CHAPTER VIII.

When I descended from my room to the kitchen, the next evening, arrayed for my visit, with all the elegance of which my simple wardrobe admitted, Mrs. Bray exclaimed,--

"Well, Sandy, I protest, you do look smart! But don't be set up, 'cause you keep high company. I s'pose, knowin Amos was a family man, and couldn't go visitin' round, they took a notion to you."

Annie followed me to the door, saying,--

"You must remember to tell me about the picture, Sandy, and what they say of yours; and do look at the plants Miss Merton promised to show me, and see just how she looks herself."

"And anything more?" I asked, laughing.

"Yes,--what they say to you. You look as handsome to-night, Sandy, as the tall gentleman with Miss Merton,--only such a very different handsome!"

"Then you admired his appearance?" I asked, lingering. "I fancied you were too busy looking at Miss Merton to think of him."

But Annie continued to unfold her opinion without noticing my remark.

"I should be afraid he wouldn't care for me, if I didn't look and act just as he wanted me to. I don't like his way of being handsome, Sandy, so well as yours."

Unconsciously, Annie was making her first experiment in analysis; and as I did not quite relish the basis upon which my beauty rested, I bade her good-night, and hurried away.

I knew I was not handsome, yet Annie's naïve admiration undoubtedly braced me to face the evening. In my gray eye there was nothing of the soft, dreamy expression usually supposed to accompany the æsthetic temperament. On the contrary, it had the earnest, scrutinizing glance peculiar to a more restless intellect than mine. The intent gaze of some ancestor, perhaps, looked out from these "windows of my soul." If so, and his spirit was occasionally permitted to view the world through me, the "fancy gardening" in which I so extensively indulged could scarcely have been congenial to his tastes. The eye was the salient point, however, of a countenance not otherwise noticeable, except from a girlish habit I had of coloring whenever I was suddenly addressed.

When I reached Hillside, I rang the bell with some trepidation, which was increased by the announcement of the servant that the ladies were at the tea-table. This trifling annoyance of presenting myself at the tea-hour, when expected to pass the evening, was sufficiently serious to my awkwardness to threaten my enjoyment of the visit; but I had scarcely seated myself in the library when Miss Darry appeared.

"I hoped you would be in doubt as to the hour of coming, Sandy, and get here early," she said, smiling brightly. "You must let me thank you for painting that picture for me to look at; I even admired the little white hand of your plebeian friend, it was so charmingly done."

I could not be annoyed at this mingling of praise and badinage, especially when she relieved me from all sense of intrusion. Moreover, she looked so brilliant, so sparkling and happy, that I watched her, amazed at the metamorphosis from her ordinarily calm, intellectual conversation and plain appearance.

"I thought perhaps you would keep the picture to please me, Miss Darry," I faltered, feeling that I was presenting it to an entirely new character.

She accepted it, however, most graciously, and led me into the conservatory, that I might assist her in arranging some baskets of flowers for the parlor-tables.

"I never did believe in conservatories," she exclaimed, as I expressed my admiration of the many rare plants. "It is as unnatural a life for flowers to be crowded together, each in its little pot of earth, as for human beings in their separate beds in a hospital. The idea of shutting up plants and pictures in a room by themselves, to be visited on state occasions, or when some member of the family in a vagrant mood chances unexpectedly among them, seems to me preposterous."

Meanwhile she ran in and out among the flower-stands, breaking off branches of flame-colored azalea, creamy, voluptuous-looking callas, and a variety of drooping blossoms and sprays of green, with a reckless handling of their proud beauty, which I involuntarily contrasted with Annie Bray's timid, half-caressing touch of the wild-flowers.

The umber-colored silk she wore toned down what I, who fancied the delicate sea-shell hue of blondes, should have termed her rather strong colors; and now, bent on my enjoyment rather than improvement, she looked much younger, and certainly far handsomer, than I had supposed she could. Her entire self-possession, the familiarity with which she approached human beings, Nature, and Art, were to me so many indications of her power, and because of my own awe in the presence of any revelation of beauty or intellect, seemed the more wonderful. In admiration of her ease, I became at ease myself, and was thoroughly enjoying her gay mood, which puzzled while it charmed me, when the glass door opening into the drawing-room was pushed aside, and Mr. Lang entered.

"Good evening, Sandy. Alice and Mr. Leopold have been inquiring for you, Miss Darry; but don't run away with those baskets so quickly. I want a few blossoms for Alice's hair. Yours is gorgeous, tropical. Sandy's here has as much of a wild-wood appearance as exotics will admit of. One would think Nature was in league with Darley in making these ferns; they are outlines merely; but this rich red japonica in the centre, on its cushion of white flowers, shows you a genuine colorist, Sandy."

Miss Darry, making some gay reply, gave me a basket, which, designedly or not, made me less awkwardly conscious of my hands, and we entered the drawing-room. Unaccustomed to gayeties of any kind, I was quite dazzled by the sudden and brilliant blaze of light, the few guests already assembled, and by Miss Merton's beauty enveloped in soft floating folds of gossamer, looking as though the mist itself had woven her a garment. No time, however, was given in which I could relapse into self-consciousness. Miss Darry occupied me with various statuettes and engravings, until Mr. Lang rejoined us, accompanied by a gentleman whom he introduced to me as Mr. Leopold, the painter of the picture which I was to see in the course of the evening. Although my reading had necessarily been limited, Miss Darry's persistent training, and my own voracious appetite for information in everything relating to the arts, had given me a somewhat superficial knowledge of the pictures, style, and personal appearance of the best old and modern painters. In spite of some obstinate facts tending to a different conclusion, I had imbibed the conventional idea of a genius, that he must dwell in an etherealized body,--and Mr. Leopold's stalwart frame, full, florid face, and well-rounded features were a surprise and disappointment. I expected the Raphaelesque,--tender grace and melancholy; but about these frank blue eyes and full red lips lurked the good-nature of a healthy school-boy, the quaint, unchecked humor of a man upon whose life had fallen the sunshine of prosperity.

"So, you are the young man, Mr. Allen, who painted the Spring Flowers and the Maiden's Hand," he said, in a full, rich voice, and with a genial smile. "It is evident, you, too, are in your spring-time, while I, near my autumn, can afford to refer to the peculiarities of that period. I cannot regret that you have a life of struggle before you; for it is not merely the pleasing fancy which paints fine pictures. You would have let a sunbeam play over that little hand, had you possessed the technical knowledge to manage it: now, wouldn't you?"

I crimsoned, assenting as though to a crime.

"Effects of sunlight on bright colors are sometimes very striking," he continued. "A crimson flower wet with dew and nodding in sunshine is a kind of tremulous rainbow, which a man might well like to copy. We must make a compact to help each other, Mr. Allen, I want to study human nature, and would like an introduction to all the oddities of the village."

I promised to make him acquainted with them, wondering meanwhile that he craved for his culture what I regarded as the chief obstacle to mine.

"You shall meet Sandy at the forge some day, when work is over, and visit the villagers," said Mr. Lang. "Miss Darry, shall you or I take Mr. Allen to see the picture? He may like a longer inspection of it than some of us."

I looked imploringly at Miss Darry, who, slipping her hand within my arm, led me into a room corresponding to the conservatory in size and position. The walls were mostly covered with cabinet-pictures, and among several larger ones was the recent addition by Mr. Leopold. At my first glance, I was conscious of that sense of disappointment which comes to us when our imagination devises an ideal beauty, which human hands rob of delicacy by the very act of embodiment: moreover, how could I, in my dreamy, undeveloped boy-life, with a fancy just awakened, and revelling in its own tropical creations, appreciate the simple strength, the grand repose of the picture before me? What appeared barren to me in the man and his works was born of the very depth of a nature which, in copying the Infinite, had learned not only the tender beauty of flowers, the consolations of the clouds, the grandeur of mountains, seas, and rocks, but the beauty of common scenes, the grass and herbage of daily intercourse and use. Touching the world at all points, he had something to give and receive from nearly every one he met; and, as Sydney Smith has said Dr. Chalmers was a thousand men in one, I can say that he had the versatility and power of ten ordinary artists. At the time, however, nothing of all this was in my mind; only a certain sense of satisfaction took the place of disappointment, as I looked at the picture. He had given clearly the impression of magnitude in the gigantic mass of gray limestone which juts out of the deep blue Spanish sea. Misty flakes of dispersing cloud above suggested the recent rain which had clothed its frequently barren sides with a mantle of verdure. A few bell-shaped blossoms hung over crevices of rock, fearless in the frail foothold of their thread-like stems, as innocent child-faces above a precipice. It was in this simple way, and by the isthmus of sand connecting it to the continent, long and level, like the dash Nature made after so grand a work, before descending to the commonplaces of ordinary creation, that he had toned down the grandeur of stern old Gibraltar.

Miss Darry Indulged me long in my desire to look at the first fine picture I had ever seen; but when other guests entered, we withdrew to the farther side of the room, where I was not left in undisturbed possession of her society, though conscious that she never, for a moment, lost sight of me or my manner of acquitting myself. Miss Merton, Miss Darry, Mr. Lang, Mr. Leopold, and a few others, formed the group of talkers; and I stood within the circle, a listener, until Miss Darry and Mr. Leopold obliged me to participate. They had an admirable power of drawing each other out, and he seemed greatly attracted by her brilliant criticisms of life and Art. Had I known of the theory which, robbed of its metaphysical subtilties, is advanced in some of our fashionable romances, I should have been convinced that evening that Miss Darry was, intellectually at least, my counterpart. If I faltered in my vocabulary, when expressing an opinion or replying to a question, she supplied the missing word, or by glance and approving smile reassured me to recall it; if my thought lacked shape and completeness, she gave it a few sharp cuts with the chisel of her keen wit and clear intellect, handing it back for me to color as I chose. Miss Merton, lovely as she was, shone with a lesser light that evening in Miss Darry's presence; yet Mr. Lang, tempted away for a moment, always rejoined her with an admiring smile, well pleased at fascinations less indiscriminately exercised.

A little later, as I again approached Mr. Leopold's picture, not venturing to return to the parlors, now that Miss Darry was engrossed by other gentlemen, I became an unwilling listener to a few words of conversation between Miss Merton and Mr. Lang, who stood just outside the door.

"What a girl Frank Darry is for accomplishing everything she undertakes!" said Miss Merton, admiringly; "how she has improved her _protégé_! he can talk on subjects where I have to be silent, though I have had what dear mamma used to call a 'finished education.'"

"Yes, darling. She has made his mental growth very rapid; but, in the process of cultivation, he is gaining a little false pride, which I hope is not of her planting. He blushes, whenever his trade is alluded to: foolish fellow! not to see that the very fact of being a blacksmith is his claim to superiority. A thoroughly trained youth might have done far more than he without any special ability."

"But, Hamilton, you may misconstrue blushes which are so frequent; he is in a new world, too; do give him a chance to make himself at home, before you criticize him. You must admit I was right about his not annoying one by any decided awkwardness of behavior."

"Oh, yes, dear. A certain sense of fitness goes with the artistic temperament. I suppose old Dr. Johnson, devouring his food and drinking innumerable cups of tea, might be a far more shocking social companion than this blacksmith's apprentice. You are always drawing out the lovable traits of people, dear Alice," he added, in a lower tone; "and that is a thousand times better than Frank Darry's intellectual developments."

They turned away then; and I, angry at being forced to listen at all to what was not meant for my ear, and the more so that Mr. Lang had spoken of me so depreciatingly, stood burning with shame and indignation. Annie Bray's undoubting faith and love would have comforted me without a word of spoken confidence; but she was not here to give it; and, longing for the reassurance of Miss Darry's presence, I entered the drawing-room,--but would gladly have withdrawn again, for Mr. Lang came quickly toward me.

"Sandy," he said, "this may not be exactly the time to discuss business matters with you; but your friends seem to feel that you deserve a better chance in the world. Mr. Bray, to whom I spoke yesterday, says you were not bound to serve him after your eighteenth birthday, but that you have never expressed a wish to leave. Don't you see what a foolish fellow you are to work for him, when you might be earning for yourself?"

"But I have had no money to start with. I have had time for study, too," I stammered.

"Two reasons sufficient for an abstracted youth like you, but utterly unpractical. I want you to hire a forge this side of Warren. I will insure you custom enough to warrant the step."

He looked at me keenly as he spoke, while I colored with the pride and indignation which, since his words to Miss Merton a few moments before, I had been trying to control. Was this to be the end of all my hopes, the object of Miss Darry's instructions, her flattering encouragements and exaggerated estimate of my "genius," as she had termed it, that I might have a forge of my own, to which I should be compelled to give undivided attention, and shoe Mr. Lang's horses, and possibly some others belonging to Miss Merton's visitors? Yet, remembering how much had been already, if unwisely, done for me, I held down these thoughts, and, after a momentary pause, professed my willingness to think the matter over, if I could reserve time for other pursuits. His face lighted up, then, with the smile which had charmed me at the forge.

"You are not spoiled yet, Sandy, I see. If you will only keep to your trade, I will keep you to your art. You must have a boy at the forge, and in the afternoons you can come here and paint under Mr. Leopold's direction: he makes his home here during the summer, and he says you have a talent worth cultivation."

The revulsion of feeling was as complete as he could have desired; and I had not fully expressed my gratitude when Miss Darry appeared. I went with her to bid Miss Merton good-evening, and she stood in the moonlight beside me on the step, as Annie Bray had done a few hours before; but now I also was a changed character.

"I am proud of my pupil, Sandy," she said, with more of her ordinary manner than I had observed during the evening. "If I can place you in better hands than mine, I shall be willing to give you up."

"Give me up? never!" I cried, "Why, Miss Darry, this evening has proved to me that I could not sustain myself in any untried position without some help from you."

She smiled, saying I was ridiculously unconscious of my own ability, and yet looking gratified, I fancied, at the confession.

(_To be continued._)

THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

In the spring of 1860 an article was published in this magazine with the above title, giving an account of the extension of the telegraph up to that time. Its progress since has been very great in every quarter of the globe. Upon this continent the electric wire extends from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, connecting upwards of six thousand cities and villages; while upon the Eastern Continent unbroken telegraphic communication exists from London to all parts of Europe,--to Tripoli and Algiers, in Africa,--Cairo, in Egypt,--Teheran, in Persia,--Jerusalem, in Syria,--Bagdad and Nineveh, in Asiatic Turkey,--Bombay, Calcutta, and other important cities, in India,--Irkoutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia,--and to Kiakhta, on the borders of China.

But however rapid the extension of the telegraph has been in the past, it is destined to show still greater advancement in the future. Neither the American nor the European system has yet attained to its ultimate development. Transient wars now delay the establishment of lines in San Juan, Panama, Quito, Lima, Valparaiso, Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, Rio Janeiro, Surinam, Caraccas, and Mexico, and the incorporating of them, with all their local ramifications, into one American telegraph system. The Atlantic cable, although its recent attempted submergence has proved a failure, will yet be successfully laid; while the equally important enterprise of establishing overland telegraphic communication with Europe _viâ_ the Pacific coast and the Amoor River is now being vigorously pushed forward towards its successful completion.

The latter project, which is being carried out by the Western Union Extension Telegraph Company, with a capital of ten million dollars, embraces the construction of a line of telegraph from New Westminster, British Columbia, the northern terminus of the California State Telegraph Company, through British Columbia and Russian America to Cape Prince of Wales, and thence across Behring's Strait to East Cape; or, if found more practicable, from Cape Romanzoff to St. Lawrence Island, thence to Cape Tchuktchi, and thence by an inland route around the Sea of Okhotsk to the mouth of the Amoor River. At this point it is to be joined by the line now being constructed by the Russian Government to connect with Irkoutsk, where a line of telegraph begins, which stretches through Tomsk and Omsk, in Western Siberia, Katharinburg, on the Asiatic-European frontier, Perm, Kasan, Nijni-Novogorod, and Moscow, to St. Petersburg.

This line, which was projected by Perry McDonough Collins, Esq., United States Commercial Agent for the Amoor River, with its extension by the Russian Government to Irkoutsk, is the link now wanted to supply direct and unbroken telegraphic communication from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, on the eastern coast of America, across the Western Continent, the Pacific Ocean, and the Eastern Continent, to Cape Clear, in Ireland, the westernmost projection of Europe; and when a submarine cable shall be successfully laid between Cape Clear and Cape Race, will complete a telegraphic circuit around the earth between the parallels of forty-two and sixty-five degrees of north latitude.

The chief difficulties to be anticipated in Mr. Collins's enterprise are the extent of the territory to be traversed, its wild and rugged surface formation, and the uncivilized character of its inhabitants.

The distance to be traversed through British America is six hundred miles; through Russian America, nineteen hundred miles; the length of the submarine cable across Behring's Strait, four hundred miles; and the distance from East Cape, by an inland passage around the Sea of Okhotsk, and through the settlements of Okhotsk, Ayan, and Shanter's Bay, which are well-known stations of the whale-fishery, to the mouth of the Amoor River, is about twenty-five hundred miles. The entire length of the line would thus be about five thousand four hundred miles.

That portion of the route which lies through British Columbia is chiefly mountainous, but divided into three ranges, whose courses are from north to south, while intervening valleys invite the introduction of telegraphs and roads. The Pacific coast of Russian America is mainly level. The portion of Siberia which lies between East Cape and the head of the Sea of Okhotsk is, for a large extent, a steppe or plain, with gentle elevations occasionally rising into mountainous ridges. At the head of the Sea of Okhotsk a range of mountains must be crossed; and the region lying between that range and the mouth of the Amoor River is of the same character as that before mentioned, which extends from the same range northward to East Cape. The electric telegraph has already been carried over steppes, in both continents, similar to those above described; and the Pacific telegraph line, in crossing the Sierra Nevada, rises to an elevation greater than that which is to be surmounted on this line.

Suitable timber for setting up the line can be found on those portions of the route lying within British Columbia and the Russian dominions on each continent, with the exception of an unwooded steppe five hundred miles wide on each side of Behring's Strait. Here the needful timber can be brought near to the line, either by sea or from the forest-covered shores of navigable rivers.

The temperature of the region through which the northern part of the line would pass is very low; but the winter is less severe than between the same parallels of latitude on the Atlantic coast. The telegraphic line which connects St. Petersburg with Archangel, on the White Sea, and that also which passes around the Gulf of Bothnia and connects St. Petersburg with Tornea, are maintained in operation without difficulty, although they cross as high parallels of latitude as those which lie in the way of this overland line to Europe. The waters of Behring's Strait are about one hundred and eighty feet deep, and they are frozen through one half of the year; but the congealed mass, when broken, generally takes the form of anchor ice, and not that of iceberg. Thus climate seems to offer no serious obstacle to the enterprise; while it is worthy of consideration that in high latitudes timber is far less perishable than in low, and less insulating material is required in cold regions than in more genial climates.

Indian tribes are found along the American part of the route, but they have been so well subjected to the influences of society and government, through the operations of the fur-trade, that no serious resistance from them is apprehended. The inhabitants of Asiatic Russia, who dwell inland, are nomadic Tartars, affecting much independence, but they are, nevertheless, not savages, like the American natives. After centuries of internal war, they have now settled into a state of semi-civilization, in which they are accustomed to barter with whalers, with exploring parties, and with the Government agents of Russia, and they are hospitably inclined by that intercourse. Thus it is seen that there are no insuperable obstacles, either physical or social, in the way of this projected line of intercontinental telegraph.

From New Westminster, the capital of British Columbia, situated on Frazer River, about fifteen miles from its mouth, and the terminus of the California State Telegraph, the line of the Collins Overland Telegraph has already been commenced. A letter from Mr. F. L. Pope, Assistant-Engineer of the Overland Company, dated June 13th, 1865, states that the work on this portion of the line is proceeding with great energy. Scarcely two months had elapsed since active operations were commenced; and yet during that time nearly three hundred miles of poles had been cut and prepared for use, a large number had been set, and the remainder had been already distributed along the line. The poles are nearly all of cedar, and of good size, and will form one of the most durable lines on the American continent. When the extremely mountainous and difficult nature of the country along the Frazer River is taken into consideration, the rapidity with which this large amount of work has been done is extraordinary. It seems quite probable that the line will be finished the present season from New Westminster to Quesnell River, the terminus of the wagon-road to the mines.

The Colonial Government are now engaged in cutting a road from New Westminster to Yale, a distance of about ninety miles, along which the wire will be carried. There has heretofore been no communication between these points except by water. The river is bordered on both sides by high mountains and dense forests of heavy timber, with an almost impenetrable undergrowth. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Mr. Conway, one of the telegraph engineers, made an exploration of the entire route, during the latter part of last winter, on snow-shoes, being at one time three days in the woods without food or blankets.

From Yale to the Quesnell River, a distance of some three hundred miles, the line will follow the wagon-road, which has been built at an enormous expense by the Colonial Government, as a means of communication with the gold-mining regions of Carriboo. It will be a matter of considerable difficulty to set up a line of telegraph over that portion of this road which passes through the great canon, as in many places the road has a perpendicular wall of rock upon one side and a perpendicular precipice on the other, and in one place is carried around the face of a cliff in this manner, at an elevation of some two thousand feet, directly over the river, being in some places blasted out of the solid rock, and in others supported by a sort of staging.

Two exploring parties have been dispatched from San Francisco: one to examine the route through Eastern Siberia, between Behring's Strait and the Amoor; and the other to follow the proposed route up the Frazer River in British Columbia, and thence along the valley supposed to exist between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range, to the head-waters of Pelly River, following down the valley of this river and the Yerkin, into which it empties, to a point near the mouth of the latter, or in the neighborhood of Behring's Strait.

The Pacific Telegraph Line, which will form an important link in the overland line to Europe, was projected in 1859, when the measure was first brought to the attention of Congress. A bill in aid of the project was passed after some opposition, and proposals for the construction of the line were invited by Secretary Cobb. Mr. Hiram Sibley, President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, who was really the originator of the whole enterprise, submitted to the directors of the Company the question of authorizing him to send in proposals; but so formidable did the undertaking appear, that the proposition was carried only by a single vote.

After long and tedious delays on the part of Secretary Cobb, the contract for building the line was awarded, on the 20th of September, 1860, to Mr. Sibley, on behalf of the Western Union Telegraph Company. The Company at once assumed the contract, and furnished all the money required for the line east of Salt Lake.

Mr. J. H. Wade, of Cleveland, one of the officers of the Company, now visited California to confer with parties familiar with the various routes, to determine where and how to build the line, and to arrange with the telegraph companies in the Pacific States to extend their lines eastward and form a business connection. The California Company agreed to assume the construction of the line to Salt Lake City, and, if possible, to have it completed to that point as soon as the line from the eastward reached there. The route selected was _viâ_ Forts Kearney, Laramie, and Bridger, crossing the Rocky Mountains at the South Pass, and thence to Salt Lake City; and from this point, _viâ_ Forts Crittenden and Churchill, across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Placerville and San Francisco. Mr. Edward Creighton, who had already surveyed the proposed route, and was convinced of the feasibility of maintaining a line over it, was appointed superintendent of construction.

The Company was organized April 17th, 1862, after which time nearly all the wire, insulators, and other material had to be manufactured before the construction of the line could be proceeded with. The reader can judge of the extent of the preparations required for setting up two thousand miles of telegraph through a wilderness inhabited only by Indians and wild beasts, and a part of which was a desert. The materials and tools were taken to Omaha, Kansas, at which point everything necessary for the enterprise was gathered in readiness to start westward.

Of the force employed on the Pacific side we have no knowledge; but for the line from Omaha to Salt Lake City, Mr. Creighton had four hundred men, fitted out for a hard campaign, with a rifle and navy-revolver for each man, and with the necessary provisions, including one hundred head of cattle for beef, to be driven with the train and killed as needed. For the transportation of the material and the supplies for this army of workmen, five hundred oxen and mules and over one hundred wagons were purchased by the Company; and these not proving sufficient, other transportation was hired, making the total number of beasts of burden seven hundred oxen and one hundred pair of mules.

The first pole was set up on the 4th of July, 1862, and the line was completed to Salt Lake on the 18th of October following,--the California party reaching the same point six days later. The work proceeded at the rate of about ten miles per day.

The whole line is upon poles,--it being thought best to cross the rivers in this manner rather than by means of submarine cables. The country is for the most part bare of wood; the longest distance, however, that timber had to be drawn in one stretch was two hundred and forty miles. The poles are of large size, and stand eighty to the mile, more than half of red cedar, the remainder mostly pine. On the highest mountains, where the snow accumulates to a great depth during the winter, they are of extra size, and sufficiently tall to keep the wires above the deepest snow; they are also placed close enough together to prevent the wire being broken by an accumulation of snow and sleet.

The wire used in this line is No. 9 iron, zinc-coated, weighing three hundred and fifty pounds to the mile, and the total weight used between Omaha and San Francisco amounts to seven hundred thousand pounds. The insulators are of glass, protected by a wooden shield, of the pattern known as the Wade insulator.

The line is worked by Morse instruments, usually direct from Chicago to Salt Lake, Hicks's self-acting repeaters being kept in the circuit at Omaha and Fort Laramie. At Salt Lake the messages are rewritten, and thence sent direct to San Francisco. The stations average about one for each fifty miles, and the whole length of the line is inspected twice a week by persons employed for the purpose. The cost of construction was about two hundred and fifty dollars per mile.

No trouble was experienced from Indian depredations until the last winter. Up to that time the line had worked almost uninterruptedly. Even during the Indian difficulties of the previous summer and autumn, which compelled the suspension of the overland mail, the telegraph was not in any manner molested by the savages. This was supposed to be owing in a great measure to the influence of superstitious fear among them in regard to the wire, which they supposed to be under the especial care of the Great Spirit; but it was probably largely due also to the many kind offices done them by the telegraph-operators, who frequently ascertained where the buffalo were in force, and informed their red-skinned neighbors, who were thus enabled to find their favorite game. The charm is now, however, unfortunately, dispelled; and the savages take every opportunity to break and carry off the wire and destroy the poles. Government is dispatching a large force of cavalry to punish the marauders and protect the line, which it is to be hoped may prove effectual.

* * * * *

It has already been mentioned that the Russian Government has undertaken to extend the main eastern and western line from Irkoutsk to the mouth of the Amoor River. This extension is now rapidly progressing. But this is only a single and not very prominent part of the work which the Emperor of Russia has begun. His design embraces nothing less than the following stupendous works, namely:--

A line, with the necessary submarine cables, from the mouth of the Amoor River, across the Straits of Tartary, over the island of Sakhalien, across the Straits of La Pérouse, over the Island of Jesso, through Hakodadi, and across the Straits of Sangar, to Jeddo, the capital of Japan.

A line from the confluence of the Usuri with the Amoor, seven hundred miles above the mouth of the latter, thence southward, on the bank of the Usuri, to Lake Kingka, and thence to the port of Vladi Vastok, on the coast of Tartary, opposite the port of Hakodadi, on the eastern coast of the Japanese Sea. Vladi Vastok is selected by the Emperor for his naval station on the Pacific coast.

A line from Irkoutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, through Kiakhta, now the entrepôt of European and Chinese overland commerce, through the vast territory of the Mongols, to the gate in the Chinese wall at Yahol, and thence to Pekin, the capital of the Chinese Empire.[E]

A line from a station on the main continental line at Omsk, near the southern boundary of Asiatic Russia, passing through Mongolia, and entering China at Hirck, sometimes called Illy, thence crossing Turkistan, Bokhara, and Balk, to Cabool, in Afghanistan, thence to capital places in the Punjaub, where it will meet the telegraphic system of India, and thus become a medium of communication between London and the colonial dependencies of Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Portugal, on the shores and islands of the great Indian Ocean.

A line from Kasan, on the main central Russian line, through Georgia and Circassia, along the western shore of the Caspian Sea, to Teheran, the capital of Persia, thence to the Tigris, at Bagdad, thence descending along the banks of that river to the head of the Persian Gulf, there to be connected with the Oriental telegraph system of India.

The line from Irkoutsk to Pekin American citizens residing in China are now soliciting, with good prospect of success, permission from the Chinese Government to extend through the Empire, with the needful branches, connecting the principal ports along the Pacific coast, opposite California. A company to carry out this project has been organized under the laws of the State of New York. The wires of this company are first to be put up from Canton to Macao and Hong Kong, a distance of 140 miles,--Canton having a population of 1,000,000, Hong-Kong of 40,000, and the trade of both cities world-famous. Lying 245 miles north is Amoy, with 250,000 inhabitants; and 120 miles farther in the same direction is Foochow, a city with a population of 600,000, and within 70 miles of the black-tea districts, with large commerce, and with numerous manufactures of great value. Beyond it 250 miles is Ningpo, with 300,000 inhabitants, and thriving manufactures of silks. Eighty miles north is Shanghai, a city of not less than 200,000 inhabitants, and possessing a larger inland or native trade than any other in China. Yet between these great marts there is no telegraphic communication whatever,--nor, indeed, is there a line in any part of the whole Chinese Empire. The company proposes, therefore, to connect these great commercial cities, and, having done that, to carry on its line to Nankin, with its 400,000 inhabitants, and thence to Pekin, which has a population of 2,000,000, and is the capital of an empire spread over an area of 5,000,000 square miles, and containing more than 420,000,000 souls, who pay to the Government an annual revenue of $120,000,000. It may well be understood, that, for Government purposes alone, a line of telegraph thus extending between the chief cities of China will prove of incalculable value, alike in its use, and in its profits to those who erect it and receive its income. The enterprise is a great one, but its reward will be great. Its successful accomplishment seems to be well assured; and New York may expect presently to claim the honor of first giving to the oldest of existing empires the beneficent invention which the newest of nations created, and at the same time of taking the final step for the completion of the one great line which is to put all the countries of the earth in instant communication.

A line from Calcutta to Canton is already undertaken by an English company, with due authority from the British Government.

In Australia there are now in operation twelve thousand miles of telegraph-wire. This Australian system, which is at present so purely local and isolated, is nevertheless expected to be brought into combination, by alternating submarine and island wires, with the Chinese and Russian line above described.

The statistics of the telegraph-lines in Great Britain show not only an increase in the number of lines, but a great augmentation in the amount of business transacted. In 1861 there were 11,528 miles of line open for public use; in 1862, 12,711 miles; and in 1863, 13,892 miles, comprising 65,012 miles of wire. Last year, the number of stations was augmented in like proportion; and facilities were offered for the transmission of telegraphic dispatches at no fewer than 1,755 stations, containing 6,196 instruments, through which about 3,400,000 telegrams were sent. In addition to the lines on British soil, the Submarine Telegraph Company has cables stretching to Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, Jersey, Ostend, Hanover, and Denmark, with which the other lines are more or less in connection, covering 887 miles with 2,683 miles of wire. This company has upwards of 3,000 stations on the Continent. The messages sent by it to and from foreign countries were, in 1861, 230,000; in 1862, 310,595; and in 1863, 345,784.

France possesses a system comprising 71,034 miles of wire and 1,301 stations, which transmit about 1,500,000 private dispatches annually, and nearly 175,000 official ones. Russia has 36,663 miles of wire; Austria, 22,230; Italy, 20,120; Prussia, 24,149; Spain, 17,743; Belgium, 3,773; Switzerland, 3,720; Turkey, 6,571; Persia, 2,500; Greece, 3,000; India, 10,994, and 136 stations; Australia, 12,000; South Australia, 2,000; the United States, 120,000; the British Provinces in America, 20,000;--making a total of upwards of 440,000 miles of aërial wire in operation in all parts of the world.

* * * * *

The following tables give the details of the principal cables hitherto laid by all makers. They are divided into three heads: 1st, Those which have been wholly successful, and are now working (September, 1865); 2d, Those which were partially successful, having worked for a time; 3d, Those which wholly failed, or never worked after their submergence.

TABLE I.

_Submarine Telegraph Cables which are now in Successful Working Order._

Column A: No. Column B: Date when laid. Column C: From Column D: To Column E: Number of conducting wires. Column F: Length of cable in statute miles. Column G: Length of insulated wire in statute miles. Column H: Maximum depth of water in fathoms. Column I: Weight in tons per statute mile. Column J: Length of time the cables have worked. Years.

A B C D E F G H I J

1 1851 Dover Calais 4 27 108 30 6.00 14 2 1852 Keyhaven Hurst Castle 4 3 12 .. .. 13 3 1853 Denmark Across the Belt 3 18 54 15 4.00 12 4 1853 Dover Ostend 6 80-1/2 483 30 5.75 12 5 1853 Firth of Forth ... 4 5 20 .. 7.00 12 6 1853 England Holland 1 120 120 30 1.75 12 7 1853 Portpatrick Donaghadee 6 25 150 160 6.00 12 8 1854 Portpatrick Whitehead 6 27 162 150 6.00 11 9 1854 Sweden Denmark 3 12 36 14 6.00 11 10 1854 Italy Corsica 6 120 660 325 8.00 11 11 1854 Corsica Sardinia 6 10 60 20 8.00 11 12 1855 Egypt ... 4 10 40 .. 6.00 10 13 1855 Italy Sicily 1 5 5 27 6.00 10 14 1856 Prince Edward Cape Breton 1 12 12 14 2.50 9 Island 15 1857 Norway across ... 1 49 49 300 2.75 8 Fiords 16 1857 Across mouth of ... 1 3 3 .. 1.75 8 Danube 17 1857 Ceylon India 1 60 60 45 2.75 8 18 1858 Italy Sicily 1 8 8 60 5.25 7 19 1858 England Holland 4 140 560 30 9.75 7 20 1858 England Hanover 2 280 560 30 3.00 7 21 1858 Norway across ... 1 16 16 300 2.75 7 Fiords 22 1858 Dardanelles Scio 1 115 115 200 1.00 7 23 1858 Scio Syra 1 85 85 200 1.00 7 24 1859 Alexandria ... 4 2 8 .. 5.25 6 25 1859 England Denmark 3 360 1,104 30 4.00 6 26 1859 Scio Smyrna 1 40 40 40 1.00 6 27 1859 Syra Athens 1 105 105 150 1.00 6 28 1859 Sweden Gottland 1 64 64 80 2.50 6 29 1859 Folkestone Boulogne 6 24 144 32 9.50 6 30 1859 Across rivers ... 1 10 10 .. 4.50 6 in India 31 1859 Otranto Avlona 1 50 50 400 1.00 6 32 1859 Malta Sicily 1 60 60 79 3.25 6 33 1859 Jersey Pirou in France 1 21 21 15 3.75 6 34 1859 South Australia Tasmania 1 140 140 60 2.00 6 35 1860 France Algiers 1 520 520 1,585 1.14 5 36 1860 Denmark (Great Belt) 6 14 84 18 8.00 5 37 1860 Denmark (Great Belt) 3 14 42 18 6.00 5 38 1860 In Arracan ... 1 116 116 50 1.00 5 39 1860 Barcelona Port Mahon 1 198 198 1,400 1.25 5 40 1860 Minorca Majorca 2 35 70 250 2.00 5 41 1860 Iviza Majorca 2 74 148 500 2.00 5 42 1860 San Antonio Iviza 2 76 152 450 2.00 5 43 1861 Corfu Otranto 1 90 90 1,000 2.75 4 44 1861 Norway across ... 1 16 16 300 2.75 4 Fiords 45 1861 Toulon Corsica 1 195 195 1,550 1.14 4 46 1861 Malta Alexandria 1 1,535 1,535 420 1.85 4 47 1861 Beachy Head Dieppe 6 80 320 30 8.00 4 48 1862 Abermawr Grenore 4 63 252 58 5.25 3 49 1862 England Holland 4 130 520 30 9.00 3 50 1862 Across rivers ... 1 2 2 .. .. 3 in Ireland 51 1862 Firth of Forth ... 4 6 24 7 .. 3 52 1862 Fortress Monroe Cherrystone 1 23 23 .. .. 3 53 1862 Fortress Monroe Newport News 1 3 3 .. .. 3 54 1863 Sardinia Sicily 1 243 243 1,200 .. 2 55 1864 Gwadur Fao 1 1,450 1,450 .. .. 1 (Persian Gulf) _____ ______ 6,979 11,127

In addition to the above, there have been laid across American rivers, since 1854, 95 lines, in lengths of from 120 feet to two miles, and comprising from 120 feet to 6 miles of insulated wire each,--making an aggregate of 250 miles of subaqueous wire in operation on this continent, and a total of 6,979 miles of cable, and 11,127 miles of submarine wire in operation in all parts of the world.

TABLE II.

_Submarine Telegraph Cables which have been successful for some Time, but are not now working._

Column A: No. Column B: Date when laid. Column C: From Column D: To Column E: Number of conducting wires. Column F: Length of cable in statute miles. Column G: Length insulated wire in statute miles. Column H: Maximum depth of water in fathoms. Column I: Weight in tons per statute mile. Column J: Length of time the cables have worked.

A B C D E F G H I J

1 1850 Dover Calais 1 25 25 30 .. 1 day. 2 1853 England Holland 1 360 360 30 2.00 5 yrs. (Three Cables) 3 1854 Holyhead Howth 1 75 75 70 2.00 5 " 4 1854 Nantucket Cape Cod 1 25 25 16 .. .... 5 1855 Varna Balaklava 1 355 355 300 0.10 9 mos. 6 1855 Balaklava Eupatoria 1 1 1 .. .. 9 " 7 1856 Martha's Vineyard Cape Cod 1 5 5 15 .. 2 wks. 8 1856 Newfoundland Cape Breton 1 85 85 360 2.50 9 yrs. 9 1857 Sardinia Bona 4 150 600 1,500 .. 3 " 10 1857 Varna Constantinople 1 170 170 .. 0.75 5 " 11 1857 Cape Cod Naushon 1 1 .. .. .. 2 " 12 1857 Martha's Vineyard Nantucket 1 30 30 16 .. 4 " 13 1857 Sardinia Corfu 1 700 700 1,000 0.90 1 " 14 1858 England Channel Islands 1 102 102 60 2.50 3 " 15 1858 Ireland(Atlantic) Newfoundland 1 2,500 2,500 2,400 1.00 23 ds. 16 1859 Singapore Batavia 1 630 630 20 0.04 2 yrs. 17 1859 Suez Kurrachee 1 3,500 3,500 1,910 0.94 6 mos. (Red Sea & India) 18 1859 Spain Africa (Centa) 1 25 25 .. 1.00 1 yr. 19 1859 England Isle of Man 1 36 36 30 2.50 3 yrs. 20 1859 South Australia Tasmania 1 100 100 60 2.00 1 yr. 21 1859 Liverpool Holyhead 2 25 50 14 3.10 1 " 22 1859 Syra Candia 1 150 150 .. 0.89 3 yrs. 23 1860 Across the Mersey .. 1 3 3 .. .. 1 yr. _____ _____ 9,053 9,527

TABLE III.

_Submarine Telegraph Cables Which Are Total Failures._

Column A: No. Column B: Date when laid. Column C: From Column D: To Column E: Number of conducting wires. Column F: Length of cable in statute miles. Column G: Length of insulated wire in statute miles. Column H: Maximum depth of water in fathoms. Column I: Weight in tons per statute mile.

A B C D E F G H I

1 1852 Holyhead Howth 1 75 75 70 0.45 2 1852 Portpatrick Donaghadee 2 17 34 160 .. 3 1852 Portpatrick Donaghadee 5 15 75 160 4.80 4 1854 Holyhead Howth 1 65 65 70 2.00 5 1855 Sardinia Africa 6 50 300 800 8.00 6 1855 Cape Ray Cape North 3 30 90 360 .. 7 1855 Sardinia Africa 3 160 480 1,500 3.70 8 1857 Ireland Newfoundland 1 300 300 2,400 .. (Lost in laying) 9 1859 Candia Alexandria 1 150 150 1,600 0.89 10 1865 Ireland Newfoundland 1 1,300 1,300 2,400 1.75

It will be seen from the above list of failures, that the great extension and success of submarine cables has been attained through many great failure,--among the most prominent being the old and new Atlantic, the Red Sea and India, (which was laid in five sections, that worked from six to nine months each, but was never in working order from end to end,) the Singapore and Batavia, and Sardinia and Corfu. None of these cable, with the exception of the new Atlantic, were tested under water after manufacture, and every one of them was covered with a sheathing of light iron wire, weighing in the aggregate only about fifteen hundred pounds per mile.

These two peculiarities are sufficient to account for every failure which has occurred, with the exception of the new Atlantic. No electrical test will show the presence of flaws in the insulating cover of a wire, unless water, or some other conductor, enters the flaws and establishes an electrical connection between the outside and inside of the cable. All cables now manufactured are tested under water before being laid.

* * * * *

Communication between the Ottoman capital and Western Europe passes through Vienna. From this city to Constantinople there are two distinct lines,--one passing by Semlin and Belgrade to Adrianople, the other by Toultcha, Kustendji, and Varna. There is a third line to Adrianople by Bucharest; and by the opening of the submarine line between Avlona and Otranto, in Italy, the Turkish telegraph service will be in direct communication with the West, without going through Servia or the Moldo-Wallachian Principalities.

Communication between Constantinople and India is maintained over the following route:--To Ismid, 55 miles; thence to Mudurli, 104 miles; thence to Angora, 111 miles; thence to Guzgat, 113 miles; thence to Sivas, 140 miles; Kharpoot, 178 miles; Diarbekir, 77 miles; Mardeen, 61 miles; Djezireh, 104 miles; Mosul, (Nineveh,) 91 miles; Kerkook, 114 miles; Bagdad, 189 miles. From Bagdad to Fao, at the mouth of the Shat-el-Arab, on the Persian Gulf, is 400 miles. From Fao to Kurrachee the submarine cable stretches along the bottom of the Persian Gulf for 1,450 miles; and thence are 500 miles of aërial line across a portion of British India to Bombay.

The accounts of the successful opening of this line tell of the astonishment of the savage Beloochees and Arabs along the Mekran coast at the marvel of a blue spark flashing for the Sahib to the Indus and back again in less time than it takes to smoke a hookah. At Gwadur, no sooner was the cable landed than the people of the surrounding country flocked down to hear and talk of the Feringhee witchcraft. Chiefs of the Beloochees, Muscatees, and Heratees, with their retainers, trod upon each other's toes in their eagerness to see it work. Gwadur has given up the idea that Mahomet taught everything that could be known, and now sits upon the carpet of astonishment and chews the betel-nut of meditation.

The establishment of the electric telegraph in India presented some curious as well as difficult problems. In the first place, it was discovered that the air of India is in a state of constant electrical perturbation of the strongest kind, so that the instruments there mounted went into a high fever and refused to work. Along the north and south lines a current of electricity was constantly passing, which threw the needles out of gear and baffled the signallers. Moreover, the tremendous thunder-storms ran up and down the wires and melted the conductors; the monsoon winds tore the teak-posts out of the sodden ground; the elephants and buffaloes trampled the fallen lines into kinks and tangles; the Delta aborigines carried off the timber supports for fuel, and the wires or iron rods upon them to make bracelets and to supply the Hindoo smitheries; the cotton- and rice-boats, kedging up and down the river, dragged the subaqueous wires to the surface. In addition to these graver difficulties were many of an amusing character. Wild pigs and tigers scratched their skins against the posts in the jungle, and porcupines and bandicoots burrowed them out of the ground. Kites, fishing-eagles, and hooded-crows came in hundreds and perched upon the line to see what on earth it could mean, and sometimes after a thunder-storm, when the wires were wet, were found dead by dozens, the victims of their curiosity, Monkeys climbed the posts and ran along the lines, chattering, and dropping an interfering tail from one wire to another, which tended to confound the conversations of Calcutta. Parrots, with the same contempt for electrical insulation, fastened upon one string by the beak and another by the leg; and in one village, the complacent natives hung their fishing-lines to dry upon them.

In 1856 there were four thousand miles of telegraph-wire stretched over India: some upon bamboo posts, which bent to the storms and thus defied them; some, as in the Madras Presidency, upon monoliths of granite,--these, during the Mutiny, proving worth ten times their cost.

* * * * *

Whilst the telegraph has been thus rapidly encircling the globe with its iron threads, great improvement has been made in the apparatus for transmitting the electrical signals over them. Instruments called translators, or repeaters, have been devised, by which aërial lines may be operated, without repetition, over distances of many thousands of miles. Through the use of this valuable invention upon the California line, operators in New York and San Francisco are able to converse as readily and rapidly as those situated at the extremities of a line only a hundred miles in length.

The enormous increase in the amount of matter to be transmitted over the wires has stimulated the inventive genius of our own country and Europe to produce an apparatus by which the capacity of a wire may be greatly increased. Mr. M. G. Farmer of Boston, Mr. J. G. Smith of Portland, Maine, Dr. Gintl of Germany, and one or two other persons, have solved the problem of the simultaneous transmission of messages over a single wire in opposite directions. But while their apparatus, with the proper arrangement of batteries, will unquestionably permit the accomplishment of this apparent paradox, the natural disturbances upon a wire of any considerable length, together with the inequalities of the current caused by escape in wet weather, have precluded its practical use.

In this country, General Lefferts of New York, and in Europe, Professor Bonelli, have devoted much time and expense to the perfection of apparatus for securing greater rapidity of transmission over the aërial lines.

General Lefferts owns several patents covering inventions of great ingenuity and value, which are now being perfected and will shortly be brought into operation. The apparatus consists of an instrument, operated by keys similar to those of a piano-forte, for punching characters, composed of dots and lines, upon a narrow strip of paper. The paper, when thus prepared, is passed rapidly through an instrument attached to a telegraph-wire, at the other end of which is a similar instrument which runs in unison. The first instrument is provided with a flexible metallic comb, which presses through the perforations in the paper and thus closes the circuit at each dot and line, while the second instrument is provided with a metallic stylus, or pointer, which rests upon a fillet of paper prepared with chemicals, and produces, whenever the circuit is closed, dots and lines of a dark blue color upon the prepared paper. When the paper is prepared by the perforating apparatus, it can be run through the instrument at any rate of speed that is desirable, and it is estimated that with this apparatus one wire may easily perform as much work in a day as ten can under the ordinary arrangement.

In Professor Bonelli's system the dispatch is set up in printing-type, and placed on a little carriage, which is made to pass beneath a comb with five teeth, which are in communication with five aërial wires of the line, at the extremity of which these same wires are joined to the five teeth of a second comb, under which passes a chemically prepared paper, carried along on a little carriage similar to the one at the other end on which the printing-type is placed. If under this arrangement the electric circuit of a battery composed of a sufficient number of elements, and distributed in a certain order, be completed, then, at the same time that the first comb is passing over the printing-type at the one end, the second comb at the other end will trace the dispatch on the prepared paper in beautiful Roman letters, and with so great a rapidity that it may be expected that five hundred messages of twenty words each will be transmitted hourly.

On Wednesday, April 19th, the day of Mr. Lincoln's funeral, eighty-five thousand words of reports were transmitted between Washington and New York, between the hours of 7, P. M., and 1, A. M., being at the rate of over fourteen thousand words per hour. Nine wires were employed for the purpose. Thirteen thousand six hundred words were transmitted by the House printing instruments on a single wire after half past seven o'clock.

A telegraphic message was recently received in London from India in eight hours and a half. This message was forwarded by the Indo-European Telegraph Company, _viâ_ Kurrachee and the Persian Gulf, crossing one half of Asia and the whole of Europe.

During the late Rebellion in this country the telegraph was extensively employed both by the Government and the Insurgents. In the course of the past year, there have been in the service of the Government thirty field-trains, distributed as follows:--In the Army of the Potomac, five; in the Department of the Cumberland, five; in the Department of the Gulf, three; in the Department of North Carolina and Virginia, three; in the Department of the South, two; in the Department of the Tennessee, six; in the Department of the Ohio, two; at the Signal Camp of Instruction, Georgetown, D. C., three; at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, one. Of these trains, some were equipped with five, and others with ten miles of insulated wire. There were carried in the trains lances for setting up the wire, when necessary,--reels, portable by hand, carrying wire made purposely flexible for this particular use,--and various minor appliances, which experience has proved useful. A military organization was directed for each train.

In duty of this kind, the construction of the trains, the equipment to be carried by them, and the military organization to be provided for their use, to enable them to be most rapidly and anywhere brought into action, are the subjects for study: the particular instrument to be equipped is a secondary consideration. The soldiers drilled to the duty of construction acquire in a short time a remarkable skill in the rapid extension of these lines. As was anticipated, they have proved valuable auxiliaries to the services of the corps, and have sometimes rendered them available when they would have been otherwise useless. The greatest distance at which the instruments are reported to have worked is twenty miles. The average distances at which they are used are from five to eight miles. The average speed of the most rapid construction is reported to be at the rate of a slow walk.

At the first Battle of Fredericksburg field-trains were for the first time in the history of the war used on the battle-field, under the fire of the enemy's batteries. The movements to be made on the day of that battle were of the first magnitude. The movements of the retreat were perilous to the whole army. The trains in use contributed something to the success of those movements.

Many incidents are recorded of operators accompanying raiding parties into the enemy's territory and tapping the telegraph-lines, sometimes obtaining valuable information. One is related by the "Selma Rebel." The operator at that place was called to his instrument by some one up the Tennessee and Alabama Road, who desired information as to the number of the forces and supplies at Coosa Bridge. After getting all the information he could, regarding the location and strength of the Rebel forces, he informed the Selma operator that he was attached to the expedition under General Wilson, and that, at that particular time, he was stationed with his instruments up a tree near Monticello, in the hardest rain he ever saw! Permission being given, he sent a dispatch to a young lady in Mobile, and another to a telegraph-operator in the Rebel lines, telling him he loved him as much as before the war. After some other conversation, the Yankee operator clambered down from the tree, mounted his horse, and rode away.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] The Chinese Government has been informed by the Russian Ambassador that the Russian portion of this line to Pekin will be completed by the first of January, 1868.

THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG.

In the month of August, 1865, I set out to visit some of the scenes of the great conflict through which the country has lately passed.

On the twelfth, I reached Harrisburg,--a plain, prosaic town of brick and wood, with nothing especially attractive about it, except its broad-sheeted, shining river, flowing down from the Blue Ridge, around wooded islands, and between pleasant shores.

It is in this region that the traveller from the North first meets with indications of recent actual war. The Susquehanna, on the eastern shore of which the city stands, forms the northern limit of Rebel military operations. The "highwater mark of the Rebellion" is here: along these banks its uttermost ripples died. The bluffs opposite the town are still crested with the hastily constructed breastworks, on which the citizens worked night and day in the pleasant month of June, 1863, throwing up, as it were, a dike against the tide of invasion. These defences were of no practical value. They were unfinished when the Rebels appeared in force in the vicinity. Harrisburg might easily have been taken, and a way opened into the heart of the North. But a Power greater than man's ruled the event. The Power that lifted these azure hills, and spread out the green valleys, and hollowed a passage for the stream, appointed to treason also a limit and a term. "Thus far, and no farther."

The surrounding country is full of lively reminiscences of those terrible times. Panic-stricken populations flying at the approach of the enemy; whole families fugitive from homes none thought of defending; flocks and herds, horses, wagon-loads of promiscuously heaped household stuffs and farm produce; men, women, children, riding, walking, running, driving or leading their bewildered four-footed chattels,--all rushing forward with clamor and alarm under clouds of dust, crowding every road to the river, and thundering across the long bridges regardless of the "five-dollars-fine" notice (though it is to be hoped that the toll-takers did their duty):--such were the scenes which occurred to render the Rebel invasion memorable. The thrifty German farmers of the lower counties did not gain much credit either for courage or patriotism at that time. It was a panic, however, to which almost any community would have been liable. Stuart's famous raid of the previous year was well remembered. If a small cavalry force had swept from their track through a circuit of about sixty miles over two thousand horses, what was to be expected from Lee's whole army? Resistance to the formidable advance of one hundred thousand disciplined troops was of course out of the question. The slowness, however, with which the people responded to the State's almost frantic calls for volunteers was in singular contrast with the alacrity each man showed to run off his horses and get his goods out of Rebel reach.

From Harrisburg, I went, by the way of York and Hanover, to Gettysburg. Having hastily secured a room at a hotel in the Square, (the citizens call it the "Di'mond,") I inquired the way to the battle-ground.

"You are on it now," said the landlord, with proud satisfaction,--for it is not every man that lives, much less keeps a tavern, on the field of a world-famous fight. "I tell you the truth," said he; and, in proof of his words, (as if the fact were too wonderful to be believed without proof,) he showed me a Rebel shell imbedded in the brick wall of a house close by. (N. B. The battle-field was put into the bill.)

Gettysburg is the capital of Adams County: a town of about three thousand souls,--or fifteen hundred, according to John Burns, who assured me that half the population were Copperheads, and that they had no souls. It is pleasantly situated on the swells of a fine undulating country, drained by the headwaters of the Monocacy. It has no special natural advantages,--owing its existence, probably, to the mere fact that several important roads found it convenient to meet at this point, to which accident also is due its historical renown. The circumstance which made it a burg made it likewise a battle-field.

About the town itself there is nothing very interesting. It consists chiefly of two-story houses of wood and brick, in dull rows, with thresholds but little elevated above the street. Rarely a front yard or blooming garden-plot relieves the dreary monotony. Occasionally there is a three-story house, comfortable, no doubt and sufficiently expensive, about which the one thing remarkable is the total absence of taste in its construction. In this respect Gettysburg is but a fair sample of a large class of American towns, the builders of which seem never once to have been conscious that there exists such a thing as beauty.

John Burns, known as "the hero of Gettysburg," was almost the first person whose acquaintance I made. He was sitting under the thick shade of an English elm in front of the tavern. The landlord introduced him as "the old man who took his gun and went into the first day's fight." He rose to his feet and received me with sturdy politeness,--his evident delight in the celebrity he enjoys twinkling through the veil of a naturally modest demeanor.

"John will go with you and show you the different parts of the battle-ground," said the landlord. "Will you, John?"

"Oh, yes, I'll go," said John, quite readily; and we set out at once.

A mile south of the town is Cemetery Hill, the head and front of an important ridge, running two miles farther south to Round Top,--the ridge held by General Meade's army during the great battles. The Rebels attacked on three sides,--on the west, on the north, and on the east; breaking their forces in vain upon this tremendous wedge, of which Cemetery Hill may be considered the point. A portion of Ewell's Corps had passed through the town several days before, and neglected to secure that very commanding position. Was it mere accident, or something more, which thus gave the key to the country into our hands, and led the invaders, alarmed by Meade's vigorous pursuit, to fall back and fight the decisive battle here?

With the old "hero" at my side pointing out the various points of interest, I ascended Cemetery Hill. The view from the top is beautiful and striking. On the north and east is spread a finely variegated farm country; on the west, with woods and valleys and sunny slopes between, rise the summits of the Blue Ridge.

It was a soft and peaceful summer day. There was scarce a sound to break the stillness, save the shrill note of the locust, and the perpetual click-click of the stone-cutters, at work upon the granite headstones of the soldiers' cemetery. There was nothing to indicate to a stranger that so tranquil a spot had ever been a scene of strife. We were walking in the time-hallowed place of the dead, by whose side the martyr-soldiers, who fought so bravely and so well on those terrible first days of July, slept as sweetly and securely as they.

"It don't look here as it did after the battle," said John Burns. "Sad work was made with the tombstones. The ground was all covered with dead horses, and broken wagons, and pieces of shells, and battered muskets, and everything of that kind, not to speak of the heaps of dead." But now the tombstones have been replaced, the neat iron fences have been mostly repaired, and scarcely a vestige of the fight remains. Only the burial-places of the slain are there. _Thirty-five hundred and sixty slaughtered Union soldiers lie on the field of Gettysburg._ This number does not include those whose bodies have been claimed by friends and removed.

The new cemetery, devoted to the patriot slain, and dedicated with fitting ceremonies on the 19th of November, 1863, adjoins the old one. In the centre is the spot reserved for the monument, the corner-stone of which was laid on the 4th of July, 1865. The cemetery is semicircular, in the form of an amphitheatre, except that the slope is reversed, the monument occupying the highest place. The granite headstones resemble rows of semicircular seats. Side by side, with two feet of ground allotted to each, and with their heads towards the monument, rest the three thousand five hundred and sixty. The name of each, when it could be ascertained, together with the number of the company and regiment in which he served, is lettered on the granite at his head. But the barbarous practice of stripping such of our dead as fell into their hands, in which the Rebels indulged here as elsewhere, rendered it impossible to identify large numbers. The headstones of these are lettered, "Unknown." At the time when I visited the cemetery, the sections containing most of the unknown had not yet received their headstones, and their resting-places were indicated by a forest of stakes. I have seen few sadder sights.

The spectacle of so large a field crowded with the graves of the slain brings home to the heart an overpowering sense of the horror and wickedness of war. Yet, as I have said, not all our dead are here. None of the Rebel dead are here. Not one of those who fell on other fields, or died in hospitals and prisons in those States where the war was chiefly waged,--not one out of those innumerable martyred hosts lies on this pleasant hill. The bodies of once living and brave men, slowly mouldering to dust in this sanctified soil, form but a small, a single sheaf from that great recent harvest reaped by Death with the sickle of war.

Once living and brave! How full of life, how full of unflinching courage and fiery zeal, they marched up hither to fight the great fight, and to give their lives! And each man had his history; each soldier resting here had his interests, his loves, his darling hopes, the same as you or I. All were laid down with his life. It was no trifle to him, it was as great a thing to him as it would be to you, thus to be cut off from all things dear in this world, and to drop at once into a vague eternity. Grown accustomed to the waste of life through years of war, we learn to think too lightly of such sacrifices. "So many killed,"--with that brief sentence we glide over the unimaginably fearful fact, and pass on to other details. We indulge in pious commonplaces,--"They have gone to a better world, they have their reward," and the like. No doubt this is true; if not, then life is a mockery, and hope a lie. But the future, with all our faith, is vague and uncertain. It lies before us like one of those unidentified heroes, hidden from sight, deep-buried, mysterious, its headstone lettered "Unknown." Will it ever rise? Through trouble, toils, and privations,--not insensible to danger, but braving it,--these men--and not these only, but the uncounted thousands represented by these--confronted, for their country's sake, that awful uncertainty. Did they believe in your better world? Whether they did or not, this world was a reality, and dear to them.

I looked into one of the trenches in which workmen were laying foundations for the headstones, and saw the ends of the coffins protruding. It was silent and dark down there. Side by side the soldiers slept, as side by side they fought. I chose out one coffin from among the rest, and thought of him whose dust it contained,--your brother and mine, although we never knew him. I thought of him as a child, tenderly reared--for this. I thought of his home, his heart-life:--

"Had he a father? Had he a mother? Had he a sister? Had he a brother? Or was there a nearer one Still, and a dearer one Yet, than all other?"

I could not know: in this world, none will ever know. He sleeps with the undistinguishable multitude, and his headstone is lettered, "Unknown."

Eighteen loyal States are represented by the tenants of these graves. New York has the greatest number,--upwards of eight hundred; Pennsylvania comes next in order, having upwards of five hundred. Tall men from Maine, young braves from Wisconsin, heroes from every state between, met here to defend their country and their homes. Sons of Massachusetts fought for Massachusetts on Pennsylvania soil. If they had not fought, or if our armies had been annihilated there, the whole North would have been at the mercy of Lee's victorious legions. As Cemetery Hill was the pivot on which turned the fortunes of the battle, so Gettysburg itself was the pivot on which turned the destiny of the nation. Here the power of aggressive treason culminated; and from that memorable Fourth of July when the Rebel invaders, beaten in the three days' previous fight, stole away down the valleys and behind the mountains on their ignominious retreat,--from that day, signalized also by the fall of Vicksburg in the West, it waned and waned, until it was swept from the earth.

Cemetery Hill should be the first visited by the tourist of the battle-ground. Here a view of the entire field, and a clear understanding of the military operations of the three days, are best obtained. Looking north, away on your left lies Seminary Ridge, the scene of the first day's fight, in which the gallant Reynolds fell, and from which our troops were driven back in confusion through the town by overwhelming numbers, in the afternoon. Farther south spread the beautiful woods and vales that swarmed with Rebels on the second and third day, and from which they made such desperate charges upon our lines. On the right as you stand is Culp's Hill, the scene of Ewell's furious, but futile, attempts to flank us there. You are in the focus of a half-circle, from all points of which was poured in upon this now silent hill such an artillery fire as has seldom been concentrated upon one point of an open field in any of the great battles upon this planet. From this spot extend your observations as you please.

Guided by the sturdy old man, I proceeded first to Culp's Hill, following a line of breastworks into the woods. Here are seen some of the soldiers' devices hastily adopted for defence. A rude embankment of stakes and logs and stones, covered with earth, forms the principal work; aside from which you meet with little private breastworks, as it were, consisting of rocks heaped up by the trunk of a tree, or beside a larger rock, or across a cleft in the rocks, where some sharpshooter stood and exercised his skill at his ease.

The woods are of oak chiefly, but with a liberal sprinkling of chestnut, black-walnut, hickory, and other common forest-trees. Very beautiful they were that day, with their great, silent trunks, all so friendly, their clear vistas and sun-spotted spaces. Beneath reposed huge, sleepy ledges and boulders, their broad backs covered with lichens and old moss. A more fitting spot for a picnic, one would say, than for a battle.

Yet here remain more astonishing evidences of fierce fighting than anywhere else about Gettysburg. The trees in certain localities are all seamed, disfigured, and literally dying or dead from their wounds. The marks of balls in some of the trunks are countless. Here are limbs, and yonder are whole tree-tops, cut off by shells. Many of these trees have been hacked for lead, and chips containing bullets have been carried away for relics.

Past the foot of the hill runs Rock Creek, a muddy, sluggish stream, "great for eels," said John Burns. Big boulders and blocks of stone lie scattered along its bed. Its low shores are covered with thin grass, shaded by the forest-trees. Plenty of Rebel knapsacks and haversacks lie rotting upon the ground; and there are Rebel graves in the woods near by. By these I was inclined to pause longer than John Burns thought it worth the while. I felt a pity for these unhappy men which he could not understand. To him they were dead Rebels, and nothing more; and he spoke with great disgust of an effort which had been made by certain "Copperheads" of the town to have all the buried Rebels, now scattered about in the woods and fields, gathered together in a cemetery near that dedicated to our own dead.

"Yet consider, my friend," I said, "though they were altogether in the wrong, and their cause was infernal, these, too, were brave men; and under different circumstances, with no better hearts than they had, they might have been lying in honored graves up yonder, instead of being buried in heaps, like dead cattle, down here."

Is there not a better future for these men also? The time will come when we shall at least cease to hate them.

The cicada was singing, insects were humming in the air, crows were cawing in the tree-tops, the sunshine slept on the boughs or nestled in the beds of brown leaves on the ground,--all so pleasant and so pensive, I could have passed the day there. But John reminded me that night was approaching, and we returned to Gettysburg.

That evening I walked alone to Cemetery Hill to see the sun set behind the Blue Ridge. A quiet prevailed there still more profound than during the day. The stonecutters had finished their day's work and gone home. The katydids were singing, and the shrill, sad chirp of the crickets welcomed the cool shades. The sun went down, and the stars came out and shone upon the graves,--the same stars which were no doubt shining even then upon many a vacant home and mourning heart left lonely by the husbands, the fathers, the dear brothers and sons, who fell at Gettysburg.

The next morning, according to agreement, I went to call on the old hero. I found him living in the upper part of a little whitewashed two-story house, on the corner of two streets, west of the town. A flight of wooden steps outside took me to his door. He was there to welcome me. John Burns is a stoutish, slightly bent, hale old man, with a light blue eye, a long, aggressive nose, a firm-set mouth, expressive of determination of character, and a choleric temperament. His hair, originally dark brown, is considerably bleached with age; and his beard, once sandy, covers his face (shaved once or twice a week) with a fine crop of silver stubble. A short, massy kind of man; about five feet four or five inches in height, I should judge. He was never measured but once in his life. That was when he enlisted in the War of 1812. He was then nineteen years old, and stood five feet in his shoes. "But I've growed a heap since," said the old hero.

He introduced me to his wife, a slow, somewhat melancholy old lady, in ill health. "She has been poorly now for a good many years." They have no children.

At my request he told me his story. He is of Scotch parentage; and who knows but he may be akin to the ploughman-poet whose "arrowy songs still sing in our morning air"? He was born and bred in Burlington, New Jersey. A shoemaker by trade, he became a soldier by choice, and fought the British in what used to be the "last war." I am afraid he contracted bad habits in the army. For some years after the war he led a wandering and dissipated life. Forty years ago he chanced to find himself in Gettysburg, where he married and settled down. But his unfortunate habits still adhered to him, and he was long looked upon as a man of little worth. At last, however, when there seemed to be no hope of his ever being anything but a despised old man, he took a sudden resolution to reform. The fact that he kept that resolution, and still keeps it so strictly that it is impossible to prevail upon him to taste a drop of intoxicating liquor, attests a truly heroic will. He was afterwards a constable in Gettysburg, in which capacity he served some six years.

On the morning of the first day's fight he sent his wife away, telling her that he would take care of the house. The firing was near by, over Seminary Ridge. Soon a wounded soldier came into the town and stopped at an old house on the opposite corner. Burns saw the poor fellow lay down his musket, and the inspiration to go into the battle seems then first to have seized him. He went over and demanded the gun.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the soldier.

"I'm going to shoot some of the damned Rebels!" replied John.

He is not a swearing man, and the strong adjective is to be taken in a strictly literal, not a profane, sense.

Having obtained the gun, he pushed out on the Chambersburg Pike, and was soon in the thick of the skirmish.

"I wore a high-crowned hat, and a long-tailed blue; and I was seventy years old."

The sight of so old a man, in such costume, rushing fearlessly forward to get a shot in the very front of the battle, of course attracted attention. He fought with the Seventh Wisconsin Regiment, the Colonel of which ordered him back, and questioned him, and finally, seeing the old man's patriotic determination, gave him a good rifle in place of the musket he had brought with him.

"Are you a good shot?"

"Tolerable good," said John, who is an old fox-hunter.

"Do you see that Rebel riding yonder?"

"I do."

"Can you fetch him?"

"I can try."

The old man took deliberate aim and fired. He does not say he killed the Rebel, but simply that his shot was cheered by the Wisconsin boys, and that afterwards the horse the Rebel rode was seen galloping with an empty saddle. "That's all I know about it."

He fought until our forces were driven back in the afternoon. He had already received two slight wounds, and a third one through the arm, to which he paid little attention: "only the blood running down my hand bothered me a heap." Then, as he was slowly falling back with the rest, he received a final shot through the leg. "Down I went, and the whole Rebel army ran over me." Helpless, nearly bleeding to death from his wounds, he lay upon the field all night. "About sun-up, next morning, I crawled to a neighbor's house, and found it full of wounded Rebels." The neighbor afterwards took him to his own house, which had also been turned into a Rebel hospital. A Rebel surgeon dressed his wounds; and he says he received decent treatment at the hands of the enemy, until a Copperhead woman living opposite "told on him."

"That's the old man who said he was going out to shoot some of the damned Rebels!"

Some officers came and questioned him, endeavoring to convict him of "bushwhacking"; but the old man gave them little satisfaction. This was on Friday, the third day of the battle; and he was alone with his wife in the upper part of the house. The Rebels left, and soon after two shots were fired. One bullet entered the window, passed over Burns's head, and struck the wall behind the lounge on which he was lying. The other shot fell lower, passing through a door. Burns is certain that the design was to assassinate him. That the shots were fired by the Rebels there can be no doubt; and as they were fired from their own side, towards the town, of which they held possession at the time, John's theory was plainly the true one. The hole in the window, and the bullet-marks in the door and wall remain.

Burns went with me over the ground where the first day's fight took place. He showed me the scene of his hot day's work,--pointed out two trees, behind which he and one of the Wisconsin boys stood and "picked off every Rebel that showed his head," and the spot where he fell and lay all night under the stars and dew.

This act of daring on the part of so aged a citizen, and his subsequent sufferings from wounds, naturally called out a great deal of sympathy, and caused him to be looked upon as a hero. But a hero, like a prophet, has not all honor in his own country. There's a wide-spread, violent prejudice against Burns among that class of the townspeople termed "Copperheads." The young men, especially, who did _not_ take their guns and go into the fight as this old man did, but who ran, when running was possible, in the opposite direction, dislike Burns. Some aver that he did not have a gun in his hand that day, and that he was wounded by accident, happening to get between the two lines. Others admit the fact of his carrying a gun into the fight, but tell you, with a sardonic smile, that his "motives were questionable." Some, who are eager enough to make money on his picture, sold against his will, and without profit to him, will tell you in confidence, after you have purchased it, that "Burns is a perfect humbug."

After studying the old man's character, conversing both with his friends and enemies, and sifting evidence, during four days spent in Gettysburg, I formed my conclusions. Of his going into the fight, and _fighting_, there is no doubt whatever. Of his bravery, amounting even to rashness, there can be no reasonable question. He is a patriot of the most zealous sort; a hot, impulsive man, who meant what he said, when he started with the gun to go and shoot some of the Rebels qualified with the strong adjective. A thoroughly honest man, too, I think; although some of his remarks are to be taken with considerable allowance. His temper causes him to form immoderate opinions and to make strong statements. "_He always goes beyant_," said my landlord, a firm friend of his, speaking of this tendency to overstep the bounds of calm judgment.

Burns is a sagacious observer of men and things, and makes occasionally such shrewd remarks as this:--

"Whenever you see the marks of shells and bullets on a house all covered up, and painted and plastered over, that's the house of a Rebel sympathizer; but when you see them all preserved and kept in sight, as something to be proud of, that's the house of a true Union man."

Well, whatever is said or thought of the old hero, he is _what he is_, and has satisfaction in that, and not in other people's opinions; for so it must finally be with all. _Character_ is the one thing valuable. _Reputation_, which is a mere shadow of the man, what his character is _reputed_ to be, is, in the long run, of infinitely less importance.

I am happy to add that the old man has been awarded a pension.

The next day I mounted a hard-trotting horse and rode to Round Top. On the way I stopped at the historical peach-orchard, known as Sherfy's, where Sickles's Corps was repulsed, after a terrific conflict, on Thursday, the second day of the battle. The peaches were green on the trees then; but they were ripe now, and the trees were breaking down with them. One of Mr. Sherfy's girls--the youngest, she told me--was in the orchard. She had in her basket rareripes to sell. They were large and juicy and sweet,--all the redder, no doubt, for the blood of the brave that had drenched the sod. So calm and impassive is Nature, silently turning all things to use! The carcass of a mule, or the godlike shape of a warrior cut down in the hour of glory,--she knows no difference between them, but straightway proceeds to convert both alike into new forms of life and beauty.

Between fields made memorable by hard fighting I rode eastward, and, entering a pleasant wood, ascended Little Round Top. The eastern slope of this rugged knob is covered with timber. The western side is steep, and wild with rocks and bushes. Near by is the Devil's Den, a dark cavity in the rocks, interesting henceforth on account of the fight that took place here for the possession of these heights. A photographic view, taken the Sunday morning after the battle, shows eight dead Rebels tumbled headlong, with their guns, among the rocks below the Den.

A little farther on is Round Top itself, a craggy tusk of the rock-jawed earth pushed up there towards the azure. It is covered all over with broken ledges, boulders, and fields of stones. Among these the forest-trees have taken root,--thrifty Nature making the most of things even here. The serene leafy tops of ancient oaks tower aloft in the bluish-golden air. It is a natural fortress, which our boys strengthened still further by throwing up the loose stones into handy breastworks.

Returning, I rode the whole length of the ridge held by our troops, realizing more and more the importance of that extraordinary position. It is like a shoe, of which Round Top represents the heel, and Cemetery Hill the toe. Here all our forces were concentrated on Thursday and Friday, within a space of three miles. Movements from one part to another of this compact field could be made with celerity. Lee's forces, on the other hand, extended over a circle of seven miles or more around, in a country where all their movements could be watched by us and anticipated.

At a point well forward on the foot of this shoe, Meade had his head-quarters. I tied my horse at the gate, and entered the little square box of a house which enjoys that historical celebrity. It is scarcely more than a hut, having but two little rooms on the ground-floor, and I know not what narrow, low-roofed chambers above. Two small girls, with brown, German faces, were paring wormy apples under the porch; and a round-shouldered, bareheaded, and barefooted woman, also with a German face and a strong German accent, was drawing water at the well. I asked her for a drink, which she kindly gave me, and invited me into the house.

The little box was whitewashed outside and in, except the floor and ceilings and inside doors, which were neatly scoured. The woman sat down to some mending, and entered freely into conversation. She was a widow, and the mother of six children. The two girls cutting wormy apples at the door were the youngest, and the only ones that were left to her. A son in the army was expected home in a few days. She did not know how old her children were,--she did not know how old she herself was, "she was so forgetful."

She ran away at the time of the fight, but was sorry afterwards she did not stay at home. "She lost a heap." The house was robbed of almost everything; "coverlids and sheets and some of our own clo'es, all carried away. They got about two ton of hay from me. I owed a little on my land yit, and thought I'd put in two lots of wheat that year, and it was all trampled down, and I didn't get nothing from it. I had seven pieces of meat yit, and them was all took. All I had when I got back was jest a little bit of flour yit. The fences was all tore down, so that there wa'n't one standing, and the rails was burnt up. One shell come into the house and knocked a bedstead all to pieces for me. One come in under the roof and knocked out a rafter for me. The porch was all knocked down. There was seventeen dead horses on my land. They burnt five of 'em around my best peach-tree, and killed it; so I ha'n't no peaches this year. They broke down all my young apple-trees for me. The dead horses sp'iled my spring, so I had to have my well dug."

I inquired if she had ever got anything for the damage.

"Not much. I jest sold the bones of the dead horses. I couldn't do it till this year, for the meat hadn't rotted off yit. I got fifty cents a hundred. There was seven hundred and fifty pounds. You can reckon up what they come to. That's all I got."

Not much, indeed!

This poor woman's entire interest in the great battle was, I found, centred in her own losses. That the country lost or gained she did not know nor care, never having once thought of that side of the question.

The town is full of similar reminiscences; and it is a subject which everybody except the "Copperheads" likes to talk with you about. There were heroic women here, too. On the evening of Wednesday, as our forces were retreating, an exhausted Union soldier came to Mr. Culp's house, near Culp's Hill, and said, as he sank down,--

"If I can't have a drink of water, I must die."

Mrs. Culp, who had taken refuge in the cellar,--for the house was now between the two fires,--said,--

"I will go to the spring and get you some water."

It was then nearly dark. As she was returning with the water, a bullet whizzed past her. It was fired by a sharpshooter on our own side, who had mistaken her for one of the advancing Rebels. Greatly frightened, she hurried home, bringing the water safely. One poor soldier was made eternally grateful by this courageous womanly deed. A few days later the sharpshooter came to the house and learned that it was a ministering angel in the guise of a woman he had shot at. Great, also, must have been his gratitude for the veil of darkness which caused him to miss his aim.

Shortly after the battle, sad tales were told of the cruel inhospitality shown to the wounded Union troops by the people of Gettysburg. Many of these stories were doubtless true; but they were true only of the more brutal of the Rebel sympathizers. The Union men threw open their hearts and their houses to the wounded.

One day I met a soldier on Cemetery Hill, who was in the battle, and who, being at Harrisburg for a few days, had taken advantage of an excursion-train to come over and revisit the scene of that terrible experience. Getting into conversation, we walked down the hill together. As we were approaching a double house with high wooden steps, he pointed out the farther one, and said,--

"Saturday morning, after the fight, I got a piece of bread at that house. A man stood on the steps and gave each of our fellows a piece. We were hungry as bears, and it was a godsend. I should like to see that man and thank him."

Just then the man himself appeared at the door. We went over, and I introduced the soldier, who, with tears in his eyes, expressed his gratitude for that act of Christian charity.

"Yes," said the man, when reminded of the circumstance, "we did what we could. We baked bread here night and day to give to every hungry soldier who wanted it. We sent away our own children, to make room for the wounded soldiers, and for days our house was a hospital."

Instances of this kind are not few. Let them be remembered to the honor of Gettysburg.

Of the magnitude of a battle fought so desperately during three days by armies numbering not far from two hundred thousand men no adequate conception can be formed. One or two facts may help to give a faint idea of it. Mr. Culp's meadow, below Cemetery Hill,--a lot of near twenty acres,--was so thickly strown with Rebel dead, that Mr. Culp declared he "could have walked across it without putting foot upon the ground." Upwards of three hundred Confederates were buried in that fair field in one hole. On Mr. Gwynn's farm, below Round Top, near five hundred sons of the South lie promiscuously heaped in one huge sepulchre. Of the quantities of iron, of the wagon-loads of arms, knapsacks, haversacks, and clothing, which strewed the country, no estimate can be made. Government set a guard over these, and for weeks officials were busy in gathering together all the more valuable spoils. The harvest of bullets was left for the citizens to glean. Many of the poorer people did a thriving business, picking up these missiles of death, and selling them to dealers; two of whom alone sent to Baltimore fifty tons of lead collected in this way from this battle-field.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

The greatest name in American history is that of ALEXANDER HAMILTON, if we consider the versatility of the man who bore it, the early age at which he began a great public career, the success which attended all his labors, the impression which he made on his country and its government, and the rare foresight by which he was enabled to understand that our political system would encounter that very danger through which it has just passed,--and passed not without receiving severe wounds, which have left it scarcely recognizable even by its warmest admirers. Talleyrand, who had a just appreciation of Hamilton's talents and character, said that he had divined Europe. An American need not be possessed of high powers or position to venture the assertion that Hamilton divined American history, and foresaw all that we have suffered because our predecessors would build the national edifice on sand, so that it could not stand against the political storm which it was in the breath of selfish partisans to send against it, but has, as it were, to be buttressed by mighty fleets and armies. A system, which, had it been rightly formed in the first place, would have been self-sustaining, was saved from destruction solely by the uprising of the people, who had to operate with bullets and bayonets, when it had been fondly hoped that the ballot would ever be a sufficiently formidable weapon in the hand of the American citizen, and that he never would have to become the citizen-soldier in a civil contest. Had Hamilton been allowed to shape our national polity, it would have worked as successfully for ages as that financial system which he formed has ever worked, and which has never been departed from without the result being most injurious to the country. At this day, when events have so signally justified the views of Alexander Hamilton, and are daily justifying them,[F] it may not be unprofitable to glance over the career of one whose virtues, services, and genius are constantly rising in the estimation of his countrymen and of the world, "the dead growing visible from the shades of time."

To be born at all is to be well born is the general belief in this very liberal-minded age: but even the most determined of democrats is not averse to a good descent; and Hamilton, who was a democrat in no sense, had one of the noblest ancestries in Europe, though himself of American birth. His family was of Scotland, a country which, the smallness of its population considered, has produced more able and useful men than any other. The Hamiltons of Scotland, and we may add of France, were one of the noblest of patrician houses, and they had a great part in the stormy history of their country. Walter de Hamilton, of Cambuskeith, in the County of Ayr,--Burns's county,--second son of Sir David de Hamilton, Dominus de Cadyow, was the founder of that branch of the Hamilton family to which the American statesman belonged. He flourished _temp._ Robert III., second of the Stuart kings, almost five hundred years ago. Many noble Scotch names are very common, because it was the custom of the families to which they belonged to extend them to all their retainers; but Alexander Hamilton obtained his name in no such way as that. His descent from the Lord of Cadyow is made up with the nicest precision. The family became of Grange in the sixteenth century. The names of the ladies married by the heads of the Hamiltons of Cambuskeith and Grange all belong to those of the ingenuous classes. The same Christian names are continued in the line, that of Alexander appearing as early as the latter part of the fifteenth century, and reappearing frequently for three hundred years. Alexander Hamilton of Grange, fourteenth in descent from Sir David de Hamilton, had three sons, the third bearing his father's name; and that son's fifth child was James Hamilton, who emigrated to the West Indies, settling in the Island of Nevis. Mr. James Hamilton married a French lady, whose maiden name was Faucette, and whose father was one of many persons of worth who were forced to leave France because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, through the bigotry of that little man who is commonly called the Grand Monarch, and whose bigotry was made active by the promptings of Madame de Maintenon, who was descended from a fierce Huguenot, as was the monarch himself.

Alexander Hamilton was born on the 11th of January, 1757. His mother died in his early childhood, a more than usually severe loss, for she was a superior woman. He was the only one of her children who survived her. His father soon became poor, and the child was dependent upon the relatives of his mother for support and education. They resided at Santa Cruz, where he was brought up. Just before completing his thirteenth year he entered the counting-house of Mr. Cruger, a merchant of Santa Cruz. Young as he was, his employer left him in charge of his business while he made a visit to New York, and had every reason to be satisfied with the arrangement. He read all the books he could obtain, and read them understandingly. Even at that early age he was remarkable for the manliness of his mind. He wrote, too; and an account of the hurricane of 1772, which he contributed to a public journal, attracted so much attention that he was sought out, and it was determined to send him to New York to be regularly educated. He left Santa Cruz, and sailed for Boston, which port he reached in October, 1772. Proceeding to New York, he was sent to school at Elizabethtown, New Jersey; and in 1773 entered King's College, in the city of New York, where he pursued his studies with signal success. But events were happening that were to place him in a very different school from that in which he was preparing to become a physician. He was to be the physician of the State, and to that end he was thrown among men, and appointed to do the work of men of the highest intellect, at an age when most persons have not half completed the ordinary training which is to fit them to begin the common routine of common life.

Hamilton's connection with the history of his country, as one of those who were making material for it, began at the age of seventeen. The American Revolution was moving steadily onward when he arrived at New York, and by the summer of 1774 it had assumed large proportions. He first spoke at "the Great Meeting in the Fields," July 6th, and astonished those who heard him by the fervor of his eloquence and the closeness of his logic. His fame dates from that day. He sided with the people of his new home from the time that he came among them, and never had any doubt or hesitation as to the course which duty required him to adopt and pursue. As a writer he was even more successful than as a speaker. A pamphlet which he wrote in December, 1774, vindicating the Continental Congress, attracted much attention, and that and another from his pen were attributed to veteran Whigs, particularly to John Jay; but the evidence of Hamilton's authorship is perfect, or we might well agree with the Tories, and believe that works so able could not have been written by a youth of eighteen. Other writings of his subsequently appeared, and were most serviceable to the patriots. Young as he was, he was already regarded by the country as one of its foremost champions with the pen. The time was fast coming when it was to be made known that the holder of the pen could also hold the sword, and hold it to effective purpose.

He had joined a volunteer corps while in college, and was forward in all its doings. The first time he was under fire was when this corps was engaged in removing guns from the Battery. The fire of a man-of-war was opened on it, doing some injury. This was the first act of war in New York, and it is interesting to know that Hamilton had part in it. In the commotion that followed, he was zealous in his efforts to prevent the triumph of a mob, and not more zealous than successful. From the very beginning of his career, he never thought of liberty, save as the closest associate of law. Diligently devoting himself to the study of the military art, and particularly to gunnery, he asked for the command of an artillery company, and obtained it after a thorough examination, being made captain on the 14th of March, 1776, when but two months beyond his nineteenth year. He completed his company, and expended the very last money he received from his relatives in making it fit for the field. Even at that time he advocated promotion from the ranks, and succeeded in having his first sergeant made a commissioned officer: a fact worthy of mention, when it is recollected that his enemies have always represented him as an aristocrat, there being nothing less aristocratical than the placing of the sword of command in the hands of men who have carried the musket. While pursuing his military duties, he did not neglect the study of politics; and his notes show that before the Declaration of Independence he had thought out a plan of government for the nation that was so soon to come into existence. Among them is this inquiry: "_Quære_, would it not be advisable to let all taxes, even those imposed by the States, be collected by persons of Congressional appointment? and would it not be advisable to pay the collectors so much per cent on the sums collected?" This, as his son says, "is the intuitive idea of a general government, truly such, which he first proposed to Congress, and earnestly advocated." He was in his twentieth year when he showed himself capable of understanding the nature of the situation, and the wants of the country. Probably no other person had got so far at that time, and it required years for the people to reach the point at which Hamilton had arrived intuitively. With them it was a conclusion reached through bitter experience. The lesson has not been perfectly acquired even at this time.

Hamilton's company belonged to that army which Washington commanded, in 1776, in New England and New Jersey; and it was while the army was on the heights of Haerlem, in the autumn of 1776, that he attracted the notice of Washington. The General inspected an earthwork which the Captain was constructing, conversed with him, and invited him to his tent. This was the beginning of an acquaintance that was destined to have memorable consequences and lasting effects on the American nation. On the 1st of March, 1777, Hamilton was appointed to a place on Washington's staff, becoming one of his aides, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel,--his "principal and most confidential aide," to use Washington's language. It was not without much hesitation that Hamilton accepted this post. He had already made a name, and his promotion in the line of the army was secured; and had he remained to take that promotion, he would have won the highest distinction, supposing him to have escaped the casualties of war. His military genius was unquestioned; and what Washington required of him was service that would not secure promotion or opportunity to show that he deserved it. He required the mind and the pen of Hamilton. These he obtained; and the amount of labor performed by the youthful aide-de-camp with his pen was enormous. He was something more than an aide and a private secretary. He was the commander's trusted friend, and he proved that he deserved the trust reposed in him, not less by his high-minded conduct than by the talent which he brought to the discharge of the duties of a most difficult post,--duties which were of an arduous and highly responsible character. The limits of a sketch like the present do not admit of more than the general mention of his great services. Those who would know them in full should consult the work in which Mr. John C. Hamilton has done justice to the part which his father had, first in the Revolutionary contest, and then in the creation of the American Republic, and the settlement of its policy.[G] There was no event with which Washington was concerned for more than four years with which Hamilton was not also concerned. The range of his business and his labors was equal to his talents, and it is not possible to say more of them. He was but twenty years old when Washington thus really placed him next to himself in the work of conducting the American cause. In what estimation his services were held by the commander-in-chief may be inferred from the fact that he was selected by him, in 1780, being then in his twenty-fourth year, as a special minister to France, to induce the French Government to grant more aid to this country. Hamilton did not take the office, because it was desired by his friend, Colonel Laurens, whose father was then a prisoner in England.

Colonel Hamilton was married on the 14th of December, 1780, to Miss Elizabeth Schuyler, second daughter of General Philip Schuyler, one of the most distinguished soldiers of the Revolution, to whom was due the defeat of General Burgoyne, and head of one of those old families of which New York possessed so many. This lady was destined to survive her husband half a century, and to be associated with two ages of the country,--her death occurring in 1854, in her ninety-eighth year. She was a woman of exalted character, and worthy to be the wife of Alexander Hamilton.

The relations between Washington and Hamilton were briefly interrupted early in 1781, and Hamilton left the commander's military family. He had a command in that allied army which Washington and Rochambeau led to Yorktown, the success of which put an end to the "great war" of the Revolution on this continent. When the British redoubts were stormed, Hamilton commanded the American column, and carried the redoubt he assailed before the French had taken that which it fell to their lot to attack. Shortly afterward he retired from the service, and, taking up his residence in Albany, devoted himself to the study of the law. In 1782 he was elected a member of the Continental Congress by the Legislature of New York, and took his seat on the 25th of November. He proved an energetic member, his attention being largely directed to the financial state of the country, than which nothing could be more dreary. At an early day he had been convinced that something sound must be attempted in relation to our finances; and in 1780 he had addressed a letter on the subject to Robert Morris, which showed that his ideas regarding money and credit were those of a great statesman. But the time had not come in which he was to mould the country to his will, and make it rich in spite of itself, and against its own exertions. More suffering was necessary before the people could be made to listen to the words of truth, though uttered by genius. Military matters also commanded the attention of the young member, as was natural, he having been so distinguished as a soldier, and retaining that interest in the army which he had acquired from six years' connection with it. His Congressional career was brilliant, and added much to his reputation. It seemed that he was destined to succeed in everything he attempted. Yet at that time he thought of retiring altogether from public life, and of devoting himself entirely to his profession, in which he had already become eminent. In November, 1783, he removed to the city of New York, which then had entered on that astonishing growth which has since been so steadily maintained.

The first of the law labors of this great man were in support of those _national_ principles which are more closely identified with his name than with that of any other individual. In advocating the cause of his client, he had to argue that the terms of the treaty of peace with England and the law of nations were of more force than a statute passed by the Legislature of the State of New York. He carried the court as decidedly with him as public opinion was against him; and he had to defend himself in several pamphlets, which he did with his usual success. As time went on, it became every day more apparent that the country's great need was a strong central government, and that, until such a government should be adopted, prosperity could not be looked for, nor order, nor anything like national life; and had not something been done, North America would doubtless have presented very much the same spectacle that has long been afforded by South America, and from which that rich land is but now slowly recovering. Of those who most earnestly and effectively advocated the action necessary to save the country from anarchy, Hamilton was among the foremost. As we have seen, he had thought soundly on this subject as early as 1776, and years and events had confirmed and strengthened the impression formed before independence had been resolved upon.

Appointed a delegate from New York to the commercial convention held at Annapolis in 1786, Colonel Hamilton wrote the address put forth by that body to the States, out of which grew the Convention of 1787, which made the Federal Constitution. To that Convention he was sent by the New York Legislature, and his part in the work done was of the first order, though the Constitution formed was far from commanding his entire approbation. Like a wise statesman, who does not insist that means of action shall be perfect, but makes the best use he can of those that are available, Hamilton accepted the Constitution, and became the strongest advocate for its adoption, and its firmest supporter after its adoption. This part of his life--a part as honorable to him as it was useful to his country--has been systematically misrepresented, so that many Americans have been taught to believe that he was an enemy of freedom, and would have established an arbitrary government. He was accused of being opposed to any republican polity, and of seeking the annihilation of the State Governments. He was called a monarchist and a consolidationist. These misrepresentations of his opinions and acts were forever dispelled, according to the views of honest and unprejudiced men, by the publication of a letter which he wrote to Timothy Pickering, in 1803. In that letter he said,--"The highest-toned propositions which I made to the Convention were for a President, Senate, and Judges, during good behavior, and a House of Representatives for three years. Though I would have enlarged the legislative power of the General Government, yet I never contemplated the abolition of the State Governments; but, on the contrary, they were, in some particulars, constituent parts of my plan. This plan was, in my conception, conformable with the strict theory of a government purely republican; the essential criteria of which are, that the principal organs of the executive and legislative departments be elected by the people, and hold the office by a responsible and temporary or defeasible nature.... I may truly, then, say that I never proposed either a President or Senate for life, and that I neither recommended nor meditated the annihilation of State Governments.... It is a fact that my final opinion was against an executive during good behavior, on account of the increased danger to the public tranquillity incident to the election of a magistrate of his degree of permanency. In the plan of a constitution which I drew up while the Convention was sitting, and which I communicated to Mr. Madison about the close of it, perhaps a day or two after, the office of President has no longer duration than for three years. This plan was predicated upon these bases: 1. That the political principles of the people of this country would endure nothing but a republican government; 2. That, in the actual situation of the country, it was itself right and proper that the republican theory should have a full and fair trial; 3. That to such a trial it was essential that the government should be so constructed as to give it all the energy and the stability reconcilable with the principles of that theory. These were the genuine sentiments of my heart; and upon them I then acted. I sincerely hope that it may not hereafter be discovered, that, through want of sufficient attention to the last idea, the experiment of republican government, even in this country, has not been as complete, as satisfactory, and as decisive as could be wished."

Such were the views of Hamilton in 1787, and which had undergone no change in the sixteen years that elapsed between that time and the date of his letter to Colonel Pickering. Yet this man, so true a republican that his only desire was to have the republican polity that he knew must here exist so framed and constituted as to become permanent, has been drawn as a bigoted monarchist and as the enemy of freedom! In the eyes of good democrats he was the Evil Principle incarnate; and even to this day, in the more retired portions of the country, they believe, that, if he had lived a few years longer, he would have made himself king, and married one of the daughters of George III. They had, and some of them yet have, about as clear conceptions of Hamilton's career and conduct as Squire Western and his class had of the intentions of the English Whigs of George II.'s time, whom they suspected of the intention of seizing and selling their estates, with the purpose of sending the proceeds to Hanover, to be invested in the funds.

The leaders of the great party which triumphed in 1801, and who had libelled Hamilton while they were in opposition, found it for their interest to continue their misrepresentations long after the fall of the Federalists, and when the ablest of all the Federalists had been for years in his grave. Many of them could overlook Burr's party treachery, as well as his supposed treason, because he had been the rival of Hamilton; though probably it would be unjust to them to suppose that they approved of his conduct in murdering the man whose talents and influence caused them so much alarm. So far was Hamilton from pursuing a course in the Convention of 1787 that would have embarrassed that body, because it did not adopt all his plans, that Dr. W. S. Johnson, one of Connecticut's delegates, said, that, if "the Constitution did not succeed on trial, Mr. Hamilton was less responsible for that result than any other member, for he fully and frankly pointed out to the Convention what he apprehended were the infirmities to which it was liable,--and that, if it answered the fond expectations of the public, the community would be more indebted to Mr. Hamilton than to any other member, for, after its essential outlines were agreed to, he labored most indefatigably to heal those infirmities, and to guard against the evils to which they might expose it." M. Guizot, who understands our politics, who knows our history, and whose practical statesmanship and lofty talents render his opinion most valuable, when he declared that "there is not in the Constitution of the United States an element of order, of force, of duration, which Hamilton has not powerfully contributed to introduce into it and to give it a predominance," stated but the simplest truth. Equally correct is his remark, that "Hamilton must be classed among the men who have best known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of a government." Alone of all the New York delegates Hamilton subscribed the Constitution.

In the discussions that followed the labors of the Convention, Hamilton had the principal part in urging the adoption of the Constitution. "The Federalist," that first of all American political works, and the excellence of which was quickly recognized by foreign statesmen, was his production. Not only did he write most of it, but the least of what he wrote for it excels the best that was contributed to it by men so able as Jay and Madison. Every attempt that has been made to take from him any portion of the honor of this masterly work has failed, and it is now admitted that it can fairly be associated only with his name. "The total number of these essays," says Mr. John C. Hamilton, "by Hamilton's enumeration, approved by Madison, is seen to be eighty-five. Of this enumeration, an abbreviated copy by Hamilton from his original minute, both in Hamilton's autograph, ascribes to himself the sole authorship of sixty-three numbers, and the joint authorship with Madison of three numbers, leaving to the latter the sole authorship of fourteen numbers, and to Jay of five numbers."[H] "The Federalist" had a powerful influence on the public mind, and contributed vastly to the success of the Constitutionalists; and other writings of Hamilton had scarcely less effect. Had he not been a friend of the Constitution, and had he sought only the creation of a powerful central government, he never would have labored for the success of the Constitutional party; for the surest road to despotism would have been through that anarchy which must have followed a refusal by the people to ratify the action of the Convention of 1787. As a member of the Convention of the State of New York, Hamilton most ably supported the ratification of the Constitution made at Philadelphia.

The Constitution was adopted, and the new government was organized on the 30th of April, 1789, on which day General Washington became President of the United States. It was not until the 2d of September that the Treasury Department was created; and on the 11th Alexander Hamilton was made Secretary of the Treasury. Writing to Robert Morris, Washington had asked, "What are we to do with this heavy debt?" To which Morris answered, "There is but one man in the United States who can tell you: that is Alexander Hamilton. I am glad you have given me this opportunity to declare to you the extent of the obligations I am under to him." Hamilton had thought of the station for himself, but his warmest personal friends objected to his taking it Robert Troup says,--"I remonstrated with him: he admitted that his acceptance of it would be likely to injure his family, but said there was a strong impression on his mind that in the financial department he would essentially promote the welfare of the country; and this impression, united with Washington's request, forbade his refusal of the appointment." Having said, in conversing with Gouverneur Morris, that he was confident he could restore public credit, "Morris remonstrated with him for thinking of so perilous a position, on which calumny and persecution were the inevitable attendants. 'Of that,' Hamilton answered, 'I am aware; but I am convinced it is the situation in which I can do most good.'" He had the same just self-confidence that Cromwell felt, when he said to John Hampden that he would effect something for the Parliamentary cause, and that William Pitt felt in 1757, when he said to the Duke of Devonshire, "My Lord, I am sure that I can save this country, and that nobody else can." As with Cromwell and with Pitt, Hamilton's self-confidence was to be conclusively justified by the event.

Hamilton's career as the first finance minister of the United States is the greatest evidence of statesmanship in American history; nor is it likely ever to be surpassed, so complete is the change in the country's condition,--a change due in great measure to his policy and conduct. The world's annals show no more striking example of the right man in the right place than is afforded by Hamilton's Secretaryship of the Treasury. "The discerning eye of Washington," said Mr. Webster in 1831, "immediately called him to that post which was far the most important in the administration of the new system. He was made Secretary of the Treasury; and how he fulfilled the duties of such a place, at such a time, the whole country perceived with delight, and the whole world saw with admiration. He smote the rock of the National Resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva, from the brain of Jove, was hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial system of the United States, as it burst forth from the conceptions of Alexander Hamilton." Lofty as this praise is, it is literally true. American Public Credit was a dead corpse in 1789; and in 1790 it was living and erect, as it has ever since remained, in spite of the utmost exertions of all political parties to reduce it to the state in which Hamilton found it, in the hope of injuring their rivals. All that has been good in our financial history for three quarters of a century is due to Alexander Hamilton; and all that has been evil in it can be traced directly to violation of his principles or disregard of his modes of action. That we were enabled to preserve the Union against the attacks of the Secessionists must be attributed to Hamilton's genius and exertions. He is one of those "dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule our spirits from their urns."

Ten days after his appointment to office, Secretary Hamilton was required by Congress to report a plan for the support of the public credit. His report is admitted, even by those who do not agree with its views, to be an able state paper. Besides upholding the payment of the foreign debt, on which all parties were of one mind, he recommended that the domestic debt should be treated in the same spirit. As the revival and maintenance of the public credit was the object which the Secretary had in view, he advocated the fulfilment of original contracts, no matter by whom claims might be held. His recommendations were adopted; and the famous "funding system" dates from that time, and with it the prosperity of the United States. He had recommended the assumption of the State debts; but in this he was only partially successful. The measures suggested for the carrying out of his system were adopted. Among these was the creation of a national bank, at the beginning of 1791. Other measures concerned the raising of revenue, and were extraordinarily successful. And yet others for the advancement of trade, both foreign and domestic, were not less successful: there being no subject that came properly within his department to which he did not give his entire attention; and as he was laboring for a new nation, it necessarily happened that all the machinery had to be improvised, To the demands made on his intellect, his time, and his industry, the Secretary was found to be more than equal. His triumphs astonished and gratified the friends of good government throughout the world, and carried his name to all nations. In only eighteen months, a change had been effected such as it well might have taken as many years to accomplish, and which thoroughly justified the new polity, and the measures which had been adopted under it. Foreign commerce flourished, and also the domestic trade. The agricultural interest prospered, and manufactures steadily increased. "The waste lands in the interior were being rapidly settled; towns were springing up in every direction; the seaports were increasing in wealth and population; and that great career of internal improvement, by numerous highways, with which the United States have amazed the world, was begun." Fisher Ames wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury that the national bank and the Federal Government possessed more popularity than any institution or government could long maintain. "The success of the government, and especially of the measures proceeding from your department," he said, "has astonished the multitude; and while it has shut the mouths, it has stung the envious hearts, of the State leaders." American credit was raised so high in Europe, that, at the opening of 1791, a great loan was taken in Holland in two hours, on better terms than any European government but one could have obtained. The subscriptions to the national bank were filled in a day, and could easily have been doubled. Such another instance of successful statesmanship it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find.

It is sometimes said that the success of the Hamiltonian system was due to European events,--that the great wars which grew out of the French Revolution created so extensive demands for our productions that we must have prospered, no matter what should have been the course of American political life. What might have been, had the Constitution failed of adoption, it is not necessary to discuss; but this we know, that the success of Secretary Hamilton's plans was pronounced and complete before the European wars alluded to began. That success was seen in the early days of 1791, and war did not commence until 1792; and then it was not waged on that grand scale to which it subsequently reached. The war between France and England, which affected this country most, broke out in 1793, two years after Ames had written so encouragingly to Hamilton, and yet warning him to prepare for the inevitable Nemesis, that "envy of the gods," which, according to the Hellenic superstition, but fairly justifiable by innumerable historical facts, waits on all prosperity and rebukes human wisdom. To us it seems that the most that can be said of the effect of the wide-spread and long-continued European quarrel on our business was this,--that it gave to it much of its peculiar character, but did not create it, and was not necessary to its creation or its continuance. What Hamilton did was to remove depressing influences from American life and the American mind,--to substitute order for disorder, hope for fear, and confidence and security for dread and distrust. This was what was done by Hamilton and his associates; and this done, the native energies of the people did all the rest. It is all but certain that the extraordinary career of material prosperity that began immediately after it was seen what was to be our policy under the new polity, would have been essentially the same, as to the general result, had Europe remained quiet for twenty years longer, and had there been no downfall of the old French monarchy. The details of American business life would have been different, but the result would have been pretty much the same as what we have seen.

Events soon justified the apprehensions of the sensitive, but sagacious Ames. Hamilton's prosperity bred its natural consequences, and he became the target at which many aspiring men directed their attacks,--Thomas Jefferson standing at their head. The cause of this, which has been sought in the French Revolution, in opposition to the supposed centralizing tendencies of the Hamiltonian policy, and so forth, really lies on the surface. It grew out of men's ambition, and their desire for power. It was plain to Southern men, that, if Hamilton were permitted to accomplish his purpose entire, he must become the man of men, and that his influence would become equal to that of Washington, whose influence they bowed to most unwillingly. Not less plain was it that power would be with the North. Hence their determination to "break him down," which they would have pursued with all their might, had the French Revolution been postponed, though its occurrence furnished them with means of attack,--the larger part of the American people sympathizing with the French, while Hamilton shared with Edmund Burke opinions which time has done much to show were sound; and he was a strenuous supporter of that policy of neutrality which Washington wisely adopted. The Secretary of the Treasury was assailed by those who envied and hated him, in various ways. His official integrity was called in question, but the investigations which he courted led to the confounding of his enemies, while his personal character stood brighter than ever. So bitter became the opposition that some of their number wished for the success of the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, as Mr. Jefferson's correspondence shows; and the part which Hamilton had in suppressing that outbreak did not increase their regard for him. The presence of two such men in Washington's Cabinet as Hamilton and Jefferson made it the scene of dissension until Jefferson retired.

Hamilton remained in office some time longer; and when he left it, he did so only for personal reasons. He was poor. He had expended, not only his salary, but almost all the property he possessed when he took office. The man who had made his country rich had made himself poor by his devotion to her interests, and had received nothing but vindictive abuse in requital of his unrivalled labors. He resolved to return to the practice of his profession, which he never would have left, had he consulted merely his individual interests and those of his family. Some weeks before he retired, he addressed a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, announcing his purpose, in order that inquiry might be made into the state of his department, should Congress see fit to make it; but his foes had been so humiliated by the results of the two inquiries undertaken at their instance, that they would not venture upon a third. In January, 1795, he sent a letter to Congress on the subject of the public credit, which is one of his ablest productions, full of sound financial doctrine, and showing that he was in advance of most men on those economical questions the proper settlement of which so closely concerns the welfare of nations. This letter affords a complete view of the financial history of the government, and may be considered as Secretary Hamilton's statement of his case to the world. The debt exceeded $76,000,000, a sum that bore as great a proportion to the revenues of the country seventy years since as the debt of to-day bears to our present resources. As Hamilton was no believer in the absurd doctrine that "a national debt is a national blessing," we need say no more than that he dwelt with emphasis on the necessity of providing for the debt's payment. It is important to mention that he declared government could not rightfully tax its promises to pay.

Though Hamilton, as Madison wrote to Jefferson, went to New York "with the word Poverty as his label," his great reputation rapidly secured for him abundant professional employment. But he was too important a personage to be able to refrain altogether from political pursuits, and was forced to defend some of the measures of government, though no longer responsible for them. He advocated Jay's Treaty, one of the most unpopular measures that ever were carried through by an honest government in face of the most vehement opposition. Had the treaty been rejected, war with England would probably have followed, which would have been a profound calamity. While living in retirement, Hamilton was assailed by his Southern enemies, who were supported by their Northern allies, their object being to show that he had acted corruptly while at the head of the Treasury. His reply was as complete a refutation as their earlier calumnies had encountered. He wrote the celebrated Farewell Address of President Washington. On all occasions he was ready with pen and tongue to defend and uphold those political principles in the triumph of which he had that interest which a statesman must ever have in the advancement of truth.

When it was supposed that the French might attempt the invasion of this country, in 1798, preparations were made to meet them. Washington was made Commander-in-Chief, with the rank of Lieutenant-General; but he stipulated that he should not be required to take the field save for active service, and that Hamilton should have the post next to his own, which made the latter actually commander of the army. He was indefatigable in discharging the duties of this station; but, fortunately, hostilities with France were confined to the ocean, and the seizure of power in that country by Bonaparte led to a settlement of the points in dispute. Hamilton again returned to private life. He could not, however, altogether give up politics, but was forced to take some part in the exciting political contests of those days. When the Presidential election of 1801 devolved upon the House of Representatives, he exerted his influence against Burr, whom the Federalists were inclined to support, preferring him to Jefferson. In 1804 he again labored to defeat Burr's political aspirations, and prevented his being chosen Governor of New York. Burr was then on the verge of ruin, and he resolved upon being revenged, and on the destruction of so powerful a political foe. He required from Hamilton the disavowal of language which there was no evidence that he ever had used, and so managed the dispute that a duel became inevitable,--reference being had to the state of public sentiment then prevalent on the subject of honor, and to the circumstance that duelling was almost as common in New York at that time as it was in any Southern State just before the Secession War.

The death of Alexander Hamilton was as much the work of assassination as was that of Abraham Lincoln, in all save the forms that were observed on the occasion. Aaron Burr, of whose actions he had sometimes spoken with severity,--but not with more severity than is common in all high party times,[I]--was determined that so bold and able an enemy should be removed from his political path; and to that end he fastened a duel upon him, and in the meeting that ensued deliberately shot him. It has been said, that Burr, who was "a good shot" from his youth, and whose nerves were as brazen as his brow, practised with the pistol for some days before the fatal encounter took place; and the story is perfectly in character, and helps sustain the position that Hamilton was assassinated. That Hamilton should have consented to meet such a man, knowing as he did what was his purpose, and that he was capable of any crime, has often been remarked upon; and probably his decision will serve to point many a moral for ages, and all the more emphatically when the force of that opinion in regard to duelling which once was so strong shall not only have utterly passed away, but have been forgotten, and have become quite incomprehensible to men who shall live in the light of sounder opinion than prevailed at the beginning of this century. A soldier, it was reasonable that Hamilton should feel very differently on the point of honor from a mere civilian, and that he should not have felt himself at liberty to decline Burr's challenge. He believed that his ability to be useful thereafter in public life would be greatly lessened, should he not fight. In the paper he drew up, giving his reasons for the course he pursued, he says,--"The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or in effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular." He was particularly thinking of his power to contend against a scheme for a dissolution of the Union which had been formed in the North, the existence of which he knew, and also that it was known to Burr, who, had he not committed suicide by the same act which made him a murderer, would soon have been seen at the head of a rebellion. The result of the duel was to deprive Burr of all power and influence. He killed Hamilton, but he fell himself by the same shot that carried death to his opponent; and so complete was his fall that he never could rise again, though he continued to cumber the earth for more than thirty-two years. Hamilton's quarrel with Burr, as his son and biographer truly observes, "was the quarrel of his country. It was the last act in the great drama of his life. It was the deliberate sacrifice of that life for his country's welfare,--a sacrifice which, by overwhelming his antagonist with the execrations of the American people, prevented a civil war, and saved from 'dismemberment' this great republic."

What strikes us most forcibly, in considering Hamilton's career, is the remarkably, early development of his powers. At thirteen, he was found competent to take charge of a mercantile establishment. At fifteen, his writings win for him public applause and the aid of friends. At seventeen, he addresses with success a great public meeting. At eighteen, his anonymous productions are attributed to some of the leading men of America. At nineteen, he has thought out that principle of government which is indelibly associated with his name. At twenty, he has not only approved himself a skilful and courageous soldier, but he has won the esteem of the grave and reserved Washington, and is placed by that great man in a post of the closest confidence, and which really makes him the second man in the American service. At twenty-three, he has shown that he is master of the intricate subject of finance. At twenty-five, after an active military life that had allowed no time for study, he is known as a lawyer of the first order. At twenty-six, he is distinguished as a member of Congress. At thirty, he takes a leading part in framing the Constitution of the United States. And in his thirty-third year, he becomes the most extraordinary finance minister the world has ever seen. He was statesman, soldier, writer, and orator, and first in each department; and he was as ready for all the parts which he filled as if he had been long and studiously trained for each of them by the best of instructors. When Mr. Webster so happily compared the instantaneousness and perfection of his financial system to "the fabled birth of Minerva," he did but allude to what is to be remarked of all Hamilton's works. All that he did was perfect, and no one seems to have been aware of his power until he had established the fact of its existence. Such a combination of precocity and versatility stands quite unparalleled. Octavius, William the Third, Henry St. John, Charles James Fox, and William Pitt the younger, all showed various powers at early periods of their lives; but not one of them was the equal of Hamilton in respect to early maturity of intellect, or in ability to command success in every department to which he turned his attention. The historical character of whom he most reminds us is the elder Africanus. In the early development of his faculties, in his self-reliant spirit, in his patriotism, in his kingliness of mind, in his personal purity, in his generosity of thought and of action, and in the fear and envy that he excited in inferior minds, he was a repetition of the most majestic of all the Romans. But, unlike the Roman soldier-statesman, he did not desert the land he had saved, but which had proved ungrateful; and the grave only was to be his Liternum. He died at not far from the same age as that to which Africanus reached. In comparing him with certain other men who achieved fame early, it should be remembered that they all were regularly prepared for public life, and were born to it as to an inheritance; whereas he, though of patrician blood, was possessed of no advantages of fortune, and had to fight the battle of life while fighting the battles of the nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] Mr. Riethmüller, in his volume on "Hamilton and his Contemporaries," coolly assumes that Hamilton would have opposed the late war for the maintenance of the Union, had he been living! Anything more absurd than such a view of Hamilton's probable course, under circumstances like those which occurred in 1861, it would be impossible to imagine. Hamilton would have been the firmest supporter of the war, had he lived to see it, or had such a war broken out in his time. His principles would have led him to be for extreme measures. It is easy to see why Mr. Riethmüller thus misrepresents Hamilton's opinions. Living in London, where it is thought that every foreign nation should submit to destruction, if that be desirable to England, he wrote under the influence of the place. The English do not take the same view of Secession, when it comes home to them. They think as unfavorably of that repeal of the Union which the Irish demand as we thought of that dissolution of our Union which South Carolinians demanded; and they moved against the Fenians much earlier than we moved against the Carolinians. Mr. Riethmüller's assumption is pointedly disclaimed by General Hamilton's representatives, who declare that it is a palpable misrepresentation of their father's views: and no one who is familiar with Hamilton's writings and history can honestly say that they are wrong. To say that Andrew Jackson, who crushed Nullification, would have been a Secessionist, had he been living in 1861, would be a moderate assertion, compared to that which places Alexander Hamilton in the list of possible Secessionists, had he survived to Secession times.

[G] _History of the Republic of the United States of America, as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries._ By John C. Hamilton. Seven Volumes. 8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co. A work in every respect deserving of the closest and most attentive study, replete as it is with valuable and well-arranged matter and able writing.

[H] _The Federalist: a Commentary on the Constitution of the United States._ A Collection of Essays, by Alexander Hamilton, Jay, and Madison. Also, _The Continentalist_ and other Papers, by Hamilton. Edited by John C. Hamilton, Author of "The Republic of the United States." 1 vol. 8vo. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.--This is by far the best edition of "The Federalist" that has appeared, and should alone be consulted and read by Hamilton's admirers. The Historical Notice with which Mr. Hamilton has prefaced it is a noble production, and worthy of the subject and of his name.

[I] Burr, in his correspondence with Hamilton just before the challenge that led to the duel, said,--"Political opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum. I neither claim such privilege, nor indulge it in others." This has been called affectation; but we have no doubt that Burr uttered the truth in the sentences quoted. He was exactly the man to observe the rules of decorum, and those of honor, as he understood them, in political warfare. The strong language that is so common in political disputes is proof as much of the abundance of men's sincerity as it is of their want of good breeding. They are honestly moved by the evil words or deeds, or both, or what they consider such, of their opponents, and speak of them coarsely. The man who is indifferent to all opinions, principles, and actions, but who is nevertheless ambitious, is never tempted to the utterance of disparaging language concerning his political foes. He may laugh at their zeal, but he cannot be offended by it. Burr was utterly indifferent to all political principle. He never really belonged to any party, and was as ready to act with Federalists as with Democrats; and it was only through the force of circumstances that he did act generally with the latter. A party man never would have done as Burr saw fit to do when the Presidential election of 1801 devolved on the House of Representatives. The party to which he professed to belong intended, as everybody knew, that Jefferson should be President; and yet Burr allowed himself to be used against Jefferson. That "all is fair in politics" was his creed. He may have been "a man of honor," but what Lord Macaulay says of Avaux is strictly applicable to him, namely,--"that of the difference between right and wrong he had no more notion than a brute."

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Memoirs of the Life of William Shakespeare, with an Essay toward the Expression of his Genius, and an Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Drama to the Time of Shakespeare._ By RICHARD GRANT WHITE. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

Mr. White's closing-up of his Shakespeare labors has been long in coming, but comes good and acceptable at last. The volume now in hand, however, does not form a part of his edition of the poet; it stands by itself; though a portion of its contents is repeated in the first volume (the last published) of this edition. It is rich in matter, and the workmanship, for the most part, capital. All Shakespearians are bound to relish it; and if any general reader does not find it delectable, he may well suspect some fault in himself.

The contents of the volume are, first, "Memoirs of the Life of William Shakespeare"; second, "An Essay toward the Expression of Shakespeare's Genius"; third, "An Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Drama to the Time of Shakespeare."

In his "Memoirs," the author of course adds nothing to what was already known of the poet's life. But his presentation of the matter is eminently readable, and, in parts, decidedly interesting; which is as much as can fairly be looked for in any writing on that subject. Some readers may think, we _do_ think, that the author is a little at fault on one or two points. For instance, he overworks certain questions touching the poet's wife, worrying up the matter against her to the utmost, and, in fact, tormenting the poor woman's memory in such a way as to indicate something very like spite. Now this is not fair; and Mr. White's general fairness on other subjects makes his proceeding the less excusable in this case.

Of course everybody knows that Mrs. Anne Shakespeare was some eight years older than her husband; that the circumstances of the marriage were not altogether what they should have been; and that the oldest daughter was born a little too soon for the credit of either parent. This is all, all, there is known about the matter. And if conjecture or inference must be at work on these facts, surely it had better run in the direction of charity, especially of charity towards the weaker vessel. We say weaker vessel, because in this case the man must, in all fairness, be supposed to have had the advantage, at least as much in strength of natural understanding as the woman had in years. And as Shakespeare was, by all accounts, a very attractive person, it does not well appear but that the woman had as good a right to lose her heart in his company as he had to lose his head in hers. Yet our author insinuates, perhaps we should say more than insinuates, that the lady immodestly angled for and seduced the youthful lover, and entangled his honor in an obligation of marriage; and he seems quite positive that the poet afterwards hated her, and took refuge in London partly to escape from her society. Moreover, he presumes her to have been a coarse, low, vulgar creature, such as, the fascination of the honeymoon once worn off, the poet could not choose but loathe and detest. Now all this is sheer conjecture; it has no basis of fact or of fair likelihood to stand upon; there is not so much as a particle even of tradition to support it. Rowe hints nothing of the sort; and surely his candor would not have spared the parties, if he had found anything: it was the very point of all others on which scandal would have been most apt to fasten and feed; and yet even Aubrey, arrant old gossip as he was, supplies nothing to justify it.

In default of other grounds, resort has been had to certain passages in the poet's dramas. And Mr. White, though knowing, none better, the poet's wonderful self-aloofness from his representations, thinks it worth the while to make an exception in this particular case. Presuming such and such things to be true in his own experience, the poet, our author observes, must have thought of them while writing certain passages. Our answer is, To be sure, he must have thought of them, and he must have known that others would think of them too; and a reasonable delicacy on his part would have counselled the withholding of anything that he was conscious might be applied to his own domestic affairs. Does not Mr. White see that his inferences in this are just the reverse of what they should be? Sensible men do not write in their public pages such things as would be almost sure to breed or to foster scandal about their own names or their own homes. The man that has a secret cancer on his person will be the last to speak of cancers in reference to others; and if the truth of his own case be suspected at all, it will rather be from his silence than from his speech. We can hardly think Shakespeare was so wanting in a sense of propriety as to have written the passages in question, but that he knew no man could say he was exposing the foulness of his own nest.

But we are dwelling too long on this point; and we confess something of impatience at Mr. White's treatment of it. His _animus_ in the thing is shown, perhaps, in one slight mistake he has made. Speaking of the lady's haste to "provide herself with a husband," he says, "In less than five months after she obtained one she was delivered of a daughter." The bishop's license for the marriage was dated November 28th, 1582, and Susannah Shakespeare was baptized May 26th, 1583; thus leaving an interval of but two days short of _six_ months between the marriage and the birth. As Sir Hugh observes, "I like not when a 'oman has a great peard."

We are moved to add one more item of dissent.--Mr. White thinks, and it appears that the German critic, Gervinus, coincides with him, that Shakespeare must have acquired all his best ideas of womanhood after he went to London, and conversed with the ladies of the city. And in support of this notion he cites the fact--for such it is--that the women of the poet's later plays are much superior to those of his earlier ones. But are not the _men_ of his later plays quite as much superior to the men of his first? Unquestionably they are. Are not his later plays as much better _every way_, as in respect of the female characters? Mr. White is too wise and too ripe in the theme to question it. The truth seems to be, that Shakespeare saw more of great and good in both man and woman as he became older and knew them better; for he was full of intellectual righteousness in this as in other things. But if there must be any conjecturing about it, we prefer to conjecture that the poet caught his ideas of womanhood, or at least the rudiments of them, from his mother, and other specimens of the sex in his native town. For in this matter it may with something of special fitness be said that a man finds what he brings with him the faculty of finding; and he who does not learn respect for woman in the nursery and at the fireside will hardly learn it at all. The poet's mind did not stay on the surface of things. He had the head to know, and the heart to feel, the claims of humble, modest worth; for, as he was the wisest, so was he also the most human-hearted of men. And to his keen, yet kindly eye, the plain-thoughted women of Stratford may well have been as pure, as sweet, as lovely, as rich in all the inward graces which he delighted to unfold in his female characters, as anything he afterwards found among the fine ladies of the metropolis: though far be it from us to disrepute these latter; for he was, by the best of all rights, a thorough gentleman; and the ladies who pleased him in London had womanhood enough, no doubt, to recognize him as such, without the flourishes of rank. At all events, it is reasonable to infer that the foundations of his mind were laid before he left Stratford, and that the gatherings of the boy's eye and heart were the germs of the man's thoughts. And, indeed, if his great social heart had found all the best delights of society in London, how should he have been so desirous, as Mr. White allows he was, to escape from the city, and set up his rest in his Stratford home?

Mr. White's history of the Drama, though far from copious, supplies enough, perhaps, to put the reader right as regards Shakespeare's historical relations to that great branch of English literature. From what is there given, any one can, with reasonable attention, learn that the English drama, as we have it in Shakespeare, was the well-ripened fruit of centuries of preparation: the form, structure, and order of the thing being settled long before his time. The attentive reader will also see, though this point is not emphasized so much as it might be, that the national mind and taste were ready and eager to welcome the right man as soon as the right man came; so that, in catering wisely for the public taste, the poet could hardly fail of the supremacy due to his transcendent genius; which infers, of course, that the public taste had nearly as much to do in forming him as he had in forming it. On one or two points, as, for instance, in the matter of Shakespeare's senior contemporaries, we should have preferred a somewhat larger outlay of the author's learned and well-practised strength; while, again, in reference to the old plays of "Jeronimo" and "The Spanish Tragedy," he might well have used more economy of strength, as the matter is neither interesting in itself nor helpful to his purpose. Here is a specimen of his felicity, referring to the plays of old John Lily, the euphuist.

"They are in all respects opposed to the genius of the English drama. They do not even pretend to be representations of human life and human character, but are pure fantasy pieces, in which the personages are a heterogeneous medley of Grecian gods and goddesses, and impassible, colorless creatures, with sublunary names, all thinking with one brain, and speaking with one tongue,--the conceitful, crotchety brain, and the dainty, well-trained tongue of clever, witty John Lily."

This is, indeed, the exact truth of the matter, and it could hardly be better said. On divers points, however, the little that he gives us just sets the reader on fire for more: that is, he does not satisfy the desire quite enough in proportion as he stimulates it. But he probably goes on the safe principle, that in such cases an intelligent reader is apt to crave more than he will justify a writer in giving; or, in other words, that he does not seem to have enough, until he has too much.

But the "Essay" is most decidedly the jewel of the volume: not, however, to disparage the other parts; for it is worthy to be the jewel of anybody's volume. A single reading of the "Essay," as it ought to be read, will suffice to make any one glad to own the book, and will almost certainly induce him to mark it down for a second reading, as the second also will for a third. The work, indeed, is a positive, and we think it will prove a permanent addition to our already opulent inheritance of Shakespearian criticism. It is weighty throughout with fresh, yet sober and well-considered thought, expressed in tight and sinewy English,--every part being highly elaborate, but nothing over-labored. The author discusses a large number of topics, all in "a manly style, fitted to manly ears," but is particularly full and instructive in regard to the poet's language and style: a rich field, indeed, which has not been proportionably cultivated by the poet's later critics, who have put their force mainly on what may be called his dramatic architecture, and on his development of character, where there is more room to be philosophical, but less chance of determinate results. Over this field Mr. White walks with the firm, yet graceful step of a master: his current of thought running deep, strong, and clear, and carrying us through page after page full of nice and subtile discrimination, without over-refinement, and of illustrations apt and luminous, yet without a touch of false brilliancy or mere smartness; which is saying a good deal, in these days of high-pressure rhetoric.

We commend the "Essay" to all lovers of solid and well-proportioned critical discourse.

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