement and power, and
life was sweeter and brighter and more costly far to him than to the
ordinary man.

It was after his first and, as it turned out, final defeat for the
Presidency, in his earliest effort for the office, that his fame grew
splendid. His campaigning was fascinating, and his speeches, as the
years passed, took greater variety. In his tour when a candidate in
1884, his addresses were marvellous in aptitude and in a thousand
felicities. There was much said of the fact that he was not a lawyer,
and an affected superiority to him by gentlemen whose profession
permitted "fees," and there was a system of deprecation to the effect
that he only harangued, that he had neither originality nor grace. But
after Garfield's death and the retirement of the Secretary from the
Cabinet, he turned to writing history "as a resource," and his great
work is of permanent value to the country, while his Garfield oration
is one of the masterpieces of the highest rank; and there came
straight from his brain two far-flashing ideas--that of the union
of American nations, and to protect the policy of protection with
reciprocity--and in the two there is the manifestation of that
crowning glory of public life which enters the luminous atmosphere
of immortality--statesmanship. That he had not the opportunity of the
execution of these policies--of guiding and shaping their triumph--was
not his fault but his fate. Their time may be coming but slowly,
yet it surely will come. His zeal in behalf of making the protective
principle irresistible by associating it intimately with reciprocity,
was so strong that he grew impatient when others were tedious in
comprehension; and there was a story of his concluding a sharp
admonition to the laborers on the tariff schedules by "smashing his
new silk hat on a steam-heater in the committee-room." He was asked by
a friend who rode out with him to see the statue that he thought the
most accurate and impressive of all the likenesses of Lincoln and was
fond of driving to see, located in a park east of the Capitol--that
by Story--whether he had "smashed a new silk hat" on a steam-heater
on behalf of reciprocity; and he softly responded, "It was not a new
hat."

That Mr. Blaine was keenly disappointed when defeated for the
Presidency at Cincinnati, there is no doubt; and that he began then to
see that it was not his destiny to be President, is certain.

There is a great contrast in his favor in his manner of bearing this
disappointment with that of Clay and Webster under somewhat similar
circumstances. Clay was furious at the nomination of General William
Henry Harrison, and greeted with unmeasured denunciation those
responsible for that judicious act; and Webster was bitter when Taylor
and Scott were nominated in the first instance, but came, after a
time, grandly out of the clouds. It is an interesting coincidence that
Webster when Secretary of State was a candidate for the Presidential
nomination against his chief, President Fillmore, and died, on the
24th of October, 1852, a few months after Scott's triumph at Baltimore
and a few days before the popular election of Pierce. The enduring
memory of Mr. Blaine appeared in the last October he lived, in the
precise remark, when something was said of the death of Webster, "Ah!
day after to-morrow it will be forty years since Webster died." The
news of the nomination of Hayes, Blaine received serenely, and before
the vote was declared in the convention sent the nominee a cordial
telegram of congratulation. When he knew at Augusta in 1884 that he
was beaten, he said: "Personally I care less than my nearest friends
would believe, but for the cause and for many friends I profoundly
deplore the result." And that was the entire truth. He felt that he
had not been fairly beaten, but he gave utterance only to the public
wrong done in the unfairness, and left that expression as a warning to
the country. He did not, as we have seen, follow the example of Clay,
who persistently favored his own candidacy. On the contrary, Blaine
did not covet the Presidency, and tried to avoid the personal strife
of 1884, and not for any of the apprehensive motives attributed to
him by those who acted upon the feeling in his case that the spirit of
justice was malevolent.

I feel that I should not now deal fairly with the public if I did
not give here the letter from Blaine in my possession, that more
completely than any published gives expression to his personal bearing
when defeated.


LETTER FROM MR. BLAINE TO MR. HALSTEAD.

    (Personal.)

    AUGUSTA, MAINE, _16th Nov., '84._

    DEAR MR. HALSTEAD:--I think there would be no harm to the
    public and no personal injustice if you should insert the
    three enclosed items in your editorial columns.

    I feel quite serene over the result. As the Lord sent upon us
    an ass in the shape of a preacher, and a rainstorm, to lessen
    our vote in New York, I am disposed to feel resigned to the
    dispensation of defeat, which flowed directly from these
    agencies.

    In missing a great honor I escaped a great and oppressive
    responsibility. You know--perhaps better than any one--how
    _much I didn't want_ the nomination; but perhaps, in view of
    all things, I have not made a loss by the canvass. At least I
    try to think not. The other candidate would have fared hard in
    Maine, and would have been utterly broken in Ohio.

    Sincerely,

    JAMES G. BLAINE.

    Of course all this is private.

    _P.S._--This note was written before receipt of yours. Pray
    publish nothing of the kind you intimate unless you first
    permit me to see the proof. Don't be afraid of the enclosed
    items. They are rock-ribbed for truth and for a good rendering
    of public opinion.

Mr. Blaine refers in the closing paragraph to the proposition I made
to him to publish the true story of his candidacy--substantially the
same pressed upon the attention of General Sherman. Between them they
suppressed me, but it is due them that this chapter of history should
be known now that they are gone.

I had the privilege of walking with Mr. Blaine in the beautiful and
fragrant parks at Homburg, in Southern Germany, in the summer of 1887,
and discussing with him the question whether he should be a candidate
for the Republican nomination the next spring. He then seemed to be
very well, but exertion speedily fatigued him. He was on sight a very
striking personage, and always instantly regarded with interest by
strangers. His personal appearance was of the utmost refinement and of
irreproachable dignity. His absolute cleanliness was something dainty,
his dress simple but fitting perfectly and of the best material. His
face was very pale, but his sparkling eyes contradicted the pallor.

His form was erect, and his figure that of youth. His hair and beard
were exquisitely white. His mouth had the purity of a child's, and
he never had tasted tobacco or used spirituous liquors, save when his
physician had recommended a little whiskey, and then not enough to
color a glass. He drank sparingly of claret and champagne, caring only
for the flavor. He was gentle, kindly, genial, and in a manly sense
beautiful. There are many distinguished English people at Homburg in
the season, and they were gratified to meet Mr. Blaine, and charmed
with him. It required no ceremony to announce him as a personage--a
man who had made events--and he never posed or gave the slightest
hint, in his movements, of conscious celebrity. I never saw him
bothered by being aware of himself but once, and that was when, across
the street from the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in the dusk of an evening, he
shaded his face with his hand, and looked curiously at ten thousand
people who were gazing at the house, and shouting madly for him,
expecting that he would appear at a window and make acknowledgment of
their enthusiasm. Suddenly he saw in the glance of one beside him that
he was curiously yet doubtfully regarded, and hastened away in fear of
his friends, who in their delight at discovering him would have become
a mob.

In Homburg he seemed to care for others' opinions about the proper
course for him to take; and the substance of that which I had to
say--and he seemed to think me in a way representative--was that he
alone must decide for himself, as he only knew all the circumstances
and elements that must be considered in a decision. Once we walked
the main street of the town in the night--and it is then a very lonely
place, for it is the fashion to get up in the morning at six o'clock,
and take the waters and the music--and that time I was impressed, and
the impression abided, that the inner conviction of Mr. Blaine was he
had not the vitality to safely take the Presidency if he held it in
his hand; that he believed the office would wear him out--that it was
a place of dealing with persons who would worry away his existence;
that he felt he could not endure the wear and tear and pressure of
the first position, and preferred the Secretaryship of State, with
the hope of going on with his South American policy, which he had
developed in Garfield's time, brief as that was; and I conjectured
that all this had been in his mind when he wanted Sherman and Lincoln
to be the ticket in 1884. And it occurred to me with so much force as
the logic of many things he said, that I accepted it as true, and was
reminded of his weary exclamation once of a good friend whose moods
were changeable: "Now that he is right, stay with him. He takes the
health out of me with his uncertainties."

The Secretaryship of State he cared for; in that office the world was
all before him, and he was fully himself, and was not fretted by
a perpetual procession of favor-seekers. The argument his urgent
admirers used with him was that it would be easier to make up his mind
than to convince a President, and that as the Chief of State he could
throw the work on the Cabinet; but he was not satisfied. The Florence
letter to me seemed familiar, for it was a reminder of Homburg, and
its sincerity was in all the lines and between the lines; and it was
addressed to a friend in Pittsburg, that it might not be suppressed in
New York. He had very close and influential friends who did not divine
his true attitude, or would not admit that they had, and insisted that
he was really well and strong and tough, better than he had been, and
that he should not be humored in his fancy that he was an invalid.
This feeling continued even to 1892, though he had been meantime
painfully broken by a protracted illness. It will be remembered that
in the correspondence between General Harrison as President-elect and
Mr. Blaine, when the Secretaryship of State was offered and accepted,
there appeared harmony of views concerning Pan-Americanism; that Mr.
Blaine enjoyed the office and that his official labors during the
Harrison Administration were of the highest distinction, showing
his happiest characteristics. The difference as to duties that arose
between the President and the Secretary was forgotten, and their
mutual sympathies abounded, when there came upon them, in their
households, the gravest, tenderest sorrows.

[Illustration: BLAINE'S GRAVE AT WASHINGTON, D.C. THE TREE AT THE LEFT
MARKS THE HEAD OF THE GRAVE, AND THE FIRST OF THE THREE LOW STONES IN
THE FOREGROUND, NUMBERING FROM THE LEFT, MARKS THE FOOT.

From a photograph by Miss F.B. Johnston.]

When Mr. Blaine was for the last time in New York on his way to
Washington, stopping as was his habit at the Fifth Avenue Hotel,
he asked me to walk with him to his room, fronting on Twenty-third
Street, on the parlor floor; and he slowly, as if it were a task,
unlocked the door. There was a sparkle of autumnal crispness in
the air, and he had a fire, that glittered and threw shadows about
fitfully. There was not much to say. It was plain at last that Mr.
Blaine was fading, that he had within a few weeks failed fast. His
great, bright eyes were greater than ever, but not so bright. His face
was awfully white; not that brainy pallor that was familiar--something
else! He seated himself in the light of the fire, on an easy-chair.
There was a knock at his door, and a servant handed him a card, and
he said: "No;" and we were alone. I could not think of a word of
consolation; and in a moment he appeared to have forgotten me, and
stared in a fixed, rapt dream at the flickering flame in the grate.
It occurred to me to get up and go away quietly, as conversation was
impossible--for there was too much to say. It came to me that I ought
not to leave him alone. Something in him reminded me of the mystical
phrases of the transcendent paragraph of his oration on Garfield,
picturing the death of the second martyred President, by the ocean,
while far off white ships touched the sea and sky, and the fevered
face of the dying man felt "the breath of the eternal morning."

Some weeks earlier Mr. Blaine and I had had a deep talk about men and
things, and he was very kind, and his boundless generosity of
nature never revealed itself with a greater or sadder charm. He now
remembered that conversation--as a word disclosed--and said: "I could
have endured all things if my boys had not died." The door opened,
and his secretary walked in--and I took Mr. Blaine's hand for the
last time, saying, "Good-night," and he said, with a look that meant
farewell--"Good-by."

His grave is on a slope that when I saw it was goldenly sunny, and
the turf was strewn by his wife's hand with lilies--for it was Easter
morning! Close at his left was a steep, grassy bank, radiantly blue
with violets, and there was in the shining air the murmurous hum
of bees, making a slumbrous, restful music. Blaine's monument is a
hickory tree whose broken top speaks of storms, and at his feet is
a stone white as new snow, and on it only--and they are enough--the
initials "J.G.B.," that were the battle-cry of millions, and are and
shall be always to memory dear.

[Footnote I: This related to a matter General Sherman had mentioned in
another letter, and did not refer to the subject I was trying to get
him to consider.]

[Footnote J: General Sherman differed in this judgment with Blaine and
many Republicans who were not unfriendly to Arthur.]



THE NEW STATUE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

BY FRANK B. GESSNER.


The erection of an equestrian statue of General William Henry
Harrison, in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a fitting but also a tardy
commemoration of a man who rendered his State and the nation most
distinguished services. For fifty years there has been talk of doing
him honor in some such fashion, and even the statue which as this
Magazine goes to press is being formally dedicated in Cincinnati
(in the presence of a grandson of the subject who is himself an
ex-President), has been completed for some years, and has been stowed
away in dust and darkness because there was not public interest enough
in the matter to meet the cost of setting it up.

Although now almost a forgotten figure, General Harrison was one
of the ablest and worthiest of our public men. Born in Berkeley,
Virginia, February 9, 1773, he grew to manhood with the close of
the Revolution and the establishment of the national government. His
father was the friend of Washington, and when the son went into the
Western wilds he held a commission as ensign signed by the first of
the Presidents. At the age of thirty he was a delegate in Congress
from the Northwest Territory. For a succeeding decade he was governor
of that wide stretch of country which in time he saw carved into
States all owing much to his genius as warrior and statesman. In the
second war with Great Britain he commanded the Western armies, and won
the notable victories of Tippecanoe and the Thames. The first gave him
a name which became the slogan of the Whigs in the memorable campaign
of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." At the battle of the Thames fell
Tecumseh, whose death broke the Indian power east of the Mississippi.
After the war of 1812 General Harrison was successively Congressman,
Senator of the United States, and Minister to Colombia.

[Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, MADE FOR THE CITY OF
CINCINNATI BY MR. L.T. REBISSO.

From a photograph by Landy, Cincinnati.]

Returning in 1830 to his home at North Bend, on the line between
Indiana and Ohio, he lived more or less in retirement until 1836, when
he was made the Whig candidate for President. He was defeated; but in
1840 he was again the nominee, and, after the greatest campaign of the
century, was elected, defeating Martin Van Buren. The campaign of 1840
was called the "log-cabin and hard-cider" campaign, though the
reputed log-cabin home of the Whig candidate was in reality a spacious
mansion. General Harrison was inaugurated March 4, 1841, and on April
4, a month later, he died in the White House, a victim of exposure and
the wearing importunities of office-seeking constituents. Something of
the character of the man is disclosed in his last words, spoken four
hours before his death. To whom he thought himself speaking can only
be conjectured--Vice-President Tyler, some authorities claim; but he
was heard by his physician to say: "Sir, I wish you to understand
the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask
nothing more."

Physically, General Harrison has been described as "about six feet
high," straight and rather slender, and of "a firm, elastic gait,"
even in his last years. He had "a keen, penetrating eye," a "high,
broad and prominent" forehead, and "rather thin and compressed lips."

[Illustration: ANNA SYMMES HARRISON, WIFE OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM HENRY
HARRISON, AND GRANDMOTHER OF PRESIDENT BENJAMIN HARRISON.

From a painting in possession of the Harrison family.]

Mrs. Harrison was not with her husband at his death, and never became
an inmate of the White House. For that reason there hangs on its walls
no portrait of her, among those of the various ladies of the mansion.
She was the daughter of John Cleves Symmes, a scion of the Colonial
aristocracy. She loved better than the excitement of social life in
Washington the domestic peace of her North Bend home and the society
of her thirteen children, growing up in usefulness and honor. In her
youth she had been a great belle, and she remained a beautiful
woman even in her declining years. She was educated in that first
fashionable school for young women in America founded by Isabella
Graham in the city of New York. A sister, Polly Symmes, was also a
famous beauty. They went together to share their father's fortunes
in the unsettled West, and both found their fates in the hand of the
Miamis. Polly married Peyton Short, who became a millionaire.

Mrs. Harrison had been detained by illness from going with her husband
to witness the proudest event of his life, his inauguration; and she
had purposed following him to Washington later in the spring, when the
weather should be more favorable for the long, wearisome journey by
stage-coach. But, alas! before the spring fully opened, instead of
following him to Washington she was following his body to its silent,
stone-walled tomb, overlooking the wide sweep of the Ohio southward.
This noble woman lived to be eighty-nine and to see her grandson,
Benjamin Harrison, now ex-President, a general in the Union army.
She retained to the last much of her beauty and that sweetness of
disposition which has endeared her memory to those of her blood who
knew her best. She sleeps by the side of her husband in the old vault
at North Bend.

The Cincinnati statue of General Harrison is the work of L.T. Rebisso,
who made the statue of General McPherson which stands in one of the
circular parks in Washington, and the equestrian statue of General
Grant for the city of Chicago. Its cost, which, exclusive of the
pedestal, is twenty-seven thousand dollars, is paid by the city.
Mr. Rebisso has given a portrayal of Harrison unlike any of the more
familiar pictures. These usually present a decrepit old man, from
whose eye have vanished that fire of youth and flash of soul which
made Harrison a leader of men. The Rebisso statue, as will be seen by
the reproduction of it given herewith, presents a soldier in the full
flower of vigorous manhood. And this conception is no mere ideal of
fancy, but is taken from a portrait painted in 1812, which now hangs
in the house of a grandchild of General Harrison near the old North
Bend homestead.



[Illustration: THE SILENT WITNESS.]



THE SILENT WITNESS

BY HERBERT D. WARD


There are many hamlets in New Hampshire, five, ten miles or even more
from the railroad station. To the chance summer visitor the seclusion
and the rest seem entrancing. The glamour of mountain scenery and
trout effectually obliterates the brave signs of poverty and struggle
from before the irresponsive eyes of the man of city leisure. He
carelessly gives the urchin, mutely pleading in front of the unpainted
farm-house, a few cents for his corrugated cake of maple-sugar, and
asks the name of a distant peak. If he should notice, how would he
know the meaning of the scant crops of hay and potatoes, or of the
empty stall? Sealed to him is the pathos in the history of the owners
of the stone farm. His thoughts scarcely glance at the piteous wife
plaiting straw hats; the only son, whose rare happiness consists in
a barn dance in the village three miles below, and whose large eyes
contract with increasing age, and lose all expression except that of
anxiety.

There was a time perhaps when the backbone of the New World used to
be straightened by men of a mountain birth. The question whether the
hills of Vermont and New Hampshire produce giants of trade or law
to-day as they did fifty years ago, is an open one. So the grand
old stock is run out of the soil? And is it replaced by the sons and
grandsons of those sturdy farmers themselves, who buy back the rickety
homesteads, and remodel them into summer cottages?

Michael Angelo said that "men are worth more than money," and if what
was an axiom then is true in these fallen days of purse worship,
Mrs. Abraham Masters was the richest woman under the range of Mount
Kearsarge. For her son Isaac was the tallest, the strongest, the
tenderest, and truest boy in the county; but her farm of a hundred
acres, the only inheritance from a dead husband, was about the
poorest, most unprofitable, and most inaccessible collection of
boulders in the mountains.

It was situated upon the cold shoulder of a hill, sixteen miles from
the nearest station. The three-mile trail which led from the village
would have been easier to travel could it have boasted a corduroy
road. What a site for a hotel! Yet the hotel did not materialize, and
the "view" neither fed nor warmed nor clothed the patient proprietors
of the desolate spot.

"Never mind, I reckon we'll pull through," Isaac used to comfort his
mother.

"You're a good boy, Ikey. If the Lord is willin', I guess I am," she
answered with quaint devoutness.

But the Lord did not seem to be willing, and one spring He caused a
late frost in June to kill most of the seed, and a drouth in July and
August to wither what was left, and starvation stared in the faces of
the widow and her son. At this time, Isaac began to "keep company,"
and to talk of getting married in the next decade. He was twenty-two,
and had a faithful, saving disposition, when there was anything to
save. And whether he became engaged because there was nothing but love
to harvest, or whether, woman-like, Abbie Faxon loved him better than
she did her other suitors because of his poverty and misery, and was
willing to tell him so, I cannot pretend to decide. At any rate, Isaac
brought Abbie one afternoon from the village, three miles below, and
the two women kissed and wept, and Isaac went out and stood alone
facing the view; the apple in his throat rose and fell, and great
tears blinded his sight.

We can make no hero of Isaac, for he was none. His heart was as simple
and as clean as a pebble in a brook. Country vices had not smirched
him. He had a mind only for his mother, and the farm, and earning a
living--and a heart for Abbie. Great thoughts did not invade his head.
But this afternoon, as he stood there on the gray rock, his heart
bursting with his happiness, which was made perfect by his mother's
blessing, an apprehension for the future--bitter, breathless, began
to arouse him. The promise of the horizon suddenly became revealed to
him. The distant line of green, now bold, now sinuous, now uncertain,
had never asked him questions before, had never exasperated him with a
meaning.

But now he saw the tips of spires flecking the verdure of the far-off
valleys. He saw the hurrying smoke of a locomotive. He saw with
awakening vision, starting from that dead farm of his, the region of
trade and life. A film had fallen from his eyes. The energetic arrow
of love had touched his ambition, and his round, rosy face became
indented with lines of resolve. He turned and walked with a new tread
into the house.

"Mother! Abbie!" he blurted out, "I'm going away. I'm going to
Boston." He stopped and stammered as he saw the horror-stricken faces
before him.

"Lord a-mercy!"

"Ikey! Air you teched?"

"No," he resumed stoutly, "I be'ant. There's Dan Prentiss--he
went--see what he done; and Uncle Bill, he--"

"We hain't heard nothing from your Uncle Bill since he sot out. That
was twelve years ago, the spring your father built them three feet on
the shed." Mrs. Masters spoke firmly.

"Never mind, mother, I'm going to Boston, and I will come back. I'm
going to earn my livin'. I'm strong and willin', and as able as Dan
Prentiss. Ye needn't be scared, I ain't going yet. I'll finish up the
fall work fust. I'm going for the winter anyway, and Abbie'll come an'
live with you, mother--won't you, Abbie, dear? She's the only mother
you've got now. Your folks can spare you."

Here Abbie announced bravely, "I will, Ikey, if you must go."

She blushed deeply as she said it, and the sight of her pretty color
so moved the young man that, having the bashfulness of his native
crops, he rushed out into the glory of the sunset, and sat upon the
granite boulder watching until the gray, the purple, and then the
black had washed out the white steeples from the distant valley.

Isaac Masters was of the boulder type. How many decades was the
smooth, worn rock in front of his house riding on the crest of a
glacier until it reached its halt? But now it would need a double
charge of dynamite to shake it from its base. It generally took the
mountain lad days, perhaps weeks, to make up his mind, even upon such
a simple problem as the quantity of grain his horse should have at a
feed when the spring planting began; but when once his intention was
fixed it withstood all opposition. But this time he was astonished at
his own temerity of mind, as his mother and sweetheart were; and the
more profoundly he pondered over the gravest decision of his life,
the more did it seem to him an inspiration, perhaps from the Deity
himself.

But Isaac was formed in too simple and honest a mould to delude the
two women or himself with iridescent dreams of success. He had worked
on the ragged farm bitterly, incessantly. He had fought the rocks, and
the weeds, and the soil, the frost and the drouth, as one fights for
his life, and never had a thought of food or of comfort visited him
unaccompanied by the necessity for labor.

"I can work fourteen hours a day, mother, and live upon pork and
beans, as well as the next man." He stood to his full height,
displaying to the pale woman the outlines of massive muscular
development. His hands were huge and callous, their grip the terror of
his mates after a husking bee. He had measured his great strength but
once; that was in the dead of winter, with the snow drifted five feet
deep between the barn and the house. A heifer, well grown, had been
taken sick, and needed warmth for recovery. Isaac swung the sick beast
over his shoulders, holding its legs two in each hand before his head,
and strode through the storm, subduing the battling snow with as much
ease as he did the bellowing calf. His mother met him at the woodshed
door. Behind the gladiator rose the forbidding background of a stark
mountain range; but to her astonished and unfocussed sight, her son
seemed greater than the mountain, and more compelling than its peaks.
From that hour his whisper was her law; and from that day--for how
could the adoring mother help telling her quarterly caller all about
the heifer?--Isaac had no more wrestling matches in the valley.

August burned into September, and September, triumphant in her
procession of royal colors, marched into October, the month of months.
Mrs. Masters had already completed her pathetic preparations for her
son's departure. There, in the family carpet-bag, which his father had
carried with him on his annual trip to Portland, were stowed a half
dozen pairs of well-darned woollen stockings, the few decent shirts
that Isaac had left, his winter flannels, which had already served
six years, his comb and brush, a hand mirror that had been one of his
mother's wedding presents, likewise a couple of towels that had formed
a part of her self-made trousseau; and we must not forget the neckties
that Abbie had sewed from remnants of her dresses, and which Isaac
naïvely considered masterpieces of the haberdasher's art.

At the mouth of the deep bag Mrs. Masters tucked a Bible which fifty
years ago had been presented to her husband by his Sunday-school
teacher as a prize for regular attendance. This inscription was
written in a wavering hand upon the blank page:

    "_In the eighth year of the reign of Josiah, while he was yet
    young, he began to seek after the God of David his father_.--
    2 Chron. xxxiv. 3."

"For," said Mrs. Masters softly to Abbie, after she had read the
inscription aloud, and had patted the book affectionately, "this is
the first prize my Josiah ever had, an' the Lord knows he thought more
on it than he did of Lucy, his mare. An' if there should happen any
accident to Isaac, they'd find by opening of his bag that ef he
was alone in a far country he was a Christian, nor ashamed of it,
neither."

Isaac had only money enough saved up to take him as far as Boston, and
to board him in the cheapest way for several days.

"If I can't work," he said proudly, straightening to his full height,
"no one can!"

It is just such country lads as this--strong, self-reliant,
religious--who, when poverty has projected them out of her granite
mountains upon granite pavements, each as hard and bleak as the other,
by massive determination have conquered a predestined success.

Too soon, for those who were to be left behind, the day of separation
came. Mrs. Masters's haggard face and Abbie's red eyes told of
unuttered misery.

But Isaac did not notice these signs of distress. He was absorbed in
his future. The last bustle was over, the last breakfast gulped down
amid forced smiles and ready tears, the last button sewed on at the
last moment; and now Mrs. Masters's lunch of mince pie, apples, and
doughnuts was tenderly tucked into the jaws of the carpet-bag; thereby
disturbing a love letter that Abbie had hidden there. A young neighbor
had volunteered to drive Isaac down the mountain to the station.

[Illustration: "MOVE ON, WILL YER!"]

"All aboard! Hurry up, Ike!" cried this young person, consulting his
silver watch, and casting a look of mingled commiseration and envy
upon the giant, locked in the arms of the two women, who hardly
reached to the second button of his coat. Isaac caught the glance,
and started to tear himself away. But his mother laid her gnarled hand
gently upon his arm, and led him into the unused parlor.

"Just a minute, Abbie dear, I want to be alone with my boy," she waved
the girl back. "Then you can have him last. It's my right an' your'n!"

She closed the door, and led him under the crayon portrait of his
father, framed in immortelles. She raised her arms, and he stooped
that they might clasp about his neck.

"Isaac," she said hoarsely, "I ain't no longer young nor very strong.
Remember 'fore you go away from the farm that you're the son of an
honest man, an' a pious woman, and"--dropping with great solemnity
into scriptural language--"I beseech you, my son, not to disgrace your
godly name."

With partings like this the primitive Christians must have sent their
sons into the whirlwind of the world.

Then Isaac broke down for the first time, and with the tears
streaming, he lifted his mother bodily in his arms, and promised her,
and kissed her. "Mother trusts you, Ikey," was all she could say. But
his time had come. There was a crunching of wheels.

"Now go to Abbie. Leave me here! Good-by; you have always been a good
boy, dear." Mrs. Masters's voice sank into a whisper; the strong man,
moved as he was, could not comprehend her exhaustion.

Abbie was waiting for him at the door, and he went to her. The
impatient wagon had gone down the road. They were to cut through the
pasture, and meet it at the brook. There they were to part.

They clasped hands. Isaac turned. A gaunt, gray face, broken,
helpless, hopeless, peered out beneath the green paper shade of the
parlor window. If he had known--a doubt crossed his brain, but the
girl twitched his hand, and the cloud scattered. Down the hill they
ran, down, until the brook was reached. There they stood, panting,
breathless, listening. There were only a few minutes left, and they
hid behind an oak tree and clasped.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was long after dark when the train came to its halt in its vaulted
terminus. It was due at seven, but an excursion on the road delayed it
until after nine. However, this did not disconcert Isaac Masters.
He hurried out to the front of the station, where the row of herdics
greeted him savagely. Carrying his father's old carpet-bag, he looked
from his faded hat to his broad toes the ideal country bumpkin; yet
his head was not turned by the rumbling of the pavements, the whiz
of the electrics, the blaze of the arc lights, nor by the hectic
inhalations that seem to comprehend all the human restlessness of a
city just before it retires to sleep. His breath came faster, and
his great chest rose and fell; these were the only indications of
acclimation. Isaac had started from home absolutely without any "pull"
or introduction but his own willingness to work. Utterly ignorant of
the city, and knowing no one in it, on the way down in the train he
had marked out a line of conduct from which he determined not to be
swerved.

To the mountain mind the policeman becomes the embodiment of a
righteously executed law. At home, their only constable was one of the
most respected men in the community. Isaac argued from experience--and
how else should he? This was his syllogism:

A policeman is the most respectable of men in my town.

This man before me is a policeman.

Therefore he must be the most upright man in the city. I will go to
him for advice.

The city casuist might have smiled at the major premise--and laughed
at the ingenuous conclusion. Yet if brass buttons, a cork hat and a
"billy" are the emblems of guardianship and probity, the country boy
has the right argument on his side, and the casuist none at all.

It never occurred to Isaac that the policeman could either make a
mistake of judgment, or meditate one. Therefore he approached the
guardian of the peace confidently.

This gentleman, who had noticed the traveller as soon as he had
emerged from the depot, awaited his approach with becoming dignity.
The patronage and disdain that the metropolis feels for the hamlet
were in his air.

"Excuse me, sir--I want to ask you--" began Isaac, after a proper
obeisance.

"Move on, will yer!"

"But I wanted to ask you--"

"Phwat are ye blockin' up the road fur, young man?"

"I want you to help me!"

"The ---- you do!" He looked about ferociously. "Look here, sonny, if
ye don't move along, an' have plenty of shtyle about it, I'll help ye
to the lock-up--so help me--!"

Isaac looked down upon the man, whom he could have crushed with
one swoop of his hands. The consternation of his first broken ideal
possessed his heart. With a deadly pallor upon his face, he hurried up
the clanging street, and the coarse laughter of brutes tingled in his
ears. He swallowed this rough inhospitality, which is the hemlock that
poisons country faith. Take from the pavement enough dust to cover
the point of a penknife, and insert it in the arm of a child, and in a
week it will be dead with tetanus. After this first encounter with the
protectors of the people, Isaac felt as if his soul had been bedaubed
with mud. He experienced a contracting tetanus of the heart. Had he
not planned all the lonesome day to cast himself upon the kindness
of the first policeman whom he saw? What other guide or protector
was there left for him in the strange city? The rebuff which he had
received half annihilated his intelligence.

[Illustration: "AM--I--IMPRISONED BECAUSE I AM FRIENDLESS AND POOR? IS
THIS YOUR LAW?"]

Isaac could no more put up at the great hotel he saw on his right than
the majority of us can take a trip to Japan. Isaac hurried on. Why
did he leave home? The fear of a great city is more teasing than the
terror of a wilderness or of a desert. There the trees or the rocks or
the sand befriends you. But in the city the penniless stranger has no
part in people or home or doorsteps. Every one's heart is against him.
It is the anguish of hunger amid plenty, the rattling of thirst amid
rivers of wine, the serration of loneliness amid humanity thicker than
barnacles upon a wharf pile. Such a terror--not of cowardice, but of
friendlessness--seized Isaac Masters, and a foreboding that he might
possibly fail after all made his spine tingle. Still he drove on.
He had passed through the main street--or across it--he did not
know--until the electric lights cast dim shadows, until stately banks
had given way to unkempt brick fronts, until the glittering bar-rooms
had been exchanged for vulgar saloons--until--

Masters came to a sudden halt, and dropping his bag, uttered a loud
cry. The curtained door of a grog-shop opened upon him. A hatless man
dashed out, swearing horribly, and all but fell into Isaac's arms.
With a cry of terror the runner dodged the pedestrian, and bolted down
the street. Not twenty feet behind him bounded his pursuer.

By this time the country boy had slipped into the shadow of the
building, where he could see without being seen. In that moment Isaac
caught sight of a dazed group of men within, and the profile of the
pursuer against the hot light of the saloon. He saw a brute holding
a pistol in his out-stretched hand. Before Isaac understood the
situation, the weapon shot out two flames and two staccato reports.
These were followed by the intense silence which is like the darkness
upon the heels of lightning.

Isaac's eyes were now strained upon the creature who was shot. He saw
the man stagger, throw up his hands, and fall. He heard a groan. At
that time the murderer with the smoking revolver was not more than ten
paces away. As he fired, he had stopped. When he saw his victim fall,
he gave a hoarse laugh.

By this time the lights in the saloon were put out, and its occupants
had fled. The rustle of human buzzards flocking to the tragedy had
begun. A motion that the murderer made to escape aroused the New
Hampshire boy to a fierce sense of justice. A few bounds brought him
by the side of the ruffian, who looked upon him with astonishment, and
then with inflamed fear. Isaac furiously struck the pointed pistol to
the pavement, and grasped the fellow's waist. Then he knew that he had
almost met his match. Isaac held his opponent's left arm by the wrist,
and tightened the vise. The murderer held the boy around his neck with
a contracting grip such as only a prize-fighter understands. Neither
spoke a word. It was power--power against skill.

There was a crash and a cry and a fall. But not until Isaac knew that
the man under him was helpless did he utter a sound. Then he called:
"Police! Police!"

The answer was a blinding blow upon the crown of his head. Then,
before his head swam away into unconsciousness, he felt a strange
thing happen to his wrists.

       *       *       *       *       *

The first lieutenant, the captain, and the superintendent are
different beings from the officer of the street, who has no gilt
stripes upon his sleeves. The one, having passed through all grades,
is supposed to have been chosen not only because of his fidelity
and bravery, but because of his discriminating gentleness or
gentlemanliness. The other, a private of the force, often a foreigner,
with foreign instincts, and eager for promotion (that is, he means
to make as many arrests as possible), confuses the difference between
rudeness and authority, brutality and law. By the time he is a
sergeant sense has been schooled into him, and he ought to know
better.

The superintendent looked at Isaac steadily and not unkindly, while he
listened to the officer's story.

"Off with those bracelets!" he said, sternly.

Isaac Masters regarded the superintendent gratefully. For the first
time since he had been rebuffed by the station policeman, his natural
expression of trust returned to his face.

"I'll forgive him," said the boy of a simple, Christian education. "It
was dark--and he made a mistake." Isaac wiped the clotted blood from
his cheeks. "Can I go now?"

Even a less experienced man than the white-haired superintendent would
have known that the young man before him could no more have committed
a crime or told an untruth than an oak. The policeman who had clubbed
him, perhaps with the best intentions in the world, hung his head.

"Let me hear your story first." The superior officer spoke in his most
fatherly tones. He really pitied the country lad.

"What is your name? Where do you come from? How did you get there?
Tell me all about it. Here, sergeant, get him a glass of water,
first."

"Perhaps a little whiskey would do him good," suggested a night-hawk
who had just opened the door of the reporters' room. Blood acts
terribly upon even the most stolid imagination. Beneath that
red-streaked mask it needed all the experience of the superintendent
to recognize the innocence of a juvenile heart. As Isaac in indignant
refusal turned his disfigured head upon the youthful representative of
an aged paper, he seemed to the thoughtless reporter the incarnation
of a wounded beast. The young fellow opened the door, and beckoned his
mates in to see the new show that was enacting before them. It is only
fair to say that it is due to the modern insanity of the press for
prying into private affairs that the worst phase of the tragedy I am
relating came to pass.

Isaac Masters told his story eagerly and simply.

"I have done nothing to be arrested for," he ended, looking at the
superintendent with his round, honest eyes. "I only did my duty as
anybody else would. Now let me go. Tell me, Mr. Officer, where I can
get a decent night's lodging, for I am going home to-morrow. I've had
enough of this city. I want to go home!"

Something like a sob sounded in the throat of the huge boy as he came
to this pathetic end. Every man in the station, from the most hardened
observer of crime to the youngest reporter of misery, was moved. Isaac
himself, still dizzy from the effects of the blow, nauseated by the
prison smell, the indescribable odor of crime which no disinfectants
can overcome, confounded by the surroundings into which he had been
cast, and trembling with the nameless apprehension that all honest
people feel when drawn into the arms of the law, swayed and swooned
again.

The sergeant and the reporters (for they were not without kind hearts)
busied themselves with bringing him to. From an opposite bench the
murderer lowered, between scowls of pain, upon the man who had crushed
him. There had been revealed to him a simplicity of soul residing in
a body of iron. He saw that the country lad had fainted, not from
physical weakness, but because of mental anguish. Such an apparent
disparity between mind and body had not been brought to the
saloon-keeper's experience before.

"He is the only witness, you say, officer?" inquired the chief. "Are
you sure?"

"Yes, sorr!"

"We'll have to hold him, then. It's a great pity. I don't suppose he
could get a ten-dollar bail." The superintendent shook his gray head
thoughtfully. His subordinates did the same, with an exaggerated air
of distress.

"Where am I? Oh!" What horror in that exhalation, as Isaac realized
the place he was in! He staggered to his feet.

"Give me my bag, quick!" he exclaimed. "I will go."

"I'm afraid you can't go yet." The superintendent spoke as if he hated
to do his duty.

"Not go? Why not? You have no right to hold an innocent man!"

"In cases of assault and murder, the witnesses must be held until they
can furnish bail. That is the law." The white-haired man hurried his
explanation, as if he were ashamed of it.

"I will come back."

The officer shook his head.

"I give you my word I will." Isaac clasped the rail pleadingly.

"I'll have to lock you up to-night; the judge will settle the amount
of your bail to-morrow."

"Lock me up? I tell you I have no friends here! How can I get bail?
Where will you put me?"

"Show him his cell," replied the chief to his sergeant.

"Come along," said the policeman kindly. "All witnesses are treated
that way. We'll give you the most comfortable quarters we've got."

He took Isaac by the arm after the professional manner. The young
man flung off the touch. For an instant his eyes swept the station
menacingly. What if he should exert his strength! There were
two--three--four officers in the room. He might even overpower these,
and dash for liberty. He saw the livid reflection of electric lights
through the windows. Unconsciously he contracted his sinews, and
tightened his muscles until they were rigid. Then the hopelessness of
his position burst upon him like a red strontian fire. He felt blasted
by his disgrace.

"What are you doing to me?" he cried out. "Put me in prison? My God!
This will kill my mother!"

The next morning at ten o'clock Tom Muldoon was released on ten
thousand dollars bail. The surety was promptly furnished by the
alderman of the--th Ward. Muldoon was to present himself before the
grand jury, which met the first Monday in each month. As this was the
beginning of the month, his appearance could not be required for three
weeks at least, and by mutual agreement of the district attorney and
the counsel for the defendant, action might be put off for one or even
for two months more, pending the recovery or eventual death of the
assaulted. This would give the saloon-keeper plenty of time for the
two ribs that Isaac Masters had crushed, to mend!

There are sensitive men and women who would go insane after spending
an innocent night in a cell. In the dryest, the largest, the best of
them there is everything to debase the manhood and nauseate the soul.
The tin cup on the grated window-sill, half-filled with soup which the
last occupant left; the cot to the right of the hopeless door, made
of two boards and one straw mattress; and that necessity which is the
nameless horror of such a narrow incarceration--that which suffocates
and poisons; then the flickering jet up the concrete corridor, casting
such fitful shadows by the prisoner's side that he starts from his cot
in terror to touch the phantoms lest they be real; the alternate waves
of choking heat and harrowing cold; the hammering of the steam-pipes;
the curses, the groans, and the eruptive breathing of the sleeping
and the drunken; the thoughts of home, and friends, and irreparable
disgrace; the feeble hope that, after all, the family will not hear
of this so far away; and the despair because they will--mad visions
of suicide; blasphemy, repentant tears and prayers, each chasing the
other amid the persistent thought that all things are impotent but
freedom. Oh, what a night! What a night!

There are souls that have existed five, ten years under the courtine
of Catharine in the Petropavlovskaya Fortress--drugged, tortured, at
last killed like rats in a hole. All the while the maledict banner
of the Romanoffs writhes above them. What has been the power to keep
alive thousands of prisoners in those bastions, beyond the natural
endurance of the flesh? The glory of principle.

No wonder that a ghastly face and haggard eyes and wavering steps
followed the keeper to the American court-room the next morning;
for nothing could be tortured into a principle to stimulate Isaac's
courage. It is easy to die for right, but not for wrong.

There were three short flights of iron that led past tiers of cells,
through the tombs, into the prisoner's dock. Isaac dully remembered
the huge coils of steam-pipe that curled up the side of the wall. He
thought of pythons. As he passed by, the prisoners awaiting sentence
held the rods of their doors in their hands, like monkeys, and swore,
and laughed, and shot questions at the keeper as he passed along.

"Have you no friends in the city?" proceeded the judge, after he had
examined the witness.

Isaac shook his head disconsolately. "I have about five dollars; that
is all, and my bag--and, sir, my character."

"Then I am afraid I shall have to hold you over in default of bail
until the trial." The judge nodded to the sheriff to bring on the next
case.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To the City Jail," answered the sheriff curtly. "Come along!" With a
mighty effort Isaac wrenched himself loose, and strode to the bar.

"Judge!" he cried. "Judge, you wouldn't do that! Let me go! I will
come back on the trial. Look at me, Judge! What have I done? Why
should I be sent to prison? I am an honest man!"

But the judge was used to such scenes, and he turned his head wearily
away.

"The law requires the government to hold the witness in default of
bail, in cases of capital crime." The judge was a kind man, and he
tried to do a kind act by explaining the subtle process of the law
again to the lad. When he had done this, he nodded. And now the men
approached Isaac to remove him, by force if necessary. But the New
Hampshire boy stood before the bar of justice stolidly. His eyes
wandered aimlessly, and his lips muttered. Paralysis swept near him at
that instant.

"Am--I--imprisoned because I am friendless and poor? Is this your
law?"

The judge shrugged his shoulders, but many in the court-room felt
uncomfortable.

"Then," spoke Isaac Masters, rising to his greatest height, and
uplifting his hand as if to call God to witness, "if this is law--damn
your law!" It was his first and last oath. Every man in the room
started to his feet at the utterance of that supreme legal blasphemy.
But the judge was silent. What sentence might he not inflict for such
contempt of court? What sentence could he? The witness had no money,
wherewith to be fined, and he was going to prison at any rate. The
judge was great enough to put himself in Isaac's place. He stroked his
beard meditatively.

"Remove the witness," he said. This was sentence enough. Although
two officers advanced cautiously, as if prepared for a tussle, a babe
might have led the giant unto the confines of Hades by the pressure of
its little finger. For Isaac wept.

[Illustration: "OH, MY GOD!" HE SOBBED. "MY GOD! MY GOD!"]

       *       *       *       *       *

There were two other witnesses in the white-washed cell to which Isaac
was assigned. It was on the south side, and large, and sunny, and
often the door was left unlocked; but the cell looked out into a
crumbling grave-yard. One of these witnesses was a boy of about
eighteen, pale to the suggestion of a mortal disease. It did not
take Isaac long to find out that this complexion did not indicate
consumption, but was only prison pallor. The other prisoner was less
pathetic as to color, but he was listless and discouraged. The only
amusement of these men consisted in chewing tobacco in enormous
quantities, playing surreptitious games of high-low-jack, in reading
the daily paper, a single magazine, and waiting for the sun to enter
the barred window, and watching it in the afternoon as it slipped
away. These two men tried to cheer the new comer in a rude, hearty
way; but when the country lad learned that they had been in detention
for six months already, held by the government as main witnesses
against the first mate of their brig, their words were as dust. They
only choked him.

"What did you do," Isaac asked, "to get you in such a scrape?"

"We saw the mate shoot the cook; that's all."

"If I'd known," said the pale boy, with, a look out of the window,
"how Uncle Sam keeps us so long--I wished I hadn't said nothing. But
we get a dollar a day; that's something." And with a sigh that he
meant to engulf with his philosophy, the boy turned his face away, so
that Isaac should not suspect the tears that salted the flavor of the
coarse tobacco.

The dark outlook, the blind future, the hopeless cell, the disordered
table, the lazy life that deadened all activity but that of the
imagination, the lack of vigorous air, the lounging companionship,
but, above all things, the thought of his mother and Abbie, and the
brooding over what he dared to call an outrage perpetrated, in the
name of the law, upon himself--these things made a turmoil of Isaac's
brain. There was a daily conflict between the Christian and the
criminal way of looking at his irreparable misfortune which he was
surprised to find that even the possession of his father's Bible could
not control.

There were times when it needed all his intelligence to keep him from
springing on the keeper, and running amuck in the ward-room, simply
for the sake of uttering a violent, brutal protest. Then there were
hours when he was too exhausted to leave his cot. At such a time he
wrote a letter, his first letter to his mother, and he made the keeper
promise to have it mailed so that no one could possibly suspect that
it started from a prison.

    "DEAR MOTHER"--it ran--"I have not written to you for three
    weeks since I have been here, because I have been sick. I am
    now in a very safe place, and am doing pretty well. I clear my
    food and board and seventy-five cents a day. I have not been
    paid yet. I think you had better not write to me until I can
    give you a permanent address. I read my Bible every day and
    love you more dearly than ever. I have tried to do my duty as
    you would have me. Give my love to Abbie. I will write soon
    again.

    "Ever your affectionate son,

    "ISAAC."

The simpleton! Could he not suspect that country papers copy from city
columns all that is of special local interest, and more? And did he
not know that it is one of the disgraces of modern journalism that no
department is so copiously edited, annotated, and illustrated as that
of criminal intelligence?

Could he not surmise that on the Saturday following his incarceration
the very mountains rang with the news? That it should be mangled
and turned topsy-turvy, and that in the eyes of his simple-minded
neighbors he should be thought of as the murderer, by reason of
his great strength? For how could it come into the intelligence of
law-abiding citizens and law-respecting people, that a man should be
shut up in prison, no matter what the newspapers said, unless he had
_done_ something to deserve it? What did the mountaineers know about
the laws of bail, and habeas corpus? And could such news, gossiped by
one neighbor, repeated by another, confirmed by a third, fail to reach
the desolate farm-house in which a woman, feeble, old and faint of
heart, lay trembling between life and death?

The grand jury meets on the first Monday of each month to indict those
for trial against whom reasonable proofs of guilt are obtained. The
saloon loafer had been shot in the groin, and pending his injuries
indictment was waived. In proportion as the wound proved serious and
the recovery prolonged, trial was postponed.

Isaac Masters had now been locked up six weeks. He had not yet heard
from home, and had only written once. About noon, one day, the keeper
came to tell him that a woman wished to see him. Isaac thought that
it was his mother, and the shame of meeting her in the guard-room
surrounded by tiers upon tiers of murderers and thieves and petty
criminals overcame him. The man of strength sat down on his cot, and
putting his hands over his white face, trembled violently. The guard,
who knew that Isaac was an innocent man, spoke to him kindly.

"Go! go!" said the prisoner in a voice of agony, "and tell my mother
that I will be right there."

"Mother!" ejaculated the guard. "She's the youngest mother for a man
of your size I ever see." He winked at the sailor, and went.

Then Isaac knew that it was Abbie, who had come alone, and he
tightened his teeth and lips together, and went down.

Isaac slowly came down the perforated iron stairs that were attached
to his prison wing like an inside fire-escape. On the bench in the
middle of the guard-room sat Abbie--a little, helpless thing she
seemed to him--facing the entrance, as if she feared to remove her
eyes from the door that led to freedom.

Abbie was greatly changed. She was dressed in black. If Isaac had been
a free man, this fact would have startled him. As it was, he was so
spent with suffering that his dulled mind could not understand it.
At first Abbie did not recognize her hearty lover. His huge frame was
gaunt and wasted. His ruddy face was white, and his cheeks hung
in folds like moulded putty. His country clothes dropped about him
aimlessly. From crown to foot he had been devastated by unmerited
disgrace. Grief may glorify; but the other ravages.

This meeting between the lovers was singularly undramatic. Each shrank
a little from the other. They shook hands quietly. His was burning;
her's like a swamp in October dew. He sat down beside her on the bench
awkwardly, while the deputy looked at them with careless curiosity. He
was used to nothing but tragedy and crime, and to his experienced mind
the two had become long ago confused.

"Mother?" asked Isaac, nervously moving his feet. "Didn't she get my
letter?"

The girl nodded gravely, tried to meet his eyes, and then looked away.
Tears fell unresisted down her cheeks. She made no attempt to wipe
them off. It was as if she were too well acquainted with them to check
their flow.

Then the truth began to filter through Isaac's bewebbed intellect. He
spread his knees apart, rested his arms upon them, and bent his head
to his hands. His great figure shook.

"Oh, my God!" he sobbed. "My God! My God!"

"Oh, don't, Isaac, don't!" Abbie put her hand upon his head as if he
had been her boy. "Your mother was as happy as could be. She was happy
to die. We buried her yesterday!"

How could she tell him that his mother had died of grief--too sorely
smitten to bear it--for his sake?

But Isaac's head rose and fell--rose and fell rhythmically between his
hands. His breath came in low groans, like that of an animal smitten
dead by a criminally heavy load.

"She sent her love before she passed away. She wanted you to come back
to the farm as soon as you could. She believed in you, Ikey, even if
you were in prison. She said Paul was in prison, and that it was a
terrible mistake. She knew your father's son would not depart from his
God!"

As Abbie uttered this simple confession of country faith, the
pitiful man lifted up his eyes from the tiled floor and looked at her
gratefully. His dry lips moved, and he tried to speak.

"Yes," was all he said, with fierce humility. Then the lack of breath
choked him.

"She made me promise not to give you up, and to come and see you. Of
course you are innocent, Ikey?" Abbie did not look at him.

"Yes," he answered mechanically.

"I know," she said softly.

Of what use were more words? They would only beat like waves against
the granite of his broken heart. The two sat silent for a time. Then
Abbie said, "I must go." She edged a little towards him, and touched
his coat.

"When will you come out? I will explain it all to the minister and the
neighbors. We will be married as soon as you come home. She wanted us
to! Oh, Ikey! Oh, Ikey! My poor--poor boy!"

Isaac arose unsteadily. It was time for her to go, for the turnkey had
nodded to him.

A fierce, mad indignation at his fate and what it had wrought upon his
mother and upon his honorable name blinded him. He did not even say
good-by, but left the girl standing in the middle of the guard-room
alone. At any cost he must get back to his cell. Supposing his mind
should give way before he got there? He staggered to the stairway. He
threw his hands up, and groped on the railing. A blindness struck him
before he had mounted two steps. He did not hear a woman's shriek, nor
the rushing of feet, nor the sound of his own fall.

When he awaked, he was alone in the witness cell; and when he put his
white hands to his hair, he felt that his head was shaven. The chipper
prison doctor told him that he was getting nicely over a brain fever.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was three months after this before the case of Tom Muldoon came
upon the docket. The man whom the saloon-keeper had shot had but just
been declared out of clanger and on the road to recovery.

When the case was called, the district attorney arose from his
desk under the bench, and represented to the court that as for some
unforeseen reason the said Frank Stevens, who had been maliciously and
wilfully assaulted and shot by the said Tom Muldoon, had refused to
prosecute, the prosecution rested upon the government, which would
rely upon the direct evidence of one witness to sustain the case.

The district attorney, who was an unbought man, and whose future
election depended upon the number of convictions he secured for the
State, now opened his case with such decision, vigor, and masterful
certainty that the policemen and other friends of the defendant began
to quake for the boss of the--th Ward.

"And now, your honor, I will call to the witness-stand a young man of
stainless life, whom the government has held as a witness since the
brutal assault was committed. He is in the custody of the sheriff of
the county, Isaac Masters!"

All eyes turned to the door at the left of the bench. There was a
bustle of expectancy, and a pallor upon the face of Tom Muldoon.

"Isaac Masters!" repeated the attorney impatiently. "Will the court
officer produce the witness?"

The judge rapped his pencil on the desk in a nervous tattoo. Above all
things he detested delay.

"I hope Your Honor will grant me a few moments," said the attorney,
annoyed. "The witness must surely be here directly."

"It can go over--" began the judge indulgently, when he was
interrupted by the entrance of the sheriff of the county himself. This
man beckoned to the district attorney, and the two whispered together
with the appearance of great excitement.

"Well?" said the judge, yawning. "Produce your witness."

But the attorney for the government came back to his place slowly,
with head bent. He was very pale, and evidently much shaken. The
saloon-keeper's face expanded with hope, as he leaned aside and
whispered to a friendly wardman.

What was the evidence? Where was the witness? Silent? Why? The
question flashed from face to face in the court-room. Had he escaped?
Or been spirited away? Such things had been known to happen. Or had he
become insane during his incarceration? Such things had been known to
happen, too. Gentlemen of the law! Gentlemen of the jury! Sheriff
of the county! Judge of the Superior Court! Where is the witness? We
demand him on penalty of contempt. Contempt of your Honorable Court?
Contempt of court!

What? Is he not here? After all this cost to the State, and to the
man? Why has he not met his enforced appointment? If not here, why
was the innocent witness suffocated behind bars and walls, while the
murderer was free to dispense rum?

"Your Honor," began the attorney, with white lips, "a most unfortunate
occurrence has happened, one that the government truly deplores. The
witness has been suddenly called away. In fact, Your Honor--hem!--in
short, I have been informed by the sheriff that the witness cannot
answer to the summons of the court. He is disqualified from subpoena.
In fact, Your Honor, the witness died this morning."

The lawyer took out his handkerchief ostentatiously. He then bent to
his papers with shaking hands. He looked them over carefully while the
court held its breath.

"As the government is not in possession of any evidence against
Muldoon, I move to nolle prosequi the case."

"It is granted," said the judge, with a keen glance at the bloated
prisoner, whom wardmen and officers of the law were already
congratulating profusely.

"Order!" continued the judge. "Prisoner, stand up! You are allowed
to go upon your own recognizance in the sum of two hundred and fifty
dollars."

The next case was called, a new crowd entered the vitiated room,
and the court proceeded with its routine as if nothing unusual had
happened.

And the silent witness has passed out of every memory but mine, and
that of one poor girl mourning in the New Hampshire hills.



[Illustration: THE SUN'S LIGHT]



THE SUN'S LIGHT

BY SIR ROBERT BALL,

LOWNDEAN PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY AND GEOMETRY AT CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND;
FORMERLY ROYAL ASTRONOMER OF IRELAND.


The light of the great orb of day emanates solely from a closely
fitting robe of surpassing brightness. The great bulk of the sun which
lies within that brilliant mantle is comparatively obscure, and might
at first seem to play but an unimportant part so far as the dispensing
of light and heat is concerned. It may indeed be likened to the
coal-cellar from whence are drawn the supplies that produce the warmth
and brightness of the domestic hearth; while the brilliant robe where
the sun develops its heat corresponds to the grate in which the coal
is consumed. With regard to the thickness of the robe, we might liken
this brilliant exterior to the rind of an orange, while the gloomy
interior regions would correspond to the edible portion of the fruit.
Generally speaking, the rind of the orange is rather too coarse for
the purpose of this illustration. It might be nearer the truth to
affirm that the luminous part of the sun may be compared to the
delicate filmy skin of the peach. There can be no doubt that if this
glorious veil were unhappily stripped from the sun, the great luminary
would forthwith lose its powers of shedding forth light and heat. The
spots which we see so frequently to fleck the dazzling surface, are
merely rents in the brilliant mantle through which we are permitted to
obtain glimpses of the comparatively non-luminous interior.

As the ability of the sun to warm and light this earth arises from the
peculiar properties of the thin glowing shell which surrounds it, a
problem of the greatest interest is presented in an inquiry as to the
material composition of this particular layer of solar substance.
We want, in fact, to ascertain what that special stuff can be which
enables the sun to be so useful to us dwellers on the earth. This
great problem has been solved, and the result is extremely interesting
and instructive; it has been discovered that the material which
confers on the sun its beneficent power is also a material which
is found in the greatest abundance on the earth, where it fulfils
purposes of the very highest importance. Let us see, in the first
place, what is the most patent fact with regard to the structure
of this solar mantle possessed of a glory so indescribable. It is
perfectly plain that it is not composed of any continuous solid
material. It has a granular character which is sometimes perceptible
when viewed through a powerful telescope, but which can be seen more
frequently and studied more satisfactorily on a photographic plate.
These granules have an obvious resemblance to clouds; and clouds,
indeed, we may call them. There is, however, a very wide difference
between the solar clouds and those clouds which float in our own
atmosphere. The clouds which we know so well are, of course, merely
vast collections of globules of water suspended in the air. No doubt
the mighty solar clouds do also consist of incalculable myriads
of globules of some particular substance floating in the solar
atmosphere. The material of which these solar clouds are composed
is, however, I need hardly say, not water, nor is it anything in
the remotest degree resembling water. Some years ago any attempt to
ascertain the particular substance out of which the solar clouds were
formed would at once have been regarded as futile; inasmuch as such a
problem would then have been thought to lie outside the possibilities
of human knowledge. The advance of discovery has, however, shed a
flood of light on the subject, and has revealed the nature of that
material to whose presence we are indebted for the solar beneficence.
The detection of the particular element to which all living creatures
are so much indebted is due to that distinguished physicist, Dr. G.
Johnstone Stoney.

In the whole range of science, one of the most remarkable discoveries
ever made is that which has taught us that the elementary bodies of
which the sun and the stars are constructed are essentially the same
as those of which the earth has been built. This discovery was indeed
as unexpected as it is interesting. Could we ever have anticipated
that a body ninety-three millions of miles away, as the sun is, or a
hundred million of millions of miles distant, as a star may be, should
actually prove to have been formed from the same materials as those
which compose this earth of ours and all which it contains, whether
animate or inanimate? Yet such is indeed the fact. We are thus, in
a measure, prepared to find that the material which forms the great
solar clouds may turn out to be a substance not quite unknown to the
terrestrial chemist. Nay, further, its very abundance in the sun might
seem to suggest that this particular material might perhaps prove to
be one which was very abundant on the earth.

[Illustration: THE SUN'S CORONA.

From a photograph taken by Professor Schaeberle, at Mina Bronces,
Chili, in April, 1893, and kindly loaned by Professor E.S. Holden,
director of the Lick Observatory.]

I had occasion to make use of the word carbon in a lecture which
I gave a short time ago, and I thought when I did so that I was of
course merely using a term with whose meaning all my audience must be
well acquainted. But I found out afterwards that in this matter I had
been mistaken. I was told that my introduction of the word carbon had
quite puzzled some of those who were listening to me. I learned that a
few of those who were unfamiliar with this word went to a gentleman
of their acquaintance who they thought would be likely to know, and
begged from him an explanation of this mysterious term; whereupon he
told them that he was not quite sure himself, but believed that carbon
was something which was made out of nitro-glycerine! Even at the risk
of telling what every schoolboy ought to know, I will say that
carbon is one of the commonest as well as one of the most remarkable
substances in nature. A lump of coke only differs from a piece
of carbon by the ash which the coke leaves behind when burned. As
charcoal is almost entirely carbon, so wood is largely composed of
this same element. Carbon is indeed present everywhere. In various
forms carbon is in the earth beneath our feet, and in the air which we
breath. This substance courses with the blood through our veins; it is
by carbon that the heat of the body is sustained; and the same element
is intimately associated with life in every phase. Nor is the presence
of carbon merely confined to this earth. We know it abounds on other
bodies in space. It has been shown to be eminently characteristic of
the composition of comets. Carbon is not only intimately associated
with articles of daily utility, and of plenteous abundance, but with
the most exquisite gems of "purest ray serene." More precious than
gold, more precious than rubies, the diamond itself is no more than
the same element in crystalline form. But the greatest of all the
functions of carbon in the universe has yet to be mentioned. This same
wonderful element has been shown to be in all probability the material
which constitutes those glowing solar clouds to whose kindly radiation
our very life owes its origin.

[Illustration: At 10.34 A.M. The height of the eruption at this stage
was 135,200 miles.]

[Illustration: At 10.40 A.M. Height, 161,500 miles.]

[Illustration: At 10.58 A.M. Height, 280,800 miles.

THREE VIEWS OF AN ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE OF THE SUN.

From photographs taken at Kenwood Observatory, Chicago, March 25,
1895, and kindly loaned by Professor George E. Hale, of the Chicago
University.]

In the ordinary incandescent electric lamp, the brilliant light is
produced by a glowing filament of carbon. The powerful current of
electricity experiences so much resistance as it flows through this
badly conducting substance, that it raises the temperature of the
carbon wire so as to make it dazzlingly white-hot. Indeed the carbon
is thus elevated to a temperature far in excess of that which could
be obtained in any other way. The reason why carbon is employed in
the electric lamp, in preference to any other substance, may be easily
understood. Suppose we tried to employ an iron wire as the glowing
filament within the well-known glass globe. Then when the current was
turned on that iron would of course become red-hot and white-hot;
but ere a sufficient temperature had been attained to produce the
requisite illumination, the iron wire would have been fused into drops
of liquid, the current would have been broken, and the lamp would have
been destroyed. Nor would the attempt to make an incandescent lamp
have proved much more successful had the filament been made of
any other metal. The least fusible of metals is the costly element
platinum, but even a wire of platinum, though it would stand much
more heat than a wire of iron or of steel, would not have retained the
solid form by the time it had been raised to the temperature necessary
for an incandescent lamp.

There is no known metal, and perhaps no substance whatever, which
demands so high a temperature to fuse it as does the element carbon.
A filament of carbon, and a filament of carbon alone, will remain
unfused and unbroken when heated by the electric current to the
dazzling brilliance necessary for effective illumination. This is
the reason why this particular element is so indispensable for our
incandescent electric lamps. Modern research has now taught us that,
just as the electrician has to employ carbon as the immediate agent in
producing the brightest of artificial lights down here, so the sun in
heaven uses precisely the same element as the immediate agent in
the production of its transcendent light and heat. Owing to the
extraordinary fervor which prevails in the interior parts of the sun,
all substances there present, no matter how difficult we may find
their fusion, would have to submit to be melted, nay, even to be
driven off into vapor. If submitted to the heat of this appalling
solar furnace, an iron poker, for instance, would vanish into
invisible vapor. In the presence of the intense heat of the inner
parts of the sun, even carbon itself is unable to remain solid.
It would seem that it must assume a gaseous form under such
circumstances, just as the copper and the iron and all the other
substances do which yield more readily than it to the fierce heat of
their surroundings.

The buoyancy of carbon vapor is one of its most remarkable
characteristics. Accordingly immense volumes of the carbon steam
in the sun soar at a higher level than do the vapors of the other
elements. Thus carbon becomes a very large and important constituent
of the more elevated regions of the solar atmosphere. We can
understand what happens to these carbon vapors by the analogous case
of the familiar clouds in our own skies. It is true, no doubt, that
our terrestrial clouds are composed of a material totally different
from that which constitutes the solar clouds. The sun evaporates the
water from the great oceans which cover so large a proportion of our
earth. The vapor thus produced ascends in the form of invisible gas
through our atmosphere, until it reaches an altitude thousands of
feet above the surface of the earth. The chill that the watery vapor
experiences up there is so great that the vapor collects into little
liquid beads, and it is, of course, these liquid beads, associated in
countless myriads, which form the clouds we know so well.

We can now understand what happens as the buoyant carbon vapors
soar upwards through the sun's atmosphere. They attain at last to an
elevation where the fearful intensity of the solar heat has so
far abated that, though nearly all other elements may still remain
entirely gaseous, yet the exceptionally refractory carbon begins to
return to the liquid state. At the first stage in this return, the
carbon vapor conducts itself just as does the ascending watery vapor
from the earth when about to be transformed into a visible cloud.
Under the influence of a chill the carbon vapor collects into a myriad
host of little beads of liquid. Each of these drops of liquid carbon
in the glorious solar clouds has a temperature and a corresponding
radiance vastly exceeding that with which the filament glows in the
incandescent electric lamp. When we remember further that the entire
surface of our luminary is coated with these clouds, every particle
of which is thus intensely luminous, we need no longer wonder at that
dazzling brilliance which, even across the awful gulf of ninety-three
millions of miles, produces for us the indescribable glory of
daylight.

_Sir Robert Ball will contribute a series of articles on "The Marvels
of the Universe." Six or eight of these articles may be expected
during the coming year_.



[Illustration: THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BUILDINGS, ANDOVER,
MASSACHUSETTS.]



CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE.

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS,

AUTHOR OF "THE GATES AJAR," "THE MADONNA OF THE TUBS," ETC.

LIFE IN ANDOVER BEFORE THE WAR.

Andover is--or Andover was--like the lady to whom Steele gave
immortality in the finest and most famous epigram ever offered to
woman.

To have loved Andover; to have been born in Andover--I am brought up
short, in these notes, by the sudden recollection that I was _not_
born in Andover. It has always been so difficult to believe it, that I
am liable any day to forget it; but the facts compel me to infer that
I was born within a mile of the State House. I must have become a
citizen of Andover at the age of three, when my father resigned his
Boston pulpit for the professorship of Rhetoric in Andover Seminary.
I remember distinctly our arrival at the white mansion with the
large, handsome grounds, the distant and mysterious grove, the rotund
horse-chestnut trees, venerable and solemn, nearly a century old--to
this day a horse-chestnut always seems to me like a theological
trustee--and the sweep of playground so vast, so soft, so green,
so fragrant, so clean, that the baby cockney ran imperiously to her
father and demanded that he go build her a brick sidewalk to play
upon.

What, I wonder, may be the earliest act of memory on record? Mine is
not at all unusual--dating only to two and a half years; at which time
I clearly remember being knocked down by my dog, in my father's area
in Boston, and being crowed over by a rooster of abnormal proportions
who towered between me and the sky, a dragon in size and capabilities.

My father always maintained that he distinctly remembered hearing the
death of Napoleon announced in his presence when he was one year and a
half old.

Is the humiliating difference between the instinctive selection of
Napoleon and that of the rooster, one of temperament or sex? In either
case, it is significant enough to lead one to drop the subject.

Next to having been born in a university town, comes the advantage--if
it be an advantage--of having spent one's youth there. Mr. Howells
says that he must be a dull fellow who does not, at some time or
other, hate his native village; and I must confess that I have not, at
all stages of my life, held my present opinion of Andover. There have
been times when her gentle indifference to the preoccupations of the
world has stung me, as all serenity stings restlessness. There have
been times when the inevitable limitations of her horizon have seemed
as familiar as the coffin-lid to the dead.

[Illustration: PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS'S STUDY.

Drawn from a photograph taken after Professor Phelps's death, when the
study had been somewhat dismantled.]

There was an epoch when her theology--But, nevertheless, I certainly
look back upon Andover Hill with a very gentle pleasure and heartfelt
sense of debt.

It has been particularly asked of me to give some form to my
recollections of a phase of local life which is now so obviously
passing away that it has a certain historical interest.

That Andover remains upon the map of Massachusetts yet, one does not
dispute; but the Andover of New England theology--the Andover of a
peculiar people, the Andover that held herself apart from the world
and all that was therein--will soon become an interesting wraith.

The life of a professor's daughter in a university town is always a
little different from the lives of other girls; but the difference
seems to me--unless she be by nature entirely alien to it--in favor of
the girl. Were I to sum in one word my impressions of the influences
of Andover life upon a robust young mind and heart, I should call them
_gentle_.

As soon as we began to think, we saw a community engaged in studying
thought. As soon as we began to feel, we were aware of a neighborhood
that did not feel superficially; at least, in certain higher
directions. When we began to ask the "questions of life," which all
intelligent young people ask sooner or later, we found ourselves in a
village of three institutions and their dependencies committed to the
pursuit of an ideal of education for which no amount of later, or
what we call broader, training ever gives us any better word than
Christian.

Such things tell. Andover girls did not waltz, or suffer summer
engagements at Bar Harbor, a new one every year; neither did they read
Ibsen, or yellow novels; nor did they handle the French stories that
are hidden from parents; though they were excellent French scholars in
their day.

I do not even know that one can call them more "serious" than their
city sisters--for we were a merry lot; at least, _my_ lot were. But
they were, I believe, especially open-hearted, gentle-minded girls.

If they were "out of the world" to a certain extent, they were, to
another, out of the evil of it. As I look back upon the little
drama between twelve and twenty--I might rather say, between two and
twenty--Andover young people seem to me to have been as truly and
naturally innocent as one may meet anywhere in the world. Some of
these private records of girl-history were so white, so clear, so
sweet, that to read them would be like watching a morning-glory open.
The world is full, thank Heaven, of lovely girls; but though other
forms or phases of gentle society claim their full quota, I never saw
a lovelier than those I knew on Andover Hill.

One terrible tragedy, indeed, befell our little "set;" for we had our
sets in Andover, as well as they of Newport or New York.

A high-bred girl of exceptional beauty was furtively kissed one
evening by a daring boy (not a native of Andover, I hasten to
explain), and the furore which followed this unprecedented enormity
it would be impossible to describe to a member of more complicated
circles of society. Fancy the reception given such a commonplace at
any of our fashionable summer resorts to-day!

On Andover Hill the event was a moral cataclysm. Andover girls were
country girls, but not of rustic (any more than of metropolitan)
social training. Which of them would have suffered an Academy boy,
walking home with her from a lecture or a prayer-meeting, any little
privilege which he might not have taken in her father's house, and
with her mother's knowledge? I never knew one. The case of which I
speak was historic, and as far as I ever knew, unique, and was that of
a victim, not an offender.

The little beauty to whom this atrocity happened cried all night and
all the next day; she was reported not to have stopped crying for
twenty-six hours. Her pretty face grew wan and haggard. She was too
ill to go to her lessons.

The teachers--to whom she had promptly related the
circumstance--condoled with her; the entire school vowed to avenge
her; we were a score of as disturbed and indignant girls as ever wept
over woman's wrongs, or scorned a man's depravity.

Yet, for aught I know to the contrary, this abandoned young man may
have grown up to become a virtuous member of society; possibly even
an exemplary husband and father. I have never been able to trace his
history; probably the moral repulsion was too great.

Yet they were no prigs, for their innocence! Andover girls, in the
best and brightest sense of the word, led a gay life.

The preponderance of young men on the Hill gave more than ample
opportunity for well-mannered good times; and we made the most of
them.

[Illustration: VIEW LOOKING FROM THE FRONT OF ELIZABETH STUART
PHELPS'S HOME IN ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS.]

Legends of the feminine triumphs of past generations were handed
breathlessly down to us, and cherished with awe. A lady of the
village, said to have been once very handsome, was credibly reported
to have refused nineteen offers of marriage. Another, still plainly
beautiful, was known to have received and declined the suits of nine
theologues in one winter. Neither of these ladies married. We watched
their whitening hairs and serene faces with a certain pride of sex,
not easily to be understood by a man. When we began to think how
many times they _might_ have married, the subject assumed sensational
proportions. In fact, the maiden ladies of Andover always, I fancied,
regarded each other with a peculiar sense of peace. Each knew--and
knew that the rest knew--that it was (to use the Andover phraseology)
not of predestination or foreordination, but of free will absolute,
that an Andover girl passed through life alone. This little social
fact, which is undoubtedly true of most, if not all, university towns,
had mingled effects upon impressionable girls. For the proportion of
masculine society was almost Western in its munificence.

Perhaps it is my duty to say just here that, if honestly put to
the question, I should admit that this proportion was almost too
munificent for the methods of education then--and still to an extent
now--in vogue.

A large Academy for boys, and a flourishing Seminary for young men,
set across the village streets from two lively girls' schools, gave
to one observer of this little scholastic world her first argument for
co-education.

I am confident that if the boys who serenaded (right manfully) under
the windows of Abbott Academy or of "The Nunnery," or who tied
their lady's colors to the bouquets that they tossed on balconies of
professors' houses, had been put, class to class, in competition with
us, they would have wasted less time upon us; and I could not deny
that if the girls who cut little holes in their fans through which one
could look, undetected and unreproved, at one's favorite Academy boy,
on some public occasion, had been preparing to meet or pass that boy
at Euclid or Xenophon recitation next morning, he would have occupied
less of their fancy. Intellectual competition is simpler, severer, and
more wholesome than the unmitigated social plane; and a mingling of
the two may be found calculated to produce the happiest results.

"Poor souls!" said a Boston lady once to me, upon my alluding to a
certain literary club which was at that time occupying the enthusiasm
of the Hill. "Poor souls! I suppose they are so starved for society!"
We can fancy the amusement with which this comment would have been
received if it had been repeated--but it never was repeated till this
moment--in Andover.

For Andover had her social life, and knew no better, for the most
part, than to enjoy it. It is true that many of her diversions took on
that religious or academic character natural to the place. Of village
parish life we knew nothing, for our chapel was, like others of its
kind, rather an exclusive little place of worship. We were ignorant
of pastoral visits, deacons, parochial gossip, church fairs, and what
Professor Park used to call "the doughnut business;" and, though we
cultivated a weekly prayer-meeting in the lecture-room, I think its
chief influence was as a training-school for theological students
whose early efforts at public exhortation (poor fellows!) quaveringly
besought their Professors to grow in grace, and admonished the
families of the Faculty circle to repent.

But we had our lectures and our concerts--quite distinct, as orthodox
circles will understand, from those missionary festivals which went, I
never discovered why, by the name of Monthly Concerts--and our
Porter Rhets. I believe this cipher stood for Porter Rhetorical; and
research, if pushed far enough, would develop the fact that Porter
indicated a dead professor who once founded a chair and a debating
society for young men. Then we had our anniversaries and our
exhibitions, when we got ourselves into our organdie muslins or best
coats, and listened to the boys spouting Greek and Latin orations in
the old, red brick Academy, and heard the theological students--but
here this reporter is forced to pause. I suppose I ought to be ashamed
of it, but the fact is, that I never attended an anniversary exercise
of the Seminary in my life. It would be difficult to say why. I think
my reluctance consisted in an abnormal objection to Trustees. So far
as I know, they were an innocent set of men, of good reputations and
quite harmless. But I certainly acquired, at a very early age,
an antipathy to this class of Americans from which I have never
recovered.

Our anniversaries occurred, according to the barbaric custom of the
times, in the hottest heat of August; and if there be a hotter place
in Massachusetts than Andover was, I have yet to simmer in it. Our
houses were, of course, thrown open, and crowded to the shingles.

I remember once sharing my tiny room with a little guest who would not
have the window open, though the thermometer had stood above ninety,
day and night, for a week; and because she was a trustee's daughter,
I must not complain. Perhaps this experience emphasized a natural lack
of sympathy with her father.

At all events, I cherished a hidden antagonism to these excellent and
useful men, of which I make this late and public confession. It seemed
to me that everybody in Andover was afraid of them. I "took it out" in
the cordial defiance of a born rebel.

Then we had our tea-parties--theological, of course--when the students
came to tea in alphabetical order; and the Professor told his best
stories; and the ladies of the family were expected to keep more or
less quiet while the gentlemen talked. But this, I should say, was of
the earlier time.

And, of course, we had the occasional supply; and as for the clerical
guest, in some shape he was always with us.

I remember the shocked expression on the face of a not very eminent
minister, because I joined in the conversation when, in the absence
of my father's wife, the new mother, it fell to me to take the head of
the table. It was truly a stimulating conversation, intellectual, and,
like all clerical conversations, vivaciously amusing; and it swept
me in, unconsciously. I think this occurred after I had written "The
Gates Ajar."

This good man has since become an earnest anti-suffragist and opposer
of the movement for the higher education of women. I can only hope he
does not owe his dismal convictions to the moral jar received on that
occasion; and I regret to learn that his daughter has been forbidden
to go to college.

[Illustration: DR. EDWARDS A. PARK, FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN
THEOLOGY IN ANDOVER SEMINARY.

From a photograph taken in 1862 by J.W. Black, Boston.]

We had, too, our levees--that was the word; by it one meant what is
now called a reception. I have been told that my mother, who was a
woman of marked social tastes and gifts, oppressed by the lack of
variety in Andover life, originated this innocent form of dissipation.

These festivities, like others in academic towns, were democratic to
a degree amusing or inspiring, according to the temperament of the
spectator.

The professors' brilliantly-lighted drawing-rooms were thrown open to
the students and families of the Hill. Distinguished men jostled the
Academy boy who built the furnace fire to pay for his education, and
who might be found on the faculty some day, in his turn, or might
himself acquire an enviable and well-earned celebrity.

Eminent guests from out of town stood elbow to elbow with poor
theologues destined to the missionary field, and pathetically
observing the Andover levee as one of the last occasions of civilized
gayety in which it might be theirs to share. Ladies from Beacon Street
or from New York might be seen chatting with some gentle figure in
black, one of those widowed and brave women whose struggles to sustain
life and educate their children by boarding students form so large a
part of the pathos of academic towns.

One such I knew who met on one of these occasions a member of the
club for which she provided. The lady was charming, well-dressed,
well-mannered.

The young man, innocent of linen, had appeared at the levee in a gray
flannel shirt. Introductions passed. The lady bowed.

"I am happy," stammered the poor fellow, "I am happy to meet the woman
who cooks our victuals."

If it be asked, Why educate a man like that for the Christian
ministry?--but it was _not_ asked. Like all monstrosities, he grew
without permission.

Let us hasten to call him the exception that he was to what, on the
whole, was (in those days) a fair, wholesome rule of theological
selection. The Professor's eyes flashed when he heard the story.

"I have never approved," I think he said, "of the Special Course."

For the Professor believed in no short-cut to the pulpit; but pleaded
for all the education, all the opportunity, all the culture, all
the gifts, all the graces, possible to a man's privilege or energy,
whereby to fit him to preach the Christian religion. But, like other
professors, he could not always have his way.

It ought to be said, perhaps, that, beside the self-made or
self-making man, there always sat upon the old benches in the
lecture-room a certain proportion of gentlemen born and bred to ease
and affluence, who had chosen their life's work from motives which
were, at least, as much to be respected as the struggles of the
converted newsboy or the penitent expressman.

Take her at her dullest, I think we were very fond of Andover; and
though we dutifully improved our opportunities to present ourselves in
other circles of society, yet, like fisher-folk or mountain-folk, we
were always uneasy away from home. I remember on my first visit to
New York or Boston--and this although my father was with me--quietly
crying my eyes out behind the tall, embroidered screen which the
hostess moved before the grate, because the fire-light made me so
homesick. Who forgets his first attack of nostalgia? Alas! so far as
this recorder is concerned, the first was too far from the last. For
I am cursed (or blessed) with a love of home so inevitable and
so passionate as to be nothing less than ridiculous to my day and
generation--a day of rovers, a generation of shawl-straps and valises.

"Do you never want to _stay_?" I once asked a distinguished author
whose domestic uprootings were so frequent as to cause remark even in
America.

"I am the most homesick man who ever lived," he responded sadly. "If I
only pass a night in a sleeping-car, I hate to leave my berth."

"You must have cultivated society in Andover," an eminent Cambridge
writer once said to me, with more sincerity of tone than was to be
expected of the Cambridge accent as addressed to the Andover fact. I
was young then, and I remember to have answered, honestly enough,
but with what must have struck this superior man as unpardonable
flippancy:

"Oh, but one gets tired of seeing only cultivated people!"

I have thought of it sometimes since, when, in other surroundings, the
memory of that peaceful, scholarly life has returned poignantly to me.

When one can "run in" any day to homes like those on that quiet
and conscientious Hill, one may not do it; but when one cannot, one
appreciates their high and gentle influence.

One of the historic figures of my day in Andover was Professor Park.
Equally eminent both as a preacher and as a theologian, his fame was
great in Zion; and "the world" itself had knowledge of him, and did
him honor.

He was a striking figure in the days which were the best of Andover.
He was unquestionably a genius; the fact that it was a kind of genius
for which the temper of our times is soon likely to find declining
uses gives some especial interest to his name.

The appearances are that he will be the last of his type, once so
powerful and still so venerable in New England history. He wears (for
he is yet living) the dignity of a closing cycle; there is something
sad and grand about his individualism, as there is about the last
great chief of a tribe, or the last king of a dynasty.

In his youth he was the progressive of Evangelical theology. In his
age he stands the proud and reticent conservative, the now silent
representative of a departed glory, a departed severity--and, we must
admit, of a departed strength--from which the theology of our times
has melted away. Like other men in such positions, he has had battles
to fight, and he has fought them; enemies to make, and he has made
them. How can he keep them? He is growing old so gently and so kindly!
Ardent friends and worshipping admirers he has always had, and kept,
and deserved.

A lady well known among the writers of our day, herself a professor's
daughter from a New England college town, happened once to be talking
with me in a lonely hour and in a mood of confidence.

"Oh," she cried, "it seems some of these desolate nights as if I
_must_ go home and sit watching for my father to come back from
faculty meeting!"

But the tears smote her face, and she turned away. I knew that she had
been her dead father's idol, and he hers.

To her listener what a panorama in those two words: "Faculty meeting!"

Every professor's daughter, every woman from a university family, can
see it all. The whole scholastic and domestic, studious and tender
life comes back. Faculty meeting! We wait for the tired professor who
had the latest difference to settle with his colleagues, or the newest
breach to soothe, or the favorite move to push; how late he is! He
comes in softly, haggard and spent, closing the door so quietly that
no one shall be wakened by this midnight dissipation. The woman who
loves him most anxiously--be it wife or be it daughter--is waiting for
him. Perhaps there is a little whispered sympathy for the trouble
in the faculty which he does not tell. Perhaps there is a little
expedition to the pantry for a midnight lunch.

My first recollections of Professor Park give me his tall, gaunt,
but well-proportioned figure striding up and down the gravel walks
in front of the house, two hours before time for faculty meeting, in
solemn conclave with my father. The two were friends--barring those
interludes common to all faculties, when professional differences are
in the foreground--and the pacing of their united feet might have worn
Andover Hill through to the central fires. For years I cultivated an
objection to Professor Park as being the chief visible reason why we
had to wait for supper.

I remember his celebrated sermons quite well. The chapel was always
thronged, and--as there were no particular fire-laws in those days on
Andover Hill--the aisles brimmed over when it was known that Professor
Park or Professor Phelps was to preach. I think I usually began with
a little jealous counting of the audience, lest it should prove bigger
than my father's; but even a child could not long listen to Professor
Park and not forget her small affairs, and all affairs except the
eloquence of the man.

Great, I believe it was. Certain distinguished sermons had their
popular names, as "The Judas Sermon," or "The Peter Sermon," and drew
their admirers accordingly. He was a man of marked emotional nature,
which he often found it hard to control. A skeptical critic might have
wondered whether the tears welled, or the face broke, or the voice
trembled, always just at the right moment, from pure spontaneity. But
those who knew the preacher personally never doubted the genuineness
of the feeling that swept and carried orator and hearers down. We do
not hear such sermons now.

Professor Park has always been a man of social ease and wit. The last
time I saw him, at the age of eighty-five, in his house in Andover,
I thought, one need not say, "has been;" and to recall his brilliant
talk that day gives me hesitation over the past tense of this
reminiscence. On the whole, with the exception of Doctor Holmes, I
think I should call Professor Park the best converser--at least among
eminent _men_--whom I have ever met.

He has always been a man very sensitive to the intellectual values
of life, and fully inclined perhaps to approach the spiritual through
those. It is easy to misunderstand a religious teacher of this
temperament, and his admiring students may have sometimes done so.

One in particular I remember to have heard of who neglected the
lecture-room to cultivate upon his own responsibility the misson work
of what was known as Abbott Village. To the Christian socialism of our
day, the misery of factory life might seem as important for the
future clergyman as the system of theology regnant in his particular
seminary--but that was not the fashion of the time; at all events, the
man was a student under the Professor's orders, and the orders were:
keep to the curriculum; and I can but think that the Professor was
right when he caustically said:

"That ---- is wasting his seminary course in what _he calls doing
good_!"

Sometimes, too, the students used to beg off to go on book-agencies,
or to prosecute other forms of money-making; and of one such Professor
Park was heard to say that he "sacrificed his education to get the
means of paying for it."

I am indebted to Professor Park for this: "Professor Stuart and myself
were reluctant to release them from their studies. Professor Stuart
remarked of one student that he got excused _every_ Saturday for the
purpose of going home for a _week_, and always stayed a _fortnight_."

The last time that I saw Professor Park he told me a good story.
It concerned the days of his prime, when he had been preaching
somewhere--in Boston or New York, I think--and after the audience was
dismissed a man lingered and approached him.

"Sir," said the stranger, "I am under great obligations to you. Your
discourse has moved me greatly. I can truly say that I believe I shall
owe the salvation of my soul to you. I wish to offer, sir, to
the seminary with which you are connected, a slight tribute of my
admiration for and indebtedness to you." The gentleman drew out his
purse.

"I waited, breathless," said Professor Park, with his own tremendous
solemnity of manner; "I awaited the tribute of that grateful man. At
what price did he value his soul? I anticipated a contribution for the
seminary which it would be a privilege to offer. At what rate did
my converted hearer price his soul?--Hundreds? Thousands? Tens
of thousands? With indescribable dignity the man handed to me--a
five-dollar bill!"



THE WAGER OF THE MARQUIS DE MÉROSAILLES.

BY ANTHONY HOPE,

AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," "THE DOLLY DIALOGUES," ETC.


In the year 1634, as spring came, there arrived at Strelsau a French
nobleman, of high rank and great possessions, and endowed with many
accomplishments. He came to visit Prince Rudolf, whose acquaintance he
had made while the prince was at Paris in the course of his travels.
King Henry received Monsieur de Mérosailles--for such was his
name--most graciously, and sent a guard of honor to conduct him to the
Castle of Zenda, where the prince was then staying in company with his
sister Osra. There the marquis on his arrival was greeted with much
joy by Prince Rudolf, who found his sojourn in the country somewhat
irksome, and was glad of the society of a friend with whom he could
talk and sport and play at cards. All these things he did with
Monsieur de Mérosailles, and a great friendship arose between the
young men, so that they spoke very freely to one another at all times,
and most of all when they had drunk their wine and sat together in the
evening in Prince Rudolf's chamber that looked across the moat toward
the gardens; for the new chateau that now stands on the site of these
gardens was not then built. And one night Monsieur de Mérosailles made
bold to ask the prince how it fell out that his sister the princess,
a lady of such great beauty, seemed sad, and showed no pleasure in
the society of any gentleman, but treated all alike with coldness and
disdain. Prince Rudolf, laughing, answered that girls were strange
creatures, and that he had ceased to trouble his head about them--of
his heart he said nothing--and he finished by exclaiming, "On my
honor, I doubt if she so much as knows you are here, for she has not
looked at you once since your arrival!" And he smiled maliciously, for
he knew that the marquis was not accustomed to be neglected by ladies,
and would take it ill that even a princess should be unconscious
of his presence. In this he calculated rightly, for Monsieur de
Mérosailles was greatly vexed, and, twisting his glass in his fingers,
he said:

"If she were not a princess, and your sister, sir, I would engage to
make her look at me."

"I am not hurt by her looking at you," rejoined the prince; for that
evening he was very merry. "A look is no great thing."

And the marquis being also very merry, and knowing that Rudolf had
less regard for his dignity than a prince should have, threw out
carelessly:

"A kiss is more, sir."

"It is a great deal more," laughed the prince, tugging his mustache.

"Are you ready for a wager, sir?" asked Monsieur de Mérosailles,
leaning across the table toward him.

"I'll lay you a thousand crowns to a hundred that you do not gain a
kiss, using what means you will, save force."

"I'll take the wager, sir," cried the marquis; "but it shall be three,
not one."

"Have a care," said the prince. "Don't go too near the flame, my lord.
There are some wings in Strelsau singed at that candle."

"Indeed, the light is very bright," assented the marquis, courteously.
"That risk I must run, though, if I am to win my wager. It is to be
three, then, and by what means I will, save force?"

"Even so," said Rudolf, and he laughed again. For he thought the wager
harmless, since by no means could Monsieur de Mérosailles win so much
as one kiss from the Princess Osra, and the wager stood at three. But
he did not think how he wronged his sister by using her name lightly,
being in all such matters a man of careless mind.

But the marquis, having made his wager, set himself steadily to win
it; for he brought forth the choicest clothes from his wardrobe, and
ornaments and perfumes; and he laid fine presents at the princess's
feet; and he waylaid her wherever she went, and was profuse of
glances, sighs, and hints; and he wrote sonnets, as fine gentlemen
used in those days, and lyrics and pastorals, wherein she figured
under charming names. These he bribed the princess's waiting-women to
leave in their mistress's chamber. Moreover, he looked now sorrowful,
now passionate, and he ate nothing at dinner, but drank his wine in
wild gulps as though he sought to banish sadness. So that, in a word,
there was no device in Cupid's armory that the Marquis de Mérosailles
did not practise in the endeavor to win a look from the Princess Osra.
But no look came, and he got nothing from her but cold civility. Yet
she had looked at him when he looked not--for princesses are much like
other maidens--and thought him a very pretty gentleman, and was highly
amused by his extravagance. Yet she did not believe it to witness any
true devotion to her, but thought it mere gallantry.

[Illustration: THE PHYSICIAN RECEIVING THE PRINCESS IN THE MARQUIS'S
SICKROOM.]

Then one day Monsieur de Mérosailles, having tried all else that he
could think of, took to his bed. He sent for a physician, and paid him
a high fee to find the seeds of a rapid and fatal disease in him; and
he made his body-servant whiten his face and darken the room; and he
groaned very pitifully, saying that he was sick, and that he was glad
of it, for death would be better far than the continued disdain of the
Princess Osra. And all this, being told by the marquis's servants to
the princess's waiting-women, reached Osra's ears, and caused her much
perturbation. For she now perceived that the passion, of the marquis
was real and deep, and she became very sorry for him; and the longer
the face of the rascally physician grew, the more sad the princess
became; and she walked up and down, bewailing the terrible effects
of her beauty, wishing that she were not so fair, and mourning very
tenderly for the sad plight of the unhappy marquis. Through all Prince
Rudolf looked on, but was bound by his wager not to undeceive her;
moreover, he found much entertainment in the matter, and swore that it
was worth three times a thousand crowns.

At last the marquis sent, by the mouth of the physician, a very humble
and pitiful message to the princess, in which he spoke of himself as
near to death, hinted at the cruel cause of his condition, and prayed
her of her compassion to visit him in his chamber and speak a word of
comfort, or at least let him look on her face; for the brightness of
her eyes, he said, might cure even what it had caused.

Deceived by this appeal, Princess Osra agreed to go. Moved by some
strange impulse, she put on her loveliest gown, dressed her hair most
splendidly, and came into his chamber looking like a goddess. There
lay the marquis, white as a ghost and languid, on his pillows; and
they were left, as they thought, alone. Then Osra sat down, and began
to talk very gently and kindly to him, glancing only at the madness
which brought him to his sad state, and imploring him to summon his
resolution and conquer his sickness for his friends' sake at home in
France, and for the sake of her brother, who loved him.

"There is nobody who loves me," said the marquis, petulantly; and when
Osra cried out at this, he went on: "For the love of those whom I do
not love is nothing to me, and the only soul alive I love--" There he
stopped, but his eyes, fixed on Osra's face, ended the sentence for
him. And she blushed, and looked away. Then, thinking the moment
had come, he burst suddenly into a flood of protestations and
self-reproach, cursing himself for a fool and a presumptuous madman,
pitifully craving her pardon, and declaring that he did not deserve
her kindness, and yet that he could not live without it, and that
anyhow he would be dead soon and thus cease to trouble her. But she,
being thus passionately assailed, showed such sweet tenderness and
compassion and pity that Monsieur de Mérosailles came very near to
forgetting that he was playing a comedy, and threw himself into his
part with eagerness, redoubling his vehemence, and feeling now full
half of what he said. For the princess was to his eyes far more
beautiful in her softer mood. Yet he remembered his wager, and at
last, when she was nearly in tears, and ready, as it seemed, to do
anything to give him comfort, he cried desperately:

"Ah, leave me, leave me! Leave me to die alone! Yet for pity's sake,
before you go, and before I die, give me your forgiveness, and let
your lips touch my forehead in token of it! And then I shall die in
peace."

At that the princess blushed still more, and her eyes were dim and
shone; for she was very deeply touched at his misery and at the sad
prospect of the death of so gallant a gentleman for love. Thus she
could scarcely speak for emotion; and the marquis, seeing her emotion,
was himself much affected; and she rose from her chair and bent over
him, and whispered comfort to him. Then she leant down, and very
lightly touched his forehead with her lips; and he felt her eyelashes,
that were wet with her tears, brush the skin of his forehead; and then
she sobbed, and covered her face with her hands. Indeed, his state
seemed to her most pitiful.

Thus Monsieur de Mérosailles had won one of his three kisses; yet,
strange to tell, there was no triumph in him, but he now perceived
the baseness of his device; and the sweet kindness of the princess,
working together with the great beauty of her softened manner, so
affected him that he thought no more of his wager, and could not
endure to carry on his deception. And nothing would serve his turn but
to confess to the princess what he had done, and humble himself in
the dust before her, and entreat her to pardon him and let him find
forgiveness. Therefore, impelled by these feelings, after he had lain
still a few moments listening to the princess's weeping, he leapt
suddenly out of the bed, showing himself fully clothed under the
bedgown which he now eagerly tore off, and he rubbed all the white
he could from his cheeks; and then he fell on his knees before the
princess, crying to her that he had played the meanest trick on her,
and that he was a scoundrel and no gentleman, and yet that, unless she
forgave him, he should in very truth die. Nay, he would not consent to
live, unless he could win from her pardon for his deceit. And in all
this he was now most absolutely in earnest, wondering only how he had
not been as passionately enamoured of her from the first as he had
feigned himself to be. For a man in love can never conceive himself
out of it; nor he that is out of it, in it: for, if he can, he is
halfway to the one or the other, however little he may know it.

At first the princess sat as though she were turned to stone. But when
he had finished his confession, and she understood the trick that had
been played upon her, and how not only her kiss but also her tears had
been won from her by fraud; and when she thought, as she did, that the
marquis was playing another trick upon her, and that there was no more
truth nor honesty in his present protestations than in those which
went before--she fell into great shame and into a great rage; and her
eyes flashed like the eyes of her father himself, as she rose to her
feet and looked down on Monsieur de Mérosailles as he knelt imploring
her. Now her face turned pale from red, and she set her lips, and she
drew her gown close round her lest his touch should defile it (so the
unhappy gentleman understood the gesture), and she daintily picked her
steps round him lest by chance she should happen to come in contact
with so foul a thing. Thus she walked toward the door, and, having
reached it, she turned and said to him:

"Your death may blot out the insult--nothing less;" and with her head
held high, and her whole air full of scorn, she swept out of the room,
leaving the marquis on his knees. Then he started up to follow her,
but dared not; and he flung himself on the bed in a paroxysm of shame
and vexation, and now of love, and he cried out loud:

"Then my death shall blot it out, since nothing else will serve!"

For he was in a very desperate mood. For a long while he lay there,
and then, having risen, dressed himself in a sombre suit of black,
and buckled his sword by his side, and put on his riding-boots, and,
summoning his servant, bade him saddle his horse. "For," said he to
himself, "I will ride into the forest, and there kill myself; and
perhaps when I am dead, the princess will forgive, and will believe in
my love, and grieve a little for me."

Now, as he went from his chamber to cross the moat by the drawbridge,
he encountered Prince Rudolf returning from hawking. They met full
in the centre of the bridge, and the prince, seeing Monsieur de
Mérosailles dressed all in black from the feather in his cap to his
boots, called out mockingly, "Who is to be buried to-day, my lord, and
whither do you ride to the funeral? It cannot be yourself, for I see
that you are marvellously recovered of your sickness."

"But it is myself," answered the marquis, coming near and speaking low
that the servants and the falconers might not overhear. "And I ride,
sir, to my own funeral."

"The jest is still afoot, then?" asked the prince. "Yet I do not see
my sister at the window to watch you go, and I warrant you have made
no way with your wager yet."

"A thousand curses on my wager!" cried the marquis. "Yes, I have made
way with the accursed thing, and that is why I now go to my death."

"What, has she kissed you?" cried the prince, with a merry, astonished
laugh.

"Yes, sir, she has kissed me once, and therefore I go to die."

"I have heard many a better reason, then," answered the prince.

By now the prince had dismounted, and he stood by Monsieur de
Mérosailles in the middle of the bridge, and heard from him how the
trick had prospered. At this he was much tickled; and, alas! he was
even more diverted when the penitence of the marquis was revealed to
him, and was most of all moved to merriment when it appeared that
the marquis, having gone too near the candle, had been caught by its
flame, and was so terribly singed and scorched that he could not bear
to live. And while they talked on the bridge, the princess looked out
on them from a lofty narrow window, but neither of them saw her.
Now, when the prince had done laughing, he put his arm through his
friend's, and bade him not be a fool, but come in and toast the
princess's kiss in a draught of wine. "For," he said, "though you will
never get the other two, yet it is a brave exploit to have got one."

But the marquis shook his head, and his air was so resolute and so
full of sorrow that not only was Rudolf alarmed for his reason, but
Princess Osra also, at the window, wondered what ailed him and why he
wore such a long face; and she now noticed, that he was dressed all in
black, and that his horse waited for him across the bridge.

"Not," said she, "that I care what becomes of the impudent rogue!" Yet
she did not leave the window, but watched very intently to see what
Monsieur de Mérosailles would do.

For a long while he talked with Rudolf on the bridge, Rudolf seeming
more serious than he was wont to be; and at last the marquis bent to
kiss the prince's hand, and the prince raised him and kissed him on
either cheek; and then the marquis went and mounted his horse and rode
off, slowly and unattended, into the glades of the forest of Zenda.
But the prince, with a shrug of his shoulders and a frown on his brow,
entered under the portcullis, and disappeared from his sister's view.

Upon this the princess, assuming an air of great carelessness, walked
down from the room where she was, and found her brother, sitting still
in his boots, and drinking wine; and she said:

"Monsieur de Mérosailles has taken his leave, then?"

"Even so, madam," rejoined Rudolf.

Then she broke into a fierce attack on the marquis, and on her brother
also; for a man, said she, is known by his friends, and what a man
must Rudolf be to have a friend like the Marquis de Mérosailles!

"Most brothers," she said, in fiery temper, "would make him answer for
what he has done with his life. But you laugh--nay, I dare say you had
a hand in it."

As to this last charge the prince had the discretion to say nothing;
he chose rather to answer the first part of what she said, and,
shrugging his shoulders again, rejoined, "The fool saves me the
trouble, for he has gone off to kill himself."

"To kill himself?" she said, half-incredulous, but also
half-believing, because of the marquis's gloomy looks and black
clothes.

"To kill himself," repeated Rudolf. "For, in the first place, you are
angry, so he cannot live; and in the second, he has behaved like a
rogue, so he cannot live; and in the third place, you are so lovely,
sister, that he cannot live; and in the first, second, and third
places, he is a fool, so he cannot live." And the prince finished his
flagon of wine with every sign of ill-humor in his manner.

"He is well dead," she cried.

"Oh, as you please!" said he. "He is not the first brave man who has
died on your account;" and he rose and strode out of the room very
surlily, for he had a great friendship for Monsieur de Mérosailles,
and had no patience with men who let love make dead bones of them.

The Princess Osra, being thus left alone, sat for a little while in
deep thought. There rose before her mind the picture of Monsieur de
Mérosailles riding mournfully through the gloom of the forest to his
death; and although his conduct had been all, and more than all,
that she had called it, yet it seemed hard that he should die for
it. Moreover, if he now in truth felt what he had before feigned, the
present truth was an atonement for the past treachery; and she said
to herself that she could not sleep quietly that night if the marquis
killed himself in the forest. Presently she wandered slowly up to her
chamber, and looked in the mirror, and murmured low, "Poor fellow!"
And then with sudden speed she attired herself for riding, and
commanded her horse to be saddled, and darted down the stairs and
across the bridge, and mounted, and, forbidding any one to accompany
her, rode away into the forest, following the tracks of the hoofs of
Monsieur de Mérosailles's horse. It was then late afternoon, and the
slanting rays of the sun, striking through the tree-trunks, reddened
her face as she rode along, spurring her horse and following hard on
the track of the forlorn gentleman. But what she intended to do if she
came up with him, she did not think.

When she had ridden an hour or more, she saw his horse tethered to a
trunk; and there was a ring of trees and bushes near, encircling an
open grassy spot. Herself dismounting and fastening her horse by the
marquis's horse, she stole up, and saw Monsieur de Mérosailles sitting
on the ground, his drawn sword lying beside him; and his back was
towards her. She held her breath, and waited for a few moments. Then
he took up the sword, and felt the point and also the edge of it,
and sighed deeply; and the princess thought that this sorrowful mood
became him better than any she had seen him in before. Then he rose to
his feet, and took his sword by the blade beneath the hilt, and turned
the point of it towards his heart. And Osra, fearing that the deed
would be done immediately, called out eagerly, "My lord, my lord!" and
Monsieur de Mérosailles turned round with a great start. When he saw
her, he stood in astonishment, his hand still holding the blade of the
sword. And, standing just on the other side of the trees, she said:

"Is your offence against me to be cured by adding an offence against
Heaven and the Church?" And she looked on him with great severity; yet
her cheek was flushed, and after a while she did not meet his glance.

"How came you here, madam?" he asked in wonder.

"I heard," she said, "that you meditated this great sin, and I rode
after you to forbid it."

"Can you forbid what you cause?" he asked.

"I am not the cause of it," she said, "but your own trickery."

"It is true. I am not worthy to live," cried the marquis, smiting the
hilt of his sword to the ground. "I pray you, madam, leave me alone
to die, for I cannot tear myself from the world so long as I see your
face." And as he spoke he knelt on one knee, as though he were doing
homage to her.

The princess caught at a bough of the tree under which she stood, and
pulled the bough down so that its leaves half hid her face, and the
marquis saw little more than her eyes from among the foliage. And,
thus being better able to speak to him, she said, softly:

"And dare you die, unforgiven?"

"I had prayed for forgiveness before you found me, madam," said he.

"Of Heaven, my lord?"

"Of Heaven, madam. For of Heaven I dare to ask it."

[Illustration: SHE STOLE UP AND SAW MONSIEUR DE MÉROSAILLES SITTING ON
THE GROUND.]

The bough swayed up and down; and now Osra's gleaming hair, and now
her cheek, and always her eyes, were seen through the leaves. And
presently the marquis heard a voice asking:

"Does Heaven forgive unasked?"

"Indeed, no," said he, wondering.

"And," said she, "are we poor mortals kinder than Heaven?"

The marquis rose, and took a step or two towards where the bough
swayed up and down, and then knelt again.

"A great sinner," said he, "cannot believe himself forgiven."

"Then he wrongs the power of whom he seeks forgiveness; for
forgiveness is divine."

"Then I will ask it, and, if I obtain it, I shall die happy."

Again the bough swayed, and Osra said:

"Nay, if you will die, you may die unforgiven."

Monsieur de Mérosailles, hearing these words, sprang to his feet, and
came towards the bough until he was so close that he touched the green
leaves; and through them the eyes of Osra gleamed; and the sun's rays
struck on her eyes, and they danced in the sun, and her cheeks were
reddened by the same or some other cause. And the evening was very
still, and there seemed no sounds in the forest.

"I cannot believe that you forgive. The crime is so great," said he.

"It was great; yet I forgive."

"I cannot believe it," said he again, and he looked at the point of
his sword, and then he looked through the leaves at the princess.

"I can do no more than say that if you will live, I will forgive. And
we will forget."

"By Heaven, no!" he whispered. "If I must forget to be forgiven, then
I will remember and be unforgiven."

The faintest laugh reached him from among the foliage.

"Then I will forget, and you shall be forgiven," said she.

The marquis put up his hand and held a leaf aside, and he said again:

"I cannot believe myself forgiven. Is there no other token of
forgiveness?"

"Pray, my lord, do not put the leaves aside."

"I still must die, unless I have sure warrant of forgiveness."

"Ah, you try to make me think that!"

"By Heavens, it is true!" and again he pointed his sword at his heart,
and he swore on his honor that unless she gave him a token he would
still kill himself.

"Oh," said the princess, with great petulance, "I wish I had not
come!"

"Then I should have been dead by now--dead, unforgiven!"

"But you will still die!"

"Yes, I must still die, unless--"

"Sheath your sword, my lord. The sun strikes it, and it dazzles my
eyes."

"That cannot be; for your eyes are brighter than sun and sword
together."

"Then I must shade them with the leaves."

"Yes, shade them with the leaves," he whispered. "Madam, is there no
token of forgiveness?"

An absolute silence followed for a little while. Then Osra said:

"Why did you swear on your honor?"

"Because it is an oath that I cannot break."

"Indeed, I wish that I had not come," sighed Princess Osra.

Again came silence. The bough was pressed down for an instant; then it
swayed swiftly up again; and its leaves brushed the cheek of Monsieur
de Mérosailles. And he laughed loud and joyfully.

"Something touched my cheek," said he.

"It must have been a leaf," said Princess Osra.

"Ah, a leaf!"

"I think so," said Princess Osra.

"Then it was a leaf of the Tree of Life," said Monsieur de
Mérosailles.

"I wish some one would set me on my horse," said Osra.

"That you may ride back to the castle--alone?"

"Yes, unless you would relieve my brother's anxiety."

"It would be courteous to do that much," said the Marquis.

So they mounted, and rode back through the forest. In an hour the
Princess had come, and in the space of something over two hours they
returned; yet during all this time they spoke hardly a word; and
although the sun was now set, yet the glow remained on the face and
in the eyes of Princess Osra; while Monsieur de Mérosailles, being
forgiven, rode with a smile on his lips.

But when they came to the castle, Prince Rudolf ran out to meet them,
and he cried almost before he reached them.

"Hasten, hasten! There is not a moment, to lose, if the marquis
values life or liberty!" And when he came to them, he told them that
a waiting-woman had been false to Monsieur de Mérosailles, and, after
taking his money, had hid herself in his chamber, and seen the first
kiss that the princess gave him, and having made some pretext to gain
a holiday, had gone to the king, who was hunting near, and betrayed
the whole matter to him.

"And one of my gentlemen," he continued, "has ridden here to tell me.
In an hour the guards will be here, and if the king catches you, my
lord, you will hang, as sure as I live."

The princess turned very pale, but Monsieur de Mérosailles said,
haughtily, "I ask your pardon, sir, but the king dares not hang me,
for I am a gentleman and a subject of the king of France."

"Man, man!" cried Rudolf. "The Lion will hang you first and think of
all that afterward! Come, now, it is dusk. You shall dress yourself as
my groom, and I will ride to the frontier, and you shall ride behind
me, and thus you may get safe away. I cannot have you hanged over such
a trifle."

"I would have given my life willingly for what you call a trifle,
sir," said the marquis, with a bow to Osra.

"Then have the trifle and life, too," said Rudolf, decisively. "Come
in with me, and I will give you your livery."

When the prince and Monsieur de Mérosailles came out again on the
drawbridge, the evening had fallen, and it was dark; and their horses
stood at the end of the bridge, and by the horses stood the princess.

"Quick!" said she. "For a peasant who came in, bringing a load of
wood, saw a troop of men coming over the crown of the hill, and he
says they are the king's guard."

"Mount, man!" cried the prince to Monsieur de Mérosailles, who was now
dressed as a groom. "Perhaps we can get clear, or perhaps they will
not dare to stop me."

But the marquis hesitated a little, for he did not like to run away;
and the princess ran a little way forward, and, shading her eyes with
her hand, cried, "See there; I see the gleam of steel in the dark.
They have reached the top of the hill, and are riding down."

Then Prince Rudolf sprang on his horse, calling again to Monsieur de
Mérosailles: "Quick! quick! Your life hangs on it!"

Then at last the marquis, though he was most reluctant to depart, was
about to spring on his horse, when the princess turned and glided back
swiftly to them. And--let it be remembered that evening had fallen
thick and black--she came to her brother, and put out her hand, and
grasped his hand, and said:

"My lord, I forgive your wrong, and I thank you for your courtesy, and
I wish you farewell."

Prince Rudolf, astonished, gazed at her without speaking. But she,
moving very quickly in spite of the darkness, ran to where Monsieur
de Mérosailles was about to spring on his horse, and she flung one arm
lightly about his neck, and she said:

"Farewell, dear brother--God preserve you! See that no harm comes to
my good friend Monsieur de Mérosailles." And she kissed him lightly
on the cheek. Then she suddenly gave a loud cry of dismay, exclaiming,
"Alas, what have I done? Ah, what have I done?" And she hid her face
in her two hands.

Prince Rudolf burst into a loud, short laugh, yet he said nothing to
his sister, but again urged the marquis to mount his horse. And the
marquis, who was in a sad tumult of triumph and of woe, leaped up, and
they rode out, and, turning their faces towards the forest, set spurs
to their horses, and vanished at breakneck speed into the glades.
And no sooner were they gone than the troopers of the king's guard
clattered at a canter up to the end of the bridge, where the Princess
Osra stood. But when their captain saw the princess, he drew rein.

"What is your errand, sir?" she asked, most coldly and haughtily.

"Madam," said the captain, "we are ordered to bring the Marquis
de Mérosailles alive or dead into the king's presence, and we have
information that he is in the castle, unless indeed he were one of the
horsemen who rode away just now."

"The horsemen you saw were my brother the prince and his groom," said
Osra. "But if you think that Monsieur de Mérosailles is in the castle,
pray search the castle from keep to cellar; and if you find him, carry
him to my father, according to your orders."

Then the troopers dismounted in great haste, and ransacked the castle
from keep to cellar; and they found the clothes of the marquis and the
white powder with which he had whitened his face, but the marquis they
did not find. And the captain came again to the princess, who still
stood at the end of the bridge, and said:

"Madam, he is not in the castle."

"Is he not?" said she, and she turned away and, walking to the middle
of the bridge, looked down into the water of the moat.

"Was it in truth the prince's groom who rode with him, madam?" asked
the captain, following her.

"In truth, sir, it was so dark," answered the princess, "that I could
not myself clearly distinguish the man's face."

"One was the prince, for I saw you embrace him, madam."

"You do well to conclude that that was my brother," said Osra, smiling
a little.

"And to the other, madam, you gave your hand."

"And now I give it to you," said she, with haughty insolence. "And if
to my father's servant, why not to my brother's?"

And she held out her hand that he might kiss it, and turned away from
him, and looked down into the water again.

"But we found Monsieur de Mérosailles's clothes in the castle!"
persisted the captain.

"He may well have left something of his in the castle," said the
princess.

"I will ride after them!" cried the captain.

"I doubt if you will catch them," smiled the princess; for by now the
pair had been gone half an hour, and the frontier was but ten miles
from the castle, and they could not be overtaken. Yet the captain
rode off with his men, and pursued till he met Prince Rudolf returning
alone, having seen Monsieur de Mérosailles safe on his way. And Rudolf
had paid the sum of a thousand crowns to the marquis, so that the
fugitive was well provided for his journey, and, travelling with
many relays of horses, made good his escape from the clutches of King
Henry.

But the Princess Osra stayed a long time looking down at the water in
the moat. And sometimes she sighed, and then again she frowned, and,
although nobody was there, and it was very dark into the bargain, more
than once she blushed. And at last she turned to go in to the castle.
And, as she went, she murmured softly to herself:

"Why I kissed him the first time I know--it was in pity; and why I
kissed him the second time I know--it was in forgiveness. But why
I kissed him the third time, or what that kiss meant," said Osra,
"Heaven knows."

And she went in with a smile on her lips.



MISS TARBELL'S LIFE OF LINCOLN.


The response to our New Life of Lincoln is so extraordinary as to
demand something more than mere acknowledgment from us.

Within ten days of the publication of the magazine no less than
forty thousand new buyers were added to our list, and at this writing
(November 25th) the increase has reached one hundred thousand, making
a clear increase of one hundred thousand in three months, and bringing
the total edition for the present number up to a quarter of a million.

But even more gratifying have been the strong expressions of approval
from many whose intimate knowledge of Lincoln's life enables them to
distinguish what is _new_ in this life.

As Mr. Medill says in an editorial in the Chicago "Tribune," "It is
not only full of new things, but is so distinct and clear in local
color that an interest attaches to it which is not found in other
biographies."

And Mr. R.W. Diller, of Springfield, Illinois, who knew Mr. Lincoln
intimately for nearly twenty years before his election to the
Presidency, writes to us about Miss Tarbell's article: "As far as read
she goes to rock-bottom evidence and will beat her Napoleon out of
sight."

There are certainly few men more familiar with all that has been
written about Lincoln than William H. Lambert, Esq., of Philadelphia,
whose collection includes practically every book, pamphlet, or printed
document about Lincoln, and who has one of the finest collections of
Lincolniana in the world. He writes:

"I have read your first article with intense interest, and I am
confident that you will make a most important addition to our
knowledge of Lincoln."

But perhaps it is better to print some of the letters we have received
commenting on the first article and on the early portrait and other
portraits and illustrations.

John T. Morse, Jr., author of the lives of Abraham Lincoln, John
Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin,
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in their "American Statesmen
Series," and editor of this series, writes as follows about the early
portrait:

    6 FAIRCHILD STREET, BOSTON,

    _November 2, 1895._

    S.S. MCCLURE, ESQ.--_Dear Sir_: I thank you very much for the
    artist's proof of the engraving of the earliest picture of
    Abraham Lincoln.

    I have studied this portrait with very great interest. All
    the portraits with which we are familiar show us the man _as
    made_; this shows us the man _in the_ _making_; and I think
    every one will admit that the making of Abraham Lincoln
    presents a more singular, puzzling, interesting study than the
    making of any other man known in human history.

    I have shown it to several persons, without telling them who
    it was. Some say, a poet; others, a philosopher, a thinker,
    like Emerson. These comments also are interesting, for Lincoln
    had the raw material of both these characters very largely in
    his composition, though political and practical problems
    so over-laid them that they show only faintly in his later
    portraits. This picture, therefore, is valuable evidence as to
    his natural traits.

    Was it not taken at an earlier date than you indicate as
    probable in your letter? I should think that it must have
    been.

    I am very sincerely yours,

    JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

Dr. Hale also draws attention to the resemblance of the early portrait
to Emerson:

    ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS,

    _October 28, 1895._

    _My dear Mr. McClure_:--I think you will be interested to know
    that in showing the early portrait of Lincoln to two young
    people of intelligence, each of them asked if it were not a
    portrait of Waldo Emerson. If you will compare the likeness
    with that of Emerson in Appleton's "Cyclopedia of Biography,"
    I think you will like to print copies of the two likenesses
    side by side.

    Yours truly,

    EDWARD E. HALE.

Mr. T.H. Bartlett, the eminent sculptor, who has for many years
collected portraits of Lincoln, and has made a scientific study of
Lincoln's physiognomy, contributes this:

    The first interest of the early portrait to me is that it
    shows Lincoln, even at that age, as a _new man_. It may to
    many suggest certain other heads, but a short study of it
    establishes its distinctive originality in every respect.
    It's priceless, every way, and copies of it ought to be in the
    gladsome possession of every lover of Lincoln. Handsome is
    not enough--it's great--not only of a great man, but the first
    picture representing the only new physiognomy of which we
    have any correct knowledge contributed by the New World to the
    ethnographic consideration of mankind.

    Very sincerely,

    T.H. BARTLETT.

An eminent member of the Illinois bar, one who has been closely
identified with the legal history of Illinois for nearly sixty years,
and who is perhaps the best living authority on the history of the
State, writes:

    That portion of the biography of Mr. Lincoln that appears in
    the November number of McCLURE'S MAGAZINE I have read with
    very great interest. It contains much that has not been
    printed in any other life of Lincoln. Especially interesting
    is the account given of pioneer life of that people among whom
    Mr. Lincoln had his birth and his early education. It was a
    strange and singular people, and their history abounds in
    much that is akin to romance and peculiar to a life in the
    wilderness. It was a life that had a wonderful attractiveness
    for all that loved an adventurous life. The story of their
    lives in the wilderness has a charm that nothing else in
    Western history possesses. It is to be regretted that there
    are writers that represent the early pioneers of the West to
    have been an ignorant and rude people. Nothing can be further
    from the truth. Undoubtedly there were some dull persons among
    them. There are in all communities. But a vast majority of the
    early pioneers of the West were of average intelligence
    with the people they left back in the States from which
    they emigrated. And why should they not have been? They were
    educated among them, and had all the advantages of those by
    whom they were surrounded. But in some respects they were much
    above the average of those among whom they dwelt in the older
    communities east of the Alleghany Mountains. The country
    into which they were about to go was known to be crowded
    with dangers. It was a wilderness, full of savage beasts and
    inhabited by still more savage men--the Indians. It is evident
    that but few other than the brave and most daring, would
    venture upon a life in such a wilderness. The timid and less
    resolute remained in the security of an older civilization.

    The lives of these early pioneers abounded in brave deeds,
    and were often full of startling adventures. The women of that
    period were as brave and heroic as were the men--if not more
    so. It is doubtless true Mr. Lincoln's mother was one of that
    splendid type of heroic pioneer women. He was brave and good
    because his mother was brave and good. She has since become
    distinguished among American women because her child, born in
    a lowly cabin in the midst of a wild Western forest, has since
    been recognized as the greatest man of the century--if not of
    all centuries. It was fortunate for our common country that
    Mr. Lincoln was born among that pioneer people and had his
    early education among them. It was a simple school, and the
    course of studies limited; but the lessons he learned in that
    school in the forest were grand and good. Everything around
    and about him was just as it came from the hands of the
    Creator. It was good, and it was beautiful. It developed
    both the head and the heart. It produced the best type of
    manhood--both physical and mental. It was in that school he
    learned lessons of heroism, courage, and of daring for the
    right. It was there he learned lessons of patriotism in its
    highest and best sense; and it was there he learned to love
    his fellow-man. It was in the practice of those lessons his
    life became such a benediction to the American nation.

    The story of that people among whom Mr. Lincoln spent his
    early life will always have a fascination for the American
    people; and it is a matter of congratulation so much of it has
    been gathered up and put into form to be preserved.

    The portraits the work contains give a very good idea of that
    pioneer race of men and women. The one given of Mr. Lincoln's
    step-mother is a splendid type of a pioneer woman. A touching
    contribution are the brief lines of which a facsimile is
    printed:

        "Abraham Lincoln
         his hand and pen
         he will be good but
         God knows When."

    These words--simple as they are--will touch the heart of the
    American people through all the years of our national history.
    It was "his hand and pen" that wrote many beautiful thoughts.
    It was his "hand and pen" that wrote those kindest of all
    words, "With malice towards none, with charity for all." It
    was his "hand and pen" that traced the lines of that wonderful
    Gettysburg speech; and it was his "hand and pen" that wrote
    the famous proclamation that gave liberty to a race of slaves.
    It was then God knew he was "good."

    If the remainder of the work shall be of the same character as
    that now printed, it will be both an instructive and valuable
    contribution to American biography.

There is so much in Mr. Medill's editorial in the Chicago "Tribune,"
and he is entitled to speak with such authority, that we print it
complete herewith.

Mr. Medill says:

    THE NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

    It is apparent at the very outset that the new "Life of
    Abraham Lincoln," edited by Miss Ida M. Tarbell, the first
    installment of which appears in McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for
    the current month, will be one of the most important and
    interesting contributions yet made to Lincoln literature, as
    it will contain much matter hitherto unpublished, and will be
    enriched with a large number of new illustrations. It will be
    a study of Abraham Lincoln as a man, and thus will naturally
    commend itself to the people.

    The first installment covers about the first twenty-one years
    of Lincoln's life, which were spent in Kentucky and Indiana.
    The story is told very briefly, in simple, easy style, and
    abounds with reminiscences secured from his contemporaries.
    It is not only full of new things, but it is so distinct and
    clear in local color that an interest attaches to it which is
    not found in other biographies. A large part of this credit
    must be awarded not alone to the text and to its careful
    editing, but also to the numerous pictures which upon every
    page illustrate the context and give the scenes of the
    story. It is particularly rich in portraits. Among these are
    portraits from an ambrotype taken at Macomb, Illinois, in
    1858, during his debate with Douglas, the dress being the
    same as that in which Lincoln made his famous canvass for
    the Senate; a second from a photograph taken at Hannibal,
    Missouri, in 1858; a third from an ambrotype taken at Urbana,
    Illinois, in 1857; and a fourth from an ambrotype taken in a
    linen coat at Beardstown, Illinois.

    The picture, however, which will attract the greatest interest
    is the frontispiece, from a daguerreotype which his son,
    Robert Lincoln, thinks was taken when his father was
    about forty years old. In this picture, which bears little
    resemblance to any other known portraits, he is dressed with
    scrupulous care. His hair is combed and brushed down with
    something like youthful vanity, and he has a smooth, bright,
    rather handsome face, and without sunken cheeks, strikingly
    resembling in contour and the shape of the head some of the
    early portraits of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It looks, however, as
    if it had been taken at an earlier age than forty. As the only
    portrait of Lincoln with a comparatively young face it will
    be treasured by all his admirers, and his son has conferred
    a distinct benefit by his courtesy in allowing it to be
    reproduced.

    There are numerous other portraits, among them those of the
    Rev. Jesse Head, who married Lincoln's father and mother; of
    Austin Gollaher, who was a boy friend of Lincoln in Kentucky,
    and the only one now living; of his step-mother, Sarah Bush
    Lincoln; of Josiah Crawford, whom Lincoln served in Indiana
    as "hired boy;" of the well-known Dennis Hanks, cousin of
    Lincoln's mother; of John Hanks, also a cousin; of Judge John
    Pitcher, who assisted Lincoln in his earliest studies; and of
    Joseph Gentry, the only boy associate of Lincoln in Indiana
    now living. These portraits, in addition to the numerous views
    of scenes connected with Lincoln's boyhood, add greatly to
    the interest of the text. Mr. McClure, the proprietor of the
    magazine, is certainly to be congratulated upon the successful
    manner in which he has launched the opening chapters of the
    new "Life of Lincoln." The remaining ones, running a whole
    year, will be awaited with keen interest. It is said that
    Miss Tarbell has found and obtained a shorthand report of his
    unpublished but famous speech delivered at Bloomington, May
    29, 1856, before the first Republican State convention ever
    held in Illinois. This is a great find and a very important
    addition to his published speeches. Many of those who heard
    it have always claimed that it was the most eloquent speech he
    ever made.

In an editorial in the "Standard-Union" of Brooklyn, Mr. Murat
Halstead expresses the general feeling of all who knew Lincoln:

    The magazine gives an admirable engraving of this portrait
    as the frontispiece, as "The earliest portrait of Abraham
    Lincoln, from a daguerreotype taken when Lincoln was about
    forty; owned by his son, the Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, through
    whose courtesy it is here reproduced for the first time."
    This is a very modest statement, considering the priceless
    discovery it announces. The portrait does not show a man
    "about forty" years old in appearance. "About" thirty would be
    the general verdict, if it were not that the daguerreotype
    was unknown when Lincoln was of that age. It does not seem,
    however, that he could have been more than thirty-five, and
    for that age the youthfulness of the portrait is wonderful.
    This is a new Lincoln, and far more attractive, in a sense,
    than anything the public has possessed. This is the portrait
    of a remarkably handsome man.... The head is magnificent,
    the eyes deep and generous, the mouth sensitive, the whole
    expression something delicate, tender, pathetic, poetic. This
    was the young man with whom the phantoms of romance dallied,
    the young man who recited poems and was fanciful and
    speculative, and in love and despair, but upon whose brow
    there already gleamed the illumination of intellect, the
    inspiration of patriotism. There were vast possibilities in
    this young man's face. He could have gone anywhere and done
    anything. He might have been a military chieftain, a novelist,
    a poet, a philosopher, ah! a hero, a martyr--and, yes, this
    young man might have been--he even was Abraham Lincoln! This
    was he with the world before him. It is good fortune to have
    the magical revelation of the youth of the man the world
    venerates. This look into his eyes, into his soul--not before
    he knew sorrow, but long before the world knew him--and to
    feel that it is worthy to be what it is, and that we are
    better acquainted with him and love him the more, is something
    beyond price.

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1863.

From a photograph by Brady, taken in Washington.]

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1854--HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.

From a photograph owned by Mr. George Schneider of Chicago,
Illinois, former editor of the "Staats Zeitung," the most influential
anti-slavery German newspaper of the West. Mr. Schneider first met Mr.
Lincoln in 1853, in Springfield. "He was already a man necessary to
know," says Mr. Schneider. In 1854 Mr. Lincoln was in Chicago, and
Mr. Isaac N. Arnold, a prominent lawyer and politician of Illinois,
invited Mr. Schneider to dine with Mr. Lincoln. After dinner, as
the gentlemen were going down town, they stopped at an itinerant
photograph gallery, and Mr. Lincoln had the above picture taken for
Mr. Schneider. The newspaper he holds in his hands is the "Press and
Tribune." The picture has never before been reproduced.]

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN FEBRUARY, 1860, AT THE TIME OF THE COOPER
INSTITUTE SPEECH.

From a photograph by Brady. The debate with Douglas in 1858 had given
Lincoln a national reputation, and the following year he received many
invitations to lecture. One came from a young men's Republican club in
New York,--for one in a series of lectures designed for an audience of
men and women of the class apt to neglect ordinary political meetings.
Lincoln consented, and in February, 1860 (about three months before
his nomination for the Presidency), delivered what is known from the
hall in which it was delivered, as the "Cooper Institute speech"--a
speech which more than confirmed his reputation. While in New York he
was taken by the committee of entertainment to Brady's gallery, and
sat for the portrait reproduced above. It was a frequent remark with
Lincoln that this portrait and the Cooper Institute speech made him
President.]





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 2, January, 1896" ***

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