Chapter VIII: Part I (2)

These machines require very considerable external aid in the labor they accomplish, while, like the Alden Machine, they neither justify nor lead the matter that is set. They have, however, stood a practical test,--having been in use several years. It may interest the reader to know that the matter for the "Continental Monthly" is set up and distributed by them, in the office of Mr. John F. Trow, of New York. They are also known, and to some extent employed, in printing-houses in London, and are found to be economical.

But, as remarked by Macbeth, "the greatest is behind." I touch now upon the most comprehensive and effectual invention for labor-saving in this respect,--namely, the Felt Machine. This ingenious creation, which is, in all particulars, original, and quite distinct from those already mentioned, performs, with accuracy and speed, all the work of composing, justifying, leading, and distributing types. It was invented by Mr. Charles W. Felt, of Salem, Massachusetts, a man of superior genius, whose energy in overcoming obstacles and working out the practical success of his idea is scarcely less remarkable than the idea itself. I shall dwell briefly upon his career, since it teaches the old, but never tiresome lesson of patient perseverance. He began the business of life in his native town, though not in mechanical pursuits. His mind, however, tended naturally toward mechanical science, and he improved every opportunity of increasing his knowledge in that department of study. The processes of Printing especially attracted his attention, and the idea of applying machinery to the work of composition haunted him from an early period of youth. He read, doubtless, of the various experiments that had been made in this direction, and observed, as far as possible, the results achieved by contemporary inventors. But it does not appear, that, in the original conception of his wonderful machine, he was indebted to any source for even a single suggestion. I have seen his first wooden model,--made at the age of eighteen,--crude and clumsy indeed, compared with the machine in its present shape, but containing the main features and principles. This was the first step. He began with the earnings of his boyhood. Then a few friends, fired by his spirit and courage, contributed money, and enabled him to prosecute his enterprise during several years. In this way it became the one purpose of his life. In time the number of his liberal patrons increased to nearly one hundred, and a considerable fund was placed at his disposal. Thus, genius, energy, and patience, aided by capital, carried the work bravely forward. It is a pleasure to record that a worthy design was thus generously nurtured. Mr. Felt's fund was subsequently increased by additional loans, from several of the same patrons. One of these gentlemen--Dr. G. Henry Lodge, of Swamscott, Massachusetts--contributed with such generous liberality that he may justly be said to share with the inventor the honor of having introduced this noble improvement in the art of printing. I take off my hat to Mæcenas. Dr. Lodge was led to appreciate the need of such an improvement by personal experience in publishing a large work, copies of which were gratuitously distributed among various libraries in the Republic. Acquainted with the toil of a printer's life, impelled by earnest love of real progress, and guided by a sound, practical judgment, he was peculiarly well fitted for the difficult province of directing the labors of an enthusiastic inventor. His duty has been well performed. The success of Mr. Felt's undertaking is due scarcely less to the pecuniary aid of all his patrons than to the counsel and encouragement of this wise, liberal, and steadfast friend. Thus aided, he has triumphed over all obstacles. Proceeding in a most unostentatious manner, he has submitted his device to the inspection of practical printers, and men of science, in various cities of the United States and Great Britain, and has everywhere won approval. His first patent was issued in 1854,--proceedings to obtain it having been commenced in the preceding year. Meanwhile he has organized a wealthy and influential company, for the purpose of manufacturing the machines and bringing them into general use. One of them has been built at Providence, Rhode Island, but the manufactory will be in Salem, Massachusetts, where the company has been formed.

The merits of Mr. Felt's machine are manifold. It is comparatively simple in construction, it is strongly made and durable, it cannot easily get out of order, and it does its work thoroughly. All that is required of the operator is to read the copy and touch the keys. The processes proceed, then, as of their own accord. But the supreme excellence of the machine is that _it justifies the matter which it sets_. The possibility of doing this by machinery has always been doubted, if not entirely disbelieved, from an erroneous idea that the process must be directed by immediate intelligence. Mr. Felt's invention demonstrates that this operation is clearly within the scope of machinery; that there is no need of a machine with brains, for setting or justifying type; that such a machine need not be able to think, read, or spell; but that, guided in its processes by an intelligent mind, a machine can perform operations which, as in this case, are purely mechanical, much more rapidly and cheaply than they can be performed by hand.

I cannot pretend to convey a technically accurate idea of this elaborate, though compact piece of machinery; but such a sketch as I can give--from memory of a pleasant hour spent in looking at it--shall here be given as briefly as possible.

The machine stands in a substantial iron framework, five feet by four, within which the mechanism is nicely disposed, so that there may be ample room for the four operations of setting, justifying, leading, and distributing. In front is a key-board of forty keys, which correspond to two hundred and fifty-six characters, arranged in eight cases. A single case consists of thirty-two flat brass tubes, standing perpendicularly, side by side, each one being filled with a certain denomination of type. Seven of the keys determine from which case the desired letter shall be taken. Thus, the small letter _a_ is set by touching the _a_ key; the capital A by touching the "capital key" in connection with the _a_ key; the capital B by touching the "capital key" in connection with the _b_ key; and so on with every letter. There are also keys called the "small capital," the "Italic," and the "Italic capital"; so that the machine contains all the characters known to the compositor. The operation of these "capital" and "small-capital keys" is similar to that of an organ-stop in modifying the effect of other keys.

When the machine is in motion,--and I should here mention that it is worked by steam,--a curious piece of mechanism, called "the stick,"--which is about as large as a man's hand, and quite as adroit,--plays to and fro beneath the cases, and acts obediently to the operator's touch. The spectacle of this little metallic intelligence is amusing. It is armed with pincers, which it uses much as the elephant does his trunk, though with infinite celerity. Every time a key is touched, these pincers seize a type from one of the tubes, turn downward, and, as it were, put it into the mouth of the stick. And so voracious is the appetite of this little creature, that in a few seconds its stomach is full,--in other words, the line is set. A tiny bell gives warning of this fact, and the operator finishes the word or syllabic. He then touches the justifying-key, and the spacer seizes the line and draws it into another part of the machine, to be justified, while the empty stick resumes its feeding. No time is lost; for, while the stick is setting a second line; the "spacer" is justifying the first; so that, in a few moments after starting, the processes are going forward simultaneously. That of justifying is, perhaps, the most ingenious. It is accomplished in this wise. The stick never sets a full line, but leaves room for spaces, and with the last letter of each word inserts a piece of steel, to separate the words. When the line has been drawn into the spacer, the pieces of steel, which are furnished with nicked heads for the purpose, are withdrawn, and ordinary spaces are substituted. All this requires no attention whatever from the operator. The matter, thus set and justified, is now leaded by the machine, and deposited upon a galley ready for the press.

In this machine, distribution is the reverse of composition, and is effected by simply reversing the motion of the shaft. By duplicating certain parts of the machine, both operations are performed at the same time. The process of distributing, and also that of resetting the same matter, may be made automatic by means of the Register. This device, although an original invention with Mr. Felt, is an application of the principle of the Jacquard loom. It consists of a narrow strip of card or paper, in which holes are punched as the types are taken, forming a substitute for the troublesome nicking of the type, which has heretofore been thought indispensable to automatic distribution. By this means the type can be changed in resetting, if desired, so that different editions of the same work can be printed in different sizes of type.

The machine is adapted to the use of combination-types as well as single letters. For this purpose Mr. Felt has developed a new system, based upon an elaborate analysis of the language. In a number of examples of printed matter, embracing a wide range of literature, the frequency of the single and combined letters has been ascertained by careful and accurate computation, and reduced to a percentage. It may interest the reader to know that _e_ is the letter of most frequent occurrence, constituting one-eighth of the language. _The_, as a word or syllable, is found to be six per cent.; _and_, four per cent.; _in_, three per cent., etc.

I have not pretended, in this description of Mr. Felt's machine, to explain every technicality, or to raise and answer possible objections. The great point is, that the labor of setting, justifying, leading, and distributing types by machinery is actually done, by means of his invention. Thus the aspiration of inventive genius, in this department of art, is nobly fulfilled. Thus the links in the chain of progress are complete, from Laurentius Coster, walking in the woods of Holland, in 1430, and winning, from an accidental shower-bath, the art of making movable types, down to the wide-awake Massachusetts Yankee, whose genius will make printing as cheap as writing, and therefore a thousand times more available for all purposes of civilization,--besides lightening the burdens of toil, and blessing the jaded worker with a bright prospect of health, competence, and ease.

* * * * *

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

V.

RAKING UP THE FIRE.

We have a custom at our house which we call _raking up the fire_. That is to say, the last half-hour before bed-time, we draw in, shoulder to shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our hearth, which we prick up and brighten, and dispose for a few farewell flickers and glimmers. This is a grand time for discussion. Then we talk over parties, if the young people have been out of an evening,--a book, if we have been reading one; we discuss and analyze characters,--give our views on all subjects, æsthetic, theological, and scientific, in a way most wonderful to hear; and, in fact, we sometimes get so engaged in our discussions that every spark of the fire burns out, and we begin to feel ourselves shivering around the shoulders, before we can remember that it is bed-time.

So, after the reading of my last article, we had a "raking-up talk,"--to wit, Jennie, Marianne, and I, with Bob Stephens;--my wife, still busy at her work-basket, sat at the table a little behind us. Jennie, of course, opened the ball in her usual incisive manner.

"But now, papa, after all you say in your piece there, I cannot help feeling, that, if I had the taste and the money too, it would be better than the taste alone with no money. I like the nice arrangements and the books and the drawings; but I think all these would appear better still with really elegant furniture."

"Who doubts that?" said I. "Give me a large tub of gold coin to dip into, and the furnishing and beautifying of a house is a simple affair. The same taste that could make beauty out of cents and dimes could make it more abundantly out of dollars and eagles. But I have been speaking for those who have not, and cannot get, riches, and who wish to have agreeable houses; and I begin in the outset by saying that beauty is a thing to be respected, reverenced, and devoutly cared for,--and then I say that BEAUTY IS CHEAP, nay, to put it so that the shrewdest Yankee will understand it, BEAUTY IS THE CHEAPEST THING YOU CAN HAVE, because in many ways it is a substitute for expense. A few vases of flowers in a room, a few blooming, well-kept plants, a few prints framed in fanciful frames of cheap domestic fabric, a statuette, a bracket, an engraving, a pencil-sketch, above all, a few choice books,--all these arranged by a woman who has the gift in her finger-ends often produce such an illusion on the mind's eye that one goes away without once having noticed that the cushion of the arm-chair was worn out, and that some veneering had fallen off the centre-table.

"I have a friend, a school-mistress, who lives in a poor little cottage enough, which, let alone of the Graces, might seem mean and sordid, but a few flower-seeds and a little weeding in the spring make it, all summer, an object which everybody stops to look at. Her æsthetic soul was at first greatly tried with the water-barrel which stood under the eaves-spout,--a most necessary evil, since only thus could her scanty supply of soft water for domestic purposes be secured. One of the Graces, however, suggested to her a happy thought. She planted a row of morning-glories round the bottom of her barrel, and drove a row of tacks around the top, and strung her water-butt with twine, like a great harpsichord. A few weeks covered the twine with blossoming plants, which every morning were a mass of many-colored airy blooms, waving in graceful sprays, and looking at themselves in the water. The water-barrel, in fact, became a celebrated stroke of ornamental gardening, which the neighbors came to look at."

"Well, but," said Jennie, "everybody hasn't mamma's faculty with flowers. Flowers will grow for some people, and for some they won't. Nobody can see what mamma does so very much, but her plants always look fresh and thriving and healthy,--her things blossom just when she wants them, and do anything else she wishes them to; and there are other people that fume and fuss and try, and their things won't do anything at all. There's Aunt Easygo has plant after plant brought from the greenhouse, and hanging-baskets, and all sorts of things; but her plants grow yellow and drop their leaves, and her hanging-baskets get dusty and poverty-stricken, while mamma's go on flourishing as heart could desire."

"I can tell you what your mother puts into her plants," said I,--"just what she has put into her children, and all her other home-things,--her _heart_. She _loves_ them; she lives in them; she has in herself a plant-life and a plant-sympathy. She feels for them as if she herself were a plant; she anticipates their wants,--always remembers them without an effort, and so the care flows to them daily and hourly. She hardly knows when she does the things that make them grow,--but she gives them a minute a hundred times a day. She moves this nearer the glass,--draws that back,--detects some thief of a worm on one,--digs at the root of another, to see why it droops,--washes these leaves, and sprinkles those,--waters, and refrains from watering, all with the habitual care of love. Your mother herself doesn't know why her plants grow; it takes a philosopher and a writer for the 'Atlantic' to tell her what the cause is."

Here I saw my wife laughing over her work-basket as she answered,--

"Girls, one of these days, _I_ will write an article for the 'Atlantic,' that your papa need not have _all_ the say to himself: however, I believe he has hit the nail on the head this time."

"Of course he has," said Marianne. "But, mamma, I am afraid to begin to depend much on plants for the beauty of my rooms, for fear I should not have your gift,--and of all forlorn and hopeless things in a room, ill-kept plants are the most so."

"I would not recommend," said I, "a young housekeeper, just beginning, to rest much for her home-ornament on plant-keeping, unless she has an experience of her own love and talent in this line, which makes her sure of success; for plants will not thrive, if they are forgotten or overlooked, and only tended in occasional intervals; and, as Marianne says, neglected plants are the most forlorn of all things."

"But, papa," said Marianne, anxiously, "there, in those patent parlors of John's that you wrote of, flowers acted a great part."

"The charm of those parlors of John's may be chemically analyzed," I said. "In the first place, there is sunshine, a thing that always affects the human nerves of happiness. Why else is it that people are always so glad to see the sun after a long storm? why are bright days matters of such congratulation? Sunshine fills a house with a thousand beautiful and fanciful effects of light and shade,--with soft, luminous, reflected radiances, that give picturesque effects to the pictures, books, statuettes of an interior. John, happily, had no money to buy brocatelle curtains,--and besides this, he loved sunshine too much to buy them, if he could. He had been enough with artists to know that heavy damask curtains darken precisely that part of the window where the light proper for pictures and statuary should come in, namely, the upper part. The fashionable system of curtains lights only the legs of the chairs and the carpets, and leaves all the upper portion of the room in shadow. John's windows have shades which can at pleasure be drawn down from the top or up from the bottom, so that the best light to be had may always be arranged for his little interior."

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in your chemical analysis of John's rooms, what is the next thing to the sunshine?"

"The next," said I, "is harmony of color. The wall-paper, the furniture, the carpets, are of tints that harmonize with one another. This is a grace in rooms always, and one often neglected. The French have an expressive phrase with reference to articles which are out of accord,--they say that they swear at each other. I have been in rooms where I seemed to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and the carpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each article of furniture swearing at the rest. These appointments may all of them be of the most expensive kind, but with such disharmony no arrangement can ever produce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect. On the other hand, I have been in rooms where all the material was cheap, and the furniture poor, but where, from some instinctive knowledge of the reciprocal effect of Colors, everything was harmonious, and produced a sense of elegance.

"I recollect once travelling on a Western canal through a long stretch of wilderness, and stopping to spend the night at an obscure settlement of a dozen houses. We were directed to lodgings in a common frame-house at a little distance, where, it seemed, the only hotel was kept. When we entered the parlor, we were struck with utter amazement at its prettiness, which affected us before we began to ask ourselves how it came to be pretty. It was, in fact, only one of the miracles of harmonious color working with very simple materials. Some woman had been busy there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the common wooden rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, probably made of old soap-boxes, were all covered with American nankeen of a soft yellowish-brown, with a bordering of blue print. The window-shades, the table-cover, and the piano-cloth, all repeated the same colors, in the same cheap material. A simple straw matting was laid over the floor, and, with a few books, a vase of flowers, and one or two prints, the room had a home-like, and even elegant air, that struck us all the more forcibly from its contrast with the usual tawdry, slovenly style of such parlors.

"The means used for getting up this effect were the most inexpensive possible,--simply the following-out, in cheap material, a law of uniformity and harmony, which always will produce beauty. In the same manner, I have seen a room furnished, whose effect was really gorgeous in color, where the only materials used were Turkey-red cotton and a simple ingrain carpet of corresponding color.

"Now, you girls have been busy lately in schemes for buying a velvet carpet for the new parlor that is to be, and the only points that have seemed to weigh in the council were that it was velvet, that it was cheaper than velvets usually are, and that it was a genteel pattern."

"Now, papa," said Jennie, "what ears you have! We thought you were reading all the time!"

"I see what you are going to say," said Marianne. "You think that we have not once mentioned the consideration which should determine the carpet,--whether it will harmonize with our other things. But, you see, papa, we don't really know what our other things are to be." "Yes," said Jennie, "and Aunt Easygo said it was an unusually good chance to get a velvet carpet."

"Yet, good as the chance is, it costs just twice as much as an ingrain."

"Yes, papa, it does."

"And you are not sure that the effect of it, after you get it down, will be as good as a well-chosen ingrain one."

"That's true," said Marianne, reflectively.

"But, then, papa," said Jennie, "Aunt Easygo said she never heard of such a bargain; only think, two dollars a yard for a _velvet!_"

"And why is it two dollars a yard? Is the man a personal friend, that he wishes to make you a present of a dollar on the yard? or is there some reason why it is undesirable?" said I.

"Well, you know, papa, he said those large patterns were not so salable."

"To tell the truth," said Marianne, "I never did like the pattern exactly; as to uniformity of tint, it might match with anything, for there's every color of the rainbow in it."

"You see, papa, it's a gorgeous flower-pattern," said Jennie.

"Well, Marianne, how many yards of this wonderfully cheap carpet do you want?"

"We want sixty yards for both rooms," said Jennie, always primed with statistics.

"That will be a hundred and twenty dollars," I said.

"Yes," said Jennie; "and we went over the figures together, and thought we could make it out by economizing in other things. Aunt Easygo said that the carpet was half the battle,--that it gave the air to everything else."

"Well, Marianne, if you want a man's advice in the case, mine is at your service."

"That is just what I want, papa."

"Well, then, my dear, choose your wall-papers and borderings, and, when they are up, choose an ingrain carpet to harmonize with them, and adapt your furniture to the same idea. The sixty dollars that you save on your carpet spend on engravings, chromo-lithographs, or photographs of some really _good_ works of Art, to adorn your walls."

"Papa, I'll do it," said Marianne.

"My little dear," said I, "your papa may seem to be a sleepy old book-worm, yet he has his eyes open. Do you think I don't know why my girls have the credit of being the best-dressed girls on the street?"

"Oh, papa!" cried out both girls in a breath.

"Fact, that!" said Bob, with energy, pulling at his moustache. "Everybody talks about your dress, and wonders how you make it out."

"Well," said I, "I presume you do not go into a shop and buy a yard of ribbon because it is selling at half-price, and put it on without considering complexion, eyes, hair, and shade of the dress, do you?"

"Of course we don't!" chimed in the duo, with energy.

"Of course you don't. Haven't I seen you mincing down-stairs, with all your colors harmonized, even to your gloves and gaiters? Now, a room must be dressed as carefully as a lady."

"Well, I'm convinced," said Jennie, "that papa knows how to make rooms prettier than Aunt Easygo; but then she said this was _cheap_, because it would outlast two common carpets."

"But, as you pay double price," said I, "I don't see that. Besides, I would rather, in the course of twenty years, have two nice, fresh ingrain carpets, of just the color and pattern that suited my rooms, than labor along with one ill-chosen velvet that harmonized with nothing."

"I give it up," said Jennie; "I give it up."

"Now, understand me," said I; "I am not traducing velvet or Brussels or Axminster. I admit that more beautiful effects can be found in those goods than in the humbler fabrics of the carpet-rooms. Nothing would delight me more than to put an unlimited credit to Marianne's account, and let her work out the problems of harmonious color in velvet and damask. All I have to say is, that certain unities of color, certain general arrangements, will secure very nearly as good general effects in either material. A library with a neat, mossy green carpet on the floor, harmonizing with wall-paper and furniture, looks generally as well, whether the mossy green is made in Brussels or in ingrain. In the carpet-stores, these two materials stand side by side in the very same pattern, and one is often as good for the purpose as the other. A lady of my acquaintance, some years since, employed an artist to decorate her parlors. The walls being frescoed and tinted to suit his ideal, he immediately issued his decree that her splendid velvet carpets must be sent to auction, and others bought of certain colors, harmonizing with the walls. Unable to find exactly the color and pattern he wanted, he at last had the carpets woven in a neighboring factory, where, as yet, they had only the art of weaving ingrains. Thus was the material sacrificed at once to the harmony."

I remarked, in passing, that this was before Bigelow's mechanical genius had unlocked for America the higher secrets of carpet-weaving, and made it possible to have one's desires accomplished in Brussels or velvet. In those days, English carpet-weavers did not send to America for their looms, as they now do.

"But now to return to my analysis of John's rooms.

"Another thing which goes a great way towards giving them their agreeable air is the books in them. Some people are fond of treating books as others do children. One room in the house is selected, and every book driven into it and kept there. Yet nothing makes a room so home-like, so companionable, and gives it such an air of refinement, as the presence of books. They change the aspect of a parlor from that of a mere reception-room, where visitors perch for a transient call, and give it the air of a room where one feels like taking off one's things to stay. It gives the appearance of permanence and repose and quiet fellowship; and next to pictures on the walls, the many-colored bindings and gildings of books are the most agreeable adornment of a room."

"Then, Marianne," said Bob, "we have something to start with, at all events. There are my English Classics and English Poets, and my uniform editions of Scott and Thackeray and Macaulay and Prescott and Irving and Longfellow and Lowell and Hawthorne and Holmes and a host more. We really have something pretty there."

"You are a lucky girl," I said, "to have so much secured. A girl brought up in a house full of books, always able to turn to this or that author and look for any passage or poem when she thinks of it, doesn't know what a blank a house without books might be."

"Well," said Marianne, "mamma and I were counting over my treasures the other day. Do you know, I have one really fine old engraving, that Bob says is quite a genuine thing; and then there is that pencil-sketch that poor Schöne made for me the month before he died,--it is truly artistic."

"And I have a couple of capital things of Landseer's," said Bob.

"There's no danger that your rooms will not be pretty," said I, "now you are fairly on the right track."

"But, papa," said Marianne, "I am troubled about one thing. My love of beauty runs into everything. I want pretty things for my table,--and yet, as you say, servants are so careless, one cannot use such things freely without great waste."

"For my part," said my wife, "I believe in best china, to be kept carefully on an upper-shelf, and taken down for high-days and holidays; it may be a superstition, but I believe in it. It must never be taken out except when the mistress herself can see that it is safely cared for. My mother always washed her china herself; and it was a very pretty social ceremony, after tea was over, while she sat among us washing her pretty cups, and wiping them on a fine damask towel."

"With all my heart," said I; "have your best china, and venerate it,--it is one of the loveliest of domestic superstitions; only do not make it a bar to hospitality, and shrink from having a friend to tea with you, unless you feel equal to getting up to the high shelf where you keep it, getting it down, washing, and putting it up again.

"But in serving a table, I say, as I said of a house, beauty is a necessity, and beauty is cheap. Because you cannot afford beauty in one form, it does not follow that you cannot have it in another. Because one cannot afford to keep up a perennial supply of delicate china and crystal, subject to the accidents of raw, untrained servants, it does not follow that the every-day table need present a sordid assortment of articles chosen simply for cheapness, while the whole capacity of the purse is given to the set forever locked away for state-occasions.

"A table-service, all of simple white, of graceful forms, even though not of china, if arranged with care, with snowy, well-kept table-linen, clear glasses, and bright American plate in place of solid silver, may be made to look inviting; add a glass of flowers every day, and your table may look pretty;--and it is far more important that it should look pretty for the family every day than for company once in two weeks."

"I tell my girls," said my wife, "as the result of my experience, you may have your pretty china and your lovely fanciful articles for the table only so long as you can take all the care of them yourselves. As soon as you get tired of doing this, and put them into the hands of the trustiest servants, some good, well-meaning creature is sure to break her heart and your own and your very pet, darling china pitcher all in one and the same minute; and then her frantic despair leaves you not even the relief of scolding."

"I have become perfectly sure," said I, "that there are spiteful little brownies, intent on seducing good women to sin, who mount guard over the special idols of the china-closet. If you hear a crash, and a loud Irish wail from the inner depths, you never think of its being a yellow pie-plate, or that dreadful one-handled tureen that you have been wishing were broken these five years; no, indeed,--it is sure to be the lovely painted china bowl, wreathed with morning-glories and sweet-peas, or the engraved glass goblet, with quaint old-English initials. China sacrificed must be a great means of saintship to women. Pope, I think, puts it as the crowning grace of his perfect woman, that she is

'Mistress of herself, though china fall.'"

"I ought to be a saint by this time, then," said mamma; "for in the course of my days I have lost so many idols by breakage, and peculiar accidents that seemed by a special fatality to befall my prettiest and most irreplaceable things, that in fact it has come to be a superstitious feeling now with which I regard anything particularly pretty of a breakable nature."

"Well," said Marianne, "unless one has a great deal of money, it seems to me that the investment in these pretty fragilities is rather a poor one."

"Yet," said I, "the principle of beauty is never so captivating as when it presides over the hour of daily meals. I would have the room where they are served one of the pleasantest and sunniest in the house. I would have its coloring cheerful, and there should be companionable pictures and engravings on the walls. Of all things, I dislike a room that seems to be kept like a restaurant, merely to eat in. I like to see in a dining-room something that betokens a pleasant sitting-room at other hours. I like there some books, a comfortable sofa or lounge, and all that should make it cozy and inviting. The custom in some families, of adopting for the daily meals one of the two parlors which a city-house furnishes, has often seemed to me a particularly happy one. You take your meals, then, in an agreeable place, surrounded by the little agreeable arrangements of your daily sitting-room; and after the meal, if the lady of the house does the honors of her own pretty china herself, the office may be a pleasant and social one.

"But in regard to your table-service I have my advice at hand. Invest in pretty table-linen, in delicate napkins, have your vase of flowers, and be guided by the eye of taste in the choice and arrangement of even the every-day table-articles, and have no ugly things when you can have pretty ones by taking a little thought. If you are sore tempted with lovely china and crystal, too fragile to last, too expensive to be renewed, turn away to a print-shop and comfort yourself by hanging around the walls of your dining-room beauty that will not break or fade, that will meet your eye from year to year, though plates, tumblers, and tea-sets successively vanish. There is my advice for you, Marianne."

At the same time, let me say, in parenthesis, that my wife, whose weakness is china, informed me that night, when we were by ourselves, that she was ordering secretly a tea-set as a bridal gift for Marianne, every cup of which was to be exquisitely painted with the wild-flowers of America, from designs of her own,--a thing, by-the-by, that can now be very nicely executed in our country. "It will last her all her life," she said, "and always be such a pleasure to look at,--and a pretty tea-table is such a pretty sight!" So spoke Mrs. Crowfield, "unweaned from china by a thousand falls." She spoke even with tears in her eyes. Verily, these women are harps of a thousand strings!

But to return to my subject.

"Finally and lastly," I said, "in my analysis and explication of the agreeableness of those same parlors, comes the crowning grace,--their _homeliness_. By homeliness I mean not ugliness, as the word is apt to be used, but the air that is given to a room by being _really_ at home in it. Not the most skilful arrangement can impart this charm.

"It is said that a king of France once remarked,--'My son, you must seem to love your people.'

"'Father, how shall I _seem_ to love them?'

"'My son, you _must_ love them.'

"So to make rooms _seem_ home-like you must be at home in them. Human light and warmth are so wanting in some rooms, it is so evident that they are never used, that you can never be at ease there. In vain the house-maid is taught to wheel the sofa and turn chair towards chair; in vain it is attempted to imitate a negligent arrangement of the centre-table.

"Books that have really been read and laid down, chairs that have really been moved here and there in the animation of social contact, have a sort of human vitality in them; and a room in which people really live and enjoy is as different from a shut-up apartment as a live woman from a wax image.

"Even rooms furnished without taste often become charming from this one grace, that they seem to let you into the home-life and home-current. You seem to understand in a moment that you are taken into the family, and are moving in its inner circles, and not revolving at a distance in some outer court of the gentiles.

"How many people do we call on from year to year and know no more of their feelings, habits, tastes, family ideas and ways, than if they lived in Kamtschatka! And why? Because the room which they call a front-parlor is made expressly so that you never shall know. They sit in a back-room,--work, talk, read, perhaps. After the servant has let you in and opened a crack of the shutters, and while you sit waiting for them to change their dress and come in, you speculate as to what they may be doing. From some distant region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from the upholsterer's, a Brussels carpet, a centre-table with four gilt Books of Beauty on it, a mantel-clock from Paris, and two bronze vases,--all these tell you only in frigid tones, 'This is the best room,'--only that, and nothing more,--and soon _she_ trips in in her best clothes, and apologizes for keeping you waiting, asks how your mother is, and you remark that it is a pleasant day,--and thus the acquaintance progresses from year to year. One hour in the little back-room, where the plants and canary-bird and children are, might have made you fast friends for life; but as it is, you care no more for them than for the gilt clock on the mantel.

"And now, girls," said I, pulling a paper out of my pocket, "you must know that your father is getting to be famous by means of these 'House and Home Papers.' Here is a letter I have just received:--

"'MOST EXCELLENT MR. CROWFIELD,--Your thoughts have lighted into
our family-circle, and echoed from our fireside. We all feel the
force of them, and are delighted with the felicity of your
treatment of the topic you have chosen. You have taken hold of a
subject that lies deep in our hearts, in a genial, temperate, and
convincing spirit. All must acknowledge the power of your
sentiments upon their imaginations;--if they could only trust to
them in actual life! There is the rub.

"'Omitting further upon these points, there is a special feature
of your articles upon which we wish to address you. You seem as
yet (we do not know, of course, what you may hereafter do) to
speak only of homes whose conduct depends upon the help of
servants. Now your principles apply, as some of us well conceive,
to nearly all classes of society; yet most people, to take an
impressive hint, must have their portraits drawn out more exactly.
We therefore hope that you will give a reasonable share of your
attention to us who do not employ servants, so that you may ease
us of some of _our_ burdens, which, in spite of common sense, we
dare not throw off. For instance, we have company,--a friend from
afar, (perhaps wealthy,) or a minister, or some other man of note.
What do we do? Sit down and receive our visitor with all good-will
and the freedom of a home? No; we (the lady of the house) flutter
about to clear up things, apologizing about this, that, and the
other condition of unpreparedness, and, having settled the visitor
in the parlor, set about marshalling the elements of a grand
dinner or supper, such as no person but a gourmand wants to sit
down to, when at home and comfortable; and in getting up this
meal, clearing away, and washing the dishes, we use up a good half
of the time which our guest spends with us. We have spread
ourselves, and shown him what we could do; but what a paltry,
heart-sickening achievement! Now, good Mr. Crowfield, thou friend
of the robbed and despairing, wilt thou not descend into our
purgatorial circle, and tell the world what thou hast seen there
of doleful remembrance? Tell us how we, who must do and desire to
do our own work, can show forth in our homes a homely, yet genial
hospitality, and entertain our guests without making a fuss and
hurly-burly, and seeming to be anxious for their sake about many
things, and spending too much time getting meals, as if eating
were the chief social pleasure. _Won't_ you do this, Mr.
Crowfield?

"'Yours beseechingly,

"'R.H.A.'"

"That's a good letter," said Jennie.

"To be sure it is," said I.

"And shall you answer it, papa?"

"In the very next 'Atlantic,' you may be sure I shall. The class that do their own work are the strongest, the most numerous, and, taking one thing with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any other. They are the anomaly of our country,--the distinctive feature of the new society that we are building up here; and if we are to accomplish our national destiny, that class must increase rather than diminish. I shall certainly do my best to answer the very sensible and pregnant questions of that letter."

Here Marianne shivered and drew up a shawl, and Jennie gaped; my wife folded up the garment in which she had set the last stitch, and the clock struck twelve.

Bob gave a low whistle. "Who knew it was so late?"

"We have talked the fire fairly out," said Jennie.

* * * * *

REENLISTED.

Oh, did you see him in the street, dressed up in army-blue,
When drums and trumpets into town their storm of music threw,--
A louder tune than all the winds could muster in the air,
The Rebel winds, that tried so hard our flag in strips to tear?

You didn't mind him? Oh, you looked beyond him, then, perhaps,
To see the mounted officers rigged out with trooper-caps,
And shiny clothes, and sashes red, and epaulets and all;--
It wasn't for such things as these he heard his country call.

She asked for men; and up he spoke, my handsome, hearty Sam,--
"I'll die for the dear old Union, if she'll take me as I am."
And if a better man than he there's mother that can show,
From Maine to Minnesota, then let the nation know.

You would not pick him from the rest by eagles or by stars,
By straps upon his coat-sleeve, or gold or silver bars,
Nor a corporal's strip of worsted, but there's something in his face,
And something in his even step, a-marching in his place,

That couldn't be improved by all the badges in the land:
A patriot, and a good, strong man; are generals much more grand?
We rest our pride on that big heart wrapped up in army-blue,
The girl he loves, Mehitabel, and I, who love him too.

He's never shirked a battle yet, though frightful risks he's run,
Since treason flooded Baltimore, the spring of 'sixty-one;
Through blood and storm he's held out firm, nor fretted once, my Sam,
At swamps of Chickahominy, or fields of Antietam:

Though many a time, he's told us, when he saw them lying dead,
The boys that came from Newburyport, and Lynn, and Marblehead,
Stretched out upon the trampled turf, and wept on by the sky,
It seemed to him the Commonwealth had drained her life-blood dry.

"But then," he said, "the more's the need the country has of me:
To live and fight the war all through, what glory it would be!
The Rebel balls don't hit me, and, mother, if they should,
You'll know I've fallen in my place, where I have always stood."

He's taken out his furlough, and short enough it seemed:
I often tell Mehitabel he'll think he only dreamed
Of walking with her nights so bright you couldn't see a star,
And hearing the swift tide come in across the harbor-bar.

The stars that shine above the stripes, they light him southward now;
The tide of war has swept him back; he's made a solemn vow
To build himself no home-nest till his country's work is done:
God bless the vow, and speed the work, my patriot, my son!

And yet it is a pretty place where his new house might be;
An orchard-road that leads your eye straight out upon the sea:--
The boy not work his father's farm? it seems almost a shame;
But any selfish plan for him he'd never let me name.

He's reënlisted for the war, for victory or for death;
A soldier's grave, perhaps,--the thought has half-way stopped my breath,
And driven a cloud across the sun;--my boy, it will not be!
The war will soon be over; home again you'll come to me!

He's reënlisted; and I smiled to see him going, too:
There's nothing that becomes him half so well as army-blue.
Only a private in the ranks; but sure I am, indeed,
If all the privates were like him, they 'd scarcely captains need!

And I and Massachusetts share the honor of his birth,--
The grand old State! to me the best in all the peopled earth!
I cannot hold a musket, but I have a son who can;
And I'm proud for Freedom's sake to be the mother of a man!

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

For the first time since the American Presidency was created, the American people have entered upon a Presidential election in time of great war. Even the election of 1812 forms no exception to this assertion, as the second contest with England did not begin until the summer of that year, when the conditions of the political contest were already understood, and it was known that Mr. Madison would be reëlected, in spite of the opposition of the Federalists, and notwithstanding the disaffection of those Democrats who took De Witt Clinton for their leader. Mr. Madison, indeed, is supposed to have turned "war man," against his own convictions, in order to conciliate the "Young Democracy" of 1812, who had resolved upon having a fight with England,--and in that way to have secured for supporters men who would have prevented his reëlection, had he defied them. The trouble that we had with France at the close of the last century undoubtedly had some effect in deciding the fourth Presidential contest adversely to the Federalists; but though it was illustrated by some excellent naval fighting, it can hardly be spoken of as a war: certainly, it was not a great war. The Mexican War had been brought to a triumphant close before the election of 1848 was opened. Of the nineteen Presidential elections which the country has known, sixteen were held in times of profound peace,--as Indian wars went for nothing; and the other three were not affected as to their decision by the contests we had had with France or Mexico, or by that with England, which was in its first stage when Mr. Madison was reëlected. Every Presidential election, from that of 1788 to that of 1860, found us a united people, with every State taking some part in the canvas. Even South Carolina in 1860 was not clearly counted out of the fight until after Mr. Lincoln's success had been announced, and rebellion had been resolved upon.

But all is now changed. The twentieth Presidential election finds us not only at war, but engaged in a civil war of such magnitude that even the most martial nations of Europe are surprised at the numbers who take part in it, and at its cost. The election is to be carried, and perhaps decided, amid the din of arms, with a million of voters in the land and sea forces of the two parties. This is so new to us, that it would seem more like a dream than a reality, but that losses of life and high prices render the matter most painfully real. How to act under such circumstances might well puzzle us, were it not that the path of duty is pointed out by the spirit of patriotism. The election will have much effect on the operations of war, and those operations in their turn will have no light effect on the election. Our political action should be such as to strengthen the arm of Government; and the military action of Government should be such as to strengthen those who shall be engaged in affording it political support. Failure in the field would not lead to defeat at the polls, but it might so lessen the loyal majority that the public sentiment of the country would be but feebly represented by the country's political action. What happened in 1862 might happen again in 1864, and with much more disastrous effect on the fortunes of the Republic. In 1862 there was much discontent, because of the belief that Government had not done all it could have done to bring about the overthrow of the Rebels. Irritated by the reverses which had befallen our arms in Virginia, and knowing that nothing had been withheld that was necessary to the effective waging of the war, thousands of men refrained from voting, half-inclined as they were to see if the Democrats could not do that which others had failed to do. We are not discussing the justice of the opinion which then prevailed, but simply state a fact; and the consequence of the discontent that existed was that the Democrats came very near obtaining control of the popular branch of Congress. They made heavy gains in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other States; but that this result was not the effect of hostility to the national cause was made clearly apparent a year later, when the supporters of that cause won a series of brilliant political victories in the very States which had either pronounced for the Democrats in '62, or had given but small Republican majorities. The loyal majority in Ohio in 1863 was something that approached to the fabulous, because then the violent members of the Opposition, encouraged by what had taken place a year earlier, had the audacity to place Mr. Vallandigham in nomination for the office of Governor. Had that individual been elevated to the post for which he was nominated, Ohio must have been arrayed in open opposition to the Federal Government, almost as decisively so as South Carolina or Virginia. Had he been defeated by a small majority, his party would have taken arms against the State Government, and Ohio, compelled to fight for the maintenance of social order at home, would have done nothing for the national cause. But the majority against Mr. Vallandigham was upward of one hundred thousand; and to attempt resistance to a Government so potently supported as that of which Mr. Brough was the head was something that surpassed even the audacity of the men who had had the bad courage to select Mr. Vallandigham for their leader, in the hope of being able to make him the head of the State. That which was done in Ohio, not seven months since, should be done in the nation not seven months hence, if we would have peace preserved at home, and all our available means directed to the work of destroying the armies of the Southern Confederacy, and to the seizure of its ports and principal towns. The national popular majority should be so great in support of the war as to prevent any faction from thinking of resistance to the people's will as a possibility. The moral effect of a mighty political victory in November would be almost incalculable, both at home and in Europe; and in the Confederacy it would put an end to all such hopes of ultimate success as may rest upon the belief that we are a divided people.