Chapter XII (2)

'Dwelling in huts, surrounded by a sea of mud, may appear to be
very romantic--on paper--to some folks, but the romance of this
kind of existence with the soldiers soon wears away, and to them
any change must necessarily be for the better; they therefore hail
with delight, as a positive relief, the opportunity once more to
practise their drill which the recent change of weather has
afforded them. For the last three months, the time of the soldier
has passed heavily enough, with the long winter nights, and little
else to relieve the monotony of his life but stereotyped guard
duty.'

It would require volumes to describe the ravages of war in Virginia: let a few pictures, selected from sketches made on the spot, indicate the melancholy aspect of a domain, a few weeks or months before smiling in peace and productiveness. The following facetious but faithful statement, though confined to a special, applies to many districts:

'The once neat court-house stands by the roadside a monument to
treason and rebellion, deprived of its white picket fence, stripped
of window blinds, cases, and dome, walls defaced by various
hieroglyphics, the judge's bench a target for the 'expectorating'
Yankee;' the circular enclosure occupied by the jury was besmeared
with mud, and valuable documents, of every description, scattered
about the floor and yard--it is, indeed, a sad picture of what an
infatuated people will bring upon themselves. In one corner of the
yard stands a house of records, in which were deposited all the
important deeds and papers pertaining to this section for a
generation past. When our advance entered the building, they were
found lying about the floor to the depth of fifteen inches or more
around the doorsteps and in the dooryard. It is impossible to
estimate the inconvenience and losses which will be incurred by
this wholesale destruction of deeds, claims, mortgages, etc. I
learned that a squadron of exasperated cavalry, who passed this way
not long since, committed the mischief. The jail across the way,
where many a poor fugitive has doubtless been imprisoned for
striking out for freedom, is now used as a guardhouse. As I write,
the bilious countenance of a culprit is peeping through the iron
grates of a window, who, may be, is atoning for having invaded a
henroost or bagged an unsuspecting pig. Our soldiers have rendered
animal life almost extinct in this part of the Old Dominion.
Indeed, wherever the army goes, there can be heard on every side
the piercing wail of expiring pork, the plaintive lowing of a
stricken bovine, or suppressed cry of an unfortunate gallinacious.'

Here is a scene familiar to many a Union soldier who gazed at sunset upon the vast encampment:

'Along the horizon a broad belt of richest amber spread far away
toward north and south; and above, the spent, ragged rain clouds of
deep purple, suffused with crimson, were woven and braided with
pure gold. Slowly from the face of the heavens they melted and
passed away as darkness came on, leaving the clear sky studded with
stars, and the crescent moon shedding a soft radiance below. I
climbed to the top of a hill not far off, and looked across the
country. On every eminence, in every little hollow almost, were
innumerable lights shining, some thick and countless as stars,
indicating an encampment; others isolated upon the outskirts; here
and there the glowing furnace of a bakery; the whole land as far as
the eye could see looking like another heaven wherein some
ambitious archangel, covetous of creative power, had attempted to
rival the celestial splendors of the one above us. There was no
sound of drum or fife or bugle; the sweet notes of the 'good-night'
call had floated into space and silence a half hour before; only on
the still air were heard the voices of a hand of negroes chanting
solemnly and slowly, to a familiar sacred tune, the words of some
pious psalm.'

We may realize the effect of the armed occupation upon economical and social life by a few facts noted after a successful raid:

'In the counties visited there were but few rebels found at home,
except the very old and the very young. In nine days' travel I did
not see fifty able-bodied men who were not in some way connected
with the army. Nearly every branch of business is at a standstill.
The shelves in stores are almost everywhere empty; the shop of the
artisan is abandoned and in ruins. The people who are to be seen
passively submit to all that emanates from Richmond without a
murmur; they are for the most part simple minded, and ignorant of
all that is transpiring in the great theatre about them. An
intelligent-looking man in Columbia laughed heartily when told that
Union troops occupied New Orleans--Jefferson Davis would let them
know it were such the fact; and I could not find a man who would
admit that the Confederates had ever been beaten in a single
engagement. These people do not even read the Richmond papers, and
about all the information they do obtain is what is passed about in
the primitive style, from mouth to mouth. Before this raid they
believed that the Union soldiers were anything but civilized
beings, and were stricken with terror when their approach was
heralded. Of six churches seen in one day, in only one had there
been religious services held within six months. One half at least
of the dwelling houses are unoccupied, and fast going to decay.'

Not all the land is ill adapted to cool actions and strategy; there are sections naturally fortified, and these have been the scenes of military vicissitudes memorable, extreme, picturesque, and fatal. Here is an instance:

'There is no town in the United States which exhibits more
deplorably the ravages of war than Harper's Ferry. More than half
the buildings are in ruins, and those now inhabited are occupied by
small dealers and peddlers, who follow troops, and sell at
exorbitant prices, tarts and tinware, cakes and crockery, pipes and
poultry, shoes and shirts, soap and sardines. The location is one
of peculiar beauty. The Potomac receives the Shenandoah at this
point; each stream flowing through its own deep, wild, winding
valley, until it washes the base of the promontory, on the sides
and summit of which are scattered the houses and ruins of the town.
The rapids of the rivers prevent navigation, and make the fords
hazardous. The piers of an iron bridge and a single section still
remaining, indicate a once beautiful structure; and a pontoon
substitute shows the presence of troops. An occasional canal boat
suggests a still continued effort at traffic, and transport
railcars prove action in the quartermaster's department. The
mountains are 'high and hard to climb.' The jagged sides of slate
rock rise vertically, in many places to lofty heights, inducing the
sensation of fear lest they should fall, while riding along the
road which winds under the threatening cliffs. The mountains are
crowned with batteries, 'like diadems across the brow,' and the
Hottentoty-Sibley tents dot the ridges like miniature anthills.'

But within and around the capital of Virginia cluster the extreme associations of her history: these memories and memorials of patriotism hallow the soil whereon the chief traitors inaugurated their infamous rule; the trial of Burr and the burning of the theatre are social traditions which make Richmond a name fraught with tragic and political interest; her social and forensic annals are illustrious; and, hereafter, among the many anomalies of the nation's history, few will more impress the thoughtful reminiscent than that a city eminent for social refinement and long the honored resort of the most eminent American statesmen and jurists, the seat of elegant hospitality and the shrine of national fame, was, for years, desecrated by the foulest prisons, filled with brave American citizens, who were subjected to insults and privations such as only barbarians could inflict, for no cause but the gallant defence of the national honor and authority against a slaveholders' rebellion.

But perhaps no coincidence is more impressive in the late experience of a Union soldier in Virginia than the associations then and there awakened by the recurrence of the anniversary of the birth of her noblest son and our matchless patriot:

'The 22d of February, 1863--the anniversary of Washington's
birthday--will long be remembered,' writes one, 'by the Army of the
Potomac. Encamped, as it is, on the very spot where he--'whom God
made childless that a nation might call him father'--passed most of
his youthful days, the thoughts of all naturally revert to the
history of that great man, and particularly to that part of his
early life, when, within the sacred precincts of home, a mother's
care laid the foundation of that high moral character which in
after life gave tone to both his civil and military career. Within
one mile of the spot where I am now writing these lines, George
Washington lived from the fourth to the sixteenth year of his age.
The river, the hills, and dales, now so familiar to the soldiers
composing this army, were the same then as to-day, and were the
scene of his early gambols, his youthful joys and sorrows. Over
these hills he wandered in the manly pursuits for which he was at
that early period distinguished above his fellows, and which
prepared him for enduring the hardships of the position he was
destined to fill; here, too, is where tradition says he
accomplished the feat of throwing a stone across the Rappahannock,
and here, too, stood the traditional cherry tree, about the
destruction of which with his little hatchet he would not utter a
falsehood. Yonder, just across the Rappahannock, in a small,
unostentatious burying ground, the immortal remains of 'Mary,
mother of Washington,' were buried--sacred spot, now desecrated by
the presence of the enemies of those principles which her honored
son spent the energies of his life to establish for the benefit of
all mankind. When we think for what Washington took up arms against
the mother country, and what, by his example and teachings, he
sought to perpetuate forever, and see the fratricidal hand raised
to destroy the fair fabric he helped to rear, we feel something as
though an omnipotent power would here intervene, and here on this
sacred spot overthrow the enemies of this land without the further
sacrifice of blood.'

Quite a different and more recent local association is thus recorded:

'The second time that I stood here was nigh three years ago, when I
spoke to you in relation to John Brown, then in a Virginia jail.
How great the result of that idea which he pressed upon the
country! Do you know with what poetic justice Providence treats
that very town where he lay in jail when I spoke to you before? The
very man who went down from Philadelphia to bring his body back to
his sad relatives--insulted every mile of the road, his life
threatened, the bullets whistling around his head--that very man,
for eight or ten months, is brigadier-general in command of the
town of Charlestown and Harper's Ferry. By order of his superior
officers, he had the satisfaction of finding it his duty, with his
own right hand, to put the torch to that very hotel into which he
had been followed with insult and contumely, as the friend of John
Brown; and when his brigade was under orders to destroy all the
buildings of that neighborhood, with reverential care he bade the
soldiers stop to spare that engine house that once sheltered the
old hero. I do not know any history more perfectly poetic than of
that single local instance given us in three short years. Hector
Tindale, the friend of John Brown, who went there almost with his
life in his right hand, commands, and his will is law, his sword is
the guarantee of peace, and by his order the town is destroyed,
with the single exception of that hall which John Brown's presence
has rendered immortal.'

The graphic details furnished by the army correspondents to the daily press of the North, reveal to us in vivid and authentic terms the change which war has wrought in Virginia. The condition of one 'fine old mansion' is that of hundreds. On the banks of the Rappahannock and in the vicinity of Fredericksburg is, for instance, an estate, now called the Lacy House, the royal grant whereof is dated 1690. The bricks and the mason work of the main edifice are English; the situation is beautiful; the furniture, conservatories, musical instruments, every trait and resource suggest luxury. After the battle of Fredericksburg, the Lacy House became a hospital: and a spectator of the scene thus describes it:

'The parlors, where so often had the fairest and brightest of
Virginia's daughters, and her bravest and most chivalric sons, met
to enjoy the hospitalities of the liberal host, and to join in the
mazy dance 'from eve till rosy morn'--the dining room, where so
many lordly feasts had been served--the drawing room, wherein the
smiling host and hostess had received so many a welcome guest--the
bed rooms, from the bridal chamber where the eldest scion of the
house had first clasped in his arms the wife of his bosom, to the
low attic where the black cook retired after her greasy labors of
the day, all were closely crowded with the low iron hospital beds.
These halls, which had so often reëchoed the sound of music, and of
gayest voices, and also of those lower but more sacred tones that
belong to lovers, now resounded with shrieks of pain, and with the
lower, weaker groans of dying men.

'The splendid furniture was put to strange uses--the sideboard of
solid rosewood, made in those honest days before cabinet makers had
learned the rogue's trick of veneering, instead of being crowded
with generous wines, or with good spirits that had mellowed for
years in the cellars, was now crowded in every shelf with
forbidding-looking bottles of black draughts, with packages of salt
and senna, and with ill-omened piles of raking pills, perhaps not
less destructive in their way than shot and shell of a more
explosive sort. The butler's pantry and store rooms had their
shelves and drawers and boxes filled, not with jellies and
marmalades and preserves, and boxes of lemons and preserved ginger
and drums of figs, and all sorts of original packages of all sorts
of things toothsome and satisfying to the palate--but even her
scammony and gamboge, and aloes and Epsom salts, and other dire
weapons, only wielded by the medical profession, had obtained
exclusive sway.

'On many a retired shelf, and in many an odd corner, too, I saw
neglected cartridge boxes, cast-off belts, discarded caps, etc.,
which told, not of the careless and heedless soldier, who had lost
his accoutrements, but of the _dead_ soldier, who had gone to a
land where it is to be hoped he will have no further use for Minié
rifle balls or pipe-clayed crossbelts. I saw, too, with these other
laid-aside trappings, dozens and hundreds of Minié and other
cartridges, never now to be fired at an enemy by the hand that had
placed them in the now discarded cartridge box.

'The walls of the various rooms of the Lacy House, like those of
most of the old houses in Virginia, are ceiled up to the top with
wood, which is painted white. There is a heavy cornice in each
room; there are the huge old-fashioned fireplaces, the marble
mantelpieces over the same, and in the main dining room, where it
was the custom for the men to remain after dinner, and after the
ladies had retired, was a curious feature to be observed, that I
have never seen but once or twice. Over the marble mantel, but
quite within reach, runs a mahogany framework intended for the
reception of the toddy glasses, after the various guests shall have
finished the generous liquor therein contained.

'There are still some vestiges of the family furniture
remaining--some rosewood and mahogany sideboards, tables,
bedsteads, etc., which the family have not been able to remove, and
which the occupying soldiers have found no use for. The most
notable of these articles is a musical instrument, which may be
described as a compound harp-organ. It is, in fact, an upright
harp, played by keys which strike the wires by a pianoforte action,
which has an ordinary piano keyboard. This is, in fact, the
earliest form of the modern pianoforte. Then, in the same
instrument is an organ bellows and pipes, the music from which is
evoked by means of a separate keyboard, the bellows is worked by a
foot treadle, like that most detestable abomination known to
moderns as a melodeon. Thus, in the same instrument, the performer
is supposed to get the powers and effect both of an upright piano
and a small organ. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that
this instrument (which, doubtless, originally cost at least $3,000)
is now utterly useless, the wires, many of them, being broken, and
the whole machine being every way out of order. The maker's name is
set down as 'Longman & Broderup, 26 Cheapside, No. 13 Haymarket,
London.' The poor old thing has doubtless been in the Lacy House
for more than a hundred years. It has been rudely dragged from its
former place of honor, and now stands in the middle of the floor.
The spot it formerly occupied has been lately filled by a hospital
bed, on which a capital operation was performed. The spouting blood
from the bleeding arteries of some poor patient has covered the
wall with crimson marks. In fact, everywhere all over the house,
every wall and floor is saturated with blood, and the whole house,
from an elegant gentleman's residence, seems to have been suddenly
transformed into a butcher's shamble. The old clock has stopped;
the child's rocking horse is rotting away in a disused balcony; the
costly exotics in the garden are destroyed, or perhaps the hardiest
are now used for horse posts. All that was elegant is wretched; all
that was noble is shabby; all that once told of civilized elegance
now speaks of ruthless barbarism.'

Take another illustration--that of the incongruous juxtaposition of old family sepulchres and fresh soldiers' graves--the associations of the past and the sad memorials of recent strife even among the dead:

'Yesterday,' writes a thoughtful observer, from near Stafford Court
House, in December, 1862, 'for the first time since leaving
Harper's Ferry, I met with an evidence of the old-time aristocracy,
of which the present race of Virginians boast so much and possess
so little. About four miles from here, standing remote and alone in
the centre of a dense wood, I found an antiquated house of worship,
reminding one of the old heathen temples hidden in the recesses of
some deep forest, whither the followers after unknown gods were
wont to repair for worship or to consult the oracles. On every side
are seen venerable trees overtowering its not unpretentious
steeple. The structure is built of brick (probably brought from
England), in the form of a cross, semi-gothic, with entrances on
three sides, and was erected in the year 1794. On entering, the
first object which attracted my attention was the variously carved
pulpit, about twenty-five feet from the floor, with a winding
staircase leading to it. Beneath were the seats for the attendants,
who, in accordance with the customs of the old English Episcopacy,
waited upon the dominie. The floor is of stone, a large cross of
granite lying in the centre, where the broad aisles intersect. To
to the left of this is a square enclosure for the vestrymen, whose
names are written on the north side of the building. The reader, if
acquainted with Virginia pedigrees, will recognize in them some of
the oldest and most honorable names of the State--Thomas Fitzhugh,
John Lee, Peter Hedgman, Moot Doniphan, John Mercer, Henry Tyler,
William Mountjoy, John Fitzhugh, John Peyton. On the north hall are
four large tablets containing Scriptural quotations. Directly
beneath is a broad flagstone, on which is engraved with letters of
gold, 'In memory of the House of Moncure.' This smacks of royalty.
Parallel to it lies a tombstone with the following inscription:

* * * * *

Sacred to the memory of William Robison, the fourth son of H. and
E. Moncure, of Windsor Forest, born the 27th of January, 1806, and
died 13th of April, 1828, of a pulmonary disease, brought on by
exposure to the cold climate of Philadelphia, where he had gone to
prepare himself for the practice of medicine. Possessed of a mind
strong and vigorous, and of a firmness of spirit a stranger to
fear, he died manifesting that nobleness of soul which
characterized him while living, the brightest promise of his
parents, and the fondest hopes of their afflicted family.

* * * * *

'Led, doubtless, by the expectation of discovering buried
valuables, some one has removed the stone from its original
position, and excavated the earth beneath. Close by the entrance on
the north side are three enclosed graves, where sleep those of
another generation. The brown, moss-covered tombstones appear in
strong contrast to a plain pine board at the head of a fresh-made
grave alongside, and bearing the following inscription: 'Henry
Basler, Company H, One Hundred and Eighteenth Pennsylvania
Volunteers.'

Loyal during the civil war of England, virtually an independent State under Cromwell, it is the remarkable destiny of Virginia, so called in honor of Queen Elizabeth's unmarried state, to have given birth to the spotless chief who conducted to a triumphant issue the American Revolution--to the orator who, more than any individual, by speech alone kindled the patriotic flame thereof--to the jurist whose clear and candid mind and sagacious integrity gave dignity and permanence to constitutional law--and to the statesman who advocated and established the democratic principle and sentiment which essentially modified and moulded the political character and career of the Republic, and he was the author of that memorable Declaration of Independence which became the charter of free nationality. From 1606, when three small vessels, with a hundred or more men, sailed for the shores of Virginia under the command of Christopher Newport, and Smith planned Jamestown, to the last pronunciamento of the rebel congress of Richmond, the documentary history of Virginia includes in charter, code, report, chronicle, plea, and protest, almost every possible element and form of political speculation, civic justice, and seditious arrogance: and therein the philosopher may find all that endears and hallows and all that disintegrates and degrades the State as a social experiment and a moral fact: so that of all the States of the Union her antecedents, both noble and infamous, indicate Virginia as the most appropriate arena for the last bitter conflict between the great antagonistic forces of civil order with those of social peace and progress. There where Washington, a young surveyor, became familiar with toil, exposure, and responsibility, he passed the crowning years of his spotless career; where he was born, he died and is buried; where Patrick Henry roamed and mused until the hour struck for him to rouse, with invincible eloquence, the instinct of free citizenship; where Marshall drilled his yeoman for battle, and disciplined his judicial mind by study; where Jefferson wrote his political philosophy and notes of a naturalist; where Burr was tried, Clay was born, Wirt pleaded, Nat Turner instigated the Southampton massacre, Lord Fairfax hunted, and John Brown was hung, Randolph bitterly jested, and Pocahontas won a holy fame--there treason reared its hydra head and profaned the consecrated soil with vulgar insults and savage cruelty; there was the last battle scene of the Revolution and the first of the Civil War; there is Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Yorktown, and there also are Manassas, Bull Run, and Fredericksburg; there is the old graveyard of Jamestown and the modern Golgotha of Fair Oaks; there is the noblest tribute art has reared to Washington, and the most loathsome prisons wherein despotism wreaked vengeance on patriotism; and on that soil countless martyrs have offered up their lives for the national existence, whose birth-pangs Virginia's peerless son shared, and over whose nascent being he kept such holy and intrepid vigil, bequeathing it as the most solemn of human trusts to those nearest to his local fame, by whom, with factious and fierce scorn, it has been infamously betrayed on its own hallowed ground; whose best renown shall yet be that it is the scene, not only of Freedom's sacrifice, but of her most pure and permanent triumph.

SHE DEFINES HER POSITION.

Lingering late in garden talk,
My friend and I, in the prime of June.
The long tree-shadows across the walk
Hinted the waning afternoon;
The bird-songs died in twitterings brief;
The clover was folding, leaf on leaf.

Fairest season of all the year,
And fairest of years in all my time;
Earth is so sweet, and heaven so near,
Sure life itself must be just at prime.
Soft flower-faces that crowd our way,
Have you no word for us to-day?

Each in its nature stands arrayed:
Heliotropes to drink the sun;
Violet-shadows to haunt the shade;
Poppies, by every wind undone;
Lilies, just over-proud for grace;
Pansies, that laugh in every face.

Great bloused Peonies, half adoze;
Mimulus, wild in change and freak;
Dainty flesh of the China Rose,
Tender and fine as a fairy's cheek;
(I watched him finger the folds apart
To get at the blush in its inmost heart.)

Lo, at our feet what small blue eyes!
And still, as we looked, their numbers came
Like shy stars out of the evening skies,
When the east is gray, and the west is flame.
--'Gather yourself, and give to me,
Those Forget-me-nots,' said he.

Word of command I take not ill;
When love commands, love likes to obey.
But, while my words my thoughts fulfil,
'Forget me not,' I will not say.
Vows for the false; an honest mind
Will not be bound, and will not bind.

In your need of me I put my trust,
And your lack of need shall be my ban;
'Tis time to remember, when you must;
Time to forget me, when you can.
Yet cannot the wildest thought of mine
Fancy a life distuned from thine.

... Small reserve is between us two;
'Tis heart to heart, and brain to brain:
Bare as an arrow, straight and true,
Struck his thought to my thought again.
'Not distuned; one song of praise,
First and third, our lives shall raise.'

Close we stood in the rosy glow,
Watching the cloudland tower and town;
Watching the double Castor grow
Out of the east as the sun rolled down.
'Yonder, how star drinks star!' said he;
'Yield thou so; live thou in me.'

Nay, we are close--we are not one,
More than those stars that seem to shine
In the self-same place, yet each a sun,
Each distinct in its sphere divine.
Like to Himself art thou, we know;
Like to Himself am I also.

What did He mean, when He sent us forth,
Soul and soul, to this lower life?
Each with a purpose, each a worth,
Each an arm for the human strife.
Armor of thine is not for me;
Neither is mine adjudged by thee.

Now in the lower life we stand,
Weapons donned, and the strife begun;
Higher nor lower; hand to hand;
Each helps each with the glad 'Well done!'
Each girds each to nobler ends;
None less lovers because such friends.

So in the peace of the closing day,
Resting, as striving side by side,
What does He mean? again we say;
For what new lot are our souls allied?
Comes to my ken, in Death's advance,
Life in its next significance.

See yon tortoise; he crossed the path
At noon, to hide where the grass is tall;
In a slow half sense of the sun-king's wrath,
Burrowing close to the garden wall.
--Think, could we pour into that dull brain
A man's whole life, joy, thought, and pain!

So, methinks, is the life we lead,
To the larger life that next shall be:
Narrow in thought, uncouth in deed;
Crawling, who yet shall walk so free;
Walking, who yet on wings shall soar;
Flying, who shall need wings no more.

Lo, in the larger life we stand;
We drop the weapons, we take the tools:
We serve with mind who served with hand:
We live by laws who lived by rules.
And our old earth-love, with its mortal bliss,
Was the fancy of babe for babe, to this.

... Visions begone! Above us rise
The worlds, on His work majestic sent.
Floating below, the small fireflies
Make up a tremulous firmament.
Stars in the grass, and roses dear,
Earth is full sweet, though heaven is near.

WHIFFS FROM MY MEERSCHAUM.

I have that same old meerschaum yet--the same that I clasped to my lips in the days that are gone, and through whose fragrant, wavy clouds, as they floated round my head, I saw--sometimes clear and bright, sometimes dimmed by a mist of rising tears--visions of childhood's joyous hours, of schoolboy's days, of youth, with its vague dreams and longings, of early manhood, and its high hopes and proud anticipations.

I smoke it still, though the tobacco be not always the choicest--for one cannot be fastidious in the army, and sutlers do not keep much of an assortment--and still it brings me sweet dreams, though of a different color.

Yes, old and tried friend, times have greatly changed in the few years that we have been together. Sons have been torn from fond parents; brothers have snatched hasty kisses from tearful sisters, and marched off to the tap of the drum with firm step and flashing eyes, while, beneath, the heart beat low and mournfully; young men and maidens, in the rosy flush of dawning love, have parted in sadness, but proudly facing the duty and bravely trusting the future and the eternal Right. Over many a noble fellow, on the bloody fields of Shiloh and Antietam and Stone River, the wings of the death-angel have fallen; at many a hearthstone there is mourning for the brave that are dead on the field of honor--though it is a royal sorrow, and a proud light gleams through the fast-falling tears.

But you and I, my faithful comrade, are together still. Next to my heart I have carried you many a weary league; many a dreary and, but for you, comfortless night we have bivouacked together. Time and roughing it have made their marks on both of us. Scars mar your polished face, now changed from spotless white to rich autumnal russet; and mine, too, the sun, and wind, and other smoke than that of Orinoko have darkened. You have lost your ornamental silver cap, and amber-mouthed stem, and I my polished two-storied 'tile' and the tail of my coat. But never mind; if we are battered and bruised, and scratched and scarred, and knocked around till the end of time, we will never lose our identity; and if we live till I am as bald as you are, we will always be good friends. Won't we, old boy, eh?

And the old boy murmurs an unqualified assent.

Puff! puff! Your face lights up as brightly, and your fragrant breath comes as freely here by the campfire, as when we were at home, and had our slippered feet upon the mantelpiece before the old-fashioned 'Franklin,' and were surrounded by our books and our pictures, and the numerous _little things_, souvenirs, perhaps valueless in themselves, but highly prized, and reluctantly left to the tender mercies of the thoughtless and unappreciating.

And it is these _little things_ that the soldier misses most and most frequently longs for. It is not the feather bed or the warm biscuits that he thinks of, but that dainty little penwiper, with his initials worked in it, and those embroidered slippers, that _she_ gave him. He would not give a contractor's conscience for sweet milk; but he would like to have his smoking cap.

I once seriously thought of sending home for a certain _terra cotta_ vase for holding cigars--a mantelpiece ornament; but I happened to remember that I had cigars very seldom, and a mantelpiece not at all, and concluded not to send.

Many of these little things the young soldier will bring from home with him, in spite of the pooh-poohs of practical parents, and carry with him, in spite of the sneers of thoughtless comrades. I know a fellow who carries in his breast pocket the withered, odorless skeleton of a bouquet, that was given him on the day he left home, and who will carry it till he returns, or till it is reddened with his blood. And when I see a man, in the face of ridicule and brutal scoffing, through long marches and weary days of dispiriting labor, clinging with fond tenacity to some little memento of the past, I set him down as a man with his heart in the right place, who will do his country and God good service when there is need. And--it is well to practise what one admires in others--I confess that I have a smoking cap that I have often packed into my knapsack, at the expense of a pair of socks; and I would rather have left out my only shirt that was off duty than that it should have failed to go with me. Yes, dear girls, your little presents, perhaps forgotten by you, by us are fondly cherished; and around them all hover, like the perfume of fresh flowers, fragrant memories of the merry days gone by, and dreams of starry eyes and laughing lips, of floating drapery and flashing jewels, and moonlit summer nights in the dear Northland.

May your eyes ne'er grow dim, nor your smiles fade away!

LITERARY NOTICES.

LEVANA; or, The Doctrine of Education. Translated from the
German of JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER, Author of 'Flower,
Fruit, and Thorn Pieces, 'Titan,' 'Walt and Vult,' etc., etc.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

The mere annunciation of a book, as yet unknown to the American public, from the pen of Jean Paul Richter, will be sufficient to awaken the attention of all cultivated readers. He who has read and loved one book of this marvellous writer, will not easily rest until he has read them all. He is known in Germany as Jean Paul der Einzige,--Jean Paul, the Only--and it is true that he is the unimitated and the inimitable. He is _utterly_ unlike Shakspeare, and yet more like him in his grand charities and breadth of range than like any other author. He is the 'Only,' the genial, the humorous, the pathetic, the tender, the satiric, the original, the erudite, the creative--the poet, sage, and scholar. But we might exhaust ourselves in expletives, and yet fail to give any idea of his rich imagery, his wonderful power, his natural and tender pathos. Besides, who does not already know him as a really great writer, through the appreciative criticisms of Thomas Carlyle?

'Levana' is a work on Education, written as Jean Paul alone could write it. In order to give our readers some idea of the nature of the subjects treated therein, we place before them a part of the table of contents: Importance of Education; Proof that Education Effects Little; Spirit and Principle of Education; To Discover and Appreciate the Individuality of the Ideal Man; On the Spirit of the Age; Religious Education; The Beginning of Education; The Joyousness of Children; Games of Children; Children's Dances; Music; Commands, Prohibitions, Punishments, and Crying; Screaming and Crying of Children; On the Trustfulness of Children; On Physical Education; On the Destination of Women; Nature of Women; Education of Girls; Education of the Affections; On the Development of the Desire for Intellectual Progress; Speech and Writing; Attention and the Power of Adaptive Combination; Development of Wit; Development of Reflection, Abstraction, and Self-Knowledge; On the Education of the Recollection--not of the Memory; Development of the Sense of Beauty; Classical Education, etc., etc.

We have often wondered why this book was not given to American readers; it was published in England, in its English dress, at least ten years ago. It addresses itself to parents, treating neither of national nor congregational education; it elevates neither state nor priest into educator; but it devolves that duty where the interest ought ever to be, on the parents, and particularly on the mother. In closing the preface to this book, Baireuth, May 2, 1806, Jean Paul says: 'It would be my greatest reward if, at the end of twenty years, some reader, as many years old, should return thanks to me, that the book which he is then reading was read by his parents.'

May this work find many readers, and true, appreciative admiration.

FLOWER, FRUIT, AND THORN PIECES; or, The Married Life,
Death, and Wedding of the Advocate of the Poor, Firmian Stanislaus
Siebenkäs. By JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. Translated from
the German by EDWARD HENRY NOEL. With a Memoir of the
Author by THOMAS CARLYLE. Ticknor & Fields: Boston. For
sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

Scarcely had we finished our few remarks on the 'Levana' of Jean Paul, when we were called upon to welcome another work from the same loved hand. We have long known and prized 'Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces.' The writings of Richter have humanity for their text, and it has always been a matter of astonishment to us that they were not more widely known in this country. His style is peculiar, it is true, but it is the peculiarity of originality, never of affectation. His illustrations are drawn from every source, from science, art, history, biography, national manners, customs, civilized and savage; his imagery is varied, exquisite, and natural, and his religion embraces all creeds and sects. He is the preacher of immortal hopes, of love to God, and all-embracing human charities. His plots are merely threads to string his pearls, opals, and diamonds upon. We prefer him greatly to the cold, worldly, and classic Goethe. His works always have a meaning, for he was a lofty and original thinker. He was colossal and magnanimous both as man and writer. Carlyle says of him: 'His intellect is keen, impetuous, far-grasping, fit to rend in pieces the stubbornest materials, and extort from them their most hidden and refractory truth. In his Humor he sports with the highest and lowest; he can play at bowls with the Sun and Moon. His Imagination opens for us the Land of Dreams; we sail with him through the boundless Abyss; and the secrets of Space, and Time, and Life, and Annihilation hover round us in dim, cloudy forms; and darkness, and immensity, and dread encompass and overshadow us. Nay, in handling the smallest matter, he works it with the tools of a giant. A common truth is wrenched from its old combinations, and presented to us in new, impassable, abysmal contrast with its opposite error. A trifle, some slender character, some jest, quip, or spiritual toy, is shaped into the most quaint, yet often truly living form; but shaped somehow as with the hammer of Vulcan, with three strokes that might have helped to forge an Ægis. The treasures of his mind are of a similar description with the mind itself; his knowledge is gathered from all the kingdoms of Art, and Science, and Nature, and lies round him in huge unwieldy heaps. His very language is Titanian; deep, strong, tumultuous; shining with a thousand hues, fused from a thousand elements, and winding in labyrinthic masses.' We recommend Jean Paul to universal study; he will, in spite of all his grotesque and broken arabesques, amply repay it.

BROKEN COLUMNS. Sheldon & Co., 335 Broadway, New York.

An anonymous novel, by one who says: 'I shall not say I have not aforetime walked openly in the highway of literature, but on this occasion the public must indulge me with the use of a thick veil; a veil, albeit, which will allow me to observe whether smiles or frowns mark the public countenance.'

The author will without doubt find both smiles and frowns on the faces he would regard. His characters are novel, the situations eccentric, the denouements unexpected. Love is made the solvent and reformer of vice. The sinner seems not actually depraved, but ever ready to return to the path of virtue. Forgiveness is the elixir of reformation and regeneration. Charity controls the inner life. The work contains passages of great beauty, though the style is often broken and rugged. It is philanthropic, and full of pity for the erring. We fail to understand the characters, because we have never seen coarse vice associated with tenderness and refinement. It is true, as our author says, that 'in seeking the reclamation of our fellow creatures, we are nothing less than co-workers with God.' But it is a solemn task, and charity itself is subject to the laws of eternal justice.

THE OLD MERCHANTS OF NEW YORK CITY. By WALTER
BARRETT, Clerk. Second Series. Carleton, publisher, 413
Broadway, New York.

The first series of this book had a circulation so extensive that its author gives to the world another volume. The motto of the work seems to be, 'The crowning city--whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the _honorable_ of the earth.' It is not a series of biographies, but light, gossiping sketches of persons, things, manners, the eccentricities of noted men, the transfers of well-known pieces of property, the changes in firms, the improvements in streets and buildings, the gradual extension of old and the introduction of new branches of trade and business, the intermarriages of families, etc., etc. To those familiar with the business habits of New York, acquainted with its localities, interested in the origin and early history of its mercantile families, of whom the book contains many personal anecdotes, we presume it will prove amusing and entertaining.

VINCENZO; or, Sunken Rocks. A Novel, by JOHN
RUFFINI, Author of 'Doctor Antonio,' 'Lavinia,' etc. Carleton,
publisher, 413 Broadway, New York.

'Dr. Antonio' had many admirers both here and in England, and is already in the second edition. The scene of Vincenzo is laid in Italy, during the progress of the Italian Revolution. The 'Sunken Rocks' are the widely differing religious and political views of husband and wife; and our author closes his tale in saying: 'Would to God, at least, that the case of the Candias was an isolated one! But no; there is scarcely any corner in Europe that does not exhibit plenty of such, and worse. God alone knows the number of families whose domestic peace has been, of late years, seriously damaged, or has gone to wreck altogether on those very rocks so fatal to Vincenzo.' Alas! that the present civil war should have given birth to much of the same domestic alienation and bitterness in our own midst as we find portrayed in the novel before us. Suffering of this kind, real and severe, exists among ourselves, saddening the heart of many a woman, and paralyzing the exertions of many a man who would else be patriotic and loyal.

PIQUE. A Novel. Loring, publisher, 319 Washington street,
Boston. For sale by Oliver S. Fell, 36 Walker street, New York.

We have no doubt that this book will excite considerable attention in the novel-reading world. It is in all probability destined to become as popular as the one of which, without being any imitation, it frequently reminds us--we mean 'The Initials.' The characters portrayed in 'Pique' develop themselves through the means of spirited conversations, arising from the surrounding circumstances--conversations always natural and without exaggeration. The pages are never dull, the story being varied and full of interest. It is a tale of the affections, of the home circle, of jealousies, misconceptions, perversions, feelings, the incidents growing naturally out of the defects and excellences of the individuals depicted. The scene is laid in England; the local coloring and characters being thoroughly English. Modern life and modern traits are portrayed with considerable skill and cleverness. The moral tone is throughout is unexceptionable. We commend 'Pique' to all lovers of refined, spirited, and detailed home novels.

MEDITATIONS ON LIFE AND ITS RELIGIOUS DUTIES. Translated
from the German of Zschokke. By FREDERICA ROWAN. Boston:
Ticknor and Fields, 1863. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

The tendency of these 'Meditations' is eminently practical, and the subjects treated are of universal application and interest. The translation is dedicated to Princess Alice, of England, now of Hesse, and is well executed, preserving the beauty and simplicity of the original, and supplying a need frequently felt in current religious literature, where vague reveries too often usurp the place of sensible counsel and life-improving suggestions.

PETER CARRADINE; or, The Martindale Pastoral By
CAROLINE CHESEBRO'. Sheldon &, Company, 335 Broadway.
Gould & Lincoln, Boston.

We have not yet had time to read this 'Pastoral' for ourselves, but it is highly commended by Marion Harland, author of 'Alone.' 'The story is confined within the limits of a country neighborhood, but there is variety of character, motive, and action. You are reminded that the authoress writes with a purpose, as well as a power, that the earnest, God-fearing soul of the philanthropist has travailed here for the good of her kind, not the mere 'sensation' romancist writer for the entertainment of an idle hour.' We quote from Marion Harland.

EXCURSIONS. By HENRY D. THOREAU, Author of
'Walden,' and 'A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.' Boston:
Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

Henry David Thoreau was a man of decided genius, and an ardent lover of nature. His eye was open to beauty, and his ear to music. He found these, not in rare conditions, but wheresoever he went. He was sincerity itself, and no cant or affectation is to be found in his writings. He was religious in his own way; incapable of any profanation, by act or thought, although his original living and thinking detached him from the social religious forms. He thought that without religion no great deed had ever been accomplished. He was disgusted with crime, and no worldly success could cover it. He loved nature so well, and was so happy in her solitude, that he became very jealous of cities and the sad work which their refinements and artifices made with man and his dwelling. The axe was always destroying his forest. 'Thank God,' he said, 'they cannot cut down the clouds.'

We have taken the above traits from the exceedingly interesting biographical sketch introducing this book, from the masterly hand of R. W. Emerson. The writings of Thoreau are the result of his character, modelled from and colored by the tastes and habits of his daily life. Nature lives in his pages. We know of no more delightful reading. He says: 'A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Where is the literature which gives expression to nature? He would be a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as often as he used them--transplanted them to his page with earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true, and fresh, and natural that they would appear to expand like buds at the approach of spring, though they lay half-smothered between two musty leaves in a library--aye to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding nature.'

Such a poet is Thoreau, and fair and perfect as the wild flowers of the prairies are his 'good books.' In the above extract he has himself described them. Who knows not his 'Autumnal Tints,' and 'Wild Apples,' and who has ever read them without loving them? Theodore Winthrop's 'Life in the Open Air,' 'Out-door Papers,' by T. W. Higginson, and 'Excursions,' by H. D. Thoreau, are books which could only have been written in America, and of which an American may justly feel proud. They are in themselves a library for the country, and we heartily commend them to all who love nature and the fresh breath of the forest.

THE GREAT STONE BOOK OF NATURE. By DAVID THOMAS
ANSTED, M. A., F. R. S., F. G. S., etc. Late Fellow of Jesus
College, Cambridge; Honorary Fellow of King's College, London.
Published by George W. Childs, 628 and 630 Chestnut Street,
Philadelphia, 1863. Received per favor of C. T. Evans, 448
Broadway, New York.

To popularize scientific knowledge is one of the most difficult of tasks. Men of real science are rarely willing to spare the necessary time, and the work is ordinarily undertaken by a class of pseudo savants, who have just acquired that little learning which is so dangerous a thing. Deductions and results are all that can be set before the people, who are unable to follow scientific processes, and who are hence liable to receive impressions, the truth or error of which must depend upon the fairness and logical acumen of the individual mind addressing them. The work before us is evidently written by one thoroughly conversant with the subject under consideration, and the author seems careful to assert no fact or affirm no conclusion not strictly warranted by actual research. Solid works of this kind ought to be warmly welcomed, and as such we recommend the above to our reading community.

REMAINS IN VERSE AND PROSE, OF ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM. With a
Preface and Memoir. Ticknor & Fields, Boston.

Arthur Henry Hallam possessed the friendship of one who ranks high among the living poets of England--Tennyson. How bitterly the poet felt his death, he has himself testified in his 'In Memoriam,' a book which has many admirers both in England and America. The image of young Hallam hovers like a lovely shadow over these yearning poems devoted to the memory of the regretted friend; his 'Remains,' will enable us to understand why he excited a love so tender and respectful, and left so deep a grief for his loss when he passed away. 'From the earliest years of this extraordinary young man, his premature abilities were not more conspicuous than an almost faultless disposition, sustained by a more calm self-command than has often been witnessed in that season of life. The sweetness of temper that distinguished his childhood, became, with the advance of manhood, an habitual benevolence, and ultimately ripened into that exalted principle of love toward God and man, which animated and almost absorbed his soul during the latter period of his life, and to which his compositions bear such emphatic testimony.'

The 'Remains' of such a spirit cannot fail to be interesting. We were especially pleased with the 'Oration on the Influence of Italian Works of Imagination on the same class of compositions in England.' The great Italians seldom receive their full meed of praise, either from the English or ourselves. Some very mature remarks are also made upon the influence of German mind upon English literature.

THE REJECTED WIFE. By Mrs. ANN S. STEPHENS,
Author of 'Fashion and Famine,' 'The Old Homestead,' 'Mary
Derwent,' &c. T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Chestnut street,
Philadelphia.

A novel in which are depicted the early days of Benedict Arnold. The characters are well drawn and sustained, and the tale one of considerable interest. The fright and agony of the fair, young, deserted wife are delicately and skilfully drawn; most of the scenes in which she is introduced are full of nature and simple pathos. The pictures of Puritan manners, lives, and thoughts, are graphic and truthful. We commend the book to all lovers of a good, pure, domestic novel.

PINNEO'S ANALYTICAL GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
Designed for Schools. By T. S. PINNEO, M. A., M. D.,
Author of 'Primary Grammar,' 'Hemans Reader,' &c. Revised and
enlarged. New York: Clark, Austin & Smith; Cincinnati: W. B. Smith
& Co.

This work is intended to succeed the author's 'Primary Grammar,' being, however, complete in itself. It presents a full view of the well-established principles of the English language, in their practical bearing on _analysis_ and _construction_. No space is wasted on the discussion of curious or unimportant points, which, however interesting to the critical student, always encumbers an elementary work. Simplicity in definitions, examples, exercises, and arrangement, has been carefully studied. The exercises are full and numerous; a large portion of them designed to teach, at the same time, the _nature_, _properties_, and _relations_ of words, and the _analysis_ and _construction_ of sentences.

'Model Class-Books on the English Language have been produced by Professor Pinneo, and they should be adopted as standard text-books in the schools of the United States.'-_Educational Reports_.

THE BRITISH AMERICAN. No. 6. October, 1863. A Monthly
Magazine devoted to Literature, Science, and Art. Toronto: Rollo &
Adams, publishers.