Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

I hasten to confess my entire incapacity to describe the uniform personal bearing of a Chesterton in or out of the House of Lords. It is strictly _sui generis_. It has neither the quiet, unassuming dignity of the Derbys, the Shaftesburys, or the Warwicks, nor the vulgar vanity of the untravelled Cockney. It simply defies accurate delineation. Dickens has attempted to paint the portrait of such a character in "Bleak House"; but Sir Leicester Dedlock, even in the hands of this great artist, is not a success,--merely because, in the case of the Baronet, selfishness and self-importance are only a superficial crust, while with your true Chesterton these attributes penetrate to the core and are as much a part of the man as any limbs or any feature of his face. A genuine Chesterton is as unlike his stupid caricature in our own theaters in the person of "Lord Dundreary," as the John Bull of the French stage, leading a woman by a halter around her neck, and exclaiming, "G---- d----! I will sell my wife at Smithfield," is unlike the Englishman of real life. Lord Chesterton does not wear a small glass in his right eye, nor commence every other sentence with "Aw! weally now." He does not stare you out of countenance in a _café_, nor wonder "what the Devil that fellaw means by his insolence." So much by way of negative description. To appreciate him positively, one must see him and hear him. No matter when or where you encounter him, you will find him ever the same; and you will at last conclude that his manners are not unnatural to a very weak man inheriting the traditions of an ancient and titled family, and educated from childhood to believe that he belongs to a superior order of beings.

Of course the strong point of a Chesterton is what he calls his "conservatism." He values everything in proportion to its antiquity, and prefers a time-honored abuse to a modern blessing. With a former Duke of Somerset, he would pity Adam, "because he had no ancestors." His sympathies, so far as he has any sentiments which deserve to be dignified by that name, are ever on the side of tyranny. He condescends to give his valuable sanction to the liberal institutions of England, not because they are liberal, but because they are English. Next after the Established Church, the reigning sovereign and the royal family, his own order and his precious self, his warmest admiration is bestowed on some good old-fashioned, thorough-going, grinding despotism. He defends the Emperor of Austria, and considers the King of Naples a much-abused monarch.

If his lordship has ever been in diplomatic life,--an event highly probable,--he becomes the most intolerable nuisance that ever belied the noblest sentiments of civilized society or blocked the wheels of public debate. Flattered by the interested attention of despotic courts, his poor weak head has been completely turned. He has seen everything _en couleur de rose_. He assures their lordships that he has never known a single well-authenticated case of oppression of the lower classes, while it is within his personal knowledge that many of the best families (in Italy, for instance) have been compelled to leave all their property behind them, and fly for their lives before an insolent and unreasoning mob. How he deluges the House with distorted facts and garbled statistics! How he warns noble lords against the wiles of Mazzini, the unscrupulous ambition of Victor Emmanuel, and the headlong haste of Garibaldi!

Of course, his lordship's bitterest hatred and intensest aversion are reserved for democratic institutions. Against these he wages a constant crusade. Armed _cap-à-pie_ in his common-sense-proof coat of mail, he charges feebly upon them with his blunt lance, works away furiously with his wooden sword, and then ambles off with a triumphant air very ludicrous to behold. Democracy is the _bête noir_ of all the Chestertons. They attack it not only because they consider it a recent innovation, but also because it threatens the permanence of their order. About the practical working of a republic they have no better information than they have about the institutions of Iceland or the politics of Patagonia. It is quite enough for them to know that the theory of democracy is based on the equality of man, and that where democracy prevails a privileged class is unknown.

It is hardly necessary to add, that the present condition of the United Stales is a perfect godsend to the whole family of Chestertons. Have they not long predicted our disgrace and downfall? Have they not, indeed, ever since our unjustifiable Declaration of Independence, anticipated precisely what has happened? Have they not always and everywhere contended that a republic had no elements of national cohesion? In a word, have they not feared our growing power and population as only such base and ignoble spirits can fear the sure and steady progress of a rival nation? Unhappily, their influence in the councils of the kingdom is by no means inconsiderable. The prestige of an ancient family, the obsequious deference paid in England to exalted social position, and the power of patronage, all combine to confer on the Chestertons a commanding and controlling authority absurdly out of proportion to their intrinsic ability.

There has been a prevalent notion in this country that England was slowly, but certainly, tending towards a more democratic form of government, and a more equal and equitable distribution of power among the different orders of society. This is very far from being the case. It has been well said, that "it is always considered a piece of impertinence in England, if a man of less than two or three thousand a year has any opinions at all upon important subjects." But if this income is quadrupled, and the high honor of a seat in the House of Lords is superadded, it is not difficult to understand that the titled recipient of such a revenue will find that his opinions command the greatest consideration. The organization of the present Cabinet of England is a fresh and conclusive illustration of this principle. It is not too much to say, that at this moment the home and foreign administration of the government is substantially in the hands of the House of Lords. Indeed, the aristocratic element of English society is as powerful to-day as it has been at any time during the past century. To fortify this statement by competent authority, we make an extract from a leader in the London "Times," on the occasion of the elevation of Lord John Russell to the peerage. "But however welcome to the House of Lords may be the accession of Lord John Russell, the House of Commons, we apprehend, will contemplate it with very little satisfaction. While the House of Lords does but one-twentieth part of the business of the House of Commons, it boasts a lion's share of the present administration. Three out of our five Secretaries of State, the Lord-Chancellor, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Lord-President of the Council, the Postmaster-General, the Lord Privy Seal, all hold seats in the Upper House, while the Home-Secretary, and the Secretary for India, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the President of the Board of Trade, the President of the Poor-Law Board, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Secretary for Ireland hold seats in the House of Commons. Lord John Russell goes to give more to that which had already too much. At the present moment, the two ministers whose united departments distribute between twenty and thirty millions of the national revenue sit in the House which does not represent the people. In voting the army and navy estimates, the House of Commons received this year from the Under-Secretaries that information which they ought to have from the best and most authentic, sources. To these is now added the all-important department of Foreign Affairs; so that, if things remain as they are, the representatives of the people must be content to feed on second-hand information.... Most of us can remember a time when it was a favorite topic with popular agitators to expatiate on the number of lords which a government contained, as if every peer of Parliament wielded an influence necessarily hostile to the liberties of the country. We look down in the present age with contempt on such vulgar prejudices; but we seem to be running into the contrary extreme, when we allow almost all the important offices of our government to be monopolized by a chamber where there is small scope for rhetorical ability, and the short sittings and unbusiness-like habits of which make it very unsuited for the enforcement of ministerial responsibility. The statesmen who have charge of large departments of expenditure, like the army and navy, and of the highest interests of the nation, ought to be in the House of Commons, is necessarily superior to a member of the House of the House of Lords, but it is to the House of Commons that these high functionaries are principally accountable, and because, if they forfeit the confidence of the House of Commons, the House of Lords can avail them but little. The matter is of much importance and much difficulty. We can only hope that the opportunity of redressing this manifest imperfection in the structure of the present government will not be lost, and that the House of Commons may recover those political privileges which it has hitherto been its pride to enjoy."

This distribution of power in the English Cabinet furnishes a sufficient solution of the present attitude of the English Government towards this country. The ruling classes of England can have no sincere sympathy with the North, because its institutions and instincts are democratic. They give countenance to the South, because at heart and in practice it is essentially an aristocracy. To remove the dangerous example of a successful and powerful republic, where every man has equal rights, civil and religious, and where a privileged order in Church and State is impossible, has become in the minds of England's governing classes an imperious necessity. Compared with the importance of securing this result, all other considerations weigh as nothing. Brothers by blood, language, and religion, as they have been accustomed to call us while we were united and formidable, we are now, since civil war has weakened us and great national questions have distracted our councils, treated as aliens, if not as enemies. On the other hand, the South, whose leaders have ever been first to take hostile ground against England, and whose "peculiar institution" has drawn upon us the eloquent and unsparing denunciations of English philanthropists, is just now in high favor with the "mother-country." Not only has the ill-disguised dislike of the Tories ripened into open animosity, not only are we the target for the shallow scorn of the Chestertons, (even a donkey may dare to kick a dying lion,) but we have lost the once strongly pronounced friendship of such ardent anti-slavery men as Lord Brougham and the Earl of Shaftesbury. Why is this? Does not the explanation lie in a nutshell? We were becoming too strong. We were disturbing the balance of power. We were demonstrating too plainly the inherent activity and irresistible energy of a purely democratic form of government. Therefore _Carthago delenda est_. "But yet the pity of it, Iago!" Mark how a Christian nation deals with a Christian ally. Our destruction is to be accomplished, not by open warfare, but by the delusive and dastardly pretence of neutrality. There is to be no diplomatic recognition of an independent Southern Confederacy, but a formidable navy is to be furnished to our enemies, and their armies are to be abundantly supplied with the munitions of war. But how? By the English Government? Oh, no! This would be in violation of solemn treaties. Earl Russell says, "We have long maintained relations of peace and amity" with the United States. England cannot officially recognize or aid the South without placing herself in a hostile attitude towards this country. Yet meanwhile English capitalists can publicly subscribe to the loan which our enemies solicit, and from English ship-yards a fleet of iron-clad war-vessels can be sent to lay waste our commerce and break our blockade of Southern ports. What the end will be no one may venture to foretell; but it needs no prophet to predict that many years will not obliterate from the minds of the American people the present policy of the English Cabinet, controlled as it is by the genius of English aristocracy.

* * * * *

THEODORE WINTHROP'S WRITINGS.

"The first time I saw Theodore Winthrop," said one to me a few days ago, "he came into my office with a common friend. They were talking as they entered, and Winthrop said, 'Yes, the fellows who came over in the Mayflower can't afford to do that!'

"'There,' thought I to myself, 'there's another of the Mayflower men! I wish to my soul that ship had sunk on her voyage out!' But when I came to know him, I quickly learned that with him origin was not a matter of vain pride, but a fact inciting him to all nobleness of thought and life, and spurring him on to emulate the qualities of his ancestor."

That is to say, he was not a prig, or a snob, but a gentleman. And if he remembered that he "came over in the Mayflower," it was because he felt that that circumstance bound him to higher enterprises, to better work, than other men's. And he believed in his heart, as he wrote in the opening chapter of "John Brent," that "deeds of the heroic and chivalric times do not utterly disdain our day. There are men," he continues, "as ready to gallop for love and strike for love now as in the age of Amadis." Ay, and for a nobler love than the love of woman--for love of country, and of liberty--he was ready to strike, and to die.

Ready to do, when the time came; but also--what required a greater soul--ready to wait in cheerful content till the fitting time should come. Think of these volumes lying in his desk at home, and he, their author, going about his daily tasks and pleasures, as hearty and as unrepining as though no whisper of ambition had ever come to his soul,--as though he had no slightest desire for the pleasant fame which a successful book gives to a young man. Think of it, O race of scribblers, to whom a month in the printer's hands seems a monstrous delay, and who bore publishers with half-finished manuscripts, as impatient hens begin, untimely, to cackle before the egg is laid.

That a young man, not thirty-three when he died, should have written these volumes, so full of life, so full of strange adventure, of wide reading, telling of such large and thorough knowledge of books and men and Nature, is a remarkable fact in itself. That he should have let the manuscripts lie in his desk has probably surprised the world more. But, much as he wrote, Winthrop, perhaps, always felt that his true life was not that of the author, but of the actor. He has often told me that it was a pleasure to write,--probably such a pleasure as it is to an old tar to spin his yarns. His mind was active, stored with the accumulated facts of a varied experience. How keen an observer of Nature he was, those who have read "John Brent" or the "Canoe and Saddle" need not be told; how appreciative an observer of every-day life, was shown in that brilliant story which appeared in these pages some eighteen months ago, under the title of "Love and Skates." Our American life lost by his death one who, had he lived, would have represented it, reported it to the world, soul and body together; for he comprehended its spirit, as well as saw its outer husk; he was in sympathy with all its manifestations.

That quick, intelligent eye saw everything; that kindly, sympathetic spirit comprehended always the soul of things; and no life, however common, rugged, or coarse, was to him empty. If he added always something of his own nobility of heart, if he did not pry out with prurient eyes the meannesses of life around him, the picture he drew was none the less true,--was, indeed, it seems to me, all the more true. Therefore I say that his early death was a loss to American literature, or, to speak more accurately, to that too small part of our literature which concerns itself with American life. To him the hard-featured Yankee had something besides hard features and ungainly manners; he saw the better part as well as the grosser of the creature, and knew that

"Poor lone Hannah,
Sitting by the window, binding shoes,"

had somewhat besides coarse hands and red eyes. He was not tainted with the vicious habit of caricature, which is the excuse with which superficial and heartless writers impose their false art upon the public. Nor did he need that his heroes should wear kid gloves,--though he was himself the neatest-gloved man I knew. "Armstrong of Oregon" was a rough figure enough; but how well he knew how to bring out the kindly traits in that rude lumberman's character! how true to Nature is that sketch of a gentleman in homespun! And even Jake Shamberlain, the Mormon mail-carrier, a rollicking, untidy rover, fond of whiskey, and doubtless not too scrupulous in a "trade," has yet, in Winthrop's story, qualities which draw us to him.

To sit down to "John Brent" after rending one of the popular novels of these days, by one of the class of writers who imagine photography the noblest of arts, is like getting out of a fashionable "party" into the crisp air of a clear, starlight, December night. And yet Winthrop was a "society" man; one might almost say he knew that life better than the other, the freer, the nobler, which he loved to describe, as he loved to live it.

A neat, active figure of a man, carefully dressed, as one who pays all proper honor to the body in which he walks about; a gentleman, not only in the broader and more generous sense, but also according to the narrower, conventional meaning of the term; plainly a scholarly man, fond of books, and knowing the best books; with that modest, diffident air which bookish men have; with a curious shyness, indeed, as of one who was not accustomed and did not like to come into too close contact with the every-day world: such Theodore Winthrop appeared to me. I recollect the surprise with which I heard--not from him--that he had ridden across the Plains, had camped with Lieutenant Strain, had "roughed it" in the roughest parts of our continent. But if you looked a little closely into the face, you saw in the fine lines of the mouth the determination of a man who can bear to carry his body into any peril or difficulty; and in the eye--he had the eye of a born sailor, an eye accustomed to measure the distance for a dangerous leap, quick to comprehend all parts of a novel situation--you saw there presence of mind, unfaltering readiness, and a spirit equal to anything the day might bring forth.

In the Memoir prefixed to "Cecil Dreeme" Curtis has drawn a portrait, tender and true, of his friend and neighbor. The few words which have written themselves here tell of him only as he appeared to one who knew him less intimately, who saw him not often.

I come now to speak of the writings which Winthrop left. These have the singular merit, that they are all American. From first to last, they are plainly the work of a man who had no need to go to Europe for characters or scenery or plot,--who valued and understood the peculiar life and the peculiar Nature of this continent, and, like a true artist and poet, chose to represent that life and Nature of which he was a part. His stories smack of the soil; his characters--especially in "John Brent," where his own ride across the continent is dramatized--are as fresh and as true as only a true artist could make them. Take, for instance, the "Pike," the border-ruffian transplanted to a California "ranch,"--not a ruffian, as he says, but a barbarian.

"America is manufacturing several new types of men. The Pike is one of the newest. He is a bastard pioneer. With one hand he clutches the pioneer vices; with the other he beckons forward the vices of civilization. It is hard to understand how a man can have so little virtue in so long a body, unless the shakes are foes to virtue in the soul, as they are to beauty in the face.

"He is a terrible shock, this unlucky Pike, to the hope that the new race on the new continent is to be a handsome race. I lose that faith, which the people about me now have nourished, when I recall the Pike. He is hung together, not put together. He inserts his lank fathom of a man into a suit of molasses-colored homespun. Frowzy and husky is the hair Nature crowns him with; frowzy and stubby the beard. He shambles in his walk. He drawls in his talk. He drinks whiskey by the tank. His oaths are to his words as Falstaff's sack to his bread. I have seen Maltese beggars, Arab camel-drivers, Dominican friars, New-York aldermen, Digger Indians; the foulest, frowziest creatures I have ever seen are thorough-bred Pikes."

This is not complimentary, but any one who has seen the creature knows that it is a portrait done by a first-rate artist.

Take, again, that other vulgarer ruffian, "Jim Robinson," "a little man, stockish, oily, and red in the face, a jaunty fellow, too, with a certain shabby air of coxcombry even in his travel-stained attire,"--and how accurately does he describe the metamorphosis of this nauseous grub into a still more disgusting butterfly!

"I can imagine him when he arrives at St. Louis, blossomed into a purple coat with velvet lappels, a brocaded waistcoat, diamond shirt-studs, or a flamboyant scarf pinned with a pinchbeck dog, and red-legged, patent-leather boots, picking his teeth on the steps of the Planters' House."

Or, once more, that more saintly villain, the Mormon Elder Sizzum.

"Presently Sizzum appeared. He had taken time to tone down the pioneer and develop the deacon in his style, and a very sleek personage he had made of himself. He was clean shaved: clean shaving is a favorite coxcombry of the deacon class. His long black hair, growing rank from a muddy skin, was sleekly put behind his ears. A large white blossom of cravat expanded under his nude, beefy chin, and he wore a black dress-coat, creased with its recent packing. Except that his pantaloons were thrust into boots with the maker's name (Abel Gushing, Lynn, Mass.) stamped in gold on a scarlet morocco shield in front, he was in correct go-to-meetin' costume,--a Chadband of the Plains."

When you see one of these men, you will know him again. Winthrop has sketched these rascals with a few touches, as felicitous as any of Dickens's, and they will bear his mark forever: _T.W. fecit._

As for Jake Shamberlain, with his odd mixture of many religious and irreligious dialects, what there is of him is as good as Sam Weller or Mrs. Poyser.

"'Hillo, Shamberlain!' hailed Brent, riding up to the train.

"'Howdydo? Howdydo? No swap!' responded Jake, after the Indian fashion. 'Bung my eyes, ef you're not the mate of all mates I'm glad to see! Pax vobiscrum, my filly! You look as fresh as an Aperel shad. Praisèd be the Lord,' continued he, relapsing into Mormon slang, 'who has sent thee again, like a brand from the burning, to fall into paths of pleasantness with the Saints, as they wander from the Promised Land to the mean section where the low-lived Gentiles ripen their souls for hell!'"

Or Jake's droll commentary on the story of Old Bridger, ousted from his fort, and robbed of his goods, by the Saints, in the name of the Prophet Brigham.

"'It's olluz so,' says Jake; 'Paul plants, and Apollyon gets the increase. Not that Bridger's like Paul, any more 'n we're like Apollyon; but we're goan to have all the cider off his apple-trees.'"

Or, again, Jake's compliments to "Armstrong of Oregon," that galloping Vigilant Committee of one.

"I'll help you, if I know how, Armstrong. I ha'n't seen no two in my life, Old Country or New Country, Saints or Gentiles, as I'd do more for 'n you and your brother. I've olluz said, ef the world was chock full of Armstrongs, Paradise wouldn't pay, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob mout just as well blow out their candle and go under a bushel-basket,--unless a half-bushel would kiver 'em."

But the true hero of the book is the horse Don Fulano. It is easy to see that Winthrop was a first-rate horseman, from the loving manner in which he describes and dwells on the perfections of the matchless stallion. None but one who knew every point of a horse, none but one of the Centaur breed, could have drawn Don Fulano,--just as none but a born skater could have written those inimitable skating-scenes in his story of "Love and Skates."

"He was an American horse,--so they distinguish in California one brought from the old States,--A SUPERB YOUNG STALLION, PERFECTLY BLACK, WITHOUT MARK. It was magnificent to see him, as he circled about me, fire in his eye, pride in his nostril, tail flying like a banner, power and grace from tip to tip. No one would ever mount him, or ride him, unless it was his royal pleasure. He was conscious of his representative position, and showed his paces handsomely."

This is the creature who takes the lead in that stirring and matchless "Gallop of Three" to the Luggernel Spring, to quote from which would be to spoil it. It must be read entire.

In the "Canoe and Saddle" is recorded Winthrop's long ride across the continent. Setting out in a canoe, from Port Townsend, in Vancouver's Island, he journeyed, without company of other white men, to the Salt Lake City and thence to "the States,"--a tedious and barbarous experience, heightened, in this account of it, by the traveller's cheery spirits, his ardent love of Nature, and capacity to describe the grand natural scenery, of the effect of which upon himself he says, at the end,--

"And in all that period, while I was so near to Nature, the great lessons of the wilderness deepened into my heart day by day, the hedges of conventionalism withered away from my horizon, and all the pedantries of scholastic thought perished out of my mind forever."

He bore hardships with the courage and imperturbable good-nature of a born gentleman. It is when men are starving, when the plating of romance is worn off by the chafe of severe and continued suffering,--it is then that "blood tells." Winthrop had evidently that keen relish for rough life which the gently nurtured and highly cultivated man has oftener than his rude neighbor, partly because, in his case, contrast lends a zest to the experience. Thus, when he camps with a gang of "road-makers," in the farthest Western wilderness,--a part of Captain McClellan's Pacific Railroad Expedition,--how thoroughly he enjoys the rough hospitality and rude wit of these pioneers!

"In such a Platonic republic as this a man found his place according to his powers. The cooks were no base scullions; they were brethren, whom conscious ability, sustained by universal suffrage, had endowed with the frying-pan."

"My hosts were a stalwart gang.... Their talk was as muscular as their arms. When these laughed, as only men fresh and hearty and in the open air can laugh, the world became mainly grotesque: it seemed at once a comic thing to live,--a subject for chuckling, that we were bipeds, with noses,--a thing to roar at, that we had all met there from the wide world, to hobnob by a frolicsome fire with tin pots of coffee, and partake of crisped bacon and toasted dough-boys in ridiculous abundance. Easy laughter infected the atmosphere. Echoes ceased to be pensive, and became jocose. A rattling humor pervaded the forest, and Green River rippled with noise of fantastic jollity. Civilization and its _dilettante_ diners-out sneer when Clodpole at Dives's table doubles his soup, knifes his fish, tilts his plate into his lap, puts muscle into the crushing of his _méringue_, and tosses off the warm beaker in his finger-bowl. Camps by Tacoma sneer not at all, but candidly roar, at parallel accidents. Gawky makes a cushion of his flapjack. Butterfingers drops his red-hot rasher into his bosom, or lets slip his mug of coffee into his boot drying at the fire,--a boot henceforth saccharine. A mule, slipping his halter, steps forward unnoticed, puts his nose into the circle, and brays resonant. These are the jocular boons of life, and at these the woodsmen guffaw with lusty good-nature. Coarse and rude the jokes may be, but not nasty, like the innuendoes of pseudo-refined cockneys. If the woodsmen are guilty of uncleanly wit, it differs from the uncleanly wit of cities as the mud of a road differs from the sticky slime of slums.

"It is a stout sensation to meet masculine, muscular men at the brave point of a penetrating Boston hooihut,--men who are mates,--men to whom technical culture means nought,--men to whom myself am nought, unless I can saddle, lasso, cook, sing, and chop,--unless I am a man of nerve and pluck, and a brother in generosity and heartiness. It is restoration to play at cudgels of jocoseness with a circle of friendly roughs, not one of whom ever heard the word bore,--with pioneers, who must think and act, and wrench their living from the closed hand of Nature."

And here is a dinner "in the open."

"Upon the _carte du jour_ at Restaurant Sowee was written Grouse. 'How shall we have them?' said I, cook and convive, to Loolowcan, marmiton and convive. 'One of these cocks of the mountain shall be fried, since gridiron is not,' responded I to myself, after meditation; 'two shall be spitted and roasted; and, as Azrael may not want us before breakfast to-morrow, the fourth shall go upon the _carte de déjeuner'_.

"'O Pork! what a creature thou art!' continued I, in monologue, cutting neat slices of that viand with my bowie-knife, and laying them fraternally, three in a bed, in the frying-pan. 'Blessed be Moses, who forbade thee to the Jews, whereby we, of freer dispensations, heirs of all the ages, inherit also pigs more numerous and bacon cheaper! O Pork! what could campaigners do without thy fatness, thy leanness, thy saltness, thy portableness?'

"Here Loolowcan presented me the three birds, plucked featherless as Plato's man. The two roasters we planted carefully on spits before a sultry spot of the fire. From a horizontal stick, supported on forked stakes, we suspended by a twig over each roaster an automatic baster, an inverted cone of pork, ordained to yield its spicy juices to the wooing flame, and drip bedewing on each bosom beneath. The roasters ripened deliberately, while keen and quick fire told upon the frier, the first course of our feast. Meanwhile I brewed a pot of tea, blessing Confucius for that restorative weed, as I had blessed Moses for his abstinence from porkers.

"Need I say that the grouse were admirable, that everything was delicious, and the Confucian weed first chop? Even a scouse of mouldy biscuit met the approval of Loolowcan. Feasts cooked under the greenwood tree, and eaten by their cooks after a triumphant day of progress, are sweeter than the conventional banquets of languid Christendom."

"Life in the Open Air"--containing sketches of travel among the mountains and lakes of Maine, as well as the story of "Love and Skates," which has been spoken of, "The March of the Seventh Regiment," "Washington as a Camp," an essay descriptive of Church's great picture, "The Heart of the Andes," and two fragments, one of them the charming commencement of a story which promised to be one of his best and most enjoyable efforts in this direction--is the concluding volume of Winthrop's collected writings. I speak of it in this place, because it is in some part a companion-book to the volumes we have been discussing. It is as full of buoyant life, of fresh and noble thought, of graceful wit and humor, as those; in parts it contains the most finished of his literary work. Few Americans who read it at the time will ever forget that stirring description of the march of the New-York Seventh; it is a piece of the history of our war which will live and be read as long as Americans read their history. It moved my blood, in the reading, tonight, as it did in those days--which seem already some centuries old, so do events crowd the retrospect--when we were all reading it in the pages of the "Atlantic." In the unfinished story of "Brightly's Orphan" there is a Jew boy from Chatham Street, an original of the first water, who, though scarce fairly introduced, will, I am sure, make a place for himself and for his author in the memories of all who relish humor of the best kind.

"Cecil Dreeme" and "Edwin Brothertoft" are quite other books than these we have spoken of. Here Winthrop tried a different vein,--two different veins, perhaps. Both are stories of suffering and crime, stories of the world and society. In one it is a woman, in the other a man, who is wronged. One deals with New York city-life of the very present day; the other is a story of the Revolutionary War, and of Tories and Patriots. The popular verdict has declared him successful, even here. "Cecil Dreeme" has run through no less than fifteen editions.

In this story we are shown New York "society" as doubtless Winthrop knew it to be. Yet the book has a curious air of the Old-World; it might be a story of Venice, almost. It tells us of Old-World vices and crimes, and the fittings and furnishings are of a piece. The localities, indeed, are sketched so faithfully, that a stranger to the city, coming suddenly, in his wanderings, upon Chrysalis College Buildings, could not fail to recognize them at once,--as indeed happened to a country friend of mine recently, to his great delight. But the men are Americans, bred and formed--and for the most part spoiled--in Europe; Americans who have gone to Paris before their time, if it be true, what a witty Bostonian said, that good Americans go to Paris when they die. With all this, the book has a strange charm, so that it takes possession of you in spite of yourself. It is as though it drew away the curtain, for one slight moment, from the mysteries which "society" decorously hides,--as though he who drew the curtain stood beside it, pointing with solemn finger and silent indignation to the baseness of which he gives you a glimpse. Yet even here the good carries the day, and that in no maudlin way, but because the true men are the better men.

These, then, are Winthrop's writings,--the literary works of a young man who died at thirty-two, and who had spent a goodly part of his mature life in the saddle and the canoe, exploring his own country, and in foreign travel. As we look at the volumes, we wonder how he found time for so much; but when we have read, we wonder yet more at the excellence of all he wrote. In all and through all shines his own noble spirit; and thus these books of his, whose printed pages he never saw, will keep his memory green amongst us; for, through them, all who read may know that there wrote a true gentleman.

Once he wrote,--

"Let me not waste in skirmishes my power,
In petty struggles. Rather in the hour
Of deadly conflict may I nobly die,
In my first battle perish gloriously."

Even so he fell; but in these written works, as in his gallant death, he left with us lessons which will yet win battles for the good cause of American liberty, which he held dearest in his heart.

* * * * *

HILARY.

Hilary,
Summer calls thee, o'er the sea!
Like white flowers upon the tide,
In and out the vessels glide;
But no wind on all the main
Sends thy blithe soul home again:
Every salt breeze moans for thee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
Welcome Summer's step will be,
Save to those beside whose door
Doleful birds sit evermore
Singing, "Never comes he here
Who made every season's cheer!"
Dull the June that brings not thee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
What strange world has sheltered thee?
Here the soil beneath thy feet
Rang with songs, and blossomed sweet;
Blue skies ask thee yet of Earth,
Blind and dumb without thy mirth:
With thee went her heart of glee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
All things shape a sigh for thee!
O'er the waves, among the flowers,
Through the lapse of odorous hours,
Breathes a lonely, longing sound,
As of something sought, unfound:
Lorn are all things, lorn are we,
Hilary!

Hilary,
Oh, to sail in quest of thee,
To the trade-wind's steady tune,
Past the hurrying monsoon,
Into torrid seas, that lave
Dry, hot sands,--a breathless grave,--
Sad as vain the search would be,
Hilary!

Hilary,
Chase the sorrow from the sea!
Summer-heart, bring summer near,
Warm, and fresh, and airy-clear!
--Dead thou art not: dead is pain;
Now Earth sees and sings again:
Death, to hold thee, Life must be,
Hilary!

* * * * *

DEBBY'S DÉBUT.

On a cheery June day Mrs. Penelope Carroll and her niece Debby Wilder were whizzing along on their way to a certain gay watering-place, both in the best of humors with each other and all the world beside. Aunt Pen was concocting sundry mild romances, and laying harmless plots for the pursuance of her favorite pastime, match-making; for she had invited her pretty relative to join her summer jaunt, ostensibly that the girl might see a little of fashionable life, but the good lady secretly proposed to herself to take her to the beach and get her a rich husband, very much as she would have proposed to take her to Broadway and get her a new bonnet; for both articles she considered necessary, but somewhat difficult for a poor girl to obtain.

Debby was slowly getting her poise, after the excitement of a first visit to New York; for ten days of bustle had introduced the young philosopher to a new existence, and the working-day world seemed to have vanished when she made her last pat of butter in the dairy at home. For an hour she sat thinking over the good-fortune which had befallen her, and the comforts of this life which she had suddenly acquired. Debby was a true girl,--with all a girl's love of ease and pleasure; and it must not be set down against her that she surveyed her pretty travelling-suit with much complacency, rejoicing inwardly that she could use her hands without exposing fractured gloves, that her bonnet was of the newest mode, needing no veil to hide a faded ribbon or a last year's shape, that her dress swept the ground with fashionable untidiness, and her boots were guiltless of a patch,--that she was the possessor of a mine of wealth in two of the eight trunks belonging to her aunt, that she was travelling like any lady of the land with man-and maid-servant at her command, and that she was leaving work and care behind her for a month or two of novelty and rest.

When these agreeable facts were fully realized, and Aunt Pen had fallen asleep behind her veil, Debby took out a book, and indulged in her favorite luxury, soon forgetting past, present, and future in the inimitable history of Martin Chuzzlewit. The sun blazed, the cars rattled, children cried, ladies nodded, gentlemen longed for the solace of prohibited cigars, and newspapers were converted into sun-shades, nightcaps, and fans; but Debby read on, unconscious of all about her, even of the pair of eyes that watched her from the opposite corner of the car. A gentleman with a frank, strong-featured face sat therein, and amused himself by scanning with thoughtful gaze the countenances of his fellow-travellers. Stout Aunt Pen, dignified even in her sleep, was a "model of deportment" to the rising generation; but the student of human nature found a more attractive subject in her companion, the girl with an apple-blossom face and merry brown eyes, who sat smiling into her book, never heeding that her bonnet was awry, and the wind taking unwarrantable liberties with her ribbons and her hair.

Innocent Debby turned her pages, unaware that her fate sat opposite in the likeness of a serious, black-bearded gentleman, who watched the smiles rippling from her lips to her eyes with an interest that deepened as the minutes passed. If his paper had been full of anything but "Bronchial Troches" and "Spalding's Prepared Glue," he would have found more profitable employment; but it wasn't, and with the usual readiness of idle souls he fell into evil ways, and permitted curiosity, that feminine sin, to enter in and take possession of his manly mind. A great desire seized him to discover what book so interested his pretty neighbor; but a cover hid the name, and he was too distant to catch it on the fluttering leaves. Presently a stout Emerald-Islander, with her wardrobe oozing out of sundry paper parcels, vacated the seat behind the two ladies; and it was soon quietly occupied by the individual for whom Satan was finding such indecorous employment. Peeping round the little gray bonnet, past a brown braid and a fresh cheek, the young man's eye fell upon the words the girl was reading, and forgot to look away again. Books were the desire of his life; but an honorable purpose and an indomitable will kept him steady at his ledgers till he could feel that he had earned the right to read. Like wine to many another was an open page to him; he read a line, and, longing for more, took a hasty sip from his neighbor's cup, forgetting that it was a stranger's also.

Down the page went the two pairs of eyes, and the merriment from Debby's seemed to light up the sombre ones behind her with a sudden shine that softened the whole face and made it very winning. No wonder they twinkled, for Elijah Pogram spoke, and "Mrs. Hominy, the mother of the modern Gracchi, in the classical blue cap and the red cotton pocket-handkerchief, came down the room in a procession of one." A low laugh startled Debby, though it was smothered like the babes in the Tower; and, turning, she beheld the trespasser scarlet with confusion, and sobered with a tardy sense of his transgression. Debby was not a starched young lady of the "prune and prism" school, but a frank, free-hearted little body, quick to read the sincerity of others, and to take looks and words at their real value. Dickens was her idol; and for his sake she could have forgiven a greater offence than this. The stranger's contrite countenance and respectful apology won her good-will at once; and with a finer courtesy than any Aunt Pen would have taught, she smilingly bowed her pardon, and, taking another book from her basket, opened it, saying, pleasantly,--

"Here is the first volume, if you like it, Sir. I can recommend it as an invaluable consolation for the discomforts of a summer day's journey, and it is heartily at your service."

As much surprised as gratified, the gentleman accepted the book, and retired behind it with the sudden discovery that wrong-doing has its compensation in the pleasurable sensation of being forgiven. Stolen delights are well known to be specially saccharine; and much as this pardoned sinner loved books, it seemed to him that the interest of the story flagged, and that the enjoyment of reading was much enhanced by the proximity of a gray bonnet and a girlish profile. But Dickens soon proved more powerful than Debby, and she was forgotten, till, pausing to turn a leaf, the young man met her shy glance, as she asked, with the pleased expression of a child who has shared an apple with a playmate,--

"Is it good?"

"Oh, very!"--and the man looked as honestly grateful for the book as the boy would have done for the apple.

Only five words in the conversation, but Aunt Pen woke, as if the watchful spirit of propriety had roused her to pluck her charge from the precipice on which she stood.

"Dora, I'm astonished at you! Speaking to strangers in that free manner is a most unladylike thing. How came you to forget what I have told you over and over again about a proper reserve?"

The energetic whisper reached the gentleman's ear, and he expected to be annihilated with a look when his offence was revealed; but he was spared that ordeal, for the young voice answered, softly,--

"Don't faint, Aunt Pen; I only did as I'd be done by; for I had two books, and the poor man looked so hungry for something to read that I couldn't resist sharing my 'goodies.' He will see that I'm a countrified little thing in spite of my fine feathers, and won't be shocked at my want of rigidity and frigidity; so don't look dismal, and I'll be prim and proper all the rest of the way,--if I don't forget it."

"I wonder who he is; may belong to some of our first families, and in that case it might be worth while to exert ourselves, you know. Did you learn his name, Dora?" whispered the elder lady.

Debby shook her head, and murmured, "Hush!"--but Aunt Pen had heard of matches being made in cars as well as in heaven; and as an experienced general, it became her to reconnoitre, when one of the enemy approached her camp. Slightly altering her position, she darted an all-comprehensive glance at the invader, who seemed entirely absorbed, for not an eyelash stirred during the scrutiny. It lasted but an instant, yet in that instant he was weighed and found wanting; for that experienced eye detected that his cravat was two inches wider than fashion ordained, that his coat was not of the latest style, that his gloves were mended, and his handkerchief neither cambric nor silk. That was enough, and sentence was passed forthwith,--"Some respectable clerk, good-looking, but poor, and not at all the thing for Dora"; and Aunt Pen turned to adjust a voluminous green veil over her niece's bonnet, "To shield it from the dust, dear," which process also shielded the face within from the eye of man.

A curious smile, half mirthful, half melancholy, passed over their neighbor's lips; but his peace of mind seemed undisturbed, and he remained buried in his book till they reached ----, at dusk. As he returned it, he offered his services in procuring a carriage or attending to luggage; but Mrs. Carroll, with much dignity of aspect, informed him that her servants would attend to those matters, and, bowing gravely, he vanished into the night.

As they rolled away to the hotel, Debby was wild to run down to the beach whence came the solemn music of the sea, making the twilight beautiful. But Aunt Pen was too tired to do anything but sup in her own apartment and go early to bed; and Debby might as soon have proposed to walk up the Great Pyramid as to make her first appearance without that sage matron to mount guard over her; so she resigned herself to pie and patience, and fell asleep, wishing it were to-morrow.

At five, A.M., a nightcapped head appeared at one of the myriad windows of the ---- Hotel, and remained there as if fascinated by the miracle of sunrise over the sea. Under her simplicity of character and girlish merriment Debby possessed a devout spirit and a nature full of the real poetry of life, two gifts that gave her dawning womanhood its sweetest charm, and made her what she was. As she looked out that summer dawn upon the royal marriage of the ocean and the sun, all petty hopes and longings faded out of sight, and her young face grew luminous with thoughts too deep for words. Her day was happier for that silent hour, her life richer for the aspirations that uplifted her like beautiful strong angels, and left a blessing when they went. The smile of the June sky touched her lips, the morning red seemed to linger on her cheek, and in her eye arose a light kindled by the shimmer of that broad sea of gold; for Nature rewarded her young votary well, and gave her beauty, when she offered love. How long she leaned there Debby did not know; steps from below roused her from her reverie, and led her back into the world again. Smiling at herself, she stole to bed, and lay wrapped in waking dreams as changeful as the shadows dancing on her chamber-wall.

The advent of her aunt's maid, Victorine, some two hours later, was the signal to be "up and doing"; and she meekly resigned herself into the hands of that functionary, who appeared to regard her in the light of an animated pin-cushion, as she performed the toilet-ceremonies with an absorbed aspect, which impressed her subject with a sense of the solemnity of the occasion.

"Now, Mademoiselle, regard yourself, and pronounce that you are ravishing," Victorine said at length, folding her hands with a sigh of satisfaction, as she fell back in an attitude of serene triumph.

Debby obeyed, and inspected herself with great interest and some astonishment; for there was a sweeping amplitude of array about the young lady whom she beheld in the much-befrilled gown and embroidered skirts, which somewhat alarmed her as to the navigation of a vessel "with such a spread of sail," while a curious sensation of being somebody else pervaded her from the crown of her head, with its shining coils of hair, to the soles of the French slippers, whose energies seemed to have been devoted to the production of marvellous rosettes.

"Yes, I look very nice, thank you; and yet I feel like a doll, helpless and fine, and fancy I was more of a woman in my fresh gingham, with a knot of clovers in my hair, than I am now. Aunt Pen was very kind to get me all these pretty things; but I'm afraid my mother would look horrified to see me in such a high state of flounce externally and so little room to breathe internally."

"Your mamma would not flatter me, Mademoiselle; but come now to Madame; she is waiting to behold you, and I have yet her toilet to make"; and, with a pitying shrug, Victorine followed Debby to her aunt's room.

"Charming! really elegant!" cried that lady, emerging from her towel with a rubicund visage. "Drop that braid half an inch lower, and pull the worked end of her handkerchief out of the right-hand pocket, Vic. There! Now, Dora, don't run about and get rumpled, but sit quietly down and practise repose till I am ready."

Debby obeyed, and sat mute, with the air of a child in its Sunday-best on a week-day, pleased with the novelty, but somewhat oppressed with the responsibility of such unaccustomed splendor, and utterly unable to connect any ideas of repose with tight shoes and skirts in a rampant state of starch.

* * * * *

"Well, you see, I bet on Lady Gay against Cockadoodle, and if you'll believe me--Hullo! there's Mrs. Carroll, and deuse take me if she hasn't got a girl with her! Look, Seguin!"--and Joe Leavenworth, a "man of the world," aged twenty, paused in his account of an exciting race to make the announcement.

Mr. Seguin, his friend and Mentor, as much his senior in worldly wickedness as in years, tore himself from his breakfast long enough to survey the new-comers, and then returned to it, saying, briefly,--

"The old lady is worth cultivating,--gives good suppers, and thanks you for eating them. The girl is well got up, but has no style, and blushes like a milk-maid. Better fight shy of her, Joe."

"Do you think so? Well, now I rather fancy that kind of thing. She's new, you see, and I get on with that sort of girl the best, for the old ones are so deused knowing that a fellow has no chance of a--By the Lord Harry, she's eating bread and milk!"

Young Leavenworth whisked his glass into his eye, and Mr. Seguin put down his roll to behold the phenomenon. Poor Debby! her first step had been a wrong one.