Part 7

The great body of the cultivated public has an instinctive delight in original genius, whether it be refined or sensational. Mr. Howells’s is eminently refined. His humor, however vivid in form, is subtle and elusive in its essence. He depends, perhaps, somewhat too much on the feelings of humor in his readers to appreciate his own. He has the true Addisonian touch; hits his mark in the white, and instead of provoking uproarious laughter, strives to evoke that satisfied smile which testifies to the quiet enjoyment of the reader. His humor is the humor of a poet.—_E. P. Whipple._

Mr. Howells has been compared to Washington Irving for the exquisite purity of his style, and to Hawthorne for a certain subtle recognition of a hidden meaning in familiar things. A more thoroughly genial writer, certainly, we have not, nor one more conscientious in the practice of his art.—_Scribner’s Monthly._

The Young Editor, from “A Modern Instance.”

“Hullo!” he cried, with a suddenness that startled the boy, who had finished his meditation upon Bartley’s trowsers, and was now deeply dwelling on his boots. “Do you like ’em? See what sort of a shine you can give ’em for Sunday-go-to-meeting-to-morrow-morning.” He put out his hand and laid hold of the boy’s head, passing his fingers through the thick red hair. “Sorrel-top!” he said with a grin of agreeable reminiscence. “They emptied all the freckles they had left into your face—didn’t they, Andy?”

This free, joking way of Bartley’s was one of the things that made him popular; he passed the time of day, and would give and take right along, as his admirers expressed it from the first, in a community where his smartness had that honor which gives us more smart men to the square mile than any other country in the world. The fact of his smartness had been affirmed and established in the strongest manner by the authorities of the college at which he was graduated, in answer to the reference he made to them when negotiating with the committee in charge for the place he now held as editor of the Equity _Free Press_.… They perhaps had their misgivings when the young man, in his well-blacked boots, his grey trowsers neatly fitting over them, and his diagonal coat buttoned high with one button, stood before them with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and looked down over his mustache at the floor, with sentiments concerning their wisdom which they could not explore; they must have resented the fashionable keeping of everything about him, for Bartley wore his one suit as if it were but one of many; but when they understood that he had come by everything through his own unaided smartness, they could no longer hesitate. One, indeed, still felt it a duty to call attention to the fact that the college authorities said nothing of the young man’s moral characteristics in a letter dwelling so largely upon his intellectual qualifications. The others referred this point by a silent look to ’Squire Gaylord. “I don’t know,” said the ’Squire, “as I ever heard that a great deal of morality was required by a newspaper editor.” The rest laughed at the joke, and the ’Squire continued: “But I guess if he worked his own way through college, as they say, that he hain’t had time to be up to a great deal of mischief. You know it’s for idle hands that the devil provides, doctor.”

“That’s true, as far as it goes,” said the doctor. “But it isn’t the whole truth. The devil provides for some busy hands, too.”

“There’s a good deal of sense in that,” the ’Squire admitted. “The worst scamps I ever knew were active fellows. Still, industry is in a man’s favor. If the faculty knew anything against this young man they would have given us a hint of it. I guess we had better take him; we shan’t do better. Is it a vote?”

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

Humor he has, and of the very highest order. It is as delicate as Washington Irving’s, and quite as spontaneous. But humor is hardly his predominant quality. He has all the wit of Holmes, and all the tenderness of Ik Marvel. He is often charmingly thoughtful, earnest and suggestive.—_San Francisco Bulletin._

There is only one other pair of microscopic eyes like his owned by an American, and they belong to W. D. Howells. These two men will ferret out fun from arid sands and naked rocks, and in one trip of a league, less or more, over a barren waste, see and hear more that is amusing and entertaining than the rest of the world will discover in crossing a continent. Such men should do our traveling for us.—_Chicago Tribune._

From “Back-Log Studies.”

The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in New England; the hearth has gone out; the family has lost its center; age ceases to be respected; sex is only distinguished by the difference between millinery bills and tailors’ bills; there is no more toast-and-cider; the young are not allowed to eat mince pies at ten o’clock at night; half a cheese is no longer set to toast before the fire; you scarcely ever see in front of the coals a row of roasting apples, which a bright little girl, with many a dive and start, shielding her sunny face from the fire with one hand, turns from time to time; scarce are the grey-haired sires who strop their razors on the family Bible, and doze in the chimney corner. A good many things have gone out with the fire on the hearth.

I do not mean to say that public and private morality have vanished with the hearth. A good degree of purity and considerable happiness are possible with grates and blowers; it is a day of trial, when we are all passing through a fiery furnace, and very likely we shall be purified as we are dried up and wasted away. Of course the family is gone as an institution, though there still are attempts to bring up a family round a “register.” But you might just as well try to bring it up by hand as without the rallying-point of a hearth-stone. Are there any homesteads now-a-days? Do people hesitate to change houses any more than they do to change their clothes? People hire houses as they would a masquerade costume, liking, sometimes, to appear for a year in a little fictitious stone-front splendor above their means. Thus it happens that so many people live in houses that do not fit them. I should almost as soon think of wearing another person’s clothes as his house; unless I could let it out and take it in until it fitted, and somehow expressed my own character and taste.

From “Being a Boy.”

It is a wonder that every New England boy does not turn out a poet, or a missionary or a peddler. Most of them used to. There is something in the heart of the New England hills to feed the imagination of the boy and excite his longing for strange countries. I scarcely know what the subtle influence is that forms him and attracts him in the most fascinating and aromatic of all lands, and yet urges him away from all the sweet delights of his home to become roamer in literature and in the world a poet and a wanderer. There is something in the soil and in the pure air, I suspect, that promises more romance than is forthcoming, and that excites the imagination without satisfying it, and begets the desire of adventure.

* * * * *

What John said was, that he didn’t care much for pumpkin pie; but that was after he had eaten a whole one. It seemed to him then that mince would be better. The feeling of a boy toward pumpkin pie has never been properly considered.… His elders say that the boy is always hungry; but that is a very coarse way of putting it. He has only recently come into a world that is full of good things to eat, and there is on the whole a very short time in which to eat them; at least he is told, among the first information he receives, that life is brief. Life being brief, and pie and the like fleeting, he very soon decides on an active campaign. It may be an old story to people who have been eating for forty or fifty years; but it is different with a beginner. He takes the thick and thin as it comes—as to pie, for instance. Some people do make them very thin.

UNITED STATES HISTORY.

SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK.

The most favorably situated, and, for its extent, the most valuable region of the country was first settled by the Dutch, Hollanders and Swedes.

For some ten years there had been a trading post and small village on Manhattan Island; and, in 1623 the “Dutch West India Co.,” with a charter covering the whole coast from the Strait of Magellan to Hudson’s Bay, landed a colony of thirty families at New Amsterdam.

The first colonists were mostly Protestant refugees from Belgium, who came to America to escape the persecutions endured in their own country. A part of the colonists took up their abode at New Amsterdam; others went down the New Jersey coast, and landed on the eastern shore of the Bay of Delaware. The same year a colony of 18 families ascended the Hudson, and located at or near Albany. This was the most northern post, and was called Fort Orange.

A civil government was established for New Netherlands, in 1624, Cornelius May being the first governor.

In 1626 Peter Minuit was appointed governor, and during his administration he purchased of the native inhabitants the whole of Manhattan Island, containing more than 20,000 acres, for forty dollars.

Some settlements were also made on Long Island. The Dutch of New Amsterdam and the Pilgrims of New England were early friends, and helped each other. Both enjoyed a good degree of prosperity, and the population steadily increased.

For more than ten years the Indians, with few exceptions, received the strangers who came among them kindly and in good faith. When injured and wronged their resentment was kindled, and terribly did they avenge themselves on their enemies. The first notable instance was at Lewistown, on Delaware Bay, where Hosset, a governor of violent temper and little sagacity, seized and put to death a chief, who in some way offended him. The tribe was aroused, and assailed the place with such violence that not a man was left alive. When the next ship-load of colonists arrived, instead of a thrifty town, and friends eagerly waiting to receive them, they found but the bones of the slain, and the ashes of the homes that had sheltered them. Afterward there was not, for many years, the same sense of security; and in 1640 New Netherlands became involved in a general war with the Indians of Long Island and New Jersey, a war that, on both sides, was far from honorable, and marked with treachery, cruelty, and murders most revolting. If the whites were surprised and massacred by the Indians, there were as terrible massacres of Indians by the whites, who were, too often, the aggressors. An impartial historian says: “Nearly all the bloodshed and sorrow of those five years of war may be charged to Governor Kief. He was a revengeful, cruel man, whose idea of government was to destroy whatever opposed him.” For his headstrong course and cruelty he lost his position, and, to the great relief of the colonists, who had suffered much on his account, sailed for England. But the ship was wrecked on the coast of Wales, and the guilty governor found a grave in the sea. He was succeeded by Peter Stuyvesant, a resolute man, of more ability than most who preceded him. He, for seventeen years, managed the affairs of the colonists successfully. He conciliated the savages, settled the boundaries of his territory, and enforced the surrender of New Sweden, which became a part of his dominion. There was afterward some difficulty with the Indians, but more from a quarter whence no danger was expected. Lord Baltimore, of Maryland, claimed, under his charter, all the territory between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay. Berkley claimed New Sweden, while Connecticut and Massachusetts were equally aggressive on the territories adjacent to their lines.

In 1664 the unscrupulous king of England, Charles II., issued patents to his brother, the Duke of York, covering the territory called New Netherlands, and more beside. It was in utter disregard of the rights of Holland, and of the West India Co., who had settled the country. No time was given for protest against the outrage. An English squadron soon appeared before New Amsterdam, and demanded the immediate surrender of the country, and the acknowledgment of the sovereignty of England. No effectual resistance could be made, and the indignant old governor, his council ordering it, had to sign the capitulation; and, on the 8th of September, 1664, the English flag was hoisted over the fort and town. The Swedish and Dutch settlements likewise capitulated, and the conquest was complete. From Maine to Georgia, in every settlement near the coast, the British flag was unfurled. This high-handed injustice, which robbed a sister state of her well earned colonial possessions, was but slightly mitigated by the fact that the armament was insufficient to enforce submission without the shedding of blood. The capitulation was on favorable terms, and with fair promises, that were never fulfilled. The government was despotic, and the people were sorely oppressed. The policy of the tyrannical governor was to tax the people till they could do nothing but think how possibly to pay the amount assessed.

In 1673, England and Holland being at war, the latter sent a small squadron to recover the possessions wrested from her in America. When the little fleet appeared before New York, the governor was absent, and his deputy, either from cowardice, or, knowing the people preferred to have it so, at once surrendered the city, and the whole province yielded without a struggle.

But the re-conquest of New York by the Dutch, gave them no permanent possession, as the war was soon closed by a treaty of peace, in which all the rights of Holland in America were surrendered.

The Dutch and Swedes again became subject to English authority. Popular government was overthrown, and the officers appointed by the crown, directly or otherwise, with few exceptions, were unjust and tyrannical. Their oppressive measures were met with resistance, and, so intense was the hatred excited, that obstructions were thrown in the way of everything that was attempted. The people, when not repelling the attacks of the French and the Indians, or carrying the war into the territory of the invaders—campaigns in which much was sacrificed and nothing gained—were in a constant struggle with the royal governors, intent on collecting the revenues and enriching themselves, but careless of the best interests of the people.

PENNSYLVANIA.

In 1681 William Penn, a man of convictions, who, with other Quakers, had suffered persecution on account of his religious convictions, obtained a charter with proprietary rights, for a large tract of American territory. Geographically its position was nearly central as regards the original colonies, but at first somewhat indefinitely bounded. In the final adjustment of colonial limits it was made a regular parallelogram, a small addition being made to give access to Lake Erie, and a good harbor. The average length is 310 miles; the width, 160 miles. In naming his territory the proprietor modestly omitted any allusion to himself. He suggested Sylvania, because of the extensive and almost unbroken forest. The clerk prefixed “Penn.” From this he appealed to the king, who decided the prefix should be retained; but, as a relief to the wounded modesty of the Quaker, said it would be in honor of the Admiral, his friend, and the deceased father of William. For whomever the compliment was intended, the citizens of the commonwealth have always liked the name.

The liberal plan for the government of West New Jersey, previously drawn up by Penn, was adopted, and the colonists encouraged to govern themselves. The powers conferred on him personally were never used in selfishness, or to advance his personal interests, but only to further the complete establishment of freedom, justice, and the best interests of the people.

To the Swedes and others who had settled within his territory before he took possession, he introduced himself in a way so conciliatory and assuring that their friendship was at once won. His first message as governor was an admirable document—plain, honest, sensible in its every utterance. Its brevity allows it to be printed in full. “My friends, I wish you all happiness here and hereafter. These words are to let you know that it hath pleased God, in his providence, to cast you in my lot and care. It is a business that though I never undertook before, yet God hath given me an understanding of my duty, and an honest heart to do it uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at your change and the king’s choice; for you are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great. You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free, and if you will, a sober, industrious people.…”

Before the proprietor’s arrival, with three shiploads of Quaker colonists, his deputy, as instructed, had respected the rights of all the settlers, of whatever nationality or religious faith, and had been specially careful to cultivate friendly relations, and form treaties with the Indian tribes located in or near the territory. The offers of friendship, honestly made, were received in the same kindly spirit that prompted them, and neither fraud nor violence was feared. Not long after Penn came, a general council was called of the chiefs and sachems, anxious to see him of whom they had heard, and whose promises, reported to them, they had believed. He met them, with a few friends, unarmed as they all were, and spoke kind words by an interpreter.

It was not his object to purchase lands, or to lay down rules to govern them in trading, but honestly to assure the untutored children of the forest of his friendly purposes and brotherly affection.

The covenant then made, not written with ink, nor confirmed by any oath, was sacredly kept. No deed of violence or injustice ever marred the peace or interrupted the friendly relations of the parties. For more than seventy years, during which time the province remained under the control of the Friends, the peace was unbroken. Not a war-whoop was heard, nor any hostile demonstration witnessed in Pennsylvania.

In December, 1682, a convention was held of three days’ continuance, and all needful provision made for territorial legislation.

The generous concessions of the proprietor harmonized the views of the assembly, and the results of the convention were eminently satisfactory.

After a month’s absence, during which there was a visit to the Chesapeake, and an amicable conference with Lord Baltimore, about the boundaries of their respective provinces, Penn returned, and busied himself in locating and making a plot of his proposed capital. The beautiful neck between the Schuylkill and Delaware was wisely chosen; the land purchased of the Swedes, who had begun a settlement there, and map of the city provided. Three or four cabins were the only dwellings on the site, and the lines of the streets were indicated by marks on the trees. Thus in the woods was founded Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

From the inception of his American enterprise, Penn showed himself a true philanthropist, not seeking his own aggrandizement, but the good of others. The oppressed and persecuted trusted him and were not disappointed. He promised them freedom, the love of which was a master passion with him, and the charter of their liberties dated at Philadelphia, and adopted by the first General Assembly, was even more generous than they expected. He conceded all the rights of legislation to the representatives of the people, reserving for himself only the right to veto any hasty and objectionable enactments of the council. His administration as executive met with much favor, and the tide of prosperity was for years unabated. Such was the condition of affairs in Pennsylvania when King James II. abdicated his throne. Penn, being a friend of the Stuarts, and having received his liberal charter from Charles II., sympathized with the fallen monarch, and, though loyal, had less confidence in William and Mary. For his sympathy and supposed adherence to the cause of the exiled king, he was persecuted, several times arrested and cast into prison. But investigations showed the suspicions of disloyalty unfounded; and his rights, so unjustly and to the great grief of his colonists, wrested from him, were fully restored. The new sovereign was a Catholic, and his fellow-communicants, like other dissenters from the Establishment, had suffered much. His anxiety to restore to them all the immunities of citizenship disposed him to listen to the logic and eloquence of the accomplished Quaker, who boldly contended for the toleration of all creeds, and the unlimited freedom of conscience. His influence during these years, in keeping up the tide of immigration to America, and especially to Pennsylvania, was something wonderful.

In 1699 he again visited his American colony, now grown into a state—the increase in population and all the resources of a prosperous community far exceeding his expectations.

In 1701, having carefully and satisfactorily arranged all his affairs in America, Penn bade a final adieu to his many friends, and returned to England. He left them, largely through the influence of his teaching and example and spirit, at peace among themselves and with all their neighbors.

About this time a measure was proposed in England that, if passed, would seriously affect the colonists in all parts of the country. The ministers formed the design of abolishing all the proprietary estates, with the view of establishing royal governments in their stead. The presence of Penn was greatly needed in England to prevent the success of this scheme, and not without much effort was the purpose defeated. It required a man of power and influence in the king’s court to do it. From this time the government, though still in Penn’s right, was administered by his deputies, some of whom disappointed him. John Evans, an ambitious man, and not true to the peace principles of the Friends, greatly troubled the province by purchasing military equipments, and attempting to organize a regiment of militia. The council and citizens protested so strongly against his proceedings as irreconcilable with the policy of Penn, that Evans was removed from the office, and another appointed. His charge to the deputies appointed had been, “You are come to a quiet land; rule for him under whom the princes of this world will one day esteem it an honor to govern in their places.” Those who heeded the charge had peace and prosperity in their borders. As proprietor of his vast possessions in America, Penn was not faultless; but his mistakes bore an amiable character. Conscious of his own integrity and freedom from cupidity, he placed too much confidence in the untried virtue of others, and exposed inferior men in the way of temptation to dishonesty that they were not able to resist. The rascality of his agent, Ford, whose false accounts involved the honest proprietor in debt to a large amount, well nigh accomplished his financial ruin. He was imprisoned, and after weary months of confinement was released by influential friends, who compounded with the creditors in whose power the crafty agent had placed him.