Part 9

When Jackson issued his famous proclamation against the South Carolina nullifiers, Randolph arose from his sick bed and actively canvassed the district, making inflammatory speeches from his carriage to arouse a public sentiment against the proclamation and its author—as if a skeleton, uttering a voice from the grave, had come back to awaken the living. Then we hear of him at the Petersburg races, making a speech and betting on the horses. It was probably on this occasion that he made the retort to a sporting man. Randolph excitedly offered a certain wager on one of the horses. A stranger proposed to take the bet, saying, “My friend Thompson here will hold the stakes.” “Yes,” squealed the skeleton statesman, suspiciously, “and who will hold Thompson?”

But the end was drawing on. Ill as he was, he made preparations to go abroad again, and in May, 1833, started for Philadelphia to take passage.

On the boat thence to Philadelphia the dying man—for such now he was—ate heartily of _fried clams_, asked an acquaintance to read for him and criticised every incorrect accent or pronunciation, and talked freely about men, measures, and especially about his horses, which were very fast. The closing scene took place in Philadelphia, in a hotel, among strangers,—fit finale of his desolate, homeless life.

He lingered several days, during which time he took, with great care, the necessary legal steps to confirm his will for the manumission of his slaves. This finally done, he seemed to feel easier in mind and body. The account of the strange end of the eventful history proceeds:

He now made his preparations to die. He directed John to bring him his father’s breast button; he then directed him to place it in the bosom of his shirt. It was an old-fashioned, large-sized gold stud. John placed it in the button hole of the shirt bosom—but to fix it completely required another hole on the other side. “Get a knife,” said he, “and cut one.” A napkin was called for, and placed by John, over his breast. For a short time he lay perfectly quiet, with his eyes closed. He suddenly roused up and exclaimed:

“_Remorse!_ REMORSE!”

It was thrice repeated—the last time, at the top of his voice, with great agitation. He cried out, “Let me see the word. Get a dictionary! Let me see the word!”

“There is none in the room, sir.”

“Write it down then—let me see the word.”

The Doctor picked up one of his cards, “Randolph, of Roanoke.” “Shall I write on this?”

“Yes; nothing more proper.”

The word _remorse_ was then written in pencil. He took the card in a hurried manner, and fastened his eyes on it with great intensity. “Write it on the back,” he exclaimed. It was so done and handed him again. He was extremely agitated.

“Remorse! you have no idea what it is; you can form no idea of it whatever; it has contributed to bring me to my present situation. But I have looked to the Lord Jesus Christ, and hope I have obtained pardon. Now let John take your pencil and draw a line under the word,” which was accordingly done.

“What am I to do with the card,” inquired the Doctor.

“Put it in your pocket, take care of it, and when I am dead, look at it.”

The dying man was propped up in the bed with pillows, nearly erect. Being extremely sensitive to cold, he had a blanket over his head and shoulders; and he directed John to place his hat on over the blanket, which aided in keeping it close to his head.

The scene was soon changed. Having disposed of that subject most deeply impressed on his heart, his keen, penetrating eye lost its expression, his powerful mind gave way, and his fading imagination began to wander amid scenes and with friends that he had left behind. In two hours the spirit took its flight, and all that was mortal of John Randolph of Roanoke was hushed in death. At a quarter before twelve o’clock, on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1833, aged sixty years, he breathed his last, in a chamber of the City Hotel, Philadelphia.

From the very necessities of the nature of an Eccentric, John Randolph could not be in harmony with the time in which he lived. But this difference was intensified into enmity by the irritable nature of his mind and the diseased condition of his body; nay, by his very virtues and genius. To increase the enmity and his own misfortune, he threw himself with ardor upon the losing side of an irrepressible conflict in government. I think posterity is better prepared to do him justice than were his contemporaries, for we have passed a settlement of the political conflict, and from pitying hearts can make full allowance for Randolph’s unhappy nature and unfortunate lot, while recognizing the purity, honesty and heroism of his character. Which of us would have been a better man in his situation?

THE STORK.

Translated from the Swedish, for THE CHAUTAUQUAN.[K]

An isle there is in airy distance Where rise green forests, grim and tall, Its name eludes one with persistence, But occupied with genie small; The dewy air is dawn’s fresh greeting, And drowsy waves the reeds are beating, There poppies grow, and lilies rare, These only really thriving there, But crimson-booted stork there feedeth, To earthly mothers children leadeth.

In poppy scent with lilies vieing, He gently flaps at water’s brink, To capture chubby genie trying, And begs them not to fear or shrink. The bantlings, in whose souls are blended Fragrance from both flowers expended, Which makes the tender sense appear In these both slumbering and clear, Around the snowy stork would rally, And ventured not, but wished to dally.

“Come here, come here,” a voice then crying, The stork soon ruffles up his frill, He sees two tiny urchins flying So near as to be touched at will. But oh, what wings, now waving lightly! And feathers too, these shifting brightly In green, as light as young birch leaves When spring its bath of dew receives, In red, as pale a hue revealing, As streak at dawn, the mist concealing!

At night they breast to breast had slumbered, In moonbeams’ silver veil did lie On poppy-bed by waves unnumbered, To angels’ sweetest lullaby. Now stand they fresh as early morning, In sprightly mood, all dullness scorning. One cries, “Come, long-legs, come to me!” The stork looks round quite loftily, And straightway to the youngsters striding, He asks them, “Do ye feel like riding?”

The boy then answers, “I would try it, So on thy back pray let me sit! On earth ’tis lovely, none deny it, But be not ugly—gently flit!” And up on snowy plumage springing, A shower of down around him flinging, Sat firm. The stork asked, “Lassie, thou, Wilt thou not also travel now And be a child to some good mother?” But no—too timid, shy, this other.

They started off. The pleasure craving, So free and wild on stork he flew, And to his sister farewell waving, Until at last was lost to view. And she whose fear her trip prevented, Now wished to be along, repented. She felt so lonely, was not glad, And when next year the stork she had, Who late and early came and started, Her wish to ride next time imparted.

He answered, “Come then, naught detaining! ’Twas stupid to refuse last year; Not now the same good mother gaining As he, the boy thou held so dear, For she beneath the turf is sleeping; But come, my little dove, now keeping Most careful hold around my neck, And scream not till our course we check!” And round his neck her arms she twineth, And heaven’s winds his flight assigneth.

On earth they grew up well protected, The boy to manhood had attained, A beauteous maiden, she, perfected, When first they met, as seemed ordained. Were early memories, reviving, To draw them soul to soul now striving? Was it the roguish stork, oh say, That thus together brought their way? I think that fate great fondness bore them, When choosing different mothers for them.

But thou shouldst see the cot so sightly, The woodland home in which they dwell! The cause of it I know not rightly Why storks just there should thrive so well, And _one_ especially, who hovers On roof which inner chamber covers, And goes and flaps with all his might So crimson-booted, silver-white, And best she worked, the mother hinted, When he had sticks and straws unstinted.

Each fall he goes, the habit keeping, But seen each spring again on roof, From there o’er house and garden peeping; And can I judge, or take as proof The children I have seen there playing, Full often has the stork been straying To that fair poppy-covered isle, And now brings lass with winsome smile, And now a lovely boy, a treasure; This must afford him constant pleasure.

As pedagogue he struts hereafter, And trousers of the boys he pecks With bill, rewarded then with laughter, If naughtiness or prank detects; But yet for their protection striving, And serpents from the garden driving, And patiently will he comply When “Long-legs, come!” the children cry. Each eve from thatch so closely heeding, If they the psalms are nicely reading.

* * * * *

The art of reading is to skip judiciously. Whole libraries may be skipped in these days, when we have the results of them in our modern culture without going over the ground again. And even of the books we decide to read, there are almost always large portions which do not concern us, and which we are sure to forget the day after we have read them. The art is to skip all that does not concern us, whilst missing nothing that we really need. No external guidance can teach us this, for nobody but ourselves can guess what the needs of our intellect may be. But let us select with decisive firmness, independently of other people’s advice, independently of the authority of custom. In every newspaper that comes to hand there is a little bit that we ought to read; the art is to find that little bit, and waste no time over the rest.—_Philip G. Hamerton._

GARDENING AMONG THE CHINESE.

Translated for THE CHAUTAUQUAN, from “Revue des Deux Mondes.”

A French physician, M. Martin, who has for several years been an attaché of the French ambassador at Pekin, calls the Chinese the authors of the art of gardening. Since the earliest times their leaders have had the wisdom to have cultivated not only ornamental plants, but as well those which would increase the resources of the inhabitants. Their vast enclosures have often been the nurseries of the provinces, and to excite the ambition of their subjects, the rulers award prizes on many public occasions to those who present to them new flowers or fruits. Our societies of horticulture do no better. The annals of the Tsing dynasty mention mandarins whose business it was to care for the gardens of the emperor, and especially to look after the bamboos. The taste for flowers increased by the encouragement of the authorities gives an astonishing commercial value to certain plants. The _sambac_, whose flowers have at once the odor of the rose and of the orange, as blended in the common jasmine, is used to perfume tea, liquors, syrups and preserves; at Pekin a very small branch is worth from ten dollars to twelve dollars and upwards. An _asclepias_, which gives its perfume only at night, has been sold for twenty and thirty ounces of silver, and each year the viceroy of the province of Tche-kiang sends several cuttings of it to Pekin for the apartments of the emperor. In order to profit by so lucrative a taste, Chinese horticulture has been for the most part spent in trying to make the most of the treasures of their flora. To this flora we owe the chief of our ornamental flowers—the Chinese pink, sent in 1702 to the Abbé Bignon, and first described in 1705; the aster, sent out in 1728, and which received from a committee of amateurs the name of Queen Marguerite; our autumn chrysanthemum, which for a long time figured on the coat of arms of the emperors; the dicentra (or “bleeding heart”), whose rosy spurred cups look like a double shield; the Chinese rose; the Chinese honeysuckle, whose original name signifies “the gold and silver flower,” in reference to its various colors; the begonia, green above and provided with purple veins below; our camellia, which the Chinese call the tea-flower; finally, a flower which we call the isle of Guernsey, because the vessel which brought the bulbs of this elegant amaryllis into England having been shipwrecked in sight of its country, the bulbs, carried by the waves on to the sandy shores of the isle, took root there and were kept alive in the pleasant temperature.

The taste of these Orientals is very different from ours. We are disagreeably affected by the care which they take to diminish the height of all vegetation. The missionaries assure us that they have seen cypresses and pines which were not more than two feet in height, although forty years old, and well proportioned in all their parts. It is one way of obtaining a great number of types in a narrow space, which is precious in a country where the gardens are so elegant and the ownership so divided. It is one of the results of the culture of the family life, and if a stranger is but little pleased by these stunted forms he is, at least, able to extract a moral upon the infinite patience which has produced them. By energy and will they direct as they wish the most obstinate plants, and in their flower-beds imitate lakes, rocks, rivers, and even mountains.

But they have as well their landscape gardens: they are around tombs, and especially the pagodas, those centers of civilization which are at once places of prayer, store-houses for the harvests of the simple, and grazing grounds for the preservation of quadrupeds. It is in these gardens of the extreme East that one sees those avenues of bamboos, whose knots hollowed out leave niches for idols; then there are magnificent specimens of the great thuja of the East, whose sweet-scented imperishable wood is used for making coffins, and reduced to powder is made into aromatic chopsticks, which are burnt before the statues of their divinities; the fir-tree, with long cones, a native of the northeast; the oak, with leaves like the chestnut tree, and which bears the mistletoe in China; the weeping willow and the funeral cypress, whose bright leaves stand out against the black background of the pines; the _Pinus bungeana_, which grows to an enormous size, and whose trunk becomes so white with age that it might easily pass for limestone. We can not describe the effect of this grand, severe vegetation, intermingled with marble statues and columns, surrounding the lofty conical roofs of the pagodas.

In no country of Europe are the gardeners so skillful in multiplying and cultivating. They have processes of their own. Our gardeners do not know how to use half-rotten planks, which they pierce with holes, fill with earth, and use in the germination of the cutting; when the plant begins to grow they break away the plank. We are far from practicing grafting in their bold style; this horticultural operation is performed among the Chinese in very different ways. They graft successfully the chrysanthemum on the wormwood, the oak on the chestnut, the grape on the jujube tree. These feats, which shock the customs of our horticulturists and even the convictions of our botanists, recall those which the good Pliny relates, and for which he has been charged with ignorance and hyperbole.

Their cleverness in gardening has one outlet of which we are ignorant. We cut our boxwood, and do not save it for the Palm-Sunday festival. The Chinese cultivate plants for holy purposes. The ponds and other bodies of water so numerous in a country where rice is the chief food, gives them opportunity to cultivate in abundance a magnificent water plant, the lotus of the Indus, the sacred plant of the Hindoos. The god Buddha is always represented reposing on the lotus flower, whose root signifies vigor, its great leaves growth, its odor the sovereign spirit, its brilliancy love. Thus it is customary to offer to the idols the beautiful flowers of the lotus; besides, its culture offers a double advantage, its fruitful root and its sweet grains (the beans of Egypt) being used in Chinese cookery. The fruit of one variety of the lemon tree is produced from the separated carpels, which are disjoined at the base of the lemon and developed separately, like the fingers of a hand. This hand is among the Chinese that of their god; _Fo-chou-kan_, as it is called, signifies the sweet smelling hand of Buddha. A writer assures us that the gardeners aid, by bands which are early fastened on the fruit, in bringing about this paying division; they are capable of it.

This union of two very different feelings, the greed for gain and piety, ought not to astonish us much. The simple affection which they have for plants seems to be a kind of religious sentiment. Each plant inspires them with a kind of mystic love which affects certain of their poems. Their literature represents to us a delight in flowers which we do not easily understand. They are enraptured at the sight of a plant, and seek by continued observation to understand its development. One is not surprised at the degree of skill to which such an exalted taste leads their gardeners.

The emperors have always especially encouraged the production of vegetables and orchards, as well as general agriculture. “I prefer,” said the emperor Kang-hi, “to procure a new kind of fruit or of grain for my subjects rather than to build an hundred porcelain towers.” Two centuries before him one prince published an herbarium containing the plants suitable to cultivate in time of famine, after having consulted with the peasants and farmers.

The Chinese have always displayed the greatest activity in order to assure themselves of their food at the expense of the vegetable world, sometimes from plants which are not cultivated, as from seaweeds, from which they obtain gelatine or a salty condiment, and particularly from those which they can perfect in their gardens. There are to be found in their kitchen gardens not only the most of our common vegetables, as turnips, carrots, radishes, onions, and our salad herbs, but some peculiar vegetables like the Chinese cabbage whose seeds furnish oil; the rapeseed, the young shoots of which are used in pickles, like those of mustard; fruits similar to our melons and cucumbers; enormous egg-plants, etc. If the garden contains a stream of water, as is frequent, they cultivate according to the depth of the water either aquatic grasses, of which they eat the terminal buds, or water plants like the lotus, or the Chinese cock’s-comb, of which all the parts furnish a nourishing fecula, or plants of the melon family, like the watermelon or the peculiar water chestnut, which is at times a scarlet red, and which they gather in the autumn. The picturesque way in which they gather these nuts is well described by M. Fauvel. Men, women and children embark on the canal in tubs, which they push with long bamboos about the floating islets of the chestnut, and which often capsize, to everyone’s great amusement.

In some places one observes a singular culture of mushrooms. These cryptograms are greatly valued in China, and not alone on account of their nutritive properties. One species which takes root upon coming into the open air, and which is edible, has so dry a tissue that it keeps almost as fresh as when one gathers it ripe. Ancient writers took it for a symbol of immortality.

It is particularly interesting to examine the Chinese orchards, distinguishing the productions of the north and south. The fruits of the south are less interesting: dates, cocoanut trees, mangoes, bananas, bread trees, pineapples, all tropical fruits which are not exclusively Chinese. The principal fruits of the north are first _the five fruits_, that is, the peach, apricot, plum, the chestnut and the jujube. The most important of Chinese fruit trees is the peach, which most probably is a native of the country. Its winter florescence has been taken by Chinese romance writers as the symbol of love and fidelity. Chinese orchards also furnish many other fruits: several kinds of plums, a fine white pear as round as our bergamot, the berries of the myrica, which pass very well for our strawberries, and which are easily mistaken for the arbute berry; but for general use nothing equals the Chinese figs and oranges.

EIGHT CENTURIES WITH WALTER SCOTT.

By WALLACE BRUCE.

“The Fair Maid of Perth” is at once a photograph and a drama. The beautiful county of Perthshire, with its wild mountains and picturesque lakes, seems transferred bodily as by a camera to the novelist’s pages, and the historic incidents are so real and rapid in dramatic interest that they seem lifted from the realm of history into a sort of Shaksperean play.

The story opens with a description of Perth from a spot called the Wicks of Baigle, “where the traveler beholds stretching beneath him the valley of the Tay, traversed by its ample and lordly stream; the town of Perth with its two large meadows, its steeples, and its towers; the hills of Moncreiff and Kinnoul faintly rising into picturesque rocks, partly clothed with woods; the rich margin of the river, studded with elegant mansions, and the distant view of the huge Grampian mountains, the northern screen of this exquisite landscape.”

The time of the story is 1402. Almost a century has elapsed since the battle of Bannockburn—a century of turmoil and strife. Its history seems like a great tempest-tossed sea swept by constantly recurring whirlwinds. Three kings and as many regents reign in turn; and at the opening of our story Scotland is under the government of Robert the Third.

David the Second, only son of Robert Bruce, died childless; his sister, Marjory, married Walter, the Lord High Steward of the realm; their son was crowned Robert the Third, King of Scotland. The family took the name of Stewart, which gave by direct descent the Stuart line to the throne of Britain, and their descendants are to-day upon the thrones of England, Italy and Greece. The little skiff, tossed ashore upon the rugged cliffs and cold hospitality of Lorne Castle, as described in our last article, carried therefore the ancestor of a long historic line—a line not always fortunate, not always honest, but presenting for the most part during its record of five hundred years a fair average of manhood and womanhood as kings and queens generally run.

Robert the Third found his country torn by civil feuds, and his temper was too mild for those stormy times. His brother, the Duke of Albany, a crafty counselor of the Iago type, provoked strife between father and son. The good king’s heart was broken. “Vengeance followed,” says Scott, “though with a slow pace, the treachery and cruelty of his brother. Robert of Albany’s own grey hairs went, indeed, in peace to the grave, and he transferred the regency, which he had so foully acquired, to his son Murdoch. But nineteen years after the death of the old king, James the First returned to Scotland, and Duke Murdoch of Albany, with his sons, was brought to the scaffold, in expiation of his father’s guilt and his own.”