Chapter 26

Through that of the art of printing, the fruits of observation and reflection, of discoveries and inventions, with all the accumulated stores of previously acquired knowledge, are preserved and widely diffused. The application of gunpowder to the art of war has forever settled the long conflict for ascendency between civilization and barbarism, in favor of the former, and thereby guaranteed that, whatever knowledge is now accumulated, or may hereafter be added, shall never again be lost.

The numerous discoveries and inventions, chemical and mechanical, and the application of steam to machinery, have increased many fold the productive powers of labor and capital, and have thereby greatly increased the number who may devote themselves to study and improvement, and the amount of means necessary for commercial exchanges, especially between the more and the less advanced and civilized portions of the globe, to the great advantage of both, but particularly of the latter.

The application of steam to the purposes of travel and transportation, by land and water, has vastly increased the facility, cheapness, and rapidity of both: diffusing, with them, information and intelligence almost as quickly and as freely as if borne by the winds; while the electrical wires outstrip them in velocity, rivaling in rapidity even thought itself.

The joint effect of all this has been a great increase and diffusion of knowledge; and, with this, an impulse to progress and civilization heretofore unexampled in the history of the world, accompanied by a mental energy and activity unprecedented.

To all these causes, public opinion, and its organ, the press, owe their origin and great influence. Already they have attained a force in the more civilized portions of the globe sufficient to be felt by all governments, even the most absolute and despotic. But, as great as they now are, they have, as yet, attained nothing like their maximum force. It is probable that not one of the causes which have contributed to their formation and influence, has yet produced its full effect; while several of the most powerful have just begun to operate; and many others, probably of equal or even greater force, yet remain to be brought to light.

When the causes now in operation have produced their full effect, and inventions and discoveries shall have been exhausted--if that may ever be--they will give a force to public opinion, and cause changes, political and social, difficult to be anticipated. What will be their final bearing, time only can decide with any certainty.

That they will, however, greatly improve the condition of man ultimately, it would be impious to doubt; it would be to suppose that the all-wise and beneficent Being, the Creator of all, had so constituted man as that the employment of the high intellectual faculties with which He has been pleased to endow him, in order that he might develop the laws that control the great agents of the material world, and make them subservient to his use, would prove to him the cause of permanent evil, and not of permanent good.

NOTE.--This selection is an extract from "A Disquisition on Government." Mr. Calhoun expected to revise his manuscript before it was printed, but death interrupted his plans.

XCVII. ENOCH ARDEN AT THE WINDOW. (347)

Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892, was born in Somerby, Lincolnshire, England; his father was a clergyman noted for his energy and physical stature. Alfred, with his two older brothers, graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first volume of poems appeared in 1830; it made little impression, and was severely treated by the critics. On the publication of his third series, in 1842, his poetic genius began to receive general recognition. On the death of Wordsworth he was made poet laureate, and he was then regarded as the foremost living poet of England. "In Memoriam," written in memory of his friend Arthur Hallam, appeared in 1850; the "Idyls of the King," in 1858; and "Enoch Arden," a touching story in verse, from which the following selection is taken, was published in 1864. In 1883 he accepted a peerage as Baron Tennyson of Aldworth, Sussex, and of Freshwater, Isle of Wight. ###

But Enoch yearned to see her face again; "If I might look on her sweet face again And know that she is happy." So the thought Haunted and harassed him, and drove him forth, At evening when the dull November day Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. There he sat down gazing on all below; There did a thousand memories roll upon him, Unspeakable for sadness. By and by The ruddy square of comfortable light, Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house, Allured him, as the beacon blaze allures The bird of passage, till he mildly strikes Against it, and beats out his weary life.

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, The latest house to landward; but behind, With one small gate that opened on the waste, Flourished a little garden, square and walled: And in it throve an ancient evergreen, A yew tree, and all round it ran a walk Of shingle, and a walk divided it: But Enoch shunned the middle walk, and stole Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence That which he better might have shunned, if griefs Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.

For cups and silver on the burnished board Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth: And on the right hand of the hearth he saw Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees; And o'er her second father stooped a girl, A later but a loftier Annie Lee, Fair-haired and tall, and from her lifted hand Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring To tempt the babe, who reared his creasy arms, Caught at and ever missed it, and they laughed: And on the left hand of the hearth he saw The mother glancing often toward her babe, But turning now and then to speak with him, Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong, And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled.

Now when the dead man come to life beheld His wife, his wife no more, and saw the babe, Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness. And his own children tall and beautiful, And him, that other, reigning in his place, Lord of his rights and of his children's love, Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, Because things seen are mightier than things heard, Staggered and shook, holding the branch, and feared To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry, Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

He, therefore, turning softly like a thief, Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot, And feeling all along the garden wall, Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, Crept to the gate, and opened it, and closed, As lightly as a sick man's chamber door, Behind him, and came out upon the waste. And there he would have knelt but that his knees Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug His fingers into the wet earth, and prayed.

"Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence? O God Almighty, blessed Savior, Thou That did'st uphold me on my lonely isle, Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness A little longer! aid me, give me strength Not to tell her, never to let her know. Help me not to break in upon her peace. My children too! must I not speak to these? They know me not. I should betray myself. Never!--no father's kiss for me!--the girl So like her mother, and the boy, my son!"

There speech and thought and nature failed a little, And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced Back toward his solitary home again, All down the long and narrow street he went Beating it in upon his weary brain, As tho' it were the burden of a song, "Not to tell her, never to let her know."

NOTE.--Enoch Arden had been wrecked on an uninhabited island, and was supposed to be dead. After many years he was rescued, and returned home, where he found his wife happily married a second time. For her happiness, he kept his existence a secret, but soon died of a broken heart.

XCVIII. LOCHINVAR. (350)

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; And save his good broadsword, he weapon had none, He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone! So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar!

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Eske River where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar!

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall, Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all: Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword-- For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word-- "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;-- Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide-- And now am I come, with this lost love of mine, To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up, He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; And the bridemaidens whispered, "'Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near, So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung! "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur: They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran; There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? -- Walter Scott.

NOTES.--The above selection is a song taken from Scott's poem of "Marmion." It is in a slight degree founded on a ballad called "Katharine Janfarie," to be found in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border."

The Solway Frith, on the southwest coast of Scotland, is remarkable for its high spring tides.

Bonnet is the ordinary name in Scotland for a man's cap.

XCIX. SPEECH ON THE TRIAL OF A MURDERER. (352)

Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I can not have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

This is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lionlike temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in an example, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal nature, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character.

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet,--the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock by soft and continued pressure till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death!

It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart; and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder; no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe!

Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon; such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and wilt come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, everything, every circumstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery.

Meantime, the guilty soul can not keep its own secret. It is false to itself, or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God nor man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. --Daniel Webster.

NOTE.--The above extract is from Daniel Webster's argument in the trial of John F. Knapp for the murder of Mr. White, a very wealthy and respectable citizen of Salem, Mass, Four persons were arrested as being concerned in the conspiracy; one confessed the plot and all the details of the crime, implicating the others, but he afterwards refused to testify in court. The man who, by this confession, was the actual murderer, committed suicide, and Mr. Webster's assistance was obtained in prosecuting the others. John F. Knapp was convicted as principal, and the other two as accessaries in the murder.

C. THE CLOSING YEAR. (355)

George Denison Prentice, 1802-1870, widely known as a political writer, a poet, and a wit, was born in Preston, Connecticut, and graduated at Brown University in 1823. He studied law, but never practiced his profession. He edited a paper in Hartford for two years; and, in 1831, he became editor of the "Louisville Journal," which position he held for nearly forty years. As an editor, Mr. Prentice was an able, and sometimes bitter, political partisan, abounding in wit and satire; as a poet, he not only wrote gracefully himself, but he did much by his kindness and sympathy to develop the poetical talents of others. Some who have since taken high rank, first became known to the world through the columns of the "Louisville Journal." ###

'T is midnight's holy hour, and silence now Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds, The bell's deep notes are swelling; 't is the knell Of the departed year.

No funeral train Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood, With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred As by a mourner's sigh; and, on yon cloud, That floats so still and placidly through heaven, The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand-- Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, And Winter, with his aged locks--and breathe In mournful cadences, that come abroad Like the far wind harp's wild and touching wail, A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year, Gone from the earth forever.

'Tis a time For memory and for tears. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold And solemn finger to the beautiful And holy visions, that have passed away, And left no shadow of their loveliness On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts The coffin lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love, And, bending mournfully above the pale, Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers O'er what has passed to nothingness.

The year Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, And they are not. It laid its pallid hand Upon the strong man; and the haughty form Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er The battle plain, where sword, and spear, and shield Flashed in the light of midday; and the strength Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, Green from the soil of carnage, waves above The crushed and moldering skeleton. It came, And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, It heralded its millions to their home In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time!-- Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe!--what power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity! On, still on He presses, and forever. The proud bird, The condor of the Andes, that can soar Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave The fury of the northern hurricane, And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness; And Night's deep darkness has no chain to bind His rushing pinion.

Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise, Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, And rush down, like the Alpine avalanche, Startling the nations; and the very stars, Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away, To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time, Time the tomb builder, holds his fierce career, Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, To sit and muse, like other conquerors, Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

CI. A NEW CITY IN COLORADO. (358)

Helen Hunt Jackson, 1830-1885, was the daughter of the late Professor Nathan W. Fiske, of Amherst College. She was born in Amherst, and educated at Ipswich, Massachusetts, and at New York. Mrs. Jackson was twice married. In the latter years of her life, she became deeply interested in the Indians, and wrote two books, "Ramona," a novel, and "A Century of Dishonor," setting forth vividly the wrongs to which the red race has been subjected. She had previously published several books of prose and poetry, less important but charming in their way. The following selection is adapted from "Bits of Travel at Home." ###

Garland City is six miles from Fort Garland. The road to it from the fort lies for the last three miles on the top of a sage-grown plateau. It is straight as an arrow, looks in the distance like a brown furrow on the pale gray plain, and seems to pierce the mountains beyond. Up to within an eighth of a mile of Garland City, there is no trace of human habitation. Knowing that the city must be near, you look in all directions for a glimpse of it; the hills ahead of you rise sharply across your way. Where is the city? At your very feet, but you do not suspect it.

The sunset light was fading when we reached the edge of the ravine in which the city lies. It was like looking unawares over the edge of a precipice; the gulch opened beneath us as suddenly as if the earth had that moment parted and made it. With brakes set firm, we drove cautiously down the steep road; the ravine twinkled with lights, and almost seemed to flutter with white tents and wagon tops. At the farther end it widened, opening out on an inlet of the San Luis Park; and, in its center, near this widening mouth, lay the twelve-days-old city. A strange din arose from it.