Chapter 1

A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low. "SOLDIER AN' SAILOR TOO." By Rudyard Kipling. RACHEL. By Mrs. E.V. Wilson. CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. EDITORIAL NOTES. Twenty Thousand Dollars for Short Stories. The McClure's "Early Life of Lincoln." The McClure's New "Life of Grant." New Pictures of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln School of Science and Practical Arts. The House in which Lincoln's Parents Were Married--a Correction.

ILLUSTRATIONS

PICTURES SHOWING THE DIFFERENCES IN PENETRABILITY TO THE RÖNTGEN RAYS. DR. WILLIAM KONRAD RÖNTGEN, DISCOVERER OF THE X RAYS. PICTURE OF AN ALUMINIUM CIGAR-CASE, SHOWING CIGARS WITHIN. PHOTOGRAPH OF A LADY'S HAND SHOWING THE BONES, AND A RING ON THE THIRD FINGER. THE PHYSICAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG. SKELETON OF A FROG, PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH. RAZOR-BLADE PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH A LEATHER CASE AND THE RAZOR-HANDLE. SKELETON OF A FISH PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH. A HUMAN FOOT PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE SOLE OF A SHOE. PHOTOGRAPHING A FOOT IN ITS SHOE BY THE RÖNTGEN PROCESS. BONES OF A HUMAN FOOT PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH. CORK-SCREW, KEY, PENCIL WITH METALLIC PROTECTOR, AND PIECE OF COIN. COINS PHOTOGRAPHED INSIDE A PURSE. DR. WILLIAM J. MORTON PHOTOGRAPHING HIS OWN HAND UNDER RÖNTGEN A GROUP OF FAMILIAR ARTICLES UNDER THE RÖNTGEN RAYS. THOMAS A. EDISON EXPERIMENTING WITH THE RÖNTGEN RAYS. "I ... TRIED A STEP TOWARD THE STAIRS, WITH EYES ALERT ..." "HE STOOD SIDEWAYS, ... AND LOOKED AT ME OVER HIS LEFT SHOULDER." "FACE TO FACE WITH THE REAL HOUSEHOLDER." OLD STATE-HOUSE AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. A HARRISON BADGE OF 1840. A HARRISON BUTTON OF 1840. LINCOLN IN 1860. ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, NINTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. JOSHUA F. SPEED AND WIFE. MARY TODD LINCOLN. LINCOLN IN 1858. ROBERT S. TODD. MISS JULIA JAYNE, ONE OF MISS TODD'S BRIDESMAIDS. GENERAL JAMES SHIELDS. MRS. NINIAN W. EDWARDS. COURT-HOUSE AT TREMONT WHERE LINCOLN RECEIVED WARNING OF SHIELDS'S CHALLENGE. RESIDENCE OF NINIAN W. EDWARDS, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE LICENSE AND MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE. REV. CHARLES DRESSER. THE GLOBE HOTEL, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. A BROOK IN THE DEPARTMENT OF VAR, FRANCE. JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT. A BY-PATH. EARLY MORNING. DIANA'S BATH. A SHALLOW RIVER. THE EDGE OF THE FOREST (FONTAINEBLEAU). ON THE RIVER OISE. THE STORMY SEA. A SUNLIT GLADE. A SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK. "THE MAN WITH THE LEATHERN BELT." THE STONE-BREAKERS. THE GOOD SAMARITAN. SERVANT AT THE FOUNTAIN. AN UNHAPPY FAMILY.

THE NEW MARVEL IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

A VISIT TO PROFESSOR RÖNTGEN AT HIS LABORATORY IN WÜRZBURG.--HIS OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS GREAT DISCOVERY.--INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS WITH THE CATHODE RAYS.--PRACTICAL USES OF THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY.

BY H.J.W. DAM.

In all the history of scientific discovery there has never been, perhaps, so general, rapid, and dramatic an effect wrought on the scientific centres of Europe as has followed, in the past four weeks, upon an announcement made to the Würzburg Physico-Medical Society, at their December meeting, by Professor William Konrad Röntgen, professor of physics at the Royal University of Würzburg. The first news which reached London was by telegraph from Vienna to the effect that a Professor Röntgen, until then the possessor of only a local fame in the town mentioned, had discovered a new kind of light, which penetrated and photographed through everything. This news was received with a mild interest, some amusement, and much incredulity; and a week passed. Then, by mail and telegraph, came daily clear indications of the stir which the discovery was making in all the great line of universities between Vienna and Berlin. Then Röntgen's own report arrived, so cool, so business-like, and so truly scientific in character, that it left no doubt either of the truth or of the great importance of the preceding reports. To-day, four weeks after the announcement, Röntgen's name is apparently in every scientific publication issued this week in Europe; and accounts of his experiments, of the experiments of others following his method, and of theories as to the strange new force which he has been the first to observe, fill pages of every scientific journal that comes to hand. And before the necessary time elapses for this article to attain publication in America, it is in all ways probable that the laboratories and lecture-rooms of the United States will also be giving full evidence of this contagious arousal of interest over a discovery so strange that its importance cannot yet be measured, its utility be even prophesied, or its ultimate effect upon long-established scientific beliefs be even vaguely foretold.

The Röntgen rays are certain invisible rays resembling, in many respects, rays of light, which are set free when a high pressure electric current is discharged through a vacuum tube. A vacuum tube is a glass tube from which all the air, down to one-millionth of an atmosphere, has been exhausted after the insertion of a platinum wire in either end of the tube for connection with the two poles of a battery or induction coil. When the discharge is sent through the tube, there proceeds from the anode--that is, the wire which is connected with the positive pole of the battery--certain bands of light, varying in color with the color of the glass. But these are insignificant in comparison with the brilliant glow which shoots from the cathode, or negative wire. This glow excites brilliant phosphorescence in glass and many substances, and these "cathode rays," as they are called, were observed and studied by Hertz; and more deeply by his assistant, Professor Lenard, Lenard having, in 1894, reported that the cathode rays would penetrate thin films of aluminium, wood, and other substances and produce photographic results beyond. It was left, however, for Professor Röntgen to discover that during the discharge another kind of rays are set free, which differ greatly from those described by Lenard as cathode rays The most marked difference between the two is the fact that Röntgen rays are not deflected by a magnet, indicating a very essential difference, while their range and penetrative power are incomparably greater. In fact, all those qualities which have lent a sensational character to the discovery of Röntgen's rays were mainly absent from these of Lenard, to the end that, although Röntgen has not been working in an entirely new field, he has by common accord been freely granted all the honors of a great discovery.

Exactly what kind of a force Professor Röntgen has discovered he does not know. As will be seen below, he declines to call it a new kind of light, or a new form of electricity. He has given it the name of the X rays. Others speak of it as the Röntgen rays. Thus far its results only, and not its essence, are known. In the terminology of science it is generally called "a new mode of motion," or, in other words, a new force. As to whether it is or not actually a force new to science, or one of the known forces masquerading under strange conditions, weighty authorities are already arguing. More than one eminent scientist has already affected to see in it a key to the great mystery of the law of gravity. All who have expressed themselves in print have admitted, with more or less frankness, that, in view of Röntgen's discovery, science must forth-with revise, possibly to a revolutionary degree, the long accepted theories concerning the phenomena of light and sound. That the X rays, in their mode of action, combine a strange resemblance to both sound and light vibrations, and are destined to materially affect, if they do not greatly alter, our views of both phenomena, is already certain; and beyond this is the opening into a new and unknown field of physical knowledge, concerning which speculation is already eager, and experimental investigation already in hand, in London, Paris, Berlin, and, perhaps, to a greater or less extent, in every well-equipped physical laboratory in Europe.

This is the present scientific aspect of the discovery. But, unlike most epoch-making results from laboratories, this discovery is one which, to a very unusual degree, is within the grasp of the popular and non-technical imagination. Among the other kinds of matter which these rays penetrate with ease is the human flesh. That a new photography has suddenly arisen which can photograph the bones, and, before long, the organs of the human body; that a light has been found which can penetrate, so as to make a photographic record, through everything from a purse or a pocket to the walls of a room or a house, is news which cannot fail to startle everybody. That the eye of the physician or surgeon, long baffled by the skin, and vainly seeking to penetrate the unfortunate darkness of the human body, is now to be supplemented by a camera, making all the parts of the human body as visible, in a way, as the exterior, appears certainly to be a greater blessing to humanity than even the Listerian antiseptic system of surgery; and its benefits must inevitably be greater than those conferred by Lister, great as the latter have been. Already, in the few weeks since Röntgen's announcement, the results of surgical operations under the new system are growing voluminous. In Berlin, not only new bone fractures are being immediately photographed, but joined fractures, as well, in order to examine the results of recent surgical work. In Vienna, imbedded bullets are being photographed, instead of being probed for, and extracted with comparative ease. In London, a wounded sailor, completely paralyzed, whose injury was a mystery, has been saved by the photographing of an object imbedded in the spine, which, upon extraction, proved to be a small knife-blade. Operations for malformations, hitherto obscure, but now clearly revealed by the new photography, are already becoming common, and are being reported from all directions. Professor Czermark of Graz has photographed the living skull, denuded of flesh and hair, and has begun the adaptation of the new photography to brain study. The relation of the new rays to thought rays is being eagerly discussed in what may be called the non-exact circles and journals; and all that numerous group of inquirers into the occult, the believers in clairvoyance, spiritualism, telepathy, and kindred orders of alleged phenomena, are confident of finding in the new force long-sought facts in proof of their claims. Professor Neusser in Vienna has photographed gall-stones in the liver of one patient (the stone showing snow-white in the negative), and a stone in the bladder of another patient. His results so far induce him to announce that all the organs of the human body can, and will, shortly, be photographed. Lannelougue of Paris has exhibited to the Academy of Science photographs of bones showing inherited tuberculosis which had not otherwise revealed itself. Berlin has already formed a society of forty for the immediate prosecution of researches into both the character of the new force and its physiological possibilities. In the next few weeks these strange announcements will be trebled or quadrupled, giving the best evidence from all quarters of the great future that awaits the Röntgen rays, and the startling impetus to the universal search for knowledge that has come at the close of the nineteenth century from the modest little laboratory in the Pleicher Ring at Würzburg.

On instruction by cable from the editor of this magazine, on the first announcement of the discovery, I set out for Würzburg to see the discoverer and his laboratory. I found a neat and thriving Bavarian city of forty-five thousand inhabitants, which, for some ten centuries, has made no salient claim upon the admiration of the world, except for the elaborateness of its mediæval castle and the excellence of its local beer. Its streets were adorned with large numbers of students, all wearing either scarlet, green, or blue caps, and an extremely serious expression, suggesting much intensity either in the contemplation of Röntgen rays or of the beer aforesaid. All knew the residence of Professor Röntgen (pronunciation: "Renken"), and directed me to the "Pleicher Ring." The various buildings of the university are scattered in different parts of Würzburg, the majority being in the Pleicher Ring, which is a fine avenue, with a park along one side of it, in the centre of the town. The Physical Institute, Professor Röntgen's particular domain, is a modest building of two stories and basement, the upper story constituting his private residence, and the remainder of the building being given over to lecture rooms, laboratories, and their attendant offices. At the door I was met by an old serving-man of the idolatrous order, whose pain was apparent when I asked for "Professor" Röntgen, and he gently corrected me with "Herr Doctor Röntgen." As it was evident, however, that we referred to the same person, he conducted me along a wide, bare hall, running the length of the building, with blackboards and charts on the walls. At the end he showed me into a small room on the right. This contained a large table desk, and a small table by the window, covered with photographs, while the walls held rows of shelves laden with laboratory and other records. An open door led into a somewhat larger room, perhaps twenty feet by fifteen, and I found myself gazing into a laboratory which was the scene of the discovery--a laboratory which, though in all ways modest, is destined to be enduringly historical.

There was a wide table shelf running along the farther side, in front of the two windows, which were high, and gave plenty of light. In the centre was a stove; on the left, a small cabinet, whose shelves held the small objects which the professor had been using. There was a table in the left-hand corner; and another small table--the one on which living bones were first photographed--was near the stove, and a Rhumkorff coil was on the right. The lesson of the laboratory was eloquent. Compared, for instance, with the elaborate, expensive, and complete apparatus of, say, the University of London, or of any of the great American universities, it was bare and unassuming to a degree. It mutely said that in the great march of science it is the genius of man, and not the perfection of appliances, that breaks new ground in the great territory of the unknown. It also caused one to wonder at and endeavor to imagine the great things which are to be done through elaborate appliances with the Röntgen rays--a field in which the United States, with its foremost genius in invention, will very possibly, if not probably, take the lead--when the discoverer himself had done so much with so little. Already, in a few weeks, a skilled London operator, Mr. A.A.C. Swinton, has reduced the necessary time of exposure for Röntgen photographs from fifteen minutes to four. He used, however, a Tesla oil coil, discharged by twelve half-gallon Leyden jars, with an alternating current of twenty thousand volts' pressure. Here were no oil coils, Leyden jars, or specially elaborate and expensive machines. There were only a Rhumkorff coil and Crookes (vacuum) tube and the man himself.

Professor Röntgen entered hurriedly, something like an amiable gust of wind. He is a tall, slender, and loose-limbed man, whose whole appearance bespeaks enthusiasm and energy. He wore a dark blue sack suit, and his long, dark hair stood straight up from his forehead, as if he were permanently electrified by his own enthusiasm. His voice is full and deep, he speaks rapidly, and, altogether, he seems clearly a man who, once upon the track of a mystery which appealed to him, would pursue it with unremitting vigor. His eyes are kind, quick, and penetrating; and there is no doubt that he much prefers gazing at a Crookes tube to beholding a visitor, visitors at present robbing him of much valued time. The meeting was by appointment, however, and his greeting was cordial and hearty. In addition to his own language he speaks French well and English scientifically, which is different from speaking it popularly. These three tongues being more or less within the equipment of his visitor, the conversation proceeded on an international or polyglot basis, so to speak, varying at necessity's demand.

It transpired, in the course of inquiry, that the professor is a married man and fifty years of age, though his eyes have the enthusiasm of twenty-five. He was born near Zurich, and educated there, and completed his studies and took his degree at Utrecht. He has been at Würzburg about seven years, and had made no discoveries which he considered of great importance prior to the one under consideration. These details were given under good-natured protest, he failing to understand why his personality should interest the public. He declined to admire himself or his results in any degree, and laughed at the idea of being famous. The professor is too deeply interested in science to waste any time in thinking about himself. His emperor had _fêted_, flattered, and decorated him, and he was loyally grateful. It was evident, however, that fame and applause had small attractions for him, compared to the mysteries still hidden in the vacuum tubes of the other room.

"Now, then," said he, smiling, and with some impatience, when the preliminary questions at which he chafed were over, "you have come to see the invisible rays."

"Is the invisible visible?"

"Not to the eye; but its results are. Come in here."

He led the way to the other square room mentioned, and indicated the induction coil with which his researches were made, an ordinary Rhumkorff coil, with a spark of from four to six inches, charged by a current of twenty amperes. Two wires led from the coil, through an open door, into a smaller room on the right. In this room was a small table carrying a Crookes tube connected with the coil. The most striking object in the room, however, was a huge and mysterious tin box about seven feet high and four feet square. It stood on end, like a huge packing-case, its side being perhaps five inches from the Crookes tube.

The professor explained the mystery of the tin box, to the effect that it was a device of his own for obtaining a portable dark-room. When he began his investigations he used the whole room, as was shown by the heavy blinds and curtains so arranged as to exclude the entrance of all interfering light from the windows. In the side of the tin box, at the point immediately against the tube, was a circular sheet of aluminium one millimetre in thickness, and perhaps eighteen inches in diameter, soldered to the surrounding tin. To study his rays the professor had only to turn on the current, enter the box, close the door, and in perfect darkness inspect only such light or light effects as he had a right to consider his own, hiding his light, in fact, not under the Biblical bushel, but in a more commodious box.

"Step inside," said he, opening the door, which was on the side of the box farthest from the tube. I immediately did so, not altogether certain whether my skeleton was to be photographed for general inspection, or my secret thoughts held up to light on a glass plate. "You will find a sheet of barium paper on the shelf," he added, and then went away to the coil. The door was closed, and the interior of the box became black darkness. The first thing I found was a wooden stool, on which I resolved to sit. Then I found the shelf on the side next the tube, and then the sheet of paper prepared with barium platino-cyanide. I was thus being shown the first phenomenon which attracted the discoverer's attention and led to the discovery, namely, the passage of rays, themselves wholly invisible, whose presence was only indicated by the effect they produced on a piece of sensitized photographic paper.

A moment later, the black darkness was penetrated by the rapid snapping sound of the high-pressure current in action, and I knew that the tube outside was glowing. I held the sheet vertically on the shelf, perhaps four inches from the plate. There was no change, however, and nothing was visible.

"Do you see anything?" he called.

"No."

"The tension is not high enough;" and he proceeded to increase the pressure by operating an apparatus of mercury in long vertical tubes acted upon automatically by a weight lever which stood near the coil. In a few moments the sound of the discharge again began, and then I made my first acquaintance with the Röntgen rays.

The moment the current passed, the paper began to glow. A yellowish-green light spread all over its surface in clouds, waves, and flashes. The yellow-green luminescence, all the stranger and stronger in the darkness, trembled, wavered, and floated over the paper, in rhythm with the snapping of the discharge. Through the metal plate, the paper, myself, and the tin box, the invisible rays were flying, with an effect strange, interesting, and uncanny. The metal plate seemed to offer no appreciable resistance to the flying force, and the light was as rich and full as if nothing lay between the paper and the tube.

"Put the book up," said the professor.

I felt upon the shelf, in the darkness, a heavy book, two inches in thickness, and placed this against the plate. It made no difference. The rays flew through the metal and the book as if neither had been there, and the waves of light, rolling cloud-like over the paper, showed no change in brightness. It was a clear, material illustration of the ease with which paper and wood are penetrated. And then I laid book and paper down, and put my eyes against the rays. All was blackness, and I neither saw nor felt anything. The discharge was in full force, and the rays were flying through my head, and, for all I knew, through the side of the box behind me. But they were invisible and impalpable. They gave no sensation whatever. Whatever the mysterious rays may be, they are not to be seen, and are to be judged only by their works.

I was loath to leave this historical tin box, but time pressed. I thanked the professor, who was happy in the reality of his discovery and the music of his sparks. Then I said: "Where did you first photograph living bones?"

"Here," he said, leading the way into the room where the coil stood. He pointed to a table on which was another--the latter a small short-legged wooden one with more the shape and size of a wooden seat. It was two feet square and painted coal black. I viewed it with interest. I would have bought it, for the little table on which light was first sent through the human body will some day be a great historical curiosity; but it was "nicht zu verkaufen." A photograph of it would have been a consolation, but for several reasons one was not to be had at present. However, the historical table was there, and was duly inspected.

"How did you take the first hand photograph?" I asked.

The professor went over to a shelf by the window, where lay a number of prepared glass plates, closely wrapped in black paper. He put a Crookes tube underneath the table, a few inches from the under side of its top. Then he laid his hand flat on the top of the table, and placed the glass plate loosely on his hand.

"You ought to have your portrait painted in that attitude," I suggested.

"No, that is nonsense," said he, smiling.

"Or be photographed." This suggestion was made with a deeply hidden purpose.

The rays from the Röntgen eyes instantly penetrated the deeply hidden purpose. "Oh, no," said he; "I can't let you make pictures of me. I am too busy." Clearly the professor was entirely too modest to gratify the wishes of the curious world.

"Now, Professor," said I, "will you tell me the history of the discovery?"

"There is no history," he said. "I have been for a long time interested in the problem of the cathode rays from a vacuum tube as studied by Hertz and Lenard. I had followed theirs and other researches with great interest, and determined, as soon as I had the time, to make some researches of my own. This time I found at the close of last October. I had been at work for some days when I discovered something new."

"What was the date?"

"The eighth of November."

"And what was the discovery?"

"I was working with a Crookes tube covered by a shield of black cardboard. A piece of barium platino-cyanide paper lay on the bench there. I had been passing a current through the tube, and I noticed a peculiar black line across the paper."

"What of that?"

"The effect was one which could only be produced, in ordinary parlance, by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube, because the shield which covered it was impervious to any light known, even that of the electric arc."

"And what did you think?"

"I did not think; I investigated. I assumed that the effect must have come from the tube, since its character indicated that it could come from nowhere else. I tested it. In a few minutes there was no doubt about it. Rays were coming from the tube which had a luminescent effect upon the paper. I tried it successfully at greater and greater distances, even at two metres. It seemed at first a new kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new, something unrecorded."

"Is it light?"

"No."

"Is it electricity?"

"Not in any known form."

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

And the discoverer of the X rays thus stated as calmly his ignorance of their essence as has everybody else who has written on the phenomena thus far.

"Having discovered the existence of a new kind of rays, I of course began to investigate what they would do." He took up a series of cabinet-sized photographs. "It soon appeared from tests that the rays had penetrative power to a degree hitherto unknown. They penetrated paper, wood, and cloth with ease; and the thickness of the substance made no perceptible difference, within reasonable limits." He showed photographs of a box of laboratory weights of platinum, aluminium, and brass, they and the brass hinges all having been photographed from a closed box, without any indication of the box. Also a photograph of a coil of fine wire, wound on a wooden spool, the wire having been photographed, and the wood omitted. "The rays," he continued, "passed through all the metals tested, with a facility varying, roughly speaking, with the density of the metal. These phenomena I have discussed carefully in my report to the Würzburg society, and you will find all the technical results therein stated." He showed a photograph of a small sheet of zinc. This was composed of smaller plates soldered laterally with solders of different metallic proportions. The differing lines of shadow, caused by the difference in the solders, were visible evidence that a new means of detecting flaws and chemical variations in metals had been found. A photograph of a compass showed the needle and dial taken through the closed brass cover. The markings of the dial were in red metallic paint, and thus interfered with the rays, and were reproduced. "Since the rays had this great penetrative power, it seemed natural that they should penetrate flesh, and so it proved in photographing the hand, as I showed you."

A detailed discussion of the characteristics of his rays the professor considered unprofitable and unnecessary. He believes, though, that these mysterious radiations are not light, because their behavior is essentially different from that of light rays, even those light rays which are themselves invisible. The Röntgen rays cannot be reflected by reflecting surfaces, concentrated by lenses, or refracted or diffracted. They produce photographic action on a sensitive film, but their action is weak as yet, and herein lies the first important field of their development. The professor's exposures were comparatively long--an average of fifteen minutes in easily penetrable media, and half an hour or more in photographing the bones of the hand. Concerning vacuum tubes, he said that he preferred the Hittorf, because it had the most perfect vacuum, the highest degree of air exhaustion being the consummation most desirable. In answer to a question, "What of the future?" he said:

"I am not a prophet, and I am opposed to prophesying. I am pursuing my investigations, and as fast as my results are verified I shall make them public."

"Do you think the rays can be so modified as to photograph the organs of the human body?"

In answer he took up the photograph of the box of weights. "Here are already modifications," he said, indicating the various degrees of shadow produced by the aluminium, platinum, and brass weights, the brass hinges, and even the metallic stamped lettering on the cover of the box, which was faintly perceptible.

"But Professor Neusser has already announced that the photographing of the various organs is possible."

"We shall see what we shall see," he said. We have the start now; the developments will follow in time."

"You know the apparatus for introducing the electric light into the stomach?"

"Yes."

"Do you think that this electric light will become a vacuum tube for photographing, from the stomach, any part of the abdomen or thorax?"

The idea of swallowing a Crookes tube, and sending a high frequency current down into one's stomach, seemed to him exceedingly funny. "When I have done it, I will tell you," he said, smiling, resolute in abiding by results.

"There is much to do, and I am busy, very busy," he said in conclusion. He extended his hand in farewell, his eyes already wandering toward his work in the inside room. And his visitor promptly left him; the words, "I am busy," said in all sincerity, seeming to describe in a single phrase the essence of his character and the watchword of a very unusual man.

Returning by way of Berlin, I called upon Herr Spies of the Urania, whose photographs after the Röntgen method were the first made public, and have been the best seen thus far. The Urania is a peculiar institution, and one which it seems might be profitably duplicated in other countries. It is a scientific theatre. By means of the lantern and an admirable equipment of scientific appliances, all new discoveries, as well as ordinary interesting and picturesque phenomena, when new discoveries are lacking, are described and illustrated daily to the public, who pay for seats as in an ordinary theatre, and keep the Urania profitably filled all the year round. Professor Spies is a young man of great mental alertness and mechanical resource. It is the photograph of a hand, his wife's hand, which illustrates, perhaps better than any other illustration in this article, the clear delineation of the bones which can be obtained by the Röntgen rays. In speaking of the discovery he said:

"I applied it, as soon as the penetration of flesh was apparent, to the photograph of a man's hand. Something in it had pained him for years, and the photograph at once exhibited a small foreign object, as you can see;" and he exhibited a copy of the photograph in question. "The speck there is a small piece of glass, which was immediately extracted, and which, in all probability, would have otherwise remained in the man's hand to the end of his days." All of which indicates that the needle which has pursued its travels in so many persons, through so many years, will be suppressed by the camera.

"My next object is to photograph the bones of the entire leg," continued Herr Spies. "I anticipate no difficulty, though it requires some thought in manipulation."

It will be seen that the Röntgen rays and their marvellous practical possibilities are still in their infancy. The first successful modification of the action of the rays so that the varying densities of bodily organs will enable them to be photographed, will bring all such morbid growths as tumors and cancers into the photographic field, to say nothing of vital organs which may be abnormally developed or degenerate. How much this means to medical and surgical practice it requires little imagination to conceive. Diagnosis, long a painfully uncertain science, has received an unexpected and wonderful assistant; and how greatly the world will benefit thereby, how much pain will be saved, and how many lives saved, the future can only determine. In science a new door has been opened where none was known to exist, and a side-light on phenomena has appeared, of which the results may prove as penetrating and astonishing as the Röntgen rays themselves. The most agreeable feature of the discovery is the opportunity it gives for other hands to help; and the work of these hands will add many new words to the dictionaries, many new facts to science, and, in the years long ahead of us, fill many more volumes than there are paragraphs in this brief and imperfect account.

THE RÖNTGEN RAYS IN AMERICA.

BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT.

At the top of the great Sloane laboratory of Yale University, in an experimenting room lined with curious apparatus, I found Professor Arthur W. Wright experimenting with the wonderful Röntgen rays. Professor Wright, a small, low-voiced man, of modest manner, has achieved, in his experiments in photographing through solid substances, some of the most interesting and remarkable results thus far attained in this country. His success is, no doubt, largely due to the fact that for years he had been experimenting constantly with vacuum tubes similar to the Crookes tubes used in producing the cathode rays.

When I arrived, Professor Wright was at work with a Crookes tube, nearly spherical in shape, and about five inches in diameter--the one with which he has taken all his shadow pictures. His best results have been obtained with long exposures--an hour or an hour and a half--and he regards it as of the first importance that the objects through which the Röntgen rays are to be projected be placed as near as possible to the sensitized plate.

It is from a failure to observe this precaution that so many of the shadow pictures show blurred outlines. It is with these pictures as with a shadow of the hand thrown on the wall--the nearer the hand is to the wall, the more distinct becomes the shadow; and this consideration makes Professor Wright doubt whether it will be possible, with the present facilities, to get clearly cut shadow images of very thick objects, or in cases where the pictures are taken through a thick board or other obstacle. The Röntgen rays will doubtless traverse the board, and shadows will be formed upon the plate, but there will be an uncertainty or dimness of outline that will render the results unsatisfactory. It is for this reason that Professor Wright has taken most of his shadow pictures through only the thickness of ebonite in his plate-holder. A most successful shadow picture taken by Professor Wright in this way, shows five objects laid side by side on a large plate--a saw, a case of pocket tools in their cover, a pocket lense opened out as for use, a pair of eye-glasses inside their leather case, and an awl. As will be seen from the accompanying reproduction of this picture, all the objects are photographed with remarkable distinctness, the leather case of the eye-glasses being almost transparent, the wood of the handles of the awl and saw being a little less so, while the glass in the eye-glasses is less transparent than either. In the case of the awl and the saw, the iron stem of the tool shows plainly inside the wooden handle. This photograph is similar to a dozen that have been taken by Professor Wright with equal success. The exposure here was fifty-five minutes.

A more remarkable picture is one taken in the same way, but with a somewhat longer exposure--of a rabbit laid upon the ebonite plate, and so successfully pierced with the Röntgen rays that not only the bones of the body show plainly, but also the six grains of shot with which the animal was killed. The bones of the fore legs show with beautiful distinctness inside the shadowy flesh, while a closer inspection makes visible the ribs, the cartilages of the ear, and a lighter region in the centre of the body, which marks the location of the heart.

Like most experimenters, Professor Wright has taken numerous shadow pictures of the human hand, showing the bones within, and he has made a great number of experiments in photographing various metals and different varieties of quartz and glass, with a view to studying characteristic differences in the shadows produced. A photograph of the latter sort is reproduced on page 401. Aluminium shows a remarkable degree of transparency to the Röntgen rays; so much so that Professor Wright was able to photograph a medal of this metal, showing in the same picture the designs and lettering on both sides of the medal, presented simultaneously in superimposed images. The denser metals, however, give in the main black shadows, which offer little opportunity of distinguishing between them.

As to the nature of the Röntgen rays, Professor Wright is inclined to regard them as a mode of motion through the ether, in longitudinal stresses; and he thinks that, while they are in many ways similar to the rays discovered by Lenard a year or so ago, they still present important characteristics of their own. It may be, he thinks, that the Röntgen rays are the ordinary cathode rays produced in a Crookes tube, filtered, if one may so express it, of the metallic particles carried in their electrical stream from the metal terminal, on passing through the glass. It is well known that the metal terminals of a Crookes tube are steadily worn away while the current is passing; so much so that sometimes portions of the interior of the tube become coated with a metallic deposit almost mirror-like.

As to the future, Professor Wright feels convinced that important results will be achieved in surgery and medicine by the use of these new rays, while in physical science they point to an entirely new field of investigation. The most necessary thing now is to find some means of producing streams of Röntgen rays of greater volume and intensity, so as to make possible greater penetration and distinctness in the images. Thus far only small Crookes tubes have been used, and much is to be expected when larger ones become available; but there is great difficulty in the manufacture of them. It might be possible, Professor Wright thinks, to get good results by using, instead of the Crookes tube, a large sphere of aluminium, which is more transparent to the new rays than glass and possesses considerable strength. It is a delicate question, however, whether the increased thickness of metal necessary to resist the air pressure upon a vacuum would not offset the advantage gained from the greater size. Moreover, it is a matter for experiment still to determine, what kind of an electric current would be necessary to excite such a larger tube with the best results.

Among the most important experiments in shadow photography made thus far in America are those of Dr. William J. Morton of New York, who was the first in this country to use the disruptive discharges of static electricity in connection with the Röntgen discovery, and to demonstrate that shadow pictures may be successfully taken without the use of Crookes tubes. It was the well-known photographic properties of ordinary lightning that made Dr. Morton suspect that cathode rays are produced freely in the air when there is an electric discharge from the heavens. Reasoning thus, he resolved to search for cathode rays in the ten-inch lightning flash he was able to produce between the poles of his immense Holtz machine, probably the largest in this country.

On January 30th he suspended a glass plate, with a circular window in the middle, between the two poles. Cemented to this plate of glass was one of hard rubber, about equal in size, which of course covered the window in the glass. Back of the rubber plate was suspended a photographic plate in the plate-holder, and outside of this, between it and the rubber surface, were ten letters cut from thin copper. Dr. Morton proposed to see if he could not prove the existence of cathode rays between the poles by causing them to picture in shadow, upon the sensitized plate, the letters thus exposed.

In order to do this it was necessary to separate the ordinary electric sparks from the invisible cathode rays which, as Dr. Morton believed, accompanied them. It was to accomplish this that he used the double plates of glass and hard rubber placed, as already described, between the two poles; for while the ordinary electric spark would not traverse the rubber, any cathode rays that might be present would do so with great ease, the circular window in the glass plate allowing them passage there.

The current being turned on, it was found that the powerful electric sparks visible to the eye, unable to follow a straight course on account of the intervening rubber plate, jumped around the two plates in jagged, lightning-like lines, and thus reached the other pole of the machine. But it was noticed that at the same time a faint spray of purplish light was streaming straight through the rubber between the two holes, as if its passage was not interfered with by the rubber plate. It was in company with this stream of violet rays, known as the brush discharge, that the doctor conceived the invisible Röntgen rays to be projected at each spark discharge around the plate; and presently, when the photographic plate was developed, it was found that his conception was based on fact. For there, dim in outline, but unmistakable, were shadow pictures of the ten letters which stand as historic, since they were probably the first shadow pictures in the world taken without any bulb or vacuum tube whatever. These shadow pictures Dr. Morton carefully distinguished from the ordinary blackening effects on the film produced by electrified objects.

Pursuing his experiments with static electricity, Dr. Morton soon found that better results could be obtained by the use of Leyden jars influenced by the Holtz machine, and discharging into a vacuum bulb, as shown in the illustration on this page. This arrangement of the apparatus has the advantage of making it much easier to regulate the electric supply and to modify its intensity, and Dr. Morton finds that in this way large vacuum tubes, perhaps twenty inches in diameter, may be excited to the point of doing practical work without danger of breaking the glass walls. But certain precautions are necessary. When he uses tin-foil electrodes on the outside of the bulb, he protects the tin-foil edges, and, what is more essential, uses extremely small Leyden jars and a short spark gap between the poles of the discharging rods. The philosophy of this is, that the smaller the jars, the greater their number of oscillations per second (easily fifteen million, according to Dr. Lodge's computations), the shorter the wave length, and, therefore, the greater the intensity of effects.

The next step was to bring more energy into play, still using Leyden jars; and for this purpose Dr. Morton placed within the circuit between the jars a Tesla oscillating coil. He was thus able to use in his shadow pictures the most powerful sparks the machine was capable of producing (twelve inches), sending the Leyden-jar discharge through the primary of the coil, and employing for the excitation of the vacuum tube the "step up" current of the secondary coil with a potential incalculably increased.

While Dr. Morton has in some of his experiments excited his Leyden jars from an induction coil, he thinks the best promise lies in the use of powerful Holtz machines; and he now uses no Leyden jars or converters, thus greatly adding to the simplicity of operations.

In regard to the bulb, Dr. Morton has tested various kinds of vacuum tubes, the ordinary Crookes tubes, the Geissler tubes, and has obtained excellent results from the use of a special vacuum lamp adapted by himself to the purpose. One of his ingenious expedients was to turn to use an ordinary radiometer of large bulb, and, having fitted this with tin-foil electrodes, he found that he was able to get strongly marked shadow pictures. This application of the Röntgen principle will commend itself to many students who, being unable to provide themselves with the rare and expensive Crookes tubes, may buy a radiometer which will serve their purpose excellently in any laboratory supply store, the cost being only a few dollars, while the application of the tin foil electrodes is perfectly simple.

In the-well equipped Jackson laboratory at Trinity College, Hartford, I found Dr. W.L. Robb, the professor of physics, surrounded by enthusiastic students, who were assisting him in some experiments with the new rays. Dr. Robb is the better qualified for this work from the fact that he pursued his electrical studies at the Würzburg University, in the very laboratory where Professor Röntgen made his great discovery. The picture reproduced herewith, showing a human foot inside the shoe, was taken by Dr. Robb. The Crookes tubes used in this and in most of Dr. Robb's experiments are considerably larger than any I have seen elsewhere, being pear-shaped, about eight inches long, and four inches wide at the widest part. It is, perhaps, to the excellence of this tube that Dr. Robb owes part of his success. At any rate, in the foot picture the bones are outlined through shoe and stocking, while every nail in the sole of the shoe shows plainly, although the rays came from above, striking the top of the foot first, the sole resting upon the plate-holder. In other of Dr. Robb's pictures equally fine results were obtained; notably in one of a fish, reproduced herewith, and showing the bony structure of the body; one of a razor, where the lighter shadow proves that the hollow ground portion is almost as thin as the edge; and one of a man's hand, taken for use in a lawsuit, to prove that the bones of the thumb, which had been crushed and broken in an accident, had been improperly set by the attending physician.

Dr. Robb has made a series of novel and important experiments with tubes from which the air has been exhausted in varying degrees, and has concluded from these that it is impossible to produce the Röntgen phenomena unless there is present in the tube an almost perfect vacuum. Through a tube half exhausted, on connecting it with an induction coil, he obtained merely the ordinary series of sparks; in a tube three-quarters exhausted, he obtained a reddish glow from end to end, a torpedo-shaped stream of fire; through a tube exhausted to a fairly high degree--what the electric companies would call "not bad"--he obtained a beautiful steaked effect of bluish striæ in transverse layers. Finally, in a tube exhausted as highly as possible, he obtained a faint fluorescent glow, like that produced in a Crookes tube. This fluorescence of the glass, according to Dr. Robb, invariably accompanies the discharge of Röntgen rays, and it is likely that these rays are produced more abundantly as the fluorescence increases. Just how perfect a vacuum is needed to give the best results remains a matter of conjecture. It is possible, of course, as Tesla believes, that with an absolutely perfect vacuum no results whatever would be obtained.

Dr. Robb has discovered that in order to get the best results with shadow pictures it is necessary to use special developers for the plates, and a different process in the dark-room from the one known to ordinary photographers. In a general way, it is necessary to use solutions designed to affect the ultra-violet rays, and not the visible rays of the spectrum. Having succeeded, after much experiment, in thus modifying his developing process to meet the needs of the case, Dr. Robb finds that he makes a great gain in time of exposure, fifteen minutes being sufficient for the average shadow picture taken through a layer of wood or leather, and half an hour representing an extreme case. In some shadow pictures, as, for instance, in taking a lead-pencil, it is a great mistake to give an exposure exceeding two or three minutes; for the wood is so transparent that with a long exposure it does not show at all, and the effect of the picture is spoiled. Indeed, Dr. Robb finds that there is a constant tendency to shorten the time of exposure, and with good results. For instance, one of the best shadow pictures he had taken was of a box of instruments covered by two thicknesses of leather, two thicknesses of velvet, and two thicknesses of wood; and yet the time of exposure, owing to an accident to the coil, was only five minutes.

Dr. Robb made one very interesting experiment a few days ago in the interest of a large bicycle company which sent to him specimens of carbon steel and nickel steel for the purpose of having him test them with the Röntgen rays, and see if they showed any radical differences in the crystalline structure. Photographs were taken as desired, but at the time of my visit only negative results had been obtained.

Dr. Robb realizes the great desirability of finding a stronger source of Röntgen rays, and has himself begun experimenting with exhaustive bulbs made of aluminium. One of these he has already finished, and has obtained some results with it, but not such as are entirely satisfactory, owing to the great difficulty in obtaining a high vacuum without special facilities.

I also visited Professor U.I. Pupin of Columbia College, who has been making numerous experiments with the Röntgen rays, and has produced at least one very remarkable shadow picture. This is of the hand of a gentleman resident in New York, who, while on a hunting trip in England a few months ago, was so unfortunate as to discharge his gun into his right hand, no less than forty shot lodging in the palm and fingers. The hand has since healed completely; but the shot remain in it, the doctors being unable to remove them, because unable to determine their exact location. The result is that the hand is almost useless, and often painful.

Hearing of this case, Professor Pupin induced the gentleman to allow him to attempt a photograph of the hand. He used a Crookes tube. The distance from the tube to the plate was only five inches, and the hand lay between. After waiting fifty minutes the plate was examined. Not only did every bone of the hand show with beautiful distinctness, but each one of the forty shot was to be seen almost as plainly as if it lay there on the table; and, most remarkable of all, a number of shot were seen through the bones of the fingers, showing that the bones were transparent to the lead.

In making this picture, Professor Pupin excited his tube by means of a powerful Holtz machine, thus following Dr. Morton in the substitution of statical electricity for the more common induction coil.

Professor Pupin sees no reason why the whole skeleton of the human body should not be shown completely in a photograph as soon as sufficiently powerful bulbs can be obtained. He thinks that it would be possible to make Crookes tubes two feet in diameter instead of a few inches, as at present.

Thomas A. Edison has also been devoting himself, with his usual energy, to experiments with the Röntgen rays, and announces confidently that in the near future he will be able to photograph the human brain, through the heavy bones of the skull, and perhaps even to get a shadow picture showing the human skeleton through the tissues of the body.

THE HOUSEHOLDERS.

BY "Q,"

AUTHOR OF "DEAD MAN'S ROCK," "THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF," ETC.

I will say this--speaking as accurately as a man may, so long afterwards--that when first I spied the house it put no desire in me but just to give thanks.

For conceive my case. It was near midnight by this; and ever since dusk I had been tracking the naked moors a-foot, in the teeth of as vicious a nor'wester as ever drenched a man to the skin, and then blew the cold home to his marrow. My clothes were sodden; my coat-tails flapped with a noise like pistol shots; my boots squeaked as I went. Overhead the October moon was in her last quarter, and might have been a slice of finger-nail for all the light she afforded. Two-thirds of the time the wrack blotted her out altogether; and I, with my stick clipped tight under my arm-pit, eyes puckered up, and head bent like a butting ram's, but a little aslant, had to keep my wits agog to distinguish the glimmer of the road from the black heath to right and left. For three hours I had met neither man nor man's dwelling, and (for all I knew) was desperately lost. Indeed, at the cross roads, two miles back, there had been nothing for me but to choose the way that kept the wind on my face, and it gnawed me like a dog.

Mainly to allay the stinging of my eyes, I pulled up at last, turned right-about face, leant back against the blast with a hand on my hat, and surveyed the blackness I had traversed. It was at this instant that, far away to the left, a point of light caught my notice, faint but steady; and at once I felt sure it burnt in the window of a house. "The house," thought I, "is a good mile off, beside the other road, and the light must have been an inch over my hat-brim for the last half hour," for my head had been sloped that way. This reflection--that on so wide a moor I had come near missing the information I wanted (and perhaps a supper) by one inch--sent a strong thrill down my back.

I cut straight across the heather towards the light, risking quags and pitfalls. Nay, so heartening was the chance to hear a fellow-creature's voice that I broke into a run, skipping over the stunted gorse that cropped up here and there, and dreading every moment to see the light quenched. "Suppose it burns in an upper window, and the family is going to bed, as would be likely at this hour"--the apprehension kept my eyes fixed on the bright spot, to the frequent scandal of my legs, that within five minutes were stuck full of gorse-prickles.

But the light did not go out, and soon a flicker of moonlight gave me a glimpse of the house's outline. It proved to be a deal more imposing than I looked for--the outline, in fact, of a tall-square barrack with a cluster of chimneys at either end, like ears, and a high wall, topped by the roofs of some outbuildings, concealing the lower windows. There was no gate in this wall, and presently I guessed the reason. I was approaching the place from behind, and the light came from a back window on the first floor.

The faintness of the light also was explained by this time. It shone behind a drab-colored blind, and in shape resembled the stem of a wine-glass, broadening out at the foot--an effect produced by the half-drawn curtains within. I came to a halt, waiting for the next ray of moonlight. At the same moment a rush of wind swept over the chimney-stacks, and on the wind there seemed to ride a human sigh.

On this last point I may err. The gust had passed some seconds before I caught myself detecting this peculiar note, and trying to disengage it from the natural chords of the storm. From the next gust it was absent. And then, to my dismay, the light faded from the window.

I was half-minded to call out when it appeared again, this time in two windows--those next on the right to that where it had shone before. Almost at once it increased in brilliance, as if the person who carried it from the smaller room to the larger were lighting more candles; and now the illumination was strong enough to make fine gold threads of the rain that fell within its radiance, and fling two shafts of warm yellow over the coping of the back wall into the night. During the minute or more that I stood watching, no shadow fell on either blind.

Between me and the wall ran a ditch, into the black obscurity of which the ground at my feet broke sharply away. Setting my back to the storm again, I followed the lip of this ditch around the wall's angle. Here was shelter, and here the ditch seemed to grow shallower. Not wishing, however, to mistake a bed of nettles or any such pitfall for solid earth, I kept pretty wide as I went on. The house was dark on this side, and the wall, as before, had no opening. Close beside the next angle grew a mass of thick gorse bushes, and pushing through these I found myself suddenly on a sound high road, with the wind tearing at me as furiously as ever.

But here was the front; and I now perceived that the surrounding wall advanced some way before the house, so as to form a narrow curtilage. So much of it, too, as faced the road had been whitewashed; which made it an easy matter to find the gate. But as I laid hand on its latch, I had a surprise.

A line of paving-stones led from the gate to the heavy porch; and along the wet surface of these fell a streak of light from the front door, which stood ajar.

That a door should remain six inches open on such a night was astonishing enough, until I entered the court and found it was as still as a room, owing to the high wall, and doubtless the porch gave additional protection. But looking up and assuring myself that all the rest of _façade_ was black as ink, I wondered at the inmates who could be thus careless of their property.

It was here that my professional instincts received the first jog. Abating the sound of my feet on the paving-stones, I went up to the door and pushed it softly. It opened without noise.

I stepped into a fair-sized hall of modern build, paved with red tiles and lit with a small hanging lamp. To right and left were doors leading to the ground-floor rooms. Along the wall by my shoulder ran a line of pegs, on which hung half a dozen hats and great coats, every one of clerical shape; and full in front of me a broad staircase ran up, with a staring Brussels carpet, the colors and pattern of which I can recall as well as to-day's breakfast. Under this staircase was set a stand full of walking-sticks, and a table littered with gloves, brushes, a hand-bell, a riding-crop, one or two dog-whistles, and a bed-room candle, with tinder-box beside it. This, with one notable exception, was all the furniture.

The exception--which turned me cold--was the form of a yellow mastiff dog, curled on a mat beneath the table. The arch of his back was towards me, and one forepaw lay over his nose in a natural posture of sleep. I leant back on the wainscoting, with my eyes tightly fixed on him, and my thoughts flying back, with something of regret, to the storm I had come through.

But a man's habits are not easily denied. At the end of three minutes the dog had not moved, and I was down on the doormat unlacing my soaked boots. Slipping them off, and taking them in my left hand, I stood up, and tried a step towards the stairs, with eyes alert for any movement of the mastiff; but he never stirred. I was glad enough, however, on reaching the stairs, to find them newly built and the carpet thick. Up I went with a glance at every step for the table which now hid the brute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake out of that staircase till I was almost at the first landing, when my toe caught a loose stair-rod, and rattled it in a way that stopped my heart for a moment, and then set it going in double-quick time.

I stood still, with a hand on the rail. My eyes were now on a level with the floor of the landing, out of which branched two passages--one by my right hand, the other to the left, at the foot of the next flight, so placed that I was gazing down the length of it. And almost at the end there fell a parallelogram of light across it from an open door.

A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence that can fitly be called "dead." This is only to be found in a great house at midnight. I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled the stair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife. If the house held a clock it ticked inaudibly.

Upon this silence, at the end of a minute, broke a light sound--the _clink, clink_ of a decanter on the rim of a wine-glass. It came from the room where the light was.

Now, perhaps it was that the very thought of liquor put warmth into my cold bones. It is certain that all of a sudden I straightened my back, took the remaining stairs at two strides, and walked down the passage, as bold as brass, with out caring a jot for the noise I made.

In the doorway I halted. The room was long, lined for the most part with books bound in what they call "divinity calf," and littered with papers like a barrister's table on assize day. Before the fireplace, where a few coals burned sulkily, was drawn a leathern elbow chair, and beside it, on the corner of a writing-table, were set an unlit candle and a pile of manuscripts. At the opposite end of the room a curtained door led (I guessed) to the chamber that I had first seen illuminated. All this I took in with the tail of my eye, while staring straight in front, where, in the middle of a great square of carpet between me and the windows, was a table with a red cloth upon it. On this cloth were a couple of wax candles, lit, in silver stands, a tray, and a decanter three parts full of brandy. And between me and the table stood a man.

He stood sideways, leaning a little back, as if to keep his shadow off the threshold, and looked at me over his left shoulder--a bald, grave man, slightly under the common height, with a long clerical coat of preposterous fit hanging loosely from his shoulders, a white cravat, black breeches, and black stockings. His feet were loosely thrust into carpet-slippers. I judged his age at fifty, or thereabouts; but his face rested in the shadow, and I could only note a pair of eyes, very small and alert, twinkling above a large expanse of cheek.

He was lifting a wine-glass from the table at the moment when I appeared, and it trembled now in his right hand. I heard a spilt drop or two fall on the carpet, and this was all the evidence he showed of discomposure.

Setting the glass back, he felt in his breast-pocket for a handkerchief, failed to find one, and rubbed his hands together to get the liquor off his fingers.

"You startled me," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, turning his eyes upon me, as he lifted his glass again, and emptied it. "How did you find your way in?"

"By the front door," said I, wondering at his unconcern.

He nodded his head slowly.

"Ah! yes; I forgot to lock it. You came to steal, I suppose?"

"I came because I lost my way. I've been travelling this God-forsaken moor since dusk--"

"With your boots in your hand," he put in quietly.

"I took them off out of respect to the yellow dog you keep."

"He lies in a very natural attitude--eh?"

"You don't tell me he was _stuffed_!"

The old man's eyes beamed a contemptuous pity.

"You are indifferently sharp, my dear sir, for a housebreaker. Come in. Set down those convicting boots, and don't drip pools of water in the very doorway, of all places. If I must entertain a burglar, I prefer him tidy."

He walked to the fire, picked up a poker, and knocked the coals into a blaze. This done, he turned round on me with the poker still in his hand. The serenest gravity sat on his large, pale features.

"Why have I done this?" he asked.

"I suppose to get possession of the poker."

"Quite right. May I inquire your next move?"

"Why," said I, feeling in my tail pocket, "I carry a pistol."

"Which I suppose to be damp?"

"By no means. I carry it, as you see, in an oil-cloth case."

He stopped, and laid the poker carefully in the fender.

"That is a stronger card than I possess. I might urge that by pulling the trigger you would certainly alarm the house and the neighborhood, and put a halter round your neck. I say, I _might_ urge this, and assume you to be an intelligent auditor. But it strikes me as safer to assume you capable of using a pistol with effect at three paces. With what might happen subsequently I will not pretend to be concerned. It is sufficient that I dislike the notion of being perforated. The fate of your neck--" He waved a hand. "Well, I have known you for just five minutes, and feel but moderate interest in your neck. As for the inmates of this house, it will refresh you to hear that there are none. I have lived here two years with a butler and a female cook, both of whom I dismissed yesterday at a moment's notice for conduct which I will not shock your ears by explicitly naming. Suffice it to say, I carried them off yesterday to my parish church, two miles away, married them, and dismissed them in the vestry without characters. I wish you had known that butler--but excuse me; with the information I have supplied, you ought to find no difficulty in fixing the price you will take to clear out of my house instanter."

"Sir," I answered, "I have held a pistol at one or two heads in my time; but never at one stuffed with nobler discretion. Your chivalry does not, indeed, disarm me, but prompts me to desire more of your acquaintance. I have found a gentleman, and must sup with him before I make terms."

The address seemed to please him. He shuffled across the room to a sideboard, and produced a plate of biscuits, another of almonds and dried raisins, a glass and two decanters.

"Sherry and Madeira," he said. "There is also a cold pie in the larder, if you care for it."

"A biscuit will serve," I replied. "To tell the truth, I'm more for the bucket than the manger, as the grooms say; and, by your leave, the brandy you were testing just now is more to my mind than wine."

"There is no water handy."

"There was plenty out of doors to last me with this bottle."

I pulled over a chair, and laid my pistol on the table, and held out the glass for him to fill. Having done so, he helped himself to a glass and a chair, and sat down facing me.

"I was talking, just now, of my late butler," he began, with a sip at his brandy. "Has it struck you that, when confronted with moral delinquency, I am apt to let my indignation get the better of me?"

"Not at all," I answered heartily, refilling my glass.

It appeared that another reply would have pleased him better.

"H'm. I was hoping that, perhaps, I had visited his offence too strongly. As a clergyman, you see, I was bound to be severe; but upon my word, sir, since he went I have felt like a man who has lost a limb."

He drummed with his fingers on the cloth for a few moments, and went on:

"One has a natural disposition to forgive butlers--Pharaoh, for instance, felt it. There hovers around butlers that peculiar atmosphere which Shakespeare noticed as encircling kings, an atmosphere in which common ethics lose their pertinence. But mine was a rare bird--a black swan among butlers. He was more than a butler: he was a quick and brightly-gifted man. Of the accuracy of his taste, and the unusual scope of his endeavor, you will be able to form some opinion when I assure you he modelled himself upon _me_."

I bowed over my brandy.

"I am a scholar; yet I employed him to read aloud to me, and derived pleasure from his intonation. I talk as a scholar; yet he learned to answer me in language as precise as my own. My cast-off garments fitted him not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner. Divest him of his tray, and you would find his mode of entering a room hardly distinguishable from my own--the same urbanity, the same alertness of carriage, the same superfine deference towards the weaker sex. All--all my idiosyncrasies I saw reflected in this my mirror; and can you doubt that I was gratified? He was my _alter ego_--which, by the way, makes it the more extraordinary that it should have been necessary to marry him to the cook."

"Look here," I broke in; "you want a butler."

"Oh, you really grasp that fact, do you?" he retorted.

"And you wish to get rid of me as soon as may be."

"I hope there is no impoliteness in complimenting you on your discernment."

"Your two wishes," said I, "may be reconciled. Let me cease to be your burglar, and let me continue here as your butler."

He leant back, spreading out the fingers of each hand as if the table's edge was a harpsichord, and he stretching octaves upon it.

"Believe me," I went on, "you might do worse. I have been a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, in my time, and retain some Greek and Latin. I'll undertake to read the Fathers with an accent that shall not offend you. My knowledge of wine is none the worse for having been cultivated in other men's cellars. Moreover, you shall engage the ugliest cook in Christendom, so long as I'm your butler. I've taken a liking to you--that's flat--and I apply for the post."

"I give forty pounds a year," said he.

"And I'm cheap at that price."

He filled up his glass, looking up at me while he did so with the air of one digesting a problem. From first to last his face was grave as a judge's.

"We are too impulsive, I think," was his answer, after a minute's silence. "And your speech smacks of the amateur. You say, 'Let me cease to be your burglar, and let me be your butler.' The mere aspiration is respectable; but a man might as well say, 'Let me cease to write poems; let me paint pictures.' And truly, sir, you impressed me as no expert in your present trade, but a journeyman-housebreaker, if I may say so."

"On the other hand," I argued, "consider the moderation of my demands; that alone should convince you of my desire to turn over a new leaf. I ask for a month's trial; if, at the end of that time, I don't suit, you shall say so, and I'll march from your door with nothing in my pocket but my month's wages. Be hanged, sir! but when I reflect on the amount you'll have to pay to get me to face to-night's storm again, you seem to be getting off dirt-cheap!" cried I, slapping my palm on the table.

"Ah, if you had only known Adolphus!" he exclaimed.

Now, the third glass of clean spirits has always a deplorable effect on me. It turns me from bright to black, from lightness of spirits to extreme sulkiness. I have done more wickedness over this third tumbler than in all the other states of comparative inebriety within my experience. So now I glowered at my companion and rapped out a curse.

"Look here, I don't want to hear any more of Adolphus, and I've a pretty clear notion of the game you're playing. You want to make me drunk, and you're ready to sit prattling there till I drop under the table."

"Do me the favor to remember that you came, and are staying, at your own invitation. As for the brandy, I would remind you that I suggested a milder drink. Try some Madeira."

He handed me the decanter, as he spoke, and I poured out a glass.

"Madeira!" said I, taking a gulp. "Ugh! it's the commonest Marsala!"

I had no sooner said the words than he rose up, and stretched a hand gravely across to me.

"I hope you'll shake it," he said; "though, as a man who after three glasses of neat spirit can distinguish between Madeira and Marsala, you have every right to refuse me. Two minutes ago you offered to become my butler, and I demurred. I now beg you to repeat that offer. Say the word, and I employ you gladly; you shall even have the second decanter (which contains genuine Madeira) to take to bed with you."

We shook hands on our bargain, and catching up a candlestick, he led the way from the room.

Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down the silent staircase. In the hall he paused to stand on tiptoe, and turn up the lamp, which was burning low. As he did so, I found time to fling a glance at my old enemy, the mastiff. He lay as I had first seen him--a stuffed dog, if ever there was one. "Decidedly," thought I, "my wits are to seek, to-night;" and with the same, a sudden suspicion made me turn to my conductor, who had advanced to the left-hand door, and was waiting for me, with hand on the knob.

"One moment," I said; "this is all very pretty, but how am I to know you're not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside to lay me by the heels?"

"I'm afraid," was his answer, "you must be content with my word, as a gentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a syllable about the circumstances of your visit. However, if you choose, we will return upstairs."

"No; I'll trust you," said I; and he opened the door.

It led into a broad passage, paved with slate, upon which three or four rooms opened. He paused by the second, and ushered me into a sleeping-chamber which, though narrow, was comfortable enough--a vast improvement, at any rate, on the mumper's lodgings I had been used to for many months past.

"You can undress here," he said. "The sheets are aired, and if you'll wait a moment I'll fetch a nightshirt--one of my own."

"Sir, you heap coals of fire on me."

"Believe me that for ninety-nine of your qualities I do not care a tinker's curse: but as a man who, after three tumblers of neat brandy, can tell Marsala from Madeira you are to be taken care of."

He shuffled away, but came back in a couple of minutes with the nightshirt.

"Good-night," he called to me, flinging it in at the door; and without giving me time to return the wish, went his way upstairs.

Now it might be supposed that I was only too glad to toss off my clothes and climb into the bed I had so unexpectedly acquired a right to. But, as a matter of fact, I did nothing of the kind. Instead, I drew on my boots and sat on the bed's edge, blinking at my candle till it died down in its socket, and afterwards at the purple square of window as it slowly changed to gray with the coming of dawn. I was cold to the heart, and my teeth chattered with an ague. Certainly I never suspected my host's word; but was even occupied in framing good resolutions and shaping out an excellent future, when I heard the front door gently pulled to, and a man's footsteps moving quietly to the gate.

The treachery knocked me in a heap for the moment. Then leaping up and flinging my door wide, I stumbled through the uncertain light of the passage into the front hall.

There was a fan-shaped light over the door, and the place was very still and gray. A quick thought, or rather a sudden prophetic guess at the truth, made me turn to the figure of the mastiff curled under the hall table.

I laid my hand on the scruff of his neck. He was quite limp, and my fingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae. Digging them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall, and pulled the front door open to see the better.

His throat was gashed from ear to ear.

How many seconds passed after I dropped the senseless lump on the floor, and before I made another movement, it would puzzle me to say. Twice I stirred a foot as if to run out at the door. Then, changing my mind, I stepped over the mastiff, and ran up the staircase. The light no longer shone out into the left-hand passage; but groping down it, I found the study door open, as before, and passed in. A sick light stole through the blinds--enough for me to distinguish the glasses and decanters on the table, and find my way to the curtain that hung before the room where the light had first attracted me.

I pushed the curtain aside, paused for a moment, and listened to the violent beat of my heart; then felt for the door handle and turned it.

All I could see at first; was that the chamber was small; next, that the light patch in a line with the window was the white coverlet of a bed; and next, that somebody, or something, lay on the bed.

I listened again. There was no sound in the room; no heart beating but my own. I reached out a hand to pull up the blind, and drew it back again. I dared not.

The daylight grew, minute by minute, on the dull parallelogram of the blind, and minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took something of distinctness. The strain beat me at last. I fetched a veritable yell to give myself courage, and, reaching for the cord, pulled up the blind as fast as it would go.

The face on the pillow was that of an old man--a face waxen and peaceful, with quiet lines about the month and eyes, and long lines of gray hair falling back from the temples. The body was turned a little on one side, and one hand lay outside the bedclothes in a very natural manner. But there were two dark spots on the coverlet.

Then I knew I was face to face with the real householder; and it flashed on me that I had been indiscreet in taking service as his butler, and that I knew the face his ex-butler wore.

And, being by this time awake to the responsibilities of the post, I quitted it three steps at a time, not once looking behind me. Outside the house the storm had died, and white sunlight broke over the sodden moors. But my bones were cold, and I ran faster and faster.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN'S PROMINENCE AS A WHIG POLITICIAN AT THIRTY-TWO.--STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS'S REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD.--BEGINNING OF THE RIVALRY BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.--LINCOLN'S PART IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840.--MARY TODD AND HER ENGAGEMENT TO LINCOLN.--FALSE STORIES REGARDING LINCOLN'S COURTSHIP.--THE LINCOLN AND SHIELDS DUEL.--LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE.

By the time Abraham Lincoln was thirty-two years old--that is, in 1841--he was one of the leading Whig politicians of Illinois. Four times in succession he had been elected to the General Assembly of the State--in 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1840. Twice he had been a candidate for Speaker of the House--in 1838 and in 1840--both times against William L.D. Ewing; and though both times defeated, the vote had in each instance been close. In 1841 he had been talked of as a candidate for governor, a suggestion to which he would not listen.

He had not taken this prominent position because the Whig party lacked material. Edward Dickinson Baker, Colonel John J. Hardin, John T. Stuart, Ninian W. Edwards, Jesse K. Dubois, O.H. Browning, were but a few of the brilliant men who were throwing all their ability and ambition into the contest for political honors in the State. Nor were the Whigs a whit superior to the Democrats. William L.D. Ewing, Ebenezer Peck, William Thomas, James Shields, John Calhoun, were in every respect as able as the best men of the Whig party. Indeed, one of the prominent Democrats with whom Lincoln came often in contact, was popularly regarded as the most brilliant and promising politician of the State--Stephen A. Douglas. His record had been phenomenal. He had amazed both parties, in 1834, by securing appointment by the legislature to the office of State Attorney for the first judicial circuit, over John J. Hardin. In 1836 he had been elected to the legislature, and although he was at that time but twenty-three years of age, he had shown himself one of the most vigorous, capable, and intelligent members. Indeed, Douglas's work in the Tenth Assembly gave him about the same position in the Democratic party of the State at large that Lincoln's work in the same body gave him in the Whig party of his own district. In 1837 he had had no difficulty in being appointed register of the land office, a position which compelled him to make his home in Springfield. It was only a few months after Lincoln rode into town, all his earthly possessions in a pair of saddle-bags, that Douglas appeared. Handsome, polished, and always with an air of prosperity, the advent of the young Democratic official was in striking contrast to that of the sad-eyed, ill-clad, poverty-stricken young lawyer from New Salem.

From the first, Lincoln and Douglas were thrown constantly together in the social life of the town, and often pitted against each other in what were the real forums of the State at that day--the space around the huge "Franklin" stove of some obliging store-keeper, the steps of somebody's law office, a pile of lumber, or a long timber, lying in the public square, where the new State-house was going up.

In the fall of 1837 Douglas was nominated for Congress on the Democratic ticket. His Whig opponent was Lincoln's law partner, John T. Stuart. The campaign which the two conducted was one of the most remarkable in the history of the State. For five months of the spring and summer of 1838 they rode together from town to town all over the northern part of Illinois (Illinois at that time was divided into but three congressional districts; the third, in which Sangamon County was included, being made up of the twenty-two northernmost counties), speaking six days out of seven. When the election came off in August, 1838, out of thirty-six thousand votes cast, Stuart received a majority of only fourteen; but even that majority the Democrats always contended was won unfairly. The campaign was watched with intense interest by the young politicians of Springfield; no one of them felt a deeper interest in it than Lincoln, who was himself at the same time a candidate for member of the State legislature.

Lincoln must have learned by the end of 1840, if not before, something of the power of the "Little Giant," as Douglas was called. Certainly no man in public life between 1837 and 1860 had a greater hold on his followers. The reasons for this grasp are not hard to find. Douglas was by nature buoyant, enthusiastic, impetuous. He had that sunny boyishness which is so irresistible to young and old. With it he had great natural eloquence. When his deep, rich voice rolled out fervid periods in support of the sub-treasury and the convention system, or in opposition to internal improvements by the federal government, the people applauded out of sheer joy at the pleasure of hearing him. He was one of the few men in Illinois whom the epithet of "Yankee" never hurt. He might be a Yankee, but when he sat down on the knee of some surly lawyer, and confidentially told him his plans; or, at a political meeting, took off his coat, and rolled up his sleeves, and "pitched into" his opponent, the sons of Illinois forgot his origin in love for the man.

Lincoln undoubtedly understood the charm of Douglas, and realized his power. But he already had an insight into one of his political characteristics that few people recognized at that day. In writing to Stuart in 1839, while the latter was attending Congress, Lincoln said: "Douglas has not been here since you left. A report is in circulation here now that he has abandoned the idea of going to Washington, though the report does not come in a very authentic form, so far as I can learn. Though, by the way, speaking of authenticity, you know that if we had heard Douglas say that he had abandoned the contest, it would not be very authentic."

In the campaign of 1840 Lincoln and Douglas came more frequently than ever into conflict. At that time the local issues, which had formerly engaged Illinois candidates almost entirely, were lost sight of in national questions. In Springfield, where the leaders of the parties were living, many hot debates were held in private. Out of these grew, in December, 1839, a series of public discussions, extending over eight evenings, and in which several of the first orators of the State took part. Lincoln was the last man on the list. The people were nearly worn out before his turn came, and his audience was small. He began his speech with some melancholy, self-deprecatory reflections, complaining that the small audience cast a damp upon his spirits which he was sure he would be unable to overcome during the evening. He did better than he expected, overcoming the damp on his spirits so effectually that he made what was regarded as the best speech of the series; and by a general request, it was printed for distribution. The speech is peculiarly interesting from the fact that while there is a little of the perfervid eloquence of 1840 in it, as well as a good deal of the rather boisterous humor of the time, a part of it is devoted to a careful examination of the statements of his opponents, and a refutation of them by means of public documents.

As a good Democrat was expected to do, Douglas had explained with plausibility why the Van Buren administration had in 1838 spent $40,000,000. Lincoln takes up his statements one by one, and proves, as he says, that "the majority of them are wholly untrue." Douglas had attributed a part of the expenditures to the purchase of public lands from the Indians.

"Now it happens," says Lincoln, "that no such purchase was made during that year. It is true that some money was paid that year in pursuance of Indian treaties; but no more, or rather not as much, as had been paid on the same account in each of several preceding years.... Again, Mr. Douglas says that the removal of the Indians to the country west of the Mississippi created much of the expenditure of 1838. I have examined the public documents in relation to this matter, and find that less was paid for the removal of the Indians in that than in some former years. The whole sum expended on that account in that year did not exceed one quarter of a million. For this small sum, although we do not think the administration entitled to credit, because large sums have been expended in the same way in former years, we consent it may take one and make the most of it.

"Next, Mr. Douglas says that five millions of the expenditures of 1838 consisted of the payment of the French indemnity money to its individual claimants. I have carefully examined the public documents, and thereby find this statement to be wholly untrue. Of the forty millions of dollars expended in 1838, I am enabled to say positively that not one dollar consisted of payments on the French indemnities. So much for that excuse.

"Next comes the post-office. He says that five millions were expended during that year to sustain that department. By a like examination of public documents, I find this also wholly untrue. Of the so often mentioned forty millions, not one dollar went to the post-office....

"I return to another of Mr. Douglas's excuses for the expenditures of 1838, at the same time announcing the pleasing intelligence that this is the last one. He says that ten millions of that year's expenditure was a contingent appropriation, to prosecute an anticipated war with Great Britain on the Maine boundary question. Few words will settle this. First, that the ten millions appropriated was not made till 1839, and consequently could not have been expended in 1838; second, although it was appropriated, it has never been expended at all. Those who heard Mr. Douglas, recollect that he indulged himself in a contemptuous expression of pity for me. 'Now he's got me,' thought I. But when he went on to say that five millions of the expenditure of 1838 were payments of the French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue; that five millions had been for the post-office, which I knew to be untrue; that ten millions had been for the Maine boundary war, which I not only knew to be untrue, but supremely ridiculous also; and when I saw that he was stupid enough to hope that I would permit such groundless and audacious assertions to go unexposed,--I readily consented that, on the score both of veracity and sagacity, the audience should judge whether he or I were the more deserving of the world's contempt."

These citations show that Lincoln had already learned to handle public documents, and to depend for at least a part of his success with an audience upon a careful statement of facts. The methods used in at least a portion of this speech are exactly those which made the irresistible strength of his speeches in 1858 and 1859.

LINCOLN IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840.

But there was little of as good work done in the campaign of 1840, by Lincoln or anybody else, as is found in this speech. It was a campaign of noise and fun, and nowhere more so than in Illinois. Lincoln was one of the five Whig Presidential electors, and he flung himself into the campaign with confidence. "The nomination of Harrison takes first rate," he wrote to his partner Stuart, then in Washington. "You know I am never sanguine, but I believe we will carry the State. The chance of doing so appears to me twenty-five per cent, better than it did for you to beat Douglas." The Whigs, in spite of their dislike of the convention system, organized as they never had before, and even sent out a "confidential" circular of which Lincoln was the author.

Every weapon he thought of possible use in the contest he secured. "Be sure to send me as many copies of the 'Life of Harrison' as you can spare from other uses," he wrote Stuart. "Be very sure to procure and send me the 'Senate Journal' of New York, of September, 1814. I have a newspaper article which says that that document proves that Van Buren voted against raising troops in the last war. And, in general, send me everything you think will be a good 'war-club.'"

Every sign of success he quoted to Stuart; the number of subscribers to the "Old Soldier," a campaign newspaper which the Whig committee had informed the Whigs of the State that they "_must take_;" the names of Van Buren men who were weakening, and to whom he wanted Stuart to send documents; the name of every theretofore doubtful person who had declared himself for Harrison. "Japh Bell has come out for Harrison," he put in a postscript to one letter; "ain't that a caution?"

The monster political meetings held throughout the State did much to widen Lincoln's reputation, particularly one held in June in Springfield. Twenty thousand people attended this meeting, delegations coming from every direction. It took fourteen teams to haul the delegation from Chicago, and they were three weeks on their journey. Each party carried some huge symbolic piece--the log cabin being the favorite. One of the cabins taken to Springfield was drawn by thirty yokes of oxen. In a hickory tree which was planted beside this cabin, coons were seen playing, and a barrel of hard cider stood by the door, continually on tap. Instead of a log cabin, the Chicago delegation dragged across country a government yawl rigged up as a two-masted ship, with a band of music and a six-pounder cannon on board.

There are many reminiscences of this great celebration, and Lincoln's part in it, still afloat in Illinois. General T.J. Henderson writes, in the entertaining reminiscences of Lincoln prepared for this biography:

"The first time I remember to have seen Abraham Lincoln was during the memorable campaign of 1840, when I was a boy fifteen years of age. It was at an immense Whig mass-meeting held at Springfield, Illinois, in the month of June of that year. The Whigs attended this meeting from all parts of the State in large numbers, and it was estimated that from forty to fifty thousand people were present. They came in carriages and wagons, on horseback and on foot. They came with log cabins drawn on wheels by oxen, and with coons, coon-skins, and hard cider. They came with music and banners; and thousands of them came from long distances. It was the first political meeting I had ever attended, and it made a very strong impression upon my youthful mind.

"My father, William H. Henderson, then a resident of Stark County, Illinois, was an ardent Whig; and having served under General William Henry Harrison, the then Whig candidate for President, in the war of 1812-1815, he felt a deep interest in his election. And although he lived about a hundred miles from Springfield, he went with a delegation from Stark County to this political meeting, and took me along with him. I remember that at this great meeting of the supporters of Harrison and Tyler there were a number of able and distinguished speakers of the Whig party of the State of Illinois present. Among them were Colonel E.D. Baker, who was killed at Ball's Bluff, on the Potomac, in the late war, and who was one of the most eloquent speakers in the State; Colonel John J. Hardin, who was killed at the battle of Buena Vista, in the Mexican War; Fletcher Webster, a son of Daniel Webster, who was killed in the late war; S. Leslie Smith, a brilliant orator of Chicago; Rev. John Hogan, Ben Bond, and Abraham Lincoln. I heard all of these men speak on that occasion. And while I was too young to be a judge of their speeches, yet I thought them all to be great men, and none of them greater than Abraham Lincoln."

One of the most prominent members of the Illinois bar has written out especially for this work his impressions of Lincoln's speech at that gathering.

[Transcriber's Note: The following is handwritten beneath the photograph: "For Mrs. Lucy G. Speed, from whose pious hands I accepted the present of an Oxford Bible twenty years ago. Washington, D.C. October 5, 1861 A. Lincoln"]

"Mr. Lincoln stood in a wagon, from which he addressed the mass of people that surrounded it. The meeting was one of unusual interest because of him who was to make the principal address. It was at the time of his greatest physical strength. He was tall, and perhaps a little more slender than in later life, and more homely than after he became stouter in person. He was then only thirty-one years of age, and yet he was regarded as one of the ablest of the Whig speakers in that campaign. There was that in him that attracted and held public attention. Even then he was the subject of popular regard because of his candid and simple mode of discussing and illustrating political questions. At times he was intensely logical, and was always most convincing in his arguments. The questions involved in that canvass had relation to the tariff, internal public improvements by the federal government, the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of public lands among the several States, and other questions that divided the political parties of that day. They were not such questions as enlisted and engaged his best thoughts; they did not take hold of his great nature, and had no tendency to develop it. At times he discussed the questions of the time in a logical way, but much time was devoted to telling stories to illustrate some phase of his argument, though more often the telling of these stories was resorted to for the purpose of rendering his opponents ridiculous. That was a style of speaking much appreciated at that early day. In that kind of oratory he excelled most of his contemporaries--indeed, he had no equals in the State. One story he told on that occasion was full of salient points, and well illustrated the argument he was making. It was not an impure story, yet it was not one it would be seemly to publish; but rendered, as it was, in his inimitable way, it contained nothing that was offensive to a refined taste. The same story might have been told by another in such a way that it would probably have been regarded as transcending the proprieties of popular address. One characterizing feature of all the stories told by Mr. Lincoln, on the stump and elsewhere, was that although the subject matter of some of them might not have been entirely unobjectionable, yet the manner of telling them was so peculiarly his own that they gave no offence even to refined and cultured people. On the contrary, they were much enjoyed. The story he told on this occasion was much liked by the vast assembly that surrounded the temporary platform from which he spoke, and was received with loud bursts of laughter and applause. It served to place the opposing party and its speakers in a most ludicrous position in respect to the question being considered, and gave him a most favorable hearing for the arguments he later made in support of the measures he was sustaining."

LINCOLN'S ENGAGEMENT TO MISS TODD.

Lincoln had been busy with politics and law in the years since he left New Salem, but he had by no means neglected the social side of life. Indeed, he had gone so far as to become engaged to be married to one of the favorite young women of Springfield, Miss Mary Todd, the sister-in-law of one of his political friends, a member of the "Long Nine" and a prominent citizen, Ninian W. Edwards.

Miss Todd came from a well-known family of Lexington, Kentucky; her father, Robert S. Todd, being one of the leading citizens of his State. She had come to Springfield in 1839 to live with her sister, Mrs. Edwards. She was a brilliant, witty, highly-educated girl, ambitious and spirited, with a touch of audacity which only made her more attractive, and she at once took a leading position in Springfield society. There were many young unmarried men in the town, drawn there by politics, and Mr. Edwards's handsome home was opened to them in the hospitable Southern way. After Mary Todd became an inmate of the Edwards house, the place was gayer than ever. She received much attention from Douglas, Shields, Lincoln, and several others. It was soon apparent, however, that Miss Todd preferred Lincoln. As the intimacy between them increased, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards protested. However honorable and able a man Lincoln might be, he was still a "plebeian." His family were humble and poor; he was self-educated, without address or polish, careless of forms, indifferent to society. How could Mary Todd, brought up in a cultured home, accustomed to the refinements of life, and with ambition for social position, accommodate herself to so grave a nature, so dull an exterior? Miss Todd knew her own mind, however. She loved Lincoln, and seems to have believed from the first in his future. Some time in 1840 they became engaged.

But it was not long before there came the clashing inevitable between two persons whose tastes and ambitions were so different. Miss Todd was jealous and exacting. Lincoln frequently failed to accompany her to the merry-makings which she wanted to attend. She resented this indifference, which seemed to her a purposed slight, instead of simply a lack of thought on his part, and sometimes she went with Mr. Douglas or any other escort who offered. Reproaches and tears and misunderstanding followed. If the lovers made up, it was only to fall out again. At last Lincoln became convinced that they were incompatible, and resolved that he must break the engagement. But the knowledge that the girl loved him took away his courage. He felt that he must not draw back, and he became profoundly miserable.

"Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort," Lincoln had written Miss Owens three years before. How could he make this brilliant, passionate creature to whom he was betrothed happy?

A mortal dread of the result of the marriage, a harrowing doubt of his own feelings, possessed him. The experience is not so rare in the lives of lovers that it should be regarded, as it often has been, as something exceptional and abnormal in Lincoln's case. A reflective nature founded in melancholy, like Lincoln's, rarely undertakes even the simpler affairs of life without misgivings. He certainly experienced dread and doubt before entering on any new relation. When it came to forming the most delicate and intimate of all human relations, he staggered under a storm of uncertainty and suffering, and finally broke the engagement.

So horrible a breach of honor did this seem to him that he called the day when it occurred the "fatal first of January, 1841," and months afterward he wrote to his intimate friend Speed: "I must regain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability I once prided myself as the only or chief gem of my character; that gem I lost--how and where you know too well. I have not yet regained it, and, until I do, I cannot trust myself in any matter of much importance."

The breaking of the engagement between Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln was naturally known at the time to all their friends. Lincoln's melancholy was evident to them all, nor did he, indeed, attempt to disguise it. He wrote and spoke freely to his intimates of the despair which possessed him, and of his sense of dishonor. The episode caused a great amount of gossip, as was to be expected. After Mr. Lincoln's assassination and Mrs. Lincoln's sad death, various accounts of the courtship and marriage were circulated. It remained, however, for one of Lincoln's law partners, Mr. W.H. Herndon, to develop and circulate the most sensational of all the versions of the rupture. His story would not be referred to here were it not that it has been generally accepted as truthful by even his most conservative biographers, including Mr. John T. Morse and Mr. Carl Schurz. According to Mr. Herndon, the engagement between the two was broken in the most violent and public way possible, by Mr. Lincoln's failing to appear at the wedding. Mr. Herndon even describes the scene in detail:

"The time fixed for the marriage was the first day of January, 1841. Careful preparations for the happy occasion were made at the Edwards mansion. The house underwent the customary renovation; the furniture was properly arranged, the rooms neatly decorated, the supper prepared, and the guests invited. The latter assembled on the evening in question, and awaited in expectant pleasure the interesting ceremony of marriage. The bride, bedecked in veil and silken gown, and nervously toying with the flowers in her hair, sat in the adjoining room. Nothing was lacking but the groom. For some strange reason he had been delayed. An hour passed, and the guests, as well as the bride, were becoming restless. But they were all doomed to disappointment. Another hour passed; messengers were sent out over town, and each returning with the same report, it became apparent that Lincoln, the principal in this little drama, had purposely failed to appear. The bride, in grief, disappeared to her room; the wedding supper was left untouched; the guests quietly and wonderingly withdrew; the lights in the Edwards mansion were blown out, and darkness settled over all for the night. What the feelings of a lady as sensitive, passionate, and proud as Miss Todd were, we can only imagine; no one can ever describe them. By daybreak, after persistent search, Lincoln's friends found him. Restless, gloomy, miserable, desperate, he seemed an object of pity. His friends, Speed among the number, fearing a tragic termination, watched him closely in their rooms day and night. 'Knives and razors, and every instrument that could be used for self-destruction, were removed from his reach.' Mrs. Edwards did not hesitate to regard him as insane, and of course her sister Mary shared in that view."

No one can read this description in connection with the rest of Mr. Herndon's text, and escape the impression that, if it is true, there must have been a vein of cowardice in Lincoln. The context shows that he was not insane enough to excuse such a public insult to a woman. To break his engagement was, all things considered, not in any way an unusual or abnormal thing; to brood over the rupture, to blame himself, to feel that he had been dishonorable, was to be expected, after such an act, from one of his temperament. Nothing, however, but temporary insanity or constitutional cowardice could explain such conduct as here described. Mr. Herndon does not pretend to found his story on any personal knowledge of the affair. He was in Springfield at the time, a clerk in Speed's store, but did not have then, nor, indeed, did he ever have, any social relations with the families in which Mr. Lincoln was always a welcome guest. His only authority for the story is a remark which he says Mrs. Ninian Edwards made to him in an interview: "Lincoln and Mary were engaged; everything was ready and prepared for the marriage, even to the supper. Mr. Lincoln failed to meet his engagement; cause, insanity." This remark, it should be noted, is not from a manuscript written by Mrs. Edwards, but in a report of an interview with her, written by Mr. Herndon. Supposing, however, that the statement was made exactly as Mr. Herndon reports it, it certainly does not justify any such sensational description as Mr. Herndon gives.

If such a thing had ever occurred, it could not have failed to be known, of course, even to its smallest details, by all the relatives and friends of both Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln. Nobody, however, ever heard of this wedding party until Mr. Herndon gave his material to the public.

One of the closest friends of the Lincolns throughout their lives was a cousin of Mrs. Lincoln's, Mrs. Grimsley, afterwards Mrs. Dr. Brown. Mrs. Grimsley lived in Springfield, on the most intimate and friendly relations with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, and the first six months of their life in the White House she spent with them. She was a woman of unusual culture, and of the rarest sweetness and graciousness of character. No one could look on her face without feeling her perfect sincerity and goodness. Some months before Mrs. Brown's death, in August, 1895, a copy of Mr. Herndon's story was sent her, with a request that she write for publication her knowledge of the affair. In her reply she said:

"Did Mr. Lincoln fail to appear when the invitations were out, the guests invited, and the supper ready for the wedding? I will say emphatically, 'No.'

"There may have been a little shadow of foundation for Mr. Herndon's lively imagination to play upon, in that, the year previous to the marriage, and when Mr. Lincoln and my cousin Mary expected soon to be married, Mr. Lincoln was taken with one of those fearful, overwhelming periods of depression, which induced his friends to persuade him to leave Springfield. This he did for a time; but I am satisfied he was loyal and true to Mary, even though at times he may have doubted whether he was responding as fully as a manly, generous nature should to such affection as he knew my cousin was ready to bestow on him. And this because it had not the overmastering depth of an early love. This everybody here knows; therefore I do not feel as if I were betraying dear friends."

Mrs. John Stuart, the wife of Lincoln's law partner at that time, is still living in Springfield, a refined, cultivated, intelligent woman, who remembers perfectly the life and events of that day. When Mr. Herndon's story first came to her attention, her indignation was intense. She protested that she never before had heard of such a thing. Mrs. Stuart was not, however, in Springfield at that particular date, but in Washington, her husband being a member of Congress. She wrote the following statement for this biography:

"I cannot deny this, as I was not in Springfield for some months before and after this occurrence was said to have taken place; but I was in close correspondence with relatives and friends during all this time, and never heard a word of it. The late Judge Broadwell told me that he had asked Mr. Ninian Edwards about it, and Mr. Edwards told him that no such thing had ever taken place.

"All I can say is that I unhesitatingly do not believe such an event ever occurred. I thought I had never heard of this till I saw it in Herndon's book. I have since been told that Lamon mentions the same thing. I read Lamon at the time he published, and felt very much disgusted, but did not remember this particular assertion. The first chapters of Lamon's book were purchased from Herndon; so Herndon is responsible for the whole.

"Mrs. Lincoln told me herself all the circumstances of her engagement to Mr. Lincoln, of his illness, and the breaking off of her engagement, of the renewal, and her marriage. So I say I do not believe one word of this dishonorable story about Mr. Lincoln."

Another prominent member in the same circle with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd is Mrs. B.T. Edwards, the widow of Judge Benjamin T. Edwards, and sister-in-law of Mr. Ninian Edwards, who had married Miss Todd's sister. She came to Springfield in 1839, and was intimately acquainted with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd, and knew, as well as another could know, their affairs. Mrs. Edwards is still living in Springfield, a woman of the most perfect refinement and trustworthiness. In answer to the question, "Is Mr. Herndon's description true?" she writes:

"I am impatient to tell you that all that he says about this wedding--the time for which was 'fixed for the first day of January'--is a fabrication. He has drawn largely upon his imagination in describing something which never took place.

"I know the engagement between Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd was interrupted for a time, and it was rumored among her young friends that Mr. Edwards had rather opposed it. But I am sure there had been no 'time fixed' for any wedding; that is, no preparations had ever been made until the day that Mr. Lincoln met Mr. Edwards on the street and told him that he and Mary were going to be married that evening. Upon inquiry, Mr. Lincoln said they would be married in the Episcopal church, to which Mr. Edwards replied: 'No; Mary is my ward, and she must be married at my house.'

"If I remember rightly, the wedding guests were few, not more than thirty; and it seems to me all are gone now but Mrs. Wallace, Mrs. Levering, and myself, for it was not much more than a family gathering; only two or three of Mary Todd's young friends were present. The 'entertainment' was simple, but in beautiful taste; but the bride had neither veil nor flowers in her hair, with which to 'toy nervously.' There had been no elaborate _trousseau_ for the bride of the future President of the United States, nor even a handsome wedding gown; nor was it a gay wedding."

Two sisters of Mrs. Lincoln's who are still living, Mrs. Wallace of Springfield, and Mrs. Helm of Elizabethstown, Kentucky, deny emphatically that any wedding was ever arranged between Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd but the one which did take place. That the engagement was broken after a wedding had been talked of, they think possible; but Mr. Herndon's story, they deny emphatically.

"There is not a word of truth in it!" Mrs. Wallace broke out, impulsively, before the question about the non-appearance of Mr. Lincoln had been finished. "I never was so amazed in my life as when I read that story. Mr. Lincoln never did such a thing. Why, Mary Lincoln never had a silk dress in her life until she went to Washington."

As Mr. Joshua Speed was, all through this period, Mr. Lincoln's closest friend, no thought or feeling of the one ever being concealed from the other, Mrs. Joshua Speed, who is still living in Louisville, Kentucky, was asked if she knew of the story. Mrs. Speed listened in surprise to Mr. Herndon's tale. "I never heard of it before," she declared. "I never heard of it. If it is true, I never heard of it."

In all of these cases the opinion of only those persons intimately connected with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd has been asked. Care has been taken, too, to apply only to persons whose character put them beyond the suspicion of distorting facts.

Quite unexpectedly, some months ago, a volunteer witness to the falsity of the story appeared. The Hon. H.W. Thornton of Millersburg, Illinois, was a member of the Twelfth General Assembly, which met in Springfield in 1840. During that winter he was boarding near Lincoln, saw him almost every day, was a constant visitor at Mr. Edwards's house, and he knew Miss Todd well. He wrote to this magazine declaring that Mr. Herndon's statement about the wedding must be false, as he was closely associated with Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln all winter, and never knew anything of it. Mr. Thornton went on to say that he knew beyond a doubt that the sensational account of Lincoln's insanity was untrue, and he quoted from the House journal to show how it was impossible that, as Lamon says, using Herndon's notes, "Lincoln went crazy as a loon, and did not attend the legislature in 1841-1842, for this reason;" or, as Herndon says, that he had to be watched constantly. According to the record taken from the journals of the House sent us by Mr. Thornton, and which we have had verified in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln was in his seat in the House on that "fatal first of January" when he is asserted to have been groping in the shadow of madness, and he was also there on the following day. The third of January was Sunday. On Monday, the fourth, he appears not to have been present--at least he did not vote; but even this is by no means conclusive evidence that he was not there. On the fifth, and on every succeeding day until the thirteenth, he was in his seat. From the thirteenth to the eighteenth, inclusive, he is not recorded on any of the roll-calls, and probably was not present. But on the nineteenth, when "John J. Hardin announced his illness to the House," as Mr. Herndon says (which announcement seems not to have gotten into the journal), Lincoln was again in his place, and voted. On the twentieth he is not recorded; but on every subsequent day, until the close of the session on the first of March, Lincoln was in the House. Thus, during the whole of the two months of January and February, he was absent not more than seven days--as good a record as to attendance, perhaps, as that made by the average member.

Mr. Thornton says further: "Mr. Lincoln boarded at William Butler's, near to Dr. Henry's, where I boarded. The missing days, from January 13th to 19th, Mr. Lincoln spent several hours each day at Dr. Henry's; a part of these days I remained with Mr. Lincoln. His most intimate friends had no fears of his injuring himself. He was very sad and melancholy, but being subject to these spells, nothing serious was apprehended. His being watched, as stated in Herndon's book, was news to me until I saw it there."

But while Lincoln went about his daily duties, even on the "fatal first of January," his whole being was shrouded in gloom. He did not pretend to conceal this from his friends. Writing to Mr. Stuart on January 23d, he said: "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, it appears to me. The matter you speak of on my account you may attend to as you say, unless you shall hear of my condition forbidding it. I say this because I fear I shall be unable to attend to any business here, and a change of scene might help me."

In the summer he visited his friend Speed, who had sold his store in Springfield, and returned to Louisville, Kentucky. The visit did much to brighten his spirits, for, writing back in September, after his return, to his friend's sister, he was even gay.

A curious situation arose the next year (1842), which did much to restore Lincoln to a more normal view of his relation to Miss Todd. In the summer of 1841, his friend Speed had become engaged. As his marriage approached, he in turn was attacked by a melancholy not unlike that which Lincoln had suffered. He feared he did not love well enough to marry, and he confided his fear to Lincoln. Full of sympathy for the trouble of his friend, Lincoln tried in every way to persuade him that his "twinges of the soul" were all explained by nervous debility. When Speed returned to Kentucky, Lincoln wrote him several letters, in which he consoled, counselled, or laughed at him. These letters abound in suggestive passages. From what did Speed suffer? From three special causes and a general one, which Lincoln proceeds to enumerate:

"The general cause is, that you are naturally of a nervous temperament; and this I say from what I have seen of you personally, and what you have told me concerning your mother at various times, and concerning your brother William at the time his wife died. The first special cause is your exposure to bad weather on your journey, which my experience clearly proves to be very severe on defective nerves. The second is the absence of all business and conversation of friends, which might divert your mind, give it occasional rest from the intensity of thought which will sometimes wear the sweetest idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of death. The third is the rapid and near approach of that crisis on which all your thoughts and feelings concentrate."

Speed writes that his _fiancée_ is ill, and his letter is full of gloomy forebodings of an early death. Lincoln hails these fears as an omen of happiness.

"I hope and believe that your present anxiety and distress about her health and her life must and will forever banish those horrid doubts which I know you sometimes felt as to the truth of your affection for her. If they can once and forever be removed (and I almost feel a presentiment that the Almighty has sent your present affliction expressly for that object), surely nothing can come in their stead to fill their immeasurable measure of misery.... I am now fully convinced that you love her as ardently as you are capable of loving. Your ever being happy in her presence, and your intense anxiety about her health, if there were nothing else, would place this beyond all dispute in my mind. I incline to think it probable that your nerves will fail you occasionally for a while; but once you get them firmly guarded now, that trouble is over forever. I think, if I were you, in case my mind were not exactly right, I would avoid being idle. I would immediately engage in some business or go to making preparations for it, which would be the same thing."

Mr. Speed's marriage occurred in February, and to the letter announcing it Lincoln replied:

"I tell you, Speed, our forebodings (for which you and I are peculiar) are all the worst sort of nonsense. I fancied, from the time I received your letter of Saturday, that the one of Wednesday was never to come, and yet it did come, and what is more, it is perfectly clear, both from its tone and handwriting, that you were much happier, or, if you think the term preferable, less miserable, when you wrote it than when you wrote the last one before. You had so obviously improved at the very time I so much fancied you would have grown worse. You say that something indescribably horrible and alarming still haunts you. You will not say that three months from now, I will venture. When your nerves once get steady now, the whole trouble will be over forever. Nor should you become impatient at their being even very slow in becoming steady. Again, you say, you much fear that that Elysium of which you have dreamed so much is never to be realized. Well, if it shall not, I dare swear it will not be the fault of her who is now your wife. I now have no doubt that it is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me to dream dreams of Elysium far exceeding all that anything earthly can realize."

His prophecy was true. In March Speed wrote him that he was "far happier than he had ever expected to be." Lincoln caught at the letter with an eagerness which is deeply pathetic:

"It cannot be told how it now thrills me with joy to hear you say you are far happier than you ever expected to be. I know you too well to suppose your expectations were not, at least, sometimes extravagant, and if the reality exceeds them all, I say, Enough, dear Lord! I am not going beyond the truth when I tell you that the short space it took me to read your last letter gave me more pleasure than the total sum of all I have enjoyed since the fatal 1st of January, 1841. Since then, it seems to me, I should have been entirely happy, but for the never absent idea that there is one still unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That still kills me. I cannot but reproach myself for even wishing to be happy while she is otherwise. She accompanied a large party on the railroad cars to Jacksonville last Monday, and on her return spoke, so that I heard of it, of having enjoyed the trip exceedingly. God be praised for that."

Evidently Lincoln was still unreconciled to his separation from Miss Todd. In the summer of 1842, only three or four months after the above letter was written, a clever ruse on the part of certain of their friends threw the two unexpectedly together; and an understanding of some kind evidently was come to, for during the season they met secretly at the house of one of Lincoln's friends, Mr. Simeon Francis. It was while these meetings were going on that a burlesque encounter occurred between Lincoln and James Shields, for which Miss Todd was partly responsible, and which no doubt gave just the touch of comedy necessary to relieve their tragedy and restore them to a healthier view of their relations.

THE LINCOLN AND SHIELDS DUEL.

Among the Democratic officials then living in Springfield was one James Shields, auditor of the State. He was a hot-headed, blustering Irishman, not without ability, and certainly courageous; a good politician, and, on the whole, a very well-liked man. However, the swagger and noise with which he accompanied the execution of his duties, and his habit of being continually on the defensive, made him the butt of Whig ridicule. Nothing could have given greater satisfaction to Lincoln and his friends than having an opponent who, whenever they joked him, flew into a rage and challenged them to fight.

At the time when Lincoln was visiting Miss Todd at Mr. Francis's house, the Whigs were much excited over the fact that the Democrats had issued an order forbidding the payment of State taxes in State bank-notes. The bank-notes were in fact practically worthless, for the State finances were suffering a violent reaction from the extravagant legislation of 1836 and 1837. One of the popular ways of attacking an obnoxious political doctrine in that day was writing letters from some imaginary backwoods settlement, setting forth in homely vernacular the writer's views of the question, and showing how its application affected his part of the world. These letters were really a rude form of the "Bigelow Papers" or "Nasby Letters." Soon after the order was issued by the Illinois officials demanding silver instead of bank-notes in payment of taxes, Lincoln wrote a letter to a Springfield paper from the "Lost Townships," signing it "Aunt Rebecca." In it he described the plight to which the new order had brought the neighborhood, and he intimated that the only reason for issuing such an order was that the State officers might have their salaries paid in silver. Shields was ridiculed unmercifully in the letter for his vanity and his gallantry.

It happened that there were several young women in Springfield who had received rather too pronounced attention from Mr. Shields, and who were glad to see him tormented. Among them were Miss Todd and her friend Miss Julia Jayne. Lincoln's letter from the "Lost Townships" was such a success that they followed it up with one in which "Aunt Rebecca" proposed to the gallant auditor, and a few days later they published some very bad verses, signed "Cathleen," celebrating the wedding.[1]

Springfield was highly entertained, less by the verses than by the fury of Shields. He would have satisfaction, he said, and he sent a friend, one General Whitesides, to the paper, to ask for the name of the writer of the communications. The editor, in a quandary, went to Lincoln, who, unwilling that Miss Todd and Miss Jayne should figure in the affair, ordered that his own name be given as the author of letters and poem. This was only about ten days after the first letter had appeared, on September 2d, and Lincoln left Springfield in a day or two for a long trip on the circuit. He was at Tremont when, on the morning of the seventeenth, two of his friends, E.H. Merryman and William Butler, drove up hastily. Shields and his friend Whitesides were behind, they said, the irate Irishman vowing that he would challenge Lincoln. They, knowing that Lincoln was "unpractised both as to diplomacy and weapons," had started as soon as they had learned that Shields had left Springfield, had passed him in the night, and were there to see Lincoln through.

It was not long before Shields and Whitesides arrived, and soon Lincoln received a note in which the indignant auditor said: "I will take the liberty of requiring a full, positive, and absolute retraction of all offensive allusions used by you in these communications in relation to my private character and standing as a man, as an apology for the insults conveyed in them. This may prevent consequences which no one will regret more than myself."

Lincoln immediately replied that, since Shields had not stopped to inquire whether he really was the author of the articles, had not pointed out what was offensive in them, had assumed facts and hinted at consequences, he could not submit to answer the note. Shields wrote again, but Lincoln simply replied that he could receive nothing but a withdrawal of the first note or a challenge. To this he steadily held, even refusing to answer the question as to the authorship of the letters, which Shields finally put. It was inconsistent with his honor to negotiate for peace with Mr. Shields, he said, unless Mr. Shields withdrew his former offensive letter. Seconds were immediately named: Whitesides by Shields, Merryman by Lincoln; and though they talked of peace, Whitesides declared he could not mention it to his principal. "He would challenge me next, and as soon cut my throat as not."

This was on the nineteenth, and that night the party returned to Springfield. But in someway the affair had leaked out, and fearing arrest, Lincoln and Merryman left town the next morning. The instructions were left with Butler. If Shields would withdraw his first note, and write another asking if Lincoln was the author of the offensive articles, and, if so, asking for gentlemanly satisfaction, then Lincoln had prepared a letter explaining the whole affair. If Shields would not do this, there was nothing to do but fight. Lincoln left the following preliminaries for the duel:

"_First._ Weapons: Cavalry broadswords of the largest size, precisely equal in all respects, and such as now used by the cavalry company at Jacksonville.

"_Second_. Position: A plank ten feet long, and from nine to twelve inches broad, to be firmly fixed on edge on the ground, as the line between us, which neither is to pass his foot over on forfeit of his life. Next, a line drawn on the ground on either side of said plank and parallel with it, each at the distance of the whole length of the sword and three feet additional from the plank; and the passing of his own such line by either party during the fight shall be deemed a surrender of the contest.

"_Third_. Time: On Thursday evening at five o'clock, if you can get it so; but in no case to be at a greater distance of time than Friday evening at five o'clock.

"_Fourth_. Place: Within three miles of Alton, on the opposite side of the river, the particular spot to be agreed upon by you."

As Mr. Shields refused to withdraw his first note, the entire party started for the rendezvous across the Mississippi. Lincoln and Merryman drove together in a dilapidated old buggy, in the bottom of which rattled a number of broadswords. It was the morning of the 22d of September when the duellists arrived in the town. There are people still living in Alton who remember their coming. "The party arrived about the middle of the morning," says Mr. Edward Levis,[2] "and soon crossed the river to a sand-bar which at the time was, by reason of the low water, a part of the Missouri mainland. The means of conveyance was an old horse-ferry that was operated by a man named Chapman. The weapons were in the keeping of the friends of the principals, and no care was taken to conceal them; in fact, they were openly displayed. Naturally, there was a great desire among the male population to attend the duel, but the managers of the affair would not permit any but their own party to board the ferry-boat. Skiffs were very scarce, and but a few could avail themselves of the opportunity in this way. I had to content myself with standing on the levee and watching proceedings at long range."

The party had scarcely reached the sand-bar before they were joined by some unexpected friends. Lincoln and Merryman, on their way to Alton, had stopped at White Hall for dinner. Across the street from the hotel lived Mr. Elijah Lott, an acquaintance of Merryman's. Mr. Lott was not long in finding out what was on foot, and as soon as the duellists had departed, he drove to Carrollton, where he knew that Colonel John J. Hardin and several other friends of Lincoln were attending court, and warned them of the trouble. Hardin and one or two others immediately started for Alton. They arrived in time to calm Shields, and to aid the seconds in adjusting matters "with honor to all concerned."

That the duellists returned in good spirits is evident from Mr. Levis's reminiscences: "It was not very long," says he, "until the boat was seen returning to Alton. As it drew near I saw what was presumably a mortally wounded man lying on the bow of the boat. His shirt appeared to be bathed in blood. I distinguished Jacob Smith, a constable, fanning the supposed victim vigorously. The people on the bank held their breath in suspense, and guesses were freely made as to which of the two men had been so terribly wounded. But suspense was soon turned to chagrin and relief when it transpired that the supposed candidate for another world was nothing more nor less than a log covered with a red shirt. This ruse had been resorted to in order to fool the people on the levee; and it worked to perfection. Lincoln and Shields came off the boat together, chatting in a nonchalant and pleasant manner."

MARRIAGE OF LINCOLN AND MISS TODD.

The Lincoln-Shields duel had so many farcical features, and Miss Todd had unwittingly been so much to blame for it, that one can easily see that it might have had considerable influence on the relations of the two young people. However that may be, something had made Mr. Lincoln feel that he could renew his engagement. Early in October, not a fortnight after the duel, he wrote Speed: "You have now been the husband of a lovely woman nearly eight months. That you are happier now than the day you married her I well know, for without you would not be living. But I have your word for it, too, and the returning elasticity of spirits which is manifested in your letters. But I want to ask a close question: Are you now in feelings as well as judgment glad that you are married as you are?"

We do not know Speed's answer, nor the final struggle of the man's heart. We only know that on November 4, 1842, Lincoln was married, the wedding being almost impromptu. Mrs. Dr. Brown, Miss Todd's cousin, in the same letter quoted from above, describes the wedding:

"One morning, bright and early, my cousin came down in her excited, impetuous way, and said to my father: 'Uncle, you must go up and tell my sister that Mr. Lincoln and I are to be married this evening,' and to me: 'Get on your bonnet and go with me to get my gloves, shoes, etc., and then to Mr. Edwards's.' When we reached there we found some excitement over a wedding being sprung upon them so suddenly. However, my father, in his lovely, pacific way, 'poured oil upon the waters,' and we thought everything was 'ship-shape,' when Mrs. Edwards laughingly said: 'How fortunately you selected this evening, for the Episcopal Sewing Society is to meet here, and my supper is all ordered.'

"But that comfortable little arrangement would not hold, as Mary declared she would not make a spectacle for gossiping ladies to gaze upon and talk about; there had already been too much talk about her. Then my father was despatched to tell Mr. Lincoln that the wedding would be deferred until the next evening. Clergyman, attendants and intimate friends were notified, and on Friday evening, in the midst of a small circle of friends, with the elements doing their worst in the way of rain, this singular courtship culminated in marriage. This I know to be literally true, as I was one of her bridesmaids, Miss Jayne (afterwards Mrs. Lyman Trumbull) and Miss Rodney being the others."

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: Mr. Charles Lamb, now passing his declining years quietly on his farm, a dozen miles from Springfield, Illinois, was a compositor on the "Sangamo Journal" from 1836 to 1843, and it was he who put into type the poem by "Cathleen," which, with the "Lost Townships" letters, led General Shields to challenge Lincoln. "This poem," says Mr. Lamb, "was written by Mary Todd and Julia Jayne, afterward the wife of Senator Lyman Trumbull. After I had set up the poem, I took the copy from the hook and put it into my pocket. When Lincoln was informed by Simeon Francis, the editor of the 'Journal,' that Shields had demanded the name of the author of the verses, he came around to the office and asked for the copy. I produced it, and he picked up a pen and wrote his name across the top of the page. This, of course, meant that he assumed the responsibility for the production. I retained this copy until a few years ago, when, unhappily, it was destroyed. My recollection is that the 'Lost Townships' letters were set up by Mr. Francis himself. Mr. Lincoln was a frequent contributor to the 'Journal,' and it usually fell to my lot to set up his contributions."--_J. McCan Davis._]

[Footnote 2: Interview with Mr. Edward Levis made for this Magazine.]

"PHROSO."

A TALE OF BRAVE DEEDS AND PERILOUS VENTURES.

BY ANTHONY HOPE, AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," ETC.