Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Sometimes, however, the boatmen, like the necromancer's student who set the broomstick to bringing water, but could not remember the spell to stop it, find that it is unsafe to set great agencies at work without the power of controlling them. Last May, for instance, occurred a pond-fresh, long to be remembered on Oil Creek, when the stream rose with such furious, rapidity that the loaded boats became unmanageable, crowding and dashing together, staving in the sides of the great oil-in-bulk boats, and grinding the floating barrels to splinters. Not even the thousands of gallons of oil thus shed upon the stormy waters were sufficient to assuage either their wrath or that of the boatmen, who, as their respective craft piled one upon another, sprang to "repel boarders" with oaths, fists, boat-hooks, or whatever other weapons Nature or chance had provided them. This scene of anarchy lasted several days, and some cold-blooded photographer amused himself, "after" Nero, in taking views of it from different points. Copies of these pictures, commemorating such destruction of property, temper, and propriety as Oil Creek never witnessed before, are hung about the "office" of the Refinery, with which comfortable apartment the visitors finished their tour.

Here they were offered the compliments of the season and locality in a collation of chestnuts; and here also they were invited to inspect a stereoscope, which, with its accompanying views, is considered on Tarr Farm as admirable a wonder as was, doubtless, Columbus's watch by the aborigines of the New World. Dearer to Miselle than chestnuts or stereoscope, however, were the information and the anecdotes placed at her service by the gentlemen of the establishment, albeit involuntarily; and with her friends she shortly after departed from Barrows and Hazleton's Refinery, filled with content and gratitude.

The noticeable point in the society of Tarr Farm, or rather in the human scenery, for society there is none, is the absurd mingling of inharmonious material. As in the toy called Prince Rupert's Drop, a multitude of unassimilated particles are bound together by a master necessity. Remove the necessity, and in the flash of an eye the particles scatter never to reunite.

In her two days' tour of Tarr Farm, Miselle talked with gentlemen of birth and education, gentlemen whose manners contrasted oddly enough with their coarse clothes and knee-high boots; also with intermittent gentlemen, who felt Tarr Farm to be no fit theatre for the exercise of their acquired politeness; also with men like Tommy and Jimmy, whose claims lay not so much in aristocratic connection and gentle breeding as in a thorough appreciation of the matter in hand; also with a less pleasing variety of mankind, men who, originally ignorant and debased, have through lucky speculations acquired immense wealth without the habits of body and mind fitly accompanying it.

Various ludicrous anecdotes are told of this last class, but none droller than that of the millionnaire, who, after the growth of his fortune, sent his daughter, already arrived at woman's estate, to school, that she might learn reading, writing, and other accomplishments. After a reasonable time the father visited the school, and inquired concerning his daughter's progress. This he was informed was but small, owing to a "want of capacity."

"Capacity! capacity!" echoed the father, thrusting his hands into his well-lined pockets; "well, by ginger, if the gal's got no capacity, I've got the money to buy her one, cost what it may!"

Another young fellow, originally employed in a very humble position by one of the oil companies, suddenly acquired a fortune, and removed to another part of the country. Returning for a visit to the scene of his former labors, he stood inspecting the operations of a cooper at work upon an oil-barrel. The two men had formerly been comrades, but this fact the rich man now found it convenient to forget, and the poor one was too proud to remember.

"Pray, Cooper," inquired the former at last, tapping the barrel superciliously with his cane, "are you able to make this thing oil-tight?"

"I believe so," retorted Cooper, dryly. "Was you ever troubled by their leaking, when you rolled them through the mud from the well to the Creek?"

Through all this fungus growth it is rather difficult to come at the indigenous product of the soil; and Miselle found none of whose purity she could be sure, except the youth who drove her from Tarr Farm to Schaeffer's on her return. Arriving in sight of the railway, this _puer ingenuus_, pointing to the track, inquired,--

"An' be thot what the keers rides on?"

"Yes," said Mr. Williams, "that's the track."

"An' yon's the wagons whar ye'll set?" pursued he, pointing to some platform-cars, waiting to be loaded with oil-barrels.

"Hardly. Those are where the oil sits."

"Be? Then yon's for the fowks, I reckon?" indicating a line of box freight-cars a little farther on.

"No, not exactly. Those are the passenger-cars, away up the track, with windows and steps."

"An' who rides in the loft up atop?" inquired the youth, after a prolonged stare.

This question, referring to the raised portion of the roof, universal in Western cars, being answered, Mr. Williams inquired in his turn,--

"Did you never see the railway before?"

"Never seed 'em till this minute. Fact, I never went furder from home than Tarr Farm 'fore to-day. 'Spect there's a many won'erful sights 'twixt here an' Eri', ben't there?"

Imagine a full-grown lad, in these United States, whose ideas are bounded by the city of Erie!

Not indigenous to the soil, but a firmly rooted, exotic growth, was the sonsy Scotch family whom Miselle was taken to see, the Sunday after her arrival.

Two years ago their picturesque log-cabin stood almost in a wilderness, with the farm-house of James Tarr its only neighbor. Now the derricks are crowding up the hill toward it, until only a narrow belt of woodland protects it from invasion. In front, a small flower-garden still showed some autumn blooms at the time of Miselle's visit, and was the only attempt at floriculture seen by her on Oil Creek.

With traditional Scotch hospitality, the mistress of the house, seconded by Maggie and Belle, the elder daughters, insisted that the proposed call should include dinner; and Miselle, nothing loath, was glad that her friends allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to stay.

"It's no that we hae onything fit to gie ye, but ye maun just tak' the wull for the deed," said the good mother, as she bustled about, and set before her guests a plain and plentiful meal, where all was good enough, and the fresh bread and newly churned butter something more.

"It's Maggie's baith baker and dairy-woman," said the well-pleased dame, in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her."

So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making "salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that, if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel' again."

From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle encountered on her travels.

Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr. and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young ladies, the party set forth.

The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a veritable relic of Prince Charlie.

The forest road ended abruptly in a wide glade, where stood the shanty occupied by the miners, a shed for the donkeys employed in dragging out the coal, and, finally, the ruinous tunnel leading horizontally into a disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi, bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality, bituminous, and largely mixed with slate. It sells readily, however, upon the Creek, at a dollar a bushel, for use in the steam-engines.

The sight-seers having satisfied their curiosity with regard to the mine, and having paid a short visit to the donkeys, were quietly resuming their walk, when out from the abode of the miners poured a tumultuous crowd of men, women, and children, who surrounded the little party in a menacing manner, while their leader, a stalwart fellow, called Brennan, seized John by the arm, and, shaking a sledge-hammer fist in his face, inquired what he meant by coming to "spy round an honest man's house, and make game of his betters?"

It was in vain that John attempted to disabuse the mind of his assailant of this view of his visit to the old mine; and indeed his argument could not even have been heard, as Brennan was now violently reiterating,--

"Tak' yer coorse, thin! Why don't ye tak' yer coorse?"

The advice was sensible, and the party left to themselves would undoubtedly have followed it; in fact, the females of the party had already taken their "coorse" along the homeward path as fast as their feet would carry them, excepting Miselle, who contented herself with stepping behind a great pine-tree, and watching thence this new development of human nature.

From angry words the miners were not long in proceeding to blows, and a short joust ensued, in which Williams and John gallantly held the lists against six or eight assailants, who would have been more dangerous, had they not been all day celebrating the wedding of one of their number. Suddenly, however, the leader of the colliers darted by John, who was opposing him, and pounced upon poor Belle Miller, who with her companions had paused at a little distance to give vent to their feelings in a chorus of dismal shrieks. Whether these irritated Mr. Brennan's weakened nerves, or whether he had merely the savage instinct of reaching the strong through the weak, cannot be certainly known; but the fact of her forcible capture was rendered sufficiently obvious by the cries that rent the air, and the heart of the young man John, who, neglecting his own safety in an attempt at rescue, received a stunning blow from his opponent, and fell bleeding to the earth.

Satisfied with the result of his experiment, Brennan, leaving his captive in custody of his own party, attempted another raid upon the defenceless flock; but this time Friend Williams, summoned by the voice of his wife, darted to her rescue, and, with a happy blow, laid the giant upon his back, where he lay for some moments admiring the evening sky.

Brave as were the two knights, however, and manifest as was the right, Victory would probably have "perched upon the banners of the strongest battalions," had not an unexpected diversion put a sudden end to the combat.

This came from the side of the assailants, in the pleasing shape of a pretty young woman, who, rushing forward, flung her arms about the neck of one of the leaders of the mob, crying,--

"Patrick Maloney, didn't you stand before the altar with me this day, and vow to God to be a true and faithful husband? And is this all the respect you show me on my wedding-day?"

The appeal was not without its force, and Patrick, pausing to consider of it, was surrounded by the more pacific of his own party, among whom now appeared "Big Tommy" from the Refinery, who loudly vouched for the character of the visitors, claiming them indeed as warm and dear friends of his own.

During the stormy council of war ensuing among the attacking party, the womankind of the attacked ventured to approach near enough to implore their champions to withdraw, while yet there was time. This pacific counsel they finally consented to follow, and were led away breathing vengeance and discontent, when John suddenly paused, exclaiming,--

"Where's Belle? They've got her. Come on, Williams! we aren't going to leave the girl among 'em, surely!"

At this Maggie and Mrs. Williams uplifted their voices in deprecation of further hostilities, protesting that they should die at once, if their protectors were to desert them, and using many other feminine and magnanimous arguments in favor of a speedy retreat.

But while yet the question of her rescue was undecided, Belle appeared, flushed, tearful, and voluble in reproach against the friends who had deserted her. She attributed her final escape to a free use of her tongue, and repeated certain pointed remarks which she had addressed to her custodian, who finally shook her, boxed her ears, and bade her begone.

On hearing this recital, John was for returning at once and avenging the insult; but the rest of the party, remembering the golden maxim of Hudibras,

"He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day,"

prevailed on him to wait for retaliation until a more favorable opportunity.

It may be satisfactory to the reader to hear, that, after Miselle had left Oil Creek, she was informed that Mr. Williams, John, and a body of men, equal in number to the colliers, paid them a visit, with authority from the owner of the mine to pull down their house and eject them from the premises. They also contemplated, it is supposed, a more direct and personal vengeance; but, on making known their intentions, the pretty bride again appeared, and, assaulting poor Williams with a whole battery of tearful eyes, trembling lips, and eloquent appeals, vindicated once more the superiority of woman's wiles to man's determination. An abject apology from the colliers, and a decided intimation from the "Regulators" of the consequences sure to follow any future incivility to visitors, closed the affair, and the parties separated without further hostilities.

The evening was so far advanced when the little party of fugitives were once more _en route_, that a proposed visit to a working mine at some little distance was given up, and at the door of the farm-house the party dispersed to their respective homes.

The next day had been appointed for a visit to Oil City, the farthest and most important station upon the Creek; and one object in visiting the house was to engage Jamie, with his "team," for the expedition. It fortunately happened that the old Scotchman and his wife were going to Oil City on the same day, and it was arranged that the two parties should unite.

At an early hour in the morning, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, with Miselle, once more climbed the mountain to the little log-house, and found Jamie just harnessing a pair of fine black horses to a wagon, similar to the "hack-carriage" of Schaeffer's Farm. In the bottom was a quantity of clean hay, and across the sides were fastened two planks, covered with bedquilts. Upon one of these were seated Mr. and Mrs. Williams, while Miselle was invited to the post of honor beside Mrs. Miller, and the old Scotchman shared the driver's seat with his son.

"Dinna ye be feared now, dearie. Our Jamie's a car'fu' driver, wi' all his wild ways," said the old woman kindly, as the wagon, with a premonitory lurch and twist, turned into the forest road.

Road! Let the reader call to mind the most precipitous wooded mountain of his acquaintance, and fancy a road formed over it by the simple process of cutting off the trees, leaving the stumps and rocks undisturbed, and then fancy himself dragged over it in a springless wagon behind two fast horses.

"Eh, then! It maks an auld body's banes ache sair, siccan a road, as yon!" said the Scotchwoman, with a significant grimace, as the wagon paused a moment at the foot of a perpendicular ascent.

"I reckon ye wad nae ken whatten the Auld Country roads were med for, gin ye suld see them. They're nae like this, ony way."

The dear old creature had entered the United States through the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, and supposed Tarr Farm to be America. Miselle was so weak as to try to describe the aspect of things about her native city, and was evidently suspected of patriotic romancing for her pains.

But such magnificent views! Such glimpses of far mountain-peaks, seen through vistas of rounded hills! Such flashing streams, tumbling heels over head across the forest road in their haste to mingle with the blue waters of the Alleghany! Such wide stretches of country, as the road crept along the mountain-brow, or curved sinuously down to the far valley!

Pictures were there, as yet uncopied, that should hold Church breathless, with the pencil of the Andes and Niagara quivering in his fingers,--pictures that Turner might well cross the seas to look upon; but Miselle remembers them through a distracting mist of bodily terror and discomfort,--as some painter showed a dance of demons encircling a maiden's couch, while above it hung her first love-dream.

"Yon in the valley, where the wood looks so yaller, is a sulphur spring; an' here in the road's the place where I'm going to tip you all over," suddenly remarked Jamie, twisting himself round on the box to enjoy the consternation of his female passengers, while the wagon paused on the verge of a long gully, some six feet in depth, occupying the whole middle of the road.

"Wull ye get out?" continued he, addressing Miselle for the first time.

"Had we better?" asked she, tremulously.

"If you're easy scared. But I'm no going to upset, I'll promise you."

"Then I'll stay in," said Miselle, in the desperate courage of extreme cowardice; and the wagon went on, two wheels deep in the gully, crumbling down the clayey mud, two wheels high on the mountain-side, crashing through brush and over stones. And yet there was no upset.

"Didn't I tell ye?" inquired Jamie, again twisting himself to look in Miselle's white face, with a broad smile of delight at her evident terror.

"Be done, you bold bairn! Isn't he a sturdy, stirring lad, Ma'am?" said the proud mother, as Jamie, addressing himself again to his work, shouted to the black nags, and put them along the bit of level road in the valley at a pace precluding all further conversation.

Another precipitous ascent, where the road had been mended by felling a large tree across it, over whose trunk the horses were obliged to pull the heavy wagon, and then an equally precipitous descent, gave a view of the Alleghany River and Oil Creek, with Oil City at their confluence, and a background of bluffs and mountains cutting sharp against the clear blue sky.

This view Miselle contemplated with one eye; but the other remained rigidly fixed upon the road before her.

Even Jamie paused, and finally suggested,--

"Reckon, men, you'd best get out and walk alongside. The women can stay in; and if she's going over, you can shore up."

Under these cheerful auspices the descent was accomplished, and, by some miracle, without accident.

At the foot of the bluff commences the slough in which Oil City is set; and as it deepened, the horses gradually sank from view, until only their backs were visible, floundering through a sea of oily mud of a peculiarly tenacious character. Miselle has the warning of Munchausen before her eyes; but, in all sadness, she avers that in the principal street of Oil City, and at the door of the principal hotel, the mud was on that day above the hubs of the wagon-wheels.

Having refreshed themselves in body and mind at the Petroleum House, where a lady in a soiled print dress and much jewelry kindly played at them upon a gorgeous piano, the party went forth to view the city.

The same mingling of urgent civilization and unsubdued Nature observable in Corry characterizes Oil City to a greater extent. On one side of the street, crowded with oil-wagons, the freight of each worth thousands of dollars, stand long rows of dwellings, shops, and warehouses, all built within two years, and on the other impinges a bluff still covered with its forest growth of shrubs and wood-plants,--while upon the frowning front of a cliff that has for centuries faced nothing meaner than the Alleghany, with its mountain background, some Vandal has daubed the advertisement of a quack nostrum.

Farther on, where the bluff is less precipitous, it has been graded after a fashion; and the houses built at the upper side of the new street seem to be sliding rapidly across it to join their opposite neighbors, which, in their turn, are sinking modestly into the mud.

A plank sidewalk renders it possible to walk through the principal streets of this city; but temptation to do so is of the slightest.

Monotonous lines of frail houses, shops whose scanty assortment of goods must be sold at enormous prices to pay the expense of transportation from New York or Philadelphia, crowds of oil-speculators, oil-dealers, oil-teamsters, a clumsy bridge across the Creek, a prevailing atmosphere of petroleum,--such is Oil City.

At the water-side the view is somewhat more interesting. No wharves have yet been built; and the swarming flatboats "tie up" all along the bank, just as they used to do three years ago, when, with a freight of lumber instead of oil, they stopped for the night at the solitary little Dutch tavern then monopolizing the site of the present city.

A rakish little stern-wheel steamer lay in the stream, bound for Pittsburg, and sorely was Miselle tempted to take passage down the Alleghany in her; but lingering memories of home and the long-suffering Caleb at last prevailed, and, with a sigh, she turned her back upon the beautiful river, and retraced her steps through yards crowded with barrels of oil waiting for shipment,--oil in rows, oil in stacks, oil in columns, and oil in pyramids wellnigh as tall and as costly as that of Cheops himself.

Returned to the Petroleum House, Miselle bade a reluctant good-bye to the kindly Scots, who here took stage for Franklin, and watched them float away, as it appeared, upon the sea of mud in a wagon-body whose wheels and horses were too nearly submerged to make any noticeable feature in the arrangement.

Soon after, Jamie appeared at the door of the parlor nominally to announce himself ready to return; but, after a fierce struggle with his natural modesty of disposition, he advanced into the room, and silently laid two of the biggest apples that ever grew in the laps of Mrs. Williams and Miselle. Putting aside all acknowledgments with "Ho! what's an apple or two?" the woodsman next proceeded on a tour of inspection round the room, serenely unconscious of the magnificent scorn withering him from the eyes of the jewelled lady, who now reclined upon a broken-backed sofa, taking a leisurely survey of the strangers.

Jamie paused some time at the piano.

"And what might such a thing as that cost noo?" asked he, at length, giving the case a little back-handed blow.

"About eight hundred dollars," ventured Miselle, to whom the inquiry was addressed.

Jamie opened his wide black eyes.

"Hoot! Feyther could ha' bought Jim Tarr's whole farm for that, three year ago," said he; and, with one more contemptuous stare at the piano, he left the room, and was presently seen in the stable-yard, shouldering from his path a wagon laden with coals.

Soon after, Miselle and her friends gladly bade farewell to Oil City, leaving the scornful lady seated at the piano executing the charming melody of "We're a band of brothers from the old Granite State."

Having entered the city by the hill-road, it was proposed to return along the Creek, although, as Jamie candidly stated, the road "might, like enough, be a thought worser than the other."

And it was.

Before the oil fever swept through this region, a man might have travelled from the mouth of the Creek to its head-waters, and seen no more buildings than he could have numbered on his ten fingers. Now the line of derricks, shanties, engine-houses, and oil-tanks is continuous through the whole distance; and thousands of men may be seen to-day accumulating millions of dollars where three years ago the squirrel and his wife, hoarding their winter stores, were the only creatures that took thought for the morrow.

After its incongruous mixture of society, the social peculiarity of Oil Creek is a total disregard of truth.

A mechanic, a tradesman, or a boatman makes the most solemn promise of service at a certain time. Terms are settled, a definite hour appointed for the fulfilment of the contract; the man departs, and is seen no more. His employer is neither disappointed nor angry; he expects nothing else.

A cart laden with country produce enters the settlement from the farms behind it. Every housewife drops her broom, and rushes out to waylay the huckster, and induce him to sell her the provisions already engaged to her neighbor. Happy she, if stout enough of arm to convey her booty home with her; for if she trust the vendor to leave it at her house, even after paying him his price, she may bid good-bye to the green delights, as eagerly craved here as on a long sea-voyage.

This "peculiar institution" is all very well, doubtless, for those who understand it, but is somewhat inconvenient to a stranger, as Miselle discovered during the three days she was trying to leave Tarr Farm.

On the third morning, after waiting two hours upon the bank of the Creek for a perjured boatman, Mr. Williams rushed desperately into a crowd of teamsters and captured the youth whose first impressions of a railway have been chronicled on a preceding page. Probably even he, had time been allowed to consider the proposition at length, would have declined the journey; but, overborne by the vehemence of his employer, he found himself well upon the road to Schaeffer's Farm before he had by any means decided to go thither.

The pleasantest part of the "carriage exercise" on this road is fording the Creek, a course adopted wherever the bluff comes down to the bank, and the flat reappears upon the opposite side, no one having yet spent time to grade a continuous road on one side or the other. A railway company has, however, made a beginning in this direction; and it is promised that in another year the traveller may proceed from Schaeffer's to Oil City by rail.

At Titusville Miselle bade good-bye to her kind friend Williams, and once more took herself under her own protection.

Spending the night at Corry, she next day found herself in the city of Erie, and could have fancied it Heidelberg instead, the signs bearing such names as Schultz, Seelinger, Jantzen, Cronenberger, Heidt, and Heybeck. Hans Preuss sells bread, Valentin Ulrich manufactures saddles, and P. Loesch keeps a meat-market, with a sign representing one gentleman holding a mad bull by a bit of packthread tied to his horns, while an assistant leisurely strolls up to annihilate the creature with a tack-hammer.

Here, too, a little beyond the middle of the town, was a girl herding a flock of geese, precisely as did the princess in the "Brueder Grimm Tales," while a doltish boy stared at her with just the imbecile admiration of Kurdkin for the wily maiden who combed her golden, hair and chanted her naughty spell in the same breath.

A little farther on stood a charming old Dutch cottage with cabbages in the front yard, and a hop-vine clambering the porch. An infant Teuton swung upon the gate, who, being addressed by Miselle, lisped an answer in High Dutch, while his mother shrilly exchanged the news with her next neighbor in the same tongue.

Two hours sufficed to exhaust the wonders of Erie, and Miselle gladly took the cars for Buffalo, and on the road thither fell in with a good Samaritan, who solaced her weary faintness with delicate titbits of grouse, shot and roasted upon an Ohio prairie.

At Buffalo waited the Eastern-bound cars of the New-York Central Railway; but only twenty miles farther on, thundered Niagara, and Miselle could not choose but obey the sonorous summons. So, after spending the night at a "white man's" hotel in Buffalo, the next morning found her standing, an insignificant atom, before one of the world's great wonders. One or two other travellers, however, have mentioned Niagara; and Miselle refrains from expressing more than her thanks for the kindness which enabled her to fulfil her darling wish of standing behind the great fall on the Canada side.

Truly, it is no empty boast that places Americans preeminent over the men of every other nation in their courtesy to women; and Miselle would fain most gratefully acknowledge the constant attention and kindness everywhere offered to her, while never once was she annoyed by obtrusive or unwelcome approach; and not the vast resources of her country, not the grandeur of Niagara, give her such pride and satisfaction as does the new knowledge she has gained of her countrymen.

THE SPANIARDS' GRAVES

AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS.

O sailors, did sweet eyes look after you,
The day you sailed away from sunny Spain?
Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew,
Melting in tender rain?

Did no one dream of that drear night to be,
Wild with the wind, fierce with the stinging snow,
When, on yon granite point that frets the sea,
The ship met her death-blow?

Fifty long years ago these sailors died:
(None know how many sleep beneath the waves:)
Fourteen gray headstones, rising side by side,
Point out their nameless graves,--

Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me,
And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry,
And sadder winds, and voices of the sea
That moans perpetually.

Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain
Questioned the distance for the yearning sail,
That, leaning landward, should have stretched again
White arms wide on the gale,

To bring back their beloved. Year by year,
Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed,
And lustrous eyes grew dim, and age drew near,
And hope was dead at last.

Still summer broods o'er that delicious land,
Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow:
Live any yet of that forsaken band
Who loved so long ago?

O Spanish women, over the far seas,
Could I but show you where your dead repose!
Could I send tidings on this northern breeze,
That strong and steady blows!

Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet
These you have lost, but you can never know
One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet
With thinking of your woe!

GRIT.

There is an influential form of practical force, compounded of strong will, strong sense, and strong egotism, which long waited for a strong monosyllable to announce its nature. Facts of character, indeed, are never at rest until they have become terms of language; and that peculiar thing which is not exactly courage or heroism, but which unmistakably is "Grit," has coined its own word to blurt out its own quality. If the word has not yet pushed its way into classic usage, or effected a lodgement in the dictionaries, the force it names is no less a reality of the popular consciousness, and the word itself no less a part of popular speech. Men who possessed the thing were just the men to snub elegance and stun propriety by giving it an inelegant, though vitally appropriate name. There is defiance in its very sound. The word is used by vast numbers of people to express their highest ideal of manliness, which is "real grit." It is impossible for anybody to acquire the reputation it confers by the most dexterous mimicry of its outside expressions; for a swift analysis, which drives directly to the heart of the man, instantly detects the impostor behind the braggart, and curtly declares him to lack "the true grit." The word is so close to the thing it names, has so much pith and point, is so tart on the tongue, and so stings the ear with its meaning, that foreigners ignorant of the language might at once feel its significance by its griding utterance as it is shot impatiently through the resisting teeth.

Grit is in the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,--spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. The feeling with which it rushes into consciousness is akin to physical sensation; and the whole body--every nerve, muscle, and drop of blood--is thrilled with purpose and passion. "Spunk" does not express it; for "spunk," besides being _petite_ in itself, is courage in effervescence rather than courage in essence. A person usually cowardly may be kicked or bullied into the exhibition of spunk; but the man of grit carries in his presence a power which spares him the necessity of resenting insult; for insult sneaks away from his look. It is not mere "pluck"; for pluck also comes by fits and starts, and can be disconnected from the other elements of character. A tradesman once had the pluck to demand of Talleyrand, at the time that trickster-statesman was at the height of his power, when he intended to pay his bill; but he was instantly extinguished by the impassive insolence of Talleyrand's answer,--"My faith, how curious you are!" Considered as an efficient force, it is sometimes below heroism, sometimes above it: below heroism, when heroism is the permanent condition of the soul; above heroism, when heroism is simply the soul's transient mood. Thus, Demosthenes had flashes of splendid heroism, but his valor depended on his genius being kindled,--his brave actions naming out from mental ecstasy rather than intrepid character. The moment his will dropped from its eminence of impassioned thought, he was scared by dangers which common soldiers faced with gay indifference. Erskine, the great advocate, was a hero at the bar; but when he entered the House of Commons, there was something in the fixed imperiousness and scorn of Pitt which made him feel inwardly weak and fluttered. Erskine had flashes of heroism; Pitt had consistent and persistent grit. If we may take the judgment of Sir Sidney Smith, Wellington had more grit than Napoleon had heroism. Just before the Battle of Waterloo, Sir Sidney, at Paris, was told that the Duke had decided to keep his position at all events. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "if the Duke has said that, of course t' other fellow must give way."

And this is essentially the sign of grit, that, when it appears, t' other fellow or t' other opinion must give way. Its power comes from its tough hold on the real, and the surly boldness with which it utters and acts it out. Thus, in social life, it puts itself in rude opposition to all those substitutes for reality which the weakness and hypocrisy and courtesy of men find necessary for their mutual defence. It denies that it has ever surrendered its original rights and aboriginal force, or that it has assented to the social compact. When it goes into any company of civilized persons, its pugnacity is roused by seeing that social life does not rest on the vigor of the persons who compose it, but on the authority of certain rules and manners to which all are required to conform. These appear to grit as external defences, thrown up to protect elegant feebleness against any direct collision with positive character, and to keep men and women at a respectful distance from ladies and gentlemen. Life is carried on there at one or more removes from the realities of life, on this principle, that, "I won't speak the truth of you, if you won't speak the truth of me"; and the name of this principle is politeness. It is impolite to tell foolish men that they are foolish, mean men that they are mean, wicked men that they are wicked, traitorous men that they are traitors; for smooth lies cement what impolite veracities would shatter. The system, it is contended, on the whole, civilizes the individuals whose natures it may repress, and is better than a sincerity which would set them by the ears, and put a veto on all social intercourse whatever. But strong as may be the argument in favor of the system, it is certainly as important that it should be assailed as that it should exist, and that it should be assailed from within; for, carried out unchecked to its last consequences, it results in sinking its victims into the realm of vapors and vacuity, its representative being the all-accomplished London man of fashion who committed suicide to save himself from the bore of dressing and undressing. Besides, in "good society," so called, the best sentiments and ideas can sometimes get expression only through the form of bad manners. It is charming to be in a circle where human nature is pranked out in purple and fine linen, and where you sometimes see manners as beautiful as the masterpieces of the arts; yet some people cannot get rid of the uneasy consciousness that a subtle tyranny pervades the room and ties the tongue,--that philanthropy is impolite, that heroism is ungenteel, that truth, honor, freedom, humanity, strongly asserted, are marks of a vulgar mind; and many a person, daring enough to defend his opinions anywhere else, by speech or by the sword, quails in the parlor before some supercilious coxcomb,

"Weak in his watery smile
And educated whisker,"

who can still tattle to the girls that the reformer is "no gentleman."

Now how different all this is, when a man of social grit thrusts himself into a drawing-room, and with an easy audacity tosses out disagreeable facts and unfashionable truths, the porcelain crashing as his words fall, and saying everything that no gentleman ought to say, indifferent to the titter or terror of the women and the offended looks and frightened stare of the men. How the gilded lies vanish in his presence! How he states, contradicts, confutes! how he smashes through proprieties to realities, flooding the room with his aggressive vitality, mastering by main force a position in the most exclusive set, and, by being perfectly indifferent to their opinion, making it impossible for them to put him down! He thus becomes a social power by becoming a social rebel,--persecutes conventional politeness into submission to rude veracity,--establishes an autocracy of man over the gentleman,--and practises a kind of "Come-Outerism," while insisting on enjoying all the advantages of _Go-Interism_. Ben Jonson in the age of Elizabeth, Samuel Johnson in the last century, Carlyle and Brougham in the present, are prominent examples of this somewhat insolent manhood in the presence of social forms. It is, however, one of the rarest, as it is one of the ugliest, kinds of human strength; it requires, perhaps, in its combination, full as many defects as merits; and how difficult is its justifiable exercise we see in the career of so illustrious a philanthropist as Wilberforce,--a man whose speech in Parliament showed no lack of vivid conceptions and smiting words, a man whom no threats of personal violence could intimidate, and who would cheerfully have risked his life for his cause, yet still a man who could never forget that he was a Tory and a gentleman, who had no grit before lords and ladies, whose Abolitionism was not sufficiently blunt and downright in the good company of cabinet ministers, whose sensitive nature flinched at the thought of being conscientiously impolite and heroically ill-natured, and whose manners were thus frequently in the way of the full efficiency of his morals. In many respects a hero, in all respects benevolent, he still was not like Romilly, a man of grit. Politeness has been defined as benevolence in small things. To be benevolent in great things, decorum must sometimes yield to duty; and Draco, though in the king's drawing-room, and loyally supporting in Parliament the measures of the ministry, is still Draco, though cruelty in him has learned the dialect of fashion and clothed itself in the privileges of the genteel.

Proceeding from social life to business life, we shall find that it is this unamiable, but indomitable, quality of grit which not only acquires fortunes, but preserves them after they have been acquired. The ruin which overtakes so many merchants is due not so much to their lack of business talent as to their lack of business nerve. How many lovable persons we see in trade, endowed with brilliant capacities, but cursed with yielding dispositions,--who are resolute in no business habits and fixed in no business principles,--who are prone to follow the instincts of a weak good-nature against the ominous hints of a clear intelligence, now obliging this friend by indorsing an unsafe note, and then pleasing that neighbor by sharing his risk in a hopeless speculation,--and who, after all the capital they have earned by their industry and sagacity has been sunk in benevolent attempts to assist blundering or plundering incapacity, are doomed, in their bankruptcy, to be the mark of bitter taunts from growling creditors and insolent pity from a gossiping public. Much has been said about the pleasures of a good conscience; and among these I reckon the act of that man who, having wickedly lent certain moneys to a casual acquaintance, was in the end called upon to advance a sum which transcended his honest means, with a dark hint, that, if the money was refused, there was but one thing for the casual acquaintance to do,--that is, to commit suicide. The person thus solicited, in a transient fit of moral enthusiasm, caught at the hint, and with great earnestness advised the casual acquaintance to do it, on the ground that it was the only reparation he could make to the numerous persons he had swindled. And this advice was given with no fear that the guilt of that gentleman's blood would lie on his soul, for the mission of that gentleman was to continue his existence by sucking out the life of others, and his last thought was to destroy his own; and it is hardly necessary to announce that he is still alive and sponging. Indeed, a courageous merchant must ever by ready to face the fact that he will be called a curmudgeon, if he will not ruin himself to please others, and a weak fool, if he does. Many a fortune has melted away in the hesitating utterance of the placable "Yes," which might have been saved by the unhesitating utterance of the implacable "No!" Indeed, in business, the perfection of grit is this power of saying "No," and saying it with such wrathful emphasis that the whole race of vampires and harpies are scared from you counting-room, and your reputation as unenterprising, unbearable niggard is fully established among all borrowers of money never meant to be repaid, and all projectors of schemes intended for the benefit of the projectors alone. At the expense of a little temporary obloquy, a man can thus conquer the right to mind his own business; and having done this, he has shown his possession of that nerve which, in his business, puts inexorable purpose into clear conceptions, follows out a plan of operations with sturdy intelligence, and conducts to fortune by the road of real enterprise. Many others may evince equal shrewdness in framing a project, but they hesitate, become timid, become confused, at some step in its development. Their character is not strong enough to back up their intellect. But the iron-like tenacity of the merchant of grit holds on to the successful end.

You can watch the operation of this quality in every-day business transactions. Your man of grit seems never deficient in news of the markets, though he may employ no telegraph-operator. Thus, about two years ago, a great Boston holder of flour went to considerable expense in obtaining special intelligence, which would, when generally known, carry flour up to ten dollars and a half a barrel. Another dealer, suspecting something, went to him and said, "What do you say flour's worth to-day?"--"Oh," was the careless answer, "I suppose it might bring ten dollars."--"Well," retorted the querist, gruffly, "I've got five thousand barrels on hand, and I should like to _see_ the man who would give me ten dollars barrel for it!"--"I will," said the other, quickly, disclosing his secret by the eagerness of his manner, "Well," was the reply, "all I can say is, then, that I have _seen_ the man."

The importance of this quality as a business power is most apparent in those frightful panics which periodically occur in our country, and which sometimes tax the people more severely than wars and standing armies. In regard to one of the last of these financial hurricanes, that of 1857, there can be little doubt, that, if the acknowledged holders of financial power had been men of real grit, it might have been averted; there can be as little doubt, that, when it burst, if they had been men of real grit, it might have been made less disastrous. But they kept nearly all their sails set up to the point of danger, and when the tempest was on them ignominiously took to their boats and abandoned the ship. And as for the crew and passengers, it was the old spectacle of a shipwreck,--individuals squabbling to get a plank, instead of combining to construct a raft.

Indeed, there was something pitiable in the state of things which that panic revealed in the business centres of the country. Common sense seemed to be disowned by mutual consent; an infectious fear went shivering from man to man; and a strange fascination led people to increase by suspicions and reports the peril which threatened their own destruction. Men, being thus thrown back upon the resources of character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush his bones.

In invigorating contrast to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to witness many an example of the grit-inspired. Then it was that the grouty, taciturn, obstinate trader, so unpopular in ordinary times, showed the stuff he was made of. Then his bearing was cheer and hope to all who looked upon him. How he girded himself for the fight, resolved, if he died, to die hard! How he tugged with obstacles as if they were personal affronts, and hurled them to the right and to the left! How grandly, amid the chatter of the madmen about him, came his few words of sense and sanity! And then his brain, brightened, not bewildered, by the danger, how clear and alert it was, how fertile in expedients, how firm in principles, with a glance that pierced through the ignorant present to the future, seeing as calmly and judging as accurately in the tempest as it had in the sunshine. Never losing heart and never losing head, with as strong a grip on his honor as on his property, detesting the very thought of failure, knowing that he might be broken to pieces, but determined that he would not weakly "go to pieces," he performed the greatest service to the community, as well as to himself, by resolutely, at any sacrifice, paying his debts when they became due. It is a pity that such austere Luthers of commerce, trade-militant instead of church-militant, who meet hard times with a harder will, had not a little beauty in their toughness, so that grit, lifted to heroism, would allure affection as well as enforce respect. But their sense is so rigid, their integrity so gruff, and their courage so unjoyous, that all the genial graces fly their companionship; and a libertine Sheridan, with Ancient Pistol's motto of "Base is the slave that pays," will often be more popular, even among the creditor portion of the public, than these crabbed heroes, and, if need be, surly martyrs, of mercantile honesty and personal honor.

In regard to public life, and the influence of this rough manliness in politics, it is a matter of daily observation, that, in the strife of parties and principles, backbone without brain will carry it against brain without backbone. A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. You cannot, by tying an opinion to a man's tongue, make him the representative of that opinion; and at the close of any battle for principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor among the wounded, but among the missing. The true motto for a party is neither "Measures, not men," nor "Men, not measures," but "Measures _in_ men,"--measures which are in their blood as well as in their brain and on their lips. Wellington said that Napoleon's presence in the French army was equivalent to forty thousand additional soldiers; and in a legislative assembly, Mirabeau and John Adams and John Quincy Adams are not simply persons who hold a single vote, but forces whose power thrills through the whole mass of voters. Mean natures always feel a sort of terror before great natures; and many a base thought has been unuttered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fear inspired by the rebuking presence of one noble man.