Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

"I don't believe there is anything good in the flunkey line that money won't buy. I have always found I could have anything I wanted, if I saw fit to pay its price. Money, no matter what simpletons preach, money, my dear, is"----

"Why, Lucy, what is the matter?" exclaimed Miss Millicent, with some surprise and anxiety, as she saw the girl, who had just entered, instead of advancing, awkwardly shrink on one side into a chair behind the door, with a shudder, as if she had trod on a reptile. The next moment she was at her side, earnestly whispering something in her ear, evidently an explanation of the circumstances of the case, to which Lucy had hitherto been an entire stranger.

"Pray, excuse me, Ma'am," was the girl's scarce audible response to some request.

"It is only to write your name, Lucy."

"Not to _such_ a paper, for the world!"

"Not to oblige me?"

"I would do anything, Ma'am, to oblige you, but that would not. Never! never!" said the excited girl, catching another glimpse of Chip, who was now looking obliquely at the whispering couple, and drumming with his fingers on the rosewood of that part of the letter S from which his intended had just risen, as if he were hurriedly beating a _reveille_ to rally his faltering impudence. "No, Ma'am;--it is too bad, it is too bad, it is too"----Here her utterance became choked, her cheeks pallid as death, and her form wilted and fell like a flower before the mower's scythe. Millicent prevented the fall, while Sterling rang for water, and Chip, peering about with more agitation than any one else, finally remarked,--

"The girl must be sick;--better take her out."

The young lawyer, with the aid of a servant, did bear her to another apartment, where, after the usual time and restoratives, she recovered her consciousness, and the maiden blood again revealed tints that the queen of flowers might envy. Chip and the millionnaire remained in the parlor, while the others were taking care of the proposed witness, and great was the anxiety of the former that their absence should not be prolonged. Suddenly he recollected a forgotten engagement of great importance, pulled out his watch, fidgeted, suggested that the lawyer and Miss Millicent should be recalled, that the papers might be signed before he went. Mr. Hopkins was of that opinion, and sent a servant to call them. Miss Millicent came, but could not think of completing the contract without the signature of her favorite domestic. Argument enough was ready, but she was fortified by a sentiment that was more than a match for it. Mr. Hopkins was all ready, and would have the matter closed as soon as the lawyer arrived, affirming that his daughter would have too much sense, at last, to stand out on such a trifle.

In the mean time, the supposed Miss Lucy having had time to collect her scattered senses, there occurred the following dialogue between her and Frank Sterling, whose curiosity, not to speak of any other interest, had been thoroughly roused by the strange patient for whom he had just been acting in a medical, rather than legal capacity.

_Frank_. "We are all right, now, I think, Miss Lucy,--and they are waiting for us in the parlor, you know."

_Lucy_. "That paper must not be signed, Sir. If Miss Millicent knew what I do about that man, he would be the last man in the world she would think of for a husband."

_Frank_. "But he is one of the merchant princes,--respectable, of course. What harm can you know of him?"

_Lucy_. "If he is not so great a villain as he might be, let him thank my escape from Mrs. Farmthroy's the night I came here. If he is to be at home here, I shall not be; but before I leave, I wish to restore him what belongs to him. Excuse me a moment, Sir, and I will fetch it."

"A regular previous love-affair," thought Frank, and expected her to return, bringing a small lot of erotic jewelry to be returned to Chipworth, as the false-hearted donor thereof. Great was his surprise, when, instead of that, she brought a small parcel or wad of yellowish paper, variegated with certain scrawls of rapid writing, of the manifold sort.

"Why, that," said Frank, after unfolding the half-dozen sheets, all of the same tenor, "is a set of news-dispatches, and of a pretty ancient date, too."

_Lucy_. "But it is his property, Sir; and though worthless itself, being worth as much as he is, it may be valuable to him."

_Frank_. "Yes, yes. I begin to see. Cotton-Market. This reminds me of the case of our client Grant. Why, pray, how did you come by these?"

_Lucy_. "Perhaps I ought not to tell you all. But if I may rely on your honor as a gentleman, I will."

_Frank_. "As a gentleman, a man, and a lawyer, you may trust me that every word shall be sacredly confidential."

_Lucy_. "Well, Sir, my name is not Lucy Green, but Laura Birch. My mother keeps the Birch House in Waltham; and this man, whom you call a merchant prince, came to my mother's the very day after the date on them papers, and hired my brother to carry him to Captain Grant's. When he took out his pocketbook to pay, which he did like a prince, perhaps, he probably let these papers fall. At any rate, no one else could have dropped them; and I saved them, thinking to give them to him when he should call again. I have seen him but once since, at a place where, through his interest, I supposed I had obtained a situation to learn the milliner's trade. I needn't say why I did not return his property then. If, now, I had in my possession even an old shoestring that had ever been his, I would beg you to return it to him, and find out for me where I can go never to see him."

_Frank_. "But I shall take care of these dispatches. There's a story about these papers, I see. Here's a ray of daylight penetrating a dark spot. Two links in the chain of circumstances, to say the least. Captain Grant's unfortunate sale of cotton to Dartmouth just before the rise, and the famous lost dispatch found on Dartmouth's track to Grant. Did you see him have these papers, Miss Lucy--I beg your pardon--Miss Laura?"

_Lucy_. "No, Sir; but I know he left them, just as well as if I had seen them in his hands."

_Frank_. "True, true enough in fact, but not so good in law."

_Lucy_. "Is there anything by which the law can reach him, Sir? Oh, I should be so glad, if the law could break off this match, even if it cannot break his neck; and he deserves that, I am afraid, if ever a villain did."

_Frank_. "Yes,--there's enough in this roll to banish such a fellow, if not to hang him. And it shall be done, too."

_Lucy_. "And Miss Millicent be saved, too? Delightful!"

Sterling, with the roll of yellow paper in his fist, now returned to the parlor, where Mr. Hopkins impatiently opened upon him, before he could close the door.

"Well, Mr. Counsellor, we are all waiting for you. Mr. Dartmouth has urgent business, and is in haste to go. We shall be holden in heavy damages, if we detain him."

"He will be in more haste to go by-and-by, Sir. I have some papers here, Sir, which make it necessary that this marriage-contract should stand aside till some other matters can be settled, or at least explained. I refer to these manifold dispatches, detailing the latest news of the Liverpool cotton-market, by the fraudulent possession of which on the part of somebody, a client of mine, Captain Grant of Waltham, was cheated out of a small fortune. Perhaps Mr. Dartmouth knows who went to Waltham one morning to close a bargain before the telegraph-news should transpire. It is rather remarkable that certain lost dispatches should have been found in that man's track."

Whether Chip Dartmouth heard three words of this harangue may be doubted. The sight of that yellowish paper did the business for him. His expression vibrated from that of a mad rattlesnake to that of a dog with the most downcast extremities. At last he rushed to the door, saying he "would stand no such nonsense."

"But you will have to stand it!"

Chip was gone. Mr. Hopkins was in a state of amazement; and Millicent, if she did not swoon, seemed to herself in a trance. Neither of them could see in the cause anything to account for the effect. How could a merchant prince quail before so flimsy a piece of paper? Mr. Sterling explained. Mr. Hopkins begged the matter might not be made public,--above all things, that legal proceedings should be avoided.

"No," said Sterling,--"I shall punish him more effectually. The proof, though strong as holy writ, would probably fail to convict him in court. Therefore I shall let him off on these conditions: He shall disgorge to Captain Grant his profits on that cotton with interest, relinquish Miss Millicent's hand, if she so pleases, and, at any rate, relieve Boston of his presence altogether and for good. He may do it as soon as he likes, and as privately."

This course at once met the approbation of all parties, and was carried out.

What became of Squire Sterling, whether he married the mistress of that mansion or her maid, this deponent saith not; though he doth say that he did marry one of them, and had no cause to regret the same.

* * * * *

SEEN AND UNSEEN.

The wind ahead, the billows high,
A whited wave, but sable sky,
And many a league of tossing sea
Between the hearts I love and me.

The wind ahead: day after day
These weary words the sailors say;
To weeks the days are lengthened now,--
Still mounts the surge to meet our prow.

Through longing day and lingering night
I still accuse Time's lagging flight,
Or gaze out o'er the envious sea,
That keeps the hearts I love from me.

Yet, ah, how shallow is all grief!
How instant is the deep relief!
And what a hypocrite am I,
To feign forlorn, to 'plain and sigh!

The wind ahead? The wind is free!
Forever more it favoreth me,--
To shores of God still blowing fair,
O'er seas of God my bark doth bear.

This surging brine _I_ do not sail,
This blast adverse is not my gale;
'Tis here I only seem to be,
But really sail another sea,--

Another sea, pure sky its waves,
Whose beauty hides no heaving graves,--
A sea all haven, whereupon
No hapless bark to wreck hath gone.

The winds that o'er my ocean run
Reach through all heavens beyond the sun;
Through life and death, through fate, through time,
Grand breaths of God, they sweep sublime.

Eternal trades, they cannot veer,
And, blowing, teach us how to steer;
And well for him whose joy, whose care,
Is but to keep before them fair.

Oh, thou God's mariner, heart of mine,
Spread canvas to the airs divine!
Spread sail! and let thy Fortune be
Forgotten in thy Destiny!

For Destiny pursues us well,
By sea, by land, through heaven or hell;
It suffers Death alone to die,
Bids Life all change and chance defy.

Would earth's dark ocean suck thee down?
Earth's ocean thou, O Life, shalt drown,
Shalt flood it with thy finer wave,
And, sepulchred, entomb thy grave!

Life loveth life and good: then trust
What most the spirit would, it must;
Deep wishes, in the heart that be,
Are blossoms of Necessity.

A thread of Law runs through thy prayer,
Stronger than iron cables are;
And Love and Longing toward her goal
Are pilots sweet to guide the Soul.

So Life must live, and Soul must sail,
And Unseen over Seen prevail,
And all God's argosies come to shore,
Let ocean smile, or rage and roar.

And so, 'mid storm or calm, my bark
With snowy wake still nears her mark;
Cheerly the trades of being blow,
And sweeping down the wind I go.

PERCIVAL.

Among my letters is one from Dr. E.D. North, desiring me to furnish any facts within my reach, relating to the scientific character and general opinions of the late James G. Percival. This information Dr. North proposed to incorporate into a memoir, to be prefixed to a new edition of Percival's Poems. The biographer, with his task unfinished, has followed the subject of his studies to the tomb.

Dr. North's request revived in me many recollections of Percival; and finally led me to draw out the following sketch of him, as he appeared to my eyes in those days when I saw him often, and sometimes shared his pursuits. Vague and shadowy is the delineation, and to myself seems little better than the reminiscence of a phantom or a dream. Percival's life had few externalities,--he related himself to society by few points of contact; and I have been compelled to paint him chiefly by glimpses of his literary and interior existence.

My acquaintance with him grew out of some conversations on geological topics, and commenced in 1828, when he was working on his translation of Malte-Brun's Geography. The impression made on me by his singular person and manners was vivid and indelible. Slender in form, rather above than under the middle height, he had a narrow chest, and a peculiar stoop, which was not in the back, but high up in the shoulders. His head, without being large, was fine. His eyes were of a dark hazel, and possessed uncommon expression. His nose, mouth, and chin were symmetrically, if not elegantly formed, and came short of beauty only because of that meagreness which marked his whole person. His complexion, light without redness, inclined to sallow, and suggested a temperament somewhat bilious. His dark brown hair had become thin above the forehead, revealing to advantage that most striking feature of his countenance. Taken all together, his appearance was that of a weak man, of delicate constitution,--an appearance hardly justified by the fact; for he endured fatigue and privation with remarkable stanchness.

Percival's face, when he was silent, was full of calm, serious meditation; when speaking, it lighted up with thought, and became noticeably expressive. He commonly talked in a mild, unimpassioned undertone, but just above a whisper, letting his voice sink with rather a pleasing cadence at the completion of each sentence. Even when most animated, he used no gesture except a movement of the first and second fingers of his right hand backward and forward across the palm of the left, meantime following their monotonous unrest with his eyes, and rarely meeting the gaze of his interlocutor. He would stand for hours, when talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, undemonstrative, noiseless, passionless man, scarcely evident to you by physical qualities, and impressing you, for the most part, as a creature of pure intellect.

His wardrobe was remarkably inexpensive, consisting of little more than a single plain suit, brown or gray, which he wore winter and summer, until it became threadbare. He never used boots; and his shoes, though carefully dusted, were never blacked. A most unpretending bow fastened his cravat of colored cambric. For many years his only outer garment was a brown camlet cloak, of very scanty proportions, thinly lined, and a meagre protection against winter. His hat was worn for years before being laid aside, and put you in mind of the prevailing mode by the law of contrast only. He was never seen with gloves, and rarely with an umbrella. The value of his entire wardrobe scarcely exceeded fifty dollars; yet he was always neat, and appeared unconscious of any peculiarity in his costume.

An accurate portrait of him at any period of his life can scarcely be said to exist. His sensitive modesty seems to have made him unwilling to let his features be exposed to the flaring notoriety of canvas. Once, indeed, he allowed himself to be painted by Mr. George A. Flagg; but the picture having been exhibited in the Trumbull Gallery of Yale College, Percival's susceptibility took alarm, and he expressed annoyance,--though whether dissatisfied with the portrait or its public exposure I cannot say. The artist proposed certain alterations, and the poet listened to him with seeming assent. The picture was taken back to the studio; objectionable or questionable parts of it painted out; the likeness destroyed for the purpose of correction; and Percival was to give another sitting at his convenience. That was the last time he put himself within painting reach of Mr. Flagg's easel.[A]

[Footnote A: I remember to have seen an excellent portrait of him, by Alexander, in the studio of that artist, in the year 1825; but in whose possession it now is, I am unable to say.]

In those days of our early acquaintance, he occupied two small chambers, one of which fronted on the business part of Chapel Street (New Haven). His books, already numerous, were piled in double tiers and in heaps against the walls, covering the floors also, and barely leaving space for his sleeping-cot, chair, and writing-table. His library was a _sanctum_ to which the curious visitor hardly ever gained admittance. He met even his friends at the door, and generally held his interviews with them in the adjoining passage. Disinclined to borrow books, he was especially averse to lending. Dr. Guhrauer's assertion respecting Leibnitz, that "his library was numerous and valuable, and its possessor had the peculiarity that he liked to worm in it alone, being very reluctant to let any one see it," applies equally well to Percival.

He was rarely visible abroad except in his walks to and from the country, whither he often resorted to pass not hours only, but frequently entire days, in solitary wanderings,--partly for physical exercise,--still more, perhaps, to study the botany, the geology, and the minutest geographical features of the environs; for his restless mind was perpetually observant, and could not be withheld from external Nature, even by his poetic and philosophic meditation. In these excursions, he often passed his fellow-mortals without noticing them. A friend, if observed, he greeted with a slight nod, and possibly stopped him for conversation. Once started on a subject, Percival rarely quitted it until it was exhausted; and consequently these interviews sometimes outlasted the leisure of his listener. You excused yourself, perhaps; or you were called away by some one else; but you had only put off the conclusion of the discourse, not escaped it. The next time Percival encountered you, his first words were, "As I was saying,"--and taking up the thread of his observations where it had been broken, he went straight to the end.

The excellent bookstore of the late Hezekiah Howe, one of the best in New England, and particularly rich in those rare and costly works which form a bookworm's delight, was one of Percival's best-loved lounging-places. He bought freely, and, when he could not buy, he was welcome to peruse: He read with marvellous rapidity, skipping as if by instinct everything that was unimportant; avoiding the rhetoric, the commonplaces, the falsities; glancing only at what was new, what was true, what was suggestive, he had a distinct object in view; but it was not to amuse himself, nor to compare author with author; it was simply to increase the sum of his own knowledge. Perhaps it was in these rapid forays through unbought, uncut volumes, that he acquired his singular habit of reading books, even his own, without subjecting them to the paper-knife. People who wanted to see Percival and obtain his views on special topics were accustomed to look for him at Mr. Howe's, and always found him willing to pour forth his voluminous information.

His income at this time was derived solely from literary jobs, and was understood to be very limited. What he earned he spent chiefly for books, particularly for such as would assist him in perfecting that striking monument of his varied and profound research, his new translation and edition of Malte-Brun. For this labor the time had been estimated, and the publishers had made him an allowance, which, if he had worked like other men, would have amounted to eight dollars a day. But Percival would let nothing go out of his hands imperfect; a typographical error, even, I have heard him say, sometimes depressed him like actual illness. He translated and revised so carefully, he corrected so many errors and added so many footnotes, that his industry actually devoured its own wages; and his eight dollars gradually diminished to a diurnal fifty cents.

Percival made no merely ceremonial calls, few friendly visits, and attended no parties. If he dropped in upon a family of his acquaintance, he rarely addressed himself to a lady. Otherwise there was nothing peculiar in his deportment; for, if silent, he was not embarrassed,--and if he talked, it was without any appearance of self-consciousness.

Judging from his isolated habits, some persons supposed him misanthropic. Let me give one instance of his good-nature. One of the elder professors of Yale had fallen into a temporary misappreciation with the students, who received his instructions, to say the least, with an ill-concealed indifference. They whispered during his lectures, and in other ways rendered themselves strenuously disagreeable to the sensitive nerves of the professor. Indignant at such behavior toward a worthy and learned man, who had been his own instructor, Percival proposed a plan for stopping the annoyance. It was, that a number of old graduates, professors, and others, himself being one, should attend the lectures, listen to them with the respect they merited, and so, if possible, bring the students to a sense of propriety and of the advantages they were neglecting.

No, Percival was not a misanthrope. During an acquaintance of twenty-five years, I never knew him do an act or utter a word which could countenance this opinion. He indulged in no bitter remarks, cherished no hatred of individuals, affected no scorn of his race; on the contrary, he held large views concerning the noble destinies of mankind, and expressed deep interest in its advancement toward greater intelligence and virtue. The local affections he certainly had, for he was gratified at the prosperity of his fellow-townsmen, proud of his native State, and took a pleasure in defending her name from unjust aspersions. Patriotic, too,--none more so,--he rejoiced in the welfare of the whole country, knew its history thoroughly, and bestowed on its military heroes, in particular, a lively appreciation, which was singular, perhaps, in a man of such gentle habits and nature. I cannot forget the excited pleasure with which we visited, when on the geological survey of Connecticut, Putnam's Stairs at Horseneck, and Putnam's Wolf-Den in Pomfret. At the latter place, Percival's enthusiasm for the heroic hunter and warrior led him to carve his initials on a rock at the entrance of the chasm. It was the only place during the tour where he left a similar memorial.

American statesmen he admired scarcely less than American soldiers; nor did he neglect any information within his reach concerning public men and measures. It was singular to observe with what freedom from excitement he discussed the most irritating phases of party,--speaking of the men and events of his own day with as much philosophic calmness as if they belonged to a previous century; not at all deceived, I think, by the temporary notoriety and power which frequently attend the political bustler,--quite positive, indeed, that many of our "great men" were far inferior to multitudes in private life. Webster he respected greatly, and used to regret that his fortune was not commensurate with his tastes. Like a true poet, he believed devoutly in native genius, considered it something inimitable and incommunicable, and worshipped it whereever he found it.

Percival was indifferent and even disinclined to female society. There is a common story that he had conceived an aversion to the whole sex in consequence of a youthful disappointment in love. I know nothing concerning this alleged chagrin, but I am confident that he cherished no such antipathy. He never, in my hearing, said a hard thing of any woman, or of the sex; and I remember distinctly the flattering and even poetic appreciation with which he spoke of individual ladies. Of one who has since become a distinguished authoress of the South, he said, that "her conversation had as great an intellectual charm for him as that of any scholar among his male acquaintances." Of a lady still resident in New Haven, he observed, that "there was a mysterious beauty in her thoughtful face and dark eyes which reminded him of a deep and limpid forest-fountain." But although he did not hate women, he certainly was disinclined to their society,--an oddity, I beg leave to say, in any man, and a most surprising eccentricity in a poet. Constitutional timidity may have founded this habit during youth; for, as I have already observed, his modesty was sensitive and almost morbid. Then came his multitudinous studies, which absorbed him utterly, and in which, unfortunately for Percival, if not for the ladies, these last took so little interest that conversation was not mutually desirable. A remark he made to a scientific friend, who had just been married, will, perhaps, throw some light on the subject. "How is this?" said he; "I thought you were wedded to science." This was all the felicitation he had to offer; and without asking for the bride, he plunged into the discussion which was the object of the visit.

In 1835 commenced the geological survey of Connecticut, and I became Percival's companion in labor. To him was intrusted the geology proper, and to myself the mineralogy and its economical applications. During the first season, we prosecuted our investigations together, travelling in a one-horse wagon, which carried all our necessary implements, and visiting, before the campaign ended, every parish in the State. Great was the wonder our strange outfit and occupation excited in some rustic neighborhoods; and very often were we called upon to enlighten the popular mind with regard to our object and its uses. This was never a pleasant task to Percival. He did not relish long confabulations with a sovereign people somewhat ignorant of geology; and, moreover, his style of describing our business was so peculiar, that it rarely failed to transfer the curiosity to himself, and lead to tiresome delays. In New Milford, an inquisitive farmer requested us, in a somewhat ungracious manner, to give an account of ourselves. Percival replied, that we were acting under a commission from the Governor to ascertain the useful minerals of the State; whereupon our utilitarian friend immediately demanded to be informed how the citizens at large, including himself, were to be benefited by the undertaking,--putting question on question in a fashion which was most pertinacious and almost impertinent. Percival became impatient, and tried to hurry away. "I demand the information," exclaimed the New Milfordite; "I demand it as my right. You are only servants of the people; and you are paid, in part, at least, out of my pocket." "I'll tell you what we'll do," said Percival; "we can't stop, but we'll refund. Your portion of the geological tax,--let me see,--it must be about two cents. We prefer handing you this to encountering a further delay." Our agricultural friend and master did not take the money, although he did the hint,--and in sulky silence withdrew from our company.

Driving through the town of Warren, we stopped a farmer to inquire the way to certain places in the vicinity. He gave us the information sought, staring at us meanwhile with a benevolently inquisitive expression, and, at last, volunteering the remark, that, if we wanted a job, we had better stop at the factory in the hollow. We thanked him for his goodness, and thought, perhaps, of Sedgewick geologizing by the road-side, and getting a charitable half-crown flung at him by a noble lady who was on her way to dine in his company at the house of a mutual acquaintance.

Let us grant here one brief parenthesis of respect and astonishment to the scientific knowledge and philological acumen of a distinguished graduate of Yale College, and member of Congress, whom we encountered on our travels. Hearing us speak of mosaic granite, a rock occurring in Woodbridge, to which we had given this name, from the checker-like arrangement of its felspathic ingredient, he concluded that we attributed its formation to the era of Moses, and asked Percival what evidence he had for such an opinion. Small blame to him, perhaps, for the blunder, but it seemed a very droll one to geologists.

In Greenwich, the extreme southwestern town of the State, we encountered an incident to which my companion would sometimes refer with a slight degree of merriment. In general, he was no joker, no anecdotist, and had but a feeble appreciation of droll sayings or humorous matters of any kind. But in Greenwich he heard a memorable phrase. Among the tavern-loungers was a man who had evidently seen better days, and who, either for that reason or because of the large amount of rum he had swallowed, entertained a lofty opinion of himself, and discoursed _de omnibus rebus_ in a most consequential fashion. He soon made himself a sort of medium between ourselves and his fellow-loafers. Overhearing us say that we wished to pass the New York frontier for the sake of tracing out the strata then under examination, he proceeded with much pomposity to declare to his deeply curious auditory, that "it was his opinion that the Governor of the State should confer upon these gentlemen _discretionary powers_ to pass the limits of Connecticut, whenever and wherever, in the prosecution of their labors, the interests of science required them so to do." After this, we rarely crossed the State line but Percival observed, "We are now taking advantage of our discretionary powers."

Of the few stories Percival told me, here is one. In one of our country-places, a plain, shrewd townsman fell into chance conversation with him, and entertained him with some account of a neighbor who had been seized with a mania for high Art, and had let loose his frenzy upon canvas in a deluge of oil-colors. If I mistake not, Percival was invited to inspect these productions of untaught and perhaps unteachable genius. They were vast attempts at historical scenes, in which the heads and legs of heroes were visible, but played a very secondary part in the interest, compared with a perfect tempest of drapery, which rolled in ungovernable masses, like the clouds of a thunder-storm.

"What do you think of them?" inquired Percival.

"Well, I don't claim to be a judge of such things," replied his cicerone; "but the fact is, (and I told the painter so,) that, when I look at 'em, about the only thing I can think of is a resurrection of old clothes."

In the town of Lebanon, an incident occurred which affected us rather more seriously. Turning a corner suddenly, we came upon an old man digging up cobble-stones by the road-side and breaking them in pieces with an axe. "A brother-geologist," was our first impression. At that moment the old man sprang toward us, the axe in one hand and half a brick in the other, shouting eagerly,--

"I guess Mr. ----" (name indistinguishable) "will be glad to see you, gentlemen."

"For what?"

"Why, he has got several boxes of jewels; and I gave an advertisement in the paper."

"Whose are they?"

"King Jerome's."

"And who is he?"

"The king of the world!" shouted the maniac, still advancing with a menacing air, and so near the wagon by this time that he might almost have hit Percival with his axe.

Without pausing to hear more about the jewels, a sudden blow to the horse barely enabled us to escape the reach of our fellow-laborer before he had time to use his axe on our own formations.

In the following year, when Percival was pursuing the survey by himself, on horseback, some of the elements of this adventure were repeated, but reversed after a very odd fashion. The late Dr. Carrington, of Farmington, who told me the tale, being ten miles from home on a professional excursion, drove up to a tavern and found himself welcomed with extraordinary emphasis by the innkeeper. The Doctor was just the person he wanted to see; the Doctor's opinion was very much needed about that strange man out there; he wished the Doctor to have a talk with him, and see whether he was crazy or not. The fellow had been there a day or two, picking up stones about the lots; and some of the boys had been sent to watch him, but could get nothing out of him. This morning he wanted to go away, and ordered his horse; but the neighbors wouldn't let it be brought up, for they said he was surely some mad chap who had taken another man's horse. Thus talking, the landlord pointed out Percival, surrounded by a group of villagers, who, quietly, and under pretence of conversation, were holding him under a sort of arrest. The Doctor rushed into the circle, addressed his friend Percival by name, spoke of the survey, and thus satisfied the bystanders, who, guessing their mistake, dispersed silently. No open remonstrance was needed, and perhaps Percival never understood the adventure in which he thus unconsciously formed the principal character.

While we were in Berlin, the native town of Percival, he related to me several incidents of his earlier life. His father was discussing some geographical question with a neighbor; and the future geologist, then a boy of seven or eight, sat by listening until the ignorance of his elders tempted him to speak. "Where did you learn that?" they asked, in astonishment. With timid reluctance, he confessed that he had been reading clandestinely Morse's large geography, of which there was a copy in a society-library kept at his father's house. The book, he added, had an indescribable attraction for him; and even at that almost infantile age he was familiar with its contents. It was this reading of Morse, perhaps, which determined his taste for those geographical studies in which he subsequently became so distinguished. With him, as with Humboldt and Guyot, geography was a term of wide signification. Far from confining it to the names and boundaries of countries, seas, and lakes, to the courses of rivers and the altitudes of mountains, he connected with it meteorology, natural history, and the leading facts of human history, ethnology, and archaeology. He knew London as thoroughly as most Americans know New York or Philadelphia, and yet he had never crossed the Atlantic.

An instance of the minuteness of his geographical information was related to me by the Rev. Mr. Adam, a Scottish clergyman, long resident at Benares, but subsequently settled over the Congregational Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. On his way to visit me at New Haven, he met in the stage-coach a countryman of his, who soon opened a controversy with him respecting the course of a certain river in Scotland. The discussion had continued for some time, when another passenger offered a suggestion which opened the eyes of the debaters to the fact (not unfrequently the case in such controversies) that they were both wrong. "How long since you were there, Sir?" they asked; and the reply was, "I never was in Scotland." "Who are you, Sir?" Mr. Adam wanted to ask, but kept the question until he could put it to me. I did not feel much hesitation in telling him that the stranger must have been Percival; and Percival it was, as I afterwards learned by questioning him of the circumstance.

But we must return to Berlin, in order to hear one more of Percival's stories. Passing a field, half a mile from his early home, he told an incident connected with it, and related to his favorite study of natural history. The field had belonged to his father, who, besides being the physician of Berlin, indulged a taste for agriculture. Just before the harvest season, it became palpable that this field, then waving with wheat, was depredated upon to a wasteful extent by some unknown subjects of the animal kingdom. Having watched for the pilferers in vain by day, the proprietor resolved to mount guard by night, and accordingly ambushed himself in the invaded territory. Near midnight, he saw his own flock of geese, hitherto considered so trustworthy, approach silently in single file, make their entry between the rails, and commence transferring the wheat-crop into their own crops, after a ravenous fashion. Having eaten their fill, they re-formed their column of march, with a venerable gander at the head, and trudged silently homeward, cautiously followed by their owner, who noticed, that, on regaining his door-yard, they set up a vociferous cackle, such as he had repeatedly heard from them before at about the same hour. It was a most evident attempt to establish an _alibi_; it was as much as to say, "If you miss any wheat, we didn't take it; we are honest birds, and stay at home o'nights, Dr. Percival." The next morning, however, a general decapitation overtook the flock of feathered hypocrites. "It was a curious instance of the domestic goose reverting to its wild habit of nocturnal feeding," remarked my narrator, dwelling characteristically upon the natural-history aspect of the fact.

Percival was almost incapable of an irrelevancy. The survey was the business in hand, and he rarely discoursed much of things disconnected with it, except, perhaps, when we were retracing our routes, or when the labors of the day were over. Of poets and poetry he was not inclined to speak. I never heard him quote a line, either his own or another's, nor indulge in a single poetic observation concerning the objects which met us in our wanderings. Indeed, he confessed that he no longer felt disposed to write verses, being satisfied that his productions were not acceptable to the prevailing taste; although he admitted that he composed a few stanzas occasionally, in order to make trial of some unusual measure or new language. He told me that he had versified in thirteen languages; and I have heard from others that he had imitated all the Greek and German metres.

Of politics, foreign and domestic, he talked frequently, but always philosophically and dispassionately, much as if he were speaking of geological stratification. His views of humanity were deduced from a most extensive survey of the race in all its historical and geographical relations. He distinctly recognized the fact of its steady advance from one stage to another, in accordance with a plan of intellectually organic development, as marked as that detected by the geologist in the gradual preparation of the earth for the abode of our species. The slowness and seeming vacillation of man's upward movement could not stagger his faith; for if it had taken thousands of ages to make earth habitable, why should it not take thousands more to bring man to his completeness? Equally free was he from misgiving on account of the remaining presence of so much misery and wretchedness; for these he considered as the indispensable stimuli to progress. Even war, he used to say, is sometimes necessary to the welfare of nations, as sickness and sorrow plainly are to that of individuals; although, to his moral sense, the human authors of this scourge were no more admirable than the devisers of any private calamity. Improvements in knowledge he regarded as the only elements of real progress; and these he looked upon as true germinal principles, bound up organically in the constitution of the human soul. Indeed, that philosophical calmness which was characteristic of him seemed to flow in some measure from his settled persuasion that the same matchless wisdom and benevolence he recognized throughout Nature wrought with a still higher providence and a more earnest love for man and would make all things finally conduce to his welfare. It was clear that he drew a profound tranquillity from the thought that he was a part of the vast and harmonious whole.

Concerning his religious views he was exceedingly taciturn. He had no taste for metaphysical or theological discussions, although his library contained a large number of standard works on these subjects. Religion itself he never alluded to but with the deepest respect. Talking to me of Christianity, he quoted the observation of Goethe, that "it had brought into the world a light never to be extinguished." He spoke of Jesus with poetic, if not with Christian fervor. He contrasted his teachings and deeds with the prevailing maxims and practice of the people among whom he appeared, with the dead orthodoxy of its religious teachers, and with the general ignorance and hypocrisy of the masses. "Had I lived in such a state of society," he said, "I am certain that it would have driven me mad."

He expressed an earnest esteem for the doctrines of the Evangelical clergy, and even approved, though more moderately, the religious awakenings which occur under their labors. He described to me, with some particularity, a revival he had witnessed in his native town, when young; and repeated some of the quaint exhortations of the lay brethren, all in a manner perfectly serious, but calculated, perhaps, to leave the impression, that such views of religion were not necessary to himself, although they might be quite suited to the minds of others.

The rational theology he regarded as anti-poetic in influence, and of very doubtful efficacy in working upon the masses. He appreciated, however, the honesty and superior culture of the Unitarian scholars and clergy of Boston, with many of whom he had been on terms as intimate as his shyness accorded to any one.

He attended church but once with me while we were engaged in the survey. We heard a discourse from a Rev. Dr. E----, upon the conduct of the young ruler who inquired his duty of Christ. The speaker argued from the sacred narrative a universal obligation to devote our possessions to religious purposes,--and upheld, as an example to all men, the self-devotion of a young missionary (then somewhat known) who had despised a splendid fortune, offered him on condition of his remaining at home, and had consecrated himself to the Christianization of Africa.

"How did you like the sermon?" I inquired of Percival.

"I consider it an animating and probably useful performance," he replied; "but it does not accord with comprehensive conceptions of humanity, inasmuch as its main inference was drawn from the exception, and not from the rule. There always have been, and probably always will be, men possessed of the self-immolating or martyr spirit. Such instances are undoubtedly useful, and have my admiration; but they cannot become general, and never were meant to be."

During the survey, we were invited to pass an evening in a family remarkable for its musical talent, and I remember distinctly the evident pleasure with which Percival listened to the chorus of organ tones and rich cultivated voices. In general, however, his appreciation of music was subordinate to his study of syllabic movement in versification; and it was with reference chiefly to poetic measure, I have been told, that he acquired what mastery he had over the accordion and guitar.

Percival's favorite topics, when evening came and we rested from our stony labors, were the modern languages and the philosophy of universal grammar. They seemed to have filled the niches in his heart, from which he had banished, or tried to banish, the Muses. The subtile refinements of Bopp were a perpetual luxury to him; he derived language from language as easily as word from word; and, once started in the intricacies of the Russian or the Basque, there was no predicting the end of the discourse. Thus were thrown away, upon a solitary listener, midnight lectures which would have done honor to the class-rooms of Berlin or the Sorbonne. In looking at such an instance of intellectual pleasure and acumen, as connected in no small degree with the study of foreign languages, one cannot avoid associating together the unsolved mystery of that discrepancy of tongues prevailing in different countries with the disagreeing _floras_ and _faunas_ of the same regions,--each diversity bearing alike the unmistakable marks of Omnipotent design for the happiness and improvement of man.

The perfection of his memory was amazing. During the year following the survey, when we had frequent occasion to compare recollections, I observed that no circumstance of our labors was shadowy or incomplete in his memory. He could refer to every trifling incident of the tour, recall every road and path that we had followed, every field and ledge that we had examined, particularize the day of the week on which we had dined or supped at such a tavern, and mention the name of the landlord. I asked him how he was able to remember such minutiae. He replied, that it was his custom, on going to bed, to call up, in the darkness and stillness, all the incidents of the day's experience, in their proper order, and cause them to move before him like a diorama through a spiritual morning, noon, and evening. "It has often appeared to me," he said, "that in this purely mental process I see objects more distinctly than I behold them in the reality."

But his memory doubtless gained an immense additional advantage from his habitual seclusion, from his unconcern with the distracting customs of society, and, most of all, from the imperturbable abstraction under which he studied and observed. With him there was no blending of collateral subjects, no permitted intrusion of things irrelevant or trivial, so that the channels of his thoughts were always single, deep, and traceable. It was a mental straightforwardness and conscientiousness, as rare, perhaps, as moral rectitude itself.

In diet, Percival was the most abstemious person I ever knew. His health was uniformly good,--the specimens of a geologist, when he collects them himself, being as favorable to digestion and appetite as the pebbles to a chicken; yet, I am persuaded, my companion in no case violated the golden rule of leaving the table unsated. No matter how long had been his fast, he showed no impatience of hunger, made no remark upon the excellence of any dish, found fault with nothing, or, at most, only seemed to miss drinkable coffee and good bread, articles seldom to be met with in the country. He ate slowly, selecting his food with the discrimination which ought to belong to a chemist or physiologist, and then thought no more about it. Alcoholic drinks he never tasted, except an occasional glass of wine, to which his attention perhaps had been called on account of its age or superior excellence. Even then it was not the flavor which interested him, so much as the history, geographical and other.

Peculiar as he was in his own habits of diet, he offered no strictures upon the practice of others, however different, unless it ran into hurtful excesses. The maxim of Epictetus in the "Enchiridion," "Never preach how others ought to eat, but eat you as becomes you," seemed to be his rule. Indeed, Percival was one of those rare men who withhold alike censure and praise respecting the minor matters of life. Not that he was without opinions on such subjects; but, to obtain them, one was forced to question him. On the whole, I do not think it would be going too far to apply to him the above-named moralist's description of the wise man:--"He reproves nobody, praises nobody, blames nobody, nor even speaks of himself; if any one praises him, in his own mind he contemns the flatterer; if any one reproves him, he looks with care that he be not unsettled in the state of tranquillity that he has entered into. All his desires depend on things within his power; he transfers all his aversions to those things which Nature commands us to avoid. His appetites are always moderate. He is indifferent whether he be thought foolish or ignorant. He observes himself with the nicety of an enemy or a spy, and looks on his own wishes as betrayers."

Percival's solitary habits, combined with the invariable seriousness of his manner, led many persons to believe him melancholy, and even disposed to suicide. He did, indeed, confess to me, that he sometimes felt giddy on the edge of a precipice. This was his nearest approach, I am confident, to the idea of self-destruction. While we were examining the great iron furnaces of Salisbury, he told me that he was afraid of walking near the throat of a chimney when in blast, and that more than once he had turned and run from the lurid, murky orifice, lest a sudden failure of self-control should cause him to reel into the consuming abyss. No,--Percival neither felt nor expressed disgust with life. On the contrary, he was strongly attached to it; the acquisition of knowledge clothed it with inexpressible value; the longest day was ever too short to fulfil his designs. Like the wise, laborious men of all ages, he almost repined at the swiftness of the years. "I am amazed at the flight of time," he said to me, on the arrival of his forty-second birthday; "it seems only a year since I was thirty-two;--I have lost ten years of my life."

Before entering upon the survey of Connecticut, he was not specially devoted to any one branch of physics, although his tastes inclined him most toward geology. While he could sympathize perfectly, he said, with those who threw their whole force into a single study, he felt himself attracted equally by the entire circle of Nature, and thought omniscience a nobler object of ambition than any one science. He admitted that the search after all knowledge is incompatible with eminence in any particular department; but he believed that it affords higher pleasure to the mind, and confers ability to do signal service to mankind in pointing out the grand connections, the general laws, of Nature.

It is not, perhaps, widely known, that Percival was a well-informed botanist. He studied this branch when a medical student under Professor Ives, and assisted his instructor in laying out a small botanical garden, the plants of which were arranged after the natural orders of Jussieu. Soon after finishing his medical education, he gave a course of lectures on botany in Charleston, South Carolina, before a very select audience, composed mostly of Ladies. The only drawback to the lecturer's success was his excessive timidity. As an evidence of the assiduity with which he botanized, it may be mentioned that he had seen the _Geranium Robertianum_ (a plant which nestles in the sunny clefts of our trap mountains) in bloom, during every month of the year. One year he found its blossoms in December, another in January, and so on, until the round of the monthly calendar was completed.

Percival was an earnest advocate of popular education. He manifested much interest in the first systematic attempt (at the instance of Mr. James Brewster) to furnish the people of New Haven with popular instruction in the form of lectures. At a public dinner, given by Mr. Brewster, on the occasion of opening the building in which rooms had been fitted up for these lectures, the late Mr. Skinner gave the toast, "Our mechanics, the right arm of New Haven," and Percival followed with, "Science, the right eye which directs the right arm of New Haven." He believed most fully in the superiority of intelligent labor. He pointed out cases in which a college-training had been connected with signal eminence in mechanical invention, and said, that, according to his observations, persons engaged in industrial pursuits usually succeeded in proportion to the thoroughness of their education.

Percival himself gave a course of lectures, or rather, lessons, in New Haven,--not in the building above mentioned, for his natural timidity was too great to encounter a public audience, but in the theological lecture-room of Yale College. They were on the German language, and consisted chiefly of translations of prose and poetry into English, intermingled with philosophical commentaries on the peculiarities of the original. It was pure grammar; he did not talk German, and claimed no acquaintance with the niceties of pronunciation; but all his listeners, most of whom were graduates, were struck with his perfect mastery of the subject.