Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The swelteringly hot day, and the rapid unaccustomed motion combined to afflict her with a strange internal anticipation of future woe. Once last summer, when she ate the liquid dregs of the ice-cream man's great tin, and fell asleep in the room where her mother was frying onions, she had experienced this same foreboding, and the climax of that dreadful day lingered yet in her memory.

At last they stopped. The young lady seized her hand, and led her through the narrow aisle, down the steep steps, across the little country station platform, and Ardelia was in Arcady.

A bare-legged boy in blue overalls and a wide straw hat then drove them many miles along a hot, dusty road, that wound endlessly through the parched country fields. Finally they turned into a driveway, and drew up before a gray wooden house. A spare, dark-eyed woman in a checked apron advanced to meet them.

"Terrible hot to-day, ain't it?" she sighed. "I'm real glad to see you, Miss Forsythe. Won't you cool off a little before you go on? This is the little girl, I s'pose. I guess it's pretty cool to what she's accustomed to, ain't it, Delia?"

"No, I thank you, Mrs. Slater. I'll go right on to the house. Now, Ardelia, here you are in the country. I'm staying with my friend in a big white house about a quarter of a mile farther on. You can't see it from here, but if you want anything you can just walk over. Day after to-morrow is the picnic I told you of. You'll see me then, anyway. Now run right out in the grass and pick all the daisies you want. Don't be afraid; no one will drive you off this grass!"

The force of this was lost on Ardelia, who had never been driven off any grass whatever, but she gathered that she was expected to walk out into the thick rank growth of the unmowed side yard, and strode downward obediently.

"Now pick them! Pick the daisies!" cried Miss Forsythe, excitedly. "I want to see you."

Ardelia looked blank.

"Huh?" she said.

"Gather them. Get a bunch. Oh, you poor child! Mrs. Slater, she doesn't know how!" Miss Forsythe was deeply moved and illustrated by picking imaginary daisies on the porch. Ardelia's quick eye followed her gestures, and stooping, she scooped the heads from three daisies and started back with them. Miss Forsythe gasped.

"No, no, dear! Pull them up! Take the stem, too," she explained. "Pick the whole flower."

Ardelia bent over again, tugged at a thick-stemmed clover, brought it up by the roots, and laid it awkwardly on the young lady's lap.

"Thank you, dear," she said, politely, "but I meant them for you. I meant you to have a bunch. Don't you want them?"

"Naw," said Ardelia, decidedly.

Miss Forsythe's eyes brightened suddenly.

"I know what you want," she cried, "you're thirsty! Mrs. Slater, won't you get us some of your good, creamy milk? Don't you want a drink, Ardelia?"

Ardelia nodded. When Mrs. Slater appeared with the foaming yellow glasses she wound her nervous little hands about the stem of the goblet and drank a deep draught.

"There!" cried the young lady. "Now, how do you like real milk, Ardelia? I declare you look like another child already! You can have all you want every day--why, what's the matter?"

For Ardelia was growing ghastly pale before them; her eyes turned inward, her lips tightened. A blinding horror surged from her toes upward, and the memory of the liquid ice-cream and the frying onions faded before the awful reality of her present agony.

Later, as she lay limp and white on the slippery haircloth sofa in Mrs. Slater's musty parlor she heard them discussing her situation.

"There was a lot of Fresh-Air children over at Mis' Simms's," her hostess explained, "and they 'most all of 'em said the milk was too strong--did you ever! Two or three of 'em was sick, like this one, but they got to love it in a little while. She will, too."

Ardelia shook her head feebly. In a few minutes she was asleep. When she awoke all was dusk and shadow. She felt scared and lonely. Now that her stomach was filled and her nerves refreshed by her long sleep, she was in a condition to realize that aside from all bodily discomfort she was sad--very sad. A new, unknown depression weighed her down. It grew steadily, something was happening, something constant and mournful--what? Suddenly she knew. It was a steady, recurrent noise, a buzzing, monotonous click. Now it rose, now it fell, accentuating the silence dense about it.

"Zig-a-zig! Zig-a-zig!" then a rest.

"Zig-a-zig! Ziz-a-zig-a-zig!"

"Wha's 'at?" she said.

"That? Oh, those are katydids. I s'pose you never heard 'em, that's a fact. Kind o' cozy, I think. Don't you like 'em?"

"Naw."

Another long silence intervened. Mr. Slater snored, William smoked, and the monotonous clamor was uninterrupted.

"Zig-a-zig! Zig-zig! Zig-a-zig-a-zig!"

Slowly, against the background of this machine-like clicking, there grew other sounds, weird, unhappy, far away.

"Wheep, wheep, wheep!"

This was a high, thin crying.

"Burrom! Burrom! Brown!"

This was low and resonant and solemn. Ardelia scowled.

"Wha's 'at?" she asked again.

"That's the frogs. Bull-frogs and peepers. Never heard them, either, did ye? Well, that's what they are."

William took his pipe out of his mouth.

"Come here, sissy, 'n I'll tell y' a story," he said, lazily.

Ardelia obeyed, and glancing timorously at the shadows, slipped around to his side.

"Onc't they was an' ol' feller comin' 'long crosslots, late at night, an' he come to a pond, an' he kinder stopped up an' says to himself, 'Wonder how deep the ol' pond is, anyhow?' He was just a leetle--well, he'd had a drop too much, y' see--"

"Had a what?" interrupted Ardelia.

"He was sort o' rollin' 'round--he didn't know just what he was doin'--"

"Oh! Jagged!" said Ardelia, comprehendingly.

"I guess so. An' he heard a voice singin' out, 'Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep.'"

William gave a startling imitation of the peepers; his voice was a high, shrill wail.

"'Oh, well,' s' he, ''f it's just knee deep, I'll wade through,' an' he starts in.

"Just then he hears a big feller singin' out, 'Better go rrround! Better gorrround! Better gorrround!'

"'Lord,' says he, 'is it s' deep 's that? Well, I'll go round then.' 'N' off he starts to walk around.

"'Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!' says the peepers.

"An' there it was. Soon's he'd start to do one thing they'd tell him another. Make up his mind he couldn't, so he stands there still, they do say, askin' 'em every night which he better do."

"Stands where?"

"Oh, I d' know. Out in the swamp, mebbe."

Again he smoked. Time passed by.

Suddenly Mr. Slater coughed and arose. "Well, guess I'll be gettin' to bed," he said. "Come on, boys. Hello, little girl! Come to visit us, hey? Mind you don't pick poison vine."

Mrs. Slater led Ardelia upstairs into a little hot room, and told her to get into bed quick, for the lamp drew the mosquitoes.

Ardelia kicked off her shoes and approached the bed distrustfully. It sank down with her weight and smelled hot and queer. Rolling off she stretched herself on the floor, and lay there disconsolately. At home the hurdy-gurdy was playing, the women were gossiping on every step, the lights were everywhere--the blessed fearless gas lights--and the little girls were dancing in the breeze that drew in from East River.

In the morning Miss Forsythe came over to inquire after her charge's health, accompanied by another young lady.

"Why, Ethel, she isn't barefoot!" she cried. "Come here, Ardelia, and take off your shoes and stockings directly. Shoes and stockings in the country! Now, you'll know what comfort is."

To patter about bare-legged on the clear, safe pavement, was one thing; to venture unprotected into that waving, tripping tangle was another. Ardelia stepped cautiously upon the short grass near the house, and with jaw set felt her way into the higher growth. Suddenly she stopped; she shrieked:

"Oh, gee! Oh, gee!"

"What is it, Ardelia; what is it? A snake?" Mrs. Slater rushed out, seized Ardelia, half rigid with fear, and carried her to the porch. They elicited from her as she sat with feet tucked under her that something had rustled by her "down at the bottom"--that it was slippery, that she had stepped on it, and wanted to go home.

"Toad," explained Mrs. Slater, briefly. "Only a little hop-toad, Delia, that wouldn't harm a baby, let alone a big girl nine years old, like you."

"She's a queer child," Mrs. Slater confided to the young ladies. "Not a drop of anything will she drink but cold tea. It don't seem reasonable to give it to her all day, and I won't do it, so she has to wait till meals. She makes a face if I say milk, and the water tastes slippery, she says, and salty-like. She won't touch it. I tell her it's good well-water, but she just shakes her head. She's stubborn 's a bronze mule, that child. Just mopes around. 'S morning she asked me when did the parades go by. I told her there wa'n't any, but the circus, an' that had been already. I tried to cheer her up, sort of, with that Fresh-Air picnic of yours to-morrow, Miss Forsythe, an s'she, 'Oh, the Dago picnic,' s'she, 'will they have Tong's band?'"

"She don't seem to take any int'rest in th' farm, like those Fresh-Air children, either. I showed her the hens an' the eggs, an' she said it was a lie about the hens layin' 'em. 'What d' you take me for?' s'she. The idea! Then Henry milked the cow, to show her--she wouldn't believe that, either--and with the milk streamin' down before her, what do you s'pose she said? 'You put it in!' s'she. I never should a' believed that, Miss Forsythe, if I hadn't heard it."

"Oh, she'll get over it; just wait a few days. Good-bye, Ardelia. Eat a good supper."

But this Ardelia did not do. Mr. Slater ate in voracious silence. William never spoke, and Mrs. Slater filled their plates without comment. Ardelia had never in her life eaten in silence. Through the open door the buzz of the katydids was beginning tentatively. In the intervals of William's gulps a faint bass note warned them from the swamp.

"Better gorrround! Better gorrround!"

Ardelia's nerves strained and snapped. Her eyes grew wild.

"Fer Gawd's sake, talk!" she cried, sharply. "Are youse dumbies?"

* * * * *

The morning dawned fresh and fair; the homely barnyard noises brought a smile to Miss Forsythe's sympathetic face, as she waited for Ardelia to join her in a drive to the station. But Ardelia did not smile.

At the station Miss Forsythe shook her limp little hand.

"Good-bye, dear. I'll bring the other little children back with me. You'll enjoy that. Good-bye."

"I'm comin', too," said Ardelia.

"Why--no, dear--you wait for us. You'd only turn around and come right back, you know."

"Come, back nothin'. I'm goin' home."

"Why--why, Ardelia! Don't you really like it?"

"Naw, it's too hot."

Miss Forsythe stared.

"But Ardelia, you don't want to go back to that horribly smelly street? Not truly?"

"Betcher life I do!"

"It's so lonely and quiet," pleaded the young lady. Ardelia shuddered. Again she seemed to hear that fiendish, mournful wailing:

"Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!"

They rode in silence. But the jar and jolt of the engine made music in Ardelia's ears; the familiar jargon of the newsboy:

"N' Yawk evening paypers! Woyld! Joynal!" was a breath from home to her little cockney heart.

They pushed through the great station, they climbed the steps of the elevated track, they jingled on a cross-town car. And at a familiar corner Ardelia slipped loose her hand, uttered a grunt of joy, and Miss Forsythe looked after her in vain. She was gone.

But late in the evening, when the great city turned out to breathe, and sat with opened shirt and loosened bodice on the dirty steps; when the hurdy-gurdy executed brassy scales and the lights flared in endless sparkling rows; when the trolley gongs at the corner pierced the air, and feet tapped cheerfully down the cool stone steps of the beer-shop, Ardelia, bare-footed and abandoned, nibbling at a section of bologna sausage, cake-walked insolently with a band of little girls behind a severe policeman, mocking his stolid gait, to the delight of Old Dutchy, who beamed approvingly at her prancing.

"Ja, ja, you trow out your feet good. Some day we pay to see you, no? You like to get back already!"

"Ja, danky slum, Dutchy," she said airily, as she sank upon her cool step, stretched her toes and sighed:

"Gee! N' Yawk's the place!"

[E] Copyright, 1902, by McClure, Phillips & Co.

Meriel

BY MARGARET HOUSTON.

(From _Ainslee's Magazine_.)

"Let go my hand!" (A start of quick surprise.)
"How could you dare?" (A flash of angry eyes.)
And yet her hand in mine all passive lies.

"How rude you are!" (The rose-blush fully blown.)
"I trusted you!" ('Twould melt a heart of stone.)
And yet the little hand rests in mine own!

Oh, dainty Meriel--little April day!
However warmly pouting lips cry Nay,
That little hand shall rest in mine--alway!

The Old Man and "Shep"

(A true story.)

BY JOHN G. SCORER.

It was on the morning of the second day of the new year. The mercury hovered a few degrees above zero. The winds that swept down from the North were keen and biting, and the mist-like snow fell fitfully. An old man, his once tall form bent by the burdens and sorrows of sixty odd years, his step slow and shuffling, his clothes unkempt and tattered, his long beard flowing down upon his breast, his eye still bright and in his face lingering traces of refinement, made his way along the deserted street. He was accompanied by a dog, whose long, shaggy hair indicated a blooded ancestry. So emaciated was his form that even through his shaggy coat could be seen the outline of his bony frame.

The two, master and dog, hobbled into the city's out-door relief department. The dog at once curled himself up on a rug near a radiator and was soon asleep, dreaming, perchance, of other and more prosperous days, with "a virtuous kennel and plenty of food." The old man stood for a time warming his benumbed fingers at the radiator. Presently one of the clerks approached and asked him who he was and what he wanted.

"I am John Owens," he replied; "and I want to go to the infirmary. I am ill, homeless and penniless."

"All right, my man," said the clerk, and at once wrote out a permit.

The old man took the permit, read it over carefully, and said: "It says nothing about the dog. I want one for the dog, too."

"We can't give you one for the dog; we have no place out there for him. You'll have to leave him behind."

"Leave my dog behind? No, sir," said the old fellow, straightening up his bent form. "He's the only friend I have in this world. Why old 'Shep' has been my only friend for the last eight years. I had money, friends and influence when he was a pup, and he had a better bed and better food then than I have had for many a year. I had my carriages once, and a man to drive them, too. I know it sounds strange, now. Sometimes it seems like a dream. But never mind. When I woke up from that dream I had only my wife Martha, my son George, and 'Shep.' Every one else turned from me.

"My wife was a good, brave soul, but our reverses broke her down, and on one spring day we laid her away beneath the daisies and the myrtle. Soon after that my son George was taken from me by that stern monster, death, leaving me alone--alone, with no friend but 'Shep.'

"Where do I sleep? Why, my boy, anywhere. You don't know how many warm stairways there are. 'Shep' and I do, though, and we curl up together in them when the officer on the beat isn't looking. Yes, poor fellow, he's lame; had his leg broken. He got that trying to keep me out of the way of a coal wagon two years ago, when I slipped on the icy street.

"Here's your permit, mister. I won't go out there unless 'Shep' goes with me. He can't? Well, good-bye, good-bye, sir. Come on, 'Shep.' You can't stay there all day. Just as much obliged," and the two passed out into the cold again.

Who Knows

The Lily lifts to mine her nunlike face,
But my wild heart is beating for the Rose;
How can I pause to behold the Lily's grace?
Shall I repent me by and by? Who knows?

--_Louise Chandler Moulton_.

The Negro

BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

(Adapted from the speech delivered at the opening of the Atlanta
Exposition.)

One-third of the population of the South is of the negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or a State legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel at last, heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongues and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasure from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your buckets among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this you can be sure in the future as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to the graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Efforts or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent. interest. These efforts will be twice blessed--"blessing him that gives and him that takes."

Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third of its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, repressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.

Here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of the law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.

The Guillotine

BY VICTOR HUGO.

(This is a part of the speech in defense of his son, under the
circumstances set forth in the oration.)

Gentlemen of the jury, if there is a culprit here, it is not my son,--it is I!--I, who for these twenty-five years have opposed capital punishment,--have contended for the inviolability of human life,--have committed this crime for which my son is now arraigned. Here I denounce my self, Mr. Advocate-General! I have committed it under all aggravated circumstances; deliberately, repeatedly, tenaciously. Yes, this old and absurd _lex taliones_--this law of blood for blood--I have combated all my life--all my life, gentlemen of the jury! And, while I have breath, I will continue to combat it, by all my efforts as a writer, by all my words and all my votes as a legislator! I declare it before the crucifix; before that Victim of the penalty of death, who sees and hears us; before that gibbet, in which, two thousand years ago, for the eternal instruction of the generations, the human law nailed the divine!

In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment and for writing and publishing which he is now on trial--in all that he has written, he has merely proclaimed the sentiments with which, from his infancy, I have inspired him. Gentlemen jurors, the right to criticise a law, and to criticise it severely--especially a penal law--is placed beside the duty of amelioration, like the torch beside the work under the artisan's hand. The right of the journalist is as sacred, as necessary, as imprescriptible, as the right of the legislator.

What are the circumstances? A man, a convict, a sentenced wretch, is dragged, on a certain morning, to one of our public squares. There he finds the scaffold! He shudders, he struggles, he refuses to die. He is young yet--only twenty-nine. Ah! I know what you will say,--"He is a murderer!" But hear me. Two officers seize him. His hands, his feet are tied. He throws off the two officers. A frightful struggle ensues. His feet, bound as they are, become entangled in the ladder. He uses the scaffold against the scaffold! The struggle is prolonged. Horror seizes the crowd! The officers,--sweat and shame on their brows,--pale, panting, terrified, despairing,--despairing with I know not what horrible despair,--shrinking under that public reprobation which ought to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive treatment, the executioner,--the officers strive savagely. The victim clings to the scaffold and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn,--his shoulders bloody,--still he resists. At length, after three-quarters of an hour of this monstrous effort, of this spectacle without a name, of this agony,--agony for all, be it understood,--agony for the assembled spectators as well as for the condemned man,--after this age of anguish, gentlemen of the jury, they take back the poor wretch to his prison.

The People breathe again. The People, naturally merciful, hope that the man will be spared. But no,--the guillotine, though vanquished, remains standing. There it frowns all day, in the midst of a sickened population. And at night the officers, re-enforced, drag forth the wretch again, so bound that he is but an inert weight,--they drag him forth, haggard, bloody, weeping, pleading, howling for life,--calling upon God, calling upon his father and mother,--for like a very child had this man become in the prospect of death,--they drag him forth to execution. He is hoisted on the scaffold and his head falls! And then through every conscience runs a shudder. Never had legal murder appeared with an aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly implicated in the deed. It is at this very moment that from a young man's breast escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart,--a cry of pity and anguish,--a cry of horror,--a cry of humanity. And this cry you would punish! And in the face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, you would say to the guillotine, "Thou art right!" and to Pity, saintly Pity, "Thou art wrong!" Gentlemen of the jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.

Robespierre's Last Speech

BY MAXIMILIAN MARIE ISIDORE DE ROBESPIERRE.

[Before his execution, Robespierre addressed the populace of
Paris in part as follows:]

The enemies of the Republic call me tyrant! Were I such, they would grovel at my feet. I should gorge them with gold, I should grant them immunity for their crimes, and they would be grateful. Were I such, the kings we have vanquished, far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend me their guilty support; there would be a covenant between them and me. Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of tyranny,--whither does their path tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What tyrant is my protector? To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What faction since the beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and annihilated so many detected traitors? You, the people, our principles, are that faction--a faction to which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism of the day is banded!

The confirmation of the Republic has been my object; and I know that the Republic can be established only on the eternal basis of morality. Against me, and against those who hold kindred principles, the league is formed. My life? Oh! my life I abandon without a regret. I have seen the past; and I foresee the future. What friend of this country would wish to survive the moment when he could no longer serve it,--when he could no longer defend innocence against oppression? Wherefore should I continue in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most abject, or fears the most absurd, over-ride the sacred interests of humanity? In witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution has rolled in turbid communion with its civic virtues, I confess that I have sometimes feared that I should be sullied, in the eyes of posterity, by the impure neighborhood of unprincipled men, who had thrust themselves into association with the sincere friends of humanity; and I rejoice that these conspirators against my country have now, by their reckless rage, traced deep the line of demarcation between themselves and all true men.

Question history, and learn how all the defenders of liberty, in all times, have been overwhelmed by calumny. But their traducers died also. The good and the bad disappear alike from the earth; but in very different conditions. O Frenchmen! O my countrymen! Let not your enemies, with their desolating doctrines, degrade your souls and enervate your virtues! No, Chaumette, no! Death is not "an eternal sleep"! Citizens, efface from the tomb that motto, graven by sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape, takes from suppressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dispensation of death! Inscribe rather thereon these words: "Death is the commencement of immortality!" I leave to the oppressors of the People a terrible testament, which I proclaim with the independence befitting one whose career is so nearly ended; it is the awful truth,--"Thou shalt die!"

Secession

BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

[Delivered at the Georgia State Convention, January, 1861.]

Mr. President: This step of secession, once taken, can never be recalled, and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us; who but this convention will be held responsible for it? And who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments--what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be calm and deliberate judges in the case; and what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here, the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend, and lover of the South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully, for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individuals and local communities they may have done so; but not by the sanction of government; for that has always been true to Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at another act; when we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas, out of which four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and perhaps by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South American and Mexican were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation which may reasonably be expected to follow.

But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So, of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South and but eleven from the North, although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the free States, yet a majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have acquired so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding presidents (pro tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorney-generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the free States, from their greater commercial interest, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world-markets for our cotton, tobacco and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, auditors and comptrollers filling the executive department; the records show, for the last fifty years, that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic.

Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting government. From official documents we learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the government has uniformly been raised from the North.

Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these important items. Look at another necessary branch of government, and learn from stern statistical facts how matters stand in that department. I mean the mail and post-office privileges that we now enjoy under the general government as it has been for years past. The expense for the transportation of the mail in the free States was, by the report of the Postmaster-General for the year 1860, a little over $13,000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the slave States the transportation of the mail was $14,716,000, while the revenue from the same was $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,704,974 to be supplied by the North for our accommodation, and without it we must have been entirely cut off from this most essential branch of government.

Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition--and for what, we ask again? Is it for the overthrow of the American Government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of right, justice and humanity? And as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots, in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government--the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles, to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century--in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed--is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I neither lend my sanction nor my vote.

Birds

Birds are singing round my window,
Tunes the sweetest ever heard,
And I hang my cage there daily,
But I never catch a bird.
So with thoughts my brain is peopled,
And they sing there all day long;
But they will not fold their pinions
In the little cage of song!

--_Richard Henry Stoddard_.

The Death of Hypatia

BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.

["Hypatia was a mathematician of Alexandria, who taught her
students the philosophy of Plato. Orestes, governor of
Alexandria, admired the talents of Hypatia, and frequently
had recourse to her for advice. He was desirous of curbing the
too ardent zeal of St. Cyril, who saw in Hypatia one of the
principal supports of paganism. The most fanatical followers
of the bishop, in March, A.D. 415, seized upon Hypatia as she
was proceeding to her school, forced her to descend from her
chariot, and dragged her into a neighboring church, where she
was put to death by her brutal foes. Canon Kingsley's historical
romance has done much to make her name familiar to English
readers" (Classical Dictionary). Raphael Aben-Ezra, a former
pupil, converted to Christianity and returning to Alexandria,
seeks audience with Hypatia to tell her of the Nazarene. Broken
and discouraged, she still holds to her philosophy, but finally
consents to hear what Raphael has to say of Christianity. It is
almost time for her to lecture at the school, so she makes an
appointment for Raphael the following day. She sends him from
her until then with the words with which this cutting begins.]

"Yes, come.... The Galilean.... If he conquers strong men, can the weak maid resist him? Come soon ... this afternoon.... My heart is breaking fast."

"At the eighth hour this afternoon?" asked Raphael.

"Yes.... At noon I lecture ... take my farewell, rather, forever, of the schools.... Gods! What have I to say?... And tell me about Him of Nazareth. Farewell!"

"Farewell, beloved lady! At the ninth hour you shall hear of Him of Nazareth."

As Raphael went down the steps into the street, a young man sprang from behind one of the pillars and seized his arm.

"Aha! my young Coryphæus of pious plunderers! What do you want with me?"

Philammon, for it was he, looked at him an instant, and recognized him.

"Save her! for the love of God, save her!"

"Whom?"

"Hypatia!"

"How long has her salvation been important to you, my good friend?"

"For God's sake," said Philammon, "go back and warn her! She will hear you--you are rich--you used to be her friend--I know you--I have heard of you.... Oh, if you ever cared for her--if you ever felt for her a thousandth part of what I feel--go in and warn her not to stir from home!"

"Of what is she to be warned?"

"Of a plot--I know that there is a plot--against her among the monks and parabolani. As I lay in bed this morning in Arsenius' room they thought I was asleep--"

"Arsenius? Has that venerable fanatic, then, gone the way of all monastic flesh, and turned persecutor?"

"God forbid! I heard him beseeching Peter, the reader, to refrain from something, I cannot tell what; but I caught her name.... I heard Peter say, 'She that hindereth will hinder till she be taken out of the way.' And when he went out in the passage I heard him say to another, 'That thou doest, do quickly!'"

"These are slender grounds, my friend."

"Ah, you do not know of what these men are capable."

"Do I not?"

"I know the hatred which they bear her, the crimes which they attribute to her. Her house would have been attacked last night had it not been for Cyril.... And I knew Peter's tone. He spoke too gently and softly not to mean something devilish. I watched all the morning for an opportunity of escape, and here I am! Will you take my message, or see her--"

"What?"

"God only knows, and the devil whom they worship instead of God."

Raphael hurried back into the house. "Could he see Hypatia?" She had shut herself up in her private room, strictly commanding that no visitor should be admitted.... "Where was Theon, then?" He had gone out by the canal gate half an hour before, and he hastily wrote on his tablet:

"Do not despise the young monk's warning. I believe him to speak the truth. As you love yourself and your father, Hypatia, stir not out to-day."

He bribed the maid to take the message up-stairs; and passed his time in the hall in warning the servants. But they would not believe him. It was true the shops were shut in some quarters, and the Museum gardens empty; people were a little frightened after yesterday. But Cyril, they had heard for certain, had threatened excommunication only last night to any Christian who broke the peace; and there had not been a monk to be seen in the streets the whole morning. And as for any harm happening to their mistress--impossible! "The very wild beasts would not tear her," said the huge negro porter, "if she were thrown into the amphitheater."

Whereat the maid boxed his ears for talking of such a thing: and then, by way of mending it, declared that she knew for certain that her mistress could turn aside the lightning and call legions of spirits to fight for her with a nod.... What was to be done with such idolaters. And yet who could help liking them the better for it?

At last the answer came down, in the old, graceful, studied, self-conscious handwriting:

"I dread nothing. They will not dare. Did they dare now, they would have dared long ago. As for that youth--to obey or to believe his word, even to seem aware of his existence, were shame to me henceforth. Because he is insolent enough to warn me, therefore I will go. Fear not for me. You would not wish me, for the first time in my life, to fear for myself. I must follow my destiny. I must speak the words which I have to speak. Above all, I must let no Christian say that the philosopher dared less than the fanatic. If my gods are gods, then will they protect me; and if not, let your God prove His rule as seems to Him good."

Raphael tore the letter to fragments.... The guards, at least, were not gone mad like the rest of the world. It wanted half an hour of the time for her lecture. In the interval he might summon force enough to crush all Alexandria. And turning suddenly, he darted out of the room and out of the house.

"Stay here and stop her! Make a last appeal," cried he to Philammon, with a gesture of grief. "Drag the horses' heads down, if you can! I will be back in ten minutes." And he ran off for the nearest gate of the Museum gardens.

On the other side of the gardens lay the courtyard of the palace. There were gates in plenty communicating between them. If he could but see Orestes, even alarm the guard in time!...

And he hurried through the walks and alcoves, now deserted by the fearful citizens, to the nearest gate. It was fast and barricaded firmly on the outside.

Terrified, he ran on to the next; it was barred also. He saw the reason in a moment, and maddened as he saw it. The guards, careless about the Museum, or reasonably fearing no danger from the Alexandrian populace to the glory and wonder of their city, or perhaps wishing wisely enough to concentrate their forces in the narrowest space, had contented themselves with cutting off all communication with the gardens. At all events, the doors leading from the Museum itself might be open. He knew them, every one. He found an entrance, hurried through well-known corridors to a postern through which he and Orestes had lounged a hundred times. It was fast. He beat upon it; but no one answered. He rushed on and tried another. No one answered there. Another--still silence and despair!... He rushed up-stairs, hoping that from a window above he might be able to call the guard. The prudent soldiers had locked and barricaded the entrances to the upper floors of the whole right wing, lest the palace court should be commanded from thence. Whither now? Back--and whither then? And his breath failed him, his throat was parched, his face burned as with the simoon wind, his legs were trembling under him. His presence of mind, usually so perfect, failed him utterly. He was baffled, netted. His brain, for the first time in his life, began to reel. He could recollect nothing but that something dreadful was to happen--and that he had to prevent it, and could not.... Where was he now? In a little by-chamber. What was that roar below?... A sea of weltering heads, thousands on thousands down into the very beach; and from their innumerable throats one mighty war-cry--"God, and the Mother of God!" Cyril's hounds were loose.... He reeled from the window, and darted frantically away again ... whither, he knew not, and never knew until his dying day.

Philammon saw Raphael rush across the streets into the Museum gardens. His last words had been a command to stay where he was, and the boy obeyed him, quietly ensconced himself behind a buttress, and sat coiled up on the pavement ready for a desperate spring.

There Philammmon waited a full half-hour. It seemed to him hours, day, years. And yet Raphael did not return; and yet no guards appeared.

What meant that black knot of men some two hundred yards off, hanging about the mouth of the side street, just opposite the door which led to her lecture-room? He moved to watch them; they had vanished. He lay down again and waited.... There they were again. It was a suspicious post. That street ran along the back of the Cæsareum, a favorite haunt of monks, communicating by innumerable entries and back buildings with the great church itself.... He knew that something terrible was at hand. More than once he looked out from his hiding place--the knot of men were still there; ... it seemed to have increased, to draw nearer. If they found him, what would they not suspect? What did he care? He would die for her if it came to that--not that it would come to that; but still he must speak to her--he must warn her.

At last, a curricle, glittering with silver, rattled round the corner and stopped opposite him. She must be coming now. The crowd had vanished. Perhaps it was, after all, a fancy of his own. No; there they were, peeping round the corner, close to the lecture-room--the hell-hounds! A slave brought out an embroidered cushion, and then Hypatia herself came forth, looking more glorious than ever; her lips set in a sad, firm smile; her eyes uplifted, inquiring, eager, and yet gentle, dimmed by some great inward awe, as if her soul were far away aloft, and face to face with God.

In a moment he sprang up to her, caught her robe convulsively, threw himself on his knees before her.

"Stop! Stay! You are going to destruction!"

Calmly she looked down upon him.

"Accomplice of witches! Would you make of Theon's daughter a traitor like yourself?"

He sprang up, stepped back, and stood stupefied with shame and despair....

She believed him guilty then!... It was the will of God!

The plumes of the horses were waving far down the street before he recovered himself, and rushed after her, shouting he knew not what.

It was too late! A dark wave of men rushed from the ambuscade, surged up round the car, ... swept forward.... She had disappeared, and, as Philammon followed breathless, the horses galloped past him madly homeward with the empty carriage.

Whither were they dragging her? To the Cæsareum, the church of God Himself? Impossible! Why thither of all places of the earth? Why did the mob, increasing momentarily by hundreds, pour down upon the beach, and return brandishing flints, shells, fragments of pottery?

She was upon the church steps before he caught them up, invisible among the crowd; but he could track her by the fragments of her dress.