Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

To be sure, the _Rostrum_ might be found guilty on other counts of the general crime of word-murder. It has done for the word _height_ by spelling it _hight_, at the same time giving a supererogatory kick to the good old English participle (already deceased) of the latter orthography. And then, it is not always quite certain whether its events occurred or _transpired_! The misapplication of this last word is a shocking abuse of our defenceless mother tongue, and one I have not often seen publicly rebuked. It is not long since I saw the poor dissyllable in question evidently misapplied in the dedication of a book, and on Sunday, not long ago, I heard the pastor of one of the first churches in the city preach of the power directing the events which _transpire_ in this world!

There are two ways of getting public duties attended to; one of which is to advertise for proposals,--a very expensive way; and the other is to get up a public meeting or association, when all men think it an honor to be elected officers for the sake of seeing their names in the papers. Now this last way is the best, in so many respects that it shall be adopted without hesitation for our purposes. Let there be a new Humane Society established, principally for the prevention of cruelty to words, and let the chief officer of the society be so named as to suggest its chief office--that of 'moderator.' And let us hope that as words are the things in question, deeds will abound, as we so well know the truth of the reverse, that where deeds are to be looked for, words prevail amazingly. Outside of its primary beneficent purpose, it may make provision for charities incidental thereunto. It may appoint one committee for the prevention of cruelty to compositors, to examine the chirography of all MSS. about to be 'put in hand,' and, in any case it thinks necessary, return mercilessly the whole scrawled mass to the author to have t's crossed, i's dotted, a's and o's joined at the top, etc., etc. Another privileged three may be merciful to the authors themselves, by providing for the better reading of proofs, by examining and qualifying the readers thereof; a class in this country very deficient, and for a happy reason: namely, that we have not yet a multitude of literary men, very well educated and very poor, who can find nothing better to do. This last committee would find comparatively little occupation, when the previous one had become effective in _its_ line.

To what an illimitable enterprise does the vastness of our plans lead us! Long vistas open before our eyes, with fine prospects for patronage and the gift of many offices. It is at least equal in dignity and grandeur to the city government, and nothing prevents its becoming a vast scheme of corruption, except that it never can, by any possibility, possess a penny of revenue. Of course there should be a committee of repairs and supplies, and one of immigration, the latter to provide for the naturalization of foreign words and their proper treatment before they could take care of themselves; the former for furnishing a supply to meet the growing demand mentioned at the beginning of this article, and for patching up several of the most obvious imperfections we now suffer from. We want a word for _the opposite of a compliment_. Not that this is as great a defect as the lack of the word _compliment_ would be in these smooth-spoken times, but still the want is felt, and the feeling is shown by such awkward expedients as the expression 'a left-handed compliment.' Then, besides, they might give the seal of legitimacy to a fine lot of words and phrases, the need of which is shown by their being spontaneously invented, and universally adopted by the vulgar; but which are not classic, have never been written except in caricature, and are therefore inadmissible to the writings of us cowardly fellows who 'do' the current literature. For instance: the word _onto_, to bear the same relation to _on_ and _upon_, that the word _into_ does to _in_ and _within_, has no synonyme, and if we had once adopted it, we should be surprised at our own self-denial in having had it so long in our ears without taking it for the use of our mouths and pens.

The judiciary department should have full power to try _all_ defilers of the well of English, be they these offenders we have been talking of--spendthrifts and drunkards in the use of its strong waters--or be they punsters, or be they the latest development of miscreants, the _transposers_. To the punsters shall be adjudged a perpetual strabismus, that they may look two ways at once, forever--always seeing double with their bodily eyes, as they have been in the habit of doing with their mental ones. Even so to the transposer. Let him be inverted, and hung by the heels till _healed_ of his disorder.

If this idea of an association is seized upon, I should be happy to suggest well-qualified persons for all the offices _except_ the highest. The most appropriate incumbent for that, modesty forbids my mentioning. But the matter must not be let drop. Unless there can be some check put to the present extravagance, we shall all take to _swearing_, for I am sure that is the first step beyond it.

STEWART, AND THE DRY GOODS TRADE OF NEW YORK.

Those who have watched the growth of New York, have found a striking criterion of its gradual advance in the different aspects of the dry goods trade. We select this branch of business as a better illustration of the progress of our metropolis than any other, since in breadth, as well as in enterprise, it has always taken the lead. What grocer, hardwareman, druggist, or any other of the different tradesmen of the metropolis, ever wrought out of nothing the majestic structures or the enormous traffic which is represented by some of our dry goods concerns.

Dry goods originally held their headquarters between Wall street and Coenties slip. In those days Front street for grocers, and Pearl for dry goods men, within the limits above mentioned, sufficed for all the demands of trade, and in many instances the jobber lived in the upper part of his store. The great fire of 1835 put an end to all that was left of these primitive manners, and the burnt district was in due time covered with new brick stores, of a style vastly superior to those of the past. At the same time the advance in the price of lots fully made up the loss of insurance on buildings which was inevitable from the universal bankruptcy of fire offices. As trade appeared to be firmly established in that section, a mammoth hotel was built near Coenties slip for the accommodation of country merchants, and was long famous as the 'Pearl Street House.' A jobbing concern at that day might be satisfied with the first floor and basement of a building twenty-five feet by sixty to eighty, in which a business of from one hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars could be done. Such a business was then thought of respectable amount, and few exceeded it.

The trade even at that early day was remarkable for its precariousness--and while a few made fortunes, whole ranks were swept away by occasional panics. In 1840, Hanover square was the dry goods emporium of New York, and there a few years earlier Eno & Phelps commenced a thriving trade which grew into famous proportions. As an illustration of the risks of trade, we may mention that we know of no other concern engaged in that vicinity at that time which escaped eventual bankruptcy. Near Eno & Phelps stood the granite establishment of Arthur Tappan & Co., while lesser concerns were crowded in close proximity. The first disposition to abandon this section was shown by opening new stores in Cedar street, which soon became so popular as a jobbing resort that its rents quadrupled. The Cedar street jobbers would in the present day be considered mere Liliputians, since many of their stores measured less than eighteen by thirty feet. They were occupied by a class of active men, who bought of importers and sold to country dealers on the principle of the nimble sixpence. Of this class (now about extinct) a few built up large concerns, while others, after hopelessly contending year after year with adverse fortune, sunk eventually into bankruptcy, and may in some instances now be found in the ranks of clerkship. From Cedar street, trade moved to Liberty, Nassau, and John streets, while as these new emporiums prospered, Pearl street gradually lost its prestige, until the general hegira of trade in 1848, which left that ancient mart deserted. The Pearl street hotel, which once was thronged by country dealers and city drummers, was then altered into a warehouse for storage, while the jobbing houses, where merchants were wont to congregate, fell into baser uses, and property sunk in value correspondingly.

The 'hegira,' to which we have referred, led from the east to the north side of the town, and was so exacting in its demands, that at length no man could hope to sell goods except in the new locality. Meanwhile, property in Cortlandt, Dey, Vesey, and the neighboring streets, rose immensely, and old rookeries were replaced by elegant stores. The chief features in this improvement were increased size and enlarged room. L.O. Wilson & Co. took the lead in this by opening a store extending through from Cortlandt to Dey street, whose spacious hall could have swallowed up a half dozen old fashioned Pearl street concerns.

It was Mr. Wilson's ambition to break the bondage of antiquated habit, and inaugurate a revolution in trade. He had been a prominent Pearl street man, and had retired with a snug fortune, but had too active a mind to be satisfied with the quiet of retired life, and hence returned to trade with renewed energy. The new concern created a decided sensation, and for several years was successful, but we regret that we cannot record for it any other end than that which is the general fate of New York merchants. The movement which had now been inaugurated, continued with rapid progress until Barclay, Warren, Murray, and Chambers streets were transformed from quiet abodes of wealthy citizens to bustling avenues of trade. With this change the demand for size and ornament still continued, and was accompanied by enormous increase in rents. A newly-built Pearl street jobbing house in 1836 might be worth $1,500 per annum, while $3,000 was considered enormous; but now rents advanced to rates, which, compared with these, seemed fabulous. To meet these expenses, the consolidation of firms was resorted to, and the standard of a good year's trade extended from $250,000 to a million and upward.

From 1848 to 1860 the principle of extension was in active operation. From Chambers street the work of renovation progressed upward, until even Canal street was invaded by jobbers, and until a space of a half mile square had been entirely torn down and rebuilt. Vast fortunes were made in the twinkling of an eye. A German grocer, who held a lease of the corner of Warren and Church streets, received $10,000 for two years of unexpired lease. The fellow found that the property was needed for the improvement of adjacent lots, and made a bold and successful strike for a premium. The church property, corner of Duane and Church streets, one hundred feet square, was sold for $28,000, and within a week resold to a builder for $48,000. The widening of streets now became popular, and a spot long famed for the degradation of its inhabitants, was thrown open to the activities of trade, and its rookeries replaced by marble palaces. What a transformation for Reade, Duane, Church, and Anthony streets, once synonymous with misery and crime, thus to become the splendid seats of trade!

The growth of the dry goods trade had by 1860 assumed proportions which twenty years previously could not have entered into the wildest dreams. Indeed, had a prophet stood in Hanover square at that epoch, and portrayed the future, he would have been met with the charge of lunacy. $30,000 rent for a store was not more absurd than the idea that trade would ever wing its way to a neighborhood chiefly known through the police reports, and only visited by respectable people in the work of philanthropy. The enterprise of New York houses, in either following or leading this movement, is admirably illustrated, and as the merchants of New York are among her public men, we purpose a brief reference to a few leading houses. As it is nothing new to state that only three per cent. of our mercantile community are successful in making fortunes, the results of these examples need not surprise the reader.

Among the chief concerns of nearly forty years' career, may be mentioned C.W. & J.T. Moore & Co., who began in a small way in Pearl street, followed the flood of trade to Broadway, and afterward took possession of the splendid store built by James E. Whiting, on the site of the Broadway theatre. Bowen & McNamee commenced somewhere about 1840, having sprung from the bankrupt house of Arthur Tappan & Co. Their first establishment was in Beaver street, whence they removed to a marble palace which they built in Broadway in 1850, having, in ten years, realized an enormous fortune in the silk trade. Encouraged by the success following this second movement, the firm sold their store at an enormous advance, and purchased the corner of Broadway and Pearl streets, thus indicating that trade had advanced a mile up town. The palatial store which they erected on this spot will long mark the climacteric point in mercantile architecture. It was supposed at the time of its erection to be the finest jobbing store in existence, and although since then both Mr. Astor and James E. Whiting have each put up a splendid marble establishment in Broadway, they have not surpassed the one we refer to. Messrs. Bowen & McNamee were early identified with the progressive views of New England politics, which they maintained throughout their business career. At an early day a system of persecution was opened upon them by a portion of the New York press on the score of their anti-slavery sentiments, to which they replied by announcing that 'they had goods for sale, not opinions.' This bold expression became quite popular in its day, and did much to extend the business of the high-toned concern which proclaimed it, so that what was lost by prejudice was more than gained from legions of new friends, until, for a time, they reaped a golden harvest from a trade which ramified to all parts of the North, East, and West.

Another famous concern which sustained a position diametrically opposite to the one we have just mentioned, was that of Henrys, Smith & Townsend. This house was for more than a quarter of a century distinguished in the dry goods line, but held a Southern trade, and its members were men of corresponding proclivities. Commencing in Hanover square, the firm had followed the drift of trade into Broadway, and had become immensely rich. Like Bowen & McNamee (or Bowen, Holmes & Co., their later firm), they led in political, as well as in mercantile enterprise, and these two houses, like Calpe and Abyla, were for years set over against each other as the trade representatives of the Northern and Southern sentiment.

Yet, whatever may have been their difference of opinion, we are well persuaded of the fact that both houses were composed of patriotic and high-minded men, who differed simply because their views were of an extreme character. We might record other distinguished firms, which like these arose to greatness from humble beginnings, and at last fell like them beneath the revulsion which preceded the present civil war; but these will serve as general illustrations.

With this revulsion the glory of the great houses has passed away. The marble palaces which formerly rented for $20,000 to $50,000, either stand empty or are tenanted at a nominal rate; and the enormous traffic of millions annually, has sunk down to the proportions of primitive times. Those grand Broadway stores must hereafter be divided, for no one concern can fill them, and the dreams of merchant and of builder are alike exploded. The dry goods trade in New York is now under a process of change, and as the dispensation of high rents and broad floors, long credits and enormous sales, seems to be passing away, it is a question of no small interest what shape the trade will put on. We will not attempt to answer that question. We prefer to give a sketch of the man who has done the most to solve it--Mr. A. T. Stewart.

Mr. Stewart possesses one of the most truly executive minds in America. Indeed, as respects this feature, we doubt if any exception could be made to according him the very first position among our business men. Others may occasionally equal him in grasp of intellect, as in the instance of George Law, or Cornelius Vanderbilt; but, considered in the point of executive ability, we consider him unapproachable. He has long been chief among American dry goods dealers, and is known far and wide as the largest merchant (that is, buyer and seller) on this continent, and perhaps in the world. Yet there are thousands, including New Yorkers as well as country people, who have lost sight of Mr. Stewart's personality, and mention his name daily, and, perhaps, hourly, merely as the representative of a mammoth house of trade. The reason of this is obvious: hundreds and thousands have dealt year after year in that marble palace without ever beholding its proprietor. To such persons the name 'Stewart' has become merely a symbol, or, at most, a term of locality. To them he is a myth, with no personal entity. To their minds the term sets forth, instead of so many feet stature encased in broadcloth, with countenance, character, and voice like other men, merely a train of ideas, a marble front, plate glass, gorgeous drapery, legion of clerks, paradise of fashion, crowds of customers, and all the fascination of a day of shopping. 'Where did you get that love of a shawl?' asks Miss Matilda Namby Pamby of her friend Miss Araminta Vacuum. 'Why, at Stewart's, of course,' is the inevitable reply; 'and so cheap! only $250.' Now, to this pair of lady economists, what is 'Stewart's' but a mere locality, as impersonal as Paris or Brussels, or any other mart of finery? We would correct this tendency to the unreal (which, by the way, is very natural), by stating that behind the mythic idea, there _is_ a Stewart; not a mere locality, but a man--plain, earnest, and industrious--who, amid this army of clerks and bustle of external traffic, drives the secret machinery with wonderful precision. Purchasers at retail are the most liable to the symbolic idea, since they never behold the existing Stewart. They see hundreds of salesmen, some stout and some thin, some long and some short, some florid and some pale, moving about in broadcloth, with varied port of dignity and importance, who may look as if they would like to own a palace. Yet among these the proprietor will be sought in vain. But if one ascends to the second story, he will find himself in a new world. This is the wholesale establishment, and here Mr. Stewart appears as the presiding genius.

As one enters this department he may observe, in a large office on the side of the house looking into Chambers street, the grandmaster of the mammoth establishment, sitting at the desk, and occupied by the pressing demands of so important a position. Here, from eight in the morning until a late dinner hour, he is engrossed by the schemes and plans of his active brain. He bears a calm and thoughtful appearance, and yet, such is his executive ability, that the burden which would crush others is borne by him with comparative ease. His aspect and manners are plain and simple to a remarkable degree, and a stranger would be surprised to acknowledge in that tall form and quiet countenance, the Autocrat of the Dry Goods Trade. This man did not achieve this position save by patient toil; his greatness was not 'thrust upon him.' It has arisen from forty years of close application to the branch of trade which he adopted in early life, and to which he has bent his rare powers of mind. Like most of our successful men, he began the world with no capital beside brains; and like Daniel Webster and Louis Philippe, his early employment was teaching. The instructor, however, was soon merged in the business man, and in 1827 his unpretending name was displayed in Broadway, The little concern in which he then was salesman, buyer, financier, and sole manager, has gradually increased in importance, until it has become the present marble palace. It is probable that much of his early prosperity was owing to a remarkably fine taste in the selection of dress goods; but the subsequent breadth of his operations and their splendid success may be ascribed to his love of order, and its influence upon his operations. Years of practice upon this idea have enabled him to reduce everything to a system. Beside this, he is a first-class judge of character, reads men and schemes at a glance, and continually exhibits a depth of penetration which astonishes all who witness it. Thus, although sitting alone in his office, he is apparently conscious of whatever is going on in all parts of his establishment. So completely is he _en rapport_ with matters on the different floors, that the clerks sometimes imagine that there must be an invisible telegraph girdling the huge building. These men often say, by way of pleasant illustration of this fact, that if any one of them is absent, he is the very man to be first called for. From this it may be understood that it is not an easy matter to vary from the rigid system which holds its alternative of diligence or discharge over all beneath its control. We have referred to Mr. Stewart's habits of order as a means by which he controls his vast business with apparent ease. To explain this more explicitly, we may state that each department or branch of trade is under a distinct manager. These wholesale departments have been increased every year, until there is hardly an item in the comprehensive variety of the dry goods trade that is not here to be found. The advantage of this progressive movement was lately shown by the fact that, while Mr. Stewart lost enormous sums by Southern repudiation, he made up a large portion of the loss by the recent advance in domestics, a department which he had just added to his stock. The numerous failures which take place among New York business men give Mr. Stewart the choice among them for his managers, and a representation of the finest business talent of the city can, at this moment, be found in his establishment. These men turn their energies into that mighty channel which flows into his treasury. Indeed, to this merchant prince, they are what his marshals were to Napoleon, and, like him, this Autocrat of Trade sits enthroned in the insulated majesty of mercantile greatness.

It may be inferred that no man in the concern works harder than its owner, and we believe that this is acknowledged by all its employés. Day after day he wears the harness of silent and patient toil.

It is not generally known that during these hours of application, and while engrossed in the management of his immense operations, no one is allowed to address him personally until his errand or business shall have been first laid before a subordinate. If it is of such a character that that gentleman can attend to it, it goes no farther, and hence it vests with him to communicate it to his principal. To illustrate this circumstance, we relate the following incident: A few weeks ago a person entered the wholesale department, with an air of great importance, and demanded to see the proprietor. That proprietor could very easily be seen, as he was sitting in his office, but the stranger was courteously met by the assistant, with the usual inquiry as to the nature of his business. The stranger, who was a Government man, bristled up and exclaimed, indignantly, 'Sir, I come from Mr. Lincoln, and shall tell my business to no one but Mr. Stewart.' 'Sir,' replied the inevitable Mr. Brown, 'if Mr. Lincoln himself were to come here, he would not see Mr. Stewart until he should have first told me his business.'

The amount of annual sales made at this establishment is not known outside of the circle of managers, but may be variously estimated at from ten to thirty millions. This includes the retail department, whose daily trade varies, according to weather and season, from three thousand to twelve thousand dollars per day. To supply this vast demand for goods, Mr. Stewart has agencies in Paris, London, Manchester, Belfast, Lyons, and other European marts. Two of the above cities are the permanent residences of his partners; and while Mr. Fox represents the house in Manchester, Mr. Warton occupies the same position in Paris. These gentlemen are the only partners of the great house of A.T. Stewart & Co.

The marble block which the firm now occupies was built nearly twenty years ago. It had been the site of an old-fashioned hotel--which, like many others of its class, bore the name of 'Washington,' and which was eventually destroyed by fire. Mr. Stewart bought the plot at auction for less than $70,000, a sum which now would be considered beneath half its value. To this was subsequently added adjacent lots in Broadway, Reade and Chambers streets, and the present magnificent pile reared. To such of our readers as walk Broadway, we need not add any detail of its dimensions, nor mention what is now well known, that, large as it is, it is still too small for the increasing business. Hence another mercantile palace has been erected by Mr. Stewart in Broadway near Tenth street. This is intended for the retail trade, and is, no doubt, the most convenient, as well as the most splendid structure of the kind in the world. After the retail department shall have been thus removed up town the present store will be devoted to the wholesale trade.

If any of our readers should inquire what impulse moves the energies of one whose circumstances might warrant a life of ease, we presume that the reply would be force of character and the strength of habit. Mr. Stewart has an empire in the world of merchandise which he can neither be expected to resign or abdicate. We cannot regret that law of centralization which builds up one marble palace, where hundreds have failed utterly to make a living. Centralization of trade has its objections, and yet, upon the whole, there is, no doubt, a much healthier and happier condition prevailing among the parties connected with Mr. Stewart, than would be found among the struggling concerns (say fifty or more) whose place he has taken. Centralization is a law in trade whose movement crushes the weak by an inevitable step, while, by compelling them to take refuge beneath the protection of the strong it affords a better condition than the one from which they have been driven. To his early perception of this law Mr. Stewart largely owes his present colossal fortune.

UNHEEDED GROWTH.

As on the top of Lebanon,
Slowly the Temple grew,
All unobserved, though every shaft
A giant shadow threw:

Unheeded, though the golden pomp
Of ponderous roof and spire,
Wrought in the chambers of the earth,
Like subterranean fire:

Until the huge translated pile,
By brother kings upreared,
On Zion's hill, enthroned at last,
In silence reappeared.

So, not with observation comes
God's kingdom in the heart;
But like that Temple, silently,
With golden doors apart.

And all the Mighty Ones that watch,
With folded wings above,
Trembling with awe, now stoop to earth,
On messages of love.

Another Temple riseth fast,
Unbuilt of mortal hands,
Upheaving to the battle-blast
Of Freedom's conquering bands!

The bannered host--the darkened skies--
The thunderings all about,
Foreshadow but a Nation's birth,
Answering a Nation's shout!

RED, YELLOW, AND BLUE.

Alas for the old fashions! Wonder, incredulity, curiosity, and a crowd of primitive sensations, the whooping host that greeted, like misformed brutes on Circean shores, the steamboat and the telegraph, are passing away on a Lethean tide, and our mysteries are departing from among us. The intelligence which so long gazed wistfully upon the barred door of nature, or picked unsuccessfully at the bolts, with skeleton theories, and vague speculations, had learned to try the 'open sesame' of science. The master key is turning, the shafts yield, and already a dim glory shines through.

While the strides of a positive philosophy are crippled by enthusiastic rhapsodies about intuition and instinct, her footsteps are still indelible, and her progress is certain and accelerating. Reason is written on her brow; she appeals to the universal gift, and denies the authoritative dictations of fallible genius, as much as a moral equality disallows the divine right of kings. Speculators among stars, speculators among sounds and colors, are the skirmishers in front of an intellectual post, whose tread reverberates but little in their rear. Accoutred with a few empiric facts and inductive minds, they aspire to beautiful and stable theories, whence they may descend, by deductive steps, accurate even to mathematical absoluteness, to the very arcana of what has been the inexplicable. To them the true, the beautiful, must be facts, defined, realized, and vigorously analyzed. Visible embodiments of an incomprehensible grace must be disintegrated, and the thinnest essences escape not the analytical rack whereon they confess the causal entity of their composition. 'Broad-browed genius' may toss his locks in the studio redolent of art; his eye may light, and his nervous fingers print the grand creation on the canvas. The divine afflatus is in his nostrils; it is his spirit, and his picture is the reflex of his soul. But keen-eyed Science lays a shadowy hand upon the 'holy coloring,' and says: 'Truly, the harmony is beautiful; it has pleased a sympathetic instinct from the first. Yet, from the first, my laws have been upon it--inexorable laws, which answer to the mind as instinct echoes to the soul.'

The august simile of the philosopher, who likened the world to a vast animal, is appearing each day as too real for poetry. The ocean lungs pulse a gigantic breath at every tide, her continental limbs vibrate with light and electricity, her Cyclopean fires burn within, and her atmosphere, ever giving, ever receiving, subserves the stupendous equilibrium, and betrays the universal motion. Motion is material life; from the molecular quiverings in the crystal diamond, to the light vibrations of a meridian sun--from the half-smothered sound of a whispered love, to the whirl of the uttermost orb in space, there is life in moving matter, as perfect in particulars, and as magnificent in range, as the animation which swells the tiny lung of the polyp, or vitalizes the uncouth python floundering in the saurian slime of a half-cooled planet.

When a polar continent heaves from the bosom of the deep, or when the inquiring eye rests upon the serrated rock, the antique victim of some drift-dispersing glacier, the mind perceives the effects and recognizes the existence of nature's omnipotent muscles, and their appalling power.

But that adventurer who chases the chain of necessity to the sources of this grand instability, is merged at once in a haze of speculations, beautiful as sunlight through morning mists, but uncertain as the veriest chimeras. While beyond the idea of comprehensive motion the colossal symmetry of Truth expands in ultimate outlines, her features are shrouded, but in such an attractive clare-obscure of inviting analogies and semi-satisfying glimpses, that the temptation to guess at the ideal face almost overpowers the desire to kiss the real and shining feet below. Unfortunately, there is the domain of the myths and immaterials, _there_ is the home of the law and the force, _there_ dwell the Odyles, the electricities, the magnetisms, and affinities, and there the speculative Æneas pursues shadows more fleeting than the Stygian ghosts, and the grasp of the metaphysician closes on shapes whose embrace is vacancy. The bark that ploughs within this mystic expanse, sheds from its cleaving keel but coruscations of phosphorescent sparkles, which glimmer and quench in a gloom that Egyptian seers never penetrated, and modern guessers cannot conjecture through. There is, indeed, 'oak and triple brass' upon his breast who steeps his lips in the chalice of the Rosicrucian, and the doom of Prometheus is the fabled defeat which is waiting for the wanderer in those opaque spaces. While we warily, therefore, tread not upon the ground whose trespass brought the vulture of unfilled desire, the craving void for visionary lore upon the heaven-born, earth-punished speculator, we can still find flowery paths and full fruition, in meadows wherein the light of reason requires no support from the _ignes fatui_ of imagination; meadows after all so broad, that did not metaphysics 'teach man his tether,' they would seem illimitable. The book of nature is not spread before us, turning leaf after leaf at every sunrise, with new delineations on every page, to be stared at with vacant inanity, or criticized with imbecile verbosity. The rivulet does not tinkle and the sky does not look blue that people may feed the ear alone with the one, or satisfy the eye alone with the other; the nerves which carry the sensation to the brain, flutter with the news, and knock at the house of mind for explanation. We do not anticipate being hurried into any extravaganza about the rural felicity of green trees, clinking cowbells, cane chairs, and cigars, when we recall to the trainer of surburban vines the harmony, the analogy, the relationship, which he must have observed between sounds and colors in nature's album of melodies.

When, at evening, the zenith blue melts away toward the horizon in dreamy violet, and the retreating sun leaves limber shafts of orange light, like Parthian arrows, among the green branches of the elms, what sounds can charm the ear like the soft chirrup of the cricket, the homely drone of the hive-seeking bee, and the cool rustle of the breeze through the tops of the spring-sodden water grasses? How fondly the mind blends the evening colors and the incipient voices of the night! 'Oh,' says the metaphysician, 'this is association: just so a strain of music reminds you of a fine passage in a book you have read, or a beautiful tone in a picture you have seen; just so the Ranz des Vaches bears the exile to the timber house, with shady leaves, corbelled and strut-supported, whose very weakness appeals to the avalanche that shakes an icicly beard in monition from the impeding crags.'

Well, let association play her part in some cases; when a habit has necessitated the recurrence of two distinct ideas together, they will certainly be associated at times when the habit is gone; but suppose the analogy is felt when the ideas have never before been in juxtaposition, or when there has even been no sensation at all to generate one of the notions. How, for instance, did the sightless imaginer ever conceive that red must be like the sound of the trumpet? Simply because the analogy between color and music is deeper than the idea of either, more absolute than association could make it; because certain tints are calculated to produce exactly similar impressions on the eye that certain sounds do upon the ear; or, to use a mathematical turn of expression, because some color [Greek: x] is to the eye as some sound [Greek: x] is to the ear.

That this mathematical turn of expression is no vagary, but perfectly germane to the subject, and accurate in application, we propose to prove to those who love coincidences and analogies sufficiently to fish them out of a little dilute science.

Light and sound are the daughters of motion. Color and music, the ethereal and aërial offspring of this ancestry, born with the world, fostered in Biblical times, expanded in China and Egypt, living on the painted jar, and breathing in the oaten reed, deified in Greece, and analyzed to-day, are natural cousins at the least, and they have come from the spacious home of their progenitor, upon our dusky and silent sphere, like Peace and Goodwill, with hands bound in an oath and contract never to part. We will spare a dissertation on chaos; we will not speak of matter and inertia; but as our greatest and purest fountain of light is the sun, we may be allowed a modest exposition of his philosophical state, as a granite gate to the garden beyond. Ninety-five millions of miles to the north, east, south, or west of us, up or down, as the case may be, stands the molten centre of our system--an orb, whose atoms, turbulent with electricity, gravity, or whatever mechanists please to call the attraction of particle for particle, are forever urging to its centre, forever meeting with repulsions when they slide within the forbidden limits of molecular exclusiveness, and eternally vibrating with a quake and quiver which lights and heats the worlds around. In other words, this agitation is one that, transmitted to an ethereal medium, produces therein corresponding vibrations or waves, which are light and heat.

As sound is the symmetrical aërial motion, if our atmosphere embraced our sun, and extended throughout space, we should _perhaps_ hear in the ambient the fundamental chord, resolvable into the diatonic scale--as we look upon the beam of white which the prism decomposes into the solar spectrum, and in the ghostly watches of the night, we might recognize the 'music of the spheres' as the planets rushed around their airy orbits, with a noise like the 'noise of many waters,' no longer a poetic illusion, but a harmonic fact.

Light, whether white or colored, is transmitted through ether in waves of measurable length: each atom of the medium, when disturbed, moves around its place of rest in an orbit of variable dimension and eccentricity. On the character of the orbit depends the character of the light; and on the velocity of orbit motion, its intensity. Like the gentle pulsations which circle from the point where fell the pebble in the purple lake, come the grateful twilight waves, red with the last kiss of day; like the fierce struggles of the storm-beaten ocean floods come the lightning waves, blazing through the thunder clouds, howling in riven agony: so great is the variety of character in these orbicular disturbances, which, acting upon the optic nerves, produce the sensation of multiform light and color.

Waves of light, like waves of sound, are of different lengths, and while the eye prefers some single waves to others, it recognizes a harmony in certain combinations, which it cannot discover in different ones.

While, however, the constitution of individual eyes acknowledges one color more pleasing than another, there is none, perhaps, which does not prefer the coldest monochromatic to entire absence of color, as in blank white, or to an absolute vacancy of light, as in black.

Sepia pieces are more agreeable than the neatest drawings in China ink, or the most graceful curves done in chalk upon a blackboard. But however the eye may admire a severe and simple unity, it relishes still more a harmonious complexity; and a very mediocre little _pensée_ in water colors, will prove more generally attractive than the monochromatic copies in the Liber Veritatis.

But to this complexity there must be limits--an endless and incongruous variety teases and revolts; the discordant effect of innumerable tints, among which some are sure to be uncongenial to each other, is always extremely irritating. There ought, then, to be a scale of color, it would seem, within whose limits the purest harmonies are to be found, and beyond which subdivisions should be no more allowed than in constant musical notes. When this idea strikes, as it must have, many artists, reason, consideration, instinct, and all, refer at once to the solar spectrum as such an one. The analogy between this scale, which governs the chromatics of the sunset and thunderstorm, and that which the science of man has established, empirically, for harmonies, is remarkable, and we shall try to make it patent. They are both scales of seven: the tonic, mediant, and dominant, find their types in red, yellow, and blue, while the modifications on which the diatonic scale is constructed, resemble, numerically and esthetically, the well-known variations in the spectrum.

The theory of harmonies in optics is the same as in acoustics, the same as in everything--it is based on simplicity. Those colors, like those notes, the number of whose vibrations or waves in the same time bear some simple ratio to each other, are harmonious; an absolute equality produces unison; and a group of harmonies is melody both in music and in color. At this point we cannot but hint at the analogy already discovered between the elements of music and the elements of form. Angles harmonize in simple analysis, or intricate synthesis, whose circular ratios are simple.

Numerical proportions are the roots of that shaft of harmony which, springing from motion, rises and spreads into the nature around us, which the senses appreciate, the spirit feels, and the reason understands. Beauty is order, and the infinity of the law is testified in the ever-swelling proofs of an unlimited consonance in creation, of which these analogies are the smallest types. But the idea of numerical analogy is not new to our age, now that the atomic theory is established, and people are turned back to the days when the much bescouted alchemist pored with rheumy eyes over the crucible, about to be the tomb of elective affinity, and whence a golden angel was to develop from a leaden saint: when they are reminded of the Pythagorean numbers, and the arithmetic of the realists of old, they may very well imagine that the vain world, like an empty fashion, has cycled around to some primitive phase, and look for the door of that academy 'where none could enter but those who understood geometry.'

But to return. When the ear accepts a tone, or the eye a single color, it is noticed that these organs, satiated finally with the sterile simplicity, echo, as it were, in a soliloquizing manner, to themselves, other notes or tints, which are the complementary or harmony-completing ones: so that if nature does not at once present a satisfaction, the organization of the senses allows them internal resources whereon to retreat. 'There is a world without, and a world within,' which may be called complementary worlds. But nature is ever liberal, and her chords are generally harmonies, or exquisite modifications of concord. The chord of the tonic, in music, is the primal type of this harmony in sound; it is perfectly satisfactory to the tympanum; and the ear, knowing no further elements (for the tonic chord combines them all), can ask for nothing more.

This chord, constructed on the tonic C, or Do, as a key note, and consisting of the 1st, 3d, and 5th of the diatonic scale, or Do, Mi, Sol, is called the fundamental chord. The harmony in color which corresponds to this, and leaves nothing for the eye to desire, is, of course, the light that nature is full of--sunlight. White light is then the fundamental chord of color, and it is constructed on the red as the tonic, consisting of red, yellow, and blue, the 1st, 3d, and 5th of the solar spectrum.

This little analogy is suggestive, but its development is striking.

The diatonic scale in music, determined by calculation and actual experiment on vibrating chords, stands as follows. It will be easily understood by musicians, and its discussion appears in most treatises on acoustics:

Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do

C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, &c.

1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2.

The intervals, or relative pitches of the notes to the tonic C, appear expressed in the fractions, which are determined by assuming the wave length or amount of vibration of C as unity, and finding the ratio of the wave length of any other note to it. The value of an interval is therefore found by dividing the wave length of the graver by that of the acuter note, or the number of vibrations of the acuter in a given time by the corresponding number of the graver. These fractions, it is seen, comprise the simplest ratios between the whole numbers 1 and 2, so that in this scale are the simple and satisfactory elements of harmony in music, and everybody knows that it is used as such. Now nature exposes to us a scale of color to which we have adverted; it is thus:

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Let us investigate this, and see if her science is as good as mortal penetration; let us see if she too has hit upon the simplest fractions between 1 and 2, for a scale of 7. We can determine the relative pitch of any member of this scale to another, easily, as the wave lengths of all are known from experiment.

The waves of red are the longest; it corresponds, then, to the tonic. Let us assume it as unity, and deduce the pitch of orange by dividing the first by the second.

The length of a red wave is 0.0000266 inches; the length of an orange wave is 0.0000240 inches; the fraction required then is 266/240; dividing both members of this expression by 30, it reduces to 9/8, almost exactly. This is encouraging. We find a remarkable coincidence in ratio, and in elements which occupy the same place on the corresponding scales. Again, the length of a yellow wave is 0.0000227 inches; its pitch on the scale is therefore 266/227; dividing both terms by 55, the reduced fraction approximates to 5/4 with great accuracy, when we consider the deviations from truth liable to occur in the delicate measurements necessary to determine the length of a light vibration, or the amount of quiver in a tense cord. A green wave is 0.0000211 inches in length; its pitch is then 266/211, which reduced, becomes 4/3; in like manner the subsequent intervals may be determined, which all prove to be complete analogues, except, perhaps, violet, whose fraction is 266/167, which reduces nearer 16/9 than 15/8. But these small discrepancies, which might be expected in the results of physical measurements, do not cripple the analogy which appears now in the two following scales:

DIATONIC OR NATURAL SCALE OF MUSIC.

C, D, E´, F, G, A, B, C´ D´ E´, &c.

1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2 18/8 10/4

DIATONIC OR NATURAL SCALE OF COLOR.

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.
1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 16/9

Thus orange is to red what D is to C; and to resume the proportion we used before, red is to eye as C is to ear; yellow: eye: Mi: ear; and so on the proportion extends, till the analogy embraces chords, harmonies, melodies, and compositions even.

We have already mentioned the chord of the tonic, and the corresponding eye-music, red, yellow, and blue; let us consider the chord of the dominant or 5th note, whose analogue is blue. This chord is constructed on the 5th of the diatonic as a fundamental note, and consists of the 5th, 7th, and 9th, or returning the 9th an octave, the 5th, 7th, and 2d. The parallel harmony among the spectral colors is blue, violet, and orange. The name 'dominant' indicates the nature of this chord; its often recurring importance in harmonic combinations of a certain key make it easily recognized, and it is even more pleasing than the tonic in its subdued character.

Out of doors this chord is preëminent in the sunset key, and the western skies ever chant their evening hymn in the 5th, 7th, and 2d of the ethereal music. The correspondence of the sub-dominant would be red, green, and indigo; of the chord of the 6th, red, yellow, and indigo; and so on, the curious mind may elicit the symmetrical to any notes, half notes, or combinations of notes. It is evident that as a note may be interpolated between any two of the scale, for reach or variety, and called, _e.g._ [sharp]-F or [flat-]G, so a half tint between green and blue is a kind of analogical [sharp]green or [flat]blue.

It seems to us that the elementary angles which Mr. Hay conceives to be the tonic, mediant, and dominant, in formal symmetry, will soon be proved to decompose into a scale of linear harmony, forming another beam in this glory of natural analogy. These angles are the fundamental ones of the pentagon square, and equilateral triangle--respectively 108°, 90°, and 60°. Some such scale it is known existed when art was at its culmination in buried Greece, and it was less the stupendous genius of her designers than the soul of the universe which their rules taught them how to infuse into form, which rendered the marbles of Hellas synonymes for immortality.

The most beautiful and conclusive, and yet most mysterious sign, that points the seeker to the prosecution of this last analogy, remains yet for us to remark, and for some investigator yet to take advantage of. It is the nodal figures which arrange themselves upon an elastic plate (as of glass), when it is made to vibrate (strewed with sand) by a fiddle bow drawn across its edge, so as to produce a pitch of some intensity. These have been investigated, and found subject to certain laws, which link into the chain of symmetry that philosophers have already grasped. Among these figures, of which the simplest arise from the deepest pitches, the angles mentioned occur.

But however interesting it might be to follow out these episodical instances, they would lead us too far from our original compass.

We have plainly exhibited the identity of principle which governs the bases of sound and color, and might fairly write Q.E.D. to our proposition; but the fact so determined has a farther bearing upon art, which it may not be out of place to enlarge upon.

The painter's palette, charged with color, is the instrument with which he thrills a melody to the eye, even as the magniloquent organ or the sigh-breathing flute speak to the ear. And just as the compass of all instruments is constructed on the diatonic scale, so should the range of the palette depend upon the tinges of the spectrum.

While artists of a certain school pretend to imitate Nature, who paints literally with a pencil dipped in rainbow, they make use of a complication of tints, at which their goddess would shudder. In mixing and mixing on the groaning palette, they generate an unhappy brood of misformed tones, which never can agree upon the canvas; while the pigments, impure at best, become doubly so by amalgamation, the ramifications of contrast which such differences superinduce are sure to prove sometimes repulsive.

Contrast is nature's charm, the bubbling source that she exhausts for her prettiest harmonies and varieties.

But earthen pitchers are easily broken at the brink, and if the slippery streams thence flowing are not judiciously checked, they merge into a harsh flood that sweeps away all grace, like the magic fountain in the German myth, whose fairy tricklings, uncovered for a single night, burst into a curbless flood, that drowned the sleeping landscape ere the dawn. The small reactions of contrast in infinitesimal tints, are perhaps neglected or unforeseen, but their influence is fearfully apparent in the end.

The simplicity of beauty is very limited, and he who dabbles in infinite decompositions of color will be certain to encounter turbid and unnatural tones, whose ultimate result will be an inharmonious and disunited whole.

It is true that in the landscape, and cloudscape, and waterscape, there are wonderful extremes of chromatic gradation, for it is the hand and mind of nature that adorns herself; she can see unerringly, and lay on divinely, the remotest intricacies of shade, and her colors are pure light, swimming in ether.

But these media do not come bottled up in tin tubes, and to this gift a mortal hand ought not to presume. It might as well aspire to draw infinitely as to tint infinitesimally; for before it can find use for all the colors in nature, it ought to have all nature upon the canvas. But finally, we hold that reproductive art is as much part and parcel of human nature as the appreciative, or sensation of beauty; and that any one can learn to copy and color a landscape or design, as well as to perform upon a musical instrument. Let genius still wield the creative wand, but in the wide domain of art, over his grotto alone be it written, _Procul o procul este profani_.