Chapter V (3)

'I HAVE been considerably interested in your correspondent's
paper on mind and instinct; only I rather wonder at his laboring
to prove a theory which few are inclined to question. But he
does not after all, it appears to me, draw the right conclusions
from his argument. All living beings have a mind, or reason, or
what you will, which prompts them to do all that their animal
functions are capable of performing. In this respect man is as
much governed by instinct as a brute. My neighbor's dog every
night when I come home walks up to me, wags his tail, and looks
in my face, and says in his way, 'How are you?' His master gives
me a nod, takes his pipe from his mouth, and says the same. But
when a stranger comes to my door, neither the dog nor his master
salutes him; but were he to fall into the brook, they would both
run to pull him out. Are they not both influenced by exactly the
same feelings? If I should ask my neighbor to endorse my note,
he would look sulky, hem! and haw! and refuse; if I should
attempt to take a bone from his dog, the brute would snarl and
growl, and perhaps bite me. Do you see any marvellous difference
between the two animals? A near neighbor of mine, about six
months since, had a little boy of four years old, who had a
spaniel of which he was very fond. One day during the absence of
the father, the child was taken ill with the croup; the mother
was alarmed, and it so happened that her servants were away, and
she had no one to send for a physician. The poor woman was in
great tribulation, for in spite of all her efforts the child
grew worse. In about an hour after the child was taken ill, her
father's carriage stopped at the door, and her mother made her
appearance. Her father's house was about two miles distant. The
grandmother said that Carlo, the sick child's dog, 'came running
into the house, all bespattered with mud, and flew about and
acted so strangely that she knew something must be the matter
with little Billy, her grandson, and she came to see what it
was.' Until then, the mother of the child had not noticed the
absence of the dog from the room, for the boy was playing with
him when he was taken sick. The child remained ill three or four
days, and then died; and during the whole time the dog never
left his bed-side; he watched by the corpse until it was buried,
and then took possession of the little boy's chair, which he
would allow no one to touch, not even the child's mother. Every
day he absented himself for three or four hours; and the father
one day going to look at his child's grave, found that the dog
had almost scratched his way down to the coffin. He was after
this kept within doors; but he refused to eat, and in a short
time died in the chair of his little master. If I had time, I
could tell you a story almost as touching, in relation to a pig,
an animal that phrenologically speaking has generally been
looked upon as somewhat deficient in the region of the
sentiments.'

NOW that our attention has been awakened to the subject, we find in our casual reading the testimony in favor of 'mind in animals' greatly to increase and multiply. OLEUS MAGNUS, Bishop of Norway, in a work written in Latin some two centuries ago, tells us of a fox that, in order to get rid of the fleas which infested his skin, was accustomed to swim out into a lake with a straw band held high and dry in his mouth. When the water-hating vermin had all escaped from his submerged body to the dry straw, down dived Reynard, leaving his tormentors 'at sea,' and rising again beyond the scope of safe jumping. 'Curious, isn't it?' A correspondent at Rochester, 'who experienced much satisfaction in the perusal of the article' above alluded to, was yet 'a little dissatisfied with the closing portion of it.' The proposition of the writer to 'abstain entirely from animal food,' on the score of humanity, he considers 'especially ridiculous.' He has 'the gravest authority for stating, that every drop of water that quenches our thirst or laves our bodies, contains innumerable insects, which are sacrificed to our necessities or comforts; each ingredient in the simplest vegetable fare conveys to inevitable destruction thousands of the most beautiful and harmless of created beings. From the first to the last gasp of our lives, we never inhale the air of heaven without butchering myriads of sentient and innocent creatures. Can we upbraid ourselves then for supporting our lives by the death of a few animals, many of whom are themselves carnivorous, when the infant who has lived for a single day has killed an infinitely greater number of human beings than the longest life would suffice to murder by design? Or, if we sacrifice either our lives or our comforts by scrupulously denying ourselves the use of animal food, can we derive much consolation from considering that we spare a few scores of beings, when we involuntarily, but knowingly, are every moment massacreing more than the longest life-time would suffice to enumerate?' · · · A REFERENCE to the case of '_Rachael Baker, the American Somnambulist_,' in a late London Magazine, has recalled that remarkable phenomenon very forcibly to our mind. RACHAEL BAKER resided within four miles of 'the house where we were born;' and the first exhibitions of her religious exercises during sleep took place alternately at the homestead and the residence of a relation in its near vicinity. We remember as it were but yesterday the solemnity which sat upon the faces of the assembled neighbors, as they awaited the signal-groan from an adjoining apartment, to which, at about seven P. M., the Somnambulist usually retired for the night. When the door was opened the crowd pressed in. The sleeper, dressed in white muslin, lay straight and motionless in bed; her eyes closed, her face white and inflexible as marble; and her fingers with livid marks beneath the nails, clasped meekly upon her bosom. Flecks of foam were visible at the corners of her mouth, and her lips moved 'as if they would address themselves to speech,' for some seconds before any audible sound came from them. At length, however, in a clear silvery voice she opened with prayer; a prayer fervent, devotional, and evidently direct from the heart. When this was concluded, and after the lapse of a brief space, she began an exhortation, in language pure, beautiful, often eloquent, and occasionally rising to a noble sublimity; and then closed with prayer. If interrupted with a question, as she frequently was, by clergymen, medical gentlemen, and others, she answered it with readiness, and with a felicity of language surpassing belief. 'RACHAEL,' said a clergyman to her in our hearing one evening, while in the midst of her discourse, 'why do you engage in these exercises? and why----' She interrupted the speaker with words to this effect: 'I, even I, a worm of the dust, am but a feeble instrument in the hands of HIM who hath declared, 'I will pour out of my spirit upon you; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy.' Even _so_ FATHER, for so it seemeth good in thy sight!' The girl was of bashful demeanor; altogether uneducated; could scarcely read; knew little of the Bible; and indeed in her waking hours conversed in a language that was far from being respectable English; but neither in her prayers nor in her exhortations was she ever at fault; nor did she at any time exhibit the slightest hesitation or confusion. Her answers to questions were brief, pointed, and invariably correct. Crowds flocked to see her, until the public curiosity overran all bounds. She was visited by many persons from New-York; and finally, under the direction of a committee of medical gentlemen from the city, was brought to the metropolis, where she created a great sensation. A pamphlet was written upon her case by Dr. MITCHELL; and we should feel greatly obliged to any reader who would place it for a short time in our hands. · · · A VALUED friend and correspondent, to whose kindness we have frequently been indebted, has sent us a '_Massachusetts Centinel_,' printed in Boston sixty years ago; in which, among many other curious and amusing matters, there is a copy of an original letter written by the celebrated GEORGE ALEXANDER STEVENS, author of 'Lecture on Heads,' etc., dated at 'Yarmouth Jail, County of Norfolk,' which runs thus:

'SIR: When I parted from you at Doncaster, I imagined, long
before this, to have met with some oddities worth acquainting
you with. It is grown a fashion of late to write lives; I have
now, and for a long time have had, leisure enough to undertake
mine, but want materials for the latter part of it; for my
existence now cannot properly be called living, but what the
painters term _still life_; having ever since February 13, been
confined in this town-goal for a London debt.

'As a hunted deer is always shunned by the happier herd, so am I
deserted by the company,[7] my share taken off, and no support
left me, save what my wife can spare me out of hers:

'Deserted in my utmost need
By those my former bounty fed.'

[7] The Norwich company of players, to which he belonged.

'With an economy, which until now I was a stranger to, I have
made shift to victual hitherto my little garrison, but then it
has been with the aid of my good friends and allies--my clothes.
This week's eating finishes my last waistcoat; and next, I must
atone for my errors upon bread and water.

'THEMISTOCLES had so many towns to furnish his table, and a
whole city bore the charge of his meals. In some respects I am
like him, for I am furnished by the labors of a multitude. A wig
has fed me two days; the trimming of a waistcoat as long; a pair
of velvet breeches paid my washerwoman, and a ruffled shirt has
found me in shaving. My coats I swallowed by degrees. The
sleeves I breakfasted upon for weeks; the body, skirts, etc.,
served me for dinner two months. My silk stocking have paid my
lodgings, and two pair of new pumps enabled me to smoke several
pipes. It is incredible how my appetite, (barometer like) rises
in proportion as my necessities make their terrible advances. I
here could say something droll about a good stomach, but it is
ill jesting with edge tools, and I am sure that is the sharpest
thing about me. You may think I can have no sense of my
condition, that while I am thus wretched, I should offer at
ridicule: but, Sir, people constituted like me, with a
disproportioned levity of spirits, are always most merry when
they are most miserable; and quicken like the eyes of the
consumptive, which are always brightest the nearer the patient
approaches his dissolution. However, Sir, to show you I am not
lost to all reflection, I think myself poor enough to want a
favor, and humble enough to ask it here. Sir, I might make an
encomium on your good nature, humanity, etc.; but I shall not
pay so bad a compliment to your understanding, as to endeavor,
by a parade of phrases, to win it over to my interest. If you
could, any night at a concert, make a small collection for me,
it might be a means of my obtaining my liberty; and you well
know, Sir, the first people of rank abroad will perform the most
friendly offices for the sick; be not, therefore, offended at
the request of a poor (though a deservedly punished) debtor.

'GEO. A. STEVENS.'

AMONG the facetiæ of the 'Centinel' we find a clever hit at two prominent official characters of the name of DAY: 'TITUS, a Roman emperor, we are told, once lamented that '_he had lost a Day_.' If the commonwealth of Massachusetts were to _lose two Days_, it would not be the cause of much lamentation!' A correspondent elsewhere observes, that in a procession on a certain solemn occasion in this city, the place of the physician was immediately before the corpse; which, he adds, was 'exactly consonant with the etiquette observed at capital executions in ancient times; the _executioner_ always going before!' By the way, 'speaking of STEVENS;' perhaps the reader of good things at second-hand may not be aware how much he is indebted to this author's '_Lectures on Heads_' for amusement and instruction. They were very popular throughout Great Britain; and as illustrated by the author, after the manner of 'OLD MATTHEWS,' they are said to have been irresistible. It was in this collection that the law-cases of 'BULLUM _vs._ BOATUM' and 'DANIEL _vs._ DISHCLOUT' had their origin. They are familiar to every school-boy, not less for their wit than the canine Latinity in which they abound; '_Primus strokus est provokus_; now who gave the _primus strokus_? Who gave the first offence?' Or, 'a drunken man is '_homo duplicans_,' or a double man, seeing things double,' etc., etc. We annex an example or two of the writer's _individuality_. The first is a sketch of a _nil admirari_ critic and amateur, who has travelled long enough abroad to fall in love with every thing foreign, and despise every thing belonging to his own country except himself: 'He pretended to be a great judge of paintings, but only admired those done a great way off, and a great while ago; he could not bear any thing painted by any of his own countrymen. One day being in an auction-room where there was a number of capital pictures, and among the rest an inimitable painting of fruits and flowers, the connoisseur would not give his opinion of the picture until he had examined his catalogue; when, finding it was done by one of his own countrymen, he pulled out his eye-glass, exclaiming: 'This fellow has spoiled a fine piece of canvass; he's worse than a sign-post dauber; there's no keeping, no perspective, no fore-ground, no _chiar'oscuro_. Look you, he has attempted to paint _a fly_ upon that rose-bud! Why, it is no more like a fly than I am like an ----' But as the connoisseur approached his finger to the picture, the fly flew away. It happened to be the _real_ insect!' Is not the following a forcible picture of a mercurial, hero-loving Frenchman? 'Has he property? An edict from the _Grand Monarque_ can take it, and he is satisfied. Pursue him to the Bastile, or the dismal dungeon in the country to which a lettre-de-cachet conveys him, and buries him for life: there see him in all his misery; ask him 'What is the cause?' '_Je ne sai pas_; it is the will of the _Grand Monarque_.' Give him a _soup-maigre_, a little sallad, and a hind-quarter of a frog, and he's in spirits. 'Fal, lal, lal! _Vive le Roi? Vive la bagatelle!'_' Here we have a Materialist proving the affinity of matter: 'All round things are globular, all square things flat-sided. Now, if the bottom is equal to the top, and the top equal to the bottom, and the bottom and top are equal to the four sides, then all matter is as broad as it is long.' But the materialist 'had not in his head matter sufficient to prove matter efficient; and being thus deficient, he knew nothing of the matter.' One of STEVENS'S 'heads' was that of a heartless, devil-may-care sort of person, in some respects like the hero of '_A Capital Joke_' in preceding pages, who is always 'keeping it up.' He illustrates his own character very forcibly: 'I'll tell you how it was; you see, I was in high spirits, so I stole a dog from a blind man, for I do _so_ love fun! So then the blind man cried for his dog, and that made me laugh; so says I to the blind man. 'Halloo, master! do you want your dog?' 'Yes, Sir, indeed, _indeed_ I do,' says he. Then says I to the blind man, says I, 'Go look for him! Keep it up!' I always turn sick when I think of a parson; and my brother, he's a parson too, and he hates to hear any body swear; so I always swear when I am along with him, just to roast him. I went to dine with him one day last week; and as soon as I arrived, I began to swear. I never swore so well in all my life; I swore all my new oaths. At last my brother laid down his knife and fork, and lifting up his hands and eyes, he calls out: '_O Tempora! O Mores_.' 'Oh, ho! brother,' says I, 'don't think to frighten me by calling all your family about you. I don't mind you nor your family neither. Only bring Tempora and Moses _here_--that's all! I'll box 'em for five pounds. Keep it up!' · · · THERE is many a bereaved heart that will be touched by the following sad, sad lines, from the pen of JOHN RUDOLPH SUTERMEISTER, a young and gifted poet, whose mortal part has 'been ashes these many a year,' and whom the reader may remember as the author of a little poem widely quoted and admired many years ago, commencing:

'O! for my bright and faded hours!
When life was like a summer stream,
On whose gay banks the virgin flowers
Blushed in the morning's rosy beam,
Or danced upon the breeze that bare
Its store of rich perfume along,
While the wood-robin poured on air
The ravishing delights of song!'

To us, who are familiar with the painful circumstances under which they were written, and the deep affliction which they deplore, they seem almost to sob with irrepressible grief:

A LAMENT.