Chapter VIII: Part 8

Before attempting to explain how these changes take place, let us consider the facts themselves. The mass of the glacial ice is traversed by thin bands of compact blue ice, these bands being very numerous along the margins of the glacier, where they constitute what Dr. Tyndall calls marginal structure, and still more crowded along the line upon which two glaciers unite, where he has called it longitudinal structure. In the latter case, where the extreme pressure resulting from the junction of two glaciers has rendered the strata nearly vertical, these blue bands follow their trend so closely that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. It will be seen, on referring to the wood-cut on page 758, where the close, uniform, vertical lines represent the true veined structure, that at several points of that section the lines of stratification run so nearly parallel with them, that, were the former not drawn more strongly, they could not be easily distinguished from the latter. Along the margins, also, in consequence of the retarded motion, the blue bands and the lines of stratification run nearly parallel with each other, both following the sides of the trough in which they move.

Undoubtedly, in both these instances, we have two kinds of blue bands, namely: those formed primitively in a horizontal position, indicating seams of stratification, and those which have arisen subsequently in connection with the movement of the whole mass, which I have occasionally called bands of infiltration, as they appeared to me to be formed by the infiltration and freezing of water. The fact that these blue bands are most numerous where two glaciers are crowded together into a common bed naturally suggests pressure as their cause. And since the beautiful experiments of Dr. Tyndall have illustrated the internal liquefaction of ice by pressure, it becomes highly probable that his theory of the origin of these secondary blue bands is the true one. He suggests that layers of water may be formed in the glacier at right angles with the pressure, and pass into a state of solid ice upon the removal of that pressure, the pressure being of course relieved in proportion to the diminution in the body of the ice by compression. The number of blue bands diminishes as we recede from the source of the pressure,--few only being formed, usually at right angles with the surfaces of stratification, in the middle of a glacier, half-way between its sides. If they are caused by pressure, this diminution of their number toward the middle of the glacier would be inevitable, since the intensity of the pressure naturally fades as we recede from the motive power.

Dr. Tyndall also alludes to another structure of the same kind, which he calls transverse structure, where the blue bands extend in crescent-shaped curves, more or less arched, across the surface of the glacier. Where these do not coincide with the stratification, they are probably formed by vertical pressure in connection with the unequal movement of the mass.

With these facts before us, it seems to me plain that the primitive blue bands arise with the stratification of the snow in the very first formation of the glacier, while the secondary blue bands are formed subsequently, in consequence of the onward progress of the glacier and the pressure to which it is subjected. The secondary blue bands intersect the planes of stratification at every possible angle, and may therefore seem identical with the stratification in some places, while in others they cut it at right angles. It has been objected to my theory of glacial structure, that I have considered the so-called blue bands as a superficial feature when compared with the stratification. And in a certain sense this is true; since, if my views are correct, the glacier exists and is in full life and activity before the secondary blue bands arise in it, whereas the stratification is a feature of its embryo condition, already established in the accumulated snow before it begins its transformation into glacier-ice. In other words, the veined structure of the glacier is not a primary structural feature of its whole mass, but the result of various local influences acting upon the constitution of the ice: the marginal structure resulting from the resistance of the sides of the valley to the onward movement of the glacier, the longitudinal structure arising from the pressure caused by two glaciers uniting in one common bed, the transverse structure being produced by vertical pressure in consequence of the weight of the mass itself and the increased rate of motion at the centre.

In the _névé_ fields, where the strata are still horizontal, the few blue bands observed are perpendicular to the strata of snow, and therefore also perpendicular to the blue seams of ice and the sheets of dust alternating with them. Upon the sides of the glacier they are more or less parallel to the slopes of the valley; along the line of junction of two glaciers they follow the vertical trend of the axis of the mass; while at intermediate positions they are more or less oblique. Along the outcropping edges of the strata, on the surface of the glacier, they follow more or less the dip of the strata themselves; that is to say, they are more or less parallel with the dirt-bands. In conclusion, I would recommend future investigators to examine the glaciers, with reference to the distribution of the blue bands, after heavy rains and during foggy days, when the surface is freed from the loose materials and decomposed fragments of ice resulting from the prolonged action of the sun.

* * * * *

The most important facts, then, to be considered with reference to the motion of the glacier are as follows. First that the rate of advance between the axis and the margins of a glacier differs in the ratio of about ten to one and even less; that is to say; when the centre is advancing at a rate of two hundred and fifty feet a year, the motion toward the sides may be gradually diminished to two hundred, one hundred and fifty, one hundred, fifty feet, and so on, till nearest the margin it becomes almost inappreciable. Secondly, the rate of motion is not the same throughout the length of the glacier, the advance being greatest about half-way down in the region of the _névé_, and diminishing in rapidity both above and below; thus the onward motion in the higher portion of a glacier may not exceed twenty to fifty feet a year, while it reaches its maximum of some two hundred and fifty feet annually in the _névé_ region, and is retarded again toward the lower extremity, where it is reduced to about one-fourth of its maximum rate. Thirdly, the glacier moves at different rates throughout the thickness of its mass; toward the lower extremity of the glacier the bottom is retarded, and the surface portion moves faster, while in the upper region the bottom seems to advance more rapidly. I say _seems_, because upon this latter point there are no positive measurements, and it is only inferred from general appearances, while the former statement has been demonstrated by accurate experiments. Remembering the form of the troughs in which the glaciers arise, that they have their source in expansive, open fields of snow and _névé_, and that these immense accumulations move gradually down into ever narrowing channels, though at times widening again to contract anew, their surface wasting so little from external influences that they advance far below the line of perpetual snow without any sensible diminution in size, it is evident that an enormous pressure must have been brought to bear upon them before they could have been packed into the lower valleys through which they descend.

Physicists seem now to agree that pressure is the chief agency in the motion of glaciers. No doubt, all the facts point that way; but it now becomes a matter of philosophical interest to determine in what direction it acts most powerfully, and upon this point glacialists are by no means agreed. The latest conclusion seems to be, that the weight of the advancing mass is itself the efficient cause of the motion. But while this is probably true in the main, other elements tending to the same result, and generally overlooked by investigators, ought to be taken into consideration; and before leaving the subject, I would add a few words upon infiltration in this connection.

The weight of the glacier, as a whole, is about the same all the year round. If, therefore, pressure, resulting from that weight, be the all-controlling agency, its progress should be uniform daring the whole year, or even greatest in winter, which is by no means the case. By a series of experiments, I have ascertained that the onward movement, whatever be its annual average, is accelerated in spring and early summer. The average annual advance of the glacier being, at a given point, at the rate of about two hundred feet, its average summer advance, at the same point, will be at a rate of two hundred and fifty feet, while its average rate of movement in winter will be about one hundred and fifty feet. This can be accounted for only by the increased pressure due to the large accession of water trickling in spring and early summer into the interior through the net-work of capillary fissures pervading the whole mass. The unusually large infiltration of water at that season is owing to the melting of the winter snow. Careful experiments made on the glacier of the Aar, respecting the water thus accumulating on the surface, penetrating its mass, and finally discharged in part at its lower extremity, fully confirm this view. Here, then, is a powerful cause of pressure and consequent motion, quite distinct from the permanent weight of the mass itself, since it operates only at certain seasons of the year. In midwinter, when the infiltration is reduced to a minimum, the motion is least. The water thus introduced into the glacier acts, as we have seen above, in various ways: by its weight, by loosening the particles of snow through which it trickles, and by freezing and consequent expansion, at least within the limits and during the season at which the temperature of the glacier sinks below 32° Fahrenheit. The simple fact, that in the spring the glacier swells on an average to about five feet more than its usual level, shows how important this infiltration must be. I can therefore only wonder that other glacialists have given so little weight to this fact. It is admitted by all, that the waste of a glacier at its surface, in consequence of evaporation and melting, amounts to about nine or ten feet in a year. At this rate of diminution, a glacier, even one thousand feet in thickness, could not advance during a single century without being exhausted. The water supplied by infiltration no doubt repairs the loss to a great degree. Indeed, the lower part of the glacier must be chiefly maintained from this source, since the annual increase from the fresh accumulations of snow is felt only above the snow-line, below which the yearly snow melts away and disappears. In a complete theory of the glaciers, the effect of so great an accession of plastic material cannot be overlooked.

I now come to some points in the structure of the glacier, the consideration of which is likely to have a decided influence in settling the conflicting views respecting their motion. The experiments of Faraday concerning regelation, and the application of the facts made known by the great English physicist to the theory of the glaciers, as first presented by Dr. Tyndall in his admirable work, show that fragments of ice with most surfaces are readily reunited under pressure into a solid mass. It follows from these experiments, that glacier-ice, at a temperature of 32° Fahrenheit, may change its form and preserve its continuity during its motion, in virtue of the pressure to which it is subjected. The statement is, that, when two pieces of ice with moistened surfaces are placed in contact, they become cemented together by the freezing of a film of water between them, while, when the ice is below 32° Fahrenheit, and therefore _dry_, no effect of the kind can be produced. The freezing was also found to take place under water; and the result was the same, even when the water into which the ice was plunged was as hot as the hand can bear.

The fact that ice becomes cemented under these circumstances is fully established, and my own experiments have confirmed it to the fullest extent. I question, however, the statement, that regelation takes place _by the freezing of a film of water between the fragments_. I never have been able to detect any indication of the presence of such a film, and am, therefore, inclined to consider this result as akin to what takes place when fragments of moist clay or marl are pressed together and thus reunited. When examining beds of clay and marl, or even of compact limestone, especially in large mountain-masses, I have frequently observed that the rock presents a net-work of minute fissures pervading the whole, without producing a distinct solution of continuity, though generally determining the lines according to which it breaks under sudden shocks. The net-work of capillary fissures pervading the glacier may fairly be compared to these rents in hard rocks,--with this difference, however, that in ice they are more permeable to water than in stone.

How this net-work of capillary fissures is formed has not been ascertained by direct observation. Following, however, the transformation of the snow and _névé_ into compact ice, it is easily conceived that the porous mass of snow, as it falls in the upper regions of the Alps, and in the broad caldrons in which the glaciers properly originate, cannot pass into solid ice, by the process described in a former article, without retaining within itself larger or smaller quantities of air. This air is finally surrounded from all sides by the cementation of the granules of _névé_, through the freezing of the water that penetrates it. So inclosed, the bubbles of air are subject to the same compression as the ice itself, and become more flattened in proportion as the snow has been more fully transformed into compact ice. As long as the transformation of snow into ice is not complete, a rise of its temperature to 32° Fahrenheit, accompanied with thawing, reduces it at once again to the condition of loose grains of _névé_; but when more compact, it always presents the aspect of a mass composed of angular fragments, wedged and dove-tailed together, and separated by capillary fissures, the flattened air-bubbles trending in the same direction in each fragment, but varying in their trend from one fragment to another. There is, moreover, this important point to notice,--that, the older the _névé_, the larger are its composing granules; and where _névé_ passes into porous ice, small angular fragments are mixed with rounded _névé_-granules, the angular fragments appearing larger and more numerous, and the _névé_-granules fewer, in proportion as the _névé_-ice has undergone most completely its transformation into compact glacier-ice. These facts show conclusively that the dimensions and form of the _névé_-granules, the size and shape of the angular fragments, the porosity of the ice, the arrangement of its capillary fissures, and the distribution and compression of the air-bubbles it contains, are all connected features, mutually dependent. Whether the transformation of snow into ice be the result of pressure only, or, as I believe, quite as much the result of successive thawings and freezings, these structural features can equally be produced, and exhibit these relations to one another. It may be, moreover, that, when the glacier is at a temperature below 32°, its motion produces extensive fissuration throughout the mass.

Now that water pervades this net-work of fissures in the glacier to a depth not yet ascertained, my experiments upon the glacier of the Aar have abundantly proved; and that the fissures themselves exist at a depth of two hundred and fifty feet I also know, from actual observation. All this can, of course, take place, even if the internal temperature of the glacier never should fall below 32° Fahrenheit; and it has actually been assumed that the temperature within the glacier does not fall below this point, and that, therefore, no phenomena, dependent upon a greater degree of cold, can take place beyond a very superficial depth, to which the cold outside may be supposed to penetrate. I have, however, observed facts which seem to me irreconcilable with this assumption. In the first place, a thermometrograph indicating -2° Centigrade, (about 28° Fahrenheit,) at a depth of a little over two metres, that is, about six feet and a half, has been recovered from the interior of the glacier of the Aar, while all my attempts to thaw out other instruments placed in the ice at a greater depth utterly failed, owing to the circumstance, that, after being left for some time in the glacier, they were invariably frozen up in newly formed water-ice, entirely different in its structure from the surrounding glacier-ice. This freezing could not have taken place, did the mass of the glacier never fall below 32° Fahrenheit. And this is not the only evidence of hard frost in the interior of the glaciers. The innumerable large walls of water-ice, which may be seen intersecting their mass in every direction and to any depth thus far reached, show that water freezes in their interior. It cannot be objected, that this is merely the result of pressure; since the thin fluid seams, exhibited under pressure in the interesting experiments of Dr. Tyndall, and described in his work under the head of Crystallization and Internal Liquefaction, cannot be compared to the large, irregular masses of water-ice found in the interior of the glacier, to which I here allude.

In the absence of direct thermometric observations, from which the lowest internal temperature of the glacier could be determined with precision in all its parts, we are certainly justified in assuming that every particle of water-ice found in the glacier, the formation of which cannot be ascribed to the mere fact of pressure, is due to the influence of a temperature inferior to 32° Fahrenheit at the time of its consolidation. The fact that the temperature in winter has been proved by actual experimentation to fall as low as 28° Fahrenheit, that is, four degrees below the freezing-point at a depth of six feet below a thick covering of snow, though not absolutely conclusive as to the temperature at a greater depth, is certainly very significant.

Under these circumstances, it is not out of place to consider through what channels the low temperature of the air surrounding the glacier may penetrate into the interior. The heavy cold air may of course sink from the surface into every large open space, such as the crevasses, large fissures, and _moulins_ or mill like holes to be described in a future article; it may also penetrate with the currents which ingulf themselves under the glacier, or it may enter through its terminal vault, or through the lateral openings between the walls of the valley and the ice. Indeed, if all the spaces in the mass of the glacier, not occupied by continuous ice, could be graphically represented, I believe it would be seen that cold air surrounds the glacier-ice itself in every direction, so that probably no masses of a greater thickness than that already known to be permeable to cold at the surface would escape this contact with the external temperature. If this be the case, it is evident that water may freeze in any part of the glacier.

To substantiate this position, which, if sustained, would prove that the dilatation of the mass of the glacier is an essential element of its motion, I may allude to several other well-known facts. The loose snow of the upper regions is gradually transformed into compact ice. The experiments of Dr. Tyndall prove that this may be the result of pressure; but in the region of the _névé_ it is evidently owing to the transformation of the snow-flakes into ice by repeated melting and freezing, for it takes place in the uppermost layers of the snow, where pressure can have no such effect, as well as in its deeper beds. I take it for granted, also, that no one, familiar with the presence of the numerous ice-seams parallel to the layers of snow in these upper regions of the glacier, can doubt that they, as well as the _névé_, are the result of frost. But be this as it may, the difference between the porous ice of the upper region of the glacier and the compact blue ice of its lower track seems to me evidence direct that at times the whole mass must assume the rigidity imparted to it by a temperature inferior to the freezing-point. We know that at 32° Fahrenheit, regelation renders the mass continuous, and that it becomes brittle only at a temperature below this. In other words, the ice can break up into a mass of disconnected fragments, such as the capillary fissures and the infiltration-experiments described in my "Système Glaciaire," show to exist, only when it is below 32° Fahrenheit. If it be contended that ice at 32° does break, and that therefore the whole mass of the glacier may break at that temperature, setting aside the contradiction to the facts of regelation which such an assumption involves, I would refer to Dr. Tyndall's experiments concerning the vacuous spots in the ice.

Those who have read his startling investigations will remember that by sending a beam of sunlight through ice he brought to view the primitive crystalline forms to which it owes its solidity, and that he insisted that these star-shaped figures are always in the plane of crystallization. Without knowing what might be their origin, I had myself noticed these figures, and represented them in a diagram, part of which is reproduced in the annexed wood-cut. I had considered them to be compressed air-bubbles; and though I cannot, under my present circumstances, repeat the experiment of Dr. Tyndall upon glacier-ice, I conceive that the star-shaped figures represented upon Pl. VII. figs. 8 and 9, in my "Système Glaciaire," may refer to the same phenomenon as that observed by him in pond-ice. Yet while I make this concession, I still maintain, that besides these crystalline figures there exist compressed air-bubbles in the angular fragments of the glacier-ice, as shown in the above wood-cut; and that these bubbles are grouped in sets, trending in the same direction in one and the same fragment, and diverging under various angles in the different fragments. I have explained this fact concerning the position of the compressed air-bubbles, by assuming that ice, under various pressure, may take the appearance it presents in each fragment with every compressed air-bubble trending in the same direction, while their divergence in the different fragments is owing to a change in the respective position of the fragments resulting from the movement of the whole glacier. I have further assumed, that throughout the glacier the change of the snow and porous ice into compact ice is the result of successive freezing, alternating with melting, or at least with the resumption of a temperature of 32° Fahrenheit in consequence of the infiltration of liquid water, to which the effects of pressure must be added, the importance of which in this connection no one could have anticipated prior to the experiments of Dr. Tyndall. Of course, if the interior temperature of the glacier never falls below 32°, the changes here alluded to could not take place. But if the _vacuous spaces_ observed by Dr. Tyndall are really identical with the spaces I have described as _extremely flattened air-bubbles_, I think the arrangement of these spaces as above described proves that it freezes in the interior of the glacier to the depth at which these crosswise fragments have been observed: that is, at a depth of two hundred feet. For, since the experiments of Dr. Tyndall show that the vacuous spaces are parallel to the surface of crystallization, and as no crystallization of water can take place unless the surrounding temperature fall below 32°, it follows that these vacuous spaces could not exist in such large continuous fragments, presenting throughout the fragments the same trend, if there had been no frost within the mass, affecting the whole of such a fragment while it remained in the same position.

The most striking evidence, in my opinion, that at times the whole mass of the glacier actually freezes, is drawn from the fact, already alluded to, that, while the surface of the glacier loses annually from nine to ten feet of its thickness by evaporation and melting, it swells, on the other hand, in the spring, to the amount of about five feet. Such a dilatation can hardly be the result of pressure and the packing of the snow and ice, since the difference in the bulk of the ice brought down, during one year, from a point above to that under observation, would not account for the swelling. It is more readily explained by the freezing of the water of infiltration during spring and early summer, when the infiltration is most copious and the winter cold has been accumulating for the longest time. This view of the case is sustained by Élie de Beaumont, who states his opinion upon this point as follows:--

"Pendant l'hiver, la température de la surface du glacier s'abaisse à un grand nombre de degrés au-dessous de zéro, et cette basse température pénètre, quoique avec un affaiblissement graduel, dans l'interieur de la masse. Le glacier se fendille par l'effet de la contraction résultant de ce refroidissement. Les fentes restent d'abord vides, et concourent an refroidissement des glaciers en favorisant l'introduction de l'air froid extérieur; mais an printemps, lorsque les rayons du soleil échaffent la surface de la neige qui couvre le glacier, ils la remènent d'abord à zéro, et ils produisent ensuite de l'eau à zéro qui tombe dans le glacier refroidi et fendillé. Cette eau s'y congèle à l'instant, en laissant dégager de la chaleur qui tend à ramener le glacier à zéro; et la phénomène se continue jusqu'à ce que la masse entière du glacier refroidi soit ramené à la température de zéro."[H]

But where direct observations are still so scanty, and the interpretations of the facts so conflicting, it is the part of wisdom to be circumspect in forming opinions. This much, however, I believe to be already settled: that any theory which ascribes the very complicated phenomena of the glacier to one cause must be defective and one-sided. It seems to me most probable, that, while pressure has the larger share in producing the onward movement of the glacier, as well as in the transformation of the snow into ice, a careful analysis of all the facts will show that this pressure is owing partly to the weight of the mass itself, partly to the pushing on of the accumulated snow from behind, partly to its sliding along the surface upon which it rests, partly to the weight of water pervading the whole, partly to the softening of the rigid ice by the infiltration of water, and partly, also, to the dilatation of the mass, requiting from the freezing of this water. These causes, of course, modify the ice itself, while they contribute to the motion. Further investigations are required to ascertain in what proportion these different influences contribute to the general result, and at what time and under what circumstances they modify most directly the motion of the glacier.

That a glacier cannot be altogether compared to a river, although there is an unmistakable analogy between the flow of the one and the onward movement of the other, seems to me plain,--since the river, by the combination of its tributaries, goes on increasing in bulk in consequence of the incompressibility of water, while a glacier gradually thins out in consequence of the packing of its mass, however large and numerous may be its accessions. The analogy fails also in one important point, that of the acceleration of speed with the steepness of the slope. The motion of the glacier bears no such direct relation to the inclination of its bed. And though in a glacier, as in a river, the axis of swiftest motion is thrown alternately on one or the other side of the valley, according to its shape and slope, the very nature of ice makes it impossible that eddies should be formed in the glacier, and the impressive feature of whirlpools is altogether wanting in them. What have been called glacier-cascades bear only a remote resemblance to river-cascades, as in the former the surface only is thrown into confusion by breaking, without affecting the primitive structure;[I] and I reiterate my formerly expressed opinion that even the stratification of the upper regions is still recognizable at the lower end of the glacier of the Rhone.

The internal structure of the glacier has already led me beyond the limits I had proposed to myself in the present article. But I trust my readers will not be discouraged by this dry discussion of various theories concerning it, and will meet me again on the glacier, when we will examine together some of its more picturesque features, its crevasses, its rivulets and cascades, its moraines, its boulders, etc., and endeavor also to track its ancient course and boundaries in earlier geological times.

* * * * *

IN AN ATTIC.

This is my attic-room. Sit down, my friend;
My swallow's-nest is high and hard to gain;
The stairs are long and steep, but at the end
The rest repays the pain.

For here are peace and freedom; room for speech
Or silence, as may suit a changeful mood;--
Society's hard by-laws do not reach
This lofty altitude.

You hapless dwellers in the lower rooms
See only bricks and sand and windowed walls;
But here, above the dust and smoky glooms,
Heaven's light unhindered falls.

So early in the street the shadows creep,
Your night begins while yet my eyes behold
The purpling hills, the wide horizon's sweep,
Flooded with sunset gold.

The day comes earlier here. At morn I see
Along the roofs the eldest sunbeam peep,--
I live in daylight, limitless and free,
While you are lost in sleep.

I catch the rustle of the maple-leaves,
I see their breathing branches rise and fall,
And hear, from their high perch along the eaves,
The bright-necked pigeons call.

Far from the parlors with their garrulous crowds
I dwell alone, with little need of words;
I have mute friendships with the stars and clouds,
And love-trysts with the birds.

So all who walk steep ways, in grief and night,
Where every step is full of toil and pain,
May see, when they have gained the sharpest height,
It has not been in vain:

Since they have left behind the noise and heat,--
And, though their eyes drop tears, their sight is clear;
The air is purer, and the breeze is sweet,
And the blue heaven more near.

* * * * *

LONGFELLOW.

The preface of "Outre-Mer," Longfellow's first book, is dated 1833. The last poem in his last volume is published in 1863. In those thirty years what wide renown, what literary achievement, what love of friends in many lands, what abounding success and triumph, what profound sorrow, mark the poet's career! The young scholar, returning from that European tour which to the imaginative and educated American is the great romance, sits down in Bowdoin College in Maine, where he is Professor, and writes the "Epistle Dedicatory" to the "worthy and gentle reader." Those two phrases tell the tale. The instinct of genius and literary power stirring in the heart of the young man naturally takes the quaint, dainty expression of an experience fed, thus far, only upon good old books and his own imagination. The frolicking tone of mock humility, deprecating the intrusion upon the time of a busy world, does not conceal the conviction that the welcome so airily asked by the tyro will at last be commanded by the master.

Like the "Sketch-Book" of the other most popular of our authors, Irving, the "Outre-Mer" of Longfellow is a series of tales, reveries, descriptions, reminiscences, and character-pieces, suggested by European travel. But his beat lies in France, Spain, and Italy. It is the romance of the Continent, and not that of England, which inspires him. It is the ruddy light upon the vines and the scraps of old _chansons_ which enliven and decorate his pilgrimage, and through all his literary life they have not lost their fascination. While Irving sketches "Rural Life in England," Longfellow paints "The Village of Auteuil"; Irving gives us "The Boar's Head Tavern," and Longfellow "The Golden Lion Inn" at Rouen; Irving draws "A Royal Poet," Longfellow discusses "The Trouvères," or "The Devotional Poetry of Spain." It is delightful to trace the charming resemblance between the books and the writers, widely different as they are. There is the same geniality, the same tender pathos, the same lambent humor, the same delicate observation of details, the same overpowering instinct of literary art. But Geoffrey Crayon is a humorist, while the Pilgrim beyond the Sea is a poet. The one looks at the broad aspects of English life with the shrewd, twinkling eye of a man of the world; the other haunts the valley of the Loire, the German street, the Spanish inn, with the kindling fancy of the scholar and poet. The moral and emotional elements are quite wanting in Irving; they are characteristic of Longfellow. But the sweetness of soul, the freedom from cynicism or stinging satire, which is most unusual in American, or in any humorous or descriptive literature, is remarkable in both. "I have no wife, nor children, good or bad, to provide for," begins Geoffrey Crayon, quoting from old Burton. But neither had he an enemy against whom to defend himself. It was true of Geoffrey Crayon, down to the soft autumn day on which he died, leaving a people to mourn for him. It is true of the Pilgrim of Outre-Mer, in all the thirty years since first he launched forth "into the uncertain current of public favor."

In this earliest book of Longfellow's the notable points are not power of invention, or vigorous creation, or profound thought, but a mellowness of observation, instinctively selecting the picturesque and characteristic details, a copious and rich scholarship, and that indefinable grace of the imagination which announces genius. The work, like the "Sketch-Book," was originally issued in parts, and it was hardly possible for any observer thirty years ago not to see that its peculiar character revealed a new strain in our literature. Longfellow's poems as yet were very few, printed in literary journals, and not yet signalizing his genius. It was the day when Percival Halleck, Sprague, Dana, Willis, Bryant, were the undisputed lords of the American Parnassus. But the school reading-books already contained "An April Day" and "Woods in Winter," and all the verses of the young author had a recognition in volumes of elegant extracts and commonplace-books. But the universal popularity of Longfellow was not established until the publication of "Hyperion" in 1839, followed by "The Voices of the Night" in the next year. With these two works his name arose to the highest popularity, both in America and England; and no living author has been more perpetually reproduced in all forms and with every decoration.

If now we care to explain the eager and affectionate welcome which always hails his writings, it is easy to see to what general quality that greeting must be ascribed. As with Walter Scott, or Victor Hugo, or Béranger, or Dickens, or Addison in the "Spectator," or Washington Irving, it is a genial humanity. It is a quality, in all these instances, independent of literary art and of genius, but which is made known to others, and therefore becomes possible to be recognized, only through literary forms. The creative imagination, the airy fancy, the exquisite grace, harmony, and simplicity, the rhetorical brilliancy, the incisive force, all the intellectual powers and charms of style with which that feeling may be expressed, are informed and vitalized by the sympathy itself. But whether a man who writes verses has genius,--whether he be a poet according to arbitrary canons,--whether some of his lines resemble the lines of other writers,--and whether he be original, are questions which may be answered in every way of every poet in history. Who is a poet but he whom the heart of man permanently accepts as a singer of its own hopes, emotions, and thoughts? And what is poetry but that song? If words have a uniform meaning, it is useless to declare that Pope cannot be a poet, if Lord Byron is, or that Moore is counterfeit, if Wordsworth be genuine. For the art of poetry is like all other arts. The casket that Cellini worked is not less genuine and excellent than the dome of Michel Angelo. Is nobody but Shakspeare a poet? Is there no music but Beethoven's? Is there no mountain-peak but Dhawalaghiri? no cataract but Niagara?

Thirty years ago almost every critic in England exploded with laughter over the poetry of Tennyson. Yet his poetry has exactly the same characteristics now that it had then; and Tennyson has gone up to his place among English poets. It is not "Blackwood," nor any quarterly review or monthly magazine, (except, of course, the "North American" and the "Atlantic,") which can decree or deny fame. While the critics are busily proving that an author is a plagiarist or a pretender, the world is crowning him,--as the first ocean-steamer from England brought Dr. Lardner's essay to prove that steamers could not cross the ocean. Literary criticism, indeed, is a lost art, if it ever were an art. For there are no permanent acknowledged canons of literary excellence; and if there were any, there are none who can apply them. What critic shall decide if the song of a new singer be poetry, or the bard himself a poet? Consequently, modern criticism wisely contents itself with pointing out errors of fact or of inference, or the difference between the critic's and the author's philosophic or æsthetic view, and bitterly assaults or foolishly praises him. When Horace Binney Wallace, one of the most accomplished and subtile-minded of our writers, says of General Morris that he is "a great poet," and that "he who can understand Mr. Emerson may value Mr. Bancroft," we can feel only the more profoundly persuaded that fame is not the judgment of individuals, but of the mass of men, and that he whose song men love to hear is a poet.

But while the magnetism of Longfellow's touch lies in the broad humanity of his sympathy, which leads him neither to mysticism nor cynicism, and which commends his poetry to the universal heart, his artistic sense is so exquisite that each of his poems is a valuable literary study. In this he has now reached a perfection quite unrivalled among living poets, except sometimes by Tennyson. His literary career has been contemporary with the sensational school, but he has been entirely untainted by it, and in the present volume, "Tales of a Wayside Inn," his style has a tranquil lucidity which recalls Chaucer. The literary style of an intellectually introverted age or author will always be somewhat obscure, however gorgeous; but Longfellow's mind takes a simple, child-like hold of life, and his style never betrays the inadequate effort to describe thoughts or emotions that are but vaguely perceived, which is the characteristic of the best sensational writing. Indeed, there is little poetry by the eminent contemporary masters which is so ripe and racy as his. He does not make rhetoric stand for passion, nor vagueness for profundity; nor, on the other hand, is he such a voluntary and malicious "Bohemian" as to conceive that either in life or letters a man is released from the plain rules of morality. Indeed, he used to be accused of preaching in his poetry by gentle critics who held that Elysium was to be found in an oyster-cellar, and that intemperance was the royal prerogative of genius.

His literary scholarship, also, his delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all languages and times, must rank Longfellow among the learned poets. Yet he wears this various knowledge like a shining suit of chain-mail, to adorn and strengthen his gait, like Milton, instead of tripping and clumsily stumbling in it, as Ben Jonson sometimes did. He whips out an exquisitely pointed allusion that flashes like a Damascus rapier and strikes nimbly home, or he recounts some weird tradition, or enriches his line with some gorgeous illustration from hidden stores, or merely unrolls, as Milton loved to do, the vast perspective of romantic association by recounting in measured order names which themselves make music in the mind,--names not musical only, but fragrant:--

"Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest."

In the prelude to the "Wayside Inn," with how consummate a skill the poet graces his modern line with the shadowy charm of ancient verse, by the mere mention of the names!

"The chronicles of Charlemagne,
Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure,
Mingled together in his brain
With talcs of Flores and Blanchefleur,
Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour,
Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain."

A most felicitous illustration of this trait is in "The Evening Star," an earlier poem. Chrysaor, in the old mythology, sprang from the blood of Medusa, armed with a golden sword, and married Callirrhoë, one of the Oceanides. The poet, looking at evening upon the sea, muses upon the long-drawn, quivering reflection of the evening star, and sings. How the verses oscillate like the swaying calm of the sea, while the image inevitably floats into the scholar's imagination:--

"Just above yon sandy bar,
As the day grows fainter and dimmer,
Lonely and lovely a single star
Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.

"Into the ocean faint and far
Falls the trail of its golden splendor,
And the gleam of that single star
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.

"Chrysaor rising out of the sea
Showed tints glorious and thus emulous,
Leaving the arms of Callirrhoë,
Forever tender, soft, and tremulous.

"Thus o'er the ocean faint and far
Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly:
Is it a god, or is it a star,
That, entranced, I gaze on nightly?"

The blending of the poetical faculty and scholarly taste is seen, also, in his translations; and would not a translation of Dante's great poem be the crowning work of Longfellow's literary life?

But while we chat along the road, and pause to repeat these simple and musical poems, each so elegant, so finished, as the monk finished his ivory crucifix, or the lapidary his choicest gem, we have reached the Wayside Inn. It is the title of Longfellow's new volume, "Tales of a Wayside Inn." They are New-England "Canterbury Tales." Those of old London town were told at the Tabard at Southwark; these at the Red Horse in Sudbury town. And although it is but the form of the poem, peculiar neither to Chaucer nor to Longfellow, which recalls the earlier work, yet they have a further likeness in the sources of some of the tales, and in the limpid blitheness of the style and the pure objectivity of the poems.

The melodious, picturesque simplicity of the opening, in which the place and the persons are introduced, is inexpressibly graceful and masterly:--

"One autumn night in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves
Of woodbine hanging from the eaves,
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.
As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality:
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled, and tall."

The autumn wind moans without, and dashes in gusts against the windows; but there is a pleasant murmur from the parlor, with the music of a violin. In this comfortable tavern-parlor, ruddy with the fire-light, a rapt musician stands erect before the chimney and bends his ear to his instrument,--

"And seemed to listen, till he caught
Confessions of its secret thought,"

--a figure and a picture, as he is afterward painted,--

"Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe,
His figure tall and straight and lithe,"--

which recall the Norwegian magician, Ole Bull. He plays to the listening group of friends. Of these there is the landlord,--a youth of quiet ways, "a student of old books and days,"--a young Sicilian,--"a Spanish Jew from Alieant,"--

"A theologian, from the school
Of Cambridge on the Charles,"--

then a poet, whose portrait, exquisitely sketched and meant for quite another, will yet be prized by the reader, as the spectator prizes, in the Uffizi at Florence, the portraits of the painters by themselves:--

"A poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical, and terse:
The inspiration, the delight,
The gleam, the glory, the swift flight
Of thoughts so sudden that they seem
The revelations of a dream,
All these were his: but with them came
No envy of another's fame;
He did not find his sleep less sweet
For music in some neighboring street,
Nor rustling hear in every breeze
The laurels of Miltiades.
Honor and blessings on his head
While living, good report when dead,
Who, not too eager for renown,
Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown."

The musician completes the group.

When he stops playing, they call upon the landlord for his tale, which he, "although a bashful man," begins. It is "Paul Revere's Ride," already known to many readers as a ballad of the famous incident in the Revolution which has, in American hearts, immortalized a name which this war has but the more closely endeared to them. It is one of the most stirring, ringing, and graphic ballads in the language,--a proper pendant to Browning's "How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix."

The poet, listening with eager delight, seizes the sword of the landlord's ancestor which was drawn at Concord fight, and tells him that his grandfather was a grander shape than any old Sir William,

"Clinking about in foreign lands,
With iron gauntlets on his hands,
And on his head an iron pot."

All laughed but the landlord,--

"For those who had been longest dead
Were always greatest in his eyes."

Did honest and dull "Conservatism" have ever a happier description? But lest the immortal foes of Conservatism and Progress should come to loggerheads in the conversation, the student opens his lips and breathes Italy upon the New-England autumn night. He tells the tale of "The Falcon of Sir Federigo," from the "Decameron." It is an exquisite poem. So charming is the manner, that the "Decameron," so rendered into English, would acquire a new renown, and the public of to-day would understand the fame of Boccaccio.

But the theologian hears with other ears, and declares that the old Italian tales

"Are either trifling, dull, or lewd."

The student will not argue. He says only,--

"Nor were it grateful to forget
That from these reservoirs and tanks
Even imperial Shakespeare drew
His Moor of Venice and the Jew,
And Romeo and Juliet,
And many a famous comedy."

After a longer pause, the Spanish Jew from Alieant begins "a story in the Talmud old," "The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi." This is followed after the interlude by the Sicilian's tale, "King Robert of Sicily," a noble legend of the Church, whose moral is humility. It is told in a broad, stately measure, and with consummate simplicity and skill. The attention is not distracted for a moment from the story, which monks might tell in the still cloisters of a Sicilian convent, and every American child hear with interest and delight.

"And then the blue-eyed Norseman told.
A Saga of the days of old."

It is the Saga of King Olaf, and is much the longest tale in the volume, recounting the effort to plant Christianity in Norway by the sword of the King. In every variety of measure, heroic, elegiac, lyrical, the wild old Scandinavian tradition is told. Even readers who may be at first repelled by legends almost beyond modern human sympathy cannot escape the most musical persuasion of the poem which wafts them along those icy seas.

"And King Olaf heard the cry,
Saw the red light in the sky,
Laid his hand upon his sword,
As he leaned upon the railing,
And his ships went sailing, sailing
Northward into Drontheim fiord.

* * * * *

"Trained for either camp or court,
Skilful in each manly sport,
Young and beautiful and tall;
Art of warfare, craft of chases,
Swimming, stating, snow-shoe races,
Excellent alike at all."

There is no continuous thread of story in the Saga, but each fragment of the whole is complete in itself, a separate poem. The traditions are fierce and wild. The waves dash in them, the winds moan and shriek. There are evanescent glimpses of green meadows, and a swift gleam of summer; but the cold salt sea and winter close round all. The tides rise and fall; they eddy in the sand; they float off and afar the huge dragon-ships. But the queens pine for revenge and slaughter; the kings drink and swear and fight, and sail away to their doom.

"Louder the war-horses growl and snarl,
Sharper the dragons bite and sting!
Eric the son of Hakon Yarl
A death-drink salt as the sea
Pledges to thee,
Olaf the King!"

Whoever has heard Ole Bull play, or Jenny Lind sing, the weird minor melodies of the North, will comprehend the kind of spell which these legends weave around the mind. Nor is their character lost in the skilful and symmetrical rendering of Longfellow. The reader has not the feeling, as in Sir William Jones's translations, that he is reading Sir William, and not the Persian.

"'What was that?' said Olaf, standing
On the quarter-deck;
Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck.'
Einar, then, the arrow taking
From the loosened string,
Answered, 'That was Norway breaking
From thy hand, O King!'"

But the battle which Thor had defied was not to end by the weapons of war. In the fierce sea-fight,

"There is told a wonderful tale,
How the King stripped off his mail,
Like leaves of the brown sea-kale,
As he swam beneath the main;

"But the young grew old and gray,
And never by night or day
In his kingdom of Norroway
Was King Olaf seen again."

The victory must be won by other weapons. In the convent of Drontheim, Astrid, the abbess, hears a voice in the darkness:--

"Cross against corslet,
Love against hatred.
Peace-cry for war-cry!"

The voice continues in peaceful music, forecasting heavenly rest:--

"As torrents in summer,
Half dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, though the
Sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;

"So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o'erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining."

With this exquisitely beautiful strain of the abbess the Saga ends.

The theologian muses aloud upon creeds and churches, then tells a fearful tragedy of Spain,--the story of a father who betrays his daughter to the fires of Torquemada. It chills the heart to think that such unspeakable ruin of a human soul was ever wrought by any system that even professed to be Christian. Moloch was truly divine, compared with the God of the Spanish Inquisition. But the gloom of the tragedy is not allowed to linger. The poet scatters it by the story of the merry "Birds of Killingworth," which appears elsewhere in the pages of this number of the "Atlantic." The blithe beauty of the verses is captivating, and the argument of the shy preceptor is the most poetic plea that ever wooed a world to justice. What an airy felicity in the lines,--

"'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents from shore to shore
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."

And so, amid sunshine and the carolling of birds, the legendary rural romance of the Yankee shore, we turn the page, and find, with real sorrow, that the last tale is told in the Wayside Inn. The finale is brief. The guests arose and said good night. The drowsy squire remains to rake the embers of the fire. The scattered lamps gleam a moment at the windows. The Red Horse inn seems, in the misty night, the sinking constellation of the Bear,--and then,

"Far off the village-clock struck one."