Chapter 14

The following table, from the census of 1850, presents the slave and cotton statistics of this district, in their relation to the free population:

COUNTIES. FREE. SLAVE. COTTON, 400 lb. bales. Johnson, 3,485 206 0 Carter, 5,911 353 0 Washington, 12,671 930 0 Sullivan, 10,603 1,004 153 Hancock, 5,447 202 2 Hawkins, 11,567 1,690 0 Greene, 16,526 1,093 0 Cocke, 7,501 719 3 Sevier, 6,450 403 0 Jefferson, 11,458 1,628 0 Granger, 11,170 1,035 1 Knox, 16,385 2,193 0 Union, new county, Claiborne, 8,610 660 0 Anderson, 6,391 503 0 Campbell, 5,651 318 1 Scott, 1,808 37 0 Morgan, 3,301 101 9 Cumberland, new county, Roane, 10,525 1,544 121 Blount, 11,213 1,084 6 Munroe, 10,623 1,188 0 McMinn, 12,286 1,568 2,821 Polk, 5,884 400 29 Bradley, 11,478 744 1,600 Meigs, 4,480 395 2 Hamilton, 9,216 672 0 Rhea, 3,951 436 0 Bledsoe, 5,036 827 0 Sequatche, new county, Van Buren, 2,481 175 2 Grundy, 2,522 236 24 Marion, 5,718 551 24,413 Franklin, 10,085 3,623 637 Lincoln, 17,802 5,621 2,576

The geographical order of the foregoing list of counties is from the extreme north-east--Johnson--south-west to Lincoln, on the Alabama line. I have included a tier of counties the west, which embrace the summits and western slopes of the Cumberland Hills, regarding their physical and political features as more identified with East than Middle Tennessee. Such are Lincoln, Franklin, Grundy, Van Buren, Cumberland, Morgan and Scott counties.

I estimate the area of this district as about 17,175 square miles, an extent of territory exceeding the aggregate of the following States:

Massachusetts, 7,800 square miles. Connecticut, 4,674 square miles. Rhode Island, l,306 square miles. ------ 13,180 square miles.

Yet it is not many months since even this Tennessee region, it was generally feared, would be false to the Union, on account of its attachment to slavery.

The reader who has studied the facts which I have cited, indicating the existence of a powerful Union party at the South (and the facts are few and weak compared to the vast mass which exist, and which are known to government), may judge for himself whether that party is Union _in spite of pro-slavery principles_, as so many would have us believe. Let him see where these Union men are found, where they have come forth with the greatest enthusiasm, and _then_ say that he believes they are friends to slavery. Let him bear in mind the hundreds of thousands of acres, the vast tracts, equal in extent to whole Northern States, in the South, which are unfitted for slave labor, and reflect whether the inhabitants of these cool, temperate regions are not as conscious of their inadaptability to slave labor as he is himself; and whether _they_ are so much attached to the institution which fosters the Satanic pride, panders to the passions, and corrupts the children of the planter of the low country.

Since writing the above, the long-expected declaration of President LINCOLN has appeared in favor of adopting a plan which may lead to the gradual abolishment of slavery. He proposes that the United States shall cooeperate with such slave States as may desire Emancipation, by giving such pecuniary aid as may compensate for any losses incurred. No interference with State rights or claims to rights in the question is intended.

It is evident that this message is directed entirely to the strengthening and building up of the Union party of the South, and has been based quite as much on their demands and on a knowledge of their needs, as on any Northern pressure. And it will have a sure effect. It will bring to life, if realized, those seeds of counter-revolution which so abundantly exist in the South. The growth may be slow, but it will be certain. So long as the certainty exists that compensation _may_ be obtained, there will be a party who will long for it; and where there is a will there is a way. The executive has finally _officially_ recognized the truth of the theory of Emancipation, and thereby entitled itself to the honor of having taken the greatest forward step in the glorious path of Freedom ever made even in our history.

* * * * *

THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.

NO. I.

In addressing you for the first time, you will perhaps expect me to give some account of myself and my ancestry, as did the illustrious _Spectator_.

My remote ancestors are Irish. From them I inherited enthusiasm, a gun-powder temper, a propensity to blunder, and a name--Molly O'Molly. The origin of this name I have in vain endeavored to trace in history, perhaps because it belonged to a very old family, one of the _prehistorics_. As such it might have been that of a demigod, or, according to the development theory, of a _demi-man_. Or it might have been that of an old Irish gentleman, _gentle_ in truth;--in the formative stage of society it is the monster that leaves traces of himself, as in an old geologic period the huge reptile left his tracks in the plastic earth, which afterward hardened into rock.

Then, too, I have searched in vain for anything like it in ancient Irish poetry, thinking that my progenitor's name might have been therein embalmed. 'The stony science'--mind you--reveals to us the former existence of the huge reptile, the fragmentary, mighty mastodon, and, imperfect, the mail-clad fish. But, wonder of wonders, we find the whole _insect_ preserved in that fossil gum amber. And even so in verse, characters are preserved for all time, that could not make their mark in history, and that had none of the elements of an earthly immortality. Did I wish immortality I would choose a poet for my friend;--an _In Memoriam_ is worth all the records of the dry chronicler.

But, it is not with the root of the family tree that you have to do, but with the twig Myself.

As for my physique,--I am not like the scripture personage who beheld his face in a glass, and straightway forgot what manner of man he was. I have, on the contrary, a very distinct recollection of my face; suffice it to say, that, had I Rafaelle's pencil, I would not, like him, employ it on my own portrait.

And my life--the circumstances which have influenced, or rather created its currents, have been trifling; not that it has had no powerful currents; it is said that the equilibrium of the whole ocean could be destroyed by a single mollusk or coralline,--but my life has been an uneventful one. I never met with an adventure, never even had a hair-breadth escape,--yes, I did, too, have one hair-breadth escape. I once just grazed matrimony. The truth is, I fell in love, and was sinking with Falstaff's 'alacrity,' when I was fished out; but somehow I slipt off the hook--fortunately, however, was left on shore. By the way, the best way to get out of love is to be drawn out by the matrimonial hook. One of Holmes' characters wished to change a vowel of the verb _to love_, and conjugate it--I have forgotten how far. Where two set out to conjugate together the verb to love in the first person plural, it is well if they do not, before the honey-moon is over, get to the present-perfect, indicative. Alas! I have thus far, in the first person singular, conjugated too many verbs, among them _to enjoy_. As for _to be_, I have come to the balancing in my mind of the question that so perplexed Hamlet--'To be, or not to be.' For, with all the natural cheerfulness of my disposition, I can not help sometimes looking on the dark side of life. But there is no use in setting down my gloomy reflections,--all have them. We are all surrounded by an atmosphere of misery, pressing on us fifteen pounds to the square inch, so evenly and constantly that we know not its fearful weight. To change the figure. Have you ever thought how much misery one life _can_ hold in solution? Each year, as it flows into it, adds to it a heaviness, a weight of woe, as the rivers add salts to the ocean. I do not refer to the most unhappy, but to all. Some one says,--

'If singing breath, if echoing chord To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured, As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven.'

If breath to every hidden prayer were given, could it be _singing_ breath? Would it not be a wail monotonous as the dirge of the November wind over the dead summer, a wail for lost hopes, lost joys, lost loves? Or the monotony would be varied--as is the wind by fitful gusts--by shrieks of despair, cries of agony. No, no, there is no use in trying to modulate our woes,--'we're all wrong,--the _time_ in us is lost.'

'Henceforth I'll bear Affliction, till it do cry out itself, "Enough, enough," and die.'

But why talk thus? why mourn over dead hopes, dead joys, dead loves? 'Tis best to bury the dead out of our sight, and from them will spring many humbler hopes, quieter joys, more lowly affections, which 'smell sweet' though they 'blossom in the dust,' and they are the only resurrection these dead ones can ever have. I have been reading, in Maury's Geography of the Sea, how the sea's dead are preserved; how they stand like enchanted warders of the treasures of the deep, unchanged, except that the expression of life is exchanged for the ghastliness of death. So, down beneath the surface currents do some deep souls preserve their dead hopes, joys, loves. Oh, this is unwise; this is _not_ as God intended; for, unlike the sea's dead, there will be for these no resurrection.

Thus far I wrote, when the current of my thoughts was changed by a lively tune struck up by a hand-organ across the street. I am not 'good' at distinguishing tunes, but this one I had so often heard in childhood, and had so wondered at its strange title, that I could but remember it. It was 'The Devil's Dream.' Were I a poet, I would write the words to it;--but then, too, I would need be a musician to compose a suitable new tune to the words! The rattling, reckless notes should be varied by those sad enough to make an unlost angel weep--an unlost angel, for, to the hot eyes of the lost, no tears can come. 'The _Devil's_ Dream'--perhaps it is of Heaven. Doubtless, frescoed in heavenly colors on the walls of his memory, are scenes from which fancy has but to brush the smoke and grime of perdition to restore them to almost their original beauty. I could even pity the 'Father of lies,' the 'Essence of evil,' the 'Enemy of mankind,' when I think of the terrible awaking. But does _he_ ever sleep? Has there since the fall been a pause in _his_ labors? Perhaps the reason this tune-time is so fast is because he is dreaming in a hurry,--must soon be up and doing. But it is my opinion that he has so wound up the world to wickedness, that he might sleep a hundred years, and it would have scarcely begun to run down on his awaking; when, from the familiar appearance of all things, he would swear 'it was but an after-dinner nap.' Indeed he might die, might to-day go out in utter nothingness like a falling star, and it would be away in the year two thousand before he would be missed,--we have learned to do our own devil-work so rarely. Meanwhile the well-wound world--as a music-box plays over the same tunes--would go on sinning over the same old sins. Satan is a great economist, but a paltry deviser,--he has not invented a new sin since the flood. My thoughts thus danced along to the music, when they were brought to a dead stop by its cessation; and it was time, you will think....

But, permit me to remind you that my name is not _acquired_, but _inherited_.

At your service,

MOLLY O'MOLLY.

NO. II.

I detest that man who bides his time to repay a wrong or fancied wrong, who keeps alive in his hardened nature the vile thing hatred, and would for centuries, did he live thus long,--as the toad is kept alive in the solid rock. Hugh Miller says he is 'disposed to regard the poison bag of the serpent as a mark of degradation;' this venomous spite is certainly a mark of degradation, and it is only creeping, crawling souls that have it, but the creeping and crawling are a part of the curse.

Yet I have a respect for honest indignation, righteous anger, such as the O'Mollys have ever been capable of. And all the O'Molly blood in my veins has been stirred by the contemptuous manner in which some men have spoken of woman. 'Weak woman,--inconstant woman;' they have made the wind a type of her fickleness. In this they are right; for it has been proved that the seasons in their return, day and night, are not more sure than the wind. Such fickleness as this is preferable to _man's_ greatest constancy. Woman weak! she's gentle as the summer breeze, I grant;--but, like this same breeze, when she's roused--then beware! You have doubtless heard of that gale that forced back the Gulf Stream, and piled it up thirty feet at its source.

Take care how you sour woman's nature,--remember that, once soured, all the honey in the universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process? Grumbling--everlasting fault-finding--at breakfast, dinner, and supper, the same old tune. I don't see how the man who boards can endure it; he is obliged to swallow his food without complaint. The landlady at the head of the table is a very different-looking individual from the meek woman he afterwards calls wife,--not a word can he say, though he morning after morning, in his breakfast, recognizes, through its various disguises, yesterday's dinner. By the way, this is after Dame Nature's plan; she uses the greatest economy in feeding her immense family of boarders; never wastes a refuse scrap, or even a drop of water. If one of these boarders dies, it is true he is not, like 'the poor work-house boy,' served up as one dish, but he becomes an ingredient in many 'a dainty dish' fit to 'to set before a king.' But I am not, like 'Miss Ophelia' in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' going to explore the good dame's kitchen,--will rather eat what is set before me, asking no questions; which last, what _man_ ever did, if he could help it?

For an insignificant man, originally but a cipher, who owes it to his wife that he is even the fraction that he is, to talk about 'woman knowing her place--he's head,' etc.! If he had given her the place that belonged to her, their value, not as individual figures, but as one number, would have been increased a thousand fold. I have made a calculation, and this is literally true, or rather, you will say, _figuratively_ true. Well, this kind of figures can not lie.

'The rose,' the Burmese say, 'imparts fragrance to the leaf in which it is folded.' Many a man has had a sweetness imparted to his character by the woman he has sheltered in his bosom--though some characters 'not all the perfume of Arabia could sweeten;' and, strange as it seem, most women would rather be folded in a _tobacco_ leaf than 'waste their sweetness on desert air.' Though it is a long time since I have been a man _lover_, I am not a man _hater_. I can not hate anything that has been so hallowed by woman's love,--_its_ magnetism gives a sort of attractive power to him.

Notwithstanding all that has been said about woman's weakness, it is acknowledged that she has a pretty strong will of her own. Well, we need a strong will,--it is the great _centrifugal force_ that God has given to all. Only it must be subordinate to the _centripetal force_ of the universe--the Divine will.

It is said that the centripetal force of our solar system is the Pleiad Alcyon. I know not whether the other stars of that cluster feel this attraction; if they do, what a centrifugal force the lost Pleiad must have had, to break away from 'the sweet influences' which, through so immense a distance, draw the sun with all his train. This is not without a parallel--when 'the morning stars sang together' over the new-born earth, one 'star of the morning' was not there to join in the chorus.

But Old Sol will probably never so strongly assert _his_ centrifugality as to set such an example of _secession_ to his planets and comets.

Pardon this astronomical digression. I have just returned from hearing an itinerant lecturer, and it will take a week to get the smoke of his magic lantern out of my eyes. If there is any error in these observations, blame the itinerant, not me.

I had been low-spirited all day, had tried reading, work,--all of no avail. Dyspeptic views of life would present themselves to my mind. Some natures, and mine is of them, like the pendulum, need a weight attached to them to keep them from going too fast. But a wholesome sorrow is very different from this moping melancholy, when the thoughts run in one direction, till they almost wear a channel for themselves--when the channel is worn, there is _insanity_.

Neither are my gloomy religious views to-day those that will regenerate the world. Those lines of Dr. Watts,--'We should suspect some danger nigh When we possess delight,'--it is said, were written after a disappointment in love--it was 'sour grapes' that morning--with the grave divine.

As a general rule, where we possess _continued_ delight, there is no 'danger nigh.' Where an enjoyment comes between us and our God, it casts on us a shadow. When we have plucked a beautiful flower, if poisonous, it has such a sickening odor that we fling it from us. We do not 'pay too dear for our whistle,' unless it costs us a sin; then it soon becomes a loathed and useless toy. Otherwise, the dearer we pay, the sweeter its music.

And even if there is 'danger nigh'--because we are pleased with the beautiful foam, need we steer straight for the breakers? Not every tempting morsel is the enemy's bait, though we should be careful how we nibble;--he is no blunderer (a proof positive that he is not Irish), never leaves his trap sprung--and we may get caught.

This is a synopsis of the arguments, or rather assertions, with which I opposed those of the blues; but, finding they were getting the better of me, I started out for a walk. It was a chilly afternoon; the whole sky, except a clear place just above the western horizon, was covered with those heavy, diluted India-ink clouds; the setting sun throwing a dreary red light on the northern and eastern mountains, adding sullenness to the gloom, instead of dispelling it. But why describe this gloomy sunset, there are so many beautiful ones?--when, as the grand, old, dying Humboldt said, the 'glorious rays seem to beckon earth to heaven?'

Well, I walked so fast that I left my blue tormentors far in the rear. On the way I met a friend, who invited me to go to the astronomical lecture. Here you have it, after many digressions. My thoughts never strike a plane surface, but always a spherical, and fly off in a tangent.

Sydney Smith says, 'Remember the flood and be brief.' You know I belong to a very old family; and from an ancestor, who lived before the flood, has been transmitted through a long line of O'Mollys a disposition to spin out. Unfortunately an antediluvian length of time was not an _heir-loom_ to

Your humble servant,

MOLLY O'MOLLY.

* * * * *

SKETCHES OF EDINBURGH LITERATI.

BY A FORMER MEMBER OF ITS PRESS.

There was a time when the little hamlet of Cockpaine, ten miles from Edinburgh, in addition to the charms of its scenery, was also socially attractive from the high literary talent of several of its residents. It was situated on the banks of the Esk, whose rapid flow affords a valuable water-power. This had been improved under the enterprise of Mr. Craig, an extensive manufacturer, who became at last proprietor not only of the mills, but of the entire village. Mr. Craig was successful for several years; but the revulsions of trade during the Crimean war swept away his previous profits, and in 1854 he sank in utter bankruptcy.

The extensive domain of the Earl of Dalhousie lay next to Cockpaine, and the village site seemed all that was necessary to its completeness. As soon as the latter was offered for sale, the earl made the long-desired purchase, and then began the immediate eviction of its population. I saw four hundred operatives, of all ages, driven off on one sad occasion--a scene which reminded me most painfully of Goldsmith's lines in the 'Deserted Village:'--

'Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting day That called them from their native walks away, When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last, And took a long farewell, and wished in vain For seats like these beyond the western main; And shuddering still to face the distant deep, Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.'

A subsequent visit to what was once the thriving village, with its embowered cottages reflected from the waters of the Esk, its groups of romping children, its Sabbath melodies and its secular din, now changed to a nobleman's preserves, recalled the following truthful sketch from the same poem:--

'Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed, In Nature's simplest charms arrayed; But verging to decline, its splendors rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise; While, scourged by famine from the smiling land, The mournful peasant leads his humble band; And while he sinks, without one arm to save, _The country blooms, a garden and a grave._'

Among those whom Mr. Craig had numbered with the friends of his better days, the first rank might have been conceded to that most eccentric and interesting child of genius, Thomas DeQuincey.