Chapter XI: Introduction (2)

For ourselves, we have no fear of lighting our own spirit thus through any Malabolge of purification. And this bold faith animates Motley; it invigorates all his work with a firmness that inspires full confidence in his readers. Free as he is from every puerile superstition, his mastery of his subject is complete. He exercises over it a sort of magistracy which extends even to his own flashing impulses. Never pausing to display his moral learning, he avoids the tedious diffuseness of Rollin; steering adroitly around the quicksands of political dissertation, he escapes the pragmatical essayism of Guiccardini. Not easily fascinated by the trifles that swim like vapid foam upon the tide of history,--petty domestic details, the Königsmark intrigues of royalty, the wines and flowers of the banquet table, the laces and jewels of the court,--he leaves far in the distance the entertaining Davila, who, says the sarcastic Schlosser, 'wrote memoirs after the French fashion for good society,' yet whom the arbitrary and adventurous Bolingbroke does not scruple to declare 'in many respects the equal of Livy!' And yet no single stroke is omitted which is needed to preserve the unity of the work. Tacitus himself did not embellish with more commanding morality his histories. The jots and tittles of the _Groot Privilegie_, the terms of the famous 'Pacification of Ghent,' the solemn import of the _Act of Adjuration_, and the political ambition of the church, are as faithfully drawn as the Siege of Leyden, or the 'Spanish Fury' of Antwerp.

Hume, in the narrowness of a so-called philosophical indifference to the appeals of domestic life and the details of national theology and art, gives us only a running commentary upon mere chronological events, galvanized by the touch of his keen intellect and fine rhetoric into a deceitful vigor, and ornamented with the poisonous night-shade blossoms of a spurious philosophy. We may more justly seek some analogy between Gibbon and Motley, even if the search but discover points of difference so radical that a comparison is impossible. The solemn, measured, and splendid rhetoric of Gibbon is met by the animated, impetuous, and brilliant flow of Motley's thought. Neither leans to the ideal; with both the actual prevails. The policy of a government is summoned by neither before the partial tribunal of a sentiment, or the intricate scheme of some Machiavelli subjected to the imperfect analysis of a headstrong imagination. But Gibbon, though he writes in the vernacular, has lost all the honest nationality that should give an air of sincerity to his work; his brilliant antithesis belongs to the ornate school of the French literature of the day; and, fascinating as is the pomp and commanding march of his sentences, we are rather dazzled by his eloquence than convinced by his argument. He is picturesque, rich; but it is the picturesqueness and richness of the truly bewildering Roman architecture of the Renaissance--half Byzantine, three-eighths Gothic, and the remainder Greek. But Motley, with all his varied learning and association, is still perfectly and nobly Anglo-Saxon. His short, epigrammatic sentences ring like the click of musketry before the charge, and swell into length and grandeur with the progress of his theme. The simplicity, not of ignorance but of genius, characterizes him. He does not cater to our hungry fancy, he appeals grandly to our noblest impulses. In Motley a spirit of the most refined humanity is everywhere visible; he is guilty of no Voltairean satiric stabs at purity, no petulant Voltairean flings at the faith he does not share. All is manly, terse, frank, undisguised. Honorable himself, he does not, like Gibbon, distrust all mankind, and question with a sarcasm the very sincerity of a martyr at the stake.

Among Americans, Motley is what Botta is to the historians of Southern Europe. The same grand principles actuate both writers; the same tendency to philosophical generalization is evident in the structure of their works, the same inflexible pursuit of a fixed and visible aim, the same enthusiastic love for freedom. But with Botta the poetical element, which is only secondary with Motley, predominates. He holds the nervous pen of a true Italian--more than that, of a true Italian patriot. All the hitherto suppressed fire of his nation flames out on his pages in an indignation as natural as it is superb. His lines vibrate with passion, his words are tremulous with a noble pain. His very pathos is impatient, stern, and proud; it cleaves our hearts like a battle-axe, rather than meets them as with summer showers. His sarcasm is as keen and effective, but far more startling; it hisses its way from some iron-cold comment, and stabs the monarch whom it crowns. His fertility of imagination is not weakened by contact with the details of government. The same pen that draws in such inimitably graceful lines the sugar-plums of starving Genoa, lingering about flower-wreathed baskets of bonbons sold in the public squares to famishing men and women, sketches in a style as nervous and appropriate the complex detail of governmental policy. He unfolds his subject with the skill of an epic poet; its general effect is sublime, and its petty details arranged with a rarely careless skill. If he is sometimes diverted by a burst of enthusiasm, of indignation, or of horror, into an inequality, the rough island thrown up in the sea of his fancy is speedily verdured over with the wonderful luxuriance of his genius. If he bends sometimes to amuse, to revel among his sonorous Italian adjectives in the description of a coronation at Milan, or an opera of Valetta, it is part of his purpose, giving to his picture the rich and glowing tints that bring out, by violence of contrast, the more elaborate tinting in of dark upon dark behind them.

Something of this we recognize in Motley; but none of Botta's tendency to proverbial sayings, bitter with a sarcasm that wounds most deeply its creator; as, 'To believe that abstract principle will prevail over full purses is the folly of a madman.' Neither do we find in Motley the occasional terse conciseness of Botta,--little epics enclosed in a short sentence. 'Napoleon had redeemed France; but he had created Italy.' But the Italian can not be impartial. Just he is, but it is the accident of his political position, not the deference paid by the historian to his art. He writes of an age from whose injustice he has suffered, of a country whose miseries he has shared, of a people whose brother he is. And here Motley stands second only to Thucydides among historians. In the Greek, impartiality was almost divine, for he wrote in the very smoke of the conflict, wrote as if with his dripping lance upon rocks dyed with the blood of his countrymen. With Motley impartiality is the product of a nature strictly noble, that aims through its art not only to delight the present, but to instruct the future, and which bases its doctrines of right and wrong upon the principles that govern universal nature. The temper of Thucydides is lofty and even; though never genial, he is always calm and accessible; though often sublime, he is never pathetic; too grand to be sarcastic, he is also too proud to be selfish.

Motley, if lacking the great and admirable element of sublimity, which Longinus extols, compensates for it by the animation and variety of his style, which changes, as does his mood, with his subject. He enters with all the vigor of his manhood into the spirit of the scenes which he sketches. He describes a character, and his strokes are bold, quick, decided; he follows the intricacies of political intrigue, and his movement is slow, continuous, wary, while it still remains firm, confident, and successful. He can administer the finances with Escovedo, while his wide, keen intelligence, undismayed, masters at a glance the wily policy of Alexander of the '_fel Gesicht_.' No modern historian has given more comprehensive sketches of character. No quality escapes his vigilance; he yields every faculty the consideration which is its due. The portraits of Alva, of Navarre, of Farnese, of Orange, of Don John of Austria, are so many colossal statues, that seem to unite in themselves all the possible features and characteristics of humanity. He is indeed rather a sculptor than a painter. His figures are round, perfect, throbbing with life, and their hard and striking outlines, springing sharply from the background of despotism and persecution, are more imposing than any Rubens-like vividness of coloring which could warm them. He treats of diplomacy as a diplomat, unwinds the reel of protocol and treaty, and binds up with the inflexible cord the rich sheaves of his deep researches. His reflections are suggestive but short, and his details never weary.

He loves, too, to mark the sympathies of nature with event--the rain falling upon the black-hung scaffold, or the laughter of gay sunshine mingling with the shouts of a great victory. And here he differs, as indeed he does in almost every other respect, with Macaulay. The Englishman thinks little of nature; as he himself says of Dante, 'He leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky; his business is with man.' Indeed, the absence of a true and universal sympathy is the one vast defect of Macaulay. No position is so high that it may not be overshadowed by the giant form of his violent partisanship, no character so small that it may not be raised to the semblance of greatness by the mere force of his political preferences. His scholarship was splendid, his genius commanding, the beauty of his style unsurpassed; but he perverted his knowledge to subserve certain public ends, and wielded his magnificent powers too often in the defence of an undeserving cause. Fascinated by his dazzling rhetoric, borne along by its rapid and tumultuous current to the most brilliant conclusions, we forget the narrowness of the stream. His scope of vision was indeed great, but it had its limits, and these were not imposed by time or necessity, but by the unyielding will of his own prejudices. As his virtues were massive, so were his errors grievous. He ventured to grasp the great speculative themes of existence with a mind that was neither profound nor suggestive. He swam with all the wondrous ease of an athlete through the billows and across the currents and counter-currents of elegant literature, of politics, of theology, yet possessed not the diver's power to win their sunken but priceless jewels. Rich he was with the accumulated intellectual spoil of centuries, but the power of exhaustive generalization was denied him. His perceptions were vigorous and acute, and none knew more perfectly to exhaust a subject, if its requirements were of the actual and tangible rather than of the ideal and spiritual order. He was a thorough logician, but a superficial philosopher; a master of style, but oblivious of those great religious truths of which the events of his great history were but the natural outgrowth and product. But nothing can exceed the power of his rhetoric, that is uncontrolled by any laws, yet offends none, unless it be the arbitrariness of his dogmatism, that concedes no favors and asks no gifts.

Less vehement, less ornate, possibly less learned than Macaulay, with frequent though trifling inequalities of style, Motley goes far beyond him in real practical insight into the heart of affairs. There is a unity in all visible life, whether of nation, of individual, of church, or of inarticulate nature, that escaped Macaulay and impresses Motley. The one would govern the universe with the arbitrary rules of a political clique; the other applies to all the infallible test of a universal philosophy. Both writers are thoroughly incorporated with their subject; but where Macaulay was the captive of a mighty and often just prejudice, Motley is the exponent of a living principle. Everywhere Macaulay was a Whig and an Englishman; everywhere Motley is a Republican and a cosmopolite.

Motley is indeed inferior to his English contemporary in many striking points whose value every reader will determine for himself; but his occasional and rare inaccuracies of expression and inelegances of language are on the surface, and may be removed by the stroke of a pen without marring the general effect of his work. He possesses, among many charms, an unfailing geniality, which, united with his fine dramatic powers, fascinates us completely. He abounds also in fine poetical touches, that give us glimpses of a mind cultured to the last degree of literary refinement. His 'rows of whispering limes and poplars' are like arabesques of gold straying over the margins of some old _romanceros_. His descriptions glow with the fresh and ever-varying delight of the observant traveler, who seems to see before him for the first time the cities which, with a few vigorous and simple strokes, he transfers to big pages. His pictures have the charm of naturalness and a simplicity that is more effective than the most ornate diffuseness. Thus he says of the picturesque little city of Namur: 'Seated at the confluence of the Sambre with the Meuse, and throwing over each river a bridge of solid but graceful structure, it lay in the lap of a most fruitful valley. A broad, crescent-shaped plain, fringed by the rapid Meuse, and enclosed by gently-rolling hills, cultivated to their crests, or by abrupt precipices of limestone crowned with verdure, was divided by numerous hedgerows, and dotted all over with corn-fields, vine-yards, and flower-gardens. Many eyes have gazed with delight upon that well-known and most lovely valley, and many torrents of blood have mingled with those glancing waters since that long-buried and most sanguinary age which forms our theme; and still, placid as ever is the valley, brightly as ever flows the stream. Even now, as in that banished but never-forgotten time, nestles the little city in the angle of the two rivers; still directly over its head seems to hang in mid-air the massive and frowning fortress, like the gigantic helmet in the fiction, as if ready to crush the pigmy town below.' How like the _Ueberfahrt_ of Uhland:--

'Ueber diesen Strohm, vor Jahren,
Bin ich einmal schon gefahren,
Hier die Burg, im Abendschimmer,
Drüben rauscht das Wehr, wie immer.'

We may quote his description of the great square of Brussels, the scene of the double execution of Montmorency, of Horn, and the gallant and unfortunate 'Count d'Egmont,' not only as an example of his dignified and sustained style, but also as an evidence of his sensitiveness to those minor refinements of association and place that bespeaks the talented artist. 'The great square of Brussels had always a striking and theatrical aspect. Its architectural effects, suggesting in some degree the meretricious union between Oriental and a corrupt Grecian art, accomplished in the mediaeval midnight, have amazed the eyes of many generations. The splendid Hotel de Ville, with its daring spire and elaborate front, ornamented one side of the place; directly opposite was the graceful but incoherent façade of the Brood-huis, now the last earthly resting place of the two distinguished victims; while grouped around these principal buildings rose the fantastic palaces of the Archers, Mariners, and other guilds, with their festooned walls and toppling gables bedizened profusely with emblems, statues, and quaint decorations. The place had been alike the scene of many a brilliant tournament and of many a bloody execution. Gallant knights had contended within its precincts, while bright eyes rained influences from all those picturesque balconies and decorated windows. Martyrs to religious and to political liberty had upon the same spot endured agonies which might have roused every stone of its pavement to mutiny or softened them to pity. Here Egmont himself, in happier days, had often borne away the prize of skill or of valor, the cynosure of every eye; and hence, almost in the noon of a life illustrated by many brilliant actions, he was to be sent, by the hand of tyranny, to his great account.'

There are, too, dashes of a healthy sarcasm among these records, not, however, of such frequent occurrence as to darken the flow of the narrative, but sufficiently indicative of the strength and energy of the writer. Never attacking the honest faith of any man, his satires are levelled at hypocrisy, never error, as when he says of the venerable tyrant, the master of the Invincible Armada, when he had received from the trembling secretary the assurance of the failure of the hope of Spain: 'So the king, as fortune flew away from him, wrapped himself in his virtue, and his counsellors, imitating their sovereign, arrayed themselves in the same garment;' a scanty mantle, in truth, but, no doubt, amply sufficient for the denizens of that torrid atmosphere of bigotry in which Spain has lived for centuries.

Of what earnest stuff Motley's dreams of religious freedom are made, we read in his terse comments upon the declaration of the principles of liberty of conscience by the States General. 'Such words shine through the prevailing darkness of the religious atmosphere at that epoch like characters of light. They are beacons in the upward path of mankind. Never before had so bold and wise a tribute to the genius of the Reformation been paid by an organized community. Individuals walking in advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had seemed to die away, but at last, a little, struggling, half-developed commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind.'

Thus we have no longer a wearisome compilation of events strung upon the thread of chronology, but a practical history of the most momentous epoch of modern times. No hand has before pointed out so faithfully its great motive power or adjusted so nicely its apparent contradictions. The structure is grand; it is the expression of a glorious faith. In the accomplishment of so vast a design, Motley has won our warmest gratitude, while he has awakened our deepest sympathies. Not alone to the learned, the scholarly, and the elegant, are these volumes addressed; their high-toned thought has met response in the people's heart, and children bend with flushed faces over the high romance of the struggle that cost the lives of thousands, and recognize, perhaps dimly, the import of that great advance from the darkness of intolerance to the light of freedom, that was so well worth the treasure of blood with which it was bought.

And here we part with Motley the historian, only to clasp hands with Motley the patriot. In the present tremendous struggle of people against progress, this fierce contest between labor and the lords, these last convulsions of the expiring giant of feudal aristocracy, whose monstrous conception dates far back among the Middle Ages, Motley has shown himself the true champion of the doctrines advocated in his histories. His platform is still the same, but how changed the theatre of his action! His letter to the London _Times_ on the 'Causes of the American Civil War' is a masterly exposition of facts, whose naked power is obscured by no useless displays of rhetoric. Its tone is calm, dignified, confident; its statements are strongly maintained, its logic convincing. All honor to the man who from his quiet researches in royal archives and busy deciphering of dusty MSS. turned to his country in her hour of need, and defended her where defence should have been superfluous, but was, unhappily, of small avail. And still he works nobly for the dear old flag, and, intimately _lié_ as he is with the first literati and politicians of Europe, it is not easy to measure his influence. His purely literary habits forbid all suspicion of his disinterestedness, and will go far to commend him to the sympathies of the commanding intellects of the age. Let us hope for the time when, with renewed faith in his mighty theories and still renewing love for his motherland, he shall return to the retirement which has already produced such noble fruits, and add works as worthy to our American classics. Meanwhile, _vive qui vince!_

* * * * *

THE LESSON OF THE HOUR.

Thou who for years hast watched the course of nature,
What time the changing seasons swept their round,
And, 'mid the play of every varying feature,
New founts of pleasure for thyself hast found;
Who, when dark clouds upon the mountain glooming,
Threaten destruction to the smiling plain,
Canst pierce the shadow and foresee the blooming
Of budding blossoms brighter for the rain:

To whom, when the dread winter's icy fingers
Have chilled to silence the gay babbling stream,
A memory of its summer music lingers,
Or April violets in the future beam;
To whom the darkness whispers of the dawning,
And sorrow's night tells of the coming day;
And even death is but the twilight morning
Of glory which shall never fade away;--

_Teach us thy lesson_. Unto us be given
The trusting faith the April flowers display;
Looking in their meek confidence to heaven,--
Trusting to God the future of the day.
Our night is dark, and perils vast surround us,
But, firm in truth and right, what shall we fear?
Has danger ever yet base cravens found us?
Who has sustained thus far will guide us here.

Ye countless legions, where each man is holding
Himself a bulwark for the cause of right,
In war's fierce furnace, where our God is molding
Each soul for his own ends in Freedom's fight,
March on to victory in overwhelming number,
Singing the peans of the noble free;
Our Liberty has just awaked from slumber,
To carry out the world's great destiny.

O mighty nation! all thy early glory
Shall be as nothing to the great renown
Which in the future ages shall come o'er thee,
For thine is Liberty's immortal crown.
Heed not the jealousies forever thronging,--
The petty envyings which gird thee round;
'Tis thine to carry out the world's great longing,
To find that liberty none else has found.

What though across the swelling, broad Atlantic
Comes scornful menace? it is naught to thee--
'Tis but the jealous raving, wild and frantic,
Of those who would, but never can, be free;--
Who, slaves to selfish passions bold ambition,
Hold up their shackled arms in heaven's broad light,
And prate of freedom, boast their high position,
And strive to turn to interest Truth and Right.

_We need more faith!_ What though the means be weakness?
With God supreme, the victory must be ours!
From imperfection he works out completeness;
From feeble means makes overwhelming powers.
How shall this be? The knowledge is not given;
Each to his duty in the field of Right;
Sure as th' Almighty ruleth earth and heaven,
His arm will do it in resistless might.

* * * * *

AMONG THE PINES.

'Dee ye tink Massa Davy wud broke his word, sar?' said the old negress, bridling up her bent form, and speaking in a tone in which indignation mingled with wounded dignity; 'p'raps gemmen do dat at de Norf--dey neber does it har.'

'Excuse me, Aunty; I know your master is a man of honor; but he's very much excited, and very angry with Scip.'

'No matter for dat, sar; Massa Davy neber done a mean ting sense he war born.'

'Massa K---- tinks a heap ob de Gunnel, Aunty; but he reckons he'm sort o' crazy now; dat make him afeard,' said Scip, in an apologetic tone.

'What ef he am crazy? You'se safe _har_,' rejoined the old woman, dropping her aged limbs into a chair, and rocking away with much the same air which ancient white ladies occasionally assume.

'Won't you ax Massa K---- to a cheer?' said Scip; 'he hab ben bery kine to me.'

The negress then offered me a seat; but it was some minutes before I rendered myself sufficiently agreeable to thaw out the icy dignity of her manner. Meanwhile I glanced around the apartment.

Though the exterior of the cabin was like the others on the plantation, the interior had a rude, grotesque elegance about it far in advance of any negro hut I had ever seen. The logs were chinked with clay, and the one window, though destitute of glass, and ornamented with the inevitable board-shutter, had a green moreen curtain, which kept out the wind and the rain. A worn but neat and well-swept carpet partly covered the floor, and on the low bed was spread a patch-work counterpane. Against the side of the room opposite the door stood an antique, brass-handled bureau, and an old-fashioned table, covered with a faded woolen cloth, occupied the centre of the apartment. In the corner near the fire was a curiously-contrived side-board, made of narrow strips of yellow pine, tongued and grooved together, and oiled so as to bring out the beautiful grain of the wood. On it were several broken and cracked glasses, and an array of irregular crockery. The rocking-chair, in which the old negress passed the most of her time, was of mahogany, wadded and covered with chintz, and the arm-seat I occupied, though old and patched in many places, had evidently moved in good society.

The mistress of this second-hand furniture establishment was arrayed in a mass of cast-off finery, whose gay colors were in striking contrast with her jet-black skin and bent, decrepit form. Her gown, which was very short, was of flaming red and yellow worsted stuff, and the enormous turban that graced her head and hid all but a few tufts of her frizzled, 'pepper-and-salt' locks, was evidently a contribution from the family stock of worn-out pillow-cases. She was very aged,--upwards of seventy,--and so thin that, had she not been endowed with speech and motion, she might have passed for a bundle of whalebone thrown into human shape, and covered with a coating of gutta-percha. It was evident she had been a valued house-servant, whose few remaining years were being soothed and solaced by the kind and indulgent care of a grateful master.

Scip, I soon saw, was a favorite with the old-negress, and the marked respect he showed me quickly dispelled the angry feeling excited by my doubts of 'Massa Davy,' and opened her heart and her mouth at the same moment. She was terribly garrulous; her tongue, as soon as it got under way, ran on as if propelled by machinery and acquainted with the secret of perpetual motion; but she was an interesting study. The single-hearted attachment she showed for her master and his family gave me a new insight into the practical working of 'the peculiar institution,' and convinced me that even slavery, in some of its aspects, is not so black as it is painted.

When we were seated, I said to Scip, 'What induced you to lay hands on the Colonel? It is death, you know, if he enforces the law.'

'I knows dat, massa; I knows dat; but I had to do it. Dat Moye am de ole debil, but de folks round har wud hab turned on de Cunnel, shore, ef he'd killed him. Dey don't like de Cunnel; dey say he'm a stuck-up seshener.'

'The Colonel, then, has befriended you at some time?'

'No, no, sar; 'twarn't dat; dough I'se know'd him a long w'ile,--eber sense my ole massa fotched me from de Habana,--but 'twarn't dat.'

'Then _why_ did you do it?'

The black hesitated a moment, and glanced at the old negress, then said,--

'You see, massa, w'en I fuss come to Charles'n, a pore little ting, wid no friend in all de worle, dis ole aunty war a mudder to me. She nussed de Cunnel; he am jess like her own chile, and I know'd 'twud kill her ef he got hisself enter trubble.'

I noticed certain convulsive twitchings about the corners of the old woman's mouth as she rose from her seat, threw her arms around Scip, and, in words broken by sobs, faltered out,--

'_You_ am my chile; I loves you better dan Massa Davy--better dan all de worle.'

The scene, had they not been black, would have been one for a painter.

'You were the Colonel's nurse, Aunty,' I said, when she had regained her composure. 'Have you always lived with him?'

'Yas, sar, allers; I nussed him, and den de chil'ren--all ob 'em.'

'All the children? I thought the Colonel had but one--Miss Clara.'

'Wal, he habn't, massa, only de boys.'

'What boys? I never heard he had sons.'

'Neber heerd of young Massa Davy, nor Massa Tommy! Hain't you _seed_ Massa Tommy, sar?'

'Tommy! I was told he was Madam P----'s son.'

'So he am; Massa Davy had _her_ long afore he had missus.'

The truth flashed upon me; but could it be possible? Was I in South Carolina or in Utah?

'Who is Madam P----?' I asked.

The old woman hesitated a moment, as if in doubt whether she had not said too much; but Scip quietly replied,--

'She'm jess what aunty am--_de Cunnel's slave!_'

'His _slave_! it can't be possible; she is white!'

'No, massa; she am brack, and de Cunnel's slave!'

Not to weary the reader with a long repetition of negro-English, I will tell in brief what I gleaned from an hour's conversation with the two blacks.

Madam P---- was the daughter of Ex-Gov. ----, of Virginia, by a quarteron woman. She was born a slave, but was acknowledged as her father's child, and reared in his family with his legitimate children. When she was ten years of age her father died, and his estate proving insolvent, the land and negroes were brought under the hammer. His daughter, never having been manumitted, was inventoried and sold with the other property. The Colonel, then just of age, and a young man of fortune, bought her and took her to the residence of his mother in Charleston. A governess was provided for her, and a year or two afterwards she was taken to the North to be educated. There she was frequently visited by the Colonel; and when fifteen her condition became such that she was obliged to return home. He conveyed her to the plantation, where her elder son, David, was soon afterwards born, 'Aunt Lucy' officiating on the occasion. When the child was two years old, leaving it in charge of the aged negress, she accompanied the Colonel to Europe, where they remained for a year. Subsequently she passed another year at a Northern seminary; and then, returning to the plantation, was duly installed as its mistress, and had ever since presided over its domestic affairs. She was kind and good to the negroes, who were greatly attached to her, and much of the Colonel's wealth was due to her excellent management of the estate.

Six years after the birth of 'young Massa Davy,' the Colonel married his present wife, that lady having full knowledge of his left-handed connection with Madam P----, and consenting that the 'bond-woman' should remain on the plantation, as its mistress. The legitimate wife resided, during most of the year, in Charleston, and when at the homestead took little interest in domestic matters. On one of her visits to the plantation, twelve years before, her daughter, Miss Clara, was born, and within a week, and under the same roof, Madam P---- presented the Colonel with a son,--the lad Thomas, of whom I have spoken. As the mother was a slave, the children were so also at their birth, but _they_ had been manumitted by their father. One of them was being educated in Germany; and it was intended that both should spend their lives in that country, the taint in their blood being an insuperable bar to their ever acquiring social position at the South.

As she finished the story, the old woman said, 'Massa Davy am bery kind to de missus, sar, but he _love_ de ma'am; an' he can't help it, 'cause she'm jess so good as de angels.'[K]

I looked at my watch,--it was nearly ten o'clock, and I rose to go. As I did so the old negress said,--

'Don't yer gwo, massa, 'fore you hab sum ob aunty's wine; you'm good friends wid Scip, and I knows _you'se_ not too proud to drink wid brack folks, ef you am from de Norf.'

Being curious to know what quality of wine a plantation slave indulged in, I accepted the invitation. She went to the side-board, and brought out a cut-glass decanter, and three cracked tumblers, which she placed on the table. Filling the glasses to the brim, she passed one to Scip, and one to me, and, with the other in her hand, resumed her seat. Wishing her a good many happy years, and Scip a pleasant journey home, I emptied the glass. It was Scuppernong, and the pure juice of the grape!

'Aunty,' I said, 'this wine is as fine as I ever tasted.'

'Oh yas, massa, it am de raal stuff. I growed de grapes myseff.'

'You grew them?'

'Yas, sar, an' Massa Davy make de wine. He do it ebery yar for de ole nuss.'

'The Colonel is very good. Do you raise anything else?'

'Yas, I hab collards and taters, a little corn, and most ebery ting.'

'But who does your work? _You_ certainly can't do it?'

'Oh, de ma'am looks arter dat, sar; she'm bery good to de ole aunty.'

Shaking hands with both the negroes, I left the cabin, fully convinced that all the happiness in this world is not found within plastered apartments.

The door of the mansion was bolted and barred; but, rapping for admission, I soon heard the Colonel's voice asking, 'Who is there?' Giving a satisfactory answer, I was admitted. Explaining that he supposed I had retired to my room, he led the way to the library.

That apartment was much more elegantly furnished than the drawing-rooms. Three of its sides were lined with books, and on the centre-table, papers, pamphlets, and manuscripts were scattered in promiscuous confusion. In an armchair near the fire, Madam P---- was seated, reading. The Colonel's manner was as composed as if nothing had disturbed the usual routine of the plantation; no trace of the recent terrible excitement was visible; in fact, had I not been a witness to the late tragedy, I should have thought it incredible that he, within two hours, had been an actor in a scene which had cost a human being his life.

'Where in creation have you been, my dear fellow?' he asked, as we took our seats.

'At old Lucy's cabin, with Scip,' I replied.

'Indeed. I supposed the darky had gone.'

'No, he doesn't go till the morning.'

'I told you he wouldn't, David,' said Madam P----; 'now, send for him,--do make friends with him before he goes.'

'No, Alice, it won't do. I bear him no ill-will, but it won't do. It would be all over the plantation in an hour.'

'No matter for that; our people would like you the better for it.'

'No, no. I can't do it. I mean him no harm, but I can't do that.'

'He told me _why_ he interfered between you and Moye,' I remarked.

'Why did he?'

'He says old Lucy, years ago, was a mother to him; that she is greatly attached to you, and it would kill her if any harm happened to you; and that your neighbors bear you no good-will, and would have enforced the law had you killed Moye.'

'It is true, David; you would have had to answer for it.'

'Nonsense! what influence could this North County scum have against _me_?'

'Perhaps none. But that makes no difference; Scipio did right, and you should tell him you forgive him.'

The Colonel then rang a small bell, and a negro woman soon appeared. 'Sue,' he said, 'go to Aunt Lucy's and ask Scip to come here. Bring him in at the front door, and, mind, let no one know he comes.'

The woman in a short time returned with Scip. There was not a trace of fear or embarrassment in the negro's manner as he entered the room. Making a respectful bow, he bade us 'good evening.'

'Good evening, Scip,' said the Colonel, rising and giving the black his hand; 'let us be friends. Madam tells me I should forgive you, and I do.'

'Aunt Lucy say ma'am am an angel, sar, and it am tru,--it am tru, sar,' replied the negro, with considerable feeling.

The lady rose, also, and took Scip's hand, saying, '_I_ not only forgive you, Scipio, but I _thank_ you for what you have done. I shall never forget it.'

'You'se too good, ma'am; you'se too good to say dat,' replied the darky, the moisture coming to his eyes; 'but I meant nuffin' wrong,--I meant nuffin' dis'specful to de Cunnel.'

'I know you didn't, Scip; but we'll say no more about it;--good-by,' said the Colonel.

Shaking hands with each one of us, the darky left the apartment.

One who does not know that the high-bred Southern gentleman considers the black as far below him as the horse he drives, or the dog he kicks, can not realize the amazing sacrifice of pride which the Colonel made in seeking a reconciliation with Scip. It was the cutting off of his right hand. The circumstance showed the powerful influence held over him by the octoroon woman. Strange that she, his slave, cast out from society by her blood and her life, despised, no doubt, by all the world, save by him and a few ignorant blacks, should thus control a proud, self-willed, passionate man, and control him, too, only for good.

After the black had gone, I said to the Colonel, 'I was much interested in old Lucy. A few more such instances of cheerful and contented old age might lead me to think better of slavery.'

'Such cases are not rare, sir. They show the paternal character of our "institution." We are _forced_ to care for our servants in their old age.'

'But have your other aged slaves the same comforts that Aunt Lucy has?'

'No; they don't need them. She has been accustomed to live in my house, and to fare better than the plantation hands; she therefore requires better treatment.'

'Is not the support of that class a heavy tax upon you?'

'Yes, it _is_ heavy. We have, of course, to deduct it from the labor of the able-bodied hands.'

'What is the usual proportion of sick and infirm on your plantation?'

'Counting in the child-bearing women, I reckon about twenty per cent.'

'And what does it cost you to support each hand?'

'Well, it costs _me_, for children and all, about seventy-five dollars a year. In some places it costs less. _I_ have to buy all my provisions.'

'What proportion of your slaves are able-bodied hands?'

'Somewhere about sixty per cent. I have, all told, old and young,--men, women, and children,--two hundred and seventy. Out of that number I have now equal to a hundred and fifty-four _full_ hands. You understand that we classify them: some do only half tasks, some three-quarters. I have _more_ than a hundred and fifty-four working men and women, but they do only that number of full tasks.'

'What does the labor of a _full_ hand yield?'

'At the present price of turpentine, my calculation is about two hundred dollars a year.'

'Then your crop brings you about thirty-one thousand dollars, and the support of your negroes costs you twenty thousand.'

'Yes.'

'If that's the case, my friend, let me advise you to sell your plantation, free your niggers, and go North.'

'Why so, my dear fellow?' asked the Colonel, laughing.

'Because you'd make money by the operation.'

'I never was good at arithmetic; go into the figures,' he replied, still laughing, while Madam P----, who had laid aside her book, listened very attentively.

'Well, you have two hundred and seventy negroes, whom you value, we'll say, with your mules, "stills," and movable property, at two hundred thousand dollars; and twenty thousand acres of land, worth about three dollars and a half an acre; all told, two hundred and seventy thousand dollars. A hundred and fifty-four able-bodied hands produce you a yearly profit of eleven thousand dollars, which, saying nothing about the cost of keeping your live stock, the wear and tear of your mules and machinery, and the yearly loss of your slaves by death, is only four per cent. on your capital. Now, with only the price of your land, say seventy thousand dollars, invested in safe stocks at the North, you could realize eight per cent.--five thousand six hundred dollars,--and live at your ease; and that, I judge, if you have many runaways, or many die on your hands, is as much as you really _clear_ now. Besides, if you should invest seventy thousand dollars in almost any legitimate business at the North, and should add to it, _as you now do_, your _time_ and _labor_, you would realize far more than you do at present from your entire capital.'

'I never looked at the matter in that light. But I have given you my profits as they _now_ are; some years I make more; six years ago I made twenty-five thousand dollars.'

'Yes; and six years hence you may make nothing.'

'That's true. But it would cost me more to live at the North.'

'There you are mistaken. What do you pay for your corn, your pork, and your hay, for instance?'

'Well, my corn I have to bring round by vessel from Washington (North Carolina), and it costs me high when it gets here,--about ten bits (a dollar and twenty-five cents), I think.'

'And in New York you could buy it now at sixty to seventy cents. What does your hay cost?'

'Thirty-five dollars. I pay twenty for it in New York,--the balance is freight and hauling.'

'Your pork costs you two or three dollars, I suppose, for freight and hauling.'

'Yes; about that.'

'Then in those items you might save nearly a hundred per cent.; and they are the principal articles you consume.'

'Yes; there's no denying that. But another thing is just as certain: it costs less to support one of my niggers than one of your laboring men.'

'That may be true. But it only shows that our laborers fare better than your slaves.'

'I'm not sure of that. I _am_ sure, however, that our slaves are more contented than the run of laboring men at the North.'

'That proves nothing. Your blacks have no hope, no chance to rise; and they submit--though I judge not cheerfully--to an iron necessity. The Northern laborer, if very poor, may be discontented; but discontent urges him to effort, and leads to the bettering of his condition. I tell you, my friend, slavery is an expensive luxury. You Southern nabobs _will_ have it; and you have to _pay for it_.'

'Well, we don't complain. But, seriously, my good fellow, I feel that I'm carrying out the design of the Almighty in holding my niggers. I think he made the black to serve the white.'

'_I_ think,' I replied, 'that whatever He designs works perfectly. Your institution certainly does not. It keeps the producer, who, in every society, is the really valuable citizen, in the lowest poverty, while it allows those who do nothing to be "clad in fine linen, and to fare sumptuously every day."'

'It does more than that, sir,' said Madam P----, with animation; 'it brutalizes and degrades the _master_ and the _slave_; it separates husband and wife, parent and child; it sacrifices virtuous women to the lust of brutal men; and it shuts millions out from the knowledge of their duty and their destiny. A good and just God could not have designed it; and it must come to an end.'

If lightning had struck in the room I could not have been more startled than I was by the abrupt utterance of such language in a planter's house, in his very presence, and _by his slave_. The Colonel, however, expressed no surprise and no disapprobation. It was evidently no new thing to him.

'It is rare, madam,' I said, 'to hear such sentiments from a Southern lady--one reared among slaves.'

Before she could reply, the Colonel laughingly said,--

'Bless you, Mr. K----, madam is an out-and-out abolitionist, worse by fifty per cent. than Garrison or Wendell Phillips. If she were at the North she would take to pantaloons, and "stump" the entire Free States; wouldn't you, Alice?'

'I've no doubt of it,' rejoined the lady, smiling. 'But I fear I should have poor success. I've tried for ten years to convert _you_, and Mr. K---- can see the result.'

It had grown late; and, with my head full of working niggers and white slave-women, I went to my apartment.

The next day was Sunday. It was near the close of December, yet the air was as mild and the sun as warm as in our Northern October. It was arranged at the breakfast-table that we all should attend service at 'the meeting-house,' a church of the Methodist persuasion, located some eight miles away; but as it wanted some hours of the time for religious exercises to commence, I strolled out after breakfast, with the Colonel, to inspect the stables of the plantation. 'Massa Tommy' accompanied us, without invitation; and in the Colonel's intercourse with him I observed as much freedom and familiarity as he would have shown to an acknowledged son. The youth's manners and conversation showed that great attention had been given to his education and training, and made it evident that the mother whose influence was forming his character, whatever a false system of society had made her life, possessed some of the best traits of her sex.

The stables, a collection of one-story framed buildings, about a hundred rods from the house, were well lighted and ventilated, and contained all 'the modern improvements.' They were better built, warmer, more commodious, and in every way more comfortable than the shanties occupied by the human cattle of the plantation. I remarked as much to the Colonel, adding that one who did not know would infer that he valued his horses more than his slaves.

'That may be true,' he replied, laughing. 'Two of my horses here are worth more than any eight of my slaves;' at the same time calling my attention to two magnificent thorough-breds, one of which had made '2.32' on the Charleston course. The establishment of a Southern gentleman is not complete until it includes one or two of these useless appendages. I had an argument with my host as to their value compared with that of the steam-engine, in which I forced him to admit that the iron horse is the better of the two, because it performs more work, eats less, has greater speed, and is not liable to the spavin or the heaves; but he wound up by saying, 'After all, I go for the thorough-breds. You Yankees have but one test of value--use.'

A ramble through the negro-quarters, which followed our visit to the stables, gave me some further glimpses of plantation life. Many of the hands were still away in pursuit of Moye, but enough remained to make it evident that Sunday is the happiest day in the darky calendar. Groups of all ages and colors were gathered in front of several of the cabins, some singing, some dancing, and others chatting quietly together, but all enjoying themselves as heartily as so many young animals let loose, in a pasture. They saluted the Colonel and me respectfully, but each one had a free, good-natured word for 'Massa Tommy,' who seemed an especial favorite with them. The lad took their greetings in good part, but preserved an easy, unconscious dignity of manner that plainly showed he did not know that _he_ too was of their despised, degraded race.

The Colonel, in a rapid way, gave me the character and peculiarities of nearly every one we met. The titles of some of them amused me greatly. At every step we encountered individuals whose names have become household words in every civilized country.[L] Julius Cæsar, slightly stouter than when he swam the Tiber, and somewhat tanned from long exposure to a Southern sun, was seated on a wood-pile, quietly smoking a pipe; while near him, Washington, divested of regimentals, and clad in a modest suit of reddish-gray, his thin locks frosted by time, and his fleshless visage showing great age, was gazing, in rapt admiration, at a group of dancers in front of old Lucy's cabin.

In this group about thirty men and women were making the ground quake and the woods ring with their unrestrained jollity. Marc Antony was rattling away at the bones, Nero fiddling as if Rome were burning, and Hannibal clawing at a banjo as if the fate of Carthage hung on its strings. Napoleon, as young and as lean as when he mounted the bridge of Lodi, with the battle-smoke still on his face, was moving his legs even faster than in the Russian retreat; and John Wesley was using his heels in a way that showed _they_ didn't belong to the Methodist church. But the central figures of the group were Cato and Victoria. The lady had a face like a thunder-cloud, and a form that, if whitewashed, would have outsold the 'Greek Slave.' She was built on springs, and 'floated in the dance' like a feather in a high wind. Cato's mouth was like an alligator's, but when it opened, it issued notes that would draw the specie even in this time of general suspension. As we approached he was singing a song, but he paused on perceiving us, when the Colonel, tossing a handful of coin among them, called out, 'Go on, boys; let the gentleman have some music; and you, Vic, show your heels like a beauty.'

A general scramble followed, in which 'Vic's' sense of decorum forbade her to join, and she consequently got nothing. Seeing that, I tossed her a silver piece, which she caught. Grinning her thanks, she shouted, 'Now, clar de track, you nigs; start de music. I'se gwine to gib de gemman de breakdown.'

And she did; and such a breakdown! 'We w'ite folks,' though it was no new thing to the Colonel or Tommy, almost burst with laughter.

In a few minutes nearly every negro on the plantation, attracted by the presence of the Colonel and myself, gathered around the performers; and a shrill voice at my elbow called out, 'Look har, ye lazy, good-for-nuffin' niggers, carn't ye fotch a cheer for Massa Davy and de strange gemman?'

'Is that you, Aunty?' said the Colonel. 'How d'ye do?'

'Sort o' smart, Massa Davy; sort o' smart; how is ye?'

'Pretty well, Aunty; pretty well. Have a seat.' And the Colonel helped her to one of the chairs that were brought for us, with as much tenderness as he would have shown to an aged white lady.

The 'exercises,' which had been suspended for a moment, recommenced, and the old negress entered into them as heartily as the youngest present. A song from Cato followed the dance, and then about twenty 'gentleman and lady' darkies joined, two at a time, in a half 'walk-round' half breakdown, which the Colonel told me was what suggested the well-known 'white-nigger' dance and song of Lucy Long. Other performances succeeded, and the whole formed a scene impossible to describe. Such uproarious jollity, such full and perfect enjoyment, I had never seen in humanity, black or white. The little nigs, only four or five years old, would rush into the ring and shuffle away at the breakdowns till I feared their short legs would come off; while all the darkies joined in the songs, till the branches of the old pines above shook as if they too had caught the spirit of the music. In the midst of it, the Colonel said to me, in an exultant tone,--

'Well, my friend, what do you think of slavery _now_?'

'About the same that I thought yesterday. I see nothing to change my views.'

'Why, are not these people happy? Is not this perfect enjoyment?'

'Yes; just the same enjoyment that aunty's pigs are having; don't you hear them singing to the music? I'll wager they are the happier of the two.'

'No; you are wrong. The higher faculties of the darkies are being brought out here.'

'I don't know that,' I replied. 'Within the sound of their voices, two of their fellows--victims to the inhumanity of slavery--are lying dead, and yet they make _Sunday_ 'hideous' with wild jollity, while they do not know but Sam's fate may be theirs to-morrow.'

Spite of his genuine courtesy and high breeding, a shade of displeasure passed over the Colonel's face as I made this remark. Rising to go, he said, a little impatiently, 'Ah, I see how it is; that d---- Garrison's sentiments have impregnated even you. How can the North and the South hold together when even moderate men like you and me are so far apart?'

'But you,' I rejoined, good-humoredly, 'are not a moderate man. You and Garrison are of the same stripe, both extremists. You have mounted one hobby, _he_ another; that is all the difference.'

'I should be sorry,' he replied, recovering his good-nature, 'to think myself like Garrison. I consider him the ---- scoundrel unhung.'

'No; I think he means well. But you are both fanatics, both 'bricks' of the same material; we conservatives, like mortar, will hold you together and yet keep you apart.'

'I, for one, _won't_ be held. If I can't get out of this cursed Union in any other way, I'll emigrate to Cuba.'