Chapter XXV (2)

But I question, Madam, whether the strongest impression which your memory retains be not exactly the one personage in the drama whom I have omitted to mention,--the red-legged, gleaming-eyed, loud-voiced gentleman who pulls the hidden wires which set all the other puppets in motion,--Mr. Mephistopheles himself. Marguerite, studied, refined, unimpassioned in the pretty Yankee girl,--simple, warm, outpouring in the sympathetic German woman,--and Faust, gallant, ardent, winning in the bright-eyed Italian,--thoughtful, tender, fervent in the intelligent German,--are background figures in the picture your memory paints; while the ubiquitous, sneering, specious, cunning, tempting, leering, unholy Mephistopheles is a character of himself, in the foreground, whose special interpreter you do not care to distinguish.

Ring down the curtain. Put out the lights. We will leave the mimic scene, and return to the broad stage of life, whereon all are actors and all are audience. There are Gretchens and Fausts everywhere,--American, English, French, German, Italian,--of all nations and tongues,--but there is only one Mephistopheles. They have lived and loved and fallen and died. But he, indestructible, lives on to flash fire in the cups of beings yet unborn, and lurk with unholy intent in hearts which have not yet learned to beat. There is only one Mephistopheles; but he is protean in shape. The little gentleman in black, the hero of so many strange stories, is but the Teutonic incarnation of a spirit which takes many forms in many lands. Out of the brain of the great German poet he steps, in a guise which is known and recognized wherever the story of love and betrayal finds an echo in human hearts. Poor Gretchen! She had heard of Satan, and had been rocked to sleep by tales of the Loreley, and knew from her Bible that there was an evil spirit in the world seeking whom he might devour. But little did she dream, when she stopped her spinning-wheel to think for a moment of the gallant young lover who wooed her so ardently, that the glance of his eye was lighted with the flame of eternal fire, and that the fond words of love he spoke were hot breathings from the regions of the accursed. Poor Gretchen!

But, my dear Madam, this is all a fable. Mephistopheles--the real, vital, moving Mephistopheles--has outlived Goethe, and will outlast the very memory of the unhappy heroine of his noble poem. He walks the streets to-day as fresh and persuasive as when, in ophidian form, he haunted that lovely garden which is said to have once stood near the banks of the Euphrates, and there beguiled the mother of mankind. Your friend Asmodeus--albeit not the quondam friend of that name for whose especial amusement he unroofed so many houses in the last century, when he was suffering from severe lameness--has a discerning eye to pierce his many disguises. He does not walk our streets now-a-days in red tights or with tinsel eyes; he does not limp about with a sardonic laugh; nor could you see the cloven hoof which is said to betray his identity. Were such the case, the little street-boys would point him out, and the daily papers, with which his friend Dr. Faustus had so much to do in their origin, would record his movements with greater eagerness than they do the comings and goings of generals and governors. No, my dear Madam, he assumes no such striking costumes. But he brushes by you in your daily walks, he sits beside you in the car, the theatre, and even in the church, in respectable, fashionable attire. Frank dickers with him in his counting-room, Tommy chases him in the play-ground, Mrs. Asmodeus makes him a fashionable call, and--God help us all!--we sometimes find him sitting domiciliated at our hearthstones. He changes like the wizard we used to read of in our wonderful fairy books, who was an ogre one moment and a mouse the next. He is more potent than the philosopher's stone; for that changed everything into gold only, while he becomes, at will, all the ores and alloys of creation. Fortunatus's wishing-cap and Prince Hussein's tapestry were baby toys to him. They whisked their owners away to the place where they wished, at the moment, to be. He is ubiquitous.

He lurks under the liberty-cap of the goddess whose features are stamped in the shining gold, and his laugh is the clink of the jingling pieces. He turns himself into a regal sceptre that sways the gaping crowd, and it becomes a magnet that draws with resistless power the outstretched, itching palms of men. He takes the witching form of woman, paints her pulpy cheek with peachy bloom, knots into grace her mass of wavy hair, lights in her sparkling eye the kindling flame, hangs on her pouting lip the expectant kiss, and bids her supple waist invite caress; and more seductive far than gold or power are these cunning lures to win men to bow down in abject, grovelling worship of his might. My dear Madam, I would not imply that your beauty and grace are exhibitions of his skill. By no manner of means! I faithfully believe that Frank was drawn to you by the holiest, purest, best of emotions. But then, you know, so many of your lovely sex are under the influence of that cunning gentleman while they least suspect it. When a poor girl who owns but one jewel on earth--the priceless one that adorns and ennobles her lowliness--barters that treasure away for the cheap glitter of polished stones or the rustling sweep of gaudy silk, is not the basilisk gleam of the Mephistophelean eye visible in the sparkling of those gewgaws and the sheen of that stuff? When your friend Asmodeus, honest in his modest self-respect, is most ignominiously ignored by the stylish Mrs. Money,--her father was a cobbler,--more noted for brocades than brains,--or the refined Miss Blood,--her grandfather was third-cousin to some Revolutionary major,--more distinguished for shallowness than for spirit,--does he not smile in his sleeve, with great irreverence for the brocades and the birth, at the easy way in which the old fellow has wheedled them into his power by tickling their conceit and vanity? He creeps into all sorts of corners, and lurks in the smallest of hiding-places. He lies _perdu_ in the folds of _figurante's_ gauze, nestles under the devotee's sombre veil, waves in the flirt's fan, and swims in the gossip's teacup. He burrows in a dimple, floats on a sigh, rides on a glance, and hovers in a thought.

But I would not infer, Madam, that he is the particular pet of the fair, or that he specially devotes himself to their subjugation. It is certain that he employs them with his most cunning skill, and sways the world most powerfully by their regnant charms. But the lords of creation are likewise the slaves of his will and the dupes of his deception. He bestrides the nib of the statesman's pen and guides it into falsehood and treason. He perches on the cardinal's hat and counsels bigotry and oppression. He sits on the tradesman's counter and bears down the unweighted scale. He hides in the lawyer's bag and makes specious pleas for adroit rogues. He slips into the gambler's greasy pack and rolls over his yellow dice. He dances on the bubbles of the drunkard's glass, swings on the knot of the planter's lash, and darts on the point of the assassin's knife. He revels in a coarse oath, laughs in a perjured vow, and breathes in a lie. He has kept celebrated company in times gone by. He was Superintendent of the Coliseum when the Christian martyrs were given to the wild beasts. He was long time a familiar in the Spanish Inquisition, and adviser of the Catholic priesthood in those days, and Governor of the Bastile afterwards. He was the king's minister of pleasure in the days of the latter Louises. He was court chaplain when Ridley and Latimer were burned. He was Charles IX.'s private secretary at the time of the St. Bartholomew affair, and Robespierre's right-hand man in the days of Terror. He was Benedict Arnold's counsellor, Jefferson Davis's bedfellow, and John Wilkes Booth's bosom friend.

A personage, and yet none ever saw him. His cloven hoof, his twisted horns, his suit of black, his gleaming eyes, his limbs of flame, are but the poet's dream, the painter's color. Mephistopheles is but the creature of our fancy, and exists but in the fears, the passions, the desires of mankind. He is born in hearts where love is linked with license, in minds where pride weds with folly, in souls where piety unites with intolerance. We never meet the roaring lion in our path; yet our hearts are torn by his fangs and lacerated by his claws. We never see the sardonic cavalier; yet we hear his specious whisperings in our ears. The sunlight of truth shines forever upon us; yet we sit in the cold shadow of error. We put the cup of pleasure to our lips, and quaff, instead of cooling draughts, the fiery flashes of searing excess. We long for forbidden delights, and when the fiend Opportunity places them within our reach, we sign the compact of our misery to obtain them. The charmed circle this unholy spirit draws around his fatal power is traced along the devious line that marks our weakness and our ignorance. Storm as we may, he stands intrenched within our souls, defying all our wrath. But he shrinks and crouches before us when, bold and fearless, we lift the cross of truth, and bid him fly the upborne might of our intelligence. Mephistopheles is an unholy spirit, nestling in the hearts of myriads of poor human beings who never heard of Goethe. Long after the mimic scene in which he shares shall have been forgot,--long after the sirens who have warbled poor Gretchen's joys and sorrows shall have mouldered in their graves,--long after the witching beauty of the Frenchman's harmony shall have been forever hushed,--long after the very language in which the German poet portrayed him shall have passed into oblivion,--will Mephistopheles carry his diabolisms into the souls of human kind, and hold there his mystic reign. Yet there are those, and you find Asmodeus is one, who dream of a day when the Mephistophelean dynasty is to be overthrown,--when the sappers and miners of the great army of human progress are to besiege him in his strong-holds, and to lead him captive in eternal bondage. Of all the guides who lead that mighty host, none rank above the Faust of whom tradition tells such wondrous tales. Not the bewigged and motley personage Gounod has sung, not the impassioned lover Goethe drew, but the great genius who first taught mankind to stamp its wisdom in imperishable characters, and to bequeath it unto races yet to rise. The Faust of history shall long outlive the Faust of wild romance. The victim in the transient poem shall be a conqueror in the unwritten chronicles of time.

My dear Madam, let us draw around us a charmed circle; not with the trenchant point of murderous steel, but with the type that Faust gave to the world. Within its bounds, intelligence and thought shall guard us safe from Mephistopheles. Come he in whatever guise he may, its subtile potency shall, like Ithuriel's spear, compel him to display his real form in all its native ugliness and dread. And we must pass away; yet may we leave behind, secure in the defence we thus may raise, the dear ones that we love, to be the parents of an angel race that, in the distant days to come, shall tread the sod above our long-forgotten dust.

MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING.

Jaalam, April 5, 1866.

MY DEAR SIR,--

(an' noticin' by your kiver thet you're some dearer than wut you wuz, I enclose the diffrence) I dunno ez I know jest how to interdroce this las' perduction of my mews, ez Parson Willber allus called 'em, which is goin' to _be_ the last an' _stay_ the last onless sunthin' pertikler sh'd interfear which I don't expec' ner I wun't yield tu ef it wuz ez pressin' ez a deppity Shiriff. Sence M^r Wilbur's disease I hevn't hed no one thet could dror out my talons. He ust to kind o' wine me up an' set the penderlum agoin' an' then somehow I seemed to go on tick as it wear tell I run down, but the noo minister ain't of the same brewin' nor I can't seem to git ahold of no kine of huming nater in him but sort of slide rite off as you du on the eedge of a mow. Minnysteeril natur is wal enough an' a site better'n most other kines I know on, but the other sort sech as Welbor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' naterally more wonderfle an' sweet tastin' leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile athout sayin' nothin' in pertickler an' I misdoubt he didn't set so much by the sec'nd Ceres as wut he done by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of fallin' off in spots. He wuz as outspoken as a norwester _he_ wuz, but I tole him I hoped the fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch a good many times fust afore comin' bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro C. Swett from the meetin' house steeple up to th' old perrish, an' took up for dead but he 's alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turnin' of it over I recclected how they ust to put wut they called Argymunce onto the frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a spell whilst you wuz concludin' whether you'd go in or nut espeshully ware tha wuz darters, though I most allus found it the best plen to go in fust an' think afterwards an' the gals likes it best tu. I dno as speechis ever hez any argimunts to 'em, I never see none thet hed an' I guess they never du but tha must allus be a B'ginnin' to everythin' athout it is Etarnity so I'll begin rite away an' any body may put it afore any of his speeches ef it soots an' welcome. I don't claim no paytent.

THE ARGYMUNT.

Interducshin, w'ich may be skipt. Begins by talkin' about himself: thet 's jest natur an'

most gin'ally allus pleasin', I b'leeve I 've notist, to _one_ of the cumpany, an' thet 's more than wut you can say of most speshes of talkin'. Nex' comes the gittin' the goodwill of the orjunce by lettin' 'em gether from wut you kind of ex'dentally let drop thet they air about East, A one, an' no mistaik, skare 'em up an' take 'em as they rise. Spring interdooced with a fiew approput flours. Speach finally begins witch nobuddy need n't feel obolygated to read as I never read 'em an' never shell this one ag'in. Subjick staited; expanded; delayted; extended. Pump lively. Subjick staited ag'in so 's to avide all mistaiks. Ginnle remarks; continooed; kerried on; pushed furder; kind o' gin out. Subjick _re_staited; dielooted; stirred up permiscoous. Pump ag'in. Gits back to where he sot out. Can't seem to stay thair. Ketches into Mr. Seaward's hair. Breaks loose ag'in an' staits his subjick; stretches it; turns it; folds it; onfolds it; folds it ag'in so 's 't no one can't find it. Argoos with an imedginary bean thet ain't aloud to say nothin' in repleye. Gives him a real good dressin' an' is settysfide he 's rite. Gits into Johnson's hair. No use tryin' to git into his head. Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick ag'in; doos it back'ards, sideways, eendways, criss-cross, bevellin', noways. Gits finally red on it. Concloods. Concloods more. Reads sum xtrax. Sees his subjick a-nosin' round arter him ag'in. Tries to avide it. Wun't du. _Mis_states it. Can't conjectur' no other plawsable way of staytin' on it. Tries pump. No fx. Yeels the flore.

You kin spall an' punctooate thet as you please. I allus do, it kind of puts a noo soot of close onto a word, thisere funattick spellin' doos an' takes 'em out of the prissen dress they wair in the Dixonary. Ef I squeeze the cents out of 'em it's the main thing, an' wut they wuz made for; wut 's left 's jest pummis.

Mistur Wilbur sez he to me onct, sez he, "Hosee," sez he, "in litterytoor the only good thing is Natur. It 's amazin' hard to come at," sez he, "but onct git it an' you 've gut everythin'. Wut's the sweetest small on airth?" sez he. "Noomone hay," sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz allus hankerin' round in hayin'. "Nawthin' of the kine," sez he. "My leetle Huldy's breath," sez I ag'in. "You 're a good lad," sez he, his eyes sort of ripplin' like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about her age,--"You 're a good lad; but 't ain't thet nuther," sez he. "Ef you want to know," sez he, "open your winder of a mornin' et ary season, and you 'll larn thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, _fresh air_," sez he, emphysizin', "athout no mixtur. Thet 's wut _I_ call natur in writin', and it bathes my lungs and washes 'em sweet whenever I git a whiff on 't," sez he. I offen think o' thet when I set down to write, but the winders air _so_ ept to git stuck, and breakin' a pane costs sunthin'.

Yourn for the last time,

_Nut_ to be continooed,

HOSEA BIGLOW.

I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it,
I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,--
Nut while the twolegged gab-machine 's so plenty,
'Nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty;
I 'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard
To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard,
An' maysure off, acordin' to demand,
The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand,
The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' thru,
An' nothin' but the customer thet 's new.
I sometimes think, the furder on I go,
Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know,
An' when I 've settled my idees, I find
'T war n't I sheered most in makin' up my mind;
'T wuz this an' thet an' t' other thing thet done it,
Sunthin' in th' air, I could n' seek nor shun it.
Mos' folks go off so quick now in discussion,
All th' ole flint locks seems altered to percussion,
Whilst I in agin' sometimes git a hint
Thet I 'm percussion changin' back to flint;
Wal, ef it's so, I ain't agoin' to werrit,
For th' ole Oueen's-arm hez this pertickler merit,--
It gives the mind a hahnsome wedth o' margin
To kin' o' make its will afore dischargin':
I can't make out but jest one ginnle rule,--
No man need go an' _make_ himself a fool,
Nor jedgment ain't like mutton, thet can't bear
Cookin' tu long, nor be took up tu rare.

Ez I wuz say'n', I ha'n't no chance to speak
So 's 't all the country dreads me onct a week,
But I 've consid'ble o' thet sort o' head
Thet sets to home an' thinks wut _might_ be said,
The sense thet grows an' werrits underneath,
Comin' belated like your wisdom-teeth,
An' git so el'kent, sometimes, to my gardin
Thet I don' vally public life a fardin'.
Our Parson Wilbur (blessin's on his head!)
'Mongst other stories of ole times he hed,
Talked of a feller thet rehearsed his spreads
Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads,
(Ef 'twarn't Demossenes, I guess 'twuz Sisro,)
Appealin' fust to thet an' then to this row,
Accordin' ez he thought thet his idees
Their diff'runt ev'riges o' brains 'ould please;
"An'," sez the Parson, "to hit right, you must
Git used to maysurin' your hearers fust;
For, take my word for 't when all 's come an' past,
The kebbige-heads 'll cair the day et last;
Th' ain't ben a meetin' sense the worl' begun
But they made (raw or biled ones) ten to one."

I 've allus foun' 'em, I allow, sence then
About ez good for talkin' to ez men;
They 'll take edvice, like other folks, to keep,
(To use it 'ould be holdin' on 't tu cheap,)
They listen wal, don' kick up when you scold 'em,
An' ef they 've tongues, hev sense enough to hold 'em;
Though th' ain't no denger we shall loose the breed,
I gin'lly keep a score or so for seed,
An' when my sappiness gits spry in spring
So 's 't my tongue itches to run on full swing,
I fin' 'em ready-planted in March-meetin',
Warm ez a lyceum-audience in their greetin',
An' pleased to hear my spoutin' frum the fence,--
Comin', ez 't doos, entirely free 'f expense.
This year I made the follerin' observations
Extrump'ry, like most other tri'ls o' patience,
An', no reporters bein' sent express
To work their abstrac's up into a mess
Ez like th' oridg'nal ez a woodcut pictur'
Thet chokes the life out like a boy-constrictor,
I've writ 'em out, an' so avide all jeal'sies
'Twixt nonsense o' my own an' some one's else's.

My feller kebbige-heads, who look so green,
I vow to gracious thet ef I could dreen
The world of all its hearers but jest you,
'T would leave 'bout all tha' is wuth talkin' to,
An' you, my venerable frien's, thet show
Upon your crowns a sprinklin' o' March snow,
Ez ef mild Time had christened every sense
For wisdom's church o' second innocence,
Nut Age's winter, no, no sech a thing,
But jest a kin' o' slippin'-back o' spring,--
We 've gathered here, ez ushle, to decide
Which is the Lord's an' which is Satan's side,
Coz all the good or evil thet can heppen
Is 'long o' which on 'em you choose for Cappen.

Aprul 's come back; the swellin' buds of oak
Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish smoke;
The brooks are loose an', singing to be seen,
(Like gals,) make all the hollers soft an' green;
The birds are here, for all the season 's late;
They take the sun's height an' don' never wait;
Soon 'z he officially declares it 's spring
Their light hearts lift 'em on a north'ard wing,
An' th'ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear,
Can't by the music tell the time o' year;
But thet white dove Carliny scared away,
Five year ago, jes' sech an Aprul day;
Peace, that we hoped 'ould come an' build last year
An' coo by every housedoor, is n't here,--
No, nor won't never be, for all our jaw,
Till we 're ez brave in pol'tics ez in war!
O Lord, ef folks wuz made so 's 't they could see
The bagnet-pint there is to an idee!
Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in steel;
They run your soul thru an' you never feel,
But crawl about an' seem to think you 're livin',
Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's forgivin',
Till you come bunt agin a real live fact,
An' go to pieces when you 'd ough' to act!
Thet kin' o' begnet 's wut we 're crossin' now,
An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow,
'Ould stan' expectin' help from Kingdom Come
While t' other side druv their cold iron home.

My frien's, you never gethered from my mouth,
No, nut one word ag'in the South ez South,
Nor th' ain't a livin' man, white, brown, nor black,
Gladder 'n wut I should be to take 'em back;
But all I ask of Uncle Sam is fust
To write up on his door, "No goods on trust";
Give us cash down in ekle laws for all,
An' they 'll be snug inside afore nex' fall.
Give wut they ask, an' we shell hev Jamaker,
Wuth minus some consid'able an acre;
Give wut they need, an' we shell git 'fore long
A nation all one piece, rich, peacefle, strong;
Make 'em Amerikin, an' they'll begin
To love their country ez they loved their sin;
Let 'em stay Southun, an' you 've kep' a sore
Ready to fester ez it done afore.
No mortle man can boast of perfic' vision,
But the one moleblin' thing is Indecision,
An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor state
Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great.
Some folks 'ould call thet reddikle; do you?
'T wuz commonsense afore the war wuz thru;
_Thet_ loaded all our guns an' made 'em speak
So 's 't Europe heared 'em clearn acrost the creek;
"They 're drivin' o' their spiles down now," sez she,
To the hard grennit o' God's fust idee;
"Ef they reach thet, Democ'cy need n't fear
The tallest airthquakes _we_ can git up here."

Some call 't insultin' to ask _ary_ pledge,
An' say 't will only set their teeth on edge,
But folks you 've jest licked, fur 'z I ever see,
Are 'bout ez mad ez they know how to be;
It 's better than the Rebs themselves expected
'Fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down henpected;
Be kind 'z you please, but fustly make things fast,
For plain Truth 's all the kindness thet 'll last;
Ef treason is a crime, ez _some_ folks say,
How could we punish it a milder way
Than sayin' to 'em, "Brethren, lookee here,
We 'll jes' divide things with ye, sheer an' sheer,
An' sence both come o' pooty strongbacked daddies,
You take the Darkies, ez we 've took the Paddies;
Ign'ant an' poor we took 'em by the hand,
An' the 're the bones an' sinners o' the land."
I ain't o' those thet fancy there 's a loss on
Every inves'ment thet don't start from Bos'on;
But I know this: our money 's safest trusted
In sunthin', come wut will, thet _can't_ be busted,
An' thet 's the old Amerikin idee,
To make a man a Man an' let him be.

Ez for their l'yalty, don't take a goad to 't,
But I do' want to block their only road to 't
By lettin' 'em believe thet they can git
More 'n wut they lost, out of our little wit:
I tell ye wut, I 'm 'fraid we 'll drif' to leeward
'Thout we can put more stiffenin' into Seward;
He seems to think Columby 'd better act
Like a scared widder with a boy stiff-necked
Thet stomps an' swears he wun't come in to supper;
She mus' set up for him, ez weak ez Tupper,
Keepin' the Constitootion on to warm,
Till he 'll accept her 'pologies in form:
The neighbors tell her he 's a cross-grained cuss
Thet needs a hidin' 'fore he comes to wus;
"No," sez Ma Seward, "he 's ez good 'z the best,
All he wants now is sugar-plums an' rest";
"He sarsed my Pa," sez one; "He stoned my son,"
Another edds. "O, wal, 't wuz jest his fun."
"He tried to shoot our Uncle Samwell dead."
"'T wuz only tryin' a noo gun he hed."
"Wal, all we ask 's to hev it understood
You'll take his gun away from him for good;
We don't, wal, nut exac'ly, like his play,
Seein' he allus kin' o' shoots our way.
You kill your fatted calves to no good eend,
'Thout his fust sayin', 'Mother, I hev' sinned!'"

The Pres'dunt _he_ thinks thet the slickest plan
'Ould be t' allow thet he 's our only man,
An' thet we fit thru all thet dreffle war
Jes' for his private glory an' eclor;
"Nobody ain't a Union man," sez he,
"'Thout he agrees, thru thick an' thin, with me;
War n't Andrew Jackson's 'nitials jes' like mine?
An' ain't thet sunthin' like a right divine
To cut up ez kentenkerous ez I please,
An' treat your Congress like a nest o' fleas?"
Wal, I expec' the People would n' care, if
The question now wuz techin' bank or tariff,
But I conclude they 've 'bout made up their mind
This ain't the fittest time to go it blind,
Nor these ain't metters thet with pol'tics swings,
But goes 'way down amongst the roots o' things;
Coz Sumner talked o' whitewashin' one day
They wun't let four years' war be throwed away.
"Let the South hev her rights?" They say, "Thet's you!
But nut greb hold of other folks's tu."
Who owns this country, is it they or Andy?
Leastways it ough' to be the People _and_ he;
Let him be senior pardner, ef he 's so,
But let them kin' o' smuggle in ez Co;
Did he diskiver it? Consid'ble numbers
Think thet the job wuz taken by Columbus.
Did he set tu an' make it wut it is?
Ef so, I guess the One-Man-power _hez_ riz.
Did he put thru' the rebbles, clear the docket,
An' pay th' expenses out of his own pocket?
Ef thet 's the case, then everythin' I exes
Is t' hev him come an' pay my ennooal texes.
Was 't he thet shou'dered all them million guns?
Did he lose all the fathers, brothers, sons?
Is this ere pop'lar gov'ment thet we run
A kin' o' sulky, made to kerry one?
An' is the country goin' to knuckle down
To hev Smith sort their letters 'stid o' Brown?
Who wuz the 'Nited States 'fore Richmon' fell?
Wuz the South needfle their full name to spell?
An' can't we spell it in thet short-han' way
Till th' underpinnin' 's settled so 's to stay?
Who cares for the Resolves of '61,
Thet tried to coax an airthquake with a bun?
Hez act'ly nothin' taken place sence then
To l'arn folks they must hendle facts like men?
Ain't _this_ the true p'int? Did the Rebs accep' 'em?
Ef nut, whose fault is 't thet we hev n't kep' 'em?
War n't there _two_ sides? an' don't it stend to reason
Thet this week's 'Nited States ain't las' week's treason?
When all these sums is done, with nothin' missed,
An' nut afore, this school 'll be dismissed.

I knowed ez wal ez though I 'd seen 't with eyes
Thet when the war wuz over copper 'd rise,
An' thet we 'd hev a rile-up in our kettle
'T would need Leviathan's whole skin to settle;
I thought 't would take about a generation
'Fore we could wal begin to be a nation,
But I allow I never did imegine
'T would be our Pres'dunt thet 'ould drive a wedge in
To keep the split from closin' ef it could,
An' healin' over with new wholesome wood;
For th' ain't no chance o' healin' while they think
Thet law an' gov'ment 's only printer's ink;
I mus' confess I thank him for discoverin'
The curus way in which the States are sovereign;
They ain't nut _quite_ enough so to rebel,
But, when they fin' it 's costly to raise h----,
Why, then, for jes' the same superl'tive reason,
They 're most too much so to be tetched for treason;
They _can't_ go out, but ef they somehow _du_,
Their sovereignty don't noways go out tu;
The State goes out, the sovereignty don't stir,
But stays to keep the door ajar for her.
He thinks secession never took 'em out,
An' mebby he 's correc', but I misdoubt;
Ef they war n't out, then why, 'n the name o' sin,
Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em in?
In law, p'r'aps nut; but there 's a diffurence, ruther,
Betwixt your brother-'n-law an' real brother,
An' I, for one, shall wish they 'd all ben _som'eres_,
Long 'z U. S. Texes are sech reg'lar comers.
But, O my patience! must we wriggle back
Into th' ole crooked, pettyfoggin' track,
When our artil'ry-wheels a road hev cut
Stret to our purpose ef we keep the rut?
War 's jes' dead waste excep' to wipe the slate
Clean for the cyph'rin' of some nobler fate.

Ez for dependin' on their oaths an' thet,
'T wun't bind 'em more 'n the ribbin roun' my het;
I heared a fable once from Othniel Starns,
Thet pints it slick ez weathercocks do barns:
Once on a time the wolves hed certing rights
Inside the fold; they used to sleep there nights,
An', bein' cousins o' the dogs, they took
Their turns et watchin', reg'lar ez a book;
But somehow, when the dogs hed gut asleep,
Their love o' mutton beat their love o' sheep,
Till gradilly the shepherds come to see
Things war n't agoin' ez they 'd ough' to be;
So they sent off a deacon to remonstrate
Along 'th the wolves an' urge 'em to go on straight;
They did n' seem to set much by the deacon,
Nor preachin' did n' cow 'em, nut to speak on;
Fin'ly they swore thet they 'd go out an' stay,
An' hev their fill o' mutton every day:
Then dogs an' shepherds, arter much hard dammin',
Turned tu an' give 'em a tormented lammin',
An' sez, "Ye sha' n't go out, the murrain rot ye,
To keep us wastin' half our time to watch ye!"
But then the question come, How live together
'Thout losin' sleep, nor nary yew nor wether?
Now there wuz some dogs (noways wuth their keep)
Thet sheered their cousins' tastes an' sheered the sheep;
They sez, "Be gin'rous, let 'em swear right in,
An', ef they backslide, let 'em swear ag'in;
Jes' let 'em put on sheep-skins whilst they 're swearin';
To ask for more 'ould be beyond all bearin'."
"Be gin'rous for yourselves, where _you_ 're to pay,
Thet 's the best practice," sez a shepherd gray;
"Ez for their oaths they wun't be wuth a button,
Long 'z you don't cure 'em o' their taste for mutton;
Th' ain't but one solid way, howe'er you puzzle:
Till they 're convarted, let 'em wear a muzzle."

I 've noticed thet each half-baked scheme's abetters
Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters
Writ by all sorts o' never-heared-on fellers,
'Bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in bellers;
I 've noticed, tu, it 's the quack med'cines gits
(An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffykits;
Now, sence I lef' off creepin' on all fours,
I ha' n't ast no man to endorse my course;
It 's full ez cheap to be your own endorser,
An' ef I 've made a cup, I 'll fin' the saucer;
But I 've some letters here from t' other side,
An' them 's the sort thet helps me to decide;
Tell me for wut the copper-comp'nies hanker,
An' I 'll tell you jest where it 's safe to anchor.
Fus'ly the Hon'ble B. O. Sawin writes
Thet for a spell he could n' sleep o' nights,
Puzzlin' which side wuz preudentest to pin to,
Which wuz th' ole homestead, which the temp'ry leanto;
Et fust he jedged 't would right-side-up his pan
To come out ez a 'ridge'nal Union man,
"But now," he sez, "I ain't nut quite so fresh;
The winnin' horse is goin' to be Secesh;
You might, las' spring, hev eas'ly walked the course,
'Fore we contrived to doctor th' Union horse;
Now _we_ 're the ones to walk aroun' the nex' track:
Jest you take hold an' read the follerin' extrac',
Out of a letter I received last week
From an ole frien' thet never sprung a leak,
A Nothun Dem'crat o' th' ole Jarsey blue,
Born coppersheathed an' copperfastened tu."

"These four years past, it hez been tough
To say which side a feller went for;
Guideposts all gone, roads muddy 'n' rough,
An' nothin' duin' wut 't wuz meant for;
Pickets afirin' left an' right,
Both sides a lettin' rip et sight,--
Life war n't wuth hardly payin' rent for.

"Columby gut her back up so,
It war n't no use a tryin' to stop her,--
War's emptin's riled her very dough
An' made it rise an' act improper;
'T wuz full ez much ez I could du
To jes' lay low an' worry thru',
'Thout hevin' to sell out my copper.

"Afore the war your mod'rit men
Could set an' sun 'em on the fences,
Cyph'rin' the chances up, an' then
Jump off which way bes' paid expenses;
Sence, 't wuz so resky ary way,
_I_ did n't hardly darst to say
I 'greed with Paley's Evidences.

"Ask Mac ef tryin' to set the fence
War n't like bein' rid upon a rail on 't,
Headin' your party with a sense
O' bein' tipjint in the tail on 't,
And tryin' to think thet, on the whole,
You kin' o' quasi own your soul
When Belmont's gut a bill o' sale on 't?

"Come peace, I sposed thet folks 'ould like
Their pol'tics done ag'in by proxy,
Give their noo loves the bag an' strike
A fresh trade with their reg'lar doxy;
But the drag 's broke, now slavery 's gone,
An' there 's gret resk they 'll blunder on,
Ef they ain't stopped, to real Democ'cy.

"We've gut an awful row to hoe
In this 'ere job o' reconstructin';
Folks dunno skurce which way to go,
Where th' ain't some boghole to be ducked in;
But one thing 's clear; there _is_ a crack,
Ef we pry hard, 'twixt white an' black,
Where the old makebate can be tucked in.

"No white man sets in airth's broad aisle
Thet I ain't willin' t' own az brother,
An' ef he 's heppened to strike ile,
I dunno, fin'ly, but I 'd ruther;
An' Paddies, long 'z they vote all right,
Though they ain't jest a nat'ral white,
I hold one on 'em good 'z another.

"Wut _is_ there lef' I 'd like to know,
Ef 't ain't the difference o' color,
To keep up self-respec' an' show
The human natur' of a fullah?
Wut good in bein' white, onless
It 's fixed by law, nut lef' to guess,
Thet we are smarter an' they duller?

"Ef we 're to hev our ekle rights,
'T wunt du to 'low no competition;
Th' ole debt doo us for bein' whites
Ain't safe onless we stop th' emission
O' these noo notes, whose specie base
Is human natur', 'thout no trace
O' shape, nor color, nor condition.

"So fur I 'd writ an' could n' jedge
Aboard wut boat I 'd best take pessige,
My brains all mincemeat, 'thout no edge
Upon 'em more than tu a sessige,
But now it seems ez though I see
Sunthin' resemblin' an idee,
Sence Johnson's speech an' veto message.

"I like the speech best, I confess,
The logic, preudence, an' good taste on 't,
An' it 's so mad, I ruther guess
There 's some dependence to be placed on 't;
It 's narrer, but 'twixt you an' me,
Out o' the allies o' J. D.
A temp'ry party can be based on 't.

"Jes' to hold on till Johnson's thru'
An' dug his Presidential grave is,
An' _then_!--who knows but we could slew
The country roun' to put in ----?
Wun't some folks rare up when we pull
Out o' their eyes our Union wool
An' larn 'em wut a p'lit'cle shave is!

"O, did it seem 'z ef Providunce
_Could_ ever send a second Tyler?
To see the South all back to once,
Reapin' the spiles o' the Freesiler,
Is cute ez though an engineer
Should claim th' old iron for his sheer
Because 't wuz him that bust the biler!"

Thet tells the story! Thet 's wut we shall git
By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit;
For the day never comes when it 'll du
To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe.
I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air,
A sighin' like, of unconsoled despair,
Thet comes from nowhere an' from everywhere,
An' seems to say, "Why died we? war n't it, then,
To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men?
O, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted,
The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted!
O, you we lef, long-lingerin' et the door,
Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the more,
Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should feel
Ef she upon our memory turned her heel,
An' unregretful throwed us all away
To flaunt it in a Blind Man's Holiday!"

My frien's, I 've talked nigh on to long enough.
I hain't no call to bore ye coz ye 're tough;
My lungs are sound, an' our own v'ice delights
Our ears, but even kebbigeheads hez rights.
It 's the las' time thet I shell e'er address ye,
But you 'll soon fin' some new tormentor: bless ye!

QUESTION OF MONUMENTS.

In the beautiful life which the English-speaking foreigners lead at Rome, the great sensations are purely æsthetic. To people who know one another so familiarly as must the members of a community united in a strange land by the ties of alien race, language, and religion, there cannot, of course, be wanting the little excitements of personal gossip and scandal; but even these have generally an innocent, artistic flavor, and it is ladies' statues, not reputations, which suffer,--gentlemen's pictures, not characters, which are called into question; while the events which interest the whole community are altogether different from those which move us at home. In the Capital of the Past, people meeting at the _café_, or at the tea-tables of lady-acquaintance, speak, before falling upon the works of absent friends, concerning the antique jewel which Castellani lately bought of a peasant, and intends to reproduce, for the delight of all who can afford to love the quaint and exquisite forms of the ancient workers in gems and gold; or they talk of that famous statue of the young Hercules, dug up by the lucky proprietor, who received from the Pope a marquisate, and forgiveness of all his debts, in return for his gift of the gilded treasure. At the worst these happy children of art, and their cousins the connoisseurs, (every English-speaking foreigner in Rome is of one class or the other,) are only drawn from the debate of such themes by some dramatic aspect of the picturesque Roman politics: a scene between the French commandant and Antonelli, or the arrest of a restaurateur for giving his guests white turnips, red beets, and green beans in the same revolutionary plate; or the like incident.

At home, here, in the multiplicity of our rude affairs, by what widely different events and topics are we excited to talk! It must be some occurrence of very terrible, vile, or grotesque effect that can take our minds from our business. We discuss the ghastly particulars of a steamboat explosion, or the evidence in a trial for murder; or if the chief magistrate addresses his fellow-citizens in his colloquial, yet dignified way, we dispute whether he was not, at the time of the speech, a martyr to those life-long habits of abstinence from which he is known to have once suffered calamities spared the confirmed wine-bibber. Once, indeed, we seemed as a nation to rise to the appreciation of those beautiful interests which occupy our Roman friends, and once, not a great while ago, we may be said to have known an æsthetic sensation. For the first time in our history as a people, we seemed to feel the necessity of art, and to regard it as a living interest, like commerce, or manufacturing, or mining, when, shortly after the close of the war, and succeeding the fall of the last and greatest of its dead, the country expressed a universal desire to commemorate its heroes by the aid of art. But we do not husband our sensations as our Roman friends do theirs: the young Hercules lasted them two months, while a divorce case hardly satisfies us as many days, and a railroad accident not longer. We hasten from one event to another, and it would be hard to tell now whether it was a collision on the Saint Jo line, or a hundred and thirty lives lost on the Mississippi, or some pleasantry from our merry Andrew, which distracted the public mind from the subject of monumental honors. It is certain, however, that, at the time alluded to, there was much talk of such things in the newspapers and in the meetings. A popular subscription was opened for the erection of a monument to Abraham Lincoln at his home in Springfield; each city was about to celebrate him by a statue in its public square; every village would have his bust or a funeral tablet; and our soldiers were to be paid the like reverence and homage. Then the whole affair was overwhelmed by some wave of novel excitement, and passed out of the thoughts of the people; so that we feel, in recurring to it now, like him who, at dinner, turns awkwardly back to a subject from which the conversation has gracefully wandered, saying, "We were speaking just now about"--something the company has already forgotten. So far as we have learned, not an order for any memorial sculpture of Lincoln has been given in the whole country, and we believe that only one design by an American sculptor has been offered for the Springfield monument. There is time, however, to multiply designs; for the subscription, having reached a scant fifty thousand dollars, rests at that sum, and rises no higher.

But we hope that the people will not altogether relinquish the purpose of monumental commemoration of the war, and we are not wholly inclined to lament that the fever-heat of their first intent exhausted itself in dreams of shafts and obelisks, groups and statues, which would probably have borne as much relation to the real idea of Lincoln's life, and the war and time which his memory embodies and represents, as the poetry of the war has borne. In the cool moments of our convalescence from civil disorder, may we not think a little more clearly, and choose rather more wisely than would have been possible earlier?

No doubt there is in every epoch a master-feeling which art must obey, if it would flourish, and remain to represent something intelligible after the epoch is past. We know by the Gothic churches of Italy how mightily the whole people of that land were once moved by the impulses of their religion (which might be, and certainly was, a thing very different from purity and goodness): the Renaissance temples remind us of a studious period passionately enamored of the classic past; in the rococo architecture and sculpture of a later time, we have the idle swagger, the unmeaning splendor, the lawless luxury, of an age corrupted by its own opulence, and proud of its licentious slavery. Had anything come of the æsthetic sensation immediately following the war, and the spirit of martial pride with which it was so largely mixed, we should probably have had a much greater standing-army in bronze and marble than would have been needed for the suppression of any future rebellion. An excitement, a tumult, not a tendency of our civilization, would thus have been perpetuated, to misrepresent us and our age to posterity; for we are not a military people, (though we certainly know how to fight upon occasion,) and the pride which we felt in our army as a body, and in the men merely as soldiers, was an exultation which has already in a great part subsided. Indeed, the brave fellows have themselves meantime given us a lesson, in the haste they have made to put off their soldier-costume and resume the free and individual dress of the civilian. The ignorant poets might pipe of the glory and splendor of war, but these men had seen the laurel growing on the battle-field, and knew

"Di che lagrime grondi e di che sangue"

its dazzling foliage. They knew that the fighting, in itself horrible, and only sublime in its necessity and purpose, was but a minor part of the struggle; and they gladly put aside all that proclaimed it as their vocation, and returned to the arts of peace.

The idea of our war seems to have interpreted itself to us all as faith in the justice of our cause, and in our immutable destiny, as God's agents, to give freedom to mankind; and the ideas of our peace are gratitude and exultant industry. Somehow, we imagine, these ideas should be represented in every memorial work of the time, though we should be sorry to have this done by the dreary means of conventional allegory. A military despotism of martial statues would be far better than a demagogy of these virtues, posed in their well-known attitudes, to confront perplexed posterity with lifted brows and superhuman simpers. A sublime parable, like Ward's statue of the Freedman, is the full expression of one idea that should be commemorated, and would better celebrate the great deeds of our soldiers than bass-reliefs of battles, and statues of captains, and groups of privates, or many scantily-draped, improper figures, happily called Liberties.

With the people chosen to keep pure the instinct of the Beautiful, as the Hebrews were chosen to preserve a knowledge of the Divine, it was not felt that commemorative art need be descriptive. He who triumphed the first and second time in the Olympic games was honored with a statue, but not a statue in his own likeness. Neither need the commemorative art of our time be directly descriptive of the actions it celebrates. There is hardly any work of beautiful use which cannot be made to serve the pride we feel in those who fought to enlarge and confirm the freedom of our country, and we need only guard that our monuments shall in no case express funereal sentiment. Their place should be, not in the cemeteries, but in the busy hearts of towns, and they should celebrate not only those who fought and died for us in the war, but also those who fought and lived, for both are equally worthy of gratitude and honor. The ruling sentiment of our time is triumphant and trustful, and all symbols and images of death are alien to it.