and is not proud of, too. It had little reason to be proud of Our School, and has done much better since in that way, and will do far better yet.
Poets have complained in all countries and in all ages, that true love ever meets with obstacles and hindrances, and the highest efforts of their art have been exhausted in commemorating the sufferings or the triumphs of affection. Will the theme ever cease to interest? Will the hopes, the fears, the joys, the vows of lovers, ever be deemed matters of light moment, unworthy to be embalmed and preserved in those immortal caskets which genius knows how to frame out of words? If that dreary time be destined to come—if victory decide in favor of those mechanical philosophers who would drive sentiment out of the world—sad will be the lot of mortals; for it is better to die with a heart full of love, than live for an age without feeling one vibration of that divine passion.
I am almost ashamed to translate into this level English, the sublime rhapsody with which the worthy Sheikh Ibrahim introduced the simple story about to be repeated. The truth is, I do not remember much of what he said, and at times he left me far behind, as he soared up through the cloudy heaven of his enthusiasm. I could only occasionally discern his meaning as it flashed along; but a solemn, rapturous murmur of inarticulate sounds swept over my soul, and prepared it to receive with devout faith and respect, what else might have appeared to me a silly tale of truth and constancy and passionate devotion. I forgot the thousand musquitoes that were whirling with threatening buzz around; the bubbling of the water-pipe grew gradually less frequent, and at length died away; and the sides of the kiosque overlooking the river, with its flitting sails and palm-fringed shores dimming in the twilight, seemed to open and throw back a long vista into the past. I listened, and the Sheikh continued to speak:
I will relate the story of Gadallah, the son of the sword-maker, and of Hosneh, the daughter of the merchant. It is handed down to us by tradition, and the fathers of some yet living, remember to have heard it told by eye-witnesses. Not that any great weight of testimony is required to exact belief. No extraordinary incident befell the lovers; and the pure-hearted, when they hear these things, will say within themselves, "This must be so; we would have done likewise."
Gadallah was a youth of wonderful beauty; his like is only to be seen once in a long summer's day, by the favor of God. All Cairo spoke of him, and mothers envied his mother, and fathers his father; and maidens who beheld him grew faint with admiration, and loved as hopelessly as if he had been the brightest star of heaven. For he did not incline to such thoughts, and had been taught to despise women, and to believe that they were all wicked and designing—full of craft and falsehood. Such instructions had his mother given him, for she knew the snares that would beset so beautiful a youth, and feared for him, lest he might be led into danger and misfortune.
Gadallah worked with his father in the shop, and being a cunning artificer, assisted to support the family. He had many brothers and sisters, all younger than he; but there were times when money was scarce with them, and they were compelled to borrow for their daily expenses of their neighbors, and to trust to Providence for the means of repayment. Thus time passed, and they became neither richer nor poorer, as is the common lot of men who labor for their bread; but neither Gadallah nor his father repined. When Allah gave good fortune they blessed him, and when no good fortune was bestowed, they blessed him for not taking away that which they had. They who spend their lives in industry and in praise of God, can not be unhappy.
It came to pass one day, that a man richly dressed, riding on a mule, and followed by servants, stopped opposite the shop, and calling to the father of Gadallah, said to him: "O Sheikh, I have a sword, the hilt of which is broken, and I desire thee to come to my house and mend it; for it is of much value, and there is a word of power written on it, and I can not allow it to leave the shelter of my roof." The sword-maker answered: "O master, it will be better that my son should accompany thee; for he is young, and his eyes are sharp, and his hand is clever, while I am growing old, and not fit for the finer work." The customer replied that it was well, and having given Gadallah time to take his tools, rode slowly away, the youth following him at a modest distance.
They proceeded to a distant quarter, where the streets were silent and the houses large and lofty, surrounded by gardens with tall trees that trembled overhead in the sun-light. At length they stopped before a mansion fit for a prince, and Gadallah entered along with the owner. A spacious court, with fountains playing in the shade of two large sycamores, and surrounded by light colonnades, so struck the young sword-maker with astonishment, that he exclaimed: "Blessed be God, whose creatures are permitted to rear palaces so beautiful!" These words caused the master to smile with benignity, for who is insensible to the praise of his own house? And he said: "Young man, thou seest only a portion of that which has been bestowed upon me—extolled be the Lord and his Prophet; follow me." So they passed through halls of surprising magnificence, until they came to a lofty door, over which swept long crimson curtains, and which was guarded by a black slave with a sword in his hand. He looked at Gadallah with surprise when the master said "open," but obeying, admitted them to a spacious saloon—more splendid than any that had preceded.
Now Gadallah having never seen the interior of any house better than that of his neighbor the barber, who was a relation by the mother's side, and highly respected as a man of wealth and condition, was lost in amazement and wonder at all he beheld, not knowing that he was the most beautiful thing in that saloon, and scarcely ventured to walk, lest he might stain the polished marble or the costly carpets. His conductor, who was evidently a good man, from the delight he honestly showed at this artless tribute to his magnificence, took him to a small cabinet containing a chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl. This he opened, and producing a sword, the like of which never came from Damascus, bade him observe where the hilt was broken, and ordered him to mend it carefully. Then he left him, saying he would return in an hour.
Gadallah began his work with the intention of being very industrious; but he soon paused to admire at leisure the splendor of the saloon; when he had fed his eyes with this, he turned to a window that looked upon a garden, and saw that it was adorned with lovely trees, bright flowers, elegant kiosques, and running fountains. An aviary hard by was filled with singing-birds, which warbled the praises of the Creator. His mind soon became a wilderness of delight, in which leaf-laden branches waved, and roses, and anemones, and pinks, and fifty more of the bright daughters of spring, blushed and glittered; and melody wandered with hesitating steps, like a spirit seeking the coolest and sweetest place of rest. This was like an exquisite dream; but presently, straying in a path nigh at hand, he beheld an unvailed maiden and her attendant. It was but for a moment she appeared, yet her image was so brightly thrown in upon his heart, that he loved her ever afterward with a love as unchangeable as the purity of the heavens. When she was gone, he sat himself down beside the broken sword and wept.
The master of the house came back, and gently chid him for his idleness. "Go," said he, "and return to-morrow at the same hour. Thou hast now sufficiently fed thine eyes—go; but remember, envy me not the wealth which God hath bestowed." Gadallah went his way, having first ascertained from the servants, that his employer was the Arabian merchant Zen-ed-din, whose daughter Hosneh was said to surpass in beauty all the maidens of the land of Egypt. On reaching the house, he repaired to his mother's side, and sitting down, told her of all he had seen and all he felt, beseeching her to advise him and predict good fortune to him.
Fatoumeh, the mother of Gadallah, was a wise woman, and understood that his case was hopeless, unless his desires received accomplishment. But it seemed to her impossible that the son of the poor sword-maker should ever be acceptable to the daughter of the wealthy merchant. She wept plentifully at the prospect of misery that unfolded itself, and when her husband came in, he also wept; and all three mingled their tears together until a late hour of the night.
Next day Gadallah went at the appointed hour to the merchant's house, and being kindly received, finished the work set to him; but saw no more of the maiden who had disturbed his mind. Zen-ed-din paid him handsomely for his trouble, and added some words of good advice. This done, he gently dismissed him, promising he would recall him shortly for other work; and the youth returned home despairing of all future happiness. The strength of his love was so great, that it shook him like a mighty fever, and he remained ill upon his couch that day, and the next, and the next, until he approached the margin of the grave; but his hour was not yet come, and he recovered.
In the mean time, the Angel of Death received permission from the Almighty to smite thirty thousand of the inhabitants of Cairo; and he sent a great plague, that introduced sorrow into every house. It flew rapidly from quarter to quarter, and from street to street, smiting the chosen of the tomb—the young, the old, the bad, the good, the rich, the poor—here, there, every where; in the palace, the hovel, the shop, the market-place, the deewan. All day and all night the shriek of sorrow resounded in the air; and the thoroughfares were filled with people following corpses to the cemetery. Many fled into other cities and other lands; but the plague followed those who were doomed, and struck them down by the wayside, or in the midst of their new friends.
It happened that the merchant Zen-ed-din had gone upon a journey, and had left his house, and his harem, and his lovely daughter, under the care of Providence, so that when Gadallah recovered, before the pestilence reached its height, he waited in vain in the shop, expecting that the merchant would pass, and invite him again to his house. At length the affliction of the city reached so great a degree of intensity, that all business was put a stop to, the bazaars were deserted, and men waited beneath their own roofs the inevitable decrees of fate.
Gadallah, who had confidence in God, spent part of his time walking in the streets; but every day went and sat on a stone bench opposite to Zen-ed-din's house, expecting to see some one come forth who might tell him that all were well within. But the doors remained closed, and not a sound ever proceeded from the interior of the vast mansion. At length, however, when he came at the usual hour, he perceived that the great entrance-gate was left half-open, and he mustered up courage to enter. He found the Bawab dead on his bench, and two black slaves by the side of the fountain. His heart smote him with a presentiment of evil. He advanced into the inner halls without seeing a sign of life. Behind the great crimson curtains that swept over the doorway of the saloon where he had worked, lay the guardian with his sword still in his hand. He pressed forward, finding every place deserted. Raising his voice at length, he called aloud, and asked if any living thing remained within those walls. No reply came but the echo that sounded dismally along the roof; with a heart oppressed by fear, he entered what he knew to be the ladies' private apartments; and here he found the attendant of Hosneh dying. She looked amazed at beholding a stranger, and, at first, refused to reply to his questions. But, at length, in a faint voice, she said that the plague had entered the house the day before like a raging lion, that many fell victims almost instantly, and that the women of the harem in a state of wild alarm had fled. "And Hosneh?" inquired Gadallah. "She is laid out in the kiosque, in the garden," replied the girl, who almost immediately afterward breathed her last.
Gadallah remained for some time gazing at her, and still listening, as if to ascertain that he had heard correctly. Then he made his way to the garden, and searched the kiosques, without finding what he sought, until he came to one raised on a light terrace, amid a grove of waving trees. Here beneath a canopy of white silk, on pillows of white silk, and all clothed in white silk, lay the form that had so long dwelt in his heart. Without fear of the infection, having first asked pardon of God, he stooped over her, and kissed those lips that had never even spoken to a man except her father; and he wished that death might come to him likewise; and he ventured to lie down by her side, that the two whom life could never have brought together, might be found united at least under one shroud.
A rustling close by attracted his attention. It was a dove fluttering down to her accustomed place on a bough, which once gained, she rolled forth from her swelling throat a cooing challenge to her partner in a distant tree. On reverting his look to the face of Hosneh, Gadallah thought he saw a faint red tint upon the lips he had pressed, like the first blush of the dawn in a cold sky. He gazed with wonder and delight, and became convinced he was not mistaken. He ran to a fountain and brought water in a large hollow leaf, partly poured it between the pearly teeth, which he parted timidly with his little finger, and partly sprinkled it over the maiden's face and bosom. At length a sigh shook her frame—so soft, so gentle that a lover's senses alone could have discerned it; and then, after an interval of perfect tranquillity, her eyes opened, gazed for a moment at the youth, and closed not in weakness, but as if dazzled by his beauty. Gadallah bent over her, watching for the least motion, the least indication of returning consciousness; listening for the first word, the first murmur that might break from those lips which he had tasted without warrant. He waited long, but not in vain; for at last there came a sweet smile, and a small, low voice cried, "Sabrea! where is Sabrea?" Gadallah now cast more water, and succeeded in restoring Hosneh to perfect consciousness, and to modest fear.
He sat at her feet and told her what had happened, omitting no one thing—not even the love which he had conceived for her; and he promised, in the absence of her friends, to attend upon her with respect and devotion, until her strength and health should return. She was but a child in years, and innocent as are the angels; and hearing the frankness of his speech, consented to what he proposed. And he attended her that day and the next, until she was able to rise upon her couch, and sit and talk in a low voice with him of love. He found every thing that was required in the way of food amply stored in the house, the gates of which he closed, lest robbers might enter; but he did not often go into it, for fear of the infection, and this was his excuse for not returning once to his parents' house, lest he might carry death with him.
On the fourth day Hosneh was well enough to walk a little in the garden, supported by the arms of Gadallah, who now wished that he might spend his life in this manner. But the decrees of fate were not yet accomplished. On the fifth day the young man became ill; he had sucked the disease from the lips of Hosneh in that only kiss which he had ventured; and before the sun went down, Hosneh was attending on him in despair, as he had attended on her in hope. She, too, brought water to bathe his forehead and his lips; she, too, watched for the signs of returning life, and as she passed the night by his side, gazing on his face, often mistook the sickly play of the moonbeams, as they fell between the trees, for the smile which she would have given her life to purchase.
Praise be to God, it was not written that either of them should die; and not many days afterward, toward the hour of evening, they were sitting in another kiosque beside a fountain, pale and wan it is true, looking more like pensive angels than mortal beings, but still with hearts full of happiness that broke out from time to time in bright smiles, which were reflected from one to the other as surely as were their forms in the clear water by which they reclined. Gadallah held the hand of Hosneh in his, and listened as she told how her mother had long ago been dead, how her father loved her, and how he would surely have died had any harm befallen her. She praised the courage, and the modesty, and the gentleness of Gadallah—for he had spoken despondingly about the chances of their future union, and said that when Zen-ed-din returned, she would relate all that had happened, and fall at his knees and say, "Father, give me to Gadallah."
The sun had just set, the golden streams that had been pouring into the garden seemed now sporting with the clouds overhead; solid shadows were thickening around; the flowers and the blossoms breathed forth their most fragrant perfumes; the last cooing of the drowsy doves was trembling on all sides; the nightingale was trying her voice in a few short, melancholy snatches: it was an hour for delight and joy; and the two lovers bent their heads closer together; closer, until their ringlets mingled, and their sighs, and the glances of their eyes. Then Gadallah suddenly arose, and said, "Daughter of my master, let there be a sword placed betwixt me and thee." And as he spoke, a bright blade gleamed betwixt him and the abashed maiden; and they were both seized with strong hands and hurried away.
Zen-ed-din had returned from his journey, and finding the great gate closed, had come round with his followers to the garden entrance, which he easily opened. Struck by the silence of the whole place, he advanced cautiously until he heard voices talking in the kiosque. Then he drew near, and overheard the whole of what had passed, and admired the modesty and virtue of Gadallah. He caused him to be seized and thrown that night into a dark room, that he might show his power; and he spoke harshly to his daughter, because of her too great trustfulness, and her unpermitted love. But when he understood all that had happened, and had sufficiently admired the wonderful workings of God's Providence, he said to himself, "Surely this youth and this maiden were created one for the other, and the decrees of fate must be accomplished." So he took Gadallah forth from his prison, and embraced him, calling him his son, and sent for his parents, and told them what had happened, and they all rejoiced; and in due time the marriage took place, and it was blessed, and the children's children of Hosneh and Gadallah still live among us.
While the excellent sheikh was rapidly running over the concluding statements of his narrative, I remember having read the chief incident in some European tradition—possibly borrowed, as so many of our traditions are, from the East—and then a single line of one of our poets, who has versified the story, came unbidden to my memory; but I could not recollect the poet's name, nor understand how the train of association could be so abruptly broken. The line doubtless describes the first interview of the lover with the plague-stricken maiden—it is as follows:
When the veracity of any person has been impugned, it is a duty which we owe to society, if it lies in our power, to endeavor to establish it; and when that person is a lady gallantry redoubles the obligation. Our chivalry is, on the present occasion, excited in favor of Madame Merian, who, toward the latter end of the seventeenth century, and during a two years' residence in Surinam, employed her leisure in studying the many interesting forms of winged and vegetable life indigenous to that prolific country. After her return to Holland, her native land, she published the results of her researches. Her writings, although abounding in many inaccuracies and seeming fables, contained much curious and new information; all the more valuable from the objects of her study having been, at that period, either entirely unknown to the naturalists of Europe, or vaguely reported by stray seafaring visitants; who, with the usual license of travelers, were more anxious to strike their hearers with astonishment than to extend their knowledge.
These works were rendered still more attractive by numerous plates—the result of Madame Merian's artistic skill—with which they were profusely embellished. It is one of these which, with the description accompanying it, has caused her truth to be called into question by subsequent writers; who, we must conclude, had either not the good fortune or the good eyesight to verify her statements by their own experience. The illustration to which I allude represents a large spider carrying off in its jaws a humming-bird, whose nest appears close at hand, and who had apparently been seized while sitting on its eggs.
Linnæus, however, did not doubt the lady, and called the spider (which belongs to the genus Mygale), "avicularia" (bird-eating). Whether this ferocious-looking hunter does occasionally capture small birds; or whether he subsists entirely on the wasps, bees, ants, and beetles which every where abound, what I chanced myself to see in the forest will help to determine.
Shortly after daybreak, one morning in 1848, while staying at a wood-cutting establishment on the Essequibo, a short distance above the confluence of that river and the Magaruni, we—a tall Yorkshireman and myself—started in our "wood-skin" to examine some spring hooks which we had set during the previous evening, in the embouchure of a neighboring creek. Our breakfast that morning depended on our success. Our chagrin may be imagined on finding all the baits untouched save one; and from that, some lurking cayman had snapped the body of the captured fish, leaving nothing but the useless head dangling in the air. After mentally dispatching our spoiler—who had not tricked us for the first time—to a place very far distant, we paddled further up the creek in search of a maam, or maroudi; or, indeed, of any thing eatable—bird, beast, or reptile. We had not proceeded far, when my companion, Blottle, who was sitting, gun in hand, prepared to deal destruction on the first living creature we might chance to encounter—suddenly fired at some object moving rapidly along the topmost branch of a tree which overhung the sluggish stream a short way in advance. For a moment or two the success of his aim seemed doubtful; then something came tumbling through the intervening foliage, and I guided the canoe beneath, lest the prey should be lost in the water. Our surprise was not unmingled, I must confess, with vexation at first, on finding that the strange character of our game removed our morning's repast as far off as ever. A huge spider and a half-fledged bird lay in the bottom of our canoe—the one with disjointed limbs and mutilated carcass; the other uninjured by the shot, but nearly dead, though still faintly palpitating. The remains of the spider showed him larger than any I had previously seen—smaller, however, than one from Brazil, before me while I write—and may have measured some two-and-half inches in the body, with limbs about twice that length. He was rough and shaggy, with a thick covering of hair or bristles; which, besides giving him an additional appearance of strength, considerably increased the fierceness of his aspect. The hairs were in some parts fully an inch long, of a dark brown color, inclining to black. His powerful jaws and sturdy arms seemed never adapted for the death-struggle of prey less noble than this small member of the feathered race, for whom our succor had unhappily arrived too late. The victim had been snatched from the nest while the mother was probably assisting to collect a morning's meal for her offspring. It had been clutched by the neck immediately above the shoulders: the marks of the murderer's talons still remained; and, although no blood had escaped from the wounds, they were much inflamed and swollen.
The few greenish-brown feathers sparingly scattered among the down in the wings, were insufficient to furnish me with a clew toward a knowledge of its species. That it was a humming-bird, however, or one of an allied genus, seemed apparent from the length of its bill. The king of the humming-birds, as the Creoles call the topaz-throat (Trochilus pella of naturalists), is the almost exclusive frequenter of Marabella Creek, where the overspreading foliage—here and there admitting stray gleams of sunshine—forms a cool and shady, though sombre retreat, peculiarly adapted to his disposition; and I strongly suspect that it was the nest of this species which the spider had favored with a visit. After making a minute inspection of the two bodies, we consigned them to a watery grave; both of us convinced that, whatever the detractors of Madame Merian may urge, that lady was correct in assigning to the bush-spider an ambition which often soars above the insect, and occasionally tempts him to make a meal of some stray feathered denizen of the forest. This conclusion, I may add, was fully confirmed some few weeks after, by my witnessing a still more interesting rencontre between members of the several races. "Eat the eater," is one of Nature's laws; and, after preventing its accomplishment by depriving the spider of his food, strict justice would probably have balked us of ours. Fortunately not—one of the heartiest breakfasts I ever made, and one of the tenderest and most succulent of meat, was that very morning. Well I remember exclaiming, at that time, "Hæc olim meminisse juvabit!"—it was my first dish of stewed monkey and yams.
The Rose had been becalmed for several days in Cowes Harbor, and utterly at a loss how else to cheat the time, I employed myself one afternoon in sauntering up and down the quay, whistling for a breeze, and listlessly watching the slow approach of a row-boat, bringing the mail and a few passengers from Southampton, the packet-cutter to which the boat belonged being as hopelessly immovable, except for such drift as the tide gave her, as the Rose. The slowness of its approach—for I expected a messenger with letters—added to my impatient weariness; and as, according to my reckoning, it would be at least an hour before the boat reached the landing-steps, I returned to the Fountain Inn in the High-street, called for a glass of negus, and as I lazily sipped it, once more turned over the newspapers lying on the table, though with scarcely a hope of coming athwart a line that I had not read half a dozen times before. I was mistaken. There was a "Cornwall Gazette" among them which I had not before seen, and in one corner of it I lit upon this, to me in all respects new and extremely interesting paragraph: "We copy the following statement from a contemporary, solely for the purpose of contradicting it: 'It is said that the leader of the smugglers in the late desperate affray with the coast guard in St. Michael's Bay, was no other than Mr. George Polwhele Hendrick, of Lostwithiel, formerly, as our readers are aware, a lieutenant in the royal navy, and dismissed the king's service by sentence of court-martial at the close of the war.' There is no foundation for this imputation. Mrs. Hendrick, of Lostwithiel, requests us to state that her son, from whom she heard but about ten days since, commands a first-class ship in the merchant navy of the United States."
I was exceedingly astonished. The court-martial I had not heard of, and having never overhauled the Navy List for such a purpose, the absence of the name of G. P. Hendrick had escaped my notice. What could have been his offense? Some hasty, passionate act, no doubt; for of misbehavior before the enemy, or of the commission of deliberate wrong, it was impossible to suspect him. He was, I personally knew, as eager as flame in combat; and his frank, perhaps heedless generosity of temperament, was abundantly apparent to every one acquainted with him. I had known him for a short time only; but the few days of our acquaintance were passed under circumstances which bring out the true nature of a man more prominently and unmistakably than might twenty years of humdrum, every-day life. The varnish of pretension falls quickly off in presence of sudden and extreme peril—peril especially requiring presence of mind and energy to beat it back. It was in such a position that I recognized some of the high qualities of Lieutenant Hendrick. The two sloops of war in which we respectively served, were consorts for awhile on the South African coast, during which time we fell in with a Franco-Italian privateer or pirate—for the distinction between the two is much more technical than real. She was to leeward when we sighted her, and not very distant from the shore, and so quickly did she shoal her water, that pursuit by either of the sloops was out of the question. Being a stout vessel of her class, and full of men, four boats—three of the Scorpion's and one of her consort's—were detached in pursuit. The breeze gradually failed, and we were fast coming up with our friend when he vanished behind a head-land, on rounding which we found he had disappeared up a narrow, winding river, of no great depth of water. We of course followed, and, after about a quarter of an hour's hard pull, found, on suddenly turning a sharp elbow of the stream, that we had caught a Tartar. We had, in fact, come upon a complete nest of privateers—a rendezvous or dépôt they termed it. The vessel was already anchored across the channel, and we were flanked on each shore by a crowd of desperadoes, well provided with small arms, and with two or three pieces of light ordnance among them. The shouts of defiance with which they greeted us as we swept into the deadly trap were instantly followed by a general and murderous discharge of both musketry and artillery; and as the smoke cleared away I saw that the leading pinnace, commanded by Hendrick, had been literally knocked to pieces, and that the little living portion of the crew were splashing about in the river.
There was time but for one look, for if we allowed the rascals time to reload their guns our own fate would inevitably be a similar one. The men understood this, and with a loud cheer swept eagerly on toward the privateer, while the two remaining boats engaged the flanking shore forces, and I was soon involved in about the fiercest mêlée I ever had the honor to assist at. The furious struggle on the deck of the privateer lasted but about five minutes only, at the end of which all that remained of us were thrust over the side. Some tumbled into the boat, others, like myself, were pitched into the river. As soon as I came to the surface, and had time to shake my ears and look about me, I saw Lieutenant Hendrick, who, the instant the pinnace he commanded was destroyed, had, with equal daring and presence of mind, swam toward a boat at the privateer's stern, cut the rope that held her, with the sword he carried between his teeth, and forthwith began picking up his half-drowned boat's crew. This was already accomplished, and he now performed the same service for me and mine. This done, we again sprang at our ugly customer, he at the bow, and I about midships. Hendrick was the first to leap on the enemy's deck; and so fierce and well-sustained was the assault this time, that in less than ten minutes we were undisputed victors so far as the vessel was concerned. The fight on the shore continued obstinate and bloody, and it was not till we had twice discharged the privateer's guns among the desperate rascals that they broke and fled. The dashing, yet cool and skillful bravery evinced by Lieutenant Hendrick in this brief but tumultuous and sanguinary affair was admiringly remarked upon by all who witnessed it, few of whom while gazing at the sinewy, active form, the fine, pale, flashing countenance, and the dark, thunderous eyes of the young officer—if I may use such a term, for in their calmest aspect a latent volcano appeared to slumber in their gleaming depths—could refuse to subscribe to the opinion of a distinguished admiral, who more than once observed that there was no more promising officer in the British naval service than Lieutenant Hendrick.
Well, all this, which has taken me so many words to relate, flashed before me like a scene in a theatre, as I read the paragraph in the Cornish paper. The Scorpion and her consort parted company a few days after this fight, and I had not since then seen or heard of Hendrick till now. I was losing myself in conjecture as to the probable or possible cause of so disgraceful a termination to a career that promised so brilliantly, when the striking of the bar-clock warned me that the mail-boat was by this time arrived. I sallied forth and reached the pier-steps just a minute or so before the boat arrived there. The messenger I expected was in her, and I was turning away with the parcel he handed me, when my attention was arrested by a stout, unwieldy fellow, who stumbled awkwardly out of the boat, and hurriedly came up the steps. The face of the man was pale, thin, hatchet-shaped, and anxious, and the gray, ferrety eyes were restless and perturbed; while the stout round body was that of a yeoman of the bulkiest class, but so awkwardly made up that it did not require any very lengthened scrutiny to perceive that the shrunken carcass appropriate to such a lanky and dismal visage occupied but a small space within the thick casing of padding and extra garments in which it was swathed. His light-brown wig, too, surmounted by a broad-brimmer, had got a little awry, dangerously revealing the scanty locks of iron-gray beneath. It was not difficult to run up these little items to a pretty accurate sum total, and I had little doubt that the hasting and nervous traveler was fleeing either from a constable or a sheriff's officer. It was, however, no affair of mine, and I was soon busy with the letters just brought me.
The most important tidings they contained was that Captain Pickard—the master of a smuggling craft of some celebrity, called Les Trois Frères, in which for the last twelve months or more he had been carrying on a daring and successful trade throughout the whole line of the southern and western coasts—was likely to be found at this particular time near a particular spot in the back of the Wight. This information was from a sure source in the enemy's camp, and it was consequently with great satisfaction that I observed indications of the coming on of a breeze, and in all probability a stiff one. I was not disappointed; and in less than an hour the Rose was stretching her white wings beneath a brisk northwester over to Portsmouth, where I had some slight official business to transact previous to looking after friend Pickard. This was speedily dispatched, and I was stepping into the boat on my return to the cutter, when a panting messenger informed me that the port-admiral desired to see me instantly.
"The telegraph has just announced," said the admiral, "that Sparkes, the defaulter, who has for some time successfully avoided capture, will attempt to leave the kingdom from the Wight, as he is known to have been in communication with some of the smuggling gentry there. He is supposed to have a large amount of government moneys in his possession; you will therefore, Lieutenant Warneford, exert yourself vigilantly to secure him."
"What is his description?"
"Mr. James," replied the admiral, addressing one of the telegraph clerks, "give Lieutenant Warneford the description transmitted." Mr. James did so, and I read: "Is said to have disguised himself as a stout countryman; wears a blue coat with bright buttons, buff waistcoat, a brown wig, and a Quaker's hat. He is of a slight, lanky figure, five feet nine inches in height. He has two pock-marks on his forehead, and lisps in his speech."
"By Jove, sir," I exclaimed, "I saw this fellow only about two hours ago!" I then briefly related what had occurred, and was directed not to lose a moment in hastening to secure the fugitive.
The wind had considerably increased by this time, and the Rose was soon again off Cowes, where Mr. Roberts, the first mate, and six men, were sent on shore with orders to make the best of his way to Bonchurch—about which spot I knew, if any where, the brown-wigged gentleman would endeavor to embark—while the Rose went round to intercept him seaward; which she did at a spanking rate, for it was now blowing half a gale of wind. Evening had fallen before we reached our destination, but so clear and bright with moon and stars that distant objects were as visible as by day. I had rightly guessed how it would be, for we had no sooner opened up Bonchurch shore or beach than Roberts signaled us that our man was on board the cutter running off at about a league from us in the direction of Cape La Hogue. I knew, too, from the cutter's build, and the cut and set of her sails, that she was no other than Captain Pickard's boasted craft, so that there was a chance of killing two birds with one stone. We evidently gained, though slowly, upon Les Trois Frères; and this, after about a quarter of an hour's run, appeared to be her captain's own opinion, for he suddenly changed his course, and stood toward the Channel Islands, in the hope, I doubted not, that I should not follow him in such weather as was likely to come on through the dangerous intricacies of the iron-bound coast about Guernsey and the adjacent islets. Master Pickard was mistaken; for knowing the extreme probability of being led such a dance, I had brought a pilot with me from Cowes, as well acquainted with Channel navigation as the smuggler himself could be. Les Trois Frères, it was soon evident, was now upon her best point of sailing, and it was all that we could do to hold our own with her. This was vexatious; but the aspect of the heavens forbade me showing more canvas, greatly as I was tempted to do so.
It was lucky I did not. The stars were still shining over our heads from an expanse of blue without a cloud, and the full moon also as yet held her course unobscured, but there had gathered round her a glittering halo-like ring, and away to windward huge masses of black cloud, piled confusedly on each other, were fast spreading over the heavens. The thick darkness had spread over about half the visible sky, presenting a singular contrast to the silver brightness of the other portion, when suddenly a sheet of vivid flame broke out of the blackness, instantly followed by deafening explosions, as if a thousand cannons were bursting immediately over our heads. At the same moment the tempest came leaping and hissing along the white-crested waves, and struck the Rose abeam with such terrible force, that for one startling moment I doubted if she would right again. It was a vain fear; and in a second or two she was tearing through the water at a tremendous rate. Les Trois Frères had not been so lucky: she had carried away her topmast, and sustained other damage; but so well and boldly was she handled, and so perfectly under command appeared her crew, that these accidents were, so far as it was possible to do so, promptly repaired; and so little was she crippled in comparative speed, that, although it was clear enough after a time, that the Rose gained something on her, it was so slowly that the issue of the chase continued extremely doubtful. The race was an exciting one: the Caskets, Alderney, were swiftly past, and at about two o'clock in the morning we made the Guernsey lights. We were, by this time, within a mile of Les Trois Frères; and she, determined at all risks to get rid of her pursuer, ventured upon passing through a narrow opening between the small islets of Herm and Jethon, abreast of Guernsey—the same passage, I believe, by which Captain, afterward Admiral Lord Saumarez, escaped with his frigate from a French squadron in the early days of the last war.
Fine and light as the night had again become, the attempt, blowing as it did, was a perilous, and proved to be a fatal one. Les Trois Frères struck upon a reef on the side of Jethon—a rock with then but one poor habitation upon it, which one might throw a biscuit over; and by the time the Rose had brought up in the Guernsey Roads, the smuggler, as far as could be ascertained by our night-glasses, had entirely disappeared. What had become of the crew and the important passenger was the next point to be ascertained; but although the wind had by this time somewhat abated, it was not, under the pilot's advice, till near eight o'clock that the Rose's boat, with myself and a stout crew, pulled off for the scene of the catastrophe. We needed not to have hurried ourselves. The half-drowned smugglers, all but three of whom had escaped with life, were in a truly sorry plight, every one of them being more or less maimed, bruised, and bleeding. Les Trois Frères had gone entirely to pieces, and as there was no possible means of escape from the desolate place, our arrival, with the supplies we brought, was looked upon rather as a deliverance than otherwise. To my inquiries respecting their passenger, the men answered by saying he was in the house with the captain. I immediately proceeded thither, and found one of the two rooms on the ground-floor occupied by four or five of the worst injured of the contrabandists, and the gentleman I was chiefly in pursuit of, Mr. Samuel Sparkes. There was no mistaking Mr. Sparkes, notwithstanding he had substituted the disguise of a sailor for that of a jolly agriculturist.
"You are, I believe, sir, the Mr. Samuel Sparkes for whose presence certain personages in London are just now rather anxious?"
His deathy face grew more corpse-like as I spoke, but he nevertheless managed to stammer out, "No; Jamth Edward, thir."
"At all events, that pretty lisp, and those two marks on the forehead, belong to Samuel Sparkes, Esquire, and you must be detained till you satisfactorily explain how you came by them. Stevens, take this person into close custody, and have him searched at once. And now, gentlemen smugglers," I continued, "pray, inform me where I may see your renowned captain?"
"He is in the next room," replied a decent-tongued chap sitting near the fire; "and he desired me to give his compliments to Lieutenant Warneford, and say he wished to see him alone."
"Very civil and considerate, upon my word! In this room, do you say?"
"Yes, sir; in that room." I pushed open a rickety door, and found myself in a dingy hole of a room, little more than about a couple of yards square, at the further side of which stood a lithe, sinewy man in a blue pea-jacket, and with a fur-cap on his head. His back was toward me; and as my entrance did not cause him to change his position, I said, "You are Captain Pickard, I am informed?"
He swung sharply round as I spoke, threw off his cap, and said, briefly and sternly, "Yes, Warneford, I am Captain Pickard."
The sudden unmasking of a loaded battery immediately in my front could not have so confounded and startled me as these words did, as they issued from the lips of the man before me. The curling black hair, the dark flashing eyes, the marble features, were those of Lieutenant Hendrick—of the gallant seaman whose vigorous arm I had seen turn the tide of battle against desperate odds on the deck of a privateer!
"Hendrick!" I at length exclaimed, for the sudden inrush of painful emotion choked my speech for a time—"can it indeed be you?"
"Ay, truly, Warneford. The Hendrick of whom Collingwood prophesied high things is fallen thus low; and worse remains behind. There is a price set upon my capture, as you know; and escape is, I take it, out of the question." I comprehended the slow, meaning tone in which the last sentence was spoken, and the keen glance that accompanied it. Hendrick, too, instantly read the decisive though unspoken reply.
"Of course it is out of the question," he went on. "I was but a fool to even seem to doubt that it was. You must do your duty, Warneford, I know; and since this fatal mishap was to occur, I am glad for many reasons that I have fallen into your hands."
"So am not I; and I wish with all my soul you had successfully threaded the passage you essayed."
"The fellow who undertook to pilot us failed in nerve at the critical moment. Had he not done so, Les Trois Frères would have been long since beyond your reach. But the past is past, and the future of dark and bitter time will be swift and brief."
"What have you especially to dread? I know a reward has been offered for your apprehension, but not for what precise offense."
"The unfortunate business in St. Michael's Bay."
"Good God! The newspaper was right, then! But neither of the wounded men have died, I hear, so that—that—"
"The mercy of transportation may, you think, be substituted for the capital penalty." He laughed bitterly.
"Or—or," I hesitatingly suggested, "you may not be identified—that is, legally so."
"Easily, easily, Warneford. I must not trust to that rotten cable. Neither the coast-guard nor the fellows with me know me indeed as Hendrick, ex-lieutenant of the royal navy; and that is a secret you will, I know, religiously respect."
I promised to do so: the painful interview terminated; and in about two hours the captain and surviving crew of Les Trois Frères, and Mr. Samuel Sparkes, were safely on board the Rose. Hendrick had papers to arrange; and as the security of his person was all I was responsible for, he was accommodated in my cabin, where I left him to confer with the Guernsey authorities, in whose bailiwick Jethon is situated. The matter of jurisdiction—the offenses with which the prisoners were charged having been committed in England—was soon arranged; and by five o'clock in the evening the Rose was on her way to England, under an eight-knot breeze from the southwest.
As soon as we were fairly underweigh, I went below to have a last conference with unfortunate Hendrick. There was a parcel on the table directed to "Mrs. Hendrick, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, care of Lieutenant Warneford." Placing it in my hands, he entreated me to see it securely conveyed to its address unexamined and unopened. I assured him that I would do so; and tears, roughly dashed away, sprang to his eyes as he grasped and shook my hand. I felt half-choked; and when he again solemnly adjured me, under no circumstances, to disclose the identity of Captain Pickard and Lieutenant Hendrick, I could only reply by a seaman's hand-grip, requiring no additional pledge of words.
We sat silently down, and I ordered some wine to be brought in. "You promised to tell me," I said, "how all this unhappy business came about."
"I am about to do so," he answered. "It is an old tale, of which the last black chapter owes its color, let me frankly own, to my own hot and impatient temper as much as to a complication of adverse circumstances." He poured out a glass of wine, and proceeded at first slowly and calmly, but gradually, as passion gathered strength and way upon him, with flushed and impetuous eagerness to the close:
"I was born near Lostwithiel, Cornwall. My father, a younger and needy son of no profession, died when I was eight years of age. My mother has about eighty pounds a year in her own right, and with that pittance, helped by self-privation, unfelt because endured for her darling boy, she gave me a sufficient education, and fitted me out respectably; when, thanks to Pellew, I obtained a midshipman's warrant in the British service. This occurred in my sixteenth year. Dr. Redstone, at whose 'High School' I acquired what slight classical learning, long since forgotten, I once possessed, was married in second nuptials to a virago of a wife, who brought him, besides her precious self, a red-headed cub by a former marriage. His, the son's, name was Kershaw. The doctor had one child about my own age, a daughter, Ellen Redstone. I am not about to prate to you of the bread-and-butter sentiment of mere children, nor of Ellen's wonderful graces of mind and person: I doubt, indeed, if I thought her very pretty at the time; but she was meekness itself, and my boy's heart used, I well remember, to leap as if it would burst my bosom at witnessing her patient submission to the tyranny of her mother-in-law; and one of the greatest pleasures I ever experienced was giving young Kershaw, a much bigger fellow than myself, a good thrashing for some brutality toward her—an exploit that of course rendered me a remarkable favorite with the great bumpkin's mother.
"Well, I went to sea, and did not again see Ellen till seven years afterward, when, during absence on sick leave, I met her at Penzance, in the neighborhood of which place the doctor had for some time resided. She was vastly improved in person, but was still meek, dove-eyed, gentle Ellen, and pretty nearly as much dominated by her mother-in-law as formerly. Our child-acquaintance was renewed; and, suffice it to say, that I soon came to love her with a fervency surprising even to myself. My affection was reciprocated: we pledged faith with each other; and it was agreed that at the close of the war, whenever that should be, we were to marry, and dwell together like turtle-doves in the pretty hermitage that Ellen's fancy loved to conjure up, and with her voice of music untiringly dilate upon. I was again at sea, and the answer to my first letter brought the surprising intelligence that Mrs. Redstone had become quite reconciled to our future union, and that I might consequently send my letters direct to the High School. Ellen's letter was prettily expressed enough, but somehow I did not like its tone. It did not read like her spoken language, at all events. This, however, must, I concluded, be mere fancy; and our correspondence continued for a couple of years—till the peace, in fact—when the frigate, of which I was now second-lieutenant, arrived at Plymouth to be paid off. We were awaiting the admiral's inspection, which for some reason or other was unusually delayed, when a bag of letters was brought on board, with one for me bearing the Penzance postmark. I tore it open, and found that it was subscribed by an old and intimate friend. He had accidentally met with Ellen Redstone for the first time since I left. She looked thin and ill, and in answer to his persistent questioning, had told him she had only heard once from me since I went to sea, and that was to renounce our engagement; and she added that she was going to be married in a day or two to the Rev. Mr. Williams, a dissenting minister of fair means and respectable character. My friend assured her there must be some mistake, but she shook her head incredulously; and with eyes brimful of tears, and shaking voice, bade him, when he saw me, say that she freely forgave me, but that her heart was broken. This was the substance, and as I read, a hurricane of dismay and rage possessed me. There was not, I felt, a moment to be lost. Unfortunately the captain was absent, and the frigate temporarily under the command of the first-lieutenant. You knew Lieutenant ——?"
"I did, for one of the most cold-blooded martinets that ever trod a quarter-deck."
"Well, him I sought, and asked temporary leave of absence. He refused. I explained, hurriedly, imploringly explained the circumstances in which I was placed. He sneeringly replied, that sentimental nonsense of that kind could not be permitted to interfere with the king's service. You know, Warneford, how naturally hot and impetuous is my temper, and at that moment my brain seemed literally aflame: high words followed, and in a transport of rage I struck the taunting coward a violent blow in the face—following up the outrage by drawing my sword, and challenging him to instant combat. You may guess the sequel. I was immediately arrested by the guard, and tried a few days afterward by court-martial. Exmouth stood my friend, or I know not what sentence might have been passed, and I was dismissed the service."
"I was laid up for several weeks by fever about that time," I remarked; "and it thus happened, doubtless, that I did not see any report of the trial."
"The moment I was liberated I hastened, literally almost in a state of madness, to Penzance. It was all true, and I was too late! Ellen had been married something more than a week. It was Kershaw and his mother's doings. Him I half-killed; but it is needless to go into details of the frantic violence with which I conducted myself. I broke madly into the presence of the newly-married couple: Ellen swooned with terror, and her husband, white with consternation, and trembling in every limb, had barely, I remember, sufficient power to stammer out, 'that he would pray for me.' The next six months is a blank. I went to London; fell into evil courses, drank, gambled; heard after a while that Ellen was dead—the shock of which partially checked my downward progress—partially only. I left off drinking, but not gambling, and ultimately I became connected with a number of disreputable persons, among whom was your prisoner Sparkes. He found part of the capital with which I have been carrying on the contraband trade for the last two years. I had, however, fully determined to withdraw myself from the dangerous though exciting pursuit. This was to have been my last trip; but you know," he added, bitterly, "it is always upon the last turn of the dice that the devil wins his victim."
He ceased speaking, and we both remained silent for several minutes. What on my part could be said or suggested?
"You hinted just now," I remarked, after a while, "that all your remaining property was in this parcel. You have, however, of course, reserved sufficient for your defense?"
A strange smile curled his lip, and a wild, brief flash of light broke from his dark eyes, as he answered, "O yes; more than enough—more, much more than will be required."
"I am glad of that." We were again silent, and I presently exclaimed, "Suppose we take a turn on deck—the heat here stifles one."
"With all my heart," he answered; and we both left the cabin.
We continued to pace the deck side by side for some time without interchanging a syllable. The night was beautifully clear and fine, and the cool breeze that swept over the star and moon-lit waters gradually allayed the feverish nervousness which the unfortunate lieutenant's narrative had excited.
"A beautiful, however illusive world," he by-and-by sadly resumed; "this Death—now so close at my heels—wrenches us from. And yet you and I, Warneford, have seen men rush to encounter the King of Terrors, as he is called, as readily as if summoned to a bridal."
"A sense of duty and a habit of discipline will always overpower, in men of our race and profession, the vulgar fear of death."
"Is it not also, think you, the greater fear of disgrace, dishonor in the eyes of the world, which outweighs the lesser dread?"
"No doubt that has an immense influence. What would our sweethearts, sisters, mothers, say if they heard we had turned craven? What would they say in England? Nelson well understood this feeling, and appealed to it in his last great signal."
"Ay, to be sure," he musingly replied; "what would our mothers say—feel rather—at witnessing their sons' dishonor? That is the master-chord." We once more relapsed into silence; and after another dozen or so turns on the deck, Hendrick seated himself on the combings of the main hatchway. His countenance, I observed, was still pale as marble, but a livelier, more resolute expression had gradually kindled in his brilliant eyes. He was, I concluded, nerving himself to meet the chances of his position with constancy and fortitude.
"I shall go below again," I said. "Come; it may be some weeks before we have another glass of wine together."
"I will be with you directly," he answered, and I went down. He did not, however, follow, and I was about calling him, when I heard his step on the stairs. He stopped at the threshold of the cabin, and there was a flushing intensity of expression about his face which quite startled me. As if moved by second thoughts, he stepped in. "One last glass with you, Warneford: God bless you!" He drained and set the glass on the table. "The lights at the corner of the Wight are just made," he hurriedly went on. "It is not likely I shall have an opportunity of again speaking with you; and let me again hear you say that you will under any circumstances keep secret from all the world—my mother especially—that Captain Pickard and Lieutenant Hendrick were one person."
"I will; but why—"
"God bless you!" he broke in. "I must go on deck again."
He vanished as he spoke, and a dim suspicion of his purpose arose in my mind; but before I could act upon it, a loud, confused outcry arose on the deck, and as I rushed up the cabin stairs, I heard amid the hurrying to and fro of feet, the cries of "Man overboard!"—"Bout ship!"—"Down with the helm!" The cause of the commotion was soon explained: Hendrick had sprung overboard; and looking in the direction pointed out by the man at the wheel, I plainly discerned him already considerably astern of the cutter. His face was turned toward us, and the instant I appeared he waved one arm wildly in the air: I could hear the words, "Your promise!" distinctly, and the next instant the moonlight played upon the spot where he had vanished. Boats were lowered, and we passed and repassed over and near the place for nearly half an hour. Vainly: he did not reappear.
I have only further to add, that the parcel intrusted to me was safely delivered, and that I have reason to believe Mrs. Hendrick remained to her last hour ignorant of the sad fate of her son. It was her impression, induced by his last letter, that he was about to enter the South-American service under Cochrane, and she ultimately resigned herself to a belief that he had there met a brave man's death. My promise was scrupulously kept, nor is it by this publication in the slightest degree broken; for both the names of Hendrick and Pickard are fictitious, and so is the place assigned as that of the lieutenant's birth. That rascal Sparkes, I am glad to be able to say—chasing whom made me an actor in the melancholy affair—was sent over the herring pond for life.
Speaking without passion, we are bound to state, in broad terms, that the founder of the Diogenic philosophy was emphatically a humbug. Some people might call him by a harsher name; we content ourselves with the popular vernacular. Formidable as he was—this unwashed dog-baptized—with a kind of savage grandeur, too, about his independence and his fearlessness—still was he a humbug; setting forth fancies for facts, and judging all men by the measure of one. Manifestly afflicted with a liver complaint, his physical disorders wore the mask of mental power, and a state of body that required a course of calomel or a dose of purifying powders, passed current in the world for intellectual superiority; not a rare case in times when madness was accounted potent inspiration, and when the exhibition of mesmeric phenomena formed the title of the Pythoness to her mystic tripod.
Diogenes is not the only man whose disturbed digestion has led multitudes, like an ignis fatuus, into the bogs and marshes of falsehood. Abundance of sects are about, which their respective followers class under one generic head of inspiration, but which have sprung from the same hepatic inaction, or epigrastic inflammation, as that which made the cynic believe in the divinity of dirt, and see in a tub the fittest temple to virtue. All that narrows the sympathies—all that makes a man think better of himself than of his "neighbors"—all that compresses the illimitable mercy of God into a small talisman which you and your followers alone possess—all that creates condemnation—is of the Diogenic Tub School; corrupt in the core, and rotten in the root—fruit, leaves, and flowers, the heritage of death.
A superstitious reverence for a bilious condition of body, and an abhorrence of soap and water, as savoring of idolatry or of luxury—according to the dress and nation of the Cynic—made up the fundamental ideas of his school; and to this day they are the cabala of one division of the sect. We confess not to be able to see much beauty in either of these conditions, and are rather proud than otherwise of our state of disbelief; holding health and cleanliness in high honor, and hoping much of moral improvement from their better preservation. But to the Tub School, good digestive powers, and their consequence, good temper, were evidences of lax principles, and cleanliness was ungodliness or effeminacy; as the unpurified denouncer prayed to St. Giles, or sacrificed to Venus Cloacina. Take the old monks as an example. Not that we are about to condemn the whole Catholic Church under a cowled mask. She has valuable men among her sons; but, in such a large body, there must of necessity be some members weaker than the rest; and the mendicant friars, and do-nothing monks, were about the weakest and the worst that ever appeared by the Catholic altar. They were essentially of the Tub School, as false to the best purposes of mankind as the famous old savage of Alexander's time. Dirt and vanity, bile and condemnation, were the paternosters of their litany; and what else lay in the tub which the king over-shadowed from the sun? All the accounts of which we read, of pious horror of baths and washhouses—all the frantic renunciation of laundresses, and the belief in hair shirts, to the prejudice of honest linen—all the religious zeal against small-tooth combs, and the sin which lay in razors and nail-brushes—all the holy preference given to coarse cobbling of skins of beasts, over civilized tailoring of seemly garments—all the superiority of bare feet, which never knew the meaning of a pediluvium, over those which shoes and hose kept warm, and foot-baths rendered clean—all the hatred of madness against the refinements of life, and the cultivation of the beautiful: these were the evidences of the Diogenic philosophy; and of Monachism too; and of other forms of faith, which we could name in the same breath. And how much good was in them? What natural divinity lies in fur, which the cotton plant does not possess? Wherein consists the holiness of mud, and the ungodliness of alkali? wherein the purity of a matted beard, and the impiety of Metcalfe's brushes, and Mechi's magic strop? It may be so; and we all the while may be mentally blind; and yet, if we lived in a charnel-house, whose horrors the stony core of a cataract concealed, we could not wish to be couched, that seeing, we might understand the frightful conditions of which blindness kept us ignorant.
But bating the baths and wash-houses, hempen girdles, and hairy garments, we quarrel still with the animus of Diogenes and his train. Its social savageness was bad enough—its spiritual insolence was worse. The separatism—the "stand off, for I am holier than thou"—the condemnation of a whole world, if walking apart from his way—the substitution of solitary exaltation for the activity of charity—the proud judgment of God'S world, and the presumptuous division into good and evil of the Eternal; all this was and is of the Cynic's philosophy; and all this is what we abjure with heart and soul, as the main link of the chain which binds men to cruelty, to ignorance, and to sin; for the unloosing of which we must wait before we see them fairly in the way of progress.
How false the religion of condemnation!—how hardening to the heart!—how narrowing to the sympathies! We take a section for the whole, and swear that the illimitable All must be according to the form of the unit I; we make ourselves gods, and judge of the infinite universe by the teaching of our finite senses. They who do this most are they whom men call "zealous for God's glory," "stern sticklers for the truth," and "haters of latitudinarianism." And if all the social charities are swept down in their course, they are mourned over gently; but only so much as if they were sparrows lying dead beneath the blast that slew the enemy. "'Tis a pity," say they, "that men must be firm to the truth, yet cruel to their fellows; but if it must be so, why, let them fall fast as snow-flakes. What is human life, compared to the preservation of the truth?" Ah! friends and brothers—is not the necessity of cruelty the warrantry of falsehood? The truth of life is Love, and all which negatives love is false; and every drop of blood that ever flowed in the preservation of any dogma, bore in its necessity the condemnation of that dogma.
Turn where we will, and as far backward as we will, we ever find the spirit of the Diogenic philosophy; and clothed, too, in much the same garb and unseemly disorder as that in vogue among the dog-baptized. Ancient East gives us many parallels; and to this day, dirty, lazy fakirs of Hindostan assault the olfactories, and call for curses on the effeminacy of the cleanly and the sane. Sometimes, though, the Diogenites assume the scrupulosity of the Pharisee, and then they retain only the crimes of the Inquisition, not the habits and apparel of the Bosjesmen. Take the sincere Pharisee, for instance; regard his holy horror of the Samaritan (the Independent of his day) for failing in the strict letter of the law; hear his stern denunciations against all sinners, be they moral or be they doctrinal, mark the unpitying "Crucify him! crucify him!" against Him who taught novel doctrines of equality and brotherhood, and the nullity of form; see the purity of his own Pharisaic life, and grant him his proud curse on all that are not like unto him. He is a Cynic in his heart, one who judges of universal humanity by the individualism of one. Then, the hoary, hairy, dog-baptized, who scoffed at all the decencies of life, not to speak of its amenities, and had no gentle Plato's pride of refinement, with all the brutal pride of coarseness—did Diogenes worthily represent the best functions of manhood? Again, the monks and friars of the dark ages, and the hermits of old, they who left the world of man "made in the image of God," because they were holier than their brethren, and might have naught in common with the likeness of the Elohim; they who gave up the deeds of charity for the endless repetition of masses and vespers, and who thought to do God better service by mumbling masses in a cowl, than by living among their fellows, loving, aiding, and improving—were not all these followers in the train of Diogenes?—if not in the dirt, then in the bile; if not in the garb, then in the heart. Denouncers, condemners; narrowing, not enlarging; hating, not loving; they were traitors to the virtue of life, while dreaming that they alone held it sacred.
And now, have we no snarling Cynics, no Pharisee, no Inquisitor? Have we taken to good heart the divine record of love, of faith, which an æsthetic age has sublimated into credos, and left actions as a caput mortuum? Have we looked into the meaning of the practical lesson which the Master taught when he forgave the adulteress, and sat at meat with the sinners? or have we not rather cherished the spiritual pride which shapes out bitter words of censure for our fellows, and lays such stress on likeness that it overlooks unity? The question is worthy of an answer.
The world is wide. Beasts and fishes, birds and reptiles, weeds and flowers—which here are weeds, and there are flowers, according to local fancy—the dwarfed shrub of the Alpine steeps, and the monster palm of the tropical plains; the world is wide enough to contain them all, and man is wise enough to love them all, each in its sphere, and its degree. But what we do for Nature, we refuse to Humanity. To her we allow diversity; to him we prescribe sameness; in her we see the loveliness of unlikeness, the symmetry of variation; in him we must have multitudes shaped by one universal rule; and what we do not look for in the senseless tree, we attempt on the immortal soul. Religion, philosophy, and social politics, must be of the same form with all men, else woe to the wight who thinks out of the straight line! Diagonal minds are never popular, and the hand which draws one radius smites him who lines another equal to it in all its parts, and from the same centre-point. The Catholic denies the Protestant; the Episcopalian contemns the Presbyterian; the Free Kirk is shed like a branching horn; the Independent denounces the Swedenborgian; the Mormonite is persecuted by the Unitarian. It is one unvarying round; the same thing called by different names. Now all this is the very soul of Diogenism. Cowl, mitre, or band—distinctive signs to each party—all are lost in the shadow of the tub, and jumbled up into a strange form, which hath the name of Him of Sinope engraved on its forehead. Separatism and denunciation against him who is not with thee in all matters of faith, make thee, my friend, a Cynic in thy heart; and, though thou mayst wear Nicoll's paletots and Medwin's boots, and mayst prank thyself in all imaginable coxcombries, thou art still but a Diogenite, a Cynic, and a Pharisee; washing the outside of the platter, but leaving the inside encrusted still, believing falsely, that thou hast naught to do with a cause, because thou hast not worn its cockade.
Yet, are we going past the Tub School, though it lingers still in high places. We see it in party squabbles, not so much of politics to-day, as of the most esoteric doctrines of faith. We hear great men discussing the question of "prevenient grace," as they would discuss the composition of milk punch, and we hear them mutually anathematize each other on this plain and demonstrable proposition. We call this Diogenism, and of a virulent sort, too. We know that certain men are tabooed by certain other men; that a churchman refuses communion with him who is of no church, or of a different church; and that one Arian thinks dreadful things of another Arian. We call these men Pharisees, who deny kindred with the Samaritans—but we remember who it was that befriended the Samaritans. We know that monks still exist, whose duty to man consists in endless prayers to God (in using vain repetitions as the Heathens do); who open their mouths wide, and expect that Heaven will fill them; who hold the active duties of life in no esteem; and separate themselves from their fellows in all the grandeur of religious superiority. We can not see much difference between these men, the Hindoo fakirs, and the unsavory gentlemen of the Grecian tub. They are all of the same genus; but, Heaven be praised! they are dying out from the world of man, as leprosy, and the black plague, and other evils are dying out. True enlightenment will extirpate them, as well as other malaria. If Sanitary Commissions sweep out the cholera, acknowledged Love will sweep out all this idleness and solitary hatred, and make men at last confess that Love and Recognition are grander things than contempt and intolerance; in a word, that real Christianity is better than any form whatsoever of the Diogenic philosophy of hatred.