This morning we moved into Warsaw, and for the first time the staff is billeted in the Secession houses of the town; but the General clings to his tent. Our mess is quartered in the house of the county judge, who says his sympathies are with the South. But the poor man is so frightened, that we pity and protect him.
Bridge-building is now the sole purpose of the army. There is no saw-mill here, nor any lumber. The forest must be cut down and fashioned into a bridge, as well as the tools and the skill at command will permit. Details are already told off from the sharp-shooters, the cadets, and even the body-guard, and the banks of the river now resound with the quick blows of their axes.
Warsaw, October 21st. Four days we have been waiting for the building of the bridge. By night and by day the work goes on, and now the long black shape is striding slowly across the stream. In a few hours it will have gained the opposite bank, and then, Ho, for Springfield!
Our scouts have come in frequently the last few days. They tell us Price is at Stockton, and is pushing rapidly on towards the southwest. He has been grinding corn near Stockton, and has now food enough for another journey. His army numbers twenty thousand men, of whom five thousand have no arms. The rest carry everything, from double-barrelled shot-guns to the Springfield muskets taken from the Home-Guards. They load their shot-guns with a Minié-ball and two buck-shot, and those who have had experience say that at one hundred yards they are very effective weapons. There is little discipline in the Rebel army, and the only organization is by companies. The men are badly clothed, and without shoes, and often without food. The deserters say that those who remain are waiting only to get the new clothes which McCulloch is expected to bring from the South.
McCulloch, the redoubtable Ben, does not seem to be held in high esteem by the Rebel soldiers. They say he lacks judgment and self-command. But all speak well of Price. No one can doubt that he is a man of unusual energy and ability. McCulloch will increase Price’s force to about thirty-five thousand, which number we must expect to meet.
Hunter and McKinstry have not yet appeared, but Pope reported himself last night, and some of his men came in to-day.
Camp White, October 22d. The bridge is built, and the army is now crossing the Osage. In five days a firm road has been thrown across the river, over which our troops may pass in a day. The General and staff crossed by the ferry, and are now encamped two miles south of the Pomme-de-Terre.
Letter from the REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, A.M., inclosing the Epistle aforesaid.
Jaalam, 15th Nov., 1861.
It is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person with undue prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen upon the present occasion. Juniores ad labores. But having been a main instrument in rescuing the talent of my young parishioner from being buried in the ground, by giving it such warrant with the world as would be derived from a name already widely known by several printed discourses, (all of which I maybe permitted without immodesty to state have been deemed worthy of preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed friend Mr. Sibley,) it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to the genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it, the more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of absolute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authourship (vix ea nostra voco) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but merely take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the office of taster, (experto crede,) who, having first tried, could afterward bear witness,—an office always arduous, and sometimes even dangerous, as in the ease of those devoted persons who venture their lives in the deglutition of patent medicines (dolus latet in generalibus, there is deceit in the most of them) and thereafter are wonderfully preserved long enough to append their signatures to testimonials in the diurnal and hebdomadal prints. I say not this as covertly glancing at the authours of certain manuscripts which have been submitted to my literary judgment, (though an epick in twenty-four books on the “Taking of Jericho” might, save for the prudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just as I had arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of the various horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous in longanimity of Homer’s list of ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate any hope I could entertain vacare Musis for the small remainder of my days,) but only further to secure myself against any imputation of unseemly forthputting. I will barely subjoin, in this connection, that, whereas Job was left to desire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary had written a book, as perchance misanthropically wishing to indite a review thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as to send Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in his wallet to be submitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were I in need of other excuse, I might add that I write by the express desire of Mr. Biglow himself, whose entire winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, in answering demands for autographs, a labour exacting enough in itself, and egregiously so to him, who, being no ready penman, cannot sign so much as his name without strange contortions of the face (his nose, even, being essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed Saint-Vitus-dance of every muscle in his body. This, with his having been put in the Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governour (O, si sic omnes!) immediately on his accession to office, keeps him continually employed. Haud inexpertus loquor, having for many years written myself J.P., and being not seldom applied to for specimens of my chirography, a request to which I have sometimes too weakly assented, believing as I do that nothing written of set purpose can properly be called an autograph, but only those unpremeditated sallies and lively runnings which betray the fireside Man instead of the hunted Notoriety doubling on his pursuers. But it is time that I should bethink me of Saint Austin’s prayer, Libera me a meipso, if I would arrive at the matter in hand.
Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am informed that the “Atlantic Monthly” is mainly indebted for its success to the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose excellent “Annals of America” occupy an honoured place upon my shelves. The journal itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it should seem that the recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though par magis quam similis) would carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a department for historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed desirable, to forward for publication my “Collections for the Antiquities of Jaalam” and my (now happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur family from fons et origo, the Wild-Boar of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the active duties of my profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Corners, I might find time for further contributions to general literature on similar topicks. I have made large advances toward a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wilbur’s family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole desire of rendering myself useful in my day and generation. Nulla dies sine lineâ. I inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births, deaths, and marriages, and a few memorabilia, of longevity in Jaalam East Parish for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period of more than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or abatement of my natural vigour, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory and a necessity of recurring to younger eyesight for the finer print in Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for declining years from the emoluments of my literary labours. I had intended to effect an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom by a circular from one of the offices, in which the sudden deaths of so large a proportion of the insured was set forth as an inducement, that it seemed to me little less than a tempting of Providence. Neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest, ne sapienti quidem.
Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow; and so much seemed needful (brevis esse laboro) by way of preliminary, after a silence of fourteen years. He greatly fears lest he may in this essay have fallen below himself, well knowing, that, if exercise be dangerous on a full stomach, no less so is writing on a full reputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he could not refrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again have “got the hang” (as he calls it) of an accomplishment long disused. The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time in last June, and others have followed which will in due season be submitted to the publick. How largely his statements are to be depended on, I more than merely dubitate. He was always distinguished for a tendency to exaggeration,—it might almost be qualified by a stronger term. Fortiter mentire, aliquid hæret, seemed to be his favourite rule of rhetorick. That he is actually where he says he is the post-mark would seem to confirm; that he was received with the publick demonstrations he describes would appear consonant with what we know of the habits of those regions; but further than this I venture not to decide. I have sometimes suspected a vein of humour in him which leads him to speak by contraries; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse of private life, I have never observed in him any striking powers of invention, I am the more willing to put a certain qualified faith in the incidents and the details of life and manners which give to his narratives some of the interest and entertainment which characterize a Century Sermon.
It may be expected of me that I should say something to justify myself with the world for a seeming inconsistency with my well-known principles in allowing my youngest son to raise a company for the war, a fact known to all through the medium of the publick prints. I did reason with the young man, but expellas naturam furcâ, tamenusque recurrit. Having myself been a chaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of war had sprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my Benjamin, the child of my old age; but after the discomfiture of Manassas, I with my own hands did buckle on his armour, trusting in the great Comforter for strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a coward, though his days might be long in the land and he should get much goods. It is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the treasure that was laid up in them. Migravi in animam meam, I have sought refuge in my own soul; nor would I be shamed by the heathen comedian with his Nequam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit. During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspired book of Job, which I believe to contain more food to maintain the fibre of the soul for right living and high thinking than all pagan literature together, though I would by no means vilipend the study of the classicks. There I read that Job said in his despair, even as the fool saith in his heart there is no God,—“The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure.” Job xii. 6. But I sought farther till I found this Scripture also, which I would have those perpend who have striven to turn our Israel aside to the worship of strange gods:—“If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or of my maid-servant when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?” Job xxxi. 13-14. On this text I preached a discourse on the last day of Fasting and Humiliation with general acceptance, though there were not wanting one or two Laodiceans who said that I should have waited till the President announced his policy. But let us hope and pray, remembering this of Saint Gregory, Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdam importunitate vinci.
We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have been unusually backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred in this town on the 20th October, in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. On the previous evening, a few moments before family-prayers,
[The editors of the “Atlantic” find it necessary here to cut short the letter of their valued correspondent, which seemed calculated rather on the rates of longevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They have every encouragement to hope that he will write again.]
With esteem and respect,
Your obedient servant
HOMER WILBUR, A.M.
It’s some consid’ble of a spell sence I hain’t writ no letters,
An’ ther’ ’s gret changes hez took place in all polit’cle metters:
Some canderdates air dead an’ gone, an’ some hez ben defeated,
Which ’mounts to pooty much the same; fer it’s ben proved repeated
A betch o’ bread thet hain’t riz once ain’t goin’ to rise agin,
An’ it’s jest money throwed away to put the emptins in:
But thet’s wut folks wun’t never larn; they dunno how to go,
Arter you want their room, no more ’n a bullet-headed beau;
Ther’ ’s ollers chaps a-hangin’ roun’ thet can’t see pea-time’s past,
Mis’ble as roosters in a rain, heads down an’ tails half-mast:
It ain’t disgraceful bein’ beat, when a holl nation doos it,
But Chance is like an amberill,—it don’t take twice to lose it.
I spose you’re kin’ o’ cur’ous, now, to know why I hain’t writ.
Wal, I’ve ben where a litt’ry taste don’t somehow seem to git
Th’ encouragement a feller’d think, thet’s used to public schools,
An’ where sech things ez paper ’n’ ink air clean agin the rules:
A kind o’ vicyvarsy house, built dreffle strong an’ stout,
So ’s ’t honest people can’t git in, ner t’ other sort git out,
An’ with the winders so contrived, you’d prob’ly like the view
Better a-lookin’ in than out, though it seems sing’lar, tu;
But then the landlord sets by ye, can’t bear ye out o’ sight,
And locks ye up ez reg’lar ez an outside door at night.
This world is awfle contrary: the rope may stretch your neck
Thet mebby kep’ another chap frum washin’ off a wreck;
An’ you will see the taters grow in one poor feller’s patch,
So small no self-respectin’ hen thet vallied time ’ould scratch,
So small the rot can’t find ’em out, an’ then agin, nex’ door,
Ez big ez wut hogs dream on when they’re ’most too fat to snore.
But groutin’ ain’t no kin’ o’ use; an’ ef the fust throw fails,
Why, up an’ try agin, thet’s all,—the coppers ain’t all tails;
Though I hev seen ’em when I thought they hed n’t no more head
Than’d sarve a nussin’ Brigadier thet gits some ink to shed.
When I writ last, I’d ben turned loose by thet blamed nigger, Pomp,
Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you’d took an’ dreened his swamp:
But I ain’t o’ the meechin’ kind, thet sets an’ thinks fer weeks
The bottom’s out o’ th’ univarse coz their own gillpot leaks.
I hed to cross bayous an’ criks, (wal, it did beat all natur’,)
Upon a kin’ o’ corderoy, fust log, then alligator:
Luck’ly the critters warn’t sharp-sot; I guess’t wuz overruled
They’d done their mornin’s marketin’ an’ gut their hunger cooled;
Fer missionaries to the Creeks an’ runaway’s air viewed
By them an’ folks ez sent express to be their reg’lar food:
Wutever ’t wuz, they laid an’ snoozed ez peacefully ez sinners,
Meek ez disgestin’ deacons be at ordination dinners;
Ef any on ’em turned an’ snapped, I let ’em kin’ o’ taste
My live-oak leg, an’ so, ye see, ther’ warn’t no gret o’ waste,
Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they’d ben to college
’T warn’t heartier food than though ’t wuz made out o’ the tree o’ knowledge.
But I tell you my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant,
An’ var’ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement,
An’ all o’ me thet wuz n’t sore an’ sendin’ prickles thru me
Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin’ Montezumy:
A usefle limb it ’s ben to me, an’ more of a support
Than wut the other hez ben,—coz I dror my pension for ’t.
Wal, I gut in at last where folks wuz civerlized an’ white,
Ez I diskivered to my cost afore ’t wuz hardly night;
Fer ’z I wuz settin’ in the bar a-takin’ sunthin’ hot,
An’ feelin’ like a man agin, all over in one spot,
A feller thet sot opposite, arter a squint at me,
Lep up an’ drawed his peacemaker, an’, “Dash it, Sir,” suz he,
“I’m doubledashed if you ain’t him thet stole my yaller chettle,
(You’re all the stranger thet’s around,) so now you’ve gut to settle;
It ain’t no use to argerfy ner try to cut up frisky,
I know ye ez I know the smell o’ ole chain-lightnin’ whiskey;
We’re lor-abidin’ folks down here, we’ll fix ye so ’s ’t a bar
Wouldn’ tech ye with a ten-foot pole; (Jedge, you jest warm the tar;)
You’ll think you’d better ha’ gut among a tribe o’ Mongrel Tartars,
’Fore we’ve done showin’ how we raise our Southun prize tar-martyrs;
A moultin’ fallen cherubim, ef he should see ye, ’d snicker,
Thinkin’ he hedn’t nary chance. Come, genlemun, le’ ’s liquor;
An’, Gin’ral, when you ‘ve mixed the drinks an’ chalked ’em up, tote roun’
An’ see ef ther’ ’s a feather-bed (thet’s borryable) in town.
We’ll try ye fair, Ole Grafted-Leg, an’ ef the tar wun’t stick,
Th’ ain’t not a juror here but wut’ll ’quit ye double-quick.”
To cut it short, I wun’t say sweet, they gi’ me a good dip,
(They ain’t perfessin’ Bahptists here,) then give the bed a rip,—
The jury ’d sot, an’ quicker ’n a flash they hetched me out, a livin’
Extemp’ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a Feejee Thanksgivin’.
Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it’s nat’ral to suppose,
When poppylar enthusiasm hed furnished me sech clo’es;
(Ner ’t ain’t without edvantiges, this kin’ o’ suit, ye see,
It’s water-proof, an’ water’s wut I like kep’ out o’ me;)
But nut content with thet, they took a kerridge from the fence
An’ rid me roun’ to see the place, entirely free ‘f expense,
With forty-’leven new kines o’ sarse without no charge acquainted me,
Gi’ me three cheers, an’ vowed thet I wuz all their fahncy painted me;
They treated me to all their eggs; (they keep ’em, I should think,
Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they wuz mos’ distinc’;)
They starred me thick ’z the Milky-Way with indiscrim’nit cherity,
For wut we call reception eggs air sunthin’ of a rerity;
Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce wuth a nigger’s getherin’,
But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer treatin’ Nothun bretherin:
A spotteder, ringstreakeder child the’ warn’t in Uncle Sam’s
Holl farm,—a cross of stripèd pig an’ one o’ Jacob’s lambs;
’T wuz Dannil in the lions’ den, new an’ enlarged edition,
An’ everythin’ fust-rate o’ ’ts kind, the’ warn’t no impersition.
People’s impulsiver down here than wut our folks to home be,
An’ kin’ o’ go it ’ith a resh in raisin’ Hail Columby:
Thet’s so: an’ they swarmed out like bees, for your real Southun men’s
Time isn’t o’ much more account than an ole settin’ hen’s;
(They jest work semioccashnally, or else don’t work at all,
An’ so their time an’ ’tention both air et saci’ty’s call.)
Talk about hospitality! wut Nothun town d’ ye know
Would take a totle stranger up an’ treat him gratis so?
You’d better b’lieve ther’ ’s nothin’ like this spendin’ days an’ nights
Along ’ith a dependent race fer civerlizin’ whites.
But this wuz all prelim’nary; it’s so Gran’ Jurors here
Fin’ a true bill, a hendier way than ourn, an’ nut so dear;
So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight ’n’ snug,
Afore a reg’lar court o’ law, to ten years in the Jug.
I didn’ make no gret defence: you don’t feel much like speakin’,
When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart o’ tar will leak in:
I hev hearn tell o’ wingèd words, but pint o’ fact it tethers
The spoutin’ gift to hev your words tu thick sot on with feathers,
An’ Choate ner Webster wouldn’t ha’ made an A 1 kin’ o’ speech,
Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper ’n a baby’s screech.
Two year ago they ketched the thief, ’n’ seein’ I wuz innercent,
They jest oncorked an’ le’ me run, an’ in my stid the sinner sent
To see how he liked pork ’n’ pone flavored with wa’nut saplin’,
An’ nary social priv’ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin.
When I come out, the folks behaved mos’ gen’manly an’ harnsome;
They ’lowed it wouldn’t be more ’n right, ef I should cuss ’n’ darn some:
The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, “I’ll du wut ’s right,
I’ll give ye settisfection now by shootin’ ye at sight,
An’ give the nigger, (when he’s caught,) to pay him fer his trickin’
In gittin’ the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin’,—
It’s jest the way with all on ’em, the inconsistent critters,
They’re ’most enough to make a man blaspheme his mornin’ bitters;
I’ll be your frien’ thru thick an’ thin an’ in all kines o’ weathers,
An’ all you’ll hev to pay fer ’s jest the waste o’ tar an’ feathers:
A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, tu, Miss Shennon;
It wuz her mite; we would ha’ took another, ef ther ’d ben one:
We don’t make no charge for the ride an’ all the other fixins.
Le’ ’s liquor; Gin’ral, you can chalk our friend for all the mixins.”
A meetin’ then wuz called, where they “RESOLVED, Thet we respec’
B.S. Esquire for quallerties o’ heart an’ intellec’
Peculiar to Columby’s sile, an’ not to no one else’s,
Thet makes Európean tyrans scringe in all their gilded pel’ces,
An’ doos gret honor to our race an’ Southun institootions”:
(I give ye jest the substance o’ the leadin’ resolootions:)
“RESOLVED, Thet we revere in him a soger ’thout a flor,
A martyr to the princerples o’ libbaty an’ lor:
RESOLVED, Thet other nations all, ef sot ’longside o’ us,
For vartoo, larnin’, chivverlry, ain’t noways wuth a cuss.”
They gut up a subscription, tu, but no gret come o’ that;
I ’xpect in cairin’ of it roun’ they took a leaky hat;
Though Southun genelmun ain’t slow at puttin’ down their name,
(When they can write,) fer in the eend it comes to jest the same,
Because, ye see, ’t ’s the fashion here to sign an’ not to think
A critter’d be so sordid ez to ax ’em for the chink:
I didn’t call but jest on one, an’ he drawed toothpick on me,
An’ reckoned he warn’t goin’ to stan’ no sech dog-gauned econ’my;
So nothin’ more wuz realized, ’ceptin’ the good-will shown,
Than ef ’t had ben from fust to last a reg’lar Cotton Loan.
It’s a good way, though, come to think, coz ye enjy the sense
O’ lendin’ lib’rally to the Lord, an’ nary red o’ ’xpense:
Sence then I’ve gut my name up for a gin’rous-hearted man
By jes’ subscribin’ right an’ left on this high-minded plan;
I’ve gin away my thousans so to every Southun sort
O’ missions, colleges, an’ sech, ner ain’t no poorer for ’t.
I warn’t so bad off, arter all; I needn’t hardly mention
That Guv’ment owed me quite a pile for my arrears o’ pension,—
I mean the poor, weak thing we hed: we run a new one now,
Thet strings a feller with a claim up tu the nighest bough,
An’ prectises the rights o’ man, purtects down-trodden debtors,
Ner wun’t hev creditors about a-scrougin’ o’ their betters:
Jeff’s gut the last idees ther’ is, poscrip’, fourteenth edition,
He knows it takes some enterprise to run an oppersition;
Ourn’s the fust thru-by-daylight train, with all ou’doors for deepot,
Yourn goes so slow you’d think ’t wuz drawed by a last cent’ry teapot;—
Wal, I gut all on ’t paid in gold afore our State seceded,
An’ done wal, for Confed’rit bonds warn’t jest the cheese I needed:
Nut but wut they’re ez good ez gold, but then it’s hard a-breakin’ on ’em,
An’ ignorant folks is ollers sot an’ wun’t git used to takin’ on ’em;
They’re wuth ez much ez wut they wuz afore ole Mem’nger signed ’em,
An’ go off middlin’ wal for drinks, when ther’ ’s a knife behind ’em:
We du miss silver, jest fer thet an’ ridin’ in a bus,
Now we’ve shook off the despots thet wuz suckin’ at our pus;
An’ it’s because the South’s so rich; ’t wuz nat’ral to expec’
Supplies o’ change wuz jest the things we shouldn’t recollec’;
We’d ough’ to ha’ thought aforehan’, though, o’ thet good rule o’ Crockett’s,
For ’t ’s tiresome cairin’ cotton-bales an’ niggers in your pockets,
Ner ’t ain’t quite hendy to pass off one o’ your six-foot Guineas
An’ git your halves an’ quarters back in gals an’ pickaninnies:
Wal, ’t ain’t quite all a feller ’d ax, but then ther’ ’s this to say,
It’s on’y jest among ourselves thet we expec’ to pay;
Our system would ha’ caird us thru in any Bible cent’ry,
’Fore this onscripted plan come up o’ books by double entry;
We go the patriarkle here out o’ all sight an’ hearin’,
For Jacob warn’t a circumstance to Jeff at financierin’;
He never ’d thought o’ borryin’ from Esau like all nater
An’ then cornfiscatin’ all debts to sech a small pertater;
There’s p’litickle econ’my, now, combined ’ith morril beauty
Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in’my’s, tu) to dooty!
Wy, Jeff’d ha’ gin him five an’ won his eye-teeth ’fore he knowed it,
An’, slid o’ wastin’ pottage, he’d ha’ eat it up an’ owed it.
But I wuz goin’ on to say how I come here to dwall;—
’Nough said, thet, arter lookin’ roun’, I liked the place so wal,
Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy ’em,
By bein’ proofs o’ prophecy an’ cirkleatin’ medium,
Where a man’s sunthin’ coz he’s white, an’ whiskey’s cheap ez fleas,
An’ the financial pollercy jest sooted my idees,
Thet I friz down right where I wuz, merried the Widder Shennon,
(Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, part in the curse o’ Canaan,)
An’ here I be ez lively ez a chipmunk on a wall,
With nothin’ to feel riled about much later ’n Eddam’s fall.
Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we made an even trade:
She gut an overseer, an’ I a fem’ly ready-made,
(The youngest on ’em’s ’most growed up,) rugged an’ spry ez weazles,
So’s ’t ther’ ’s no resk o’ doctors’ bills fer hoopin’-cough an’ measles.
Our farm’s at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River,
Wal located in all respex,—fer ’t ain’t the chills ’n’ fever
Thet makes my writin’ seem to squirm; a Southuner’d allow I’d
Some call to shake, for I’ve jest hed to meller a new cowhide.
Miss S. is all ’f a lady; th’ ain’t no better on Big Boosy,
Ner one with more accomplishmunts ’twixt here an’ Tuscaloosy;
She’s an F.F., the tallest kind, an’ prouder ’n the Gran’ Turk,
An’ never hed a relative thet done a stroke o’ work;
Hern ain’t a scrimpin’ fem’ly sech ez you git up Down East,
Th’ ain’t a growed member on ’t but owes his thousuns et the least:
She is some old; but then agin ther’ ’s drawbacks in my sheer;
Wut’s left o’ me ain’t more ’n enough to make a Brigadier:
The wust is, she hez tantrums; she is like Seth Moody’s gun
(Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp Ole Dot an’ Kerry One);
He’d left her loaded up a spell, an’ hed to git her clear,
So he onhitched,—Jeerusalem! the middle o’ last year
Wuz right nex’ door compared to where she kicked the critter tu
(Though jest where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew);
His brother Asaph picked her up an’ tied her to a tree,
An’ then she kicked an hour ’n’ a half afore she’d let it be:
Wal, Miss S. doos hev cuttins-up an’ pourins-out o’ vials,
But then she hez her widder’s thirds, an’ all on us hez trials.
My objec’, though, in writin’ now warn’t to allude to sech,
But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech,—
I want thet you should grad’lly break my merriage to Jerushy,
An’ ther’ ’s a heap of argymunts thet’s emple to indooce ye:
Fust place, State’s Prison,—wal, it’s true it warn’t fer crime, o’ course,
But then it’s jest the same fer her in gittin’ a disvorce;
Nex’ place, my State’s secedin’ out hez leg’lly lef’ me free
To merry any one I please, pervidin’ it’s a she;
Fin’lly, I never wun’t come back, she needn’t hev no fear on ’t,
But then it ’s wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear on ’t;
Lastly, I’ve gut religion South, an’ Rushy she’s a pagan
Thet sets by th’ graven imiges o’ the gret Nothun Dagon;
(Now I hain’t seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treasury Loan,
Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o’ flown;)
An’ ef J. wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated,
Wy, she’s an aliun in’my now, an’ I’ve ben cornfiscated,—
For sence we’ve entered on th’ estate o’ the late nayshnul eagle,
She hain’t no kin’ o’ right but jest wut I allow ez legle:
Wut doos Secedin’ mean, ef’t ain’t thet nat’rul rights hez riz, ’n’
Thet wut is mine’s my own, but wut’s another man’s ain’t his’n?
Bersides, I couldn’t do no else; Miss S. suz she to me,
“You’ve sheered my bed,” [Thet’s when I paid my interdiction fee
To Southun rites,] “an’ kep’ your sheer,” [Wal, I allow it sticked
So’s ’t I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,]
“Ner never paid no demmiges; but thet wun’t do no harm,
Pervidin’ thet you’ll ondertake to oversee the farm;
(My eldes’ boy is so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers
An’ settin’ in the Jestice-Court for welcomin’ o’ strangers”;)
[He sot on me;] “an’ so, ef you’ll jest ondertake the care
Upon a mod’rit sellery, we’ll up an’ call it square;
But ef you can’t conclude,” suz she, an’ give a kin’ o’ grin,
“Wy, the Gran’ Jury, I expect, ‘ll hev to set agin.”
Thet’s the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du,
But jest to make the best on’t an’ off coat an’ buckle tu?
Ther’ ain’t a livin’ man thet finds an income necessarier
Than me,—bimeby I’ll tell ye how I fin’lly come to merry her.
She hed another motive, tu: I mention of it here
T’ encourage lads thet’s growin’ up to study ’n’ persevere,
An’ show ’em how much better ’t pays to mind their winter-schoolin’
Than to go off on benders ’n’ sech, an’ waste their time in foolin’;
Ef ’t warn’t for studyin’, evening, I never ’d ha’ ben here
An orn’ment o’ saciety, in my approprut spear:
She wanted somebody, ye see, o’ taste an’ cultivation,
To talk along o’ preachers when they stopt to the plantation;
For folks in Dixie th’t read an’ write, onless it is by jarks,
Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th’ oridgenal patriarchs;
To fit a feller f’ wut they call the soshle higherarchy,
All thet you’ve gut to know is jest beyund an evrage darky;
Schoolin’ ’s wut they can’t seem to stan’, they’re tu consarned high-pressure,
An’ knowin’ t’ much might spile a boy for bein’ a Secesher.
We hain’t no settled preachin’ here, ner ministeril taxes;
The min’ster’s only settlement ’s the carpet-bag he packs his
Razor an’ soap-brush intu, with his hymbook an’ his Bible,—
But they du preach, I swan to man, it’s puf’kly indescrib’le!
They go it like an Ericsson’s ten-hoss-power coleric ingine,
An’ make Ole Split-Foot winch an’ squirm, for all he’s used to singein’;
Hawkins’s whetstone ain’t a pinch o’ primin’ to the innards
To hearin’ on ’em put free grace t’ a lot o’ tough old sin-hards!
But I must eend this letter now: ’fore long I’ll send a fresh un;
I’ve lots o’ things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun:
I’m called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in
To Cynthy’s hide: an’ so, till death,
Yourn,
BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.
On the last anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, the venerable President Quincy, senior member of the Society, as well as senior alumnus of the University, was received at the dinner with peculiar demonstrations of respect. He replied to these compliments in a speech, and, gracefully claiming the privileges of a literary society, entered at some length into an Apology for Old Age, and, aiding himself by notes in his hand, made a sort of running commentary on Cicero’s chapter “De Senectute.” The character of the speaker, the transparent good faith of his praise and blame, and the naïveté of his eager preference of Cicero’s opinions to King David’s, gave unusual interest to the College festival. It was a discourse full of dignity, honoring him who spoke and those who heard.
The speech led me to look over at home—an easy task—Cicero’s famous essay, charming by its uniform rhetorical merit; heroic with Stoical precepts; with a Roman eye to the claims of the State; happiest, perhaps, in his praise of life on the farm; and rising, at the conclusion, to a lofty strain. But he does not exhaust the subject; rather invites the attempt to add traits to the picture from our broader modern life.
Cicero makes no reference to the illusions which cling to the element of time, and in which Nature delights. Wellington, in speaking of military men, said,—“What masks are these uniforms to hide cowards! When our journal is published, many statues must come down.” I have often detected the like deception in the cloth shoe, wadded pelisse, wig and spectacles, and padded chair of Age. Nature lends herself to these illusions, and adds dim sight, deafness, cracked voice, snowy hair, short memory, and sleep. These also are masks, and all is not Age that wears them. Whilst we yet call ourselves young, and all our mates are yet youths and boyish, one good fellow in the set prematurely sports a gray or a bald head, which does not impose on us who know how innocent of sanctity or of Platonism he is, but does not less deceive his juniors and the public, who presently distinguish him with a most amusing respect: and this lets us into the secret, that the venerable forms that so awed our childhood were just such impostors. Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscore winters.
For if the essence of age is not present, these signs, whether of Art or Nature, are counterfeit and ridiculous: and the essence of age is intellect. Wherever that appears, we call it old. If we look into the eyes of the youngest person, we sometimes discover that here is one who knows already what you would go about with much pains to teach him; there is that in him which is the ancestor of all around him: which fact the Indian Vedas express, when they say, “He that can discriminate is the father of his father.” And in our old British legends of Arthur and the Round-Table, his friend and counsellor, Merlin the Wise, is a babe found exposed in a basket by the river-side, and, though an infant of only a few days, he speaks to those who discover him, tells his name and history, and presently foretells the fate of the by-standers. Wherever there is power, there is age. Don’t be deceived by dimples and curls. I tell you that babe is a thousand years old.
Time is, indeed, the theatre and seat of illusion. Nothing is so ductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to an hour. Saadi found in a mosque at Damascus an old Persian of a hundred and fifty years who was dying, and was saying to himself, “I said, coming into the world by birth, ‘I will enjoy myself for a few moments.’ Alas! at the variegated table of life I partook of a few mouthfuls, and the Fates said, ‘Enough!’” That which does not decay is so central and controlling in us, that, as long as one is alone by himself, he is not sensible of the inroads of time, which always begin at the surface-edges. If, on a winter day, you should stand within a bell-glass, the face and color of the afternoon clouds would not indicate whether it were June or January; and if we did not find the reflection of ourselves in the eyes of the young people, we could not know that the century-clock had struck seventy instead of twenty. How many men habitually believe that each chance passenger with whom they converse is of their own age, and presently find it was his father, and not his brother, whom they knew!
But, not to press too hard on these deceits and illusions of Nature, which are inseparable from our condition, and looking at age under an aspect more conformed to the common sense, if the question be the felicity of age, I fear the first popular judgments will be unfavorable. From the point of sensuous experience, seen from the streets and markets and the haunts of pleasure and gain, the estimate of age is low, melancholy, and skeptical. Frankly face the facts, and see the result. Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions: the surest poison is time. This cup, which Nature puts to our lips, has a wonderful virtue, surpassing that of any other draught. It opens the senses, adds power, fills us with exalted dreams, which we call hope, love, ambition, science: especially, it creates a craving for larger draughts of itself. But they who take the larger draughts are drunk with it, lose their stature, strength, beauty, and senses, and end in folly and delirium. We postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write, and we one day discover that our literary talent was a youthful effervescence which we have now lost. We had a judge in Massachusetts who at sixty proposed to resign, alleging that he perceived a certain decay in his faculties: he was dissuaded by his friends, on account of the public convenience at that time. At seventy it was hinted to him that it was time to retire; but he now replied, that he thought his judgment as robust, and all his faculties as good as ever they were. But besides the self-deception, the strong and hasty laborers of the street do not work well with the chronic valetudinarian. Youth is everywhere in place. Age, like woman, requires fit surroundings. Age is comely in coaches, in churches, in chairs of state and ceremony, in council-chambers, in courts of justice, and historical societies. Age is becoming in the country. But in the rush and uproar of Broadway, if you look into the faces of the passengers, there is dejection or indignation in the seniors, a certain concealed sense of injury, and the lip made up with a heroic determination not to mind it. Few envy the consideration enjoyed by the oldest inhabitant. We do not count a man’s years, until he has nothing else to count. The vast inconvenience of animal immortality was told in the fable of Tithonus. In short, the creed of the street is, Old Age is not disgraceful, but immensely disadvantageous. Life is well enough, but we shall all be glad to get out of it, and they will all be glad to have us.
This is odious on the face of it. Universal convictions are not to be shaken by the whimseys of overfed butchers and firemen, or by the sentimental fears of girls who would keep the infantile bloom on their cheeks. We know the value of experience. Life and art are cumulative; and he who has accomplished something in any department alone deserves to be heard on that subject. A man of great employments and excellent performance used to assure me that he did not think a man worth anything until he was sixty; although this smacks a little of the resolution of a certain “Young Men’s Republican Club,” that all men should be held eligible who were under seventy. But in all governments, the councils of power were held by the old; and patricians or patres, senate or senes, seigneurs or seniors, gerousia, the senate of Sparta, the presbytery of the Church, and the like, all signify simply old men.
This cynical lampoon is refuted by the universal prayer for long life, which is the verdict of Nature, and justified by all history. We have, it is true, examples of an accelerated pace, by which young men achieved grand works; as in the Macedonian Alexander, in Raffaelle, Shakspeare, Pascal, Burns, and Byron; but these are rare exceptions. Nature, in the main, vindicates her law. Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power. And if the life be true and noble, we have quite another sort of seniors than the frowzy, timorous, peevish dotards who are falsely old,—namely, the men who fear no city, but by whom cities stand; who appearing in any street, the people empty their houses to gaze at and obey them: as at “My Cid, with the fleecy beard,” in Toledo; or Bruce, as Barbour reports him; as blind old Dandolo, elected Doge at eighty-four years, storming Constantinople at ninety-four, and after the revolt again victorious, and elected at the age of ninety-six to the throne of the Eastern Empire, which he declined, and died Doge at ninety-seven. We still feel the force of Socrates, “whom well-advised the oracle pronounced wisest of men”; of Archimedes, holding Syracuse against the Romans by his wit, and himself better than all their nation; of Michel Angelo, wearing the four crowns of architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry; of Galileo, of whose blindness Castelli said, “The noblest eye is darkened that Nature ever made,—an eye that hath seen more than all that went before him, and hath opened the eyes of all that shall come after him”; of Newton, who made an important discovery for every one of his eighty-five years; of Bacon, who “took all knowledge to be his province”; of Fontenelle, “that precious porcelain vase laid up in the centre of France to be guarded with the utmost care for a hundred years”; of Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams, the wise and heroic statesmen; of Washington, the perfect citizen; of Wellington, the perfect soldier; of Goethe, the all-knowing poet; of Humboldt, the encyclopædia of science.
Under the general assertion of the well-being of age, we can easily count particular benefits of that condition. It has weathered the perilous capes and shoals in the sea whereon we sail, and the chief evil of life is taken away in removing the grounds of fear. The insurance of a ship expires as she enters the harbor at home. It were strange, if a man should turn his sixtieth year without a feeling of immense relief from the number of dangers he has escaped. When the old wife says, “Take care of that tumor in your shoulder, perhaps it is cancerous,”—he replies, “What if it is?” The humorous thief who drank a pot of beer at the gallows blew off the froth because he had heard it was unhealthy; but it will not add a pang to the prisoner marched out to be shot, to assure him that the pain in his knee threatens mortification. When the pleuro-pneumonia of the cows raged, the butchers said, that, though the acute degree was novel, there never was a time when this disease did not occur among cattle. All men carry seeds of all distempers through life latent, and we die without developing them: such is the affirmative force of the constitution. But if you are enfeebled by any cause, the disease becomes strong. At every stage we lose a foe. At fifty years, ‘t is said, afflicted citizens lose their sick-headaches. I hope this hegira is not as movable a feast as that one I annually look for, when the horticulturists assure me that the rose-bugs in our gardens disappear on the tenth of July: they stay a fortnight later in mine. But be it as it may with the sick-headache,—‘t is certain that graver headaches and heart-aches are lulled, once for all, as we come up with certain goals of time. The passions have answered their purpose: that slight, but dread overweight, with which, in each instance, Nature secures the execution of her aim, drops off. To keep man in the planet, she impresses the terror of death. To perfect the commisariat, she implants in each a little rapacity to get the supply, and a little over-supply, of his wants. To insure the existence of the race, she reinforces the sexual instinct, at the risk of disorder, grief, and pain. To secure strength, she plants cruel hunger and thirst, which so easily overdo their office, and invite disease. But these temporary stays and shifts for the protection of the young animal are shed as fast as they can be replaced by nobler resources. We live in youth amidst this rabble of passions, quite too tender, quite too hungry and irritable. Later, the interiors of mind and heart open, and supply grander motives. We learn the fatal compensations that wait on every act. Then,—one mischief at a time,—this riotous time-destroying crew disappear.
I count it another capital advantage of age, this, that a success more or less signifies nothing. Little by little, it has amassed such a fund of merit, that it can very well afford to go on its credit when it will. When I chanced to meet the poet Wordsworth, then sixty-three years old, he told me, “that he had just had a fall and lost a tooth, and, when his companions were much concerned for the mischance, he had replied, that he was glad it had not happened forty years before.” Well, Nature takes care that we shall not lose our organs forty years too soon. A lawyer argued a cause yesterday in the Supreme Court, and I was struck with a certain air of levity and defiance which vastly became him. Thirty years ago it was a serious concern to him whether his pleading was good and effective. Now it is of importance to his client, but of none to himself. It is long already fixed what he can do and cannot do, and his reputation does not gain or suffer from one or a dozen new performances. If he should, on a new occasion, rise quite beyond his mark, and do somewhat extraordinary and great, that, of course, would instantly tell; but he may go below his mark with impunity, and people will say, “Oh, he had headache,” or, “He lost his sleep for two nights.” What a lust of appearance, what a load of anxieties that once degraded him, he is thus rid of! Every one is sensible of this cumulative advantage in living. All the good days behind him are sponsors, who speak for him when he is silent, pay for him when he has no money, introduce him where he has no letters, and work for him when he sleeps.
A third felicity of age is, that it has found expression. Youth suffers not only from ungratified desires, but from powers untried, and from a picture in his mind of a career which has, as yet, no outward reality. He is tormented with the want of correspondence between things and thoughts. Michel Angelo’s head is full of masculine and gigantic figures as gods walking, which make him savage until his furious chisel can render them into marble; and of architectural dreams, until a hundred stone-masons can lay them in courses of travertine. There is the like tempest in every good head in which some great benefit for the world is planted. The throes continue until the child is born. Every faculty new to each man thus goads him and drives him out into doleful deserts, until it finds proper vent. All the functions of human duty irritate and lash him forward, bemoaning and chiding, until they are performed. He wants friends, employment, knowledge, power, house and land, wife and children, honor and fame; he has religious wants, aesthetic wants, domestic, civil, humane wants. One by one, day after day, he learns to coin his wishes into facts. He has his calling, homestead, social connection, and personal power, and thus, at the end of fifty years, his soul is appeased by seeing some sort of correspondence between his wish and his possession. This makes the value of age, the satisfaction it slowly offers to every craving. He is serene who does not feel himself pinched and wronged, but whose condition, in particular and in general, allows the utterance of his mind. In old persons, when thus fully expressed, we often observe a fair, plump, perennial, waxen complexion, which indicates that all the ferment of earlier days has subsided into serenity of thought and behavior.
For a fourth benefit, age sets its house in order, and finishes its works, which to every artist is a supreme pleasure. Youth has an excess of sensibility, to which every object glitters and attracts. We leave one pursuit for another, and the young man’s year is a heap of beginnings. At the end of a twelvemonth, he has nothing to show for it, not one completed work. But the time is not lost. Our instincts drove us to hive innumerable experiences, that are yet of no visible value, and which we may keep for twice seven years before they shall be wanted. The best things are of secular growth. The instinct of classifying marks the wise and healthy mind. Linnæus projects his system, and lays out his twenty-four classes of plants, before yet he has found in Nature a single plant to justify certain of his classes. His seventh class has not one. In process of time, he finds with delight the little white Trientalis, the only plant with seven petals and sometimes seven stamens, which constitutes a seventh class in conformity with his system. The conchologist builds his cabinet whilst as yet he has few shells. He labels shelves for classes, cells for species: all but a few are empty. But every year fills some blanks, and with accelerating speed as he becomes knowing and known. An old scholar finds keen delight in verifying all the impressive anecdotes and citations he has met with in miscellaneous reading and hearing, in all the years of youth. We carry in memory important anecdotes, and have lost all clue to the author from whom we had them. We have a heroic speech from Rome or Greece, but cannot fix it on the man who said it. We have an admirable line worthy of Horace, ever and anon resounding in our mind’s ear, but have searched all probable and improbable books for it in vain. We consult the reading men: but, strangely enough, they who know everything know not this. But especially we have a certain insulated thought, which haunts us, but remains insulated and barren. Well, there is nothing for all this but patience and time. Time, yes, that is the finder, the unweariable explorer, not subject to casualties, omniscient at last. The day comes when the hidden author of our story is found; when the brave speech returns straight to the hero who said it; when the admirable verse finds the poet to whom it belongs; and best of all, when the lonely thought, which seemed so wise, yet half-wise, half-thought, because it cast no light abroad, is suddenly matched in our mind by its twin, by its sequence, or next related analogy, which gives it instantly radiating power, and justifies the superstitious instinct with which we had hoarded it. We remember our old Greek Professor at Cambridge, an ancient bachelor, amid his folios, possessed by this hope of completing a task, with nothing to break his leisure after the three hours of his daily classes, yet ever restlessly stroking his leg, and assuring himself “he should retire from the University and read the authors.” In Goethe’s Romance, Makaria, the central figure for wisdom and influence, pleases herself with withdrawing into solitude to astronomy and epistolary correspondence. Goethe himself carried this completion of studies to the highest point. Many of his works hung on the easel from youth to age, and received a stroke in every month or year of his life. A literary astrologer, he never applied himself to any task but at the happy moment when all the stars consented. Bentley thought himself likely to live till fourscore,—long enough to read everything that was worth reading,—”Et tunc magna mei sub terris ibit imago.” Much wider is spread the pleasure which old men take in completing their secular affairs, the inventor his inventions, the agriculturist his experiments, and all old men in finishing their houses, rounding their estates, clearing their titles, reducing tangled interests to order, reconciling enmities, and leaving all in the best posture for the future. It must be believed that there is a proportion between the designs of a man and the length of his life: there is a calendar of his years, so of his performances.
America is the country of young men, and too full of work hitherto for leisure and tranquillity; yet we have had robust centenarians, and examples of dignity and wisdom. I have lately found in an old note-book a record of a visit to Ex-President John Adams, in 1825, soon after the election of his son to the Presidency. It is but a sketch, and nothing important passed in the conversation; but it reports a moment in the life of a heroic person, who, in extreme old age, appeared still erect, and worthy of his fame.
——, Feb., 1825. To-day, at Quincy, with my brother, by invitation of Mr. Adams’s family. The old President sat in a large stuffed arm-chair, dressed in a blue coat, black small-clothes, white stockings, and a cotton cap covered his bald head. We made our compliment, told him he must let us join our congratulations to those of the nation on the happiness of his house. He thanked us, and said, “I am rejoiced, because the nation is happy. The time of gratulation and congratulations is nearly over with me: I am astonished that I have lived to see and know of this event. I have lived now nearly a century: [he was ninety in the following October:] a long, harassed, and distracted life.”—I said, “The world thinks a good deal of joy has been mixed with it.”—“The world does not know,” he replied, “how much toil, anxiety, and sorrow I have suffered.”—I asked if Mr. Adams’s letter of acceptance had been read to him.—“Yes,” he said, and added, “My son has more political prudence than any man that I know who has existed in my time; he never was put off his guard: and I hope he will continue such; but what effect age may work in diminishing the power of his mind, I do not know; it has been very much on the stretch, ever since he was born. He has always been laborious, child and man, from infancy.”—When Mr. J.Q. Adams’s age was mentioned, he said, “He is now fifty-eight, or will be in July”; and remarked that “all the Presidents were of the same age: General Washington was about fifty-eight, and I was about fifty-eight, and Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe.”—We inquired, when he expected to see Mr. Adams.—He said, “Never: Mr. Adams will not come to Quincy, but to my funeral. It would be a great satisfaction to me to see him, but I don’t wish him to come on my account.”—He spoke of Mr. Lechmere, whom “he well remembered to have seen come down daily, at a great age, to walk in the old town-house,”—adding, “And I wish I could walk as well as he did. He was Collector of the Customs for many years, under the Royal Government”—E. said, “I suppose, Sir, you would not have taken his place, even to walk as well as he.”—“No,” he replied, “that was not what I wanted.”—He talked of Whitefield, and “remembered, when he was a Freshman in college, to have come in to the Old South, [I think,] to hear him, but could not get into the house;—I, however, saw him,” he said, “through a window, and distinctly heard all. He had a voice such as I never heard before or since. He cast it out so that you might hear it at the meeting-house, [pointing towards the Quincy meeting-house,] and he had the grace of a dancing-master, of an actor of plays. His voice and manner helped him more than his sermons. I went with Jonathan Sewall.”—“And you were pleased with him, Sir?”—“Pleased! I was delighted beyond measure.”—We asked, if at Whitefield’s return the same popularity continued.—“Not the same fury,” he said, “not the same wild enthusiasm as before, but a greater esteem, as he became more known. He did not terrify, but was admired.”
We spent about an hour in his room. He speaks very distinctly for so old a man, enters bravely into long sentences, which are interrupted by want of breath, but carries them invariably to a conclusion, without ever correcting a word.
He spoke of the new novels of Cooper, and “Peep at the Pilgrims,” and “Saratoga,” with praise, and named with accuracy the characters in them. He likes to have a person always reading to him, or company talking in his room, and is better the next day after having visitors in his chamber from morning to night.
He received a premature report of his son’s election, on Sunday afternoon, without any excitement, and told the reporter he had been hoaxed, for it was not yet time for any news to arrive. The informer, something damped in his heart, insisted on repairing to the meeting-house, and proclaimed it aloud to the congregation, who were so overjoyed that they rose in their seats and cheered thrice. The Reverend Mr. Whitney dismissed them immediately.
When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,—muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and, dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old. I have heard, that, whenever the name of man is spoken, the doctrine of immortality is announced; it cleaves to his constitution. The mode of it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes to us from the other side. But the inference from the working of intellect, hiving knowledge, hiving skill,—at the end of life just ready to be born,—affirms the inspirations of affection and of the moral sentiment.
Lectures on the Science of Languages, delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in April, May, and June, 1861. By MAX MÜLLER, M.A., Fellow of All-Souls College, Oxford; Corresponding Member of the Imperial Institute of France. London: Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts. 1861. 8vo. pp. xii., 399.
The name of Mr. Max Müller is familiar to American students as that of a man who, learned in the high German fashion, has the pleasant faculty, unhappily too rare among Germans, of communicating his erudition in a way not only comprehensible, but agreeable to the laity. The Teutonic Gelehrte, gallantly devoting a half-century to his pipe and his locative case, fencing the result of his labors with a bristling hedge of abbreviations, cross-references, and untranslated citations that take panglottism for granted as an ordinary incident of human culture, too hastily assumes a tenacity of life on the part of his reader as great as his own. All but those with whom the study of language is a specialty pass him by as Dante does Nimrod, gladly concluding