Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The first church dedicated to Santa Sophia by Constantine was burnt early in the reign of Justinian; and, in rebuilding it, his architects succeeded in erecting one of the most famous buildings in the world, and one which is the typical and central embodiment of a distinct and strongly marked, well-defined style. Its distinctive feature is the adoption of the dome in preference to the vault, or timber roof, as the covering of the walls. In this grand edifice, one vast flattish dome dominates the central space. This dome is circular in form and the space over which it is placed is square, the sides of which are occupied by four massive semi-circular arches of 100 feet span each, springing from four vast piers, one at each corner. The triangular spaces in the corners of the square, so enclosed, and the circle or ring resting on it, become portions of the dome, each just sufficient to fit on one corner of the square, and the four uniting at their upper margin, to form a ring. From this ring springs the main dome that rises to a height of 46 feet, and is 107 feet in clear diameter. Externally this church is less interesting, but its interior is of surpassing beauty, and is thus eloquently described by Gilbert Scott: “Simple as is the primary ideal, the actual effect is one of great intricacy, and of continuous gradation of parts from the small arcades up to the stupendous dome which hangs with little apparent support, like a vast bubble, over the centre; or, as Procopius, who witnessed its erection, said, ‘as if suspended by a chain from heaven.’” The type of church of which this magnificent cathedral was the great example, has continued in eastern Christendom to the present day with but little variation. Between Rome and Constantinople, well situated for receiving influences from both those cities, was Ravenna,—and there a series of buildings, all more or less Byzantine, was erected. The most interesting of these is the church of San Vitale. It recalls Santa Sophia, and its structure, sculpture, carving and mosaic decorations are equally characteristic and hardly less famous.

We need only mention one other magnificent specimen of this style of architecture, more within the reach of ordinary travelers, and consequently better known. It can be studied easily by means of almost numberless photographic representations—St. Marks, at Venice. It was built between the years 977 and 1071, it is said, according to a design obtained from Constantinople.

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE.

This term is used to indicate a style of architecture founded on Roman art, which prevailed in Western Europe before the rise of that known as Gothic.

Under this general name, if applied broadly, many closely allied local varieties, as for example, the Lombard, Rhenish, Saxon, and Norman, can be conveniently included. After the removal of the Roman capital to Byzantium, and the incursion of the Northern tribes, the spectacle of Europe was melancholy in the extreme.

Nothing but the church retained any semblance of organized existence; and when, at length, order began to be restored from a chaos of universal ruin, and churches began to be built in Western Europe, the people looked to Rome as their ecclesiastic center.

Where the Romish church had influence, the architecture had the Roman type; and, where the Eastern church prevailed, it adhered closely to the Byzantium models. This style, with local varieties, still obtains in most parts of Europe, and, to some extent, in American church building. An architect of genius and taste may successfully combine different orders; but most who attempt it fail. To succeed well, a good degree of originality is needed.

SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Who, that reads poetry at all, has not read and admired
“Snow-Bound?” “That exquisite poem has no prototype in English
literature unless Burns’ ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night’ be one, and
it will be long, I fear, before it will have a companion piece.
Out of materials of the slightest order, really common-place,
Mr. Whittier had made a poem that will live, and can no more be
rivaled by any winter poetry that may be written hereafter, than
‘Thanatopsis’ can be rivaled as a meditation on the universality
of death. The characters of this little idyl are carefully
drawn.… Everything is naturally introduced, and the reflections,
which are manly and pathetic, are among the finest that Mr.
Whittier has ever written. ‘Snow-Bound’ at once authenticated
itself as an idyl of New England life and manners.”—(Abridged)
_R. H. Stoddard._

The Vaudois Teacher.

“Oh lady fair, these silks of mine are beautiful and rare,
The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty’s queen might wear;
And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light
they vie;
I have brought them with me a weary way,—will my gentle lady buy?”

And the lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering
curls
Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his silks and glittering
pearls;
And she placed their price in the old man’s hand, and lightly turned
away;
But she paused at the wanderer’s earnest call,—“My gentle lady, stay!”

“Oh lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer luster flings,
Than the diamond flash of the jeweled crown on the lofty brow of kings;
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay,
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way.”

The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace
was seen,
Where her eyes shone clear, and her dark locks waved their clasping
pearls between.
“Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveler gray and old,—
And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy
gold.”

The cloud went off from the pilgrim’s brow, as a small and meager book,
Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folded robe he took.
“Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee!
Nay, keep thy gold, I ask it not, for the Word of God is free.”

The hoary traveler went his way, but the gift he left behind
Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high-born maiden’s mind;
And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth,
And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth.

Providence.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
No works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.

And so beside the silent sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I can not drift
Beyond his love and care.

And thou, O Lord, by whom are seen
Thy creatures as they be,
Forgive me if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

As in the case of Hood, the fun in Holmes is always jostling the
pathos. After some comic picture or grotesque phrase or quick
thrust, the reader comes suddenly upon a stanza of perfect beauty
of form with the gentlest touch of natural feeling. To illustrate
this, it may be pardonable to quote even from so well known a
poem as “The Last Leaf:”

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches and all that
Are so queer.

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

The last stanza is a pearl so perfect that one can not conceive
it as having been _made_; it seems that it must have been
created.—_Francis H. Underwood._

It is difficult to imagine the time when any of the
characteristic poems of Holmes will slumber on the shelves
of antiquaries. They must be eternally new to the new
generations, because they are founded in nature, constructed
with art, animated by the noblest qualities of intellect
and feeling—uniting the wit of Heine with the freshness of
Beranger—and are finished as few poems have been finished since
the odes of Horace.—_Scribner’s Monthly._

The Prisoned Nautilus.

This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign,—
Sails the unshadow’d main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wreck’d is the ship of pearl!
And every chamber’d cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies reveal’d,—
Its iris’d ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal’d!

Year after year behold the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast
Till thou at length are free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea.

“The Boys.”

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has take him out, without making a noise,
Hang the Almanac’s cheat, and the Catalogue’s spite!
Old Time is a liar! We’re twenty to-night!

We’re twenty! We’re twenty! Who says we are more?
He’s tipsy,—young jackanapes! show him the door!
“Gray temples at twenty?” Yes! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there’s nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close,—you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,—
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We’ve a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old:—
That boy we call “Doctor” and this we call “Judge;”
It’s a neat little fiction,—of course it’s all fudge.

That fellow’s the “Speaker,”—the one on the right;
“Mr. Mayor,” my young one, how are you to-night?
That’s our “Member of Congress,” we say when we chaff;
There’s the “Reverend” What’s-his-name?—don’t make me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was _true_!
So they chose him right in,—a good joke it was too!

There’s a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him “The Justice,” but now he’s “The Squire.”

And there’s a nice youngster of excellent pith,—
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,—
Just read on his medal, “My country,” “of thee!”

You hear that boy laughing?—You think he’s all fun;
But the angels laugh too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!

Yes, we’re boys, always playing with tongue or with pen;
And I sometimes have asked, shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here’s to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS.

Conscience.

Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide,
To breast its waves, but not without a guide.
Yet, as the needle will forget its aim,
Jarred by the fury of the electric flame,
As the true current it will falsely feel
Warped from its axis by a freight of steel;
So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth,
If passion’s lightning fall upon its youth;
So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold,
Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold.
Go to yon town where busy science plies
Her vast antennæ, feeling through the skies,—
That little vernier on whose slender lines
The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
A silent index, tracks the planets march
In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch,
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
So, till by wrong or negligence effaced,
The living index, which thy Maker traced,
Repeats the line each starry virtue draws
Through the wide circuit of creation’s laws.
Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray
Where the dark shadows of temptation stray;
But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light,
And leaves thee wandering o’er the expanse of night.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

It is not necessary to say that Lowell is the first poet of
the time, or of the country, although it would be possible to
maintain that proposition with strong reasons; but it will be
conceded, we think, by most who have the capacity of appreciating
poetic genius, that in some of his strains he reaches a note as
lofty and clear and pure as any this generation has produced, and
has written what will have long life in the world, and be hoarded
by the wise as treasures of thought and expression.—_Boston
Advertiser._

The wisdom and wit and insight and imagination of the book are as
delightful as they are surprising. The most cynical critic will
not despair of American literature, if American authors are to
write such books.—_G. W. Curtis._

The moving power of Mr. Lowell’s poetry, which we take to be its
delicate apprehension of the spiritual essence in common things,
is, in some of his poems, embodied in the fine organization of a
purely poetic diction; in others, in the strong, broad language
of popular feeling and humor; and we enjoy each the more for the
presence of the other.—_The Spectator_ (London).

Hunting a Theme.

Now I’ve a notion if a poet
Beat up for themes, his verse will show it;
I wait for subjects that haunt me,
By day or night won’t let me be,
And hang about me like a curse,
Till they have made me into verse.
…
Make thyself rich, and then the Muse
Shall court thy precious interviews;
Shall take thy head upon her knee,
And such enchantment lilt to thee
That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow
From farthest stars to grass-blades low.

In the Twilight.

Sometimes a breath floats by me,
An odor from dreamland sent,
That makes the ghost seem nigh me
Of a splendor that came and went;
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere,
Of memories that stay not and go not,
Like music once heard by an ear
That can not forget or reclaim it,—
A something, so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show,
A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know,
As if I had lived it or dreamed it,
As if I had acted or schemed it,
Long ago!
And yet, could I live it over,
This life that stirs in my brain,
Could I be both maiden and lover,
Moon and tide, bee and clover,
As I seem to have been, once again,
Could I but speak and show it,
This pleasure, more sharp than pain,
That baffles and lures me so,
The world should not lack a poet,
Such as it had
In the ages glad
Long ago!

[The following exquisite lines are suggestive, and in strong contrast with the familiar rollicking stanzas in the serio-comic “Biglow Papers.”]

Longing.

The thing we long for, that we are,
For one transcendent moment,
Before the present poor and bare
Can make its sneering comment.

Still, through our paltry stir and strife
Glows down the wished ideal,
And longing moulds in clay what life
Carves in the marble real;
To let the new life in, we know,
Desire must ope the portal;
Perhaps the longing to be so
Helps make the soul immortal.

Longing is God’s fresh heavenward will
With our poor earthward striving;
We quench it that we may be still
Content with merely living;
But, would we learn that heart’s full scope
Which we are hourly wronging,
Our lives must climb from hope to hope,
And realize the longing.

* * * * *

The world is impatient of distinction; it chafes against it, rails at it, insults it, hates it; it ends by receiving its influence, and by undergoing its law. This quality at last inexorably corrects the world’s blunders, and fixes the world’s ideals. It procures that the popular poet shall not finally pass for a Pindar, nor the popular historian for a Tacitus, nor the popular preacher for a Bossuet.—_Matthew Arnold._

UNITED STATES HISTORY.

“Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth, in order, a declaration” of such things as pertain to our national history, even as they testify to us who were contemporary with the events narrated, it seems good for me also to write, not because what may be here recorded will be new to the readers, but rather to call to remembrance things that were known, but are partially forgotten; and possibly to put them in such form that the tenure by which they are held may hereafter be more secure.

If greatly interested in the annals of other nations, whether ancient or modern, and ready to gather instruction alike from their excellencies and defects, their failures and successes, the American citizen should certainly find special interest in the history of his own country. Whatever else fails to interest him, a freeman, worthy of his heritage, will carefully study the elements of strength or weakness, security or danger of our institutions. Knowing, as he must, that the events that pass in succession before him are not causeless, or without meaning, he both inquires for their source, and hears their prophecy of the future. When others see but happenings and accidents, the more thoughtful recognize a guiding, controlling hand, and confess

“There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them as we will.”

American, or United States history is luminous from its earliest dawn. Unlike other histories in the prescribed course, as the Greek and Roman, reaching back to such remote antiquity as to become quite lost in the shadowy past, ours has none of that “mythological period;” no age in which nymphs and dryads, fauns and satyrs, gods and demi-gods are introduced as actors. The annals of the earliest American civilization record not legends and fables, but facts, things of actual occurrence and thoroughly attested by those who knew well whereof they affirmed. Those introduced as sages and heroes, challenging our admiration for the wisdom of their counsels and valor of their deeds were not myths, of whose very existence there is doubt. Great men, indeed, they were, and worthy of all the honors received; yet, but men, and subject to the limitations and liabilities of our common manhood.

We do not deify those to whom we are most indebted, or surround honored names with the flowers of rhetoric. The praise that is merited is bestowed as it is due to the truth.

The pioneers in the settlement of the continent, by laying the foundations of our free institutions, and starting their communities toward the advanced civilization now enjoyed, conferred on us lasting obligations; but in regard to many of them “they builded better than they knew.” Often they were rude, narrow, superstitious and mistaken, though earnest, manly and sincere; their best eulogy is to tell the story as it was.

The sources of reliable information on which we may draw are so abundant there can be no want of material. The only embarrassment is from the riches in possession. To make the most judicious selection for a succinct yet coherent, suggestive narration is a task of no ordinary difficulty. The country itself first demands some notice, before we speak of its inhabitants and their institutions. The domain of the great American Union is now nearly four times as large as at the close of the Revolutionary war. The thirty-nine sovereign states, District of Columbia, and eight large organized territories occupy an area of 3,280,572 square miles, with a reserve of 600,000 square miles of unoccupied or sparsely inhabited territory, from which we know not how many states may be made after the population has been sufficiently increased.

The commonwealth, not including Alaska, is bounded north by the British possessions in America, from which it is partly separated by the great northern lakes, Superior, Huron, St. Clair, Erie and Ontario, with the St. Clair, Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers; east by New Brunswick, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico; south by the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican border; west by the Pacific Ocean. The greatest length, from the Atlantic to the Pacific is 2600 miles; the greatest breadth, from Maine to Florida, 1600 miles. The frontier line toward British America measures 3,303 miles, and the coast line 12,909 miles. With such possessions, stretching across the continent from ocean to ocean, and over 25° in latitude, having exhaustless resources, a climate sufficiently varied, a free government, and just laws, we may well say the future of the nation is full of promise.

THE ABORIGINES.

But little account can or need be given of the savage tribes inhabiting the continent when it first became known to the civilized world.

Men multiplied on the earth and spread themselves widely over its habitable portions for ages, during which, in their dispersion, little was known by the clans of each other, or of the world beyond their local habitations. The few imperfect records made were not lasting, and the generations following often lost all knowledge of their own origin.

In most European countries the once uncultured savage tribes either improving, through their own exertions, escaped by degrees from the effete barbarisms of their ancestors, or when overcome by foes of superior intelligence, they profited by their subjugation, and, accepting the better civilization of their conquerors, became important factors in the provincial governments that were established. These carried with them a little legendary knowledge. The earliest historians, as Herodotus and others, recorded many of their legends that were mere fancies—unauthentic fabrications relating to their pre-historic days.

We have no such mythical elements in American history, particularly in the history of the United States. The first inhabitants (wild men of the forest) were possibly as rude and superstitious as any in the Orient. But the North American Indians of our region were never, unless in a few exceptional cases, made integral parts of the new communities established in the country. When friendly relations were sought they made treaties, retiring from the grounds they sold; and, when subject to hostile attack, they fell or fled before the invaders. Without letters or art, the rude monuments they left had little significance. Their few oral traditions did not descend to them from days very remote, and their origin is wrapped in mystery. From what branch of the human family their ancestors came, or by what route they reached the continent, is not known.

If all the tribes had a common origin in this country it evidently must have been very remote, as they were found widely different in language and other tribal peculiarities. Some resemblance may be traced, but only by long separation and different modes of life could members of the same family become so dissimilar.

The number of Indians previous to the settlement of the country by European colonists can only be estimated. It was great, and they spread over most parts of the continent. That it was overestimated is probable. Not much given to planting or building, but living principally by the chase, and on what the earth produced without tillage, they were more or less nomadic in their habits, and the bounds of their habitation not well defined. Yet, as tribes, they appropriated lands, and counted at least the number of their warriors who could go out to battle.

The great nations—the Esquimaux, Algonquins, Iroquois, Mobillians and Dacotas seem to have been confederacies, each made up of several tribes, usually acting together in war; but, in peace, content to occupy their own hunting grounds. But a small number of all the Indians now on the continent are within the bounds of the United States, and the number is growing less. That the wild men of the forest vanish before the advancing hosts of civilization is doubtless true. The whole number at present in all the states and territories, including Alaska, probably does not exceed 200,000, much the larger number being women and children; a pitiable remnant of the one hundred and fifty-two tribes of warlike men, whose braves were a terror to their foes. The Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickisaws, now in the Indian Territory, with the remnants of tribes that remain on small reservations in the states, in all about 50,000, are in a more hopeful condition. They have already a good degree of civilization, and many of them cordially accept the teachings and institutions of Christianity. They have their homes, schools, ministers and churches. They practice the industries of civilized life, and in their moral and religious habits are scarcely inferior to their white neighbors. These may in time take their places as states in the Union, or personally become citizens of other states, as they elect. If they do not, extinction seems to be inevitable. They may receive, as they should, kind and liberal treatment. But to remain very long wards of the government, retaining a distinct nationality in the midst of powerful and rapidly increasing communities, from whom they are separated by no sufficient natural boundaries, is simply impossible. The only hope for them is in citizenship, collectively or personally obtained.

The physical character of the country will be best understood when spoken of in connection with the political divisions. It presents as much variety as any other great section of the globe. There is both beauty and grandeur. The intelligent beholder from other shores is impressed with the vastness of what he sees. There are great prairies, plains and forests—with trees the largest in the world; great lakes, rivers and cataracts; magnificent mountain ranges, abounding in scenery as grand as the eye need look upon. It was just the place in which to found a great empire, and build institutions to last for ages.

THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY.

The last half century has thrown much light on the question of discovery; and evidence is conclusive that it dates at least six hundred years before the first European settlement at Jamestown, Va., in May, 1607. In 1001 Lief Erickson, an Icelandic captain, with a small company of daring Norsemen, sailed from Greenland, reached Labrador, and, in the spirit of adventure, coasted as far south as Massachusetts, where they remained a year. Thorwald, a brother of the last named hero, made a voyage a year later to Maine and Massachusetts, where he died. In 1005 and 1007 there came larger crews from the same region, and made more extended explorations, but apparently with no well defined object in view. Those Norsemen, from the extreme northwestern part of Europe, were a rough race of dangerous pirates—bold, hardy, but ignorant navigators, known and dreaded by the countries they visited as the terrible “sea kings” of that age. Rovers over all seas to which they found access, they explored unknown lands for plunder, not for settlement. Nothing valuable resulted from their discoveries. For centuries all knowledge gained by them was lost, and nothing was known in Europe of their voyages. The very name, Vinland, given to the country in Iceland, was for ages lost. And the more intelligent efforts, afterward made, were in no way suggested, so far as we know, by even vague rumors of what these sea robbers found. The continent discovered by accident, was, through ignorance, never made known to the civilized world; and so, for centuries, remained the _terra incognita_; and the real discovery of such untold value to the race was reserved for those of more intelligence, who purposely, at great sacrifice, and guided by scientific principles, sought the western hemisphere, of whose existence they were confident.

Christopher Columbus, born at Genoa, Italy, in 1435, was carefully educated, and interested in maritime matters from his youth. Mandeville, the traveler, had proclaimed the earth a sphere, or round, and had given his reasons. Columbus not only had faith in the astronomical discovery, but sought to turn his knowledge to some practical account. He argued, conclusively, that the world being round, if there were no intervening lands to hinder sailing westward over the open seas, he would much easier than by the known route, reach the spice lands of the East Indias. That was the object of his search, and when, after seventy-one days sailing, land was sighted, the anxious voyagers supposed their end was gained. He first stepped ashore, unfurled their flag, and finding the place an island, named it San Salvador. Three or four other islands of the group were added to his discoveries during the voyage; but the main land was not visited, and from a misconception as to the size of the earth, supposing it to be only 12,000 or 14,000 miles in circumference, they supposed the fertile, salubrious isles then discovered were near the coast of India, and so named them the West Indias.

Columbus made a second voyage, discovered several more islands, and established a colony at Hayti, his brother being governor. After an absence of three years he returned to Spain, to find himself suspected, accused, and the victim of a relentless persecution. His enemies not only stripped him of his merited honors as a discoverer, but to further compass his disgrace, sent him from his colony he had revisited a prisoner in chains. Though soon released and fully vindicated, the balance of his days were clouded. It remained for posterity to rescue his name from oblivion. Though the less deserving Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, by his craft and the dullness of the times, succeeded in attaching his name to the continent, we still heartily sing “Hail Columbia,” in memory of the real discoverer, while many towns, counties and cities perpetuate the honored name.

Within ten years after the death of Columbus the principal islands of the West Indias were explored, and settlements were commenced. The excitement becoming intense not only in Spain, but in the western states of Europe, adventurers increased. In 1512 a Spaniard, rich and well advanced in years, left Porto Rico, touched at San Salvador, and in due time came in sight of an unknown land that seemed, as they entered it, a place of beauty; he named it Florida, or land of flowers. This, too, was supposed another island, more beautiful than any before discovered. A landing was effected, and the country claimed for the King of Spain. The coast was explored for many leagues, some valuable information gained, and the adventurers sailed back to Porto Rico. Afterward Ponce, the aged explorer, was sent to found a colony, and be its governor. In 1521 he again landed, but his right to rule was contested by the Indians, who were found in a state of bitter hostility. They at once made a furious attack. Many of the Spaniards were killed, and Ponce De Leon, wounded by an arrow, was carried back to Cuba to die.

In 1519 Fernando Cortes landed at Tabasco, and began the conquest of Mexico. As that section of the continent is without the limits of the United States, we avoid a detailed statement of his progress, marked by the unexampled rapacity and cruelty of the invaders. Tens of thousands of the unoffending—many of them unarmed—inhabitants were not slain in battle, but massacred in their streets and homes.

The lust of gold, rather than ambition, was the ruling passion, and the treasures of the Montezumas failed to satisfy it. Drenched in the blood of her citizens, Mexico became a Spanish province. The Spaniards bore the christian name, and sadly disgraced it. The appalling scenes of treachery, cruelty and bloodshed they enacted are scarcely equaled in the annals of savage warfare. To turn from them is a relief.

[End of Required Reading for February.]

* * * * *

If a man wish to make his way in the world, he must bestir himself and work his brains; if he wish to rise to honor and place, he must bend his back to the golden load. If he prefer to enjoy the delights of home, with children and grandchildren round his knees, let him follow an honest trade in peace.—_Schiller._

HIS COLD.

By FOLLIOTT SANFORD PIERPOINT.

“Who can abide his cold?”

“Pray that your flight be not in the winter.”

Is it not hard to live one day,
When God His face has turned away,
When prayer is wingless, or her wing
Droops earthward like some weary thing?

Yet did no bent and broken light
Pierce the dark vault of utter night,
Of hope or memory no ray,
Who could abide His cold one day?

Summer and winter, sun and rain,
The soul needs for her golden grain—
Warm sun, warm rain, the ear to fill,
His cold, love’s selfishness to kill.

Come, winter, come, to kill dull pelf,
Love of His sweetness not Himself;
Till we can kiss His frowning face,
Unmeet our soul for summer grace.

But when the harvest-tide is nigh,
God grant His summer fill the sky,
God grant His harvest-rays be shed,
God grant His harvest-moon rise red.

Cold is the shore, and dark the tide,
Through which to His warm arms we glide
But if He then His face withhold,
Who can that day abide His cold?

Not in the winter be our flight!
Then need we most His summer light,
His presence felt, His angels near,
His bride to bless, His bread to cheer.

From strength to strength, from Thee to Thee,
Grant, Lord, our summer flight may be;
From veiled form and mystic grace
To splendors of Thine unveiled face.

THE TABLE-TALK OF NAPOLEON.

At St. Helena, when Napoleon had time to remember his early youth, he said to Montholon:

“What recollections of childhood crowd upon my memory. I am carried back to my first impressions of the life of man. It seems to me always, in these moments of calm, that I should have been the happiest man in the world with an income of twenty-five hundred dollars a year, living as the father of a family with my wife and son, in our old home at Ajaccio.… I still remember with emotion the minute details of a journey in which I accompanied Paoli. More than five hundred of us, young persons of the first families in the island, formed his body-guard. I felt proud of walking by his side, and he appeared to take pleasure in pointing out to me the passes of our mountains which had been witnesses of the heroic struggle of our countrymen for independence. The impressions made upon me still vibrate in my heart.… Religion is the dominion of the soul. It is the hope of life, the anchor of safety, the deliverance from evil. What a service has Christianity rendered to humanity! What a power would it still have did its ministers comprehend their mission!”

* * * * *

Napoleon’s hand-writing was of a most unintelligible character. “Do you write orthographically?” he asked his amanuensis one day at St. Helena. “A man occupied with public business can not attend to orthography. His ideas must flow faster than his hand can trace. He has only time to place his points. He must compress words into letters, and phrases into words, and let the scribes make it out afterward.”

* * * * *

“The rapid succession of your victories,” said Las Cases to Napoleon, “must have been a source of great delight to you.” “By no means,” Napoleon replied; “those who think so know nothing of the peril of our situation. The victory of to-day was instantly forgotten in preparation for the battle which was to be fought on the morrow. The aspect of danger was continually before me. I enjoyed not one moment of repose.”

* * * * *

“Tents,” said Napoleon, “are unhealthy; it is much better for the soldier to bivouac in the open air, for then he can build a fire and sleep with warm feet. Tents are necessary only for the general officers, who are obliged to read and consult their maps.”

* * * * *

“My extreme youth when I took command of the army of Italy,” Napoleon remarked, “made it necessary for me to evince great reserve of manner, and the utmost severity of morals. This was indispensable to enable me to sustain authority over men so greatly superior in age and experience. I pursued a line of conduct in the highest degree irreproachable and exemplary. In spotless morality I was a Cato, and must have appeared such to all. I was a philosopher and a sage. My supremacy could be retained only by proving myself a better man than any other in the army. Had I yielded to human weaknesses I should have lost my power.”

* * * * *

Napoleon sent the celebrated picture of St. Jerome from the Duke of Parma’s gallery to the Museum at Paris. The duke, to save his work of art, offered Napoleon two hundred thousand dollars, which the conqueror refused to take, saying: “The sum which he offers will be soon spent; but the possession of such a masterpiece at Paris will adorn that capital for ages, and give birth to similar exertions of genius.”

* * * * *

“Different matters are arranged in my head,” said Napoleon, “as in drawers. I open one drawer and close another as I wish. I have never been kept awake by an involuntary pre-occupation of the mind. If I desire repose I shut up all the drawers, and sleep. I have always slept when I wanted rest, and almost always at will.”

* * * * *

While at Milan, Napoleon had just mounted his horse one morning, when a dragoon, bearing important dispatches, presented himself before him. Napoleon gave a verbal answer and ordered the courier to take it back with all speed.

“I have no horse,” the man answered. “I rode mine so hard that it fell dead at your palace gates.”

Napoleon alighted. “Take mine,” he said.

The man hesitated.

“You think him too magnificently caparisoned and too fine an animal,” said Napoleon. “Nothing is too good for a French soldier.”

* * * * *

“Pavia,” said Napoleon, “is the only place I ever gave up to pillage. I promised that the soldiers should have it at their mercy for twenty-four hours; but after three hours I could bear such scenes of outrage no longer, and put an end to them. Policy and morality are equally opposed to the system. Nothing is so certain to disorganize and completely ruin an army.”

* * * * *

“I have,” said Napoleon, “a taste for founding, not for possessing. My riches consist in glory and celebrity. The Simplon and the Louvre were, in the eyes of the people and of foreigners, more my property than any private domains could possibly have been.”

* * * * *

To General Clark, on the death of his nephew, at Arcola, Napoleon wrote: “Your nephew, Elliott, has been slain upon the battlefield. That young man has several times marched at the head of our columns. He has died gloriously, and in the face of the enemy. He did not have a moment’s suffering. Where is the _reasonable man_ who would not envy such a death? Where is he who, in the vicissitudes of life would not give himself up to leave in this manner a world so often ungrateful?”

* * * * *

Napoleon had no tendencies to gallantry. Madame de Stäel once said to him: “It is reported that you are not very partial to the ladies.” “I am very fond of my wife, Madame,” was the laconic reply.

* * * * *

“The English,” said Napoleon, “appear to prefer the bottle to the society of their ladies; as is exemplified by dismissing the ladies from the table and remaining for hours to drink and intoxicate themselves. If I were in England I should decidedly leave the table with the ladies. If the object is to talk instead of to drink, why banish them. Surely conversation is never so lively nor so witty as when ladies take a part in it. Were I an Englishwoman I should feel very discontented at being turned out by the men to wait for two or three hours while they were drinking. In France, society is nothing unless ladies are present. They are the life of conversation.”

* * * * *

A lady of rank once said to him, “What is life worth if one cannot be General Bonaparte?” Napoleon answered her wisely: “Madame! one may be a dutiful wife and the good mother of a family.”

* * * * *

Traveling through Switzerland, Napoleon was greeted with such enthusiasm that Bourrienne said to him, “It must be delightful to be greeted with such demonstrations of enthusiastic admiration.” “Bah,” replied Napoleon; “this same unthinking crowd under a slight change of circumstances would follow me just as eagerly to the scaffold.”

* * * * *

Speaking of the Theophilanthropists, Napoleon said, “They can accomplish nothing; they are merely actors.” “What!” was the reply; “do you thus stigmatize those whose tenets inculcate universal benevolence and the moral virtues?” “All moral systems are fine,” rejoined Napoleon. “The Gospel alone has shown a full and complete assemblage of the principles of morality, stripped of all absurdity. It is not made up, like your creed, of a few commonplace sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to find out the really sublime? Repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Such enthusiasts are only to be met with the weapons of ridicule; all their efforts will prove ineffectual.”

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

By PROF. A. B. HYDE, D.D.

A man of letters, eminent in England, deserves, on visiting these shores, our brotherly attention. Nothing so holds us in fellowship with the people of “the little mother-land” as our reading their literature, and their reading ours, without translation. Their writers and speakers are thus our true kinsfolk, nearer to us than French or German can be. Mr. Arnold, known well rather than widely, has position among English thinkers of our day, such as demands for the readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN a reasonable understanding of him and his work. His essays and addresses are published in seven volumes by MacMillan & Co. His poems, in two or three volumes, are had from the same house. He came to this country partly to visit and partly to deliver a few lectures. Mr. Arnold was born at Christmas of 1822, in Laleham, where his father was privately fitting students for the universities. His father, Thomas Arnold, eminent as clergyman and historian, is still more famed as teacher. At Rugby school his pupils loved and honored him. He understood the good and evil of English boys, and with wonderful skill he trained them in sound learning, and moulded them to pure and generous character. Gaining from him the tone of manly sentiment, many of his “Tom Browns” have been blessings to their generation.

Matthew was his eldest son. Another, Delafield Arnold, early worn out in the educational work of India, was buried on his homeward voyage, at Gibraltar, while his devoted wife went to a grave under the solemn shadow of the Himalayas.

In Matthew’s boyhood the family home was fixed at Fox How, near the abode of the poet Wordsworth. Here in his vacations the father studied, and Matthew could see Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, the “Lake Poets.” To Fox How, haunt of the muses, a crowd of distinguished visitors made streaming pilgrimage, and here the lad who early “seemed no vulgar boy,” could absorb the deep things of reason and the sweet things of song. He deeply revered these men under whose shadow he sat as a boyish listener. Of his father he says: “We rested till then in thy shade, as under the boughs of an oak. Toil and dejection have tried thy spirit, of that we say nothing. To us thou wast still cheerful and helpful and firm.”

After Wordsworth’s death he says of the dear and venerable man to whom his eyes in young weariness had often turned for refreshment:

“He spake and loosed our heart in tears,
Our youth returned, for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
The freshness of the early world.”

In 1840, having prepared under his father, he was elected a scholar at Baliol College, Oxford, and four years later he gained a prize for an English poem. The next year he was made a Fellow of Oriel College. In 1846 he became private secretary of Lord Lansdowne, and so remained for several years. He also—after his marriage, in 1851, with Frances Wightman, daughter of an eminent jurist—served as Her Majesty’s Inspector of British schools. In 1857 he was with sharp competition chosen Professor of Poetry at Oxford. The term of office is ten years. Finding himself in later years growing alien from poetic composition (“these lips but rarely frame them now”), he allowed the place to pass to Principal Shairp, a man more distinguished as a critic than a producer of poetry. Mr. Arnold still gives an occasional poem, oftenest on simple themes, as the death of his terrier, “Geist,” or his canary, “Matthias.” His “Westminster Abbey,” on the death of Dean Stanley, is grand as an anthem. He is now heard chiefly in essays, critical and æsthetic, and educational or other addresses. He is of noble presence and kindly, earnest face, over which his rich, full hair, now sable-silvered, parts and clusters. He is no orator, speaking low and slowly, but the charm of his personal appearance, the beauty of his thought, the clear incisive force of his silvery rhetoric make him to cultivated audiences ever welcome. Take him for all in all, he is so felt to-day and sure to be so read and felt hereafter, that some study of him as thinker and poet may be both instructive and entertaining.

Of his lectures in this country the best was on Emerson, whom he prized as “the friend and aid of those who wished to live in the spirit.”

His first stir of thought was from Wordsworth, not young Wordsworth, the flush “high-priest of man and nature and of human life,” but from the venerable laureate, when his utterances began to have “the sweetness, the gravity, the beauty, the languor of death.” The lofty energy which Arnold inherited from his father was seriously impaired by the contemplative egotism of his father’s friend. At the time when impressions deep and lasting were easily made on his young mind, Goethe, critic and artist of many generations, went to his grave. “Knowest thou,” says Carlyle, “no prophet even in the vesture, environment and dialect of this age? I know him and name him Goethe. In him man’s life begins again to be divine.” Goethe had at first held the principles of Rousseau. Later he announced with the serenity of a Brahmin and the authority of a Delphic oracle, that the chief end of man is “to cultivate his own spirit.” This utterance fell like a gospel on Arnold’s ear. He began to expound and enforce it, striving to engraft it on literary society and to embody it in the English national life. To him we owe that sense of the word “culture” which is so hard to state, and other terms and phrases, as “perfection, sweetness and light,” “harmonious development,” and the like. A better English pleader for the new “development” could hardly have been found. Clear and graceful in statement, gentle under criticism, patient under reproof and witty in reply, his one defect is in not doing what both the sacred and the profane oracles enjoin as the first thing in culture—to understand himself. Let us trace his ideas and doctrines in politics, in education, in religion, and in poetry.

His view of the human race is that we are utterly separate, “enisled,” each forever by himself as in “the unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.”

“Yes, in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless, watery wild,
We mortal millions live _alone_.”

It follows from this isolation (which is in one sense true) that no man can be his brother’s keeper. A strong-lunged islander can _call_ to his fellow, but nothing more. With this view of the “environment” the first duty ever to be taught and ever rehearsed is _endurance_. Patience under an order of things that “man did not make and can not mar,” is a teaching traceable through all his poetry and prose. Then comes in many a pleasing form the lesson of “self-centering.”

“With joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long, moon-silvered roll;
Why? self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.
Bounded by themselves and unregarding
In what state God’s other works may be
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.”

In the “hopeless tangle of our age,” to which he is keenly alive, and to explore which is a task of misery and distress, “alone, self-poised, henceforward man must labor.” “No man can save his brother’s soul, nor pay his brother’s debt.” As man is thus set apart from his fellow, “self-culture,” “self-perfecting” are his duty and his chief concern. By culture Mr. Arnold means the development of every capacity and power enfolded within us, and the adapting of ourselves perfectly to the island, larger or smaller, of our Crusoe life. This culture is gained not by unions, coöperations, or harangues “with tremendous cheers.” It is of one’s self and for one’s self, save as the wind may waft the odors of one “islet” to another. Culture must come by patient personal effort. Here Mr. Arnold looks back longingly to feudal times, and even beyond. The evil communications of the present corrupt good manners. He seems to say “_any_ former times are better than these,” and to

“Pine for force
A ghost of time to raise,
As if he thus might stop the course
Of these appointed nays.”

Such a doctrine can never come well into politics. It is too remote—unsystematic, not to say fastidious. Pure as Arnold’s motives are known to be, he is too dainty to serve in a party, even that of Mr. Gladstone. He scouts “equality,” and prefers benevolence to democracy. As a result, the “sweetness and light” shed from his “islet” is little regarded by the masses, being about as effective as an aurora borealis.

_Punch_ sums up Arnold’s discourses to the laboring classes—and all other classes:

To Matthew Arnold hark
With both ears all avidity!
That Matthew—a man of mark—
Says “Cultivate Lucidity!”

In education Mr. Arnold’s efforts have been steady and sincere. To him, among others, is due the successful entrance of young women in England upon higher study, so that Cambridge and Oxford are now beset by troops of young ladies who must some day effect entrance. He inherits from his father an educational zeal. His pleadings for literature in courses of study as against the exclusive pursuit of physical science and the “practical” branches, has been earnest and eloquent. He holds that, to know ourselves and the world, we must know the best that has been thought and said in the world. The study of belles-letters may be so conducted as to yield only a smattering of benefit, but it may be made a very serious and critical search after truth. What has been done by civilized nations, and what manner of people they were, is as well worth knowing as chemistry or geology.

Examining a young man on the meaning of “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?” he received as explanation, “Can you not wait upon the lunatic?” He asks whether to know the products of the combustion of wax is better than to understand Shakspere? He is sure that man’s need of beauty in truth, and of acquaintance with the general human mind demands the study of literature, and that for this study the best of all is the Greek.

Few will question, most teachers will accept, his educational doctrines.