Chapter V: Part VI (4)

To speak deliberately, we think that in this instance, vague rumor and a vague history have for the first time been subjected to a rigid scrutiny, and the wheat, with at least novel fidelity, sifted from the chaff; so that there remain for result,—First, Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, now for the first time read or readable, and well nigh as complete as the fates will permit; secondly, Deeds, making an imperfect and fragmentary life, which may, with probability, be fathered upon him; thirdly, this wreck of an ancient picture, the present editor has, to the best of his ability, restored, sedulously scraping away the daubings of successive bunglers, and endeavoring to catch the spirit of the artist himself. Not the worst, nor a barely possible, but for once the most favorable construction has been put upon this evidence of the life of a man, and the result is a picture of the ideal Cromwell, the perfection of the painter’s art. Possibly this was the actual man. At any rate, this only can contain the actual hero. We confess that when we read these Letters and Speeches, unquestionably Cromwell’s, with open and confident mind, we get glimpses occasionally of a grandeur and heroism, which even this editor has not proclaimed. His “Speeches” make us forget modern orators, and might go right into the next edition of the Old Testament, without alteration. Cromwell _was_ another sort of man than _we_ had taken him to be. These Letters and Speeches have supplied the lost key to his character. Verily another soldier than Bonaparte; rejoicing in the triumph of a psalm; to whom psalms were for Magna Charta and Heralds’ Book, and whose victories were “crowning mercies.” For stern, antique, and practical religion, a man unparalleled, since the Jewish dispensation, in the line of kings. An old Hebrew warrior, indeed, and last right-hand man of the Lord of Hosts, that has blown his ram’s horn about Jericho. Yet, with a remarkable common sense and unexpected liberality, there was joined in him, too, such a divine madness, though with large and sublime features, as that of those dibblers of beans on St George’s Hill, whom Carlyle tells of. He still listened to ancient and decaying oracles. If his actions were not always what Christianity or the truest philosophy teaches, still they never fail to impress us as noble, and however violent, will always be pardoned to the great purpose and sincerity of the man. His unquestionable hardness, not to say willfulness, not prevailing by absolute truth and greatness of character, but honestly striving to bend things to his will, is yet grateful to consider in this or any age. As John Maidstone said, “He was a strong man in the dark perils of war; in the high places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it had gone out in the others.” And as Milton sang, whose least testimony cannot be spared—

“Our chief of men,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude.”

None ever spake to Cromwell before, sending a word of cheer across the centuries—not the “hear!” “hear!” of modern parliaments, but the congratulation and sympathy of a brother soul. The Letters and Speeches owe not a little to the “Intercalations” and “Annotations” of the “latest of the Commentators.” The reader will not soon forget how like a happy merchant in the crowd, listening to his favorite speaker, he is all on the alert, and sympathetic, nudging his neighbors from time to time, and throwing in his responsive or interrogatory word. All is good, both that which he didn’t hear, and that which he did. He not only makes him speak audibly, but he makes all parties listen to him, all England sitting round, and give in their comments, “groans,” or “blushes,” or “assent;” indulging sometimes in triumphant malicious applications to the present day, when there is a palpable hit; supplying the look and attitude of the speaker, and the tone of his voice, and even rescuing his unutterable, wrecked and submerged thought,—for this orator begins speaking anywhere within sight of the beginning, and leaves off when the conclusion is visible. Our merchant listens, restless, meanwhile, encouraging his fellow-auditors, when the speech grows dim and involved, and pleasantly congratulating them, when it runs smoothly; or, in touching soliloquy, he exclaims, “Poor Oliver, noble Oliver”—“Courage, my brave one!”

And all along, between the Letters and Speeches, as readers well remember, he has ready such a fresh top-of-the-morning salutation as conjures up the spirits of those days, and men go marching over English sward, not wired skeletons, but with firm, elastic muscles, and clang of armor on their thighs, if they wore swords, or the twang of psalms and canticles on their lips. His blunt, “Who are you?” put to the shadowy ghosts of history, they vanish into deeper obscurity than ever. Vivid phantasmagorian pictures of what is transpiring in England in the meanwhile, there are, not a few, better than if you had been there to see.

All of Carlyle’s works might well enough be embraced under the title of one of them, a good specimen brick, “On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History.” Of this department, he is the Chief Professor in the World’s University, and even leaves Plutarch behind. Such intimate and living, such loyal and generous sympathy with the heroes of history, not one in one age only, but forty in forty ages, such an unparalleled reviewing and greeting of all past worth, with exceptions, to be sure,—but exceptions were the rule, before,—it was, indeed, to make this the age of review writing, as if now one period of the human story were completing itself; and getting its accounts settled. This soldier has told the stories with new emphasis, and will be a memorable hander-down of fame to posterity. And with what wise discrimination he has selected his men, with reference both to his own genius and to theirs: Mahomet,—Dante,—Cromwell,—Voltaire,—Johnson,—Burns,—Goethe,—Richter,—Schiller,—Mirabeau; could any of these have been spared? These we wanted to hear about. We have not as commonly the cold and refined judgment of the scholar and critic merely, but something more human and affecting. These eulogies have the glow and warmth of friendship. There is sympathy not with mere fames, and formless, incredible things, but with kindred men,—not transiently, but life-long he has walked with them.

The attitude of some, in relation to Carlyle’s love of heroes, and men of the sword, reminds us of the procedure at the anti-slavery meetings, when some member, being warmed, begins to speak with more latitude than usual of the Bible or the Church, for a few prudent and devout ones to spring a prayer upon him, as the saying is; that is, propose suddenly to unite in prayer, and so solemnize the minds of the audience, or dismiss them at once; which may oftener be to interrupt a true prayer by most gratuitous profanity. But the spring of this trap, we are glad to learn, has grown somewhat rusty, and is not so sure of late.

No doubt, some of Carlyle’s worthies, should they ever return to earth, would find themselves unpleasantly put upon their good behavior, to sustain their characters; but if he can return a man’s life more perfect to our hands, than it was left at his death, following out the design of its author, we shall have no great cause to complain. We do not want a Daguerreotype likeness. All biography is the life of Adam,—a much-experienced man,—and time withdraws something partial from the story of every individual, that the historian may supply something general. If these virtues were not in this man, perhaps they are in his biographer,—no fatal mistake. Really, in any other sense, we never do, nor desire to, come at the historical man,—unless we rob his grave, that is the nearest approach. Why did he die, then? _He_ is with his bones, surely.

No doubt, Carlyle has a propensity to _exaggerate_ the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than another thing, he has most of that material. This we allow in all its senses, and in one narrower sense it is not so convenient. Yet what were history if he did not exaggerate it? How comes it that history never has to wait for facts, but for a man to write it? The ages may go on forgetting the facts never so long, he can remember two for every one forgotten. The musty records of history, like the catacombs, contain the perishable remains, but only in the breast of genius are embalmed the souls of heroes. There is very little of what is called criticism here; it is love and reverence, rather, which deal with qualities not relatively, but absolutely great; for whatever is admirable in a man is something infinite, to which we cannot set bounds. These sentiments allow the mortal to die, the immortal and divine to survive. There is something antique, even in his style of treating his subject, reminding us that Heroes and Demi-gods, Fates and Furies, still exist, the common man is nothing to him, but after death the hero is apotheosized and has a place in heaven, as in the religion of the Greeks.

Exaggeration! was ever any virtue attributed to a man without exaggeration? was ever any vice, without infinite exaggeration? Do we not exaggerate ourselves to ourselves, or do we recognize ourselves for the actual men we are? Are we not all great men? Yet what are we actually to speak of? We live by exaggeration, what else is it to anticipate more than we enjoy? The lightning is an exaggeration of the light. Exaggerated history is poetry, and truth referred to a new standard. To a small man every greater is an exaggeration. He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth. No truth we think was ever expressed but with this sort of emphasis, so that for the time there seemed to be no other. Moreover, you must speak loud to those who are hard of hearing, and so you acquire a habit of shouting to those who are not. By an immense exaggeration we appreciate our Greek poetry and philosophy, and Egyptian ruins; our Shakspeares and Miltons, our liberty and Christianity. We give importance to this hour over all other hours. We do not live by justice, but by grace. As the sort of justice which concerns us in our daily intercourse is not that administered by the judge, so the historical justice which we prize is not arrived at by nicely balancing the evidence. In order to appreciate any, even the humblest man, you must first, by some good fortune, have acquired a sentiment of admiration, even of reverence, for him, and there never were such exaggerators as these. Simple admiration for a hero renders a juster verdict than the wisest criticism, which necessarily degrades what is high to its own level. There is no danger in short of saying too much in praise of one man, provided you can say more in praise of a better man. If by exaggeration a man can create for us a hero, where there was nothing but dry bones before, we will thank him, and let Dryasdust administer historical justice. This is where a true history properly begins, when some genius arises, who can turn the dry and musty records into poetry. As we say, looking to the future, that what is best is truest, so, in one sense, we may say looking into the past, for the only past that we are to look at, must also be future to us. The great danger is not of excessive partiality or sympathy with one, but of a shallow justice to many, in which, after all, none gets his deserts. Who has not experienced that praise is truer than naked justice? As if man were to be the judge of his fellows, and should repress his rising sympathy with the prisoner at the bar, considering the many honest men abroad, whom he had never countenanced.

To try him by the German rule of referring an author to his own standard, we will quote the following from Carlyle’s remarks on history, and leave the reader to consider how far his practice has been consistent with his theory. “Truly, if History is Philosophy teaching by experience, the writer fitted to compose history, is hitherto an unknown man. The experience itself would require all knowledge to record it, were the All-wisdom needful for such Philosophy as would interpret it, to be had for asking. Better were it that mere earthly historians should lower such pretensions, more suitable for omniscience than for human science; and aiming only at some picture of the things acted, which picture itself, will at best be a poor approximation, leave the inscrutable purport of them an acknowledged secret; or, at most, in reverent Faith, far different from that teaching of Philosophy, pause over the mysterious vestiges of Him, whose path is in the great deep of Time, whom history indeed reveals, but only all History and in Eternity, will clearly reveal.”

* * * * *

Who lives in London to tell this generation who have been the great men of our race? We have read that on some exposed place in the city of Geneva, they have fixed a brazen indicator for the use of travelers, with the names of the mountain summits in the horizon marked upon it, “so that by taking sight across the index you can distinguish them at once. You will not mistake Mont Blanc, if you see him, but until you get accustomed to the panorama, you may easily mistake one of his court for the king.” It stands there a piece of mute brass, that seems nevertheless to know in what vicinity it is: and there perchance it will stand, when the nation that placed it there has passed away, still in sympathy with the mountains, forever discriminating in the desert.

So, we may say, stands this man, pointing as long as he lives, in obedience to some spiritual magnetism, to the summits in the historical horizon, for the guidance of his fellows.

Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap. To have our sunlight without paying for it, without any duty levied,—to have our poet there in England, to furnish us entertainment, and what is better provocation, from year to year, all our lives long, to make the world seem richer for us, the age more respectable, and life better worth the living,—all without expense of acknowledgment even, but silently accepted out of the east, like morning light as a matter of course.

* * * * *

APRIL.

Now fitful clouds scud o’er the skies,
And fairy showers patter by,
And in the wood the low wind sighs,
And shadows o’er the brown fields fly!
Low fades the sun, then blazes out,
Glinting on grass, and twig, and tree—
Ah! April, boyish out and out,
Now tears, and now all jollity!

* * * * *

MR. KERR MUDGEON.

OR “YOU WONT, WONT YOU?”

BY JOSEPH C. NEAL.

There; now!

You see—do you not?—Nay, you may almost hear it, if you listen attentively. Mr. Kerr Mudgeon—great many of the Kerr Mudgeons about, in various places—but this Mr. Kerr Mudgeon—going to a party as he was—desirous too, as people generally are on such occasions, of looking particularly well—and all ready, to his own infinite satisfaction—all ready except the final operation of putting on his bettermost coat—has torn that important article of gentlemanly costume—one may work without a coat, you know, and work all the easier for the relief; but it is not altogether polite to leave it at home on a peg when you go to a party. Torn his coat—not through his own fault, as Mr. Kerr Mudgeon would tell you explicitly enough—he never is, never was, never can be in fault—but because of that coat’s ill timed and provoking resistance to the operation of being donned. The coat might have known—who is ever thus to be trifled with in the process of dressing? Yes, the coat must have known. Ah, coats and the makers of coats have much to answer for. Kerr Mudgeon is ruffled, ruffles of this sort, causing a man to look none the handsomer or the more amiable for the ruffle. Such ruffles are not becoming.

“Ho! ho! wont go on, hey?” cried Mr. Kerr Mudgeon, and Mr. Kerr Mudgeon panted and Mr. Kerr Mudgeon blew, on the high pressure principle, until the steam of his wrath had reached its highest point.

It is a fearful moment with the Kerr Mudgeons, when it is manifest that something must break—a blood vessel or the furniture, or the peace of the commonwealth. Why will things animate and inanimate conspire to bring about such a crisis? Kerr Mudgeons would be sweet tempered if you would only permit them.

The coat positively refused to go on any further—the contumacious raiment. What could Kerr Mudgeon do in such a strait of perverse broad cloth?

“Tell me you wont go on,” muttered Kerr Mudgeon, setting his teeth, as a rifleman sets his trigger; “I’ll make you go on, I will,” shouted he.—

There’s no such word as fail with Mr. Kerr Mudgeon. Something is sure to be done when he is once fairly roused to the work. It is a rule of his to combat like with like; and so—and so—stamping his foot determinedly, and gathering all his forces for a grand demonstration against the obstinacy of tight sleeves, he carried his point as he proposed to carry it, by a rushing _coup de main_, to the material detriment of the fabric.—But what of that? Was it not a victory for Kerr Mudgeon? The coat had yielded to the force of his will; and if the victory had been gained at cost, is it not always so with victories?—Glory—is that to be had for nothing?—No—depreciate the cost of glory, and pray tell me what becomes of glory?—It is glory no longer. A luxury, to be a luxury, must be beyond the general reach—too expensive for the millions—too costly for the masses.

“And now—ha! ha!—ho! ho!—he! he!—come off!” shrieked Mr. Kerr Mudgeon; “Now you’ve done all the mischief you could, come off.” Kerr Mudgeon divested himself of the fractured, but now humbled, penitent and discomfitted coat, and following up his first success, like an able tactician, he danced in a transport of joy upon its mangled fragments and its melancholy remains. Ghastly moment of triumph o’er a foe. Alas, Kerr Mudgeon be merciful to the vanquished when incapacitated for the war.

But no—coolness comes not on the instant—not to the Kerr Mudgeons. They have no relationship to the Kew Cumbers. They disdain the alliance; and Mr. Kerr Mudgeon’s coat had been conquered only—not punished.

“That’s what you get by being obstinate,” added he, as he kicked the expiring coat about the room, knocking down a lamp, upsetting an inkstand, and doing sundry other minor pieces of mischief all of which, of course, he charged to the account of the coat, as aforesaid—It was coat’s fault altogether. Mr. Kerr Mudgeon is not naturally in a passion. He would not have been in a passion had it not been for the coat—not he—the coat was the incendiary cause; and we trust that every coat, frock or body—sack-coat or any other of the infinite variety of coats now in existence, with all other coats that are to be, may take timely example and salutary warning from the doleful fate of Mr. Kerr Mudgeon’s coat, that there may be no sewing of tares, and an exemption from rent. A coat is never improved by participation in battle.

And this unhappy coat, which has thus fallen a victim to its incapacity to adapt itself to the form and pressure of circumstances, is by no means a singular case in the experience of Mr. Kerr Mudgeon. We mention it rather as a symbol and as an emblem of the trials and vexations that ambuscade his way through life, to vex him at unguarded moments and shake him from his propriety. Boots, it will appear, have served him just so, particularly on a warm morning when unusual effort fevers one for the day. Did you ever see Kerr Mudgeon in a contest with his boots, when the leather, like a sturdy sentinel, refused ingress to Kerr Mudgeon’s heel and declared that there “was no admission” to the premises, in despite of coaxings, of soap, and of the pulverizations of soap-stone? If you never saw that sight, you ought to see it, before you shuffle off this mortal coil—indeed you ought, as Kerr Mudgeon toils and pants at the reluctant boots, in the vain effort “to grapple them to his sole, with hooks of steel.” Then it is most especially that a Kerr Mudgeon is “lovelily dreadful,” like ocean in a storm. Whether Salt Petre will explode or not, just set the Kerr Mudgeons at a tight boot, and you shall hear such explosions of tempestous wrath as were never heard under other circumstances. The Gun Cotton is like lambs-wool in the comparison, as Kerr Mudgeon hops about in a state of betweenity, the boot half on, half off, declining either to go forward or to retreat. We pity that boot should Kerr Mudgeon find a failure to his deep intent. It has sufferings in store—a species of storage which is never agreeable.

Corks, too—did you ever dwell upon a Kerr Mudgeon endeavoring to extract a cork, without the mechanical appliances of a screw? The getting out of corks with one’s fingers is always more or less of a trial. There is donkeyism in corks; and those that will yield a little, are generally sure to break. Concession, conciliation, and compromise demand under these circumstances, that if the cork will not come out, it should be made to go in, to employ the ingenuity of future ages in fishing it up with slip-knots and nooses. But Kerr Mudgeon with a cork—he never, “Mr. Brown,” can be prevailed upon to “give it up so;” not even if you find the cork-screw for him. Rather would he hurt his hand, loosen his teeth, break his penknife or twist a fork into an invalid condition, than allow himself to be ingloriously baffled by the contemptible oppugnation and hostility of a cork and a bottle, thirsty and impatient as he may be for the imbibation of the contents thereof. If all else fail—Kerr Mudgeon enraged, and the bystanders in an agony of nervousness at the scene—“smack” goes the bottle’s neck against a table or “whack” over the back of a chair—“you wont, wont you!”—or in the more protracted and aggravating case, “smash!” goes the whole bottle to the wall, for the embellishment of paper hangings and the improvement of carpeting—Victoria!

Something is always the matter, too, with the bureau when he would open or shut a drawer.—Either it will not come out or it wont go in. That drawer must take the consequences; and doors—lucky are they to escape a fractured panel, if doors prove refractory, as doors sometimes will.—Nobody can open a door so featly as a Kerr Mudgeon.

“You wont, wont you?” and so he appeals to the _ultima ratio regum_—the last reasoning of Kings—which means as many of thumps, cuffs and kicks as may be requisite to the purpose. It is a knock-down argument.

Pooh! pooh!—how you talk of the efficacy of the soft answer in the turning away of wrath.—Nonsense, Mr. George Combe, that wrath to the wrathful is only fuel to the flame. Mr. Kerr Mudgeon has no faith in passive resistance and in other doctrines of that sort. Smite his cheek, and then see what will come of the smitation. Go to him if you want “as good as you give,” and you will be sure to obtain measure, exact, yea, and running over.

And so Mr. Kerr Mudgeon has always a large stock of quarrel on hand, unsettled and neat as imported—feuds everywhere, to keep him warm in the winter season. A good hater is Mr. Kerr Mudgeon—a bramble bush to scratch withal.

“Try to impose on me,” says Kerr Mudgeon, “I’d like to see ’em at it. They’ll soon find I’m not afraid of anybody;” and he therefore seeks to impress that fact with distinctness on everybody’s mind; and, in consequence, if anybody has unexpended choler about him—a pet rage or so, pent up, or a latent exasperation—make him acquainted with Kerr Mudgeon, and observe the effect of the contact of such a spark as Mudgeon with an inflammable magazine. Should you find yourself peevish generally, and a little crusty or so, to those around you—primed, as it were, for contention, should it be fairly offered, stop as you go to business, at Kerr Mudgeon’s. He will accommodate you, and you will feel much better afterward, you will—“calm as a summer morning,” as the politicians have it.

Kerr Mudgeon rides; and his horse must abide a liberal application of whip and spur, sometimes inducing it as a corollary—is a tumble to be regarded as a corollary from the saddle?—inducing it as a corollary, that Kerr Mudgeon must abide in the mire, with a fractured tibia or fibia, as the case may be. “You wont, wont you?”— and there are horses who don’t, when not able clearly to understand what is to be done. Now, the horse swerves, and Kerr Mudgeon takes the lateral slide. Again the steed bows—with politeness enough—and Kerr Mudgeon is a flying phenomenon over his head—gracefully, like a spread-eagle in a fit of enthusiasm. When he is _down_ he says he never gives _up_ to a horse.

Kerr Mudgeon delights also to quicken the paces of your lounging dog, by such abrupt and sharp appeal to the feelings of the animal as occasion may suggest; and often there is an interchange of compliment, biped and quadrupedal, thus elicited, returning bites for blows, to square accounts between human attack and canine indignation. Some dogs do not appreciate graceful attentions and captivating endearments. “Dogs are so revengeful,” says Kerr Mudgeon. His dogs always run away; “dogs are so ungrateful, too,” quoth he.

Unfortunate Kerr Mudgeon!—What is to become of him until the world is rendered more complaisant and acquiescent, prepared in all respects to go his way?

In the street, he takes the straightest line from place to place, having learnt from his schoolboy mathematics, that this is decidedly the shortest method of going from place to place. And yet, how people jostle him, first on the right hand and then on the left? Why do they not clear the track for Kerr Mudgeon?

Then at the Post Office, in the hour of delivery.

Kerr Mudgeon wants his letters. What is more natural than that a man should want his letters?

“Quit scrouging!” says somebody, as he knocks Mr. Kerr Mudgeon in the ribs with his elbow.

“Wait for your turn!” cries somebody else, jostling Mr. Kerr Mudgeon on the opposite ribs.

Still Kerr Mudgeon struggles through the press, resolved upon obtaining his letters before other people obtain their letters, having his feet trampled almost to a mummy, his garments disarranged, if not torn, and in addition to bruises, perhaps losing his fifty dollar breast-pin, to complete the harmony of the picture; but still obtaining his letters in advance of his competitors—five minutes saved or thereabouts—what triumph! what a victory! To be sure, after such a struggle, Mr. Kerr Mudgeon consumes much more than the five minutes, in putting himself to rights, and finds himself in a towering passion for an hour or two, besides groaning for a considerable length of time over his bruises and his losses, all of which might have been escaped by a few moments of patience. But then the victory—“you wont, wont you?” Was Kerr Mudgeon ever baffled by any species of resistance? Not he.

“People are such brutes,” says he; “no more manners than so many pigs—try not to let me get my letters as soon as any of them, will they? I’ll teach ’em that a Kerr Mudgeon is not to be trifled with—just as good a right to be first as anybody; and I will be first, wherever I go, cost what it may.”

We do not know that Kerr Mudgeon ever entered into a calculation as to the profit and loss of the operation of the rule that governed his life in intercourse with society. Indeed, we rather think not. But it is probable that in the long run, it costs as much as it comes to, if it does not cost a great deal more, thus to persist in having one’s own way in every thing. In crossing the street now, when the black and fluent mire is particularly abundant, Mr. Kerr Mudgeon insists upon the flag-stones—“as good a right as anybody,” and thus pushes others into a predicament unpleasant to their boots and detrimental to their blacking, so that their understandings become clouded, as they lose all their polish. In general, such a course as this does very well—but it will sometimes happen, as it has happened, that two Kerr Mudgeons meet—the hardest fend off—and thus our Kerr Mudgeon is toppled full length into a bed much more soft than is altogether desirable, which vexes him.

Did you, of a rainy day, ever see Kerr Mudgeon incline his umbrella to allow another umbrella to pass? We are sure you never did. Kerr Mudgeon’s umbrella is as good as anybody’s umbrella, and will maintain its dignity against all comers, though it has been torn to fragments by the sharp points of other umbrellas, which thought themselves quite as good as it could pretend to be—and so, Kerr Mudgeon got himself now and then into a fray, to say nothing of suits for assault and battery, gracefully and agreeably interspersed. Ho! ho! umbrellas!—“you wont, wont you?”

Kerr Mudgeon walks with a cane—carries it horizontally under his arm, muddy at the ferule perchance; and canes thus disposed, come awkwardly in contact with the crossing currents of persons and costumes. But what does he care for the soiled garments of the ladies or the angry countenances of offended gentlemen? Is not Kerr Mudgeon with his cane, as good as anybody else and his cane? Horizontally—he will wear it so. That’s his way.

“The world don’t improve at all,” cries Kerr Mudgeon. “They may make speeches about it, and pass resolutions by the bushel; but it is my candid opinion that it grows obstinater and obstinater every day. It never yields an inch, and a man has to push, and to scramble, and to fight forever to make any headway for himself—black and blue more than half the time. Every day shoots up all over rumpuses and rowses. But, never mind—the world needn’t flatter itself that it’s a going to conquer Kerr Mudgeon and to put him down too, as it does other people. Kerr Mudgeon knows his rights—Kerr Mudgeon is as good as anybody else. Kerr Mudgeon will fight till he dies. He was never made to yield, and he never intends to yield, so long as his name is Kerr Mudgeon. It’s a good name—never disgraced by movements of the knuckle-down character, and I’m determined to carry on the war just as all the Mudgeons did that went before me. If a horse kicks me, I’ll kick him back; and I wouldn’t get out of the way, like Mr. Daniel Tucker in the song, if a thirty-two pound shot was coming up the street, or a locomotive was a whizzin’ down the road. Stand up straight—that’s my motto. Give ’em as good as they can bring; that’s the doctrine; and while a single bit of Kerr Mudgeon remains—while any of his bones hang together, that’s him squaring off right in the centre of the track, ready for you, with his coat buttoned up and a fist in each of his hands.”

Kerr Mudgeon’s face is settled grimly into the aspect of habitual defiance. His brows are forever knitting, not socks or mittens, but frowns, and his mouth is knotted like a rope. When he looks around, it seems to be an inquiry, as to whether any gentleman present is disposed to pugilistic encounter,—if so, he can be accommodated; and the whole disposition of his garments indicates contention—war to the knife.

Kerr Mudgeon complains that he has no friends, and is beginning to stand solitary and alone, with but a dreary prospect before him, in a world that grows “obstinater and obstinater every day;” and he has yet to learn, if such learning should ever penetrate through the armor of hostility wherewith he is begirt, that perhaps, if we desire to have a smooth and easy time of it, we must ourselves begin by being smooth and easy. The belligerent ever meets with belligerents. There’s no difficulty about that. There is a sufficiency of war in every atmosphere, if you are disposed to condense it upon yourself; and no one eager to enjoy the pleasure, need wander far in search of quarrels. Kerr Mudgeon finds them everywhere—“rumpuses and rowses”—But it is a shrewd doubt whether one’s general comfort is greatly promoted by the aggravation of rudeness and roughness. It is easier to bend a little to inclement blasts, than to be snapped off by perpendicular resistance—easier to go round an obstacle than to destroy your temper and your clothing, in the exhausting effort to clamber over it; and it may be said of every quarrel in which Kerr Mudgeonism is engaged, that probably both parties are in fault, though Kerr Mudgeonism is in all likelihood, the responsible party.

Yet, “you wont, wont you?” is a great temptation to combativeness and destructiveness. Is it not, all ye people of the Kerr Mudgeon temperament?

* * * * *

PITTSBURG Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine]

* * * * *

PITTSBURGH.

BY E. M. SIDNEY.

As some vast heart that high in health
Beats in its mighty breast,
So, to and fro, thy living wealth
Throbs through the boundless West.
Thy keels the broad Ohio plow,
Or seek the Atlantic main;
Thy fabrics find the Arctic snow,
Or reach Zahara’s plain!

Toil on, huge Cyclop as thou art,
Though grimed with dust and smoke,
And breathing with convulsive start—
There’s music in each stroke!
What if the stranger smirch and soil
Upon thy forehead sees?
Better the wealth of honest toil
Than of ignoble ease!

And yet thou’rt beautiful—a queen
Throned on her royal seat!
All glorious in emerald sheen,
Where thy fair waters meet.
And when the night comes softly down,
And the moon lights the stream,
In the mild ray appears the town,
The city of a dream!

* * * * *

ABROAD AND AT HOME.

BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF “AARON’S ROD,” “PRIZE STORIES,” ETC.

_Ros._ Farewell, Monsieur traveler: Look you, lisp, and wear
strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be
out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making
you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have
swam in a gondola. AS YOU LIKE IT.

“I did not see you at the opera, last night, Mrs. Fielding,” said Miss Collingwood.

“No,” replied the other, “I was not there. How were you pleased?”

“Oh, delighted!” returned the young lady, with animation. “It is an excellent company. The _tenore_ has a superb voice, and the _prima donna_ is charming. And everybody was there. You mean to go to-morrow, I suppose?”

“No,” said Mrs. Fielding; “the last time I heard that opera was in Paris. Lablache, Tamburini and Persiani sang; and I cannot bear to destroy the illusion by seeing it here. When one has been abroad, and heard music in such perfection, it spoils one for all one can get in this country.”

This was said in such a tone of superiority, that Miss Collingwood was a little dashed; but she replied,

“Oh, we cannot expect Lablache and Persiani; but still, this is an excellent company.”

“I’m told they are very tolerable,” replied Mrs. Fielding, in the same languid, supercilious manner. “But music, I think, should know no mediocrity. Now, in Paris, you have every thing in such perfection! There was nothing I enjoyed so much while I was abroad, as the opera. Persiani is an exquisite creature! And Lablache—what a voice! And Tamburini!” And Mrs. Fielding rolled up her eyes in an ecstasy, quite breathless and overcome by her recollections. “I don’t think,” she continued “I could bear hearing the same music sung by second-rate, or probably third or fourth-rate _artistes_, which I presume these people are. They are from Havana, I believe?”

“Yes,” answered Miss Collingwood, now quite ashamed of the enthusiasm with which she had first spoken of them, and almost thankful she had not mentioned the “season tickets,” she had been before on the point of announcing with such pride and delight. “We had a very full house,” she continued, however, too full of the subject to desist from it altogether, though not daring to dwell upon the music any longer. “Everybody, you know, was there; and I am told every seat in the house is engaged for to-morrow.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mrs. Fielding. “How these people do succeed here! Poor wretches, that can scarce get an engagement at one of the third or fourth-rate theatres abroad, have nothing to do but to come to this country to make their fortunes.”

“But Mr. Livingston told me that he had heard Signora D. in Paris, at the Grand Italian Opera,” replied Miss Collingwood, plucking up a little courage.

“He never heard her in the world, at the Grand Italian Opera,” replied Mrs. Fielding, as decidedly as if she had kept the run of all the operas and prima donnas from the beginning. “She sang some ten or fifteen years ago, at the French opera, the Opera _Comique_, which is quite a different affair; but that, as I say, was ten or fifteen years ago—and fifteen years is the life of an opera singer. She is quite _passée_ now, and could not, at the present time, get an engagement at even one of the minor theatres in Paris.”

“She has a beautiful voice,” persisted Miss Collingwood, “and sings with exquisite taste and execution.”

“Oh,” replied Mrs. Fielding, raising her shoulders with what was meant for a French shrug, “she is the _debris_ of a good singer, I admit. Her style must be correct ever to have sung even at the Opera _Comique_. All of course we can expect in this country, are those whose best days are gone abroad.”

“Did you see much of the Falconers, when you were abroad, Mrs. Fielding?” resumed Miss Collingwood, glad to turn the conversation from music, which she was all but told she had no opportunity or possibility of understanding.

“I merely met them,” replied Mrs. Fielding, in a somewhat slighting manner. “They were in no society, you know,” she continued, as if the inferior circle in which they moved was such as to prevent their coming in contact with herself, who was of course in a very different atmosphere.

“Indeed!” said Miss Collingwood, with much interest and curiosity in her manner; “we heard here that they were in a good deal of society. Mrs. Falconer told me they were at a concert at Prince B.’s, where they saw the countess G. and Lady A. and all the great people; and they were presented at court—and—I don’t know where they were not.”

“Oh, my dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Fielding, as if too much amused by their assurance to utter more on the instant.

“But was it not so?” pursued Miss Collingwood.

“They may have been at a charity concert at the Prince B.’s,” replied Mrs. Fielding; “I think it very probable—for these poor nobles are very glad to sell tickets on such occasions to any one who can afford to buy them; and, indeed, they prefer Americans, as people they never can come in contact with again. But in no other way, I assure you, could they ever have been at the Prince B.’s. As to being presented at court, anybody can—that is, I mean, who takes letters to our Ambassador. Poor Mr. L., I used to pity him, for the people he was obliged to present! I do assure you, one often blushes for one’s countrymen abroad!” continued Mrs. Fielding. “Such looking, such dressed creatures as they are! And talking so loud, too! And it is so difficult to make foreigners understand that these vulgarians are not first class Americans. I have often tried to explain it; but I seldom found Europeans, even of the highest rank, who understood our society.”

“But that would not apply to the Falconers,” persisted Miss Collingwood. “They had as much right to good society abroad as anybody.”

“Perhaps so,” replied Mrs. Fielding; “I did not mean them, particularly. But, my dear Miss Collingwood, it amuses me to hear these people talk of the society they were in abroad. Now, they were in no society at all. It’s not the easy matter to get in society in Europe, that it is in this country. People do not throw their doors open to Americans, I assure you, unless, indeed, under very extraordinary circumstances.”

“But I understood the Falconers had excellent letters,” continued Miss Collingwood; “and, then, their fortune would give them every facility, you know, that could be desired.”

“Letters!” repeated Mrs. Fielding, contemptuously. “It does amuse me to hear you Americans talk of letters. I should like to know who has a right to give them! They might as well have taken so much waste paper abroad! And, as to their fortune! What is an American fortune in Europe!” continued Mrs. Fielding, warmly, (for her husband’s means were quite limited;) just enough to make them conspicuous without being sufficient to give them consequence! “Of all the people one meets traveling, there are none so ridiculed or ridiculous as our millionaires, who think their money must carry them through every thing. They are cheated and fleeced, and laughed at by the very people who are cheating them. No, my dear Miss Collingwood, I don’t deny that it is a very pleasant thing to have money abroad, as well as at home; but don’t suppose that it is going to give you any _consequence_ there. In a polished society like that, education, accomplishments, personal qualifications, are all an American can hope to rest any claim upon at all. Now, I don’t mean to say that we had any superior claims of any kind; but, owing to some circumstances, we saw society that few Americans are ever admitted in. My mother’s English relatives treated us with the utmost kindness, and through Sir Frederick T., we really had opportunities that were very gratifying, of seeing every thing that was desirable. We could not have traveled under more delightful auspices.”

This was said with an air of careless modesty, as if announcing a fact about which there was no dispute.

“How charming it must have been!” exclaimed Miss Collingwood. “And did you really find the higher classes so superior to ours, Mrs. Fielding?”

“Oh, my dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Fielding, “unfortunately there’s no question about it! I sometimes almost regret our visit to Europe, on that account. It does spoil one so for home.”

While she was still speaking, the Falconers entered. They and Mrs. Fielding had not met (being residents of different cities) since their return from Europe. They greeted each other with great cordiality, and were, during the first few minutes of their interview, so occupied with what really seemed the pleasure of seeing each other, that Miss Collingwood, the lady on whom they were calling, seemed in a fair way of being forgotten. After having, however, inquired and taken the address of the Falconers, Mrs. Fielding took her leave of the party. After a few minutes’ general conversation, Miss Collingwood said,

“I observed you at the opera, last night, Miss Falconer; how were you pleased?”

“Very well,” replied the young lady. “It is not a first-rate company, of course—but very fair.”

“I am glad to hear you say so,” replied Miss Collingwood, eagerly, “for it struck me as such; but Mrs. Fielding spoke of its being so very inferior, that I supposed I must be mistaken. Indeed, I take it for granted, that hearing such music as she has heard at the opera, in Paris, must make one fastidious.”

Miss Falconer smiled as she replied,

“I don’t think Mrs. Fielding heard music enough at the Italian Opera, in Paris, to spoil her for any she may hear in this country.”

“Why,” returned Miss Collingwood, with the sudden expression of one who has caught a new light, “she tells me she has heard Lablache, Tamburini, Persiani, &c.”

“Of course,” replied Miss Falconer. “Everybody hears them once or twice. But what is it to hear an opera once?”

“But why only once or twice?” inquired Miss Collingwood.

“It’s so expensive,” replied Miss Falconer. “I forget what our box cost us—but something enormous. I know papa said it was one of our principal expenses in Paris. And the Fieldings, you know, are in very moderate circumstances. I doubt whether Mrs. Fielding was ever a second time at the Grand Opera. The minor French theatres are cheap enough; but to hear these great singers repeatedly, really costs a young fortune. Indeed, Mrs. Fielding,” she continued, laughing, “may go and hear this company with profit, if not pleasure; for she knows nothing of music. It was the _spectacle_, I do believe, she enjoyed, more than the music, when she was there.”

“She seems to have enjoyed her visit to Europe excessively,” returned Miss Collingwood.

“Yes, so she says,” replied the other; “and I am surprised at it, too.”

“Indeed! Why so?”

“Oh, they traveled with no advantages; and I should not think there was much pleasure in seeing merely the outside of places.”

“But I understood they had peculiar advantages,” persisted Miss Collingwood; “particularly with regard to society. Their cousin, Sir Frederick T., was very kind to them.”

“I know—they are forever talking of Sir Frederick T. But, after all, who is Sir Frederick T.? A mere country baronet! The idea of his introducing American cousins, is amusing!”

Miss Collingwood laughed.

“You throw quite a new light on the subject, Miss Falconer. Here Mrs. Fielding has been quite dazzling poor simple me, who took it all for gospel. She really made me feel as if I knew nothing of either music, men or manners. I was ignorant enough to suppose that Sir Frederick T. or sir anybody could introduce whoever they pleased.”

“It’s just as much as those people, the poorer branches of the nobility, I mean, can do to keep their own footing,” replied Miss Falconer, “let alone bringing in American relations. On the Continent, if you have money, the thing is easier. Democracy and poverty have made greater strides there. The golden key is a _passée partout_ in Paris. Without it, to be sure, there is little to be enjoyed; with it, much, indeed.”

“Did you see much of the Fieldings, abroad?” inquired Miss Collingwood, amused, and curious to hear what version Miss Falconer would give of the acquaintance with her country people in Europe.

“No,” she replied. “It was such a journey to get up to their rooms in Paris, that I only called a few times. Climbing those Parisian stairs is no small exertion, I assure you, without you are really interested in the people you are visiting.”

“I was asking Mrs. Fielding if it was not a fatiguing way of living, but she said, ‘No—that you become so accustomed to it, that you never think of it, and that, though her apartments were _au troisième_, she lived in such a state of excitement she was not conscious of undergoing more fatigue than when at home.’”

“Her apartments _au troisième_!” exclaimed Miss Falconer, laughing heartily. “Now, Miss Collingwood, did Mrs. Fielding really speak of being _au troisième_—are you sure?”

“Yes, certain. Why—were they not? I thought everybody lived somewhere between heaven and earth, in Paris,” said Miss Collingwood.

“To be sure they do,” replied Miss Falconer; “and the Fieldings were considerably nearer heaven than earth. Why, _we_ were _au troisième_. The Fieldings were _au hautième_, just under the roof; the very attics, I believe, for I am sure there could not possibly have been another story above. I know I never climbed so high in my life, except when I went up Mount Vesuvius, as I did when I called to see the Fieldings. I should think they must be glad to be home, to some of the comforts of life, again.”

“But I thought Paris was such a cheap place,” continued Miss Collingwood.

“Cheap! Yes, so it is, if you are willing to live as Parisians live—that is, with no luxuries, and scarce any comforts. I suppose you can live cheap here, if you take attic rooms, with hardly any furniture, and eat in all sorts of odd places. That is the way half the French people live, and Americans can do it too, if they please, abroad—which they cannot do at home. Pleasures are cheap, to be sure; that is, of the inferior sort. But I should say there was scarce enough to compensate people accustomed to a different style of living, in French vaudevilles and street amusements, for such sacrifices.”

“Hardly,” replied Miss Collingwood; “but how is it, then, that you are so delighted with Europe?”

“Why, in the first place, we don’t _all_ live exactly in the way I have described. You can have luxuries and comforts too, beside exquisite pleasures, if you please to pay for them. But then the expense is enormous.” And so Miss Falconer continued to let Miss Collingwood know that what she had been saying only applied to other Americans, not to themselves at all. “And, moreover,” she continued, “there is much of excitement and novelty abroad, that carries one through a great deal. And perhaps most of us think it was pleasanter in looking back than it was in the reality. I dare say Mrs. Fielding actually believes she enjoyed herself excessively. But I should say the pleasantest part of her trip was the getting home,” she added, smiling.

“Then you do not think she need be spoilt for America, by all she has seen abroad?” pursued Miss Collingwood.

“She spoilt! No, indeed!” replied Miss Falconer. “I don’t deny that there is a great deal to be enjoyed there, that can’t be enjoyed at home. But I think Mrs. Fielding may enjoy a great deal at home, she certainly never enjoyed abroad.” And so saying, Miss Falconer rose and bid Miss Collingwood good morning.

“It’s very strange,” observed Miss Collingwood, afterward, to her sister, “that so few Americans give the same story of themselves and each other abroad. They all tell you that they only were in society, and that others were not. It is really amusing to hear them. I wonder, now, who tells the truth, the Fieldings or the Falconers?”

“Both, and—neither,” replied her sister, laughing.

“How so?”

“They tell truth of each other, but not of themselves. I mean,” continued the younger Miss Collingwood.

“That may be it!” exclaimed Miss Collingwood. “_That_ never occurred to me before. And then, how they all talk of being ‘spoilt for this country,’ by their travels.”

“So they are,” rejoined the younger sister—“truly spoilt. How few of them you find return really improved! They are spoilt, though not from excess of fastidious refinement, but from absurd airs. Of all things, I dread hearing, ‘When I was abroad.’ I am always sure some absurd impertinence is coming. Then the fine acquaintances they all have; when, depend upon it, they know nobody who is anybody. There’s Mrs. Ashland, who wont let you admire even a beauty she don’t happen to fancy; but she’ll tell you, ‘It is such an American taste;’ or, ‘In this country you don’t understand this, that and the other.’ Ah! that ‘In this country,’ is the worst of all. Just as if ‘_this_ country’ was not their country! And then, if they have only been in Paris a fortnight, they are omnipotent on fashions for the rest of their days.”

“But, surely,” resumed the elder sister, “there must be a great deal that is improving and delightful in foreign travel.”

“I have no doubt,” replied the other, “that there is a great deal to be enjoyed, as Miss Falconer says; and a great deal to be suffered, too,” she added, laughing, “if the whole truth were known. Much to be learnt, too. Intelligent, well-educated people, find pleasure everywhere—a great deal, no doubt, abroad—and, as Miss Falconer says, more in getting home. One thing, I am sure of, however. I never found anybody who _had improved abroad, who was spoilt for home_.”

* * * * *

THE STATUE IN THE SNOW.

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

Numb and chill the Savoyard wandered
By the banks of frozen Seine,
Oft, to cheer his sinking spirit,
Singing low some mountain strain.

But, beside the wintry river,
Rose the songs of green Savoy,
Sadder than ’mid Alpine valleys,
Sung by many a shepherd boy!

From the bleak and distant Vosges
Swept the snowy whirlwind down,
Flinging wide its shifting mantle
Over slope and meadow brown.

Like a corpse, the silent landscape
Lay all stark and icy there,
And a chill and ghostly terror
Seemed to load the leaden air.

Still that shivering boy went forward,
Though his heart within him died,
When the dreary night was closing
Dull around the desert wide.