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WRTH CAROLINA STATE LIBRARY
RALEIGH
THE LAND WE LOYE.
No. I. NOVEMBER, 1868. YoL. VI.
BATTLE OF EUTAW.
We must return to the main
battle. "We have seen Sum-ner,
with his brigade, taking the
place vacated by the militia. He,
at length, yielded to the superior
force and fire of the enemy. As
his brigade wavered, shrank, and
finally yielded, the hopes of the
British '^rew sanguine. With a
wild yell of victory, they rushed
forward to complete their sup-posed
triumph, and , in doing so
,
their line became disordered.
—
This afforded an opportunity of
which Greene promptly availed
himself. He had anticipated this
probability, and had waited anx-iously
for it. He was now ready
to take advantage of it, and gave
his order—to Otho Williams, in
command of the Marylanders
"Let Williams advance, and
sweep the field with his bayonets ! '
'
And Williams, heading two
brigades—those of Maryland and
Virginia—swept forward with a
shout. When within forty yards
of the British, . the Virginians
poured in a destructive fire, under
which their columns reeled and
shivered as if struck by lightning
;
and then the whole second line,
the three brigades, with trailed
arms, and almost at a trot, darted
on to the savage issue of naked
steel, hand to hand, with the
desperate bayonet. The terrible
fire of the Virginians, followed up
by the charge of the second line,
and seconded, at this lucky junct-ure,
by the legion infantry,
which suddenly poured in a most
destructive fire upon the now ex-posed
flank of the British left,
threw the whole line into irre-trievable
disorder. But the bay-onets
of certain sections were
crossed, though for a moment
only; men were transfixed by one
another, and the contending offi-cers
sprang at each other with
their swords!
The left of the British centre
at this vital moment, pressed
* Extract from Eutaw, a tale of the Kevolutiou, liy W. Gilmore Simms, Esq.
VOL. VI.—NO. I. 1
Battle of Eataw. [Nov.,
upon by their own fugitives, yield-ed
under the pressure, and the
Marylanders now delivering their
fire, hitherto reserved, completed
the disaster! Along the whole
front, the enemy's ranks wavered,
gave way finally, and retired sul-lenly,
closely pressed by the
shouting Americans.
The victory was won!—so far,
a victory was won ; and all that
was necessary was to keep and
confirm the triumph. But the
battle was not over. The battle
of Eutaw was a ii«o-act, we
might say a i/iree-act,drama—such
were its vicissitudes.
At the moment when the
British line gave way, had it been
pressed without reserve by the
legion cavalry, the disaster must
have been irretrievable. But this
seems not to have been done.
—
Why, can not now be well ex-plained,
nor is it exactly within
our province to undertake the ex-planation.
Lee himself was at
this moment with his infantry,
and they had just done excellent
service. It is probable that Cof-fin's
cavalry was too much for
that of the legion; and this body,
sustained by a select corps of
bayonets, protected the British in
the quarter which w^as first to
yield. It now remained for the
Americans to follow up their suc-cesses.
The British had been
driven from their first field. It
was the necessity of the Ameri-cans
that they should have no
time to rally upon other ground,
especially upon the ground so
well covered by the brick-house,
and the dense thicket along the
creek which was occupied by
Marjoribanks.
But a pursuing army, where
the cavalry fails in its appointed
duty, can never overtake a fugi-tive
force, unless , emulating their
speed, it breaks its own order.
This, if it does, it becomes fugi-tive
also, and is liable to the worst
dangers from the smallest reverse.
This is, in truth, the very error
which the Americans committed,
and all their subsequent misfor-tunes
sprang entirely from this
one source.
The British yielding slowly
from left to right—the right very
reluctant to retire — and the
Americans pressing upon them
just in the degree in which the
two sections yielded, both armies
performed together a half-wheel,
which brought them into the open
grounds in front of the house.
In this position the Marylanders
were brought suddenly under the
fire of the covered party of
Marjoribanks, in the thicket.
—
This promised to be galling and
destructive. Greene saw that
Marjoribanks must be dislodged,
or that the whole force of the
enemy would rally; and Colonel
Washington was commanded to
charge the thicket. He did so
very gallantly; was received by a
terrible fire, which swept away
scores of men and horses. Dead-ly
as was this result, and absurd
as was the attempt, the gallant
trooper thrice essayed to pene-trate
the thickets, and each time
paid the terrible penalty of his
audacity in the blood of his best
soldiers. The field, at one mo-ment,
was covered with his
wounded, plunging, riderless
horses, maddened by their hurts.
All but two of his officers were
1868.] Battle of Eutaw.
brought to the ground. He him-self
fell beneath his horse, wound-ed;
and, while such was his situa-tion,
Marjoribanks emerged with
his bayonets from his thickets,
and completed the defeat of the
squadron. Washington himself
was narrowly saved from a British
bayonet, and was made a prisoner.
It was left to Hampton, one of
his surviving officers, who was
fortunately unhurt, to rescue and
rally the scattered survivors of
his gallant division, and bring
them on again to the fruitless
charge upon Marjoribanks.
—
Hampton was supported in this
charge by Kirkwood's Delawares;
but the result was as fruitless as
before. The very attempt was
suicidal. The British major was
too well posted, too strongly
covered, too strong himself in
numbers and the quality of his
troops, to be driven from his
ground, even by shocks so de-cided
and frequently repeated, of
the sort of force sent against him.
Up to this moment, nothing
had seemed more certain than the
victory of the Americans, The
consternation in the British camp
was complete. Everything was
given up for lost, by a consider-able
portion of the army. The
commissaries destroyed their
stores, the loyalists and American
deserters, dreading the rope,
seizing every horse which they
could command, lied incontinent-ly
for Charleston, whither they
carried such an alarm, that the
stores along the road were de-stroyed,
and trees felled across
it for the obstruction of the vic-torious
Americans, who were sup-posed
to be pressing down upon
the city with all their might.
Equally deceived were the
conquerors. Flushed with suc-cess,
the infantry scattered them-selves
about the British camp,
which, as all the tents had been
left standing, presented a thousand
objects to tempt the appetites of a
half- starved and half-naked sol-diery.
Insubordination followed
disorder ; and they were only
made aware of the danger of hav-ing
victory changed into a most
shameful defeat, by -finding them-selves
suddenly brought under a
vindictive fire from the windows
of the brick house, into which
Major Sheridan had succeeded in
forcing his way, with a strong
body of sharp-shooters.
The field now presented an
appearance of indescribable terror
and confusion. Small squads
were busy in separate strifes, here
and there; the American officers
vainly seeking to rally the scatter-ed
regulars ; the mounted parti-zans,
seeking to cover the fugi-tives;
while, from the house, the
command of Sheridan was blaz-ing
away with incessant musket-ry,
telling fearfully upon all who
came within their range. Mean-while,
watchful of every chance,
Marjoribanks changed his ground,
keeping still in cover, but nearer
now to the scene of action, and
with a portion of his command
concealed behind the picketed
garden. In this position he sub-jected
the American cavalry to
another severe handling, as they
approached the garden, deliver-ing
a fire so destructive, that, ac-cording
to one of the colonels on
Hampton's left : " He thought
every man killed but himself!"
Battle of Eutav). [Xov.,
The two six-pounders of the
Americans, which had accompa-nied
their second line, were
brought up to batter the house.
But, in the stupid ardor of those
having them in charge, they had
been run up within fifty yards of
the building, and the cannoniers
were picked olf by Sheridan's
marksmen as fast as they ap-proached
the guns. The whole
fire from the windows was con-centrated
upon the artillerists,
and they were either all killed or
driven away. This done, Mar-joribanks
promptly sallied forth
from his cover into the field,
seized upon the abandoned pieces
and hurried them under cover of
the house before any effort could
be made to save them. He next
charged the scattered parties of
Americans among the tents, or
upon the field, and drove them
before him. Covered, finally, by
the mounted men of Marion and
Hampton, the infantry found
safety in the wood, and were
rallied. The British were too much
crippled to follow, and dared not
advance from the immediate
cover of their fortress.
No more could be done. The
laurels won in the first act of this
exciting drama were all withered
in the second. Both parties
claimed a victory. It belonged to
neither. The British were beaten
from the field at the point of the
bayonet; sought shelter in a for-tress,
and repulsed their assailants
from that fortress. It is to the
shame and discredit of the Ameri-cans
that they were repulsed.
The victory was in their hands.
Bad conduct in the men, and bad
generalship, sufficed to rob them
deservedly of the honors of the
field. But most of the advanta-ges
remained in their hands.
—
They had lost, it is true, severely
;
twenty-one of our officers perish-ed
on the field: and the aggre-gate
of killed, wounded and miss-ing,
exceeded one-fourth of the
number with which they had gone
into battle. Henderson, Pickens,
Howard, and many other officers
of distinction, were among the
wounded. They had also lost
two of their field-pieces, and had
taken one of the enemy; and all
these losses, and the events which
distinguished them, were quite
sufficient to rob them of the tri-umph
of the day. But, on the
other hand, the losses of the Brit-ish
were still greater. The
Americans had chased them from
the field at the point of the bayo-net;
this was a moral loss; plun-dered
their camp ; and at the close
held possession of the field.
Stewart fled the next day, his
retreat covered by Major M'Ar-thur,
with a fresh brigade from
Fairlawn, which had been called
up for his succor. Marion and
Lee made a fruitless attempt to
intercept this reinforcement. But
the simultaneous movement of
Stewart and M'Arthur enabled
them to effect a junction, and thus
outnumber the force of Marion.
Stewart fled, leaving seventy of
his wounded to the care of his
enemies. He destroyed his stores,
broke up a thousand stand of
arms, and, shorn of all unneces-sary
baggage, succeeded in get-ting
safely to Fairlawn. His
slain, wounded, and missing, num-bered
more than half the force
with which he had gone into bat-
1868.] Nameless 1 6
tie. The Americans carried off losses occurred after the battle, ia
four hundred and thirty prison- the death of Marjoribanks, who
ers, which, added to the seventy had unquestionably saved the
taken in the morning, made an whole British army. He died,
aggregate of five hundred. One not long a,fter, on the road to
•of the heaviest of the British Charleston.
nameless!
BY. H. T. STANTON,
There were great lights from the palace
,
Streaming on the outer trees.
That with fleckings thro' the trellis,
Play'd a-tremor at his knees,
As a nainstrel, stranger, friendless
Underneath the walls of Fame,
Sat in silence, while the endless
Kotes of glory-music came.
Paths to him were tangled—aimless.
As he leaned within the shade
Telling o'er the wonders, nameless.
That his poet-heart had made:
—
" Could he pass the amber portal,
" And the jasper halls along,
" Where the poet-souls immortal,
" Held their revelry of song?"
" Could he strike a chord of sorrow,
" In the upper, choral spheres,
"Where, to-morrow and to-morrow,
" It would echo down the years?
" Could he grasp the ivy clinging
" At the marble casement now,
" And, amid the spirits-singing,
"Wear it, deathless, on his brow?"
Nameless
!
. [Kov.,
Once he thought to climb the terrace,
To the open, opal gate.
Where, beyond the sweeping arras,
Swelled the voices of the great;
Where the stricken harp-strings, golden,
Gave their notes in high accord.
To the music-stories olden.
To the glory of the Lord
!
But his soul, a-fear, and simple,
Shrinking outward, turned away,
While the great lights from the temple
Drove the night time from the day:
'
' I shall seek the shadow yonder,
" Underneath the sombre pine;
"These are harp-notes, higher, grander,
" Than may ever be from mine."
Soft he touched the strings , like summer
Touching o'er the barren trees,
And the night bore out their murmurs,
Thro' its alleys to the seas,
—
Softer, sweeter passed the cadence,
Thro' the branches and above,
As come visions unto maidens.
In the budding time of love.
Thro' the gates of opal splendor,
And along the jasper wall.
Float the notes of music tender
Down the corridor and hall;
And his tones swell in the chamber
From the shadow and the gloom.
And their liquid echoes clamber
Up the arras to the dome.
And they rise and fall as billows,
In the alcoves of the air;
Passing in and out the willows,
And across, beyond the mere.
High, and grand, and godly power.
Sweeps along the palace eaves.
Till the ivy-vine in tlower.
Trembles music from its leaves.
1868.] Battle of Pleasant Hill
And the poet-souls may listen,
To the outer harp to-night,
And the great lamps, gleam and glisten
.
In their ecstasy of light;—
,
These are music tones undying,
—
These are worthy highest name,
From the poet-spirit lying
Underneath the walls of Fame.
SKETCHES OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864.
Walker's Division—Battle of Pleasant Hill.
SKETCH NO. 2.
BY COLONEL T. R. BONNER, ISTH TEXAS INFANTRY.
"Fierce
The conflict grew; the din of arms—the yell
Of savage rage —the shriek of agony
—
The groan of death, commingled in one sound
Of undistinguished horror; while the sun
Eetiring slow beneath the plain's far verge.
Shed o'er the quiet hills his fading light."
[ SoutJiey''s 3Iadoc
The dawn of the morning of about us, were the lifeless forms
ihe 9th April disclosed to our of friends and foes, mingled to-view
the reality of the Federal re- gether in one common death.
—
treat. Before us, in the light of In almost every conceivable atti-day,
and stripped of the pomp tude could be seen the dead bodies
and pageantry of "glorious war," of men, mutilated by the missiles
lay the closing scene of the pre- of destruction, some still bearing
vious night's battle. Around and the horrible impress of the death
Battle of Pleasant Hill. [Xov.,
agony—some with stern, unre-laxed
features, still showing the
fierce passions which animated
them at the moment of their fall
—and others with mild, placid
lineaments as though they had
just sunk to gentle slumber. All
who saw him will remember the
appearance of one dead Federal
soldier, who had fallen in the edge
of the field. His death shot must
have done its work in a moment,
for as he lay there, stark and stifi",
he still held in his left hand his En-field
rifle, while between the thumb
and forefinger of his right, he
grasped a cartridge, the end of
which he had apparently just bit-ten
ofl", as it was still clenched be-tween
his teeth. But the stirring
events before us forbade our long
indulgence in the sad reflections
necessarily incident to such scenes.
With a hasty tear for our dead
comrades, and a sigh for the
wounded, we were called away to
to the stern duties of the soldier.
The night and day before had
been passed by our troops with-out
food; but at^7 o'clock that
morning , we received an insufla-cient
quantity of beef and bread
—
the usual variety of a Confederate
soldier's bill of fare. During our
hasty repast, the Missouri and
Arkansas infantry, under Gen.
Churchill, which had been march-ing
all night, filed past us , mov-ing
on in the direction of Pleasant
Hill. Had they arrived the day
before, there can be no doubt the
victory of Mansfield would hav.e
been far more decisive. Their
presence now, however, invigora-ted
our little army, and we greet-ed
them with shouts of welcome.
This body of troops numbered
about 4,000 men, and were in fine
spirits, and anxious to share in
our glories.
Our cavalry and some artillery
had been sent forward at the
early dawn, and the distant firing
of cannon indicated that even the
rear of the enemy's retreating
columns were already many miles
away. After leaving a detach-ment
to bury our dead, the wound-ed
having previously been cared
for, we took up the line of march,
following immediately in the rear
of Gen. Churchill's division.
—
Soon we began to see indications
of the rapid and disorderly retreat
of the Federals. All along the
road were evidences of great de-moralization.
Dead horses, burn-ing
wagons, and broken ambu-lances
were visible at almost every
turn of the road. In one ambu-lance
we saw an unclosed coffin,
containing a dead body, said to
be that of a distinguished Federal
officer. After marching a short
distance, we began to meet squads
of Federal prisoners, who, unable
to keep up with the Federal army
in its hasty retreat, were picked
up by our eagerly pursuing cav-alry.
A large proportion of these
prisoners were Zouaves ; and their
red, uncouth, unmanly looking
uniform excited much laughter
among our men, and many jokes
were created at the expense of
these "Joabs," as they were
called.
It was expected that our caval-ry
would check the Federal army
before it reached Pleasant Hill,
some sixteen miles from the battle
ground of the Sth. But in this
they failed, and the enemy having
been joined by heavy reinforce-
1868.] Battle of Pleasant Hill.
merits, resolved to make a stand
at that place. Having marched
to "within three miles of Pleaeant
Hill, we could plainly hear the
sharp firing of our cavalry, who
were skirmishing with the enemy.
Occasionally the report of a field-piece
would call forth from our
boys the exclamation, "Battalion
lie down." This was a command
of their own making, and from a
little incident which occurred in
the early part of the war, it, by a
common understanding, bore the
signification that there was "dan-ger
ahead." Here our division
halted to permit the main portion
of our artillery to pass, which
soon came rattling along the road
in a sweeping trot. It was about
4 o'clock, p. m., that preparation
was made for the approaching
battle. The enemy numbering
28,000 men, were posted behind
temporary breastworks, within
one mile of Pleasant Hill, their
line extending Xorth and West of
the town, and on both sides of
the road leading to Mansfield. Im-mediately
in front of that part of
their position, opposed by "Walk-er's
division, was a large open
field, nearly half a mile in width.
Opposed to this large force, we
had not exceeding 13,000 men.
Churchill's division, and Scurry's
brigade, (of Walker's division,)
which had been detached for the
occasion and ordered to report to
Gen. Churchill, constituted the
right of our line. Walker's di-vision,
the centre, with its left
resting on the Mansfield road, and
Mouton's division, then command-ed
by Gen. Polignac, with the
cavalry of Gen. Greene, the left.
Several batteries of artillery were
planted on the road to the left of
Walker's division, and on the
Mansfield road.
Soon the tremendous firing of
our splendid artillery presaged
the commencement of the battle.
We 'had about 30 pieces , which
were opposed by at least an equal
number from the enemy's line,
and for half an hour their rude
throats did seem to "counterfeit
the immortal Jove's dread clam-ors."
Owing to the intervention
of a skirt of timber land, covered
with thick undergrowth, we could
not see the position of the Federal
lines. But passing through the
timber, we entered the open field,
on the opposite side of which,
and in the timber, the enemy
were posted. Here we halted
to reform our ranks, which
had become partially broken in
passing through the timber.
—
Churchill had already commenced
the attack upon the right. Far
away to the right and left stretch-ed
the field which was so soon to
be the scene of human slaughter.
Loud and long came the echo of
small arms from the right of the
line, and louder still resounded
the thunder of the batteries upon
our left.
While we were reforming our
ranks, Randall's brigade separa-ted
from ours (Waul's) by a large
ravine, emerged from the timber,
and entered the field. The ar-tillery
then ceased firing, and,
without halting, this noble brig-ade
marched in fine order to the at-tack.
It was indeed sublime to
see them led by Gen. Ptandall, in
person, with banners proudly fly-ing,
and their bright guns glitter-ing
in the sunlight. But we were
10 Battle of Pleasant Hill. [Xov.
not long permitted to remain idle
spectators of this animating scene.
In a few moments our brigade
was ordered forward. Arriving
to within 400 yards of the enemy,
we were commanded to " change
direction to the left," with inten-tion
to support Gren. Eandall in
his attack. But scarcely had this
movement commenced before the
enemy, still concealed from our
view by the temporary breast-works
in the timber, opened fire
upon us from our original front.
Gen. EandalPs brigade was now
hotly engaged, and soon, along
the whole line, from right to left,
the action became general. With-out
further direct command, and
acting from the impulse of the
moment alone, the men of our
brigade rushed towards that por-tion
of the enemy's line which had
fired upon us. Then indeed came
the " tug of war." We advanced,
not with that steady step which
characterized our movements at
Mansfield, but with a wild, reck-less
impetuosity. Though it sa-vors
not of good discipline, yet it
is true, that every soldier became
his own leader—every man gave
his own command—" charge !
charge 1^^ The enemy poured a
violent and destructive fire into
the breasts of our advancing men,
and they fell by scores. Yet on
they rushed, all seemingly actua-ted
with the same impulse. Our
only hope of success seemed to be
to drive the enemy, but to accom-plish
this looked almost like rush-ing
to certain death. But there
was no time for reflection. Re-gardless
of discipline, and with no
other guide than the smoke of the
enemy's guns, we still pressed on.
Eeaching a point within about
125 yards of the enemy's line, we
unexpectedly came upon a gully,
which had been washed out about
three feet deep, and ran parallel
with their line. Involuntarily we
sought protection in this timely
shelter from the storm of bullets
hurled against us. Many of our
men had already been killed or
wounded, and our line having be-came
totally disorganized by rea-son
of this, and the impetuosity
of the charge, to have continued
the onset without reforming our
broken ranks, would probably
have caused the destruction of the
entire brigade. The protection
thus aftbrded, placed us someAvhat
upon an equality in point of posi-tion
with the enemy, and for an
hour we replied, with efi"ect, to
their incessant firing. Observa-tions
next day upon this part of
the field proved the truth of this
assertion, for large numbers of
the Federals were found dead op-posite
the line of our brigade, the
greater portion of them being shot
in the head.
During the hour which passed
while these things were trans-piring.
Gen. Randall's brigade
was engaged in a desperate con-flict.
ISTever was more bravery
evinced, or a greater determina-tion
to succeed, than was here
manifested by Gen. Randall and
the daring men of his brigade.
—
They would charge almost to the
enemy's line, and being driven
back, would reform and again
rush to the attack. At one time
they broke the enemy's line, and
captured a number of prisoners;
but not being sufficiently support-ed,
were again compelled to re-
1868.] Battle of Pleasant Hill. 11
tire. All around us could be
heard the horrid din of battle,
and the air was filled with the
savage yell of contending thou-sands.
It was now nearly sunset. A
momentary pause in the battle
was regarded as a prelude to a
charge upon us by the enemy.
—
Preparation was quickly made to
resist it. After waiting a few
moments, and finding that this
was not their intention, but rath-er
suspecting that they were pre-paring
to leave the field, we re-solved
to make an efibrt to rout
them. Leaping from our shelter,
we rushed to the attack. But a
fearful and murderous fire, from
both our front and right oblique,
compelled us to fall back to the
gully again. At this propitious
moment, our artillery, which had
been silent during the struggle of
the infantry, once more belched
forth its thunders, and its wel-come
notes fell like sweet music
upon our ears. The famous Yal-verde
battery, captured from the
enemy in Arizonia, posted to our
left and rear, began to throw its
shells, which, passing just over
our line, fell in the enemy's ranks.
Gen. Kandairs brigade, which
had been so often repulsed, was
again ready to charge, and our
brigade prepared for a simulta-neous
movement. As soon as the
Yalverde battery ceased its firing,
both brigades rushed upon the
enemy, and this time with com-plete
success. Thrown into con-fusion
by the firing of the artillery,
followed by our rapid charge,
they fied in disorder from the
field, leaving their dead, wounded
and some prisoners in our hands.
Night alone prevented the pur-suit
of the routed Federals by our
division.
I am unable to give details of
the battle on any part of the line
except that occupied by "Walker's
division, and can only state that
on the left the troops of Generals
Green and Polignac were success-ful.
Xot so on the right. Gen.
Churchill's command, including
Gen. Scurry's brigade, were op-posed
by a double line of the ene-my.
The first line was driv-en
almost into the town, but
the attack upon the second line
was signally repulsed, and Gen.
Churchill compelled to retire with
a loss of over 400 men and officers
captured, a large portion of whom
belonged to Gen. Scurry's brigade.
The whole force of the enemy re-treated
under cover of the night,
in great disorder, towards Natchi-toches,
on Bed Eiver.
Leaving our cavalry in i^osses-sion
of the field, the entire infan-try
force was unexpectedly with-drawn
to a large Steam Mill,
eight miles from the battle ground,
on the road to Mansfield. This
was said to be done because of the
impracticability of procuring sup-plies
for our hungry troops if we
remained at Pleasant Hill. It is
true that we had tasted food only
once in forty-eight hours, and
then only an inadequate supply;
we had also marched 15 miles
since 8 o'clock that morning, and
had been engaged in the battle of
the evening; to compel us, after
this, to march back eight miles
after night, under pretence of ob-taining
supplies, was not favorably
received. It appeared too much
like a retreat; we believed then,
12 Battle of Pleasant Bill. [Nov.
,
and still think we had gained a
victory. It would not certainly
have been a very dilficult matter
to bring the wagons, laden with
the supplies captured at Mans-field,
to the front, and thus saved
us that long, weary night-march.
Had this been done we would
have been prepared to pursue the
retreating enemy next day, and
thus followed up the hard earned
victories of the 8th and 9th. But
whatever may have been the mo-tives
which prompted this move-ment,
the sequel will show that
but a small portion of the infant-ry
engaged at Pleasant Hill par-ticipated
in the remainder of the
Red River campaign.
The loss of our little army at
the battles of Mansfield and Pleas-ant
Hill, will give some idea of
the fierceness of these two days
struggles. Following each other
in such quick succession, it would
be difficult to enumerate separate-ly
the loss in each. Our loss in
both battles amounted to not less
than 2500 men killed, wounded
and missing. Of this number
Walker's division lost 1200, in-cluding
over 300 captured from
Scurry's brigade on the last day.
Heavy as was the loss of the
Confederate troops, that of the
Federals far exceeded it. Their
killed and wounded was estimated
to be double that of the Confed-erates
at Mansfield, and equally
as large at Pleasant Hill, while
their loss in prisoners was over
2500. Beside this we captured
250 wagons, loaded with quarter-master,
commissary and medical
stores, and camp equipage, a
large number of fine ambulances,
21 pieces of artillery, and Enfield
Rifles enough to supply all the
troops engaged.
I believe it is generally conceded
that the Enfield Rifle is a supe-rior
war gun to the old musket,
and I shall not gainsay it, yet,
from some cause, which modesty
forbids the unfortunate Confed-erates
to mention, we used these
inferior muskets until, upon the
open field, we boldly won the rifle.
Gen. Banks also confirmed his
unquestionable reputation as a
good Confederate commissary.
But it is sad to think of the
brave men who were killed and
wounded. Generals Walker and
Scurry were both wounded at
Pleasant Hill. Many other offi-cers
of less military note, yet
some of them formerly distin-guished
in civil life in Texas, and
very many private soldiers were
either killed or wounded. The
troops from the four difierent
States which constituted our little
army on this occasion, are entitled
to equal praise and equal com-mendation
for the gallantry dis-played
in the engagement of
Pleasant Hill. The hardy sons
of Missouri rushed side by side
with the bold Arkansians in the
fierce conflict, while the fearless
men of Texas raised their voices
in the same deafening shout of
triumph with the tried veterans of
Louisiana. Together they fought
for the same loved cause! to-gether
they died upon the same
gory field! and together they sleep
in the same common arave.
1868.] Tlie Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 13
THE VANITY AND THE GLORY OF LITERATURE.
BY CHAS. S. DOD, JR.
This is a book-making age.
—
We doubt -whether it could prop-erly
be characterized as preemi-nently
literary ; but it is certainly
more of a hook-mciking age than
any of its predecessors. Thou-sands
of presses throughout the
civilized world are working night
and day to scatter the teeming
sheets that shall carry intelligence
to the million. Every gentleman
of wealth possesses his library;
every considerable city of Chris-tendom
has its public reading
rooms, where the well-filled shelves
attest the ease with which books
are accumulated in this day of
rapid authorship, rapid printing,
and rapid reading. Let the
thoughtful man stand in the midst
of such gigantic collections of
books as greet his eye in the As-tor
or Bodleian library, and what
a curious train of reflection must
run through his mind as he thinks
on the myriads of busy brains and
industrious pens and swift-work-ing
presses, whose combined la-bors
have presented him this in-tellectual
feast! The sage, whose
dust has been mingled with the
earth for two thousand years
—
the epic singer, whose stirring
lines, echoing the din of battle,
are no longer wafted by the breeze
over his native hills, or answered
by the deep-voiced responses of
the far-resoundinar sea, whose
shores have for ages forgotten the
impress of his wandering feet
—
the vehement orator, whose roll-ing
periods bore along the excited
and tumultuous throng of listen-ers
as the mountain-torrent does
the dry leaves of autumn, but
whose voice has long been dumb
as the grave—these have their
place in the mausoleums of litera-ture,
side by side with the gilt-edged
volume of sonnets or the
more substantial scientific treatise,
whose authors are still alive and
sensitive to the opinions of their
fellow-men. And let the observer
reflect, as he gazes upon the mass
of reading here stored away, and
for the mastering of which no one
human life is sufiiciently long
let him reflect how unremittingly
the Briarean and sleepless presses
of our day are adding fresh accu-mulations
to the already groaning
shelves, and he cannot refrain
from speculating on the probable
consequences.
Many at first will probably be
inclined to predict that man-kind
will, in the end, be oppress-ed
by the very excess of their in-tellectual
wealth—as Spain was
by the abundance of silver that
flowed into her lap from Mexico
and Peru—and that a superabun-dance
of books, like a superabun-dance
of the precious metals, will
lead to the impoverishment and
14 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov.
decay of the countries so equivo-cally
blest. The diligent and con-centrated
study of a few books,
they will tell you, is better than
the careless, diffusive, and desul-tory
reading of whole libraries;
and a habit of reading in this
way is too apt to be engendered
by the multifarious stores of lit-erature
and learning now spread
out invitingly before the student.
Perpetual access to a large library
is undoubtedly often more of an
impediment than a help to the
thorough digestion of knowledge.
Most readers have been aware of
the fastidious mood with which,
in moments-, of leisure, they have
stood before a goodly array of at-tractive
books, and instead of
making a substantial repast, as
they would have done with less to
distract their choice, have humor-ed
the vagaries of a delicate ap-petite—
toyed with this rich dainty
and that—and after all have felt
like a school boy who has dined
upon tarts; they have spoiled
their digestion without satisfying
their hunger!
It by no means follows, then,
as a matter of inevitable necessity,
that knowledge will increase in
the same ratio as books are mul-tiplied.
If the result of the mul-tiplication
of books should be
that superficial and llimsy knowl-edge
which is gained by reading a
little on an infinity of subjects
without prolonged and systematic
attention to any, the effect will be
almost or fully as disastrous as an
invasion of barbarism, like that of
the Goths, which swept the liter-ature
of the ancients into the
monasteries of the middle ages,
leaving all other parts of the field
flooded with ignorance. A mill
will not go if there be no water;
it will be as effectually stopped if
there be too much. In short, it
may seem, with regard to the
quantity of literature accumulated
on the hands of this generation,
that this is one of those cases to
which the old paradoxical maxim
applied, " the half is greater than
the whole."
The disastrous result, at which
we have hinted, would certainly
be realized if men were to attempt
to make their studies at all com-mensurate
with the increase of
books around them. Compelled
to read something of everything,
they would really know nothing
of anything. And, in fact, we
see this tendency more or less
fully exemplified in the case of
vast numbers, who, without defi-nite
purpose or judicious selec-tion
of subjects, spend such time
as they can spare for mental culti-vation,
in little less than the
casual perusal of fragments of all
sorts of books; who live on the
scraps of an infinite variety of
broken meats which they have
stufled into their beggar's wallet;
scraps, which, after all, just keep
them from absolute starvation.
—
There are not a few men who
would have been learned, if not
wise, had the paragraphs and pa-ges
they have read been on well-defined
and mutually-connected
topics; but who, as it is, possess
nothing beyond fragments of un-certain,
inaccurate, iil-remem-bered,
unsj-stematized informa-tion,
resembling the vague, con-fused
images of a sick man's
dreams, rather than the clear
thinkings of a healthy and vigor-ous
brain.
1868.] Hie Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 15
Fortunately, this tendency to
diffusive and careless reading
"which must accompany the un-limited
increase of books, is not
"without a corrective tendency on
the other side. The majority of
men "will, as heretofore, read only
"what answers their purpose on
the particular subjects "which ne-cessity
or inclination prompts them
to cultivate. Men no longer pant
in ambitious but ill-judged at-tempts
after encyclopaedic infor-mation;
the field of knowledge,ex-panded
as it now is, in every di-rection,
does not admit of uni-versal
conquerors; students must
select their speciality and lend the
whole of their energies upon it,
leaving other parts of the field to be
worked by other laborers. It is not
variety and extent of knowledge
so much as habits of close and pa-tient
thought which the student
should seek to acquire; and the
thorough investigation of a limi-ted
class of subjects is a severer
and more profitable mental dis-cipline
than the vain attempt to
range, like a freebooter, over the
whole wide ocean of knowledge.
As books increase , efforts more
and more strenuous will be made,
from time to time, to digest and
systematize the ever-growing ac-cumulations
of literature, and to
provide the best possible clues
through this immense and bewil-dering
labyrinth, or rather
through the several parts of it.
A very useful book (if we could
have a Leibnitz or a Gibbon for
its author) might be written on
the art of reading in the most
profitable manner, so as to attain
the greatest results at the smallest
outlay of time. True, we have
several "Student's Hand-books,"
and things of that sort; but they
give us, for the most part, only
hints, many of them quite wise
and valuable, but not mapping
out the domains of knowledge,
and setting up guide-posts to di-rect
us in the shortest roads to
the various points we may desire
to reach. In the meantime, let
the student adhere to the maxim
so warmly approved by the great
historian just mentioned, "m«Z-tum
legere, potius quam mitZia."
Instead of idly taking up a book
and following the author with
only the effort necessary to com-prehend
him, let the student ex-amine
the scope and context of
the works referred to, which aided
the author in his composition; let
him bring into juxtaposition with
his subject, whatever cognate or
illustrative knowledge his own
previous reading may have sup-plied
him with; and, above all,
let him incorporate his author's
thoughts into his own mind by
mingling with them original re-fiections
or deductions of his own,
suggested by what he has read.
In this way a much deeper and
better compacted knowledge will
be obtained, and at the same time
much more under the command
of the memory, than if he had
skimmed over the surface of the
subject, taking no pains to fish up
the pearls lying at the bottom.
These collateral aids, drawn from
the comparison of different au-thors
on the same subject, are
like reflectors which increase in-definitely
the intensity of light,
and render a subject luminous
which would otherwise be ob-scure.
How instructive are the
16 Tae Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov.,
following words of Gibbon—him-self
a conspicuous example of
what even a post-diluvian life, in-dustriously
employed, may ac-complisb:
"We ought to attend
not so much to the order of our
books as of our thoughts. The
perusal of a particular work gives
birth perhaps, to ideas uncon-nected
with the subject it treats;
I pursue these ideas, and quit my
proposed plan of reading." ....
" I suspended my perusal of any
new books on a subject, till I
had reviewed all that I knew, or
believed, or had thought on it,
that I might be qualified to dis-cern
how much the authors added
to my original stock."
After all, it is the thinking
which we do that educates us,
and not the reading. Our safe-guard
against the formation of
the pernicious habit of desultory
reading, lies in the formation of
sound habits of mind—the dis-cipline
of the faculties—a thing of
infinitely more importance than
the variety of the information ac-quired.
"Without stopping any longer to
examine this paradox-whether the
multiplication of books is to pro-duce
a diminution of knowledge,
or not—there are other conse-quences
of the prodigious activity
of the modern press, far more
certain to arise, and which well
deserve a little consideration.
One of the most obvious of
these consequences will be the dis-appearance
from the world of
that always rare animal, the so-called
"universal scholar." Even
of that ill-defined creature called
a " well-informed man," and
" general student," it will be per-petually
harder, as time goes on,
to find examples; and assuredly
the Scaligers and the Leibnitzes
must become as extinct as the
ichthyosaurus or the megatherium.
The remark is common that it is
impossible for the human mind to
prosecute, with thoroughness and
accuracy, researches in all, or
even in many, of the difierent
branches of learning; that what
is gained in surface, is lost in
depth; that the principle of the
" division of labor " applies here
as strictly as in the arts and man-ufactures,
and that each mind
must restrict itself to a few limited
subjects, if any are to be actually
mastered. All this is very true.
Yet it is equally true that in
the pursuit of knowledge, the
principle of the " division of
labor " finds limits to the pro-priety
of its application much
sooner than in handicrafts. A
certain amount of knowledge of
several subjects, often of many ^ is-necessary
to render an acquaint-ance
with any one of them service-able
; and without it, the most
minute knowledge of any one
alone would be like half a pair of
scissors, or a hand with but one
finger. Wliat that amount is,
must be determined by the cir-cumstances
of the individual and
the object for which he wants it.
There are opposite dangers.
—
The knowledge of each particular
thing that a man can study will
always be imperfect. The most
minute philosopher cannot pre-tend
perfection of knowledge even
in his small domain. No subject
can be mentioned which is not
inexhaustible to the spirit of man.
Whether he looks at nature
1868.] The Vanity and the Olory of Literature. 17
through the microscope or the
telescope, he sees wonders dis-closed
on every side which expand
into infinity—and he can set no
limits to the approximate perfec-tion
with which he may study
them. It is the same with lan-guages
and with any branch of
moral or metaphysical science. A
man may, if he choose, be all his
life employed upon a single lan-guage
and never absolutely master
its vocabulary, much less its
idioms.
The limits, therefore, within
which any subject is to be pur-sued,
must be determined by its
utility, meantime it is certain
that one cannot be profitably pur-sued
alone. Such is the strict
connection and interdependence of
all branches of science, that the
best way of obtaining a useful
knowledge of any one is to com-bine
it with more. The true limit
between too minute and too Avide
a survey may often be difficult to
find ; yet such a limit always ex-ists;
and he who should pause
over any one subject till he had
absolutely mastered it, would be
as far from that limit, with re-gard
to all the practical ends of
knowledge, as if he had suflered
his mind to dissipate itself in a
vague attempt at encycloptedic
attainments. "While cautioning
the student, therefore, against the
error of undertaking to conquer
more ground than he can hold
firmly under his intellectual sway,
we would also advise him to avoid
the opposite error of making the
field of his researches too narrow;
for, in spite of the proverb, we be-lieve
that the " man of one book"
will genemlly be found to be a
very shallow fellow.
VOL. yi. NO. I.
Minuteness of knowledge, in
fact, frequently dwarfs the mind.
The engraver becomes nearsight-ed
by bending over his minute
work. The minute antiquary, if
he finds you ignorant of the shape
of an old buckle of some remote
date, tells you that " you know
nothing of antiquities!" The
minute geographer, if he discov-ers
that you have never heard of
some obscure town at the anti-podes,
will tell you, "you know
nothing of geography!" The mi-nute
historian, if he finds that you
never knew,or perhaps have known
twenty times and never cared
to remember, some event utter-ly
insignificant to all the real pur-poses
of history, will tell you that
" you know nothing of history!"
And yet, discerning the limits
within which the several branches
of knowledge may be wisely and
profitably pursued, you may, after
all, for every important object,
have obtained a more serviceable
and prompt command over those
very branches in which your com-placent
censor flatters himself that
he excels.
The '
' man of one book" is too
frequently nothing but a narrow-minded
bigot. His eye, like that
of the bee or the ant, may indus-triously
analyze the minute ob-jects
lying within its narrow range
of vision, but it is incapable of
taking in the larger features of
the landscape. But there have
been men who, soaring in eagle
flight, have beheld the whole
world of knowledge beneath them
—not that they attempted to
count the blades of grass or weigh
the sands of the seashore,—but,
content with a general panoramic
2
18 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov.,
view, their glance has rested upon
every mountain-peak of knowl-edge
rising in superiority above
the plain; and from their lofty
point of observation, they have
been able to see how these indi-vidual
peaks form a continuous
and connected chain. The litera-ry
ant, toiling below, has no idea
of the magnificence of such a
view.
But to return to the prospects
of our "universal scholar," There
have been, from time to time,
men who, gifted with gigantic
powers, prodigious memory, and
peculiar modes of arranging and
retaining knowledge, have aspir-ed
to a comprehensive acquaint-ance
with all the chief produc-tions
of the human intellect—who
have made extensive excursions
into every branch of human learn-ing—
and whose knowledge, though
not really universal, has borne
something like an appreciable ra-tio
to the sum total of literature
and science—who, as was said of
Leibnitz, have managed " to
drive all the sciences abreast."
—
Such minds have always been
rare, and must soon become ex-tinct.
For what is to become of
them, in after ages, as the domain
of human knowledge indefinitely
widens, and the creations of hu-man
genius indefinitely multiply?
Kot that there will not be men
who will then know absolutely
more, and with far greater accu-racy,
than their less favored pred-ecessors;
nevertheles their knowl-edge
must bear a continually
dimiminishing ratio to the sum
of human science and literature;
they must traverse a smaller
and smaller segment of the
ever-widening circle. Since hu-man
life remains as brief as
ever, while its task is daily en-larging,
there is no alternative
but that the " general scholar" of
each succeeding age must be con-tent
with possessing a less and
less fraction of the entire products
of the human mind. In Germany
alone, it has been computed, there
are ten million volumes printed
annually, and there are at the pres-ent
moment living in that coun-try
about fifty thousand men who
have written one or more books;
and should the number increase
at the rate it has hitherto done, a
catalogue of ancient and mod-ern
German authors will soon
contain more names than there
are living readers. The literary
activity of France and England,
though not so great, have been
prodigious, and our own America
has entered the lists with the ea-gerness
of youth and the industry
of democracy. Well may the
student be tempted to fold his
hands in despair before this im-mense
and ever-growing pyramid
of books! " Happy men," we are
half inclined to exclaim, "who
lived when a library consisted,
like that of a mediaeval monastery,
of some thirty or forty volumes,
and who thought they knew every-thing
when they had read these!
Happy our fathers, who were not
tormented with the sight of un-numbered
creations of intellect
which we must sigh to think we
can never make our own!"
The final disposal of all this
mass of literature is, in the opin-ion
of some, easily managed. The
bad, they say, will perish, and the
good remain. The former state-
1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 19
ment is correct enough; the latter
not so clearly and undeniably-true.
"We cannot disguise from
ourselves the fact that it is not
the bad writer alone who is for-gotten.
It is but too evident that
immense treasures of thought—of
beautiful poetry, splendid oratory,
vivacious wit, ingenious argu-ment,
subtle speculation—which
men would not sufier to die if
they could help it—must perish
too. The great spoiler here acts
with his accustomed impartiality;
" .Equo pulsat pecle pauperum tabernas
Regumciue turres;"
for the truth is that the creations
of the human mind transcend its
capacity to collect and preserve
them. Like the seeds of life in
the vegetable world, the intellect-ual
powers of man are so prolific
that they run to waste. Some
readers, doubtless, as a bright
throng of splendid names in lit-erature
rushes on their recollec-tions,
will cry " avaunt" to these
melancholy forebodings. They
stand in the temple of Neptune
and see the walls hung round
with votive tablets recording es-cape
from shipwreck, but let
them reflect how many men have
suffered shipwreck, and whose
tablets, therefore, are not to be
found! Others may think it im-possible
that the great writers,
with whom their own generation
is so familiar, and who occupy
such a space in its eye, should
ever dwindle into insignificance.
This illusion vanishes the mo-ment
we take them to catalogues
and indexes and show them the
names of authors who once made
as loud a noise in the world, and
yet of whose works they have
never read a line!
It is with no cynical, but with
simply mournful feelings that we
thus dwell on the mortality of
productions even of genius. The
bulk of the literature of each gen-eration,
the bulk of even that
most highly prized, perishes with
the generation; and as time ma ke
fresh accumulations, those of pre-ceding
ages pass for the most part
into quiet oblivion. The process
which has taken effect on the past
will be repeated on the iDresent
age and on every subsequent one;
so that the period will assuredly
come when even the great writers
of our day, who seem to have
such enduring claims upon our
gratitude and admiration, will be
as little remembered as others of
equal talent who have gone be-fore
them ; when , if not wholly for-gotten
or superseded, they will
exist only in fragments and spec-imens—
these fragments and spec-imens
themselves shrinking into
narrower compass as time advan-ces.
In this way time is perpet-ually
compiling a vast index ex-
•purgatorius ; and though the press
more than repairs his ravages on
the mere matter of books, the im-mense
masses it heaps up ensure
the purpose of oblivion just as ef-fectually.
Not that time's effacing
fingers have ceased altogether
their material waste. Probably
scarce a day passes but sees the
last leaf, the last tattered remnant
of the last copy of some work per-ish
either by violence or accident
—by fire or flood, or the crumb-ling
of mere decay. It is surely
an impressive thought— this si-lent
unnoticed extinction of an-
20 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [^^Tov.,
other product of some once busy
and aspiring mindl
The chief cause, however, of the
virtual oblivion of books is no
longer their extinction, but (par-adoxical
as it may seem) the fond
care with which they are preserv-ed,
and their immensely rapid
multiplication. The press is more
than a match for the moth and
the worm, or the mouldering hand
of time; but the great destroyer
equally performs his commission
by burying books under the pyr-amid
formed by their accumula-tion.
It is a striking example of
the impotence with which man
struggles with the destiny await-ing
him and his works, that the
very means which he takes to en-sure
immortality destroys it; that
the very activity of the press—of
the instrument by which he seem-ed
to have taken pledges against
time and fortune—is that which
will make him the spoil of both.
The books may not die; but they
cease to be read, which amounts
to a living death. Piled away on
upper shelves, the spider spins
her web from cover to cover, se-cure
that it will not be snapped
by the opening of the lids which
time has closed.
But while thus administering
consolation to the " general
scholar," by showing that time
has certainly been limiting, as
well as extending his task, there
is another class of persons who
will find no comfort in the
thought—and that is the class of
authors. There is no help for it,
however; humbling as it may ap-pear
to represent the higher prod-ucts
of man's mind as destined
to decay like his body—it is still
true, in the vast majority of in-stances.
And even in those in-stances
where a different fate
seems to have attended the works
of departed genius, the greater
number of cases are but apparent
exceptions to the well-nigh uni-versal
rule; the authors do not
live—they are merely embalmed
and made mummies of. Their
works are deposited in libraries
and museums, like the bodies of
Egyptian kings in their pyramids,
retaining only a grim semblance
of life, amidst neglect, darkness,
and decay. Of the thousands of
laborious and ambitious men who
have devoted their lives to litera-ture,
how few there are who still
retain a hold on the popular mind
!
A somewhat larger fraction may
be known to the professed stu-dent—
but even he must own that
there are hundreds of whom he
has never read a page, and many
of whose very names he is igno-rant.
It is really curious to look
into the index of such learned
authors as Cudworth or Jeremy
Taylor, and to see the havoc which
has been made on the memory of
most of the authors they cite, and
whose productions still exist, but
no longer to be quoted. Of scarcely
one in ten of these grave authori-ties
has the best informed student
of our day read ten paragraphs
;
and yet their cotemporaries quoted
them as we quote Macaulay and
Irving. Let the popular author,
then, chastise his conceit with the
reflection that the plaudits of a
generation are not immortality.
Of all the forms of celebrity
which promise to gratify man's
natural longing for immortality,
there is none, it has been affirmed,
1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 21
which looks so plausible as literary-fame.
The statesman and war-rior,
it is said, are known only by-report,
and for even that are in-debted
to the historian or the
poet. A book, on the other hand,
is fondly presumed to be an au-thor's
second self ; by it he comes
into personal contact and com-munion
with his readers. It is a
pleasant illusion, no doubt; and
in the very few instances in which
the author does attain this per-manent
popularity, and becomes
a " house-hold word " with pos-terity,
the illusion ceases to be
such, and the hopes of ambition
are indeed splendidly realized.
—
But not only must we remember
that very few can attain this
eminence; we must keep in mind
a fact that has not been sufficient-ly
noticed—namely, that as the
world grows older, a still smaller
and smaller portion of those who
seevi to have attained it, will hold
their position. The great mass of
the writers whom posterity "would
not willingly let die," must share
the fate of those other great men
over whom the favorites of to- day
are supposed to have an advan-tage;
they, themselves, will live
only by the historian's pen. The
empty titles of their works will be
recorded in catalogues, and a few
lines be granted to them in bio-graphical
dictionaries, with what
may truly be callled a post mortem
examination of criticism—a space
which, as these church-yards of
intellect become more and more
crowded, necessarily becomes
smaller and smaller, till for thou-sands
not even room for a sepul-chral
stone will be found.
Nor is it easy to say how far
this oblivion will reach, or what
luminaries will, in time, be eclip-sed.
Supposing only the best
products of the genius of each
age—its richest and ripest fruits
—
to be garnered away for posterity,
the collection will gradually rise
into a prodigious pile, defying the
appetite of the most voracious
reader. The time must come
when not only mediocrity, which
has always been the case,—not
only excellence, which has fre-quently
been the case,—but when
even superior genius will stand a
chance of being rejected; when
even gold and diamonds will be
cast into the sieve! Hardy must
he be then who shall venture to
hope for the permanent attention
of mankind! For it will be found
that the majority of authors have
bought, not, as they fondly im-agined,
a copyhold of inheritance,
but that their interest for life, or
for years soon runs out, and every
year diminishes the value of the
estate.
"With the exception, then, of
the very few who shine on from
age to age with undimished lustre,
like lights in the firmament—the
Homers, the Miltons, the Shaks-peares,
the Bacons, enshrined,
like the heroes of old, among the
constellations—the great bulk of
writers must be contented, after
having shone for a while, to be
wholly or nearly lost to the world.
Entering our system like comets,
they may strike their immediate
generation with a sudden splendor
;
but receding gradually into the
depth of space, they will twinkle
with a fainter and fainter lustre
,
till they fade away forever.
But while the past is thus receiv-
•2-2 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov.,
iog into its tranquil depths such
huge masses of literature, it is, by a
contrary process, yielding us, per-haps,
nearly bulk for bulk, mate-rials
which it had long concealed.
While work after work of science
and history is daily passing away,
pushed aside, beyond all chance
of republication, by superior works
of a similar kind, containing the
last discoveries and most accurate
results, it is curious to see with
what eagerness the literary anti-quary
is ransacking the past for
every fragment of unpublished
manuscript. Many of these, if
they had been published when
they were written, would have
been utterly worthless. They de-rive
their whole value from the
rust of age. It may with truth be
said of them that they never
would have lived if they had not
been buried. Our readers will re-member
the sly way in which
Irving satirizes these literary del-vers
among the rubbish of antiqui-ty,
when, after describing the an-tiquarian
parson's raptures over
the old drinking song, he says:
'* It was with difficulty the squire
was made to comprehend that
though a jovial song of the pres-ent
day was but a foolish sound
in the ears of wisdom, and be-neath
the notice of a learned
man, yet a trowl written by a
toss-pot several hundred years
since was a matter worthy of the
greatest research, and enough to
set whole colleges together by the
ears."
But we do not complain of this.
The laborious trifling of the
merest drudge in antiquities may
supply the historian with some
collateral lights, and furnish ma-terials
for more vivid descriptions-of
the past; or, coming into con-tact
with highly creative minds,
like that of Sir Walter Scott, they
may contribute the rude elements
of the most beautiful fictions.
—
K'o one can read his novels and
despise the study of the most
trivial details of antiquities, when
it is seen for what beautiful text-ures
they may supply the threads.
It is the privilege of genius such
as his to extract their gold dust
out of the most worthless books
books which to others would be
to the last degree tedious and un-attractive,—
and the felicity with
which he did this was one of his
most striking characteristics. It
is wonderful to see how a snatch
of an old border song, an antique
phrase, used as he uses it, a story
or fragment of a story from some
obscure author, shall suddenly be
invested with a force or a beauty
which the original never would
have suggested to an ordinary
reader, and which in fact is de-rived
solely from the light of ge-nius
which he brought to play
upon them. His genius vivified
whatever he hung over in those
dusty parchments; and patient
antiquarianism, long brooding
and meditating, became glorious-ly
transmuted into the winged
spirit of poetrj^ and romance.
In this way minute portions of
the past are constantly entering,
by new combinations, into fresh
forms of life; and out of these old
materials, continually decomposed
but continually recombined, scope
is afforded for an everlasting suc-cession
of imaginative literature.
In the same way every work of
genius, by coming, as it were, into
1868.] TJie Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 23
mesmeric rapport with the affini-ties
of kindred genius, and stimu-lating
its latent energies, is itself
the parent of many others, and
furnishes the materials and rudi-ments
of ever new combinations.
In Shakspeare, no less than in
Scott, we see both how much and
how little a great genius derives
from sources without himself.
—
Byron, too, as Moore tells us, was
in the habit of exciting his vein
of composition by the perusal of
other authors on the same sub-ject,
from whom the slightest
hint, caught by his imagination
as he read, was sufficient to kindle
there such a train of thought as,
but for that spark, had never
been awakened, and of which he
himself soon forgot the source.
It is in this way that thought
never dies. The books may be-come
mouldy and Avorm-eaten, or
may be buried beneath the un-noticed
and useless lumber of
public libraries, but during the
time that those books were popu-larly
circulated, some seeds of
thought were, doubtless, dropped
from them into minds where they
took root and produced fresh fruit
for another generation. Let the
author, then, take heart; for al-though
the chance is small that
his shall be "one of those few,
immortal names that were not
born to die," yet, if his thoughts
be noble, they will not perish.
Posterity will take care of them,
though they may forget to whom
they owe the legacy. The thought,
in the original form in which it
was first given to the world, may
no longer exist; but the proba-bility
is, that it has given rise to
other thoughts in other men, and,
like the hidden spring among the.
mountains, is the source of a per-petually
enlarging stream that
shall flow on to the end of time.
The reader will call to mind the
death-bed scene of the brilliant,
but dissipated Burley,in Bulwer's
" My Novel." He is a man who,
with parts that might have en-abled
him to place himself in a
proud and firm literary position,
has yet turned his talents to little
account—employing his energies
only in such wayward and fitful
efforts as necessity roused him to
perform. Consequently he leaves
nothing permanent behind him.
But others have profited by the
labors from which he derived no
profit himself. And now, as his
life is waning, he mourns over his
wasted powers, but consoles him-self
with the reflection that even
the little he has done will not be
actually lost; and he illustrates
this belief, by exclaiming to his
companion, Leonard, " Extin-guish
that candle! Fool, you can-not!"
and then goes on to explain,
that though the flame may be
quenched with a breath, yet the
waves of light which it has oc-casioned
will continue to vibrate
through space forever; and so,
although the lamp of his intellect
was flickering in the socket, the
thoughts which it had put in
motion would continue to travel
through the world long after men
had forgotten there ever was such
a man as poor Burley.
Bat we are encroaching, prema-turely,
on another branch of our
subject.
In that deluge of books with
which the world is inundated, the
lamentations with which the bib-
24 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov.,
liomaniac bemoans the waste of
time and the barbarous ravages
of bigotry and ignorance, appear
at first sight somewhat fantastic-al.
Yet it is not without reason
that we mourn over many of these
losses, especially in the depart-ment
of history; and this, not
merely because they have involved
important facts in obscurity, but
for a reason more nearly related
to our subject. Paradoxical as it
may seem, it is probably the truth
that the very multiplicity of books
with which we are now perplexed,
is in part owing to the loss of
some, and that if we had had a
few volumes more we should have
had a great many less. The in-numerable
speculations, conject-ures,
and criticisms on those am-ple
fields of doubt which the rav-ages
of time have left open to in-terminable
discussion, would then
have been spared us.
On the other hand, it is doubt-ful
whether—except in the case of
history—the treasures of litera-ture,
of which time has deprived
us, and the loss of which literary
enthusiasts so bitterly deplore,
have been so inestimable. We
are disposed to think with Gibbon
in his remarks on the burning of
the Alexandrian library, that by
far the greater part of the master-pieces
of antiquity have been se-cured
to us. The lost works, even
of the greatest masters, were
most probably inferior to those
which have come down to us.
—
Their best must have been those
most admired, most frequentl}^
copied, most faithfully preserved,
and therefore on all these accounts
the most likely to elude the hand
of violence and the casualties of
time. The great cause which
consigns so many modern works
to oblivion—namely, the super-abundance
of the products of the
press—did not then operate. And
even since printing was invented,
we do not think we have occasion
to lament the extinguishment of
any great ideas; for, as we have
shown, thought by a perpetual
transmigration descends from gen-eration
to generation. The books
containing those thoughts may be
left to moulder in the dusty ar-chives
of literary depositories, but
the thoughts are abroad in the
world. Books are merely the
outer shell or cocoon that inwraps
the chrysalis idea; and after a
certain period the idea comes
forth in a new and more beautiful
form, and on active wing ascends
to lofty regions, leaving its worth-less
shell of paper and binding to
rot into oblivion.
One great cause which has en-abled
the master- pieces of Grecian
and Roman literature to outlive
all the shocks of time, the calami-ties
of war and the waste of igno-rance
attendant upon that mighty
disruption of the Western Em-pire,
when civilization seemed
broken loose from its moorings,
and the wrecks of the social fabric
clashed against each other on the
wild tossing waves of that bar-barous
inundation that overflowed
all Europe—was the condensed
and sententious style in which
their thoughts were expressed.
—
Our modern authors should pi'ofit
by their example. If they would
extend their posthumous fame to
its utmost limits, let them study
brevity. Our voluminous fore-fathers
of the seventeenth cen-
1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 25
tury seemed never to have at-tempted
condensation, but to
have committed all their thoughts
to writing in all the redundance
of the forms first suggested. They
acted as though we, their posteri-ty,
should have nothing to do but
to sit down and read what they
had written. They were much
mistaken; and the consequence is
that their ambitious folios remain
for the most part unread ; while
those great productions of classic-al
antiquity, whose severe terse-ness
they would have done well
to imitate, have triumphed over
time— a victory due principally
no doubt to their moderate bulk.
The light skiff will shoot the cata-racts
of time when a heavier ves-sel
will assuredly go down.
Considering the vastness of the
accumulations of literature and
the impossibility of mastering
them all, we are not surprised
that the idea should sometimes
have suggested itself that it might
be possible, in a series of brief
publications, to distil as it were
the quintessence of books, and
condense folios into pamphlets.
—
The works of an age might thus
be contained on a few shelves. We
cannot think, however, that such a
plan, if put into general execution,
would prove useful to the cause of
literature. We will not say that
all abridgments are foolish and
wrong; but the truth is that the
mind cannot profitably digest in-tellectual
food in too condensed a
shape,—and every work worth
reading at all bears upon it the
impress of the mind that gave it
birth and ceases to attract and
impress when reduced to a sylla-bus;
its faults and its excellencies
alike vanish in the process. But
if authors would escape this mu-tilation
they must study concise-ness
of expression, and take care
to leave their thoughts in such a
form that men will not consent to
have them altered. Signal gen-ius,
even in modern times, has
occasionally effected this—and
that, too, in departments where
the progress of knowledge soon
renders these works very imper-fect
as to their matter. Such for
instance is Paley's " ISTatural
Theology," a book treating of a
subject which now might be much
more amply and correctly illus-trated
by the new lights afforded
by improved science; and yet
such is the simple and forcible
beauty with which Paley has man-aged
his argument, that the pop-ularity
of his work is not likely to
yield to any future aspirant, what-ever
stores of better knowledge he
may have at his command.
—
Hume's "History of England"
promises to be a still stronger in-stance,
in spite not only of its nu-merous
deficiencies but of its
enormous errors.
It is indeed a great triumph of
genius when it is capable of so
impressing itself upon its produc-tions,
so moulding and shaping
them to beauty, as to make men
unwilling to return the gold into
the melting pot and work it up
afresh ; when it is felt that from
the less accurate work we after
all learn more, and receive more
vivid impressions than from the
more correct but less effective pro-ductions
of an inferior artist. To
attain this species of longevity,
genius must not content itself with
being a mere mason—it must as-
26 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov.
pire to be an architect, it must
seek to give preciousness to the
gold and silver by the beauty of
the cup or vase into which they
are moulded, and to make them
as valuable for their form as for
their matter.
The old Greek and Koman
classics, which are the best ex-amples
of this power of genius,
have had indeed a remarkable
destiny. Those ancient authors
seem to have possessed in perfec-tion
the art of embalming thought.
Time leaves their works untouch-ed.
The severe taste which sur-rounds
them has operated like the
pure air of Egypt in preserving
the sculptures and paintings of
that country, where travelers tell
us that the traces of the chisel are
as sharp and the colors of the
paintings as bright as if the
artists had quitted their work but
yesterday.
In turning over the pages of
catalogues, one is struck, amidst
all the mutations of literature,
with the fixed and unchanging in-fluence
of two portions of it—the
ancient Classics and the Bible,
Much of the literature produced
by both partakes, no doubt, of the
fate that attends other kinds; the
books they elicit, whether critical
or theological, pass away, but
they themselves retain their hold
on the human mind, become en-grafted
into the literature of every
civilized nation, and continue to
evoke a never-ending series of
volumes in their defence, illustra-tion
or explication. On a very
moderate computation, it may be
safely affirmed, we think, that at
least one-third of the books pub-lished
since the invention ofprint-ing,
were the consequences, more
or less direct, of the two portions
of literature to which we have
referred—in the shape of new
editions, translations, commen-taries,
grammars, dictionaries, or
historical, chronological, and
geographical illustrations.
There is one aspect in which
even the most utilitarian despiser
of the classics can hardly sneer at
them. From being selected by
the unanimous suffrage of all
civilized nations as an integral
element in all liberal education,
these venerable authors play a
very important part in the com-mercial
transactions of mankind.
It is curious to think of these an-cient
spirits furnishing no incon-siderable
portion of the modern
world with their daily bread, and
in the employment they give to
so many thousands of teachers,
editors, commentators, authors,
printers, and publishers, consti-tuting
a very positive item in the
industrial activity of nations. A
political economist, thinking only
of his own science, should look
with respect on the strains of
Homer and Yirgil, when he con-siders
that, directly or indirectly,
they have probably produced
more material wealth than half
the mines which human cupidity
has opened, or half the inventions
of human ingenuity.
And turning to the Bible we
find that it presents us with a
still more singular phenomenon in
the space which it occupies
throughout the continued history
of literature. We see nothing
like it; and supposing it to be
other than it pretends to be, it
may well puzzle infidel sagacity
18G8.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 27
to account for its wonderful and
lasting influence over the thoughts
and feelings of mankind. It has
not been given to any other book
of religion thus to triumph over
national prejudices, and lodge it-self
securely in the hearts of great
communities—communities vary-ing
by every conceivable diversity
of race, language, manners and
customs, and indeed agreeing in
nothing but a veneration for it-self.
It adapts itself to the revo-lutions
of thought and feeling that
shake to pieces all things else,
and accommodates itself to the
progress of society and the chan-ges
of civilization. Even conquests
—the disorganization of old na-tions—
the formation of new—do
not affect the continuity of its em-pire.
It lays hold of the new as
the old, and transmigrates with,
the spirit of humanity—attracting
to itself, by its own moral power,
in all the communities it enters,
a ceaseless intensity of effort for
its propagation, illustration and
defence. Other systems of reli-gion
are usually delicate exotics,
and will not bear transplanting.
The gods of the nations are local
deities, and reluctantly quit their
native soil; at all events, they
patronize only their favorite ra-ces,
and perish at once when the
tribe or nation of their worship-pers
become extinct, often long
before. The Koran of Mahomet
has, it is true, been propagated by
the sword; but it has been
propagated by nothing else; and
its dominion has been limited to
those nations who could not re-ply
to that stern logic. But if
the Bible be false, the facility
with which it overleaps the other-wise
impassable boundaries of
race and clime, and domiciliates
itself among so many diflerent na-tions,
would be a far more strik-ing
and wonderful proof of human
ignorance and stupidity than is
afforded in the limited prevalence
of even the most abject supersti-tion;
or, if it really has merits
which, though it be a fable, have
enabled it to impose so compre-hensively
on mankind, wonder-ful
indeed must have been the
skill in its composition— so won-derful
that even the infidel ought
never to regard it but with the
profoundest reverence, as far too
successful and sublime a fabrica-tion
to permit a thought of scoff
or ridicule.
^Xe have endeavored to show
how large a portion of merely hu-man
literature is inscribed with
"vanity,"—that word of doom
which all things human bear.
—
But literature has its "glory"
too. The writer has enough to
make him contented with his vo-cation,
if not proud of it. The
value of books does not depend
upon their durability; nor in truth
is there any reason why the phi-losopher
should be more solicitous
about these wasted and wasting
treasures of mind than about the
death of men, or the decay of the
cities they have built, or of the
empires they have founded. They
but follow the law which is im-posed
on all terrestrial things.
Geologists tell us of vast inter-vals
of time—myriads of years
passed in the tardy revolutions by
which the earth was prepared for
our habitations, and during which
successive tribes of animals and
plants flourished and became
28
~ The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov.,
extinct;—the term of life allotted
to each species, and its place in
the system, being exactly appro-priate
to the stage reached by
the world in the progress of de-velopment,
and linked, in a law
of subserviency, to the successive
parts and various phases of one
vast continuous process. Though
permitted and organized to enjoy
their brief term of life, they were
chiefly important as stepping
stones to the future, and as in-fluencing
that future, not by
forming part of it, but by having
been a necessary condition of its
arrival. The same law which
seems to have been that of the
whole history of the geological
eras, appears also to character-ize
our own; the present passes
away, but is made subservient to
a glorious future. As those geo-logical
periods were preparatory
to the introduction of the human
economy, so the various eras of
that economy itself are subordi-nated
to its ultimate and perfect
development. Individuals and
nations perish, but the progress
of humanity continues. Persuad-ed
of this truth, let the author
awake from his idle dream of im-mortality—
awake to a more ra-tional
but not less pleasing hope.
Let him but conscientiously labor
to serve his generation, and he
will find his reward in the reflec-tion
that, though his books may
not outlive himself, yet in further-ing
the interests of one generation
he has furthered the interests of
all coming time. Each genera-tion
must make its own books ; but
lohat sort of books these are to be
depends greatly on the books that
went before. If, then, the author
has made any contribution, how-ever
small, to the general stock of
human knowledge, he may rest
assured that that contribution
will be preserved, in other forms,
for succeeding ages, even after the
book itself, like its author, has
become food for worms. The
book, which none now read, tend-ed,
in its day, to mould and influ-ence
some cotemporary mind des-tined
to act with greater power on
distant generations. The current
novels of Shakspeare's day, which
are now no longer to be found in
public libraries, and the names of
whose authors have completely
vanished from the memory of
men, were the foundation for
many of those glorious dramas
which the superior genius of
Avon's Bard has stamped with
immortality. In this way the
weak live in the strong, and the
perishable products of inferior
minds are transmuted into the
eternal adamant of some rare
genius. The whole gigantic growth
of human knowledge and litera-ture
may be compared to those
deposits which geologists describe,
full of the remains of animal and
vegetable life that once moved in
vigor or bloomed in beauty, and
which are beneficial still. The
luxuriant foliage and forest growth
of literature and science that now
overshadow us, are rooted in the
strata of decaying or decayed
mind, and derive their nourish-ment
from them. The very soil
we turn is the loose detritus of
thought washed down to us
through long ages. Although the
world of intellect, like the world
of matter, is under the dominion
of decay, yet it is sublimely true
1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 29
that, in both alike, Death is itself
the germ and parent of life; and
new forms of glory and beauty-spring
from the very dust of des-olation.
A fanciful mind might pursue
still further the comparison we
have instituted between those
animal and vegetable remains, on
which our living world flourishes,
and those vast relics of decayed
and mouldering literature, in
which our modern literature
fastens its roots, and over which
it waves its proud luxuriance.
A resemblance may be discerned
between the mutations and revo-lutions
of literature and those in-comparably
greater changes which
have swept over the surface of the
material world. Geology tells us
of the successive submersion and
elevation of vast tracts of land
—
now rich in animal and vegetable
life—then buried for unnumbered
ages in oblivion—then reappear-ing
to the light of day, and bear-ing,
dank and dripping from the
ocean bed, the memorial of their
former glories. It is much the
same with the treasures of buried
literature. Long whelmed be-neath
the inundations of barba-rism,
or buried by the volcanic
eruptions of war and conquest, we
see them, after centuries of ob-livious
trance, coming once more
to light—the fossil remains of an-cient
life, characterized indeed by
many analogies to the present
species of organized life, but also
by many diflferences.
The revival of classical litera-ture
after the dark ages, was the
most splendid and noteworthy of
these recoveries of the past; but
even now there frequently takes
place, on a smaller scale, a simi-lar
process of restoration. Dis-cussions
and controversies that
had been hushed for ages, break
out again, like long, silent vol-canoes;
men turn with renewed
interest to the opinions of per-sons
who had apparently been
forgotten forever ; and names
which had not been heard for
centuries, once more fill men's
mouths and are trumpeted to the
four winds. Let the author re-member
this for his comfort. la
the indefatigable grubbings and
gropings of the literary antiquary,
scarcely any writer need despair
of an occasional remembrance, or
of producing some curiosities for
those cabinets where the most
precious and the most worthless
of relics are preserved with im-partial
veneration. It is hard to
say what the spade and the mat-tock
may not bring up. Who
could have hoped, a few years
back, to witness the reappearance
of so much early English litera-ture
as has recently been passed
through the press again? Who
could have anticipated the wide
and wayward range which the
transient, but while they last,
most active fashions of literary
research would take? Kow it is
Saxon, Danish, or Norman an-tiquity
;—now local traditions and
old songs and ballads;—now the
old dramatists have their turn,
now the old divines. True, not a
little of this exhumed literature
is immediately recommitted to
the dust;—its resurrection is but
for the second celebration of its
obsequies. Still, these spasmodic
revivals of a dead literature gal-vanized
into a semblance of life
30 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov.
by antiquarian zeal, are better
than the unbroken forgetfulness
of tombs that are sealed forever I
This alternate resurrection and
entombment may not be immor-tality,
but it bears a close resem-blance
to transmigration.
In this connection, observe how
singular has been the destiny of
Aristotle! After having been lost
to the world for ages, we see him,
during the era of the schoolmen,
making a second and wider con-quest,
and founding the most du-rable
and absolute despotism of
mind over mind that the world
has ever seen. After a subsequent
dethronement by the Baconian
philosophy, he is now fighting his
way back to no mean empire—an
empire promising to be all the
more permanent because it is
founded in a juster estimate of
his real claims on the gratitude
and reverence of mankind, and
because he is invited to wield the
sceptre, not of a despot, but of a
constitutional monarch. It is as
if Napoleon's dust should quit its
sarcophagus in the Cathedral of
Notre Dame, and once more shake
Europe with the thunder of his
victorious artillery! Like the
great French conqueror, the Gre-cian
philosopher has had his Elba
and his St, Helena; and like him,
too, his dynasty is now restored,
if not in his own person , in the
person of those who owe what
they are to him.
If the considerations thus far
presented fail to establish the
"glory" of literature as a coun-terpoise
to its "vanity," let the
author, in those moments of de-spondency,
when he realizes how
perversely and persistently the
shadow of fame eludes his eager
grasp, console himself with the
reflection that there is a little cir-cle
of which each man is the cen-tre,
and that this narrow theatre
is generally enough for the hopes
and aspirations of the human
heart. Indeed, even when the
loftiest ambition whispers to itself
some folly about distant regions
and remote ages whose plaudits,
however loud, can never reach its
ear, it is really of a nearer and
more limited admiration that the
aspirant thinks. It is, after all,
the applause of the familiar
friends, among whom he daily
lives, that he craves and loves.
Can sculptured urn or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting
breatli
!
Can lionor's voice provoke the silent
dust,
Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of
death
'
No! for the love and praise of
the living, we will be content to
give up all reversionary claims
upon the admiration of unborn
generations!
Let the author reflect, moreover,
that, as time rolls on, not only
will the number of books be in-creased,
but the number of read-ers
also; and consequently the
greater Avill be the chance of his
obtaining somewhere a foothold
in the memory of at least a part
of the human race. If he be
worthy to live at all , he will find
—
not indeed temples thronged with
admiring worshippers and altars
steaming Avith sacrifices—but at
all events a little chapel here and
there where some solitary devotee
will be paying his homage. He
cannot hope to be a Jupiter Cap-itolinus,
but he may become the
1868. The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 31
household god of some quiet
hearth, and receive there his mod-est
oblation and his pinch of daily-incense.
The destiny of the honest writ-er,
then even though but moder-ately
successful, is surely glorious
and enviable. It may be true that
he is to die; for we do not count
the record of a name, when the
works are no longer read, as any-thing
more than an epitaph, and
even that may vanish. Yet, to
come into contact with other
minds, though but for limited
periods—to move them by an in-fluence
silent as the dew, invisi-ble
as the mind—to co-operate in
the construction of character—to
mould habits of thought—to pro-mote
the reign of truth and virtue
—to exercise a spell over those we
have never seen and never can
see, in other climes, at the ex-tremity
of the globe, and when the
hand that wrote is still forever
—
is surely a most wonderful, not to
say awful, prerogative. It comes
nearer to the idea of the immediate
influence of spirit on spirit than
anything else with which this
world presents us. In no way
can we form an adequate concep-tion
of such an influence, except
by imagining ourselves, under the
privilege of the ring of Gyges, to
gaze invisible, upon the solitary
reader as he pores over a favorite
author, and to watch in his coun-tenance,
as in a mirror, the reflec-tion
of the page that holds him
captive; now knitting his brow
over a diflicult argument, and de-riving
both discipline and knowl-edge
from the eflbrt—now relax-ing
into smiles at wit and humor
—now dwelling with a glistening
eye on tenderness and pathos
—
now yielding up some fond error
to the force of truth, and anon be-trayed
into another by the force of
sophistry— now rebuked for some
vice or folly, and binding himself
with fresh vows to the service of
virtue,—and now, also, sympa-thizing
with the too faithful de-lineation
of depraved passions and
vicious pleasures, and strengthen-ing,
by one more rivet, the domin-ion
of evil over the soul! Surely,
to be able to wield such a power as
this, even in the smallest degree
and within narrow boundaries of
time and space, is a stupendous
attribute, and one which, if se-riously
pondered, would oftentimes
cause a writer to pause and trem-ble
as though his pen were the
rod of an enchanter! Happy
those who have wielded it well,
and who
"Dying, leave no line they wish to
blot."
Melancholy indeed is the lot of
all whose high endowments have
been worse than wasted—who
have left to that world which they
were born to bless, only a legacy
of shame and sorrow—whose vi-ces
and follies, unlike those of
other men, are not permitted to
die with them, but continue act-ive
for evil after the men them-selves
have become dust. Let
every aspirant for the honors of
authorship remember this. The
ill which other men do, for the
most part dies with them. Xot
that this is literally true, even of
the obscurest individual. We are
all but links in a vast chain which
stretches from the dawn of time
32 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov.,
to the final consummation of all
things; and unconsciously we re-ceive
and transmit a noble influ-ence
which time has no power to
destroy. As we are, in a great
measure, what our forefathers
made us, so our posterity will be
what we make them; and it is a
thought which may well make us
at once proud and afraid of our
influence and our destiny.
But such truths, though uni-versally
applicable, are more wor-thy
of being pondered by great
authors than by any other class
of men. These outlive their age
—
if not for an eternity, at least for
considerable periods; and their
thoughts continue to operate im-mediately
on the spirit of their
race. How sad it is for such to
abuse their high trust I If Ave
could imagine for a moment that
departed spirits are allowed to re-visit
the scenes of their earthly
life and trace the good or evil con-sequences
of their actions, what
more deplorable condition can be
conceived than that of a great but
misguided genius, convinced at
last of the folly of his course, and
condemned to witness its ef-fects,
without the power of arrest-ing
them? The spell for evil has
been spoken, and he cannot unsay
it; the poisoned shaft has left the
bow and cannot be recalled ! How
would he sigh for that day which
should cover his fame with a wel-come
cloud, and bury him in the
once dreaded oblivion! How
would he covet, as the highest
boon, the loss of that immortality
for which he toiled so much and
so long!
Let not the influence of books
over men's character and actions
be despised. Socrates was accus-tomed
to argue for the superiority
of oral over written instruction,
by representing books as silent.
The inferiority of the written word
to the living voice is in many re-spects
undeniable, but surely it is
more than compensated by the
advantage of its more difl'usive and
permanent character. Great as
has been the influence of Socrates,
he owes it almost entirely to books
which he refused to write; audit
might have been greater still, had
he condescended to write some of
his own.
The chief glory of literature
taking it collectively—is that it is
our pledge and security against
the retrogression of humanity
—
the eflectual break-water against
barbarism—the ratchet in the
great wheel of the world, which,
even if it stands still, prevents it
from slipping back. Ephemeral
as man's books are, they are not
so ephemeral as himself; and they
consign to posterity what would
otherwise never reach them. A
good book is the Methuselah of
these latter as:es.
1868.] Evening Fancies. 33^
EVENING FANCIES.
Ev^ening's spell comes round me,
And all the ties which bound me
To this bright earth, my spirit rends in twain.
And roams in joy and gladness,
Free from the heart's deep sadness,
And revels in that bliss which yields no pain,
Save only the deep yearning
Which, in my bosom burning,
Tells me that Heaven lies far, far beyond
My own wild aspirations,
My fancy's bright creations.
Then my crushed heart will ache, but not despond.
My spirit seeks the shore,
"Where booms the ceaseless roar
Of Ocean, in his wild and sullen play.
It bounds upon the waves.
Seeks the most hidden caves,
Where sleep the mermaids, and where rich gems stray.
It leaps o'er dancing rivers
Where the rich sunset quivers
In ever-varying tints upon the stream,
Visits the silent dell
Where fancy loves to dwell,
And gilds imagination's richest dream.
Yisits the far- off Heaven,
Where, earth's weak ties all riven,
Angelic music breaks upon the ear.
The jasper gates unfold.
And gorgeousness untold
Dazzles the vision in that glorious sphere.
But a low-plaintive moan
Upon the breeze is borne
;
It has been wafted from the battle-plain.
VOL. VI.—NO. I.
34 The VaJhorgsmas Tryst. [ISTov.,
Oh! that sad, mournful strain
Tells of the lowly slain,
And calls my spirit back to earth again.
And now those hues so glorious
The setting sun sheds o'er us,
Pour their latest, lingering rays around;
And the low, tender greeting,
When in the wild woods meeting.
Of the sad night-bird, is the only sound.
Then sweet, and low, and tender,
'ISTeath Luna's dawning splendor,
I hear the music of a voice I love.
Farewell, thou glowing vision,
Thou flower from fields Elysian,
My blissful, happy heart must cease to rove.
Hamburg, Ark., 1S6S. mart thacker.
THE VALBORGSMAS TRYST.
A deep hush through the long, in jaunty jackets and gay holy-broad,
raftered hall. So deep, day aprons, with fair hair braided
that the soughing of far-pines under the three-cornered maiden-crept
sobbing through the night, cap. The fresh round faces were
and brought the moan of Silja all turned one way, and many a
Lake, upon whose breast the glance stole under drooping lashes
flames upon the hearth-stone here toward the upper end of the apart-flung
out from time to time a fit- ment. For there, at a table
ful glow. An April snow was strewn with papers, sat the aged
scurrying to and fro without. Squire, and confronted a young
Within, a short half-hour since, man in mien and dress somewhat
the dance, the frolic game, the superior to his fellow-peasants,
song and story, in the midst of Those sturdy Dalmen, bred up on
rustic peace made mockery of the Squire's estate, now dropped
storm. Bat now the murkiness of their gaze, shame-faced for their
the storm was entered in. class, upon the pine-twig covered
The nickel harp had lapsed to floor; as the master, resting his
silence, and the hum of all those right hand in very heaviness of
spinning-wheels had ceased. L"p- sorrow on the table, resumed his
on them now, the maidens leaned speech.
1868.] Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. 35
"Go then, Erik Orn—free to re-trieve
the past with the future—to
prove thyself not all unworthy of
the forbearance I now show thee."
Each measured accent, solemn,
clear, and stern, resounded where
the stillness was but broken by
their utterance—by not one mur-mur
or one movement among the
twenty or thirty men and women
there assembled. A tribunal
without appeal, whose silence
ratified the conviction and the
sentence of this man, one of them-selves,
yet long set above them.
Dismay, compassion, and in some
few envious countenances, a cer-tain
self complacent triumph, an-swered
to the disappointment in
the master's face. He rose up
weariedly, his hand upon the
heavy purse of gold, the finding of
which among Erik Orn's posses-sions,
had with other inexplicable
circumstances, convicted Erik, or
so it seemed, of an unfaithful
stewardship.
But he who fronted, met his
judge, unfalteringly. Upon his
brow there rested not one shade
of shame, and the deep eyes, ear-nest
and shining with an anguish
passing tears, had nevertheless no
shrinking, no remorse. There
was no wavering in the firm- set
mouth, and when he spoke at
once, the musical Dalarna tones
sang true as ever.
"The memory of my master's
justice through the years since I,
a friendless peasant-lad, was first
received into his service—the
memory of kindness which has
raised me up until I stood high in
his confidence—nay, almost as his
counsellor and friend—these mem-ories
rise now between me and
that wrongful sentence, and thus
shut out wrath. That do they,
though that sentence, that for-bearance,
sends me forth, untried
and yet condemned; a branded
out- cast from among these honest
men who were, and in the sight of
my Great Judge above still are,
my fellows. My word against
strong damning evidence of crime.
It is truly feeble as a breath—yet
which of these men here has ever
found it false? I go. But though
you never hear of me again, my
master—when sight shall fall into
this dark, and point out the now
doubly guilty criminal—" he turn-ed
here his glance wandering cold-ly
on from watching face to face
—
"it may in that hour soothe you
to remember, he to whom till now
you have been a most noble bene-factor,
pardons your forbearance,
and—so help me God!—will never
suffer it to crush him down to
shame."
He bowed low to the stern un-moved
old man, and set his proud
face toward the door, vouchsafing
not so much as one brief sign to
the companions of that past so
wholly gone and blotted out from
memory forever.
Kot so much a stifled murmur,
as a thrill, went through those
hearers. More than one friendly
grasp might have sought his, but
that the master stood there cold
as changeless marble; waiting till
the recreant should be gone, in
order to speak further with his
faithful household. Beneath that
impassive observation , no eyes, no
hands, were raised to his.
iSTot one?
A slender girl, who the entire
evening had remained shyly
36 The Valhorgsmas Tryst. [Xov.
apart, and, fenced in by her spin-ning-
wheel, had as shyly shaken
her head at Erik's attempts to
draw her into the circling coun-tr5'-
dance or polka—this girl's eyes
had never left him from the first.
And when his tones rang out,
clear and solemn as far echoes of
Dalarna's church-bells, tears not
wholly full of pain, welled up, and
plashed down on her wheel.
He passed her, passed all by,
until he nearly reached the thres-hold.
He would not have lingered
there, nor looked one instant back
on scenes now lost; but that as
swift as thought Elin has risen
up, had crossed the hall, and
stood before him.
"Erik Orn—" she spoke— as
distinctly, that every ear within
the hall must hear—" Heed them
not, thou!—the dastards who dare
not so much as stretch a parting
hand to thee. Thou knowest the
Lord God Himself shall hold thee
up with His right hand."
He bent upon her a long, full,
wondering gaze, made but more
tender by a cloud of anguish inex-pressible.
And then he grasped
her hands, and bowed his head
until his eyes were hid upon them.
She saw the strong frame shake
with terrible though voiceless
sobs, and felt the hot tears stream-ing
through her fingers.
The moment passed. He lifted
himself resolutely. And without
a word—without one backward
glance—amid the awe- struck hush
of that tribunal where he stood
condemned, with only one girl-voice
raised for him—he went on
his way. The door shut to, with
dull and hopeless clang, behind
him.
It was a cloudless, moonless'
starry night, that eve of May-day
in Dalarna. Black heights merg-ed
into blacker skies, with but an
edge of snow along the woodland
fringes. Beneath there, in the
valleys, in the shadow of those
heights, gleamed out a lingering
white patch amid the green which
carpeted the path for Spring's
triumphal entry. Like snow-patches,
too, a cottage here and
there, in dell or on the mountain-side,
flashed forth from clumps of
newly budding birch, or dusky
pines with peaks of burnished red.
Far down upon a sheltered slope
the village church, all hid in ever-greens,
uplifted a gold cross,
which, as the tower was invisible,
seemed held aloft by unseen, angel
hands. A star-beam trembled
greetingly upon it, as though it
alone could draw down heaven to
earth. The broad lake lying at
its foot, was ruffled into sweeping
shadows by the crisp night-breeze^
and silence, darkness, melancholy,
brooded yet one moment over all,
One moment. "With the next,
from height to height resounded,
loud and clear and merrily, the
"lurar- voices," sweet-toned shep-herd
pipers; and at their sum-mons,
upon every dark-browed
hill was set a crown of flame.
Ere long those bonfires of the
Valborgsmas lit up the earth and
heavens from far and wide, until
they were shut out by higher and
more distant peaks, which yet left
all the skies in wavering, mellow
glowings as of sunset- tide.
In every hill, that glow flashed
into view a knot of peasantry in
holiday attire. The varying
costumes of Dalarna parishes
—
1868.] Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. 37
the red and yellow, or more som-bre,
yet not less picturesque, black
and white— contrasted prettily as
strongly, while the peasants join-ed
hands with the gentry met to-gether
there to form the Yalborg
ring, and dance around the fire
roused to ruddier burning. For
by that dance, those fires in their
honors, Dalarna has been wont,
from far back into heathendom,
to win over to good will the elves
and spirits of the air, who, buried
under ground all winter long,
steal up to their blithe, summer
frolics hidden in the bosom of the
opening flowers. On their release,
so wild with joy and mischief are
they, that unless propitiated, they
are prone to play all sorts of
pranks with dairy, orchard, gar-den-
close, and field.
But suddenly one young girl
started from the merry round in
breathless haste. Her eyes, dilat-ed
with horror, were following the
heavy flight of a great owl which
had that instant, unobserved by
any other of those May-eve pil-grims,
brushed with solemn wing
her half averted cheek; and now
betook its ill-omened self to a
more distant pine-tree whence it
might continue unmolested to
blink round at the dark. Elin
well knew what a sure sign of
danger looming in the future, any
evil shape of beast or bird foretold,
by stealing thus within the charm-ed
circle of the Valborg dance.
Heart- sick, she drew apart un-seen.
What could it bode, that
bird, which, from its covert, hoot-ed
forth a sharp, wild cry, as if in
answer to her thoughts? "What
could it bode, but—woe to Eiick
Orn? The only evil which had
power to touch her near, with
burning blushes and fast-beating
heart, she now acknowledged to
herself. She wandered from the
spot where bursts of song accom-panying
the dance, or merriment
round some provision-basket be-ing
unpacked in the clear glow,
struck on her hearing like a
taunt.
And where was Erick? Three
unending days had ended since
that night, and she had heard no
word of him. That he should re-member
her—no, that assuredly
was not to be imagined. Yet if
she but knew—. How noble, and
how true and brave he looked
that night, confronting all! With
not one friend to stand by him
—
the traitor souls!
Such thoughts were whirling
through her mind, as she paused
upon a cliff which overleaned far
Silja. And the tears came fast.
Hot rushing tears, and sobs, broke
from the heart which beat so chill
and heavy underneath the fur-cloak
over which she wrung her
hands. And one Avord would re-peat
itself amid those sobs— an
" Erik, Erik!"—almost lower than
the rustle in the pine-boughs clos-ing
round.
Among those pines, those crags,
dwelt there a something like an
Irish echo, which gave back an
answer to her cry! Eor surel}',
"Elin! Elin!" was breathed near;
but in a tone as thrillingly glad
as hers was sorrowful.
She turned herself about.
Down through the tree behind,
fell ruddy flickerings from the
fires above. Against the trunk,
there leaned a man ; and while
the stalwart figure in dark blue
38 Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. [Nov.,
was left in shade, the noble head,
with wavy masses of fair hair, and
the deep eyes fixed earnestly upon
the maiden, flashed out in relief.
Well might those eyes fix on
the lovely picture, framed in by
the setting of the lake, now gleam-ing
in reflected burnishing. A
right fair Norse picture—the
slight form in graceful garb of
black and white, while the Broka-cap,
which in her hurried move-ment
she had thrown back, left
uncovered glittering braids of gold
interwoven with a scarlet ribbon,
thus resembling a scattered red-bud
garland wound again and
again around the pretty head.
But not long did he gaze in
well-pleased, criticising silence,
while the sweet eyes drooped from
his, the rosy mouth just quivered
in a smile. He called her
—
"Elin!"—once again, and she
sank into his extended arms.
" Thou lovest me, Elin? Heav-en
be praised! Then shall I bat-tle
with my fate so bravely! But
—ah, is it for a ruined man—dis-graced
in all men's sight—to
speak of love to thee?"
The chord of bitterness within
his voice, touched her to the
quick. She hid her face upon his
shoulder, but she said in tones
where mirth was mixed with
tears:
''Art thou then rightly satis-fied
that thou didst speak of love
to me? Or was it I who told thee
—told thee—"
Confessions and counter-con-fessions—
that grim bird was com-pelled
to listen to them all—being,
as the bird of wisdom, loth to dis-turb
herself with seeking out an-other
pine with sheltering hollow
in its blasted trunk. But the
grey attendant of the heavenly
maid could not certainly in pa-tience
bear to hear the follies shy-ly
whispered by this earthly maid.
And so, intending to break in up-on
them with a scornful 'Humph!'
she stretched her solemn visage,
and gave voice to a something
partaking of the nature of both a
scream and a stifled chuckle.
Elin raised a face aghast.
" Erik! Didst thou hear?"—she
whispered—"Was it not the gob-lin
laugh which haunts the moun-tain-
wood, and jeers when ill is to
betide? Thou saidst, we shall
tryst a blither tryst upon another
Valborgsmas, when thou mayst
proudly claim this bride, and none
will wish to say thee nay. That
laugh—it mocked at this, per-haps—
"
" Nay, little Elin, it was but a
warning that the moon is rising
over yonder mountain, and I must
begone. The promised pledge,
thou dear one, ere I heed the
warning:
"
She had loosed one heavy tress
from its sister- coronals, and silent-ly
for answer severed it, and with
soft wavering flush as silently per-mitted
him to lift it and her hand
together, forcing her to place the
tress upon his breast.
"There, for life and for death,
Elin—" he said.
A faint smile stole across her
lips.
'
' They say thou hast all maid-en's
hearts, best Erik. May it not
then happen that some brighter
braid—"
She stopped. She had forgot-ten
how the day was darkly set,
wherein any heart would give it-
1868.] The Valhorgsmas Tryst. 39
self into his keeping. He remem-bered.
The swift loosing of her
hand reminded her. Keminded,
only that two firm small hands
should straightway nestle to his
hold.
"Ah, wouldst thou let me go
with thee—" began she in a blush-ful
murmur,
Euk he interrupted.
"Nay—rather this gold sun-shine
of thine shall keep my heart
warm even in the darkest depths
of Fahlun's mines. I will not
take thee to a ruined life; but,
Elin, thou dear, faithful one upon
some better Yalborgsmas the gra-cious
Lord God shall roll away
the darkness from between us.
Then, unscorned by any, thou
shalt—thus—lie on my breast."
He held her closely there one
moment—then as suddenly re-leased
her. And through blind-ing
tears she watched him spring
down from the cliff, and fling
himself from bough to bough, from
crag to crag. Till presently a
skiff shot from a cove across the
lake, and one within, resting an
instant on his oars, turned round
to wave a last—a last farewell.
Those flames of Yalborgsmas
had quenched themselves in ashes
fifty years ago; when just before
the fires blazed forth once on sum-mit
far and wide in calm Dalarna,
miles away from Silja Lake a soli-tary
vroman journeyed where the
town of Fahlun rose through
smoke-wreaths of its copper- mines.
With feeble steps and slow, sup-ported
by her staff, the aged wan-derer
neared the smoke which
drifted upward from the earth,
and rolled in mist-cascades along
the cliffs and steeps of slag; or
burst forth like the blaze of battle
beating murkily where peak and
crag in wild similitude of tower
and battlement, hung threaten-ingly
above the narrowed way.
The woman moved like those
who walk in dreams. She never
lifted up her sunken head to look
to right or left, as she passed oth-er
roads which opened from the
main one, into other black and
straightened ways and streets of
the half-burnt metal. Only once
she faltered, paused, and stood
there listening; bowed lower yet,
as if in fear; her shaking hands
clasping the staff, while a moan
struck her quivering lips apart:
"The Laugh! the Laugh! It
mocks me again, as on that Yal-borgsmas.
Was it but one Yal-borgsmas
ago? Ah, I am now so
weary, and the days were long,
long! Erik, shall we keep the
tryst together here? That laugh
on Silja—I have fled from it, best
Erik, lest it should mock thee and
keep thee away."
It was the tinkling fall of cop-per-
stained waters dropping
through a cliff against the town.
And as she listened for the phan-tom-
voice again in vain, she
went once more mechanically on.
Before her, sulphurous tongues
of fire lapped against the city
looming in a mist through which
the brilliant sunset wove a thous-and
threads and bands of rose and
gold. Eair sheltering hills on one
side stretch toward Silja, and
conceal a maze of lovely vales and
lakes. Green fields break into
stony districts, and long-lingering
glittering snow-slopes smooth
away, as with a soft white hand,
the ruggedness. But beyond the
40 Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. [i^ov.,
tawD, mine-fumes have parched
both wood and slope, and left a
naked desolation, willi discolor-ed
springs dripping and oozing
through the scant, seared herbage
and the stones—grave stones of
the blossoms which died centuries
ago, all draped in pall of black
funereal lichens.
A grim desolated ruin, not-withstanding
all the wealth of ore
hid deep within its bosom, was
this neighborhood ; and ever had
been, far beyond the memory of
man through generations after
generations back. But not more
•desolate, not more a ruin, hardly
farther passed away from memory
in its beauty and its youth than
this lorn creature tottering on
her way amidst the barrenness.
The subterranean fires breathed
their sharp and poisonous breath
upon the blooming forests and the
verdant hills, and sapped their
very life. And no less had they
withered up her life long years
ago, when Erik vanished in their
mists, and never more emerged,
though May-day Eve had come
and gone, and come and gone
again. Beneath the pine had
Elin trysted, first with hope, then
disappointment, doubt, and at
the last despair and madness.
But this Spring, a roving impulse
seized and forced her to retrace
the steps to Eahlun, which she
once had taken when the lagging
feet were swift with hopes and
fears, the dim eyes bright with ex-pectation
and anxiety, the weary
lips^ager and quick with ques-tions.
Questions none could
solve. One answering to Erik
Orn's description, it is true, had
laboured with his fellow miners
from one May- day till its eve drew
near again. But after that, he
had been seen no more. Where
he was gone, or why, none could
reply; and few had cared to ask,
since he had lived among them
solitary, distant, and unknown.
She had wandered back toward
Silja that same night, as haggard,
and the self-same ruin in heart and
brain, as now she wandered here
again.
Through the well-ordered streets,
and by the comfortable houses,
she passed on. In balconies, and
round the doorways, were gay
groups, and sounds of laughter
and glad greetings, as the neigh-bors
met together for the May-
Eve pilgrimage to wood-crowned
heights without the reach of the
smoke's blasting touch. Some
careless eyes, some soft with pity,
rested on the lonely passer-by;
and more than once the light
laugh checked itself, as overawed
unconsciously, in presence of a
sorrow mightier than all moan.
But Elin went her way without a
glance.
The mining district rose to
view in huts and hills against the
lurid flickering of flames which
tossed up showers of stars to fill
the skies where milder, heaven-lier
stars were not yet ready to
appear. As Elin reached the
mine-house, its clock was chiming
the hour of release to workmen
who were not to labor in the
night. The dying cadence of the
bell, the sinking of the calm, soft
sunset wind, brought somewhat
of their own lull to her restless
spirit. She paused there, leaning
on the railing which fenced round
the opening of the great shaft.
—
1868. Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. 41
Across that opening stood a build-ing
through which was the descent
into the shaft, scores of fathoms
deep. From this small open
house a flood of firelight stream-ed—
a flood which through ages
following ages, ever since the cop-per
was first worked, has never
been permitted to die down. For
tradition has it, that Thor's ham-mer
first rang in the mighty
vaults and endless labyrinth of
red, and gold, and emerald halls
below; and that he kindled the
first flames upon the brink, to
melt away the broken chains of
the cairn-people so long bound be-neath
there, by the giant mount-ain-
king.
Through Elin's darkened mind,
as she gazed into the black vacu-um,
came a remembrance of
those tales. She listened to the
distant, hollow echo of the blast-ing,
and could feel the heaving of
earth's bosom, as with a faint sob.
The past rushed back upon her,
almost clearly. She remember-ed
her long -forgotten doubt of
Erik's faithfulness. The space
elapsed since then, she knew not;
for the second trysting hour seem-ed
just arrived. But a heart-rending
terror smote her for the
first time. TVas he true, and
could not come to keep the tryst?
Had the great mountain-king at
last burst his own fetters, and
heaped them on those who had
dared intrude into his palace?
—
Did the stifled groans, the mo-tions,
which she heard and felt,
break from those captives in the
struggle to wrench ofi" the chains
which bound them to the subter-ranean
rocks? And Erik
—
Dizzy with the sudden fear, she
stared down into the dense dark-ness.
But it was not now so
dense as to be uuillumined by a
gleam. Torches were flashing
there, at first as faint and dim as
glow-worms; and at that great
depth appearing to creep as slow-ly
up the shaft's walls, which the
flaring made apparent.
Up the stairs cut in those walls,
two men who were foremost,
seemed to bear some burthen un-der
which they lifted themselves
cautiously, with frequent pause
for rest. No shout, no cheer pass-ed
up or down from laborer to
laborer. All the sounds which
reached the awakened ear of Elin,
were but far ofli" echoings, or the
flash and rush of waterfalls
through the now empty streets.
She watched the torches steadily
—as if the years and years of wa-vering
were at an end—when sud-denly
they vanished beneath her
very eyes.
This vanishing was nothing so
mysterious, as it appeared to her,
still never stiring from the spot,
and brushing a wan hand across
her brow, as if to clear her wist-ful
vision. For the workmen had
but disappeared through one of
the doors opening from the shaft
to a hidden stairway, which led
up into that same small building
whence the fire- glow flashed on
Elin's worn and grief-bowed fig-ure.
A moment, and that fire-glow
was dimmed by persons passing
it within the building. When it
flashed out once again, it stream-ed
upon a knot of miners in black
blouses, and dark, broad-brimmed
hats which cast a deeper shadow
over grimy features. Elin saw
42 The YaTborgsmas Tryst. [Nov.
,
/ them come out slowly, slowly
—
and lay something down upon the
great shaft's brink, amid the wav-ing,
agitated mass of women,
children, workmen, and officials,
that now gathered round. Some-thing—
the burthen they had borne
up from that awful, dim, myste-rious
deep. Something—the stal-wart,
hardened men, begrimed
with more than the mine's con-tact,
bent over it, their bold eyes
softened strangely as they laid it
down with tender, reverential
touch.
It may be in each mind there
stirred the thought, that upon
him one day the portals of the
earth might close, and comrades
have to bear him up and stretch
him silent in the sun-glow, where
perchance the mother or the sis-ter,
bride, or child, would recog-nize,
and stooping drop a tear
or kiss upon the death- sealed lips.
Ko kiss, no tear, was given
now. Women whose counte-nances
mirrored the arid bloomless
life on hill-sides round, stared
down; and from their bosoms, in-fants
wan and pallid and unchild-like
in their stillness— day-dawn
clouded by the foul breath of the
mines—hung forward, stretching
forth their puny arms, and point-ing,
with a weird and startling
earnestness in the wee faces, to
that rigid, unmoved figure. Awe
there was, and curiosity, and some
compassion—not one tear—no
mourner's sigh—no wail for a
heart's life outstretched there
stark and cold.
iSTone recognized him as a com-rade,
and a murmur of amaze-ment
went from group to group.
He must have perish&d in the
ruined shaft long jears ago, one
said—else would his face have
been familiar.
A movement in the crowd—
a
swaying to and fro, as swayed the
fading sunbeams and the flicker-ing
flames. The solitary wander-er
had drawn near; and with one
consent, as if by instinct, did the
men and women there make way
for her, until the dying light with-in
her eyes fell where the dying
glances of the day yet shone.
As if in slumber he reposed ; one
arm beneath his head with all its
sunny waves of hair undimmed
—
and in his right hand clenched,
the mattock wherewith he had
dug his grave. And yet it could
not be that this was death! The
strong, brave face lay under
heaven with a smile upon the lips
—a smile brilliant and pure as the
reflection of a golden gleam from
the opening gates of Paradise.
The dark eyes shone beneath their
half-closed lids, as though he were
just sinking down to sleep in glad-some
dreams.
The wayfarer, who had paused
to gaze one moment, tottered for-ward,
and sank down, her head
upon his breast.
"Erik! Oh Erik! dost thou keep
the tryst at last?—" she cried out,
with a thrill of joy unutterable in
her broken, quavering tones.
The withered cheek pressed to
the bronzed and ruddy one—the
thin, grey locks entwining with
those shining waves—the white,
worn lips touching those crimson-red
as if with life—the pale eyes
dropping rushing tears of joy up-on
the lowered lashes which now
glittered as though he himself
were weeping—. And the wrink-led,
palsied hand
—
1868.] Baby Power. 43
The wrinkled, palsied hand was
resting on the brawny breast,
where crossed a scarlet riband in-tertwining
a gold braid.
The withered cheek pressed to
that fresh with youth—the grey
hairs mingling with those Time
had never touched—the white lips,
ever whiter, breathing low and
soft the last, faint breath of life
across that smiling mouth—the
faded eyes, their long watch at an
end, their latest tear wept out,
now gazing on the self-same
dream that stole into his half-shut
lids, from Heaven.
Calumny no more hence-forth
may wrench apart the hands now
clasping in eternal troth-plight
underneath the palms, upon the
strand of the bright, glorious sea
of glass.
And as a miner silently advanc-ed,
and reverently covered the
two faces to which death should
render back alike immortal youth,
no dread laugh mocked them from
the naked hills around. Nor
were tears wanting. For with
one accord the multitude sank
down upon their knees, awe-stricken
in the presence of death.
And of a stronger than death
—
whose faithfulness had broken
down the barrier of the grave, and
kept the tryst at last.
At last. Just as the sunset
faded out, and crimson fires of
Yalborgsmas shot uj) the gloam-infj
skies.
BABY POWER.
BY ROSA VBRTNER JEFFREY.
Six little feet to cover,
Six little hands to fill.
Tumbling out in the clover.
Stumbling over the sill.
Six little stockings ripping.
Six little shoes half worn.
Spite of that promised whipping,
Skirts, shirts, and aprons torn!
Bugs and bumble-bees catching,
Heedless of bites and stings,
"Walls and furniture scratching,
Twisting ofi" buttons and strings.
Into the sugar and flour,
44 Bahy Power. Kov.,
Into the salt and meal,
Their royal, baby power,
All through the house we feel!
Behind the big stove creeping.
To steal the kindling wood;
Into the cupboard peeping,
To hunt for " somesin dood."
The dogs they tease to snarling,
The chickens know no rest,
Yet—the old cook calls them "darling,"
And loves each one " the best."
Smearing each other's faces.
With smut or blacking-brush.
To forbidden things and places,
Always making a rush.
Over a chair, or table,
They'll fight, and kiss again
"When told of slaughtered Abel,
Or cruel, wicked Cain.
All sorts of mischief trying,
\jl On sunny days—in doors
—
And then perversely crying
To rush out when it pours.
A raid on Grand-ma making,
—In si^ite her nice new cap,
—
Its strings for bridles taking.
While riding on her lap.
Three rose-bud mouths beguiling.
Prattling the live-long day,
Six sweet eyes on me smiling,
Hazle, and blue, and gray.
—
Hazle—with heart-light sparkling.
Too happy, we trust, to fade
—
Blue—'neath long lashes darkling,
Like violets in the shade.
Gray—full of earnest meaning,
A dawning light so fair,
Of woman's life beginning,
We dread the noon-tide glare
Of earthly strife, and passion,
May spoil its tender glow,
'^
1868.] Windsor Castle. 45
Change its celestial fashion,
As earth-stains change the snow!
Three little heads, all sunny,
To pillow and bless at night.
Riotous Alick and Dunnie,
Jinnie, so bonnie and bright!
Three souls immortal slumber.
Crowned by that golden hair,
TVhen Christ his flock shall number,
Will all my lambs be there?
Xow with the stillness round me,
I bow my head and pray,
" Since this faint heart has found thee,
Suifer them not to stray."
Up to the shining portals.
Over life's stormy tide,
Treasures I bring—immortal.
Saviour be thou my guide.
Lexington, Ky., 1868.
WINDSOR CASTLE.
This stately j)ile is situated in a
westerly direction from London,
at a distance of about twenty
miles. Founded by William the
Conqueror, first as a military for-tress,
and afterwards converted
into a palace, it has been enlarged
and improved by different sover-eigns,
but received the last, mag-nificent
alterations in the time of
George lY., portions of the work
being only completed since the
reign of Queen Victoria.
The Castle itself, on a lofty emi-nence,
has an imposing grandeur,
from its great extent, its beautiful
church, its circular towers; the
great Central Tower being over
three hundred feet in circumfer-ence,
and near three hundred feet
in height above the level of the
Home Park. The first view of the
State apartments however, was a
disappointing one. They were
far less spacious and magnificent
than I anticipated, a feeling which
would perhaps be experienced by
any one who had had the misfor-tune
to have first seen the Paris-ian
palaces. And yet doubtless,
a visit to Windsor and its en-virons
leaves a much more agreea-ble
impression on the mind.
Perhaps some slight allusions to
46 Windsor Castle. [Nov,
the principal apartments would
not be devoid of interest to those
who have never seen them.
We ascended the " Grand Stair-case
" of marble, an appropriate
entrance to the noble edifice, and
passing through the vestibule,
where hangs the portrait of Sir
Jeffrey Wyattville, the architect
who planned the last, elegant im-provements
in the palace, we en-tered
the Queen's Audience
chamber. This, though small, is
rather pleasing, its ceiling, paint-ed
by Verrio, represents Queen
Catherine in a triumphal car, and
attended by the Goddesses of
flowers, grain and fruits, an em-blem
of Great Britain. The
Gobelin Tapestry decorating the
walls, represents portions of the
history of Queen Esther and Mor-decai.
There were also a few por-traits,
the most interesting, those
of William III, and his amiable
Queen Mary.
'Next is the Yandyck room, so
called, from its containing numer-ous
portraits, chiefly of English
royalty, by that favorite artist of
the 17th century. The State-ante-room,
very small, has a ceiling
also painted by Verrio, a banquet
of the Gods. Here are seen some
specimens of carving by Gibbons,
which are very beautiful, and a
portrait in stained glass of George
the Third. The Waterloo cham-ber
has more than ordinary archi-tectural
beauty, and contains
many portraits by different art-ists,
chiefly of illustrious charac-ters,
kings and others, of the
various continental nations.
Among the English portraits, is
one of the Hon. George Canning,
once Prime Minister, and a very
fine one of the Duke of AVelling-ton
as he appeared on the day of
thanksgiving after the battle of
Waterloo. The Queen's State
drawing room called the Zucca-relli
room, from its containing
some fine paintings by that artist,
embracing Scripture scenes, land-scapes,
and the portraits of the
three Kings George, is very
elegantly fitted up, from some
glimpses we obtained of the par-tially
covered furniture. The
grand reception room is the first
which commends itself to the eye
as palatial in its proportions. It
is ninety feet in length, thirty-three
in height, and thirty-four in
breadth, and with the profusion of
rich gilding and carving, the mag-nificent
chandeliers, the numer-ous
elegant mirrors, and the
Gobelin tapestry, representing
scenes from heathen mythology,
is really brilliant and imposing.
St. George's Hall, the grand ban-queting
room, in which is the
throne, is still more spacious, be-ing
two hundred feet in length, the
breadth and height about the
same as the preceding. The ceil-ing
is decorated with a confusing
number and variety of armorial
bearings of the Knights of the
Garter from its origin to the pres-ent
time. On the walls
Object Description
| Rating | |
| Title | Land we love, a monthly magazine devoted to literature, military history, and agriculture. |
| Date | 1866; 1867; 1868; 1869 |
| Subjects |
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Periodicals Confederate States of America--Periodicals United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Veterans |
| Place | North Carolina |
| Time Period | (1860-1876) Civil War and Reconstruction |
| Description | Merged into the New eclectic magazine of Baltimore (called later The Southern magazine).; Title from cover. |
| Publisher | J. P. Irwin, D. H. Hill |
| Rights | Public Domain see http://digital.ncdcr.gov/u?/p249901coll22,63753 |
| Collection |
General Collection. State Library of North Carolina |
| Type | text |
| Language | English |
| Format | Periodicals |
| Digital Characteristics-A | 5713 KB; 82 p. |
| Digital Collection | General collection |
| Digital Format | application/pdf |
| Title Replaced By | New eclectic |
| Audience | All |
| Pres File Name-M | gen_bm_serial_landwelove186605.pdf |
| Capture Tools-M | scribe4.indiana.archive.org |
Description
| Title | Land we love,a monthly magazine devoted to literature, military history, and agriculture. |
| Date | 1868 |
| Subjects |
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Periodicals Confederate States of America--Periodicals |
| Place | North Carolina |
| Time Period | (1860-1876) Civil War and Reconstruction |
| Description | Vol. 6 of 6; Merged into the New eclectic magazine of Baltimore (called later The Southern magazine). |
| Publisher | Charlotte,J. P. Irwin,D. H. Hill [etc.]. |
| Rights | Public Domain see http://digital.ncdcr.gov/u?/p249901coll22,63753 |
| Collection |
General Collection. State Library of North Carolina |
| Type | text |
| Language | English |
| Format | Periodicals |
| Digital Characteristics-A | 6086 KB; 97 p. |
| Digital Collection | General collection |
| Digital Format | application/pdf |
| Title Replaced By | New eclectic |
| Audience | All |
| Pres File Name-M | gen_bm_serial_landwelove186811.pdf |
| Full Text | WRTH CAROLINA STATE LIBRARY RALEIGH THE LAND WE LOYE. No. I. NOVEMBER, 1868. YoL. VI. BATTLE OF EUTAW. We must return to the main battle. "We have seen Sum-ner, with his brigade, taking the place vacated by the militia. He, at length, yielded to the superior force and fire of the enemy. As his brigade wavered, shrank, and finally yielded, the hopes of the British '^rew sanguine. With a wild yell of victory, they rushed forward to complete their sup-posed triumph, and , in doing so , their line became disordered. — This afforded an opportunity of which Greene promptly availed himself. He had anticipated this probability, and had waited anx-iously for it. He was now ready to take advantage of it, and gave his order—to Otho Williams, in command of the Marylanders "Let Williams advance, and sweep the field with his bayonets ! ' ' And Williams, heading two brigades—those of Maryland and Virginia—swept forward with a shout. When within forty yards of the British, . the Virginians poured in a destructive fire, under which their columns reeled and shivered as if struck by lightning ; and then the whole second line, the three brigades, with trailed arms, and almost at a trot, darted on to the savage issue of naked steel, hand to hand, with the desperate bayonet. The terrible fire of the Virginians, followed up by the charge of the second line, and seconded, at this lucky junct-ure, by the legion infantry, which suddenly poured in a most destructive fire upon the now ex-posed flank of the British left, threw the whole line into irre-trievable disorder. But the bay-onets of certain sections were crossed, though for a moment only; men were transfixed by one another, and the contending offi-cers sprang at each other with their swords! The left of the British centre at this vital moment, pressed * Extract from Eutaw, a tale of the Kevolutiou, liy W. Gilmore Simms, Esq. VOL. VI.—NO. I. 1 Battle of Eataw. [Nov., upon by their own fugitives, yield-ed under the pressure, and the Marylanders now delivering their fire, hitherto reserved, completed the disaster! Along the whole front, the enemy's ranks wavered, gave way finally, and retired sul-lenly, closely pressed by the shouting Americans. The victory was won!—so far, a victory was won ; and all that was necessary was to keep and confirm the triumph. But the battle was not over. The battle of Eutaw was a ii«o-act, we might say a i/iree-act,drama—such were its vicissitudes. At the moment when the British line gave way, had it been pressed without reserve by the legion cavalry, the disaster must have been irretrievable. But this seems not to have been done. — Why, can not now be well ex-plained, nor is it exactly within our province to undertake the ex-planation. Lee himself was at this moment with his infantry, and they had just done excellent service. It is probable that Cof-fin's cavalry was too much for that of the legion; and this body, sustained by a select corps of bayonets, protected the British in the quarter which w^as first to yield. It now remained for the Americans to follow up their suc-cesses. The British had been driven from their first field. It was the necessity of the Ameri-cans that they should have no time to rally upon other ground, especially upon the ground so well covered by the brick-house, and the dense thicket along the creek which was occupied by Marjoribanks. But a pursuing army, where the cavalry fails in its appointed duty, can never overtake a fugi-tive force, unless , emulating their speed, it breaks its own order. This, if it does, it becomes fugi-tive also, and is liable to the worst dangers from the smallest reverse. This is, in truth, the very error which the Americans committed, and all their subsequent misfor-tunes sprang entirely from this one source. The British yielding slowly from left to right—the right very reluctant to retire — and the Americans pressing upon them just in the degree in which the two sections yielded, both armies performed together a half-wheel, which brought them into the open grounds in front of the house. In this position the Marylanders were brought suddenly under the fire of the covered party of Marjoribanks, in the thicket. — This promised to be galling and destructive. Greene saw that Marjoribanks must be dislodged, or that the whole force of the enemy would rally; and Colonel Washington was commanded to charge the thicket. He did so very gallantly; was received by a terrible fire, which swept away scores of men and horses. Dead-ly as was this result, and absurd as was the attempt, the gallant trooper thrice essayed to pene-trate the thickets, and each time paid the terrible penalty of his audacity in the blood of his best soldiers. The field, at one mo-ment, was covered with his wounded, plunging, riderless horses, maddened by their hurts. All but two of his officers were 1868.] Battle of Eutaw. brought to the ground. He him-self fell beneath his horse, wound-ed; and, while such was his situa-tion, Marjoribanks emerged with his bayonets from his thickets, and completed the defeat of the squadron. Washington himself was narrowly saved from a British bayonet, and was made a prisoner. It was left to Hampton, one of his surviving officers, who was fortunately unhurt, to rescue and rally the scattered survivors of his gallant division, and bring them on again to the fruitless charge upon Marjoribanks. — Hampton was supported in this charge by Kirkwood's Delawares; but the result was as fruitless as before. The very attempt was suicidal. The British major was too well posted, too strongly covered, too strong himself in numbers and the quality of his troops, to be driven from his ground, even by shocks so de-cided and frequently repeated, of the sort of force sent against him. Up to this moment, nothing had seemed more certain than the victory of the Americans, The consternation in the British camp was complete. Everything was given up for lost, by a consider-able portion of the army. The commissaries destroyed their stores, the loyalists and American deserters, dreading the rope, seizing every horse which they could command, lied incontinent-ly for Charleston, whither they carried such an alarm, that the stores along the road were de-stroyed, and trees felled across it for the obstruction of the vic-torious Americans, who were sup-posed to be pressing down upon the city with all their might. Equally deceived were the conquerors. Flushed with suc-cess, the infantry scattered them-selves about the British camp, which, as all the tents had been left standing, presented a thousand objects to tempt the appetites of a half- starved and half-naked sol-diery. Insubordination followed disorder ; and they were only made aware of the danger of hav-ing victory changed into a most shameful defeat, by -finding them-selves suddenly brought under a vindictive fire from the windows of the brick house, into which Major Sheridan had succeeded in forcing his way, with a strong body of sharp-shooters. The field now presented an appearance of indescribable terror and confusion. Small squads were busy in separate strifes, here and there; the American officers vainly seeking to rally the scatter-ed regulars ; the mounted parti-zans, seeking to cover the fugi-tives; while, from the house, the command of Sheridan was blaz-ing away with incessant musket-ry, telling fearfully upon all who came within their range. Mean-while, watchful of every chance, Marjoribanks changed his ground, keeping still in cover, but nearer now to the scene of action, and with a portion of his command concealed behind the picketed garden. In this position he sub-jected the American cavalry to another severe handling, as they approached the garden, deliver-ing a fire so destructive, that, ac-cording to one of the colonels on Hampton's left : " He thought every man killed but himself!" Battle of Eutav). [Xov., The two six-pounders of the Americans, which had accompa-nied their second line, were brought up to batter the house. But, in the stupid ardor of those having them in charge, they had been run up within fifty yards of the building, and the cannoniers were picked olf by Sheridan's marksmen as fast as they ap-proached the guns. The whole fire from the windows was con-centrated upon the artillerists, and they were either all killed or driven away. This done, Mar-joribanks promptly sallied forth from his cover into the field, seized upon the abandoned pieces and hurried them under cover of the house before any effort could be made to save them. He next charged the scattered parties of Americans among the tents, or upon the field, and drove them before him. Covered, finally, by the mounted men of Marion and Hampton, the infantry found safety in the wood, and were rallied. The British were too much crippled to follow, and dared not advance from the immediate cover of their fortress. No more could be done. The laurels won in the first act of this exciting drama were all withered in the second. Both parties claimed a victory. It belonged to neither. The British were beaten from the field at the point of the bayonet; sought shelter in a for-tress, and repulsed their assailants from that fortress. It is to the shame and discredit of the Ameri-cans that they were repulsed. The victory was in their hands. Bad conduct in the men, and bad generalship, sufficed to rob them deservedly of the honors of the field. But most of the advanta-ges remained in their hands. — They had lost, it is true, severely ; twenty-one of our officers perish-ed on the field: and the aggre-gate of killed, wounded and miss-ing, exceeded one-fourth of the number with which they had gone into battle. Henderson, Pickens, Howard, and many other officers of distinction, were among the wounded. They had also lost two of their field-pieces, and had taken one of the enemy; and all these losses, and the events which distinguished them, were quite sufficient to rob them of the tri-umph of the day. But, on the other hand, the losses of the Brit-ish were still greater. The Americans had chased them from the field at the point of the bayo-net; this was a moral loss; plun-dered their camp ; and at the close held possession of the field. Stewart fled the next day, his retreat covered by Major M'Ar-thur, with a fresh brigade from Fairlawn, which had been called up for his succor. Marion and Lee made a fruitless attempt to intercept this reinforcement. But the simultaneous movement of Stewart and M'Arthur enabled them to effect a junction, and thus outnumber the force of Marion. Stewart fled, leaving seventy of his wounded to the care of his enemies. He destroyed his stores, broke up a thousand stand of arms, and, shorn of all unneces-sary baggage, succeeded in get-ting safely to Fairlawn. His slain, wounded, and missing, num-bered more than half the force with which he had gone into bat- 1868.] Nameless 1 6 tie. The Americans carried off losses occurred after the battle, ia four hundred and thirty prison- the death of Marjoribanks, who ers, which, added to the seventy had unquestionably saved the taken in the morning, made an whole British army. He died, aggregate of five hundred. One not long a,fter, on the road to •of the heaviest of the British Charleston. nameless! BY. H. T. STANTON, There were great lights from the palace , Streaming on the outer trees. That with fleckings thro' the trellis, Play'd a-tremor at his knees, As a nainstrel, stranger, friendless Underneath the walls of Fame, Sat in silence, while the endless Kotes of glory-music came. Paths to him were tangled—aimless. As he leaned within the shade Telling o'er the wonders, nameless. That his poet-heart had made: — " Could he pass the amber portal, " And the jasper halls along, " Where the poet-souls immortal, " Held their revelry of song?" " Could he strike a chord of sorrow, " In the upper, choral spheres, "Where, to-morrow and to-morrow, " It would echo down the years? " Could he grasp the ivy clinging " At the marble casement now, " And, amid the spirits-singing, "Wear it, deathless, on his brow?" Nameless ! . [Kov., Once he thought to climb the terrace, To the open, opal gate. Where, beyond the sweeping arras, Swelled the voices of the great; Where the stricken harp-strings, golden, Gave their notes in high accord. To the music-stories olden. To the glory of the Lord ! But his soul, a-fear, and simple, Shrinking outward, turned away, While the great lights from the temple Drove the night time from the day: ' ' I shall seek the shadow yonder, " Underneath the sombre pine; "These are harp-notes, higher, grander, " Than may ever be from mine." Soft he touched the strings , like summer Touching o'er the barren trees, And the night bore out their murmurs, Thro' its alleys to the seas, — Softer, sweeter passed the cadence, Thro' the branches and above, As come visions unto maidens. In the budding time of love. Thro' the gates of opal splendor, And along the jasper wall. Float the notes of music tender Down the corridor and hall; And his tones swell in the chamber From the shadow and the gloom. And their liquid echoes clamber Up the arras to the dome. And they rise and fall as billows, In the alcoves of the air; Passing in and out the willows, And across, beyond the mere. High, and grand, and godly power. Sweeps along the palace eaves. Till the ivy-vine in tlower. Trembles music from its leaves. 1868.] Battle of Pleasant Hill And the poet-souls may listen, To the outer harp to-night, And the great lamps, gleam and glisten . In their ecstasy of light;— , These are music tones undying, — These are worthy highest name, From the poet-spirit lying Underneath the walls of Fame. SKETCHES OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864. Walker's Division—Battle of Pleasant Hill. SKETCH NO. 2. BY COLONEL T. R. BONNER, ISTH TEXAS INFANTRY. "Fierce The conflict grew; the din of arms—the yell Of savage rage —the shriek of agony — The groan of death, commingled in one sound Of undistinguished horror; while the sun Eetiring slow beneath the plain's far verge. Shed o'er the quiet hills his fading light." [ SoutJiey''s 3Iadoc The dawn of the morning of about us, were the lifeless forms ihe 9th April disclosed to our of friends and foes, mingled to-view the reality of the Federal re- gether in one common death. — treat. Before us, in the light of In almost every conceivable atti-day, and stripped of the pomp tude could be seen the dead bodies and pageantry of "glorious war" of men, mutilated by the missiles lay the closing scene of the pre- of destruction, some still bearing vious night's battle. Around and the horrible impress of the death Battle of Pleasant Hill. [Xov., agony—some with stern, unre-laxed features, still showing the fierce passions which animated them at the moment of their fall —and others with mild, placid lineaments as though they had just sunk to gentle slumber. All who saw him will remember the appearance of one dead Federal soldier, who had fallen in the edge of the field. His death shot must have done its work in a moment, for as he lay there, stark and stifi", he still held in his left hand his En-field rifle, while between the thumb and forefinger of his right, he grasped a cartridge, the end of which he had apparently just bit-ten ofl", as it was still clenched be-tween his teeth. But the stirring events before us forbade our long indulgence in the sad reflections necessarily incident to such scenes. With a hasty tear for our dead comrades, and a sigh for the wounded, we were called away to to the stern duties of the soldier. The night and day before had been passed by our troops with-out food; but at^7 o'clock that morning , we received an insufla-cient quantity of beef and bread — the usual variety of a Confederate soldier's bill of fare. During our hasty repast, the Missouri and Arkansas infantry, under Gen. Churchill, which had been march-ing all night, filed past us , mov-ing on in the direction of Pleasant Hill. Had they arrived the day before, there can be no doubt the victory of Mansfield would hav.e been far more decisive. Their presence now, however, invigora-ted our little army, and we greet-ed them with shouts of welcome. This body of troops numbered about 4,000 men, and were in fine spirits, and anxious to share in our glories. Our cavalry and some artillery had been sent forward at the early dawn, and the distant firing of cannon indicated that even the rear of the enemy's retreating columns were already many miles away. After leaving a detach-ment to bury our dead, the wound-ed having previously been cared for, we took up the line of march, following immediately in the rear of Gen. Churchill's division. — Soon we began to see indications of the rapid and disorderly retreat of the Federals. All along the road were evidences of great de-moralization. Dead horses, burn-ing wagons, and broken ambu-lances were visible at almost every turn of the road. In one ambu-lance we saw an unclosed coffin, containing a dead body, said to be that of a distinguished Federal officer. After marching a short distance, we began to meet squads of Federal prisoners, who, unable to keep up with the Federal army in its hasty retreat, were picked up by our eagerly pursuing cav-alry. A large proportion of these prisoners were Zouaves ; and their red, uncouth, unmanly looking uniform excited much laughter among our men, and many jokes were created at the expense of these "Joabs" as they were called. It was expected that our caval-ry would check the Federal army before it reached Pleasant Hill, some sixteen miles from the battle ground of the Sth. But in this they failed, and the enemy having been joined by heavy reinforce- 1868.] Battle of Pleasant Hill. merits, resolved to make a stand at that place. Having marched to "within three miles of Pleaeant Hill, we could plainly hear the sharp firing of our cavalry, who were skirmishing with the enemy. Occasionally the report of a field-piece would call forth from our boys the exclamation, "Battalion lie down." This was a command of their own making, and from a little incident which occurred in the early part of the war, it, by a common understanding, bore the signification that there was "dan-ger ahead." Here our division halted to permit the main portion of our artillery to pass, which soon came rattling along the road in a sweeping trot. It was about 4 o'clock, p. m., that preparation was made for the approaching battle. The enemy numbering 28,000 men, were posted behind temporary breastworks, within one mile of Pleasant Hill, their line extending Xorth and West of the town, and on both sides of the road leading to Mansfield. Im-mediately in front of that part of their position, opposed by "Walk-er's division, was a large open field, nearly half a mile in width. Opposed to this large force, we had not exceeding 13,000 men. Churchill's division, and Scurry's brigade, (of Walker's division,) which had been detached for the occasion and ordered to report to Gen. Churchill, constituted the right of our line. Walker's di-vision, the centre, with its left resting on the Mansfield road, and Mouton's division, then command-ed by Gen. Polignac, with the cavalry of Gen. Greene, the left. Several batteries of artillery were planted on the road to the left of Walker's division, and on the Mansfield road. Soon the tremendous firing of our splendid artillery presaged the commencement of the battle. We 'had about 30 pieces , which were opposed by at least an equal number from the enemy's line, and for half an hour their rude throats did seem to "counterfeit the immortal Jove's dread clam-ors." Owing to the intervention of a skirt of timber land, covered with thick undergrowth, we could not see the position of the Federal lines. But passing through the timber, we entered the open field, on the opposite side of which, and in the timber, the enemy were posted. Here we halted to reform our ranks, which had become partially broken in passing through the timber. — Churchill had already commenced the attack upon the right. Far away to the right and left stretch-ed the field which was so soon to be the scene of human slaughter. Loud and long came the echo of small arms from the right of the line, and louder still resounded the thunder of the batteries upon our left. While we were reforming our ranks, Randall's brigade separa-ted from ours (Waul's) by a large ravine, emerged from the timber, and entered the field. The ar-tillery then ceased firing, and, without halting, this noble brig-ade marched in fine order to the at-tack. It was indeed sublime to see them led by Gen. Ptandall, in person, with banners proudly fly-ing, and their bright guns glitter-ing in the sunlight. But we were 10 Battle of Pleasant Hill. [Xov. not long permitted to remain idle spectators of this animating scene. In a few moments our brigade was ordered forward. Arriving to within 400 yards of the enemy, we were commanded to " change direction to the left" with inten-tion to support Gren. Eandall in his attack. But scarcely had this movement commenced before the enemy, still concealed from our view by the temporary breast-works in the timber, opened fire upon us from our original front. Gen. EandalPs brigade was now hotly engaged, and soon, along the whole line, from right to left, the action became general. With-out further direct command, and acting from the impulse of the moment alone, the men of our brigade rushed towards that por-tion of the enemy's line which had fired upon us. Then indeed came the " tug of war." We advanced, not with that steady step which characterized our movements at Mansfield, but with a wild, reck-less impetuosity. Though it sa-vors not of good discipline, yet it is true, that every soldier became his own leader—every man gave his own command—" charge ! charge 1^^ The enemy poured a violent and destructive fire into the breasts of our advancing men, and they fell by scores. Yet on they rushed, all seemingly actua-ted with the same impulse. Our only hope of success seemed to be to drive the enemy, but to accom-plish this looked almost like rush-ing to certain death. But there was no time for reflection. Re-gardless of discipline, and with no other guide than the smoke of the enemy's guns, we still pressed on. Eeaching a point within about 125 yards of the enemy's line, we unexpectedly came upon a gully, which had been washed out about three feet deep, and ran parallel with their line. Involuntarily we sought protection in this timely shelter from the storm of bullets hurled against us. Many of our men had already been killed or wounded, and our line having be-came totally disorganized by rea-son of this, and the impetuosity of the charge, to have continued the onset without reforming our broken ranks, would probably have caused the destruction of the entire brigade. The protection thus aftbrded, placed us someAvhat upon an equality in point of posi-tion with the enemy, and for an hour we replied, with efi"ect, to their incessant firing. Observa-tions next day upon this part of the field proved the truth of this assertion, for large numbers of the Federals were found dead op-posite the line of our brigade, the greater portion of them being shot in the head. During the hour which passed while these things were trans-piring. Gen. Randall's brigade was engaged in a desperate con-flict. ISTever was more bravery evinced, or a greater determina-tion to succeed, than was here manifested by Gen. Randall and the daring men of his brigade. — They would charge almost to the enemy's line, and being driven back, would reform and again rush to the attack. At one time they broke the enemy's line, and captured a number of prisoners; but not being sufficiently support-ed, were again compelled to re- 1868.] Battle of Pleasant Hill. 11 tire. All around us could be heard the horrid din of battle, and the air was filled with the savage yell of contending thou-sands. It was now nearly sunset. A momentary pause in the battle was regarded as a prelude to a charge upon us by the enemy. — Preparation was quickly made to resist it. After waiting a few moments, and finding that this was not their intention, but rath-er suspecting that they were pre-paring to leave the field, we re-solved to make an efibrt to rout them. Leaping from our shelter, we rushed to the attack. But a fearful and murderous fire, from both our front and right oblique, compelled us to fall back to the gully again. At this propitious moment, our artillery, which had been silent during the struggle of the infantry, once more belched forth its thunders, and its wel-come notes fell like sweet music upon our ears. The famous Yal-verde battery, captured from the enemy in Arizonia, posted to our left and rear, began to throw its shells, which, passing just over our line, fell in the enemy's ranks. Gen. Kandairs brigade, which had been so often repulsed, was again ready to charge, and our brigade prepared for a simulta-neous movement. As soon as the Yalverde battery ceased its firing, both brigades rushed upon the enemy, and this time with com-plete success. Thrown into con-fusion by the firing of the artillery, followed by our rapid charge, they fied in disorder from the field, leaving their dead, wounded and some prisoners in our hands. Night alone prevented the pur-suit of the routed Federals by our division. I am unable to give details of the battle on any part of the line except that occupied by "Walker's division, and can only state that on the left the troops of Generals Green and Polignac were success-ful. Xot so on the right. Gen. Churchill's command, including Gen. Scurry's brigade, were op-posed by a double line of the ene-my. The first line was driv-en almost into the town, but the attack upon the second line was signally repulsed, and Gen. Churchill compelled to retire with a loss of over 400 men and officers captured, a large portion of whom belonged to Gen. Scurry's brigade. The whole force of the enemy re-treated under cover of the night, in great disorder, towards Natchi-toches, on Bed Eiver. Leaving our cavalry in i^osses-sion of the field, the entire infan-try force was unexpectedly with-drawn to a large Steam Mill, eight miles from the battle ground, on the road to Mansfield. This was said to be done because of the impracticability of procuring sup-plies for our hungry troops if we remained at Pleasant Hill. It is true that we had tasted food only once in forty-eight hours, and then only an inadequate supply; we had also marched 15 miles since 8 o'clock that morning, and had been engaged in the battle of the evening; to compel us, after this, to march back eight miles after night, under pretence of ob-taining supplies, was not favorably received. It appeared too much like a retreat; we believed then, 12 Battle of Pleasant Bill. [Nov. , and still think we had gained a victory. It would not certainly have been a very dilficult matter to bring the wagons, laden with the supplies captured at Mans-field, to the front, and thus saved us that long, weary night-march. Had this been done we would have been prepared to pursue the retreating enemy next day, and thus followed up the hard earned victories of the 8th and 9th. But whatever may have been the mo-tives which prompted this move-ment, the sequel will show that but a small portion of the infant-ry engaged at Pleasant Hill par-ticipated in the remainder of the Red River campaign. The loss of our little army at the battles of Mansfield and Pleas-ant Hill, will give some idea of the fierceness of these two days struggles. Following each other in such quick succession, it would be difficult to enumerate separate-ly the loss in each. Our loss in both battles amounted to not less than 2500 men killed, wounded and missing. Of this number Walker's division lost 1200, in-cluding over 300 captured from Scurry's brigade on the last day. Heavy as was the loss of the Confederate troops, that of the Federals far exceeded it. Their killed and wounded was estimated to be double that of the Confed-erates at Mansfield, and equally as large at Pleasant Hill, while their loss in prisoners was over 2500. Beside this we captured 250 wagons, loaded with quarter-master, commissary and medical stores, and camp equipage, a large number of fine ambulances, 21 pieces of artillery, and Enfield Rifles enough to supply all the troops engaged. I believe it is generally conceded that the Enfield Rifle is a supe-rior war gun to the old musket, and I shall not gainsay it, yet, from some cause, which modesty forbids the unfortunate Confed-erates to mention, we used these inferior muskets until, upon the open field, we boldly won the rifle. Gen. Banks also confirmed his unquestionable reputation as a good Confederate commissary. But it is sad to think of the brave men who were killed and wounded. Generals Walker and Scurry were both wounded at Pleasant Hill. Many other offi-cers of less military note, yet some of them formerly distin-guished in civil life in Texas, and very many private soldiers were either killed or wounded. The troops from the four difierent States which constituted our little army on this occasion, are entitled to equal praise and equal com-mendation for the gallantry dis-played in the engagement of Pleasant Hill. The hardy sons of Missouri rushed side by side with the bold Arkansians in the fierce conflict, while the fearless men of Texas raised their voices in the same deafening shout of triumph with the tried veterans of Louisiana. Together they fought for the same loved cause! to-gether they died upon the same gory field! and together they sleep in the same common arave. 1868.] Tlie Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 13 THE VANITY AND THE GLORY OF LITERATURE. BY CHAS. S. DOD, JR. This is a book-making age. — We doubt -whether it could prop-erly be characterized as preemi-nently literary ; but it is certainly more of a hook-mciking age than any of its predecessors. Thou-sands of presses throughout the civilized world are working night and day to scatter the teeming sheets that shall carry intelligence to the million. Every gentleman of wealth possesses his library; every considerable city of Chris-tendom has its public reading rooms, where the well-filled shelves attest the ease with which books are accumulated in this day of rapid authorship, rapid printing, and rapid reading. Let the thoughtful man stand in the midst of such gigantic collections of books as greet his eye in the As-tor or Bodleian library, and what a curious train of reflection must run through his mind as he thinks on the myriads of busy brains and industrious pens and swift-work-ing presses, whose combined la-bors have presented him this in-tellectual feast! The sage, whose dust has been mingled with the earth for two thousand years — the epic singer, whose stirring lines, echoing the din of battle, are no longer wafted by the breeze over his native hills, or answered by the deep-voiced responses of the far-resoundinar sea, whose shores have for ages forgotten the impress of his wandering feet — the vehement orator, whose roll-ing periods bore along the excited and tumultuous throng of listen-ers as the mountain-torrent does the dry leaves of autumn, but whose voice has long been dumb as the grave—these have their place in the mausoleums of litera-ture, side by side with the gilt-edged volume of sonnets or the more substantial scientific treatise, whose authors are still alive and sensitive to the opinions of their fellow-men. And let the observer reflect, as he gazes upon the mass of reading here stored away, and for the mastering of which no one human life is sufiiciently long let him reflect how unremittingly the Briarean and sleepless presses of our day are adding fresh accu-mulations to the already groaning shelves, and he cannot refrain from speculating on the probable consequences. Many at first will probably be inclined to predict that man-kind will, in the end, be oppress-ed by the very excess of their in-tellectual wealth—as Spain was by the abundance of silver that flowed into her lap from Mexico and Peru—and that a superabun-dance of books, like a superabun-dance of the precious metals, will lead to the impoverishment and 14 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov. decay of the countries so equivo-cally blest. The diligent and con-centrated study of a few books, they will tell you, is better than the careless, diffusive, and desul-tory reading of whole libraries; and a habit of reading in this way is too apt to be engendered by the multifarious stores of lit-erature and learning now spread out invitingly before the student. Perpetual access to a large library is undoubtedly often more of an impediment than a help to the thorough digestion of knowledge. Most readers have been aware of the fastidious mood with which, in moments-, of leisure, they have stood before a goodly array of at-tractive books, and instead of making a substantial repast, as they would have done with less to distract their choice, have humor-ed the vagaries of a delicate ap-petite— toyed with this rich dainty and that—and after all have felt like a school boy who has dined upon tarts; they have spoiled their digestion without satisfying their hunger! It by no means follows, then, as a matter of inevitable necessity, that knowledge will increase in the same ratio as books are mul-tiplied. If the result of the mul-tiplication of books should be that superficial and llimsy knowl-edge which is gained by reading a little on an infinity of subjects without prolonged and systematic attention to any, the effect will be almost or fully as disastrous as an invasion of barbarism, like that of the Goths, which swept the liter-ature of the ancients into the monasteries of the middle ages, leaving all other parts of the field flooded with ignorance. A mill will not go if there be no water; it will be as effectually stopped if there be too much. In short, it may seem, with regard to the quantity of literature accumulated on the hands of this generation, that this is one of those cases to which the old paradoxical maxim applied, " the half is greater than the whole." The disastrous result, at which we have hinted, would certainly be realized if men were to attempt to make their studies at all com-mensurate with the increase of books around them. Compelled to read something of everything, they would really know nothing of anything. And, in fact, we see this tendency more or less fully exemplified in the case of vast numbers, who, without defi-nite purpose or judicious selec-tion of subjects, spend such time as they can spare for mental culti-vation, in little less than the casual perusal of fragments of all sorts of books; who live on the scraps of an infinite variety of broken meats which they have stufled into their beggar's wallet; scraps, which, after all, just keep them from absolute starvation. — There are not a few men who would have been learned, if not wise, had the paragraphs and pa-ges they have read been on well-defined and mutually-connected topics; but who, as it is, possess nothing beyond fragments of un-certain, inaccurate, iil-remem-bered, unsj-stematized informa-tion, resembling the vague, con-fused images of a sick man's dreams, rather than the clear thinkings of a healthy and vigor-ous brain. 1868.] Hie Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 15 Fortunately, this tendency to diffusive and careless reading "which must accompany the un-limited increase of books, is not "without a corrective tendency on the other side. The majority of men "will, as heretofore, read only "what answers their purpose on the particular subjects "which ne-cessity or inclination prompts them to cultivate. Men no longer pant in ambitious but ill-judged at-tempts after encyclopaedic infor-mation; the field of knowledge,ex-panded as it now is, in every di-rection, does not admit of uni-versal conquerors; students must select their speciality and lend the whole of their energies upon it, leaving other parts of the field to be worked by other laborers. It is not variety and extent of knowledge so much as habits of close and pa-tient thought which the student should seek to acquire; and the thorough investigation of a limi-ted class of subjects is a severer and more profitable mental dis-cipline than the vain attempt to range, like a freebooter, over the whole wide ocean of knowledge. As books increase , efforts more and more strenuous will be made, from time to time, to digest and systematize the ever-growing ac-cumulations of literature, and to provide the best possible clues through this immense and bewil-dering labyrinth, or rather through the several parts of it. A very useful book (if we could have a Leibnitz or a Gibbon for its author) might be written on the art of reading in the most profitable manner, so as to attain the greatest results at the smallest outlay of time. True, we have several "Student's Hand-books" and things of that sort; but they give us, for the most part, only hints, many of them quite wise and valuable, but not mapping out the domains of knowledge, and setting up guide-posts to di-rect us in the shortest roads to the various points we may desire to reach. In the meantime, let the student adhere to the maxim so warmly approved by the great historian just mentioned, "m«Z-tum legere, potius quam mitZia." Instead of idly taking up a book and following the author with only the effort necessary to com-prehend him, let the student ex-amine the scope and context of the works referred to, which aided the author in his composition; let him bring into juxtaposition with his subject, whatever cognate or illustrative knowledge his own previous reading may have sup-plied him with; and, above all, let him incorporate his author's thoughts into his own mind by mingling with them original re-fiections or deductions of his own, suggested by what he has read. In this way a much deeper and better compacted knowledge will be obtained, and at the same time much more under the command of the memory, than if he had skimmed over the surface of the subject, taking no pains to fish up the pearls lying at the bottom. These collateral aids, drawn from the comparison of different au-thors on the same subject, are like reflectors which increase in-definitely the intensity of light, and render a subject luminous which would otherwise be ob-scure. How instructive are the 16 Tae Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov., following words of Gibbon—him-self a conspicuous example of what even a post-diluvian life, in-dustriously employed, may ac-complisb: "We ought to attend not so much to the order of our books as of our thoughts. The perusal of a particular work gives birth perhaps, to ideas uncon-nected with the subject it treats; I pursue these ideas, and quit my proposed plan of reading." .... " I suspended my perusal of any new books on a subject, till I had reviewed all that I knew, or believed, or had thought on it, that I might be qualified to dis-cern how much the authors added to my original stock." After all, it is the thinking which we do that educates us, and not the reading. Our safe-guard against the formation of the pernicious habit of desultory reading, lies in the formation of sound habits of mind—the dis-cipline of the faculties—a thing of infinitely more importance than the variety of the information ac-quired. "Without stopping any longer to examine this paradox-whether the multiplication of books is to pro-duce a diminution of knowledge, or not—there are other conse-quences of the prodigious activity of the modern press, far more certain to arise, and which well deserve a little consideration. One of the most obvious of these consequences will be the dis-appearance from the world of that always rare animal, the so-called "universal scholar." Even of that ill-defined creature called a " well-informed man" and " general student" it will be per-petually harder, as time goes on, to find examples; and assuredly the Scaligers and the Leibnitzes must become as extinct as the ichthyosaurus or the megatherium. The remark is common that it is impossible for the human mind to prosecute, with thoroughness and accuracy, researches in all, or even in many, of the difierent branches of learning; that what is gained in surface, is lost in depth; that the principle of the " division of labor " applies here as strictly as in the arts and man-ufactures, and that each mind must restrict itself to a few limited subjects, if any are to be actually mastered. All this is very true. Yet it is equally true that in the pursuit of knowledge, the principle of the " division of labor " finds limits to the pro-priety of its application much sooner than in handicrafts. A certain amount of knowledge of several subjects, often of many ^ is-necessary to render an acquaint-ance with any one of them service-able ; and without it, the most minute knowledge of any one alone would be like half a pair of scissors, or a hand with but one finger. Wliat that amount is, must be determined by the cir-cumstances of the individual and the object for which he wants it. There are opposite dangers. — The knowledge of each particular thing that a man can study will always be imperfect. The most minute philosopher cannot pre-tend perfection of knowledge even in his small domain. No subject can be mentioned which is not inexhaustible to the spirit of man. Whether he looks at nature 1868.] The Vanity and the Olory of Literature. 17 through the microscope or the telescope, he sees wonders dis-closed on every side which expand into infinity—and he can set no limits to the approximate perfec-tion with which he may study them. It is the same with lan-guages and with any branch of moral or metaphysical science. A man may, if he choose, be all his life employed upon a single lan-guage and never absolutely master its vocabulary, much less its idioms. The limits, therefore, within which any subject is to be pur-sued, must be determined by its utility, meantime it is certain that one cannot be profitably pur-sued alone. Such is the strict connection and interdependence of all branches of science, that the best way of obtaining a useful knowledge of any one is to com-bine it with more. The true limit between too minute and too Avide a survey may often be difficult to find ; yet such a limit always ex-ists; and he who should pause over any one subject till he had absolutely mastered it, would be as far from that limit, with re-gard to all the practical ends of knowledge, as if he had suflered his mind to dissipate itself in a vague attempt at encycloptedic attainments. "While cautioning the student, therefore, against the error of undertaking to conquer more ground than he can hold firmly under his intellectual sway, we would also advise him to avoid the opposite error of making the field of his researches too narrow; for, in spite of the proverb, we be-lieve that the " man of one book" will genemlly be found to be a very shallow fellow. VOL. yi. NO. I. Minuteness of knowledge, in fact, frequently dwarfs the mind. The engraver becomes nearsight-ed by bending over his minute work. The minute antiquary, if he finds you ignorant of the shape of an old buckle of some remote date, tells you that " you know nothing of antiquities!" The minute geographer, if he discov-ers that you have never heard of some obscure town at the anti-podes, will tell you, "you know nothing of geography!" The mi-nute historian, if he finds that you never knew,or perhaps have known twenty times and never cared to remember, some event utter-ly insignificant to all the real pur-poses of history, will tell you that " you know nothing of history!" And yet, discerning the limits within which the several branches of knowledge may be wisely and profitably pursued, you may, after all, for every important object, have obtained a more serviceable and prompt command over those very branches in which your com-placent censor flatters himself that he excels. The ' ' man of one book" is too frequently nothing but a narrow-minded bigot. His eye, like that of the bee or the ant, may indus-triously analyze the minute ob-jects lying within its narrow range of vision, but it is incapable of taking in the larger features of the landscape. But there have been men who, soaring in eagle flight, have beheld the whole world of knowledge beneath them —not that they attempted to count the blades of grass or weigh the sands of the seashore,—but, content with a general panoramic 2 18 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov., view, their glance has rested upon every mountain-peak of knowl-edge rising in superiority above the plain; and from their lofty point of observation, they have been able to see how these indi-vidual peaks form a continuous and connected chain. The litera-ry ant, toiling below, has no idea of the magnificence of such a view. But to return to the prospects of our "universal scholar" There have been, from time to time, men who, gifted with gigantic powers, prodigious memory, and peculiar modes of arranging and retaining knowledge, have aspir-ed to a comprehensive acquaint-ance with all the chief produc-tions of the human intellect—who have made extensive excursions into every branch of human learn-ing— and whose knowledge, though not really universal, has borne something like an appreciable ra-tio to the sum total of literature and science—who, as was said of Leibnitz, have managed " to drive all the sciences abreast." — Such minds have always been rare, and must soon become ex-tinct. For what is to become of them, in after ages, as the domain of human knowledge indefinitely widens, and the creations of hu-man genius indefinitely multiply? Kot that there will not be men who will then know absolutely more, and with far greater accu-racy, than their less favored pred-ecessors; nevertheles their knowl-edge must bear a continually dimiminishing ratio to the sum of human science and literature; they must traverse a smaller and smaller segment of the ever-widening circle. Since hu-man life remains as brief as ever, while its task is daily en-larging, there is no alternative but that the " general scholar" of each succeeding age must be con-tent with possessing a less and less fraction of the entire products of the human mind. In Germany alone, it has been computed, there are ten million volumes printed annually, and there are at the pres-ent moment living in that coun-try about fifty thousand men who have written one or more books; and should the number increase at the rate it has hitherto done, a catalogue of ancient and mod-ern German authors will soon contain more names than there are living readers. The literary activity of France and England, though not so great, have been prodigious, and our own America has entered the lists with the ea-gerness of youth and the industry of democracy. Well may the student be tempted to fold his hands in despair before this im-mense and ever-growing pyramid of books! " Happy men" we are half inclined to exclaim, "who lived when a library consisted, like that of a mediaeval monastery, of some thirty or forty volumes, and who thought they knew every-thing when they had read these! Happy our fathers, who were not tormented with the sight of un-numbered creations of intellect which we must sigh to think we can never make our own!" The final disposal of all this mass of literature is, in the opin-ion of some, easily managed. The bad, they say, will perish, and the good remain. The former state- 1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 19 ment is correct enough; the latter not so clearly and undeniably-true. "We cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that it is not the bad writer alone who is for-gotten. It is but too evident that immense treasures of thought—of beautiful poetry, splendid oratory, vivacious wit, ingenious argu-ment, subtle speculation—which men would not sufier to die if they could help it—must perish too. The great spoiler here acts with his accustomed impartiality; " .Equo pulsat pecle pauperum tabernas Regumciue turres;" for the truth is that the creations of the human mind transcend its capacity to collect and preserve them. Like the seeds of life in the vegetable world, the intellect-ual powers of man are so prolific that they run to waste. Some readers, doubtless, as a bright throng of splendid names in lit-erature rushes on their recollec-tions, will cry " avaunt" to these melancholy forebodings. They stand in the temple of Neptune and see the walls hung round with votive tablets recording es-cape from shipwreck, but let them reflect how many men have suffered shipwreck, and whose tablets, therefore, are not to be found! Others may think it im-possible that the great writers, with whom their own generation is so familiar, and who occupy such a space in its eye, should ever dwindle into insignificance. This illusion vanishes the mo-ment we take them to catalogues and indexes and show them the names of authors who once made as loud a noise in the world, and yet of whose works they have never read a line! It is with no cynical, but with simply mournful feelings that we thus dwell on the mortality of productions even of genius. The bulk of the literature of each gen-eration, the bulk of even that most highly prized, perishes with the generation; and as time ma ke fresh accumulations, those of pre-ceding ages pass for the most part into quiet oblivion. The process which has taken effect on the past will be repeated on the iDresent age and on every subsequent one; so that the period will assuredly come when even the great writers of our day, who seem to have such enduring claims upon our gratitude and admiration, will be as little remembered as others of equal talent who have gone be-fore them ; when , if not wholly for-gotten or superseded, they will exist only in fragments and spec-imens— these fragments and spec-imens themselves shrinking into narrower compass as time advan-ces. In this way time is perpet-ually compiling a vast index ex- •purgatorius ; and though the press more than repairs his ravages on the mere matter of books, the im-mense masses it heaps up ensure the purpose of oblivion just as ef-fectually. Not that time's effacing fingers have ceased altogether their material waste. Probably scarce a day passes but sees the last leaf, the last tattered remnant of the last copy of some work per-ish either by violence or accident —by fire or flood, or the crumb-ling of mere decay. It is surely an impressive thought— this si-lent unnoticed extinction of an- 20 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [^^Tov., other product of some once busy and aspiring mindl The chief cause, however, of the virtual oblivion of books is no longer their extinction, but (par-adoxical as it may seem) the fond care with which they are preserv-ed, and their immensely rapid multiplication. The press is more than a match for the moth and the worm, or the mouldering hand of time; but the great destroyer equally performs his commission by burying books under the pyr-amid formed by their accumula-tion. It is a striking example of the impotence with which man struggles with the destiny await-ing him and his works, that the very means which he takes to en-sure immortality destroys it; that the very activity of the press—of the instrument by which he seem-ed to have taken pledges against time and fortune—is that which will make him the spoil of both. The books may not die; but they cease to be read, which amounts to a living death. Piled away on upper shelves, the spider spins her web from cover to cover, se-cure that it will not be snapped by the opening of the lids which time has closed. But while thus administering consolation to the " general scholar" by showing that time has certainly been limiting, as well as extending his task, there is another class of persons who will find no comfort in the thought—and that is the class of authors. There is no help for it, however; humbling as it may ap-pear to represent the higher prod-ucts of man's mind as destined to decay like his body—it is still true, in the vast majority of in-stances. And even in those in-stances where a different fate seems to have attended the works of departed genius, the greater number of cases are but apparent exceptions to the well-nigh uni-versal rule; the authors do not live—they are merely embalmed and made mummies of. Their works are deposited in libraries and museums, like the bodies of Egyptian kings in their pyramids, retaining only a grim semblance of life, amidst neglect, darkness, and decay. Of the thousands of laborious and ambitious men who have devoted their lives to litera-ture, how few there are who still retain a hold on the popular mind ! A somewhat larger fraction may be known to the professed stu-dent— but even he must own that there are hundreds of whom he has never read a page, and many of whose very names he is igno-rant. It is really curious to look into the index of such learned authors as Cudworth or Jeremy Taylor, and to see the havoc which has been made on the memory of most of the authors they cite, and whose productions still exist, but no longer to be quoted. Of scarcely one in ten of these grave authori-ties has the best informed student of our day read ten paragraphs ; and yet their cotemporaries quoted them as we quote Macaulay and Irving. Let the popular author, then, chastise his conceit with the reflection that the plaudits of a generation are not immortality. Of all the forms of celebrity which promise to gratify man's natural longing for immortality, there is none, it has been affirmed, 1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 21 which looks so plausible as literary-fame. The statesman and war-rior, it is said, are known only by-report, and for even that are in-debted to the historian or the poet. A book, on the other hand, is fondly presumed to be an au-thor's second self ; by it he comes into personal contact and com-munion with his readers. It is a pleasant illusion, no doubt; and in the very few instances in which the author does attain this per-manent popularity, and becomes a " house-hold word " with pos-terity, the illusion ceases to be such, and the hopes of ambition are indeed splendidly realized. — But not only must we remember that very few can attain this eminence; we must keep in mind a fact that has not been sufficient-ly noticed—namely, that as the world grows older, a still smaller and smaller portion of those who seevi to have attained it, will hold their position. The great mass of the writers whom posterity "would not willingly let die" must share the fate of those other great men over whom the favorites of to- day are supposed to have an advan-tage; they, themselves, will live only by the historian's pen. The empty titles of their works will be recorded in catalogues, and a few lines be granted to them in bio-graphical dictionaries, with what may truly be callled a post mortem examination of criticism—a space which, as these church-yards of intellect become more and more crowded, necessarily becomes smaller and smaller, till for thou-sands not even room for a sepul-chral stone will be found. Nor is it easy to say how far this oblivion will reach, or what luminaries will, in time, be eclip-sed. Supposing only the best products of the genius of each age—its richest and ripest fruits — to be garnered away for posterity, the collection will gradually rise into a prodigious pile, defying the appetite of the most voracious reader. The time must come when not only mediocrity, which has always been the case,—not only excellence, which has fre-quently been the case,—but when even superior genius will stand a chance of being rejected; when even gold and diamonds will be cast into the sieve! Hardy must he be then who shall venture to hope for the permanent attention of mankind! For it will be found that the majority of authors have bought, not, as they fondly im-agined, a copyhold of inheritance, but that their interest for life, or for years soon runs out, and every year diminishes the value of the estate. "With the exception, then, of the very few who shine on from age to age with undimished lustre, like lights in the firmament—the Homers, the Miltons, the Shaks-peares, the Bacons, enshrined, like the heroes of old, among the constellations—the great bulk of writers must be contented, after having shone for a while, to be wholly or nearly lost to the world. Entering our system like comets, they may strike their immediate generation with a sudden splendor ; but receding gradually into the depth of space, they will twinkle with a fainter and fainter lustre , till they fade away forever. But while the past is thus receiv- •2-2 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov., iog into its tranquil depths such huge masses of literature, it is, by a contrary process, yielding us, per-haps, nearly bulk for bulk, mate-rials which it had long concealed. While work after work of science and history is daily passing away, pushed aside, beyond all chance of republication, by superior works of a similar kind, containing the last discoveries and most accurate results, it is curious to see with what eagerness the literary anti-quary is ransacking the past for every fragment of unpublished manuscript. Many of these, if they had been published when they were written, would have been utterly worthless. They de-rive their whole value from the rust of age. It may with truth be said of them that they never would have lived if they had not been buried. Our readers will re-member the sly way in which Irving satirizes these literary del-vers among the rubbish of antiqui-ty, when, after describing the an-tiquarian parson's raptures over the old drinking song, he says: '* It was with difficulty the squire was made to comprehend that though a jovial song of the pres-ent day was but a foolish sound in the ears of wisdom, and be-neath the notice of a learned man, yet a trowl written by a toss-pot several hundred years since was a matter worthy of the greatest research, and enough to set whole colleges together by the ears." But we do not complain of this. The laborious trifling of the merest drudge in antiquities may supply the historian with some collateral lights, and furnish ma-terials for more vivid descriptions-of the past; or, coming into con-tact with highly creative minds, like that of Sir Walter Scott, they may contribute the rude elements of the most beautiful fictions. — K'o one can read his novels and despise the study of the most trivial details of antiquities, when it is seen for what beautiful text-ures they may supply the threads. It is the privilege of genius such as his to extract their gold dust out of the most worthless books books which to others would be to the last degree tedious and un-attractive,— and the felicity with which he did this was one of his most striking characteristics. It is wonderful to see how a snatch of an old border song, an antique phrase, used as he uses it, a story or fragment of a story from some obscure author, shall suddenly be invested with a force or a beauty which the original never would have suggested to an ordinary reader, and which in fact is de-rived solely from the light of ge-nius which he brought to play upon them. His genius vivified whatever he hung over in those dusty parchments; and patient antiquarianism, long brooding and meditating, became glorious-ly transmuted into the winged spirit of poetrj^ and romance. In this way minute portions of the past are constantly entering, by new combinations, into fresh forms of life; and out of these old materials, continually decomposed but continually recombined, scope is afforded for an everlasting suc-cession of imaginative literature. In the same way every work of genius, by coming, as it were, into 1868.] TJie Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 23 mesmeric rapport with the affini-ties of kindred genius, and stimu-lating its latent energies, is itself the parent of many others, and furnishes the materials and rudi-ments of ever new combinations. In Shakspeare, no less than in Scott, we see both how much and how little a great genius derives from sources without himself. — Byron, too, as Moore tells us, was in the habit of exciting his vein of composition by the perusal of other authors on the same sub-ject, from whom the slightest hint, caught by his imagination as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he himself soon forgot the source. It is in this way that thought never dies. The books may be-come mouldy and Avorm-eaten, or may be buried beneath the un-noticed and useless lumber of public libraries, but during the time that those books were popu-larly circulated, some seeds of thought were, doubtless, dropped from them into minds where they took root and produced fresh fruit for another generation. Let the author, then, take heart; for al-though the chance is small that his shall be "one of those few, immortal names that were not born to die" yet, if his thoughts be noble, they will not perish. Posterity will take care of them, though they may forget to whom they owe the legacy. The thought, in the original form in which it was first given to the world, may no longer exist; but the proba-bility is, that it has given rise to other thoughts in other men, and, like the hidden spring among the. mountains, is the source of a per-petually enlarging stream that shall flow on to the end of time. The reader will call to mind the death-bed scene of the brilliant, but dissipated Burley,in Bulwer's " My Novel." He is a man who, with parts that might have en-abled him to place himself in a proud and firm literary position, has yet turned his talents to little account—employing his energies only in such wayward and fitful efforts as necessity roused him to perform. Consequently he leaves nothing permanent behind him. But others have profited by the labors from which he derived no profit himself. And now, as his life is waning, he mourns over his wasted powers, but consoles him-self with the reflection that even the little he has done will not be actually lost; and he illustrates this belief, by exclaiming to his companion, Leonard, " Extin-guish that candle! Fool, you can-not!" and then goes on to explain, that though the flame may be quenched with a breath, yet the waves of light which it has oc-casioned will continue to vibrate through space forever; and so, although the lamp of his intellect was flickering in the socket, the thoughts which it had put in motion would continue to travel through the world long after men had forgotten there ever was such a man as poor Burley. Bat we are encroaching, prema-turely, on another branch of our subject. In that deluge of books with which the world is inundated, the lamentations with which the bib- 24 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov., liomaniac bemoans the waste of time and the barbarous ravages of bigotry and ignorance, appear at first sight somewhat fantastic-al. Yet it is not without reason that we mourn over many of these losses, especially in the depart-ment of history; and this, not merely because they have involved important facts in obscurity, but for a reason more nearly related to our subject. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is probably the truth that the very multiplicity of books with which we are now perplexed, is in part owing to the loss of some, and that if we had had a few volumes more we should have had a great many less. The in-numerable speculations, conject-ures, and criticisms on those am-ple fields of doubt which the rav-ages of time have left open to in-terminable discussion, would then have been spared us. On the other hand, it is doubt-ful whether—except in the case of history—the treasures of litera-ture, of which time has deprived us, and the loss of which literary enthusiasts so bitterly deplore, have been so inestimable. We are disposed to think with Gibbon in his remarks on the burning of the Alexandrian library, that by far the greater part of the master-pieces of antiquity have been se-cured to us. The lost works, even of the greatest masters, were most probably inferior to those which have come down to us. — Their best must have been those most admired, most frequentl}^ copied, most faithfully preserved, and therefore on all these accounts the most likely to elude the hand of violence and the casualties of time. The great cause which consigns so many modern works to oblivion—namely, the super-abundance of the products of the press—did not then operate. And even since printing was invented, we do not think we have occasion to lament the extinguishment of any great ideas; for, as we have shown, thought by a perpetual transmigration descends from gen-eration to generation. The books containing those thoughts may be left to moulder in the dusty ar-chives of literary depositories, but the thoughts are abroad in the world. Books are merely the outer shell or cocoon that inwraps the chrysalis idea; and after a certain period the idea comes forth in a new and more beautiful form, and on active wing ascends to lofty regions, leaving its worth-less shell of paper and binding to rot into oblivion. One great cause which has en-abled the master- pieces of Grecian and Roman literature to outlive all the shocks of time, the calami-ties of war and the waste of igno-rance attendant upon that mighty disruption of the Western Em-pire, when civilization seemed broken loose from its moorings, and the wrecks of the social fabric clashed against each other on the wild tossing waves of that bar-barous inundation that overflowed all Europe—was the condensed and sententious style in which their thoughts were expressed. — Our modern authors should pi'ofit by their example. If they would extend their posthumous fame to its utmost limits, let them study brevity. Our voluminous fore-fathers of the seventeenth cen- 1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 25 tury seemed never to have at-tempted condensation, but to have committed all their thoughts to writing in all the redundance of the forms first suggested. They acted as though we, their posteri-ty, should have nothing to do but to sit down and read what they had written. They were much mistaken; and the consequence is that their ambitious folios remain for the most part unread ; while those great productions of classic-al antiquity, whose severe terse-ness they would have done well to imitate, have triumphed over time— a victory due principally no doubt to their moderate bulk. The light skiff will shoot the cata-racts of time when a heavier ves-sel will assuredly go down. Considering the vastness of the accumulations of literature and the impossibility of mastering them all, we are not surprised that the idea should sometimes have suggested itself that it might be possible, in a series of brief publications, to distil as it were the quintessence of books, and condense folios into pamphlets. — The works of an age might thus be contained on a few shelves. We cannot think, however, that such a plan, if put into general execution, would prove useful to the cause of literature. We will not say that all abridgments are foolish and wrong; but the truth is that the mind cannot profitably digest in-tellectual food in too condensed a shape,—and every work worth reading at all bears upon it the impress of the mind that gave it birth and ceases to attract and impress when reduced to a sylla-bus; its faults and its excellencies alike vanish in the process. But if authors would escape this mu-tilation they must study concise-ness of expression, and take care to leave their thoughts in such a form that men will not consent to have them altered. Signal gen-ius, even in modern times, has occasionally effected this—and that, too, in departments where the progress of knowledge soon renders these works very imper-fect as to their matter. Such for instance is Paley's " ISTatural Theology" a book treating of a subject which now might be much more amply and correctly illus-trated by the new lights afforded by improved science; and yet such is the simple and forcible beauty with which Paley has man-aged his argument, that the pop-ularity of his work is not likely to yield to any future aspirant, what-ever stores of better knowledge he may have at his command. — Hume's "History of England" promises to be a still stronger in-stance, in spite not only of its nu-merous deficiencies but of its enormous errors. It is indeed a great triumph of genius when it is capable of so impressing itself upon its produc-tions, so moulding and shaping them to beauty, as to make men unwilling to return the gold into the melting pot and work it up afresh ; when it is felt that from the less accurate work we after all learn more, and receive more vivid impressions than from the more correct but less effective pro-ductions of an inferior artist. To attain this species of longevity, genius must not content itself with being a mere mason—it must as- 26 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov. pire to be an architect, it must seek to give preciousness to the gold and silver by the beauty of the cup or vase into which they are moulded, and to make them as valuable for their form as for their matter. The old Greek and Koman classics, which are the best ex-amples of this power of genius, have had indeed a remarkable destiny. Those ancient authors seem to have possessed in perfec-tion the art of embalming thought. Time leaves their works untouch-ed. The severe taste which sur-rounds them has operated like the pure air of Egypt in preserving the sculptures and paintings of that country, where travelers tell us that the traces of the chisel are as sharp and the colors of the paintings as bright as if the artists had quitted their work but yesterday. In turning over the pages of catalogues, one is struck, amidst all the mutations of literature, with the fixed and unchanging in-fluence of two portions of it—the ancient Classics and the Bible, Much of the literature produced by both partakes, no doubt, of the fate that attends other kinds; the books they elicit, whether critical or theological, pass away, but they themselves retain their hold on the human mind, become en-grafted into the literature of every civilized nation, and continue to evoke a never-ending series of volumes in their defence, illustra-tion or explication. On a very moderate computation, it may be safely affirmed, we think, that at least one-third of the books pub-lished since the invention ofprint-ing, were the consequences, more or less direct, of the two portions of literature to which we have referred—in the shape of new editions, translations, commen-taries, grammars, dictionaries, or historical, chronological, and geographical illustrations. There is one aspect in which even the most utilitarian despiser of the classics can hardly sneer at them. From being selected by the unanimous suffrage of all civilized nations as an integral element in all liberal education, these venerable authors play a very important part in the com-mercial transactions of mankind. It is curious to think of these an-cient spirits furnishing no incon-siderable portion of the modern world with their daily bread, and in the employment they give to so many thousands of teachers, editors, commentators, authors, printers, and publishers, consti-tuting a very positive item in the industrial activity of nations. A political economist, thinking only of his own science, should look with respect on the strains of Homer and Yirgil, when he con-siders that, directly or indirectly, they have probably produced more material wealth than half the mines which human cupidity has opened, or half the inventions of human ingenuity. And turning to the Bible we find that it presents us with a still more singular phenomenon in the space which it occupies throughout the continued history of literature. We see nothing like it; and supposing it to be other than it pretends to be, it may well puzzle infidel sagacity 18G8.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 27 to account for its wonderful and lasting influence over the thoughts and feelings of mankind. It has not been given to any other book of religion thus to triumph over national prejudices, and lodge it-self securely in the hearts of great communities—communities vary-ing by every conceivable diversity of race, language, manners and customs, and indeed agreeing in nothing but a veneration for it-self. It adapts itself to the revo-lutions of thought and feeling that shake to pieces all things else, and accommodates itself to the progress of society and the chan-ges of civilization. Even conquests —the disorganization of old na-tions— the formation of new—do not affect the continuity of its em-pire. It lays hold of the new as the old, and transmigrates with, the spirit of humanity—attracting to itself, by its own moral power, in all the communities it enters, a ceaseless intensity of effort for its propagation, illustration and defence. Other systems of reli-gion are usually delicate exotics, and will not bear transplanting. The gods of the nations are local deities, and reluctantly quit their native soil; at all events, they patronize only their favorite ra-ces, and perish at once when the tribe or nation of their worship-pers become extinct, often long before. The Koran of Mahomet has, it is true, been propagated by the sword; but it has been propagated by nothing else; and its dominion has been limited to those nations who could not re-ply to that stern logic. But if the Bible be false, the facility with which it overleaps the other-wise impassable boundaries of race and clime, and domiciliates itself among so many diflerent na-tions, would be a far more strik-ing and wonderful proof of human ignorance and stupidity than is afforded in the limited prevalence of even the most abject supersti-tion; or, if it really has merits which, though it be a fable, have enabled it to impose so compre-hensively on mankind, wonder-ful indeed must have been the skill in its composition— so won-derful that even the infidel ought never to regard it but with the profoundest reverence, as far too successful and sublime a fabrica-tion to permit a thought of scoff or ridicule. ^Xe have endeavored to show how large a portion of merely hu-man literature is inscribed with "vanity"—that word of doom which all things human bear. — But literature has its "glory" too. The writer has enough to make him contented with his vo-cation, if not proud of it. The value of books does not depend upon their durability; nor in truth is there any reason why the phi-losopher should be more solicitous about these wasted and wasting treasures of mind than about the death of men, or the decay of the cities they have built, or of the empires they have founded. They but follow the law which is im-posed on all terrestrial things. Geologists tell us of vast inter-vals of time—myriads of years passed in the tardy revolutions by which the earth was prepared for our habitations, and during which successive tribes of animals and plants flourished and became 28 ~ The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov., extinct;—the term of life allotted to each species, and its place in the system, being exactly appro-priate to the stage reached by the world in the progress of de-velopment, and linked, in a law of subserviency, to the successive parts and various phases of one vast continuous process. Though permitted and organized to enjoy their brief term of life, they were chiefly important as stepping stones to the future, and as in-fluencing that future, not by forming part of it, but by having been a necessary condition of its arrival. The same law which seems to have been that of the whole history of the geological eras, appears also to character-ize our own; the present passes away, but is made subservient to a glorious future. As those geo-logical periods were preparatory to the introduction of the human economy, so the various eras of that economy itself are subordi-nated to its ultimate and perfect development. Individuals and nations perish, but the progress of humanity continues. Persuad-ed of this truth, let the author awake from his idle dream of im-mortality— awake to a more ra-tional but not less pleasing hope. Let him but conscientiously labor to serve his generation, and he will find his reward in the reflec-tion that, though his books may not outlive himself, yet in further-ing the interests of one generation he has furthered the interests of all coming time. Each genera-tion must make its own books ; but lohat sort of books these are to be depends greatly on the books that went before. If, then, the author has made any contribution, how-ever small, to the general stock of human knowledge, he may rest assured that that contribution will be preserved, in other forms, for succeeding ages, even after the book itself, like its author, has become food for worms. The book, which none now read, tend-ed, in its day, to mould and influ-ence some cotemporary mind des-tined to act with greater power on distant generations. The current novels of Shakspeare's day, which are now no longer to be found in public libraries, and the names of whose authors have completely vanished from the memory of men, were the foundation for many of those glorious dramas which the superior genius of Avon's Bard has stamped with immortality. In this way the weak live in the strong, and the perishable products of inferior minds are transmuted into the eternal adamant of some rare genius. The whole gigantic growth of human knowledge and litera-ture may be compared to those deposits which geologists describe, full of the remains of animal and vegetable life that once moved in vigor or bloomed in beauty, and which are beneficial still. The luxuriant foliage and forest growth of literature and science that now overshadow us, are rooted in the strata of decaying or decayed mind, and derive their nourish-ment from them. The very soil we turn is the loose detritus of thought washed down to us through long ages. Although the world of intellect, like the world of matter, is under the dominion of decay, yet it is sublimely true 1868.] The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 29 that, in both alike, Death is itself the germ and parent of life; and new forms of glory and beauty-spring from the very dust of des-olation. A fanciful mind might pursue still further the comparison we have instituted between those animal and vegetable remains, on which our living world flourishes, and those vast relics of decayed and mouldering literature, in which our modern literature fastens its roots, and over which it waves its proud luxuriance. A resemblance may be discerned between the mutations and revo-lutions of literature and those in-comparably greater changes which have swept over the surface of the material world. Geology tells us of the successive submersion and elevation of vast tracts of land — now rich in animal and vegetable life—then buried for unnumbered ages in oblivion—then reappear-ing to the light of day, and bear-ing, dank and dripping from the ocean bed, the memorial of their former glories. It is much the same with the treasures of buried literature. Long whelmed be-neath the inundations of barba-rism, or buried by the volcanic eruptions of war and conquest, we see them, after centuries of ob-livious trance, coming once more to light—the fossil remains of an-cient life, characterized indeed by many analogies to the present species of organized life, but also by many diflferences. The revival of classical litera-ture after the dark ages, was the most splendid and noteworthy of these recoveries of the past; but even now there frequently takes place, on a smaller scale, a simi-lar process of restoration. Dis-cussions and controversies that had been hushed for ages, break out again, like long, silent vol-canoes; men turn with renewed interest to the opinions of per-sons who had apparently been forgotten forever ; and names which had not been heard for centuries, once more fill men's mouths and are trumpeted to the four winds. Let the author re-member this for his comfort. la the indefatigable grubbings and gropings of the literary antiquary, scarcely any writer need despair of an occasional remembrance, or of producing some curiosities for those cabinets where the most precious and the most worthless of relics are preserved with im-partial veneration. It is hard to say what the spade and the mat-tock may not bring up. Who could have hoped, a few years back, to witness the reappearance of so much early English litera-ture as has recently been passed through the press again? Who could have anticipated the wide and wayward range which the transient, but while they last, most active fashions of literary research would take? Kow it is Saxon, Danish, or Norman an-tiquity ;—now local traditions and old songs and ballads;—now the old dramatists have their turn, now the old divines. True, not a little of this exhumed literature is immediately recommitted to the dust;—its resurrection is but for the second celebration of its obsequies. Still, these spasmodic revivals of a dead literature gal-vanized into a semblance of life 30 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Nov. by antiquarian zeal, are better than the unbroken forgetfulness of tombs that are sealed forever I This alternate resurrection and entombment may not be immor-tality, but it bears a close resem-blance to transmigration. In this connection, observe how singular has been the destiny of Aristotle! After having been lost to the world for ages, we see him, during the era of the schoolmen, making a second and wider con-quest, and founding the most du-rable and absolute despotism of mind over mind that the world has ever seen. After a subsequent dethronement by the Baconian philosophy, he is now fighting his way back to no mean empire—an empire promising to be all the more permanent because it is founded in a juster estimate of his real claims on the gratitude and reverence of mankind, and because he is invited to wield the sceptre, not of a despot, but of a constitutional monarch. It is as if Napoleon's dust should quit its sarcophagus in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and once more shake Europe with the thunder of his victorious artillery! Like the great French conqueror, the Gre-cian philosopher has had his Elba and his St, Helena; and like him, too, his dynasty is now restored, if not in his own person , in the person of those who owe what they are to him. If the considerations thus far presented fail to establish the "glory" of literature as a coun-terpoise to its "vanity" let the author, in those moments of de-spondency, when he realizes how perversely and persistently the shadow of fame eludes his eager grasp, console himself with the reflection that there is a little cir-cle of which each man is the cen-tre, and that this narrow theatre is generally enough for the hopes and aspirations of the human heart. Indeed, even when the loftiest ambition whispers to itself some folly about distant regions and remote ages whose plaudits, however loud, can never reach its ear, it is really of a nearer and more limited admiration that the aspirant thinks. It is, after all, the applause of the familiar friends, among whom he daily lives, that he craves and loves. Can sculptured urn or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breatli ! Can lionor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death ' No! for the love and praise of the living, we will be content to give up all reversionary claims upon the admiration of unborn generations! Let the author reflect, moreover, that, as time rolls on, not only will the number of books be in-creased, but the number of read-ers also; and consequently the greater Avill be the chance of his obtaining somewhere a foothold in the memory of at least a part of the human race. If he be worthy to live at all , he will find — not indeed temples thronged with admiring worshippers and altars steaming Avith sacrifices—but at all events a little chapel here and there where some solitary devotee will be paying his homage. He cannot hope to be a Jupiter Cap-itolinus, but he may become the 1868. The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. 31 household god of some quiet hearth, and receive there his mod-est oblation and his pinch of daily-incense. The destiny of the honest writ-er, then even though but moder-ately successful, is surely glorious and enviable. It may be true that he is to die; for we do not count the record of a name, when the works are no longer read, as any-thing more than an epitaph, and even that may vanish. Yet, to come into contact with other minds, though but for limited periods—to move them by an in-fluence silent as the dew, invisi-ble as the mind—to co-operate in the construction of character—to mould habits of thought—to pro-mote the reign of truth and virtue —to exercise a spell over those we have never seen and never can see, in other climes, at the ex-tremity of the globe, and when the hand that wrote is still forever — is surely a most wonderful, not to say awful, prerogative. It comes nearer to the idea of the immediate influence of spirit on spirit than anything else with which this world presents us. In no way can we form an adequate concep-tion of such an influence, except by imagining ourselves, under the privilege of the ring of Gyges, to gaze invisible, upon the solitary reader as he pores over a favorite author, and to watch in his coun-tenance, as in a mirror, the reflec-tion of the page that holds him captive; now knitting his brow over a diflicult argument, and de-riving both discipline and knowl-edge from the eflbrt—now relax-ing into smiles at wit and humor —now dwelling with a glistening eye on tenderness and pathos — now yielding up some fond error to the force of truth, and anon be-trayed into another by the force of sophistry— now rebuked for some vice or folly, and binding himself with fresh vows to the service of virtue,—and now, also, sympa-thizing with the too faithful de-lineation of depraved passions and vicious pleasures, and strengthen-ing, by one more rivet, the domin-ion of evil over the soul! Surely, to be able to wield such a power as this, even in the smallest degree and within narrow boundaries of time and space, is a stupendous attribute, and one which, if se-riously pondered, would oftentimes cause a writer to pause and trem-ble as though his pen were the rod of an enchanter! Happy those who have wielded it well, and who "Dying, leave no line they wish to blot." Melancholy indeed is the lot of all whose high endowments have been worse than wasted—who have left to that world which they were born to bless, only a legacy of shame and sorrow—whose vi-ces and follies, unlike those of other men, are not permitted to die with them, but continue act-ive for evil after the men them-selves have become dust. Let every aspirant for the honors of authorship remember this. The ill which other men do, for the most part dies with them. Xot that this is literally true, even of the obscurest individual. We are all but links in a vast chain which stretches from the dawn of time 32 The Vanity and the Glory of Literature. [Xov., to the final consummation of all things; and unconsciously we re-ceive and transmit a noble influ-ence which time has no power to destroy. As we are, in a great measure, what our forefathers made us, so our posterity will be what we make them; and it is a thought which may well make us at once proud and afraid of our influence and our destiny. But such truths, though uni-versally applicable, are more wor-thy of being pondered by great authors than by any other class of men. These outlive their age — if not for an eternity, at least for considerable periods; and their thoughts continue to operate im-mediately on the spirit of their race. How sad it is for such to abuse their high trust I If Ave could imagine for a moment that departed spirits are allowed to re-visit the scenes of their earthly life and trace the good or evil con-sequences of their actions, what more deplorable condition can be conceived than that of a great but misguided genius, convinced at last of the folly of his course, and condemned to witness its ef-fects, without the power of arrest-ing them? The spell for evil has been spoken, and he cannot unsay it; the poisoned shaft has left the bow and cannot be recalled ! How would he sigh for that day which should cover his fame with a wel-come cloud, and bury him in the once dreaded oblivion! How would he covet, as the highest boon, the loss of that immortality for which he toiled so much and so long! Let not the influence of books over men's character and actions be despised. Socrates was accus-tomed to argue for the superiority of oral over written instruction, by representing books as silent. The inferiority of the written word to the living voice is in many re-spects undeniable, but surely it is more than compensated by the advantage of its more difl'usive and permanent character. Great as has been the influence of Socrates, he owes it almost entirely to books which he refused to write; audit might have been greater still, had he condescended to write some of his own. The chief glory of literature taking it collectively—is that it is our pledge and security against the retrogression of humanity — the eflectual break-water against barbarism—the ratchet in the great wheel of the world, which, even if it stands still, prevents it from slipping back. Ephemeral as man's books are, they are not so ephemeral as himself; and they consign to posterity what would otherwise never reach them. A good book is the Methuselah of these latter as:es. 1868.] Evening Fancies. 33^ EVENING FANCIES. Ev^ening's spell comes round me, And all the ties which bound me To this bright earth, my spirit rends in twain. And roams in joy and gladness, Free from the heart's deep sadness, And revels in that bliss which yields no pain, Save only the deep yearning Which, in my bosom burning, Tells me that Heaven lies far, far beyond My own wild aspirations, My fancy's bright creations. Then my crushed heart will ache, but not despond. My spirit seeks the shore, "Where booms the ceaseless roar Of Ocean, in his wild and sullen play. It bounds upon the waves. Seeks the most hidden caves, Where sleep the mermaids, and where rich gems stray. It leaps o'er dancing rivers Where the rich sunset quivers In ever-varying tints upon the stream, Visits the silent dell Where fancy loves to dwell, And gilds imagination's richest dream. Yisits the far- off Heaven, Where, earth's weak ties all riven, Angelic music breaks upon the ear. The jasper gates unfold. And gorgeousness untold Dazzles the vision in that glorious sphere. But a low-plaintive moan Upon the breeze is borne ; It has been wafted from the battle-plain. VOL. VI.—NO. I. 34 The VaJhorgsmas Tryst. [ISTov., Oh! that sad, mournful strain Tells of the lowly slain, And calls my spirit back to earth again. And now those hues so glorious The setting sun sheds o'er us, Pour their latest, lingering rays around; And the low, tender greeting, When in the wild woods meeting. Of the sad night-bird, is the only sound. Then sweet, and low, and tender, 'ISTeath Luna's dawning splendor, I hear the music of a voice I love. Farewell, thou glowing vision, Thou flower from fields Elysian, My blissful, happy heart must cease to rove. Hamburg, Ark., 1S6S. mart thacker. THE VALBORGSMAS TRYST. A deep hush through the long, in jaunty jackets and gay holy-broad, raftered hall. So deep, day aprons, with fair hair braided that the soughing of far-pines under the three-cornered maiden-crept sobbing through the night, cap. The fresh round faces were and brought the moan of Silja all turned one way, and many a Lake, upon whose breast the glance stole under drooping lashes flames upon the hearth-stone here toward the upper end of the apart-flung out from time to time a fit- ment. For there, at a table ful glow. An April snow was strewn with papers, sat the aged scurrying to and fro without. Squire, and confronted a young Within, a short half-hour since, man in mien and dress somewhat the dance, the frolic game, the superior to his fellow-peasants, song and story, in the midst of Those sturdy Dalmen, bred up on rustic peace made mockery of the Squire's estate, now dropped storm. Bat now the murkiness of their gaze, shame-faced for their the storm was entered in. class, upon the pine-twig covered The nickel harp had lapsed to floor; as the master, resting his silence, and the hum of all those right hand in very heaviness of spinning-wheels had ceased. L"p- sorrow on the table, resumed his on them now, the maidens leaned speech. 1868.] Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. 35 "Go then, Erik Orn—free to re-trieve the past with the future—to prove thyself not all unworthy of the forbearance I now show thee." Each measured accent, solemn, clear, and stern, resounded where the stillness was but broken by their utterance—by not one mur-mur or one movement among the twenty or thirty men and women there assembled. A tribunal without appeal, whose silence ratified the conviction and the sentence of this man, one of them-selves, yet long set above them. Dismay, compassion, and in some few envious countenances, a cer-tain self complacent triumph, an-swered to the disappointment in the master's face. He rose up weariedly, his hand upon the heavy purse of gold, the finding of which among Erik Orn's posses-sions, had with other inexplicable circumstances, convicted Erik, or so it seemed, of an unfaithful stewardship. But he who fronted, met his judge, unfalteringly. Upon his brow there rested not one shade of shame, and the deep eyes, ear-nest and shining with an anguish passing tears, had nevertheless no shrinking, no remorse. There was no wavering in the firm- set mouth, and when he spoke at once, the musical Dalarna tones sang true as ever. "The memory of my master's justice through the years since I, a friendless peasant-lad, was first received into his service—the memory of kindness which has raised me up until I stood high in his confidence—nay, almost as his counsellor and friend—these mem-ories rise now between me and that wrongful sentence, and thus shut out wrath. That do they, though that sentence, that for-bearance, sends me forth, untried and yet condemned; a branded out- cast from among these honest men who were, and in the sight of my Great Judge above still are, my fellows. My word against strong damning evidence of crime. It is truly feeble as a breath—yet which of these men here has ever found it false? I go. But though you never hear of me again, my master—when sight shall fall into this dark, and point out the now doubly guilty criminal—" he turn-ed here his glance wandering cold-ly on from watching face to face — "it may in that hour soothe you to remember, he to whom till now you have been a most noble bene-factor, pardons your forbearance, and—so help me God!—will never suffer it to crush him down to shame." He bowed low to the stern un-moved old man, and set his proud face toward the door, vouchsafing not so much as one brief sign to the companions of that past so wholly gone and blotted out from memory forever. Kot so much a stifled murmur, as a thrill, went through those hearers. More than one friendly grasp might have sought his, but that the master stood there cold as changeless marble; waiting till the recreant should be gone, in order to speak further with his faithful household. Beneath that impassive observation , no eyes, no hands, were raised to his. iSTot one? A slender girl, who the entire evening had remained shyly 36 The Valhorgsmas Tryst. [Xov. apart, and, fenced in by her spin-ning- wheel, had as shyly shaken her head at Erik's attempts to draw her into the circling coun-tr5'- dance or polka—this girl's eyes had never left him from the first. And when his tones rang out, clear and solemn as far echoes of Dalarna's church-bells, tears not wholly full of pain, welled up, and plashed down on her wheel. He passed her, passed all by, until he nearly reached the thres-hold. He would not have lingered there, nor looked one instant back on scenes now lost; but that as swift as thought Elin has risen up, had crossed the hall, and stood before him. "Erik Orn—" she spoke— as distinctly, that every ear within the hall must hear—" Heed them not, thou!—the dastards who dare not so much as stretch a parting hand to thee. Thou knowest the Lord God Himself shall hold thee up with His right hand." He bent upon her a long, full, wondering gaze, made but more tender by a cloud of anguish inex-pressible. And then he grasped her hands, and bowed his head until his eyes were hid upon them. She saw the strong frame shake with terrible though voiceless sobs, and felt the hot tears stream-ing through her fingers. The moment passed. He lifted himself resolutely. And without a word—without one backward glance—amid the awe- struck hush of that tribunal where he stood condemned, with only one girl-voice raised for him—he went on his way. The door shut to, with dull and hopeless clang, behind him. It was a cloudless, moonless' starry night, that eve of May-day in Dalarna. Black heights merg-ed into blacker skies, with but an edge of snow along the woodland fringes. Beneath there, in the valleys, in the shadow of those heights, gleamed out a lingering white patch amid the green which carpeted the path for Spring's triumphal entry. Like snow-patches, too, a cottage here and there, in dell or on the mountain-side, flashed forth from clumps of newly budding birch, or dusky pines with peaks of burnished red. Far down upon a sheltered slope the village church, all hid in ever-greens, uplifted a gold cross, which, as the tower was invisible, seemed held aloft by unseen, angel hands. A star-beam trembled greetingly upon it, as though it alone could draw down heaven to earth. The broad lake lying at its foot, was ruffled into sweeping shadows by the crisp night-breeze^ and silence, darkness, melancholy, brooded yet one moment over all, One moment. "With the next, from height to height resounded, loud and clear and merrily, the "lurar- voices" sweet-toned shep-herd pipers; and at their sum-mons, upon every dark-browed hill was set a crown of flame. Ere long those bonfires of the Valborgsmas lit up the earth and heavens from far and wide, until they were shut out by higher and more distant peaks, which yet left all the skies in wavering, mellow glowings as of sunset- tide. In every hill, that glow flashed into view a knot of peasantry in holiday attire. The varying costumes of Dalarna parishes — 1868.] Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. 37 the red and yellow, or more som-bre, yet not less picturesque, black and white— contrasted prettily as strongly, while the peasants join-ed hands with the gentry met to-gether there to form the Yalborg ring, and dance around the fire roused to ruddier burning. For by that dance, those fires in their honors, Dalarna has been wont, from far back into heathendom, to win over to good will the elves and spirits of the air, who, buried under ground all winter long, steal up to their blithe, summer frolics hidden in the bosom of the opening flowers. On their release, so wild with joy and mischief are they, that unless propitiated, they are prone to play all sorts of pranks with dairy, orchard, gar-den- close, and field. But suddenly one young girl started from the merry round in breathless haste. Her eyes, dilat-ed with horror, were following the heavy flight of a great owl which had that instant, unobserved by any other of those May-eve pil-grims, brushed with solemn wing her half averted cheek; and now betook its ill-omened self to a more distant pine-tree whence it might continue unmolested to blink round at the dark. Elin well knew what a sure sign of danger looming in the future, any evil shape of beast or bird foretold, by stealing thus within the charm-ed circle of the Valborg dance. Heart- sick, she drew apart un-seen. What could it bode, that bird, which, from its covert, hoot-ed forth a sharp, wild cry, as if in answer to her thoughts? "What could it bode, but—woe to Eiick Orn? The only evil which had power to touch her near, with burning blushes and fast-beating heart, she now acknowledged to herself. She wandered from the spot where bursts of song accom-panying the dance, or merriment round some provision-basket be-ing unpacked in the clear glow, struck on her hearing like a taunt. And where was Erick? Three unending days had ended since that night, and she had heard no word of him. That he should re-member her—no, that assuredly was not to be imagined. Yet if she but knew—. How noble, and how true and brave he looked that night, confronting all! With not one friend to stand by him — the traitor souls! Such thoughts were whirling through her mind, as she paused upon a cliff which overleaned far Silja. And the tears came fast. Hot rushing tears, and sobs, broke from the heart which beat so chill and heavy underneath the fur-cloak over which she wrung her hands. And one Avord would re-peat itself amid those sobs— an " Erik, Erik!"—almost lower than the rustle in the pine-boughs clos-ing round. Among those pines, those crags, dwelt there a something like an Irish echo, which gave back an answer to her cry! Eor surel}', "Elin! Elin!" was breathed near; but in a tone as thrillingly glad as hers was sorrowful. She turned herself about. Down through the tree behind, fell ruddy flickerings from the fires above. Against the trunk, there leaned a man ; and while the stalwart figure in dark blue 38 Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. [Nov., was left in shade, the noble head, with wavy masses of fair hair, and the deep eyes fixed earnestly upon the maiden, flashed out in relief. Well might those eyes fix on the lovely picture, framed in by the setting of the lake, now gleam-ing in reflected burnishing. A right fair Norse picture—the slight form in graceful garb of black and white, while the Broka-cap, which in her hurried move-ment she had thrown back, left uncovered glittering braids of gold interwoven with a scarlet ribbon, thus resembling a scattered red-bud garland wound again and again around the pretty head. But not long did he gaze in well-pleased, criticising silence, while the sweet eyes drooped from his, the rosy mouth just quivered in a smile. He called her — "Elin!"—once again, and she sank into his extended arms. " Thou lovest me, Elin? Heav-en be praised! Then shall I bat-tle with my fate so bravely! But —ah, is it for a ruined man—dis-graced in all men's sight—to speak of love to thee?" The chord of bitterness within his voice, touched her to the quick. She hid her face upon his shoulder, but she said in tones where mirth was mixed with tears: ''Art thou then rightly satis-fied that thou didst speak of love to me? Or was it I who told thee —told thee—" Confessions and counter-con-fessions— that grim bird was com-pelled to listen to them all—being, as the bird of wisdom, loth to dis-turb herself with seeking out an-other pine with sheltering hollow in its blasted trunk. But the grey attendant of the heavenly maid could not certainly in pa-tience bear to hear the follies shy-ly whispered by this earthly maid. And so, intending to break in up-on them with a scornful 'Humph!' she stretched her solemn visage, and gave voice to a something partaking of the nature of both a scream and a stifled chuckle. Elin raised a face aghast. " Erik! Didst thou hear?"—she whispered—"Was it not the gob-lin laugh which haunts the moun-tain- wood, and jeers when ill is to betide? Thou saidst, we shall tryst a blither tryst upon another Valborgsmas, when thou mayst proudly claim this bride, and none will wish to say thee nay. That laugh—it mocked at this, per-haps— " " Nay, little Elin, it was but a warning that the moon is rising over yonder mountain, and I must begone. The promised pledge, thou dear one, ere I heed the warning: " She had loosed one heavy tress from its sister- coronals, and silent-ly for answer severed it, and with soft wavering flush as silently per-mitted him to lift it and her hand together, forcing her to place the tress upon his breast. "There, for life and for death, Elin—" he said. A faint smile stole across her lips. ' ' They say thou hast all maid-en's hearts, best Erik. May it not then happen that some brighter braid—" She stopped. She had forgot-ten how the day was darkly set, wherein any heart would give it- 1868.] The Valhorgsmas Tryst. 39 self into his keeping. He remem-bered. The swift loosing of her hand reminded her. Keminded, only that two firm small hands should straightway nestle to his hold. "Ah, wouldst thou let me go with thee—" began she in a blush-ful murmur, Euk he interrupted. "Nay—rather this gold sun-shine of thine shall keep my heart warm even in the darkest depths of Fahlun's mines. I will not take thee to a ruined life; but, Elin, thou dear, faithful one upon some better Yalborgsmas the gra-cious Lord God shall roll away the darkness from between us. Then, unscorned by any, thou shalt—thus—lie on my breast." He held her closely there one moment—then as suddenly re-leased her. And through blind-ing tears she watched him spring down from the cliff, and fling himself from bough to bough, from crag to crag. Till presently a skiff shot from a cove across the lake, and one within, resting an instant on his oars, turned round to wave a last—a last farewell. Those flames of Yalborgsmas had quenched themselves in ashes fifty years ago; when just before the fires blazed forth once on sum-mit far and wide in calm Dalarna, miles away from Silja Lake a soli-tary vroman journeyed where the town of Fahlun rose through smoke-wreaths of its copper- mines. With feeble steps and slow, sup-ported by her staff, the aged wan-derer neared the smoke which drifted upward from the earth, and rolled in mist-cascades along the cliffs and steeps of slag; or burst forth like the blaze of battle beating murkily where peak and crag in wild similitude of tower and battlement, hung threaten-ingly above the narrowed way. The woman moved like those who walk in dreams. She never lifted up her sunken head to look to right or left, as she passed oth-er roads which opened from the main one, into other black and straightened ways and streets of the half-burnt metal. Only once she faltered, paused, and stood there listening; bowed lower yet, as if in fear; her shaking hands clasping the staff, while a moan struck her quivering lips apart: "The Laugh! the Laugh! It mocks me again, as on that Yal-borgsmas. Was it but one Yal-borgsmas ago? Ah, I am now so weary, and the days were long, long! Erik, shall we keep the tryst together here? That laugh on Silja—I have fled from it, best Erik, lest it should mock thee and keep thee away." It was the tinkling fall of cop-per- stained waters dropping through a cliff against the town. And as she listened for the phan-tom- voice again in vain, she went once more mechanically on. Before her, sulphurous tongues of fire lapped against the city looming in a mist through which the brilliant sunset wove a thous-and threads and bands of rose and gold. Eair sheltering hills on one side stretch toward Silja, and conceal a maze of lovely vales and lakes. Green fields break into stony districts, and long-lingering glittering snow-slopes smooth away, as with a soft white hand, the ruggedness. But beyond the 40 Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. [i^ov., tawD, mine-fumes have parched both wood and slope, and left a naked desolation, willi discolor-ed springs dripping and oozing through the scant, seared herbage and the stones—grave stones of the blossoms which died centuries ago, all draped in pall of black funereal lichens. A grim desolated ruin, not-withstanding all the wealth of ore hid deep within its bosom, was this neighborhood ; and ever had been, far beyond the memory of man through generations after generations back. But not more •desolate, not more a ruin, hardly farther passed away from memory in its beauty and its youth than this lorn creature tottering on her way amidst the barrenness. The subterranean fires breathed their sharp and poisonous breath upon the blooming forests and the verdant hills, and sapped their very life. And no less had they withered up her life long years ago, when Erik vanished in their mists, and never more emerged, though May-day Eve had come and gone, and come and gone again. Beneath the pine had Elin trysted, first with hope, then disappointment, doubt, and at the last despair and madness. But this Spring, a roving impulse seized and forced her to retrace the steps to Eahlun, which she once had taken when the lagging feet were swift with hopes and fears, the dim eyes bright with ex-pectation and anxiety, the weary lips^ager and quick with ques-tions. Questions none could solve. One answering to Erik Orn's description, it is true, had laboured with his fellow miners from one May- day till its eve drew near again. But after that, he had been seen no more. Where he was gone, or why, none could reply; and few had cared to ask, since he had lived among them solitary, distant, and unknown. She had wandered back toward Silja that same night, as haggard, and the self-same ruin in heart and brain, as now she wandered here again. Through the well-ordered streets, and by the comfortable houses, she passed on. In balconies, and round the doorways, were gay groups, and sounds of laughter and glad greetings, as the neigh-bors met together for the May- Eve pilgrimage to wood-crowned heights without the reach of the smoke's blasting touch. Some careless eyes, some soft with pity, rested on the lonely passer-by; and more than once the light laugh checked itself, as overawed unconsciously, in presence of a sorrow mightier than all moan. But Elin went her way without a glance. The mining district rose to view in huts and hills against the lurid flickering of flames which tossed up showers of stars to fill the skies where milder, heaven-lier stars were not yet ready to appear. As Elin reached the mine-house, its clock was chiming the hour of release to workmen who were not to labor in the night. The dying cadence of the bell, the sinking of the calm, soft sunset wind, brought somewhat of their own lull to her restless spirit. She paused there, leaning on the railing which fenced round the opening of the great shaft. — 1868. Tlie Valborgsmas Tryst. 41 Across that opening stood a build-ing through which was the descent into the shaft, scores of fathoms deep. From this small open house a flood of firelight stream-ed— a flood which through ages following ages, ever since the cop-per was first worked, has never been permitted to die down. For tradition has it, that Thor's ham-mer first rang in the mighty vaults and endless labyrinth of red, and gold, and emerald halls below; and that he kindled the first flames upon the brink, to melt away the broken chains of the cairn-people so long bound be-neath there, by the giant mount-ain- king. Through Elin's darkened mind, as she gazed into the black vacu-um, came a remembrance of those tales. She listened to the distant, hollow echo of the blast-ing, and could feel the heaving of earth's bosom, as with a faint sob. The past rushed back upon her, almost clearly. She remember-ed her long -forgotten doubt of Erik's faithfulness. The space elapsed since then, she knew not; for the second trysting hour seem-ed just arrived. But a heart-rending terror smote her for the first time. TVas he true, and could not come to keep the tryst? Had the great mountain-king at last burst his own fetters, and heaped them on those who had dared intrude into his palace? — Did the stifled groans, the mo-tions, which she heard and felt, break from those captives in the struggle to wrench ofi" the chains which bound them to the subter-ranean rocks? And Erik — Dizzy with the sudden fear, she stared down into the dense dark-ness. But it was not now so dense as to be uuillumined by a gleam. Torches were flashing there, at first as faint and dim as glow-worms; and at that great depth appearing to creep as slow-ly up the shaft's walls, which the flaring made apparent. Up the stairs cut in those walls, two men who were foremost, seemed to bear some burthen un-der which they lifted themselves cautiously, with frequent pause for rest. No shout, no cheer pass-ed up or down from laborer to laborer. All the sounds which reached the awakened ear of Elin, were but far ofli" echoings, or the flash and rush of waterfalls through the now empty streets. She watched the torches steadily —as if the years and years of wa-vering were at an end—when sud-denly they vanished beneath her very eyes. This vanishing was nothing so mysterious, as it appeared to her, still never stiring from the spot, and brushing a wan hand across her brow, as if to clear her wist-ful vision. For the workmen had but disappeared through one of the doors opening from the shaft to a hidden stairway, which led up into that same small building whence the fire- glow flashed on Elin's worn and grief-bowed fig-ure. A moment, and that fire-glow was dimmed by persons passing it within the building. When it flashed out once again, it stream-ed upon a knot of miners in black blouses, and dark, broad-brimmed hats which cast a deeper shadow over grimy features. Elin saw 42 The YaTborgsmas Tryst. [Nov. , / them come out slowly, slowly — and lay something down upon the great shaft's brink, amid the wav-ing, agitated mass of women, children, workmen, and officials, that now gathered round. Some-thing— the burthen they had borne up from that awful, dim, myste-rious deep. Something—the stal-wart, hardened men, begrimed with more than the mine's con-tact, bent over it, their bold eyes softened strangely as they laid it down with tender, reverential touch. It may be in each mind there stirred the thought, that upon him one day the portals of the earth might close, and comrades have to bear him up and stretch him silent in the sun-glow, where perchance the mother or the sis-ter, bride, or child, would recog-nize, and stooping drop a tear or kiss upon the death- sealed lips. Ko kiss, no tear, was given now. Women whose counte-nances mirrored the arid bloomless life on hill-sides round, stared down; and from their bosoms, in-fants wan and pallid and unchild-like in their stillness— day-dawn clouded by the foul breath of the mines—hung forward, stretching forth their puny arms, and point-ing, with a weird and startling earnestness in the wee faces, to that rigid, unmoved figure. Awe there was, and curiosity, and some compassion—not one tear—no mourner's sigh—no wail for a heart's life outstretched there stark and cold. iSTone recognized him as a com-rade, and a murmur of amaze-ment went from group to group. He must have perish&d in the ruined shaft long jears ago, one said—else would his face have been familiar. A movement in the crowd— a swaying to and fro, as swayed the fading sunbeams and the flicker-ing flames. The solitary wander-er had drawn near; and with one consent, as if by instinct, did the men and women there make way for her, until the dying light with-in her eyes fell where the dying glances of the day yet shone. As if in slumber he reposed ; one arm beneath his head with all its sunny waves of hair undimmed — and in his right hand clenched, the mattock wherewith he had dug his grave. And yet it could not be that this was death! The strong, brave face lay under heaven with a smile upon the lips —a smile brilliant and pure as the reflection of a golden gleam from the opening gates of Paradise. The dark eyes shone beneath their half-closed lids, as though he were just sinking down to sleep in glad-some dreams. The wayfarer, who had paused to gaze one moment, tottered for-ward, and sank down, her head upon his breast. "Erik! Oh Erik! dost thou keep the tryst at last?—" she cried out, with a thrill of joy unutterable in her broken, quavering tones. The withered cheek pressed to the bronzed and ruddy one—the thin, grey locks entwining with those shining waves—the white, worn lips touching those crimson-red as if with life—the pale eyes dropping rushing tears of joy up-on the lowered lashes which now glittered as though he himself were weeping—. And the wrink-led, palsied hand — 1868.] Baby Power. 43 The wrinkled, palsied hand was resting on the brawny breast, where crossed a scarlet riband in-tertwining a gold braid. The withered cheek pressed to that fresh with youth—the grey hairs mingling with those Time had never touched—the white lips, ever whiter, breathing low and soft the last, faint breath of life across that smiling mouth—the faded eyes, their long watch at an end, their latest tear wept out, now gazing on the self-same dream that stole into his half-shut lids, from Heaven. Calumny no more hence-forth may wrench apart the hands now clasping in eternal troth-plight underneath the palms, upon the strand of the bright, glorious sea of glass. And as a miner silently advanc-ed, and reverently covered the two faces to which death should render back alike immortal youth, no dread laugh mocked them from the naked hills around. Nor were tears wanting. For with one accord the multitude sank down upon their knees, awe-stricken in the presence of death. And of a stronger than death — whose faithfulness had broken down the barrier of the grave, and kept the tryst at last. At last. Just as the sunset faded out, and crimson fires of Yalborgsmas shot uj) the gloam-infj skies. BABY POWER. BY ROSA VBRTNER JEFFREY. Six little feet to cover, Six little hands to fill. Tumbling out in the clover. Stumbling over the sill. Six little stockings ripping. Six little shoes half worn. Spite of that promised whipping, Skirts, shirts, and aprons torn! Bugs and bumble-bees catching, Heedless of bites and stings, "Walls and furniture scratching, Twisting ofi" buttons and strings. Into the sugar and flour, 44 Bahy Power. Kov., Into the salt and meal, Their royal, baby power, All through the house we feel! Behind the big stove creeping. To steal the kindling wood; Into the cupboard peeping, To hunt for " somesin dood." The dogs they tease to snarling, The chickens know no rest, Yet—the old cook calls them "darling" And loves each one " the best." Smearing each other's faces. With smut or blacking-brush. To forbidden things and places, Always making a rush. Over a chair, or table, They'll fight, and kiss again "When told of slaughtered Abel, Or cruel, wicked Cain. All sorts of mischief trying, \jl On sunny days—in doors — And then perversely crying To rush out when it pours. A raid on Grand-ma making, —In si^ite her nice new cap, — Its strings for bridles taking. While riding on her lap. Three rose-bud mouths beguiling. Prattling the live-long day, Six sweet eyes on me smiling, Hazle, and blue, and gray. — Hazle—with heart-light sparkling. Too happy, we trust, to fade — Blue—'neath long lashes darkling, Like violets in the shade. Gray—full of earnest meaning, A dawning light so fair, Of woman's life beginning, We dread the noon-tide glare Of earthly strife, and passion, May spoil its tender glow, '^ 1868.] Windsor Castle. 45 Change its celestial fashion, As earth-stains change the snow! Three little heads, all sunny, To pillow and bless at night. Riotous Alick and Dunnie, Jinnie, so bonnie and bright! Three souls immortal slumber. Crowned by that golden hair, TVhen Christ his flock shall number, Will all my lambs be there? Xow with the stillness round me, I bow my head and pray, " Since this faint heart has found thee, Suifer them not to stray." Up to the shining portals. Over life's stormy tide, Treasures I bring—immortal. Saviour be thou my guide. Lexington, Ky., 1868. WINDSOR CASTLE. This stately j)ile is situated in a westerly direction from London, at a distance of about twenty miles. Founded by William the Conqueror, first as a military for-tress, and afterwards converted into a palace, it has been enlarged and improved by different sover-eigns, but received the last, mag-nificent alterations in the time of George lY., portions of the work being only completed since the reign of Queen Victoria. The Castle itself, on a lofty emi-nence, has an imposing grandeur, from its great extent, its beautiful church, its circular towers; the great Central Tower being over three hundred feet in circumfer-ence, and near three hundred feet in height above the level of the Home Park. The first view of the State apartments however, was a disappointing one. They were far less spacious and magnificent than I anticipated, a feeling which would perhaps be experienced by any one who had had the misfor-tune to have first seen the Paris-ian palaces. And yet doubtless, a visit to Windsor and its en-virons leaves a much more agreea-ble impression on the mind. Perhaps some slight allusions to 46 Windsor Castle. [Nov, the principal apartments would not be devoid of interest to those who have never seen them. We ascended the " Grand Stair-case " of marble, an appropriate entrance to the noble edifice, and passing through the vestibule, where hangs the portrait of Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, the architect who planned the last, elegant im-provements in the palace, we en-tered the Queen's Audience chamber. This, though small, is rather pleasing, its ceiling, paint-ed by Verrio, represents Queen Catherine in a triumphal car, and attended by the Goddesses of flowers, grain and fruits, an em-blem of Great Britain. The Gobelin Tapestry decorating the walls, represents portions of the history of Queen Esther and Mor-decai. There were also a few por-traits, the most interesting, those of William III, and his amiable Queen Mary. 'Next is the Yandyck room, so called, from its containing numer-ous portraits, chiefly of English royalty, by that favorite artist of the 17th century. The State-ante-room, very small, has a ceiling also painted by Verrio, a banquet of the Gods. Here are seen some specimens of carving by Gibbons, which are very beautiful, and a portrait in stained glass of George the Third. The Waterloo cham-ber has more than ordinary archi-tectural beauty, and contains many portraits by different art-ists, chiefly of illustrious charac-ters, kings and others, of the various continental nations. Among the English portraits, is one of the Hon. George Canning, once Prime Minister, and a very fine one of the Duke of AVelling-ton as he appeared on the day of thanksgiving after the battle of Waterloo. The Queen's State drawing room called the Zucca-relli room, from its containing some fine paintings by that artist, embracing Scripture scenes, land-scapes, and the portraits of the three Kings George, is very elegantly fitted up, from some glimpses we obtained of the par-tially covered furniture. The grand reception room is the first which commends itself to the eye as palatial in its proportions. It is ninety feet in length, thirty-three in height, and thirty-four in breadth, and with the profusion of rich gilding and carving, the mag-nificent chandeliers, the numer-ous elegant mirrors, and the Gobelin tapestry, representing scenes from heathen mythology, is really brilliant and imposing. St. George's Hall, the grand ban-queting room, in which is the throne, is still more spacious, be-ing two hundred feet in length, the breadth and height about the same as the preceding. The ceil-ing is decorated with a confusing number and variety of armorial bearings of the Knights of the Garter from its origin to the pres-ent time. On the walls |
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