Chapter LV: Rhymes and Chimes.--Suitable for Autograph Albums (3)

Little by little the controversy spread. I shall not trace it. I am giving you simply the atmosphere in which he sprang into being and into power. His career was a career of thirty or forty years of undiminished eagerness. He never quailed nor flinched, nor did he ever at any time go back one step or turn in the slightest degree to the right or left. He gloried in his cause, and in that particular aspect of it which had selected him; for he was one that was called rather than one that chose. He stood on this platform. It is a part of the sweet and pleasant memories of my comparative youth here, that when the mob refused to let him speak in the Broadway Tabernacle before it moved up-town--the old Tabernacle--William A. Hall, now dead, a fervent friend and Abolitionist, had secured the Graham Institute wherein to hold a meeting where Mr. Phillips should be heard. I had agreed to pray at the opening of the meeting. On the morning of the day on which it was to have taken place, I was visited by the committee of that Institute--excellent gentlemen, whose feelings will not be hurt now, because they are all now ashamed of it; they are in heaven. They visited me to say that in consequence of the great peril that attended a meeting at the Institute, they had withdrawn the liberty to use it, and paid back the money, and that they called simply to say that it was out of no disrespect to me, but from fidelity to their supposed trust. Well, it was a bitter thing.

LIBERTY OF SPEECH AND THOUGHT.

If there is any thing on earth that I am sensitive to, it is the withdrawing of the liberty of speech and thought. Henry C. Bowen, who certainly has done some good things in his life-time, said to me: "You can have Plymouth Church if you want it." "How?" "It is the rule of the church trustees that the church may be let by a majority vote when we are convened; but if we are not convened, then every trustee must give his assent in writing. If you choose to make it a personal matter, and go to every trustee, you can have it." He meanwhile undertook, with Mr. Hall, to put new placards over the old ones, notifying men quietly that the meeting was to be held here, and distributed thousands and tens of thousands of hand-bills at the ferries. No task was ever more welcome. I went to the trustees man by man. The majority of the trustees very cheerfully accorded the permission. One or two of them were disposed to decline and withhold it. I made it a matter of personal friendship. "You and I will break, if you don't give me this permission." And they signed. So the meeting glided from the Graham Institute to this house. A great audience assembled. We had detectives in disguise, and every arrangement made to handle the subject in a practical form if the crowd should undertake to molest us. The Rev. Dr. R.S. Storrs consented to come and pray, for Mr. Wendell Phillips was by marriage a near and intimate friend and relation of his. The reporters were here; when were they ever not?

Mr. Phillips began his lecture, and, you may depend upon it, by this time the lion was in him, and he went careering on. Hie views were extreme; he made them extravagant. I remember at one point--for he was a man without bluster, serene, self-poised, never disturbed in the least--he made an affirmation that was very bitter, and the cry arose over the whole congregation. He stood still, with a cold, bitter smile in his eye, and waited till they subsided, when he repeated it with more emphasis. Again the roar went through. He waited and repeated it, if possible, more intensely, and he beat them down with that one sentence until they were still, and let him go on.

POWER TO DISCERN THE RIGHT.

The power to discern right amid all the wrappings of interest and all the seductions of ambition was singularly his. To choose the lowly for their sake, to abandon all favor, all power, all comfort, all ambition, all greatness--that was his genius and glory. He confronted the spirit of the nation and of the age. I had almost said he set himself against nature, as if he had been a decree of God over-riding all these other insuperable obstacles. That was his function. Mr. Phillips was not called to be a universal orator any more than he was a universal thinker. In literature and in history widely read, in person magnificent, in manners most accomplished, gentle as a babe, sweet as a new-blown rose, in voice clear and silvery, yet he was not a man of tempests, he was not an orchestra of a hundred instruments, he was not an organ, mighty and complex. The nation slept, and God wanted a trumpet, sharp, wide-sounding, narrow and intense; and that was Mr. Phillips. The long-roll is not particularly agreeable in music, or in times of war, but it is better than flutes or harps when men are in a great battle, or are on the point of it. His eloquence was penetrating and alarming. He did not flow as a mighty Gulf Stream; he did not dash upon this continent as the ocean does; he was not a mighty rushing river. His eloquence was a flight of arrows, sentence after sentence polished, and most of them burning. He slung them one after the other, and where they struck they slew. Always elegant, always awful. I think his scorn is and was as fine as I ever knew it in any human being. He had that sublime sanctuary in his pride that made him almost insensitive to what would by other men be considered obloquy. It was as if he said every day in himself: "I am not what they are firing at. I am not there, and I am not that. It is not against me. I am infinitely superior to what they think me to be. They do not know me." It was quiet and unpretentious, but it was there. Conscience and pride were the two concurrent elements of his nature.

THE MOB-BEATEN HERO TRIUMPHANT.

He lived to see the slave emancipated, but not by moral means. He lived to see the sword cut the fetter. After this had taken place, he was too young to retire, though too old to gather laurels of literature or to seek professional honors. The impulse of humanity was not at all abated. His soul still flowed on for the great under-masses of mankind, though, like the Nile, it split up into scores of mouths, and not all of them were navigable. After a long and stormy life his sun went down in glory. All the English-speaking people on the globe have written among the names that shall never die the name of that scoffed, detested, mob-beaten, persecuted wretch--Wendell Phillips. Boston, that persecuted and would have slain him, is now exceedingly busy in building his tomb and rearing his statue. The men that would not defile their lips with his name are thanking God to-day that he lived.

He has taught some lessons--lessons that the young will do well to take heed to--that the most splendid gifts and opportunities and ambitions may be best used for the dumb and lowly. His whole life is a rebuke to the idea that we are to climb to greatness by climbing up on the backs of great men, that we are to gain strength by running with the currents of life, that we can from without add any thing to the great within that constitutes man. He poured out the precious ointment of his soul upon the feet of that diffusive Jesus who suffers here in his poor and despised ones. He has taught young ambitions, too, that the way to glory is the way often-times of adhesion simply to principle, and that popularity and unpopularity are not things to be known or considered. Do right and rejoice. If to do right will bring you under trouble, rejoice in it that you are counted worthy to suffer with God and the providences of God in this world.

He belongs to the race of giants, not simply because he was, in and of himself a great soul, but because he had bathed in the providence of God and came forth scarcely less than a god; because he gave himself to the work of God upon earth, and inherited thereby, or had reflected upon him, some of the majesty of his Master. When pigmies are all dead, the noble countenance of Wendell Phillips will still look forth, radiant as a rising sun, a sun that will never set. He has become to us a lesson, his death an example, his whole history an encouragement to manhood--and to heroic manhood.

* * * * *

VIII

MARY WORDSWORTH

(BORN 1770--DIED 1859.)

THE KINDLY WIFE OF THE GREAT POET.

"A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food."

The last thing that would have occurred to Mrs. Wordsworth would have been that her departure, or any thing about her, would be publicly noticed amidst the events of a stirring time. Those who knew her well regarded her with as true a homage as they ever rendered to any member of the household, or to any personage of the remarkable group which will be forever traditionally associated with the Lake District; but this reverence, genuine and hearty as it was, would not, in all eyes, be a sufficient reason for recording more than the fact of her death. It is her survivorship of such a group which constitutes an undisputed public interest in her decease. With her closes a remarkable scene in the history of the literature of our century. The well-known cottage, mount, and garden at Rydal will be regarded with other eyes when shut up or transferred to new occupants. With Mrs. Wordsworth, an old world has passed away before the eyes of the inhabitants of the district, and a new one succeeds, which may have its own delights, solemnities, honors, and graces, but which can never replace the familiar one that is gone. There was something mournful in the lingering of this aged lady--blind, deaf, and bereaved in her latter years; but _she_ was not mournful, any more than she was insensible. Age did not blunt her feelings, nor deaden her interest in the events of the day. It seems not so very long ago that she said that the worst of living in such a place (as the Lake District), was its making one unwilling to go. It is too beautiful to let one be ready to leave it. Within a few years the beloved daughter was gone, and then the aged husband, and then the son-in-law, and then the devoted friend, Mr. Wordsworth's publisher, Mr. Moxon, who paid his duty occasionally by the side of her chair; then she became blind and deaf. Still her cheerfulness was indomitable. No doubt, she would in reality have been "willing to go," whenever called upon, throughout her long life; but she liked life to the end. By her disinterestedness of nature, by her fortitude of spirit, and her constitutional elasticity and activity, she was qualified for the honor of surviving her household--nursing and burying them, and bearing the bereavement which they were vicariously spared. She did it wisely, tenderly, bravely, and cheerfully; and then she will be remembered accordingly by all who witnessed the spectacle.

It was by the accident, so to speak, of her early friendship with Wordsworth's sister, that her life became involved with the poetic element which her mind would hardly have sought for itself in another position. She was the incarnation of good sense, as applied to the concerns of the every-day world. In as far as her marriage and course of life tended to infuse a new elevation into her views of things, it was a blessing; and, on the other hand, in as far as it infected her with the spirit of exclusiveness, which was the grand defect of the group in its own place, it was hurtful; but that very exclusiveness was less an evil than an amusement, after all. It was rather a serious matter to hear the poet's denunciation of the railway, and to read his well-known sonnets on the desecration of the Lake region by the unhallowed presence of commonplace strangers; and it was truly painful to observe how the scornful and grudging mood spread among the young, who thought they were agreeing with Wordsworth in claiming the vales and lakes as a natural property for their enlightened selves. But it was so unlike Mrs. Wordsworth, with her kindly, cheery, generous turn, to say that a green field, with buttercups, would answer all the purposes of Lancashire operatives, and that they did not know what to do with themselves when they came among the mountains, that the innocent insolence could do no harm. It became a fixed sentiment when she alone survived to uphold it, and one demonstration of it amused the whole neighborhood in a good-natured way. "People from Birthwaite" were the bugbear--Birthwaite being the end of the railway. In the Summer of 1857, Mrs. Wordsworth's companion told her (she being then blind) that there were some strangers in the garden--two or three boys on the mount, looking at the view. "Boys from Birthwaite," said the old lady, in the well-known tone, which conveyed that nothing good could come from Birthwaite. When the strangers were gone, it appeared that they were the Prince of Wales and his companions. Making allowance for prejudices, neither few nor small, but easily dissolved when reason and kindliness had opportunity to work, she was a truly wise woman, equal to all occasions of action, and supplying other persons' needs and deficiencies.

In the "Memoirs of Wordsworth" it is stated that she was the original of

"She was a phantom of delight;"

and some things in the next few pages look like it; but for the greater part of the poet's life it was certainly believed by some, who ought to know, that that wonderful description related to another who flitted before his imagination in earlier days than those in which he discovered the aptitude of Mary Hutchinson to his own needs. The last stanza is very like her; and her husband's sonnet to the painter of her portrait, in old age, discloses to us how the first stanza might be also, in days beyond the ken of the existing generation.

Of her early sorrows, in the loss of two children and a beloved sister, who was domesticated with the family, there are probably no living witnesses. It will never be forgotten, by those who saw it, how the late dreary train of afflictions was met. For many years Wordsworth's sister Dorothy was a melancholy charge. Mrs. Wordsworth was wont to warn any rash enthusiasts for mountain-walking by the spectacle before them. The adoring sister would never fail her brother; and she destroyed her health, and then her reason, by exhausting walks and wrong remedies for the consequences. Forty miles in a day was not a singular feat of Dorothy's. During the long years of this devoted creature's helplessness she was tended with admirable cheerfulness and good sense. Thousands of lake tourists must remember the locked garden-gate when Miss Wordsworth was taking the air, and the garden-chair going round and round the terrace, with the emaciated little woman in it, who occasionally called out to strangers and amused them with her clever sayings. She outlived the beloved Dora, Wordsworth's only surviving daughter.

After the lingering illness of that daughter (Mrs. Quillinan), the mother encountered the dreariest portion, probably, of her life. Her aged husband used to spend the long Winter evenings in grief and tears--week after week, month after month. Neither of them had eyes for reading. He could not be comforted. She, who carried as tender a maternal heart as ever beat, had to bear her own grief and his too. She grew whiter and smaller, so as to be greatly changed in a few months; but this was the only expression of what she endured, and he did not discover it. When he, too, left her, it was seen how disinterested had been her trouble. When his trouble had ceased, she, too, was relieved. She followed his coffin to the sacred corner of Grasmere churchyard, where lay now all those who had once made her home. She joined the household guests on their return from the funeral, and made tea as usual. And this was the disinterested spirit which carried her through the last few years, till she had just reached the ninetieth. Even then she had strength to combat disease for many days. Several times she rallied and relapsed; and she was full of alacrity of mind and body as long as exertion of any kind was possible. There were many eager to render all duty and love--her two sons, nieces, and friends, and a whole sympathizing neighborhood.

The question commonly asked by visitors to that corner of Grasmere churchyard was: Where would _she_ be laid when the time came? The space was so completely filled. The cluster of stones told of the little children who died a long life-time ago; of the sisters--Sarah Hutchinson and Dorothy Wordsworth; and of Mr. Quillinan, and his two wives, Dora lying between her husband and father, and seeming to occupy her mother's rightful place. And Hartley Coleridge lies next the family group; and others press closely round. There is room, however. The large gray stone, which bears the name of William Wordsworth, has ample space left for another inscription; and the grave beneath has ample space also for his faithful life-companion.

Not one is left now of the eminent persons who rendered that cluster of valleys so eminent as it has been. Dr. Arnold went first, in the vigor of his years. Southey died at Keswick, and Hartley Coleridge on the margin of Rydal Lake; and the Quillinans under the shadow of Loughrigg; and Professor Wilson disappeared from Elleray; and the aged Mrs. Fletcher from Lancrigg; and the three venerable Wordsworths from Rydal Mount.

The survivor of all the rest had a heart and a memory for the solemn _last_ of every thing. She was the one to inquire of about the last eagle in the district, the last pair of ravens in any crest of rocks, the last old dalesman in any improved spot, the last round of the last peddler among hills where the broad white road has succeeded the green bridal-path. She knew the district during the period between its first recognition, through Gray's "Letters," to its complete publicity in the age of railways. She saw, perhaps, the best of it. But she contributed to modernize and improve it, though the idea of doing so probably never occurred to her. There were great people before to give away Christmas bounties, and spoil their neighbors, as the established alms-giving of the rich does spoil the laboring class, which ought to be above that kind of aid. Mrs. Wordsworth did infinitely more good in her own way, and without being aware of it. An example of comfortable thrift was a greater boon to the people round than money, clothes, meat, or fuel. The oldest residents have long borne witness that the homes of the neighbors have assumed a new character of order and comfort, and wholesome economy, since the poet's family lived at Rydal Mount. It used to be a pleasant sight when Wordsworth was seen in the middle of a hedge, cutting switches for half a dozen children, who were pulling at his cloak, or gathering about his heels; and it will long be pleasant to family friends to hear how the young wives of half a century learned to make home comfortable by the example of the good housewife at the Mount, who never was above letting her thrift be known.

Finally, she who had noted so many last survivors was herself the last of a company more venerable than eagles, or ravens, or old-world yeomen, or antique customs. She would not, in any case, be the first forgotten. As it is, her honored name will live for generations in the traditions of the valleys round. If she was studied as the poet's wife, she came out so well from that investigation that she was contemplated for herself; and the image so received is her true monument. It will be better preserved in her old-fashioned neighborhood than many monuments which make a greater show.

"She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To he a moment's ornament;
Her eyes, as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
* * * * *
And now I see, with eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveler between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still and bright,
With something of an angel light."

HARRIET MARTINEAU IN 1859.

* * * * *

IX.

MADAME MALIBRAN.

(BORN 1808--DIED 1836.)

HER CAREER AS A SINGER--KINDNESS OF HEART.

Marie Felicita Garcia, who died at the early age of twenty-eight, was one of the greatest singers the world has ever known. Born at Paris in 1808, according to some biographers at Turin, she was the daughter of Manuel Garcia, the famous Spanish tenor singer, by whom she was so thoroughly trained that she made her first public appearance in London March 25, 1826, and achieved a remarkable and instant success.

She sang with wonderful acceptance in different parts of England, and in the Autumn of the same year came to America as prima donna of an opera company under the management of her father. In New York her success was without precedent. In the memory of many aged people there she still holds her place as the Queen of Song.

In the following year she married Eugene Malibran, an elderly French merchant, under whose name she was ever afterwards known.

Returning to Europe, she made her first appearance in Paris January 14, 1828, where she added other jewels to the singer's crown.

We can not follow her throughout her brilliant career, but must hasten on to the closing scenes of her life.

In May, 1836, she fell from her horse and was seriously injured. Not considering the matter in its true aspect, she kept her engagements during the Summer, and in September appeared in England, at the Manchester Musical Festival, though warned by her physician to desist. As the result of the imprudence a nervous fever set in, and she died September 23d, 1836.

In one of the many notices of this great singer, these words are found:

"Madame Malibran's voice was a mezzo-soprano of great volume and purity, and had been brought to absolute perfection by the severe training of her father. Her private character was irreproachable. Few women have been more beloved for their amiability, generosity, and professional enthusiasm. Her intellect was of a high order, and the charms of her conversation fascinated all who were admitted into the circle of her intimate friends. Her benefactions amounted to such considerable sums that her friends were frequently obliged to interfere for the purpose of regulating her finances."

Many stories are told, which show her kindness of heart. The following is one of pathetic interest:

In a humble room in one of the poorest streets of London, Pierre, a faithful French boy, sat humming by the bedside of his sick mother. There was no bread in the closet, and for the whole day he had not tasted food. Yet he sat humming to keep up his spirits. Still at times he thought of his loneliness and hunger, and he could scarcely keep the tears from his eyes; for he knew that nothing would be so grateful to his poor invalid mother as a good, sweet orange, and yet he had not a penny in the world.

The little song he was singing was his own--one he had composed, both air and words--for the child was a genius.

He went to the window, and, looking out, saw a man putting up a great bill with yellow letters, announcing that Madame Malibran would sing that night in public.

"O, if I could only go!" thought little Pierre; and then pausing a moment, he clasped his hands, his eyes lighted with a new hope.

Running to the little stand, he smoothed his yellow curls, and taking from a little box some old, stained paper, gave one eager glance at his mother, who slept, and ran speedily from the house.

"Who did you say was waiting for me?" said the madame to her servant; "I am already worn out with company."

"It's only a very pretty little boy, with yellow curls, who said if he can just see you he is sure you will not be sorry, and he will not keep you a moment."

"O, well, let him come in!" said the beautiful singer, with a smile; "I can never refuse children."

Little Pierre came in, his hat under his arm, and in his hand a little roll of paper. With manliness unusual for a child, he walked straight to the lady, and, bowing, said:

"I came to see you because my mother is very sick, and we are too poor to get food and medicine. I thought, perhaps, that if you would sing my little song at some of your grand concerts, may be some publisher would buy it for a small sum, and so I could get food and medicine for my mother."

The beautiful woman arose from her seat. Very tall and stately she was. She took the little roll from his hand and lightly hummed the air.

"Did you compose it?" she asked; "you, a child! And the words? Would you like to come to my concert?" she asked.

"O yes!" and the boy's eyes grew bright with happiness; "but I couldn't leave my mother."

"I will send somebody to take care of your mother for the evening, and here is a crown with which you may go and get food and medicine. Here is also one of my tickets. Come to-night; that will admit you to a seat near me."

Almost beside himself with joy, Pierre bought some oranges, and many a little luxury besides, and carried them home to the poor invalid, telling her, not without tears, of his good fortune.

When evening came, and Pierre was admitted to the concert hall, he felt that never in his life had he been in so great a place. The music, the myriad lights, the beauty, the flashing of diamonds and rustling of silks bewildered his eyes and brain.

At last she came, and the child sat with his glance riveted on her glorious face. Could he believe that the grand lady, all blazing with jewels, and whom every body seemed to worship, would really sing his little song?

Breathless he waited; the band--the whole band--struck up a plaintive little melody. He knew it, and clasped his hands for joy. And O, how she sang it! It was so simple, so mournful. Many a bright eye dimmed with tears, and naught could be heard but the touching words of that little song--O, so touching!

Pierre walked home as if he were moving on the air.

What cared he for money now? The greatest singer in all Europe had sung his little song, and thousands had wept at his grief.

The next day he was frightened at a visit from Madame Malibran. She laid her hand on his yellow curls, and, turning to the sick woman, said, "Your little boy, madame, has brought you a fortune. I was offered this morning, by the best publisher in London, $1,500 for his little song; and, after he has realized a certain amount from the sale, little Pierre here is to share the profits. Madame, thank God that your son has a gift from heaven."

The noble-hearted singer and the poor woman wept together. As to Pierre, always mindful of Him who watches over the tried and tempted, he knelt down by his mother's bedside and uttered a simple prayer, asking God's blessing on the kind lady who had deigned to notice their affliction.

The memory of that prayer made the singer more tender-hearted, and she, who was the idol of England's nobility, went about doing good. And in her early, happy death, he who stood beside her bed and smoothed her pillow, and lightened her last moments by his undying affection, was little Pierre of former days, now rich, accomplished, and the most talented composer of the day.

O singer of the heart,
The heart that never dies!
The Lord's interpreter thou art,
His angel from the skies.

Thy work on earth is great
As his who saves a soul,
Or his who guides the ship of state,
When mountain-billows roll.

The life of Heaven comes down
In gleams of grace and truth;
Sad mortals see the shining crown
Of sweet, perennial youth.

The life of God, in song
Becomes the life of man;
Ashamed is he of sin and wrong
Who hears a Malibran!

* * * * *

X.

GARFIELD.--MAXIMS.

GATHERED FROM HIS SPEECHES, ADDRESSES, LETTERS, ETC.

I would rather be beaten in right than succeed in wrong.

I feel a profounder reverence for a boy than for a man. I never meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling that I may owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned under his coat.

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but, nine times out of ten, the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance, I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving.

If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.

We can not study nature profoundly without bringing ourselves into communion with the spirit of art which pervades and fills the universe.

If there be one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another, it is a brave man; it is a man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.

It is one of the precious mysteries of sorrow that it finds solace in unselfish thought.

Every character is the joint product of nature and nurture.

It has been fortunate that most of our greatest men have left no descendants to shine in the borrowed luster of a great name.

An uncertain currency, that goes up and down, hits the laborer, and hits him hard. It helps him last and hurts him first.

We no longer attribute the untimely death of infants to the sin of Adam, but to bad nursing and ignorance.

The granite hills are not so changeless and abiding as the restless sea.

In their struggle with the forces of nature, the ability to labor was the richest patrimony of the colonists.

Coercion is the basis of every law in the universe--human or divine. A law is no law without coercion behind it.

For the noblest man who lives there still remains a conflict.

We hold reunions, not for the dead; for there is nothing in all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are past our help and past our praise. We can add to them no glory, we can give them no immortality. They do not need us, but for ever and for evermore we need them.

Throughout the whole web of national existence we trace the golden thread of human progress toward a higher and better estate.

Heroes did not make our liberties, but they reflected and illustrated them.

After all, territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life. In them dwells its hope of immortality. Among them, if anywhere, are to be found its chief elements of destruction.

It matters little what may be the forms of national institution if the life, freedom, and growth of society are secured.

Finally, our great hope for the future--our great safeguard against danger--is to be found in the general and thorough education of our people, and in the virtue which accompanies such education.

The germ of our political institutions, the primary cell from which they were evolved, was in the New England town, and the vital force, the informing soul, of the town was the town meeting, which, for all local concerns, was kings, lords, and commons in all.

It is as much the duty of all good men to protect and defend the reputation of worthy public servants as to detect public rascals.

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing.

If you are not too large for the place, you are too small for it.

Young men talk of trusting to the spur of the occasion. That trust is vain. Occasions can not make spurs. If you expect to wear spurs, you must win them. If you wish to use them, you must buckle them to your own heels before you go into the fight.

Greek is perhaps the most perfect instrument of thought ever invented by man, and its literature has never been equaled in purity of style and boldness of expression.

Great ideas travel slowly, and for a time noiselessly, as the gods whose feet were shod with wool.

What the arts are to the world of matter, literature is to the world of mind.

History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.

The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian, philosopher, and historian--the humble listener--there has been a divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come.

Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear like owls and bats before the light of day.

Liberty can be safe only when suffrage is illuminated by education.

Parties have an organic life and spirit of their own, an individuality and character which outlive the men who compose them; and the spirit and traditions of a party should be considered in determining their fitness for managing the affairs of the nation.

Of Garfield's finished days,
So fair, and all too few,
Destruction which at noonday strays
Could not the work undo.

O martyr, prostrate, calm!
I learn anew that pain
Achieves, as God's subduing psalm,
What else were all in vain.

Like Samson in his death
With mightiest labor rife,
The moments of thy halting breath
Were grandest of thy life.

And now amid the gloom
Which pierces mortal years,
There shines a star above thy tomb
To smile away our tears.

* * * * *

XI.

WHAT I CARRIED TO COLLEGE.

A REMINISCENCE AT FORTY--PICTURES OF RURAL LIFE.

Nobody has brought me a kiss to-day,
As forty comes marching along life's way;

At least, only such as came in a letter,--
And two hundred leagues from home, the debtor!

So out of my life I will dig a treasure,
And feast on a reminiscent pleasure.

Our old New England folks, you know,
Little favor to kissing were wont to show.

It smacked, they thought, too much of Satan,
Whose hook often has a pleasant bate on.

And even as token of purity's passion,
Sometimes, I think, it was out of fashion.

So at least in the home my boyhood knew,
And of other homes, no doubt, it was true.

My grandsire and grandma, of the olden school,
Were strict observers of the proper rule.

And from New-Year on to the end of December,
A kiss is something I do not remember.

It seemed, I suppose, an abomination,
Somewhat like a Christmas celebration,

Or a twelfth-day pudding in English style,
Whose plums are sweet as a maiden's smile.

Hush! fountains New England fathers quaffed at
Were surely something not to be laughed at.

They drank, the heavens above and under,
Eternity's abiding wonder.

And here, I confess, in the joy of the present,
The thought of those days is sacredly pleasant.

Grandma, with the cares of the household on her,
In the morning smoked in the chimney corner.

She hung the tea-kettle filled with water
While still asleep was her youngest daughter.

Ah! there were reasons, good and plenty,
Why she should indulge that baby of twenty.

The rest were all courted and married and flown,
And that little birdie was left alone.

Grandmother, when she had finished her smoking,
Bustled about--she never went poking--

And fried the pork, and made the tea,
And pricked the potatoes, if done to see;

While grandsire finished his chapter of snores,
And uncle and I were doing the chores.

When breakfast was over, the Bible was read,
And a prayer I still remember said.

The old folks in reverence bowed them down,
As those who are mindful of cross and crown.

My uncle and aunt, who were unconverted,
Their right to sit or stand asserted.

And I, I fear, to example true,
The part of a heathen acted too.

But there was always for me a glory,
Morning and night, in that Bible story.

The heroes and saints of the olden time
In beautiful vision moved sublime.

I wondered much at the valor they had,
And in wondering my soul was glad.

My wonderment, I can hardly tell,
At the boldness Jacob showed at the well

In kissing Rachel, when meeting her first;
I wondered not into tears he burst.

Had I been constrained to choose between
That deed at the well and that after-scene

When David and Goliath met,
My heart on the fight would have certainly set.

And yet there was much for a bashful boy
To gather up and remember with joy.

God bless my grandsire's simple heart,
Which made up in faith what it lacked in art,

And led me on to the best of the knowledge
Which years thereafter I carried to college.

Tending the cattle stalled in the "linter,"
Going to school eight weeks in the Winter;

Planting and hoeing potatoes and corn,
Milking the cows at night and morn;

Spreading and raking the new-mown hay,
Stowing it in the mow away;

Gathering apples, and thinking of all
The joys of Thanksgiving late in the Fall--

So passed I the years in such like scenes
Until I had grown well into my teens.

And then, with many a dream in my heart,
I struck for myself and a nobler part;

I hardly knew what, yet some higher good,
Earning and spending as fast as I could;

Earning and spending in teaching and going
To school, what time I to manhood was growing.

My maiden aunt--and Providence
Is approved in its blessed consequence--

That baby of twenty, to thirty had grown,
And from the nest had not yet flown.

And a childless aunt, my uncle's wife,
Had come to gladden that quiet life.

God bless them both, for they were ever
The foremost to second my life's endeavor.

Our aunts sometimes are almost mothers,
Toiling and planning and spending for others.

Aunt Hannah, the maiden; Aunt Emily, wife,--
How they labored to gird me for the strife,

Cheering me on with words befitting,
Doing my sewing and doing my knitting,

And pressing upon me many a token
Whose meaning was more than ever was spoken!

At length the time for parting came--
They both in heaven will have true fame!

They did not bid me good-bye at the stile;
They with me went through the woods a mile.

It was the still September time,
When the Autumn fruits were in their prime.

Here and there a patch of crimson was seen
Where the breath of the early frost had been.

The songs of the birds were tender and sad,
Yet I could not say they were not glad.

Nature's soft and mellow undertone
To a note-like trust in the Father had grown.

And that trust, I ween, in our hearts had sway,
As on through the woods we wended our way.

Meeting and parting fringe life below;
We parted--twenty years ago.

My aunts turned back, and on went I,
Striving my burning tears to dry.

Almost a thousand miles away
Was the _Alma Mater_ I sought that day.

To a voice I turned me on my track,
And saw them both come running back.

"Is something forgotten?" soon stammered I;
And they, without a word in reply,

Caught me in their arms, a great baby of twenty,
And smothered me with kisses not too plenty.

Some joys I had known before that day,
And many since have thronged my way;

But in all my seeking through forty years,
In which rainbow hopes have dried all tears,

I have nothing found in the paths of knowledge,
Surpassing those kisses I carried to college.

* * * * *

XII.

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

(BORN 1786--DIED 1847.)

HEROISM ON THE GREAT DEEP--A MARTYR OF THE POLAR SEA.

The life of this great navigator is an epic of the ocean, which will stir the brave heart for many ages to come.

One day, toward the close of the last century, a young English lad, named John Franklin, spent a holiday with a companion in a walk of twelve miles from their school at Louth, to look at the sea from the level shores of his native country. It was the first time that the boy had ever gazed on the wonderful expanse, and his heart was strangely stirred. The youngest of four sons, he had been intended for the ministry of the Church of England, but that day's walk fixed His purposes in another direction; and though he knew it not, he was to serve God and man even more nobly by heroic deeds than he could have done by the wisest and most persuasive words.

Mr. Franklin was a wise man, and when he found his son bent on a sailor's life, determined to give him a taste-of it, in the hope that this would be enough. John was therefore taken from school at the age of thirteen, and sent in a merchantman to Lisbon. The Bay of Biscay, however, did not cure his enthusiasm; and so we next find John Franklin as a midshipman on board the _Polyphemus_, seventy-four guns. These were stirring times. In 1801 young Franklin's ship led the line in the battle of Copenhagen, and in 1805, having been transferred to the _Bellerophon_, he held charge of the signals at the battle of Trafalgar, bravely standing at his post and coolly attending to his work while the dead and dying fell around him.

Between these two dates Franklin had accompanied an exploring voyage to Australia on board the _Investigator_, gaining in that expedition not only a great store of facts to be treasured up for use in his eager and retentive mind, but those habits of observation which were to be of the greatest service to him in after-years. On his return home in another vessel--the _Porpoise_--Franklin and his companions were wrecked upon a coral reef, where ninety-four persons remained for seven weeks on a narrow sand-bank less than a quarter of a mile in length, and only four feet above the surface of the water!

It was in 1818 that the young lieutenant first set sail for the Polar Sea, as second commander of the _Trent_, under Captain Buchan. The aim was to cross between Spitzbergen and Greenland; but the companion vessel, the _Dorothea_, being greatly injured by the ice, the two had to return to England, after reaching the eightieth degree of latitude.

A year later lieutenants Franklin and Parry were placed at the head of expeditions, the latter to carry on the exploration through Baffin's Bay, and to find an outlet, if possible, by Lancaster Sound. This was splendidly done, and the North-west Passage practically discovered. The task of Franklin was more arduous. He had to traverse the vast solitary wastes of North-eastern America, with their rivers and lakes, to descend to the mouth of the Coppermine River, and to survey the coast eastward. The toil and hardship of this wonderful expedition, and the brave endurance of Franklin and his friend Richardson, and their trusty helpers, have often been related. They had to contend with famine and illness, with the ignorance and treachery of the Indians, who murdered three of the party. The land journey altogether extended over 5,500 miles, occupying a year and six months.

In less than two years after their return to England, Franklin, Richardson, and Back volunteered for another expedition to the same region.

In 1825 this second expedition started, Franklin mournfully leaving the death-bed of his wife, to whom he had been married after his last return to England. This brave lady not only let him go, though she knew she was dying, but begged him not to delay one day for her! At New York Franklin heard of her death, but manfully concealed his grief, and pressed on to the northern wastes. As before, his object was to survey the northern shore, only this time by the Mackenzie River, instead of the Coppermine.

This expedition, too, was full of, stirring adventure among the Esquimaux, though without the terrible hardships and calamities of the former journey. It was also crowned with great success, leaving in the end only 150 miles of the coast from Baffin's Bay to Behring Straits unsurveyed. These, too, were explored in later years by Franklin's successors, and the great discovery of the North-west Passage completed.

Franklin was now made commander; in 1829 was knighted, and covered with honors by the University of Oxford and the great learned societies in England and France. He had married his second wife in 1828--the Lady Franklin of the later story. In 1832 Sir John Franklin was given the command of the _Rainbow_, on the Mediterranean station; and so wise and gracious was his rule, that the sailors nicknamed the sloop "The Celestial _Rainbow_" and "Franklin's Paradise." But we have no space to speak of this now, nor of Franklin's wise and gracious government of Van Diemen's Land, now better known as Tasmania, that succeeded. Lady Franklin was here his wise and devoted helper in every scheme of usefulness and benevolence.

Returning to England, he was appointed, in 1845, to the command of an expedition for the further discovery of the North-west Passage. The ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_ sailed from England on the 26th of May, and were seen by the crew of the _Prince of Wales_, a whaler, on the 26th of July, in Melville Bay, _for the last time_.

Toward the close of 1847 serious anxiety was aroused respecting the fate of these brave explorers. The brave-hearted, devoted wife of the commander expended her whole fortune on these endeavors to ascertain what had become of her husband. It is interesting to note that the people of Tasmania, Franklin's colony, subscribed the sum of £1,700 toward the expenses of the search.

In the year 1850 it was discovered that the first Winter of the explorers to the following April, or later (1846), had been spent at Beechey Island, beyond Lancaster Sound, and that it had been an active holiday time.

In 1854 an exploring party under Dr. Rae were told by the Esquimaux that several white men, in number about forty, had been seen dragging a boat over the ice near the north shore of King William's Land, and that bodies and skeletons were afterward found on the mainland opposite, by the banks of the Great Fish River. Many relics of this party were procured by Dr. Rae from the natives, and being brought to England were identified as belonging to the Franklin explorers. On this Dr. Rae received the government reward of £10,000.

In 1859 Lady Franklin bought and fitted the yacht _Fox_, which she placed under the command of Captain Leopold McClintock. The expedition set sail from Aberdeen, and, on reaching King William's Land, divided into three sledging parties, under Lieutenant Hobson, Captain Young, and McClintock himself. In Boothia several relics were discovered, such as would be dropped or left behind by men too weak to carry the usual belongings of a boat or sledge. At Point Victory a cairn, or heap of stones, was discovered by Lieutenant Hobson, with a paper, inclosed in a tin case, which too clearly told its sad story. After a memorandum of progress up to May 28, 1847, "All well," it was added on the same paper: "April 25, 1848. H.M. ships _Terror_ and _Erebus_ were deserted 22d April, five leagues N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain F.R.M. Crozier, landed here in latitude 69 degrees, 37 minutes, 42 seconds N., longitude 98 degrees 41 minutes W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June, 1847; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been, to this date, nine officers and fifteen men. Signed, F.E.M. Crozier, Captain and Senior Officer; James Fitzjames, Captain H.M.S. _Erebus_. And start on to-morrow, 26th April, 1848, for Back's Fish River." From this point two boats, with heavily laden sledges, seem to have been dragged forward while strength lasted. One boat was left on the shore of King William's Land, and was found by Captain McClintock, with two skeletons; also boats and stores of various kinds, five watches, two double-barreled guns, loaded, a few religious books, a copy of the "Vicar of Wakefield," twenty-six silver spoons and forks, and many other articles. The Esquimaux related that the men dragging the boat "dropped as they walked." The other boat was crushed in the ice. No trace, but a floating spar or two, and driftwood embedded in ice, was ever found of the _Erebus_ or _Terror_.

Truly the "Franklin relics," brought from amid the regions of snow and ice, are a possession of which those know the value who know how great a thing it is to walk on in the path of duty, with brave defiance of peril, and, above all, a steadfast dependence upon God.

Mr. William L. Bird, a young man of great promise, deaf from his seventh year, who died in Hartford, Conn., in 1879, left among his papers a little poem which well expresses the mood of Lady Franklin in her lonely years:

THE OCEAN.

I stand alone
On wave-washed stone
To fathom thine immensity,
With merry glance
Thy wide expanse
Smiles, O! so brightly upon me.
Art thou my friend, blue, sparkling sea?

With your cool breeze
My brow you ease,
And brush the pain and care away.
Your waves, the while,
With sunny smile,
Around my feet in snowy spray
Of fleecy lightness dance and play.

So light of heart,
So void of art,
Your waves' low laugh is mocking me.
I hear their voice--
"Come, play, rejoice;
Come, be as happy as are we;
Why should you not thus happy be?"

Alas! I know
That, deep below,
And tangled up in sea-weeds, lies,
Where light dares not
Disturb the spot,
He who alone can cheer my eyes.
O sea! why wear this sparkling guise!

* * * * *

XIII.

ELIZABETH ESTAUGH.

(BORN 1682--DIED 1762.)

A QUAKER COURTSHIP, IN WHICH SHE WAS THE PRINCIPAL ACTOR.

The story of Elizabeth Haddon is as charming as any pastoral poem that was ever written. She was the oldest daughter of John Haddon, a well-educated and wealthy Quaker of London. She had two sisters, both of whom, with herself, received the best education of that day. Elizabeth possessed uncommon strength of mind, earnestness, energy, and originality of character, and a heart overflowing with the kindest and warmest feelings. The following points in her life, as far as necessary for the setting, of the main picture, are drawn chiefly from the beautiful narrative by Lydia Maria Child, and almost in her own words.

At one time, during her early childhood, she asked to have a large cake baked, because she wanted to invite some little girls. All her small funds were expended for oranges and candy on this occasion. When the time arrived, her father and mother were much surprised to see her lead in six little ragged beggars. They were, however, too sincerely religious and sensible to _express_ any surprise. They treated the forlorn little ones very tenderly, and freely granted their daughter's request to give them some of her books and playthings at parting. When they had gone, the good mother quietly said, "Elizabeth, why did'st thou invite strangers, instead of thy schoolmates?" There was a heavenly expression in her eye, as she looked up earnestly, and answered, "Mother, I wanted to invite _them_, they looked _so_ poor."