Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862

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The modern Crinoid without stem, or the Comatula, though agreeing with
the ancient in all the essential elements of structure, differs from it
in some specific features. It drops its stem when full-grown, though
the ab-oral region still remains the predominant part of the body and
retains its cup-like or calyx-like form. The Comatulae are not
abundant, and though represented by a number of Species, yet the type
as it exists at present is meagre in comparison to its richness in
former times. Indeed, this group of Echinoderms, which in the earliest
periods was the exponent of all its kind, has dwindled gradually, in
proportion as other representatives of the Class have come in, and
there exists only one species now, the Pentacrinus of the West Indies,
which retains its stem in its adult condition. It is a singular fact,
to which I have before alluded, and which would seem to have especial
reference to the maintenance of the same numeric proportions in all
times, that, while a Class is represented by few types, those types are
wonderfully rich and varied, but in proportion as other expressions of
the same structure are introduced, the first dwindle, and, if they do
not entirely disappear, become at least much less prominent than
before.

[Illustration: Ophiuran; showing one ray from the oral side.]

There remain only two other Orders to be considered, the Ophiurans and
the Holothurians. The Ophiurans approach the Crinoids more nearly than
any other group of Echinoderms, and in our classifications are placed
next above them. In them the ab-oral region, which has such a
remarkable predominance in the Crinoid, has become depressed; it no
longer extends into a stem, nor does it even rise into the calyx-like
or cup-like projection so characteristic of the Crinoids,--though,
when the animal is living, the ab-oral side of the disk is still quite
convex. The disk in the Ophiurans is small in comparison to the length
of the arms, and perfectly circular; it does not merge gradually in the
arms as in the Star-Fish, but the arms start abruptly from its
periphery. In these, as in the Crinoids, the interambulacral plates are
absent, and the interambulacral spaces are filled by an encroachment of
the ab-oral region upon them. There is an infinite variety and beauty
both of form and color in these Sea-Stars. The arms frequently measure
many times the diameter of the whole disk, and are so different in
size and ornamentation in the different Species that at first sight
one might take them for animals entirely distinct from each other. In
some the arms are comparatively short and quite simple,--in others
they are very long, and may be either stretched to their full length or
partly contracted to form a variety of graceful curves; in some they
are fringed all along the edges,--in others they are so ramified that
every arm seems like a little bush, as it were, and, intertwining with
each other, they make a thick network all around the animal. In the
geological succession, these Ophiurans follow the Crinoids, being
introduced at about the Carboniferous period, and perhaps earlier.
They have had their representatives in all succeeding times, and are
still very numerous in the present epoch.

To show the correspondence of the Holothurians with the typical formula
of the whole class of Echinoderms, I will return to the Sea-Urchins,
since they are more nearly allied with that Order than with any of the
other groups. We have seen that the Sea-Urchins approach most nearly to
the sphere, and that in them the oral region and the sides predominate
so greatly over the ab-oral region that the latter is reduced to a
small area on the summit of the sphere. In order to transform the
Sea-Urchin into a Holothurian, we have only to stretch it out from end
to end till it becomes a cylinder, with the oral region or mouth at
one extremity, and the ab-oral region, which in the Holothurian is
reduced to its minimum, at the other. The zones of the Sea-Urchin now
extend as parallel rows on the Holothurian, running from one end to the
other of the long cylindrical body. On account of their form, some of
them have been taken for Worms, and so classified by naturalists; but
as soon as their true structure was understood, which agrees in every
respect with that of the other Echinoderms, and has no affinity
whatever with the articulated structure of the Worms, they found their
true place in our classifications.

[Illustration: Holothurian.]

The natural attitude of these animals is different from that of the
other Echinoderms: they lie on one side, and move with the oral
opening forward, and this has been one cause of the mistakes as to
their true nature. But when we would compare animals, we should place
them, not in the attitude which is natural to them in their native
element, but in what I would call their normal position,--that is, such
a position as brings the corresponding parts in all into the same
relation. For instance, the natural attitude of the Crinoid is with
the ab-oral region downward, attached to a stem, and the oral region or
mouth upward; the Ophiuran turns its oral region, along which all the
suckers or ambulacra are arranged, toward the surface along which it
moves; the Star-Fish does the same; the Sea-Urchin also has its oral
opening downward; but the Holothurian moves on one side, mouth
foremost, as represented in the adjoining wood-cut, dragging itself
onward, like all the rest, by means of its rows of suckers. If, now, we
compare these animals in the various attitudes natural to them, we may
fail to recognize the identity of parts, or, at least, it will not
strike us at once. But if we place them all--Holothurian, Sea-Urchin,
Star-Fish, Ophiuran, and Crinoid--with the oral or mouth side
downward, for instance, we shall see immediately that the small area at
the opposite end of the Holothurian corresponds to the area on the top
of the Sea-Urchin; that the upper side of the Star-Fish is the same
region enlarged; that, in the Ophiuran, that region makes one side of
the small circular disk; while in the Crinoid it is enlarged and
extended to make the calyx-like projection and stem. In the same way,
if we place them in the same attitude, we shall see that the long,
straight rows of suckers along the length of the Holothurian, and the
arching zones of suckers on the spherical body of the Sea-Urchin, and
the furrows with the suckers protruding from them along the arms of
the Star-Fish and Ophiuran, and the radiating series of pores from the
oral opening in the Crinoid are one and the same thing in all, only
altered somewhat in their relative proportion and extent. Around the
oral opening of the Holothurian there are appendages capable of the
most extraordinary changes, which seem at first to be peculiar to these
animals, and to have no affinity with any corresponding feature in the
same Class. But a closer investigation has shown them to be only
modifications of the locomotive suckers of the Star-Fish and
Sea-Urchin, but ramifying to such an extent as to assume the form of
branching feelers. The little tufts projecting from the oral side in
the Sea-Urchins, described as gills, are another form of the same kind
of appendage.

The Holothurians have not the hard, brittle surface of the other
Echinoderms; on the contrary, their envelope is tough and leathery,
capable of great contraction and dilatation. No idea can be formed of
the beauty of these animals either from dried specimens or from those
preserved in alcohol. Of course, in either case, they lose their color,
become shrunken, and the movable appendages about the mouth shrivel up.
One who had seen the Holothurian only as preserved in museums would be
amazed at the spectacle of the living animal, especially if his first
introduction should be to one of the deep, rich crimson-colored
species, such as are found in quantities in the Bay of Fundy. I have
seen such an animal, when first thrown into a tank of sea-water, remain
for a while closely contracted, looking like a soft crimson ball.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as it becomes accustomed to its new
position, it begins to elongate; the fringes creep softly out,
spreading gradually all their ramifications, till one end of the animal
seems crowned with feathery, crimson sea-weeds of the most delicate
tracery. It is much to be regretted that these lower marine animals
are not better known. The plumage of the tropical birds, the down on
the most brilliant butterfly's wing, are not more beautiful in coloring
than the hues of many Radiates, and there is no grace of motion
surpassing the movements of some of them in their native element. The
habit of keeping marine animals in tanks is happily growing constantly
more popular, and before long the beauty of these inhabitants of the
ocean will be as familiar to us as that of Birds and Insects. Many of
the most beautiful among them are, however, difficult to obtain, and
not easily kept alive in confinement, so that they are not often seen
in aquariums.

Having thus endeavored to sketch each different kind of Echinoderm, let
us try to forget them all in their individuality, and think only of the
structural formula that applies equally to each. In all, the body has
three distinct regions, the oral, the ab-oral, and the sides; but by
giving a predominance to one or other of these regions, a variety of
outlines characteristic of the different groups is produced. In all,
the parts radiate from the oral opening, and join in the ab-oral
region. In all, this radiation is accompanied by rows of suckers
following the line of the diverging rays. It is always the same
structure, but, endowed with the freedom of life, it is never
monotonous, notwithstanding its absolute permanence. In short, drop
off the stem of the Crinoid, and depress its calyx to form a flat disk,
and we have an Ophiuran; expand that disk, and let it merge gradually
in the arms, and we have a Star-Fish; draw up the rays of the
Star-Fish, and unite them at the tips so as to form a spherical
outline, and we have a Sea-Urchin; stretch out the Sea-Urchin to form
a cylinder, and we have a Holothurian.

And now let me ask,--Is it my ingenuity that has imposed upon these
structures the conclusion I have drawn from them?--have I so combined
them in my thought that they have become to me a plastic form, out of
which I draw a Crinoid, an Ophiuran, a Star-Fish, a Sea-Urchin, or a
Holothurian at will? or is this structural idea inherent in them all,
so that every observer who has a true insight into their organization
must find it written there? Had our scientific results anything to do
with our invention, every naturalist's conclusions would be colored
by his individual opinions; but when we find all naturalists
converging more and more towards each other, arriving, as their
knowledge increases, at exactly the same views, then we must believe
that these structures are the Creative Ideas in living reality. In
other words, so far as there is truth in them, our systems are what
they are, not because Aristotle, Linnaeus, Cuvier, or all the men who
ever studied Nature, have so thought and so expressed their thought,
but because God so thought and so expressed His thought in material
forms when He laid the plan of Creation, and when man himself existed
only in the intellectual conception of his Maker.

LYRICS OF THE STREET.

II.

THE WEDDING.

In her satin gown so fine
Trips the bride within the shrine.
Waits the street to see her pass,
Like a vision in a glass.
Roses crown her peerless head:
Keep your lilies for the dead!

Something of the light without
Enters with her, veiled about;
Sunbeams, hiding in her hair,
Please themselves with silken wear;
Shadows point to what shall be
In the dim futurity.

Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke
Might of mortal never broke!
From the altar of her vows
To the grave's unsightly house
Measured is the path, and made;
All the work is planned and paid.

As a girl, with ready smile,
Where shall rise some ponderous pile,
On the chosen, festal day,
Turns the initial sod away,
So the bride with fingers frail
Founds a temple or a jail,--

Or a palace, it may be,
Flooded full with luxury,
Open yet to deadliest things,
And the Midnight Angel's wings.
Keep its chambers purged with prayer:
Faith can guard it, Love is rare.

Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes!
Priest, recite the sacred runes!
Hast no ghostly help nor art
Can enrich a selfish heart,
Blessing bind 'twixt greed and gold,
Joy with bloom for bargain sold?

Hail, the wedded task of life!
Mending husband, moulding wife.
Hope brings labor, labor peace;
Wisdom ripens, goods increase;
Triumph crowns the sainted head,
And our lilies wait the dead.

* * * * *

FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER.

I.

The mild May afternoon was drawing to a close, as Friend Eli Mitchenor
reached the top of the long hill, and halted a few minutes, to allow
his horse time to recover breath. He also heaved a sigh of
satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley of the
Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of young wheat, its brown patches
of corn-land, its snowy masses of blooming orchard, and the huge,
fountain-like jets of weeping-willow, half concealing the gray stone
fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent from home only six days,
but the time seemed almost as long to him as a three-years' cruise to a
New-Bedford whaleman. The peaceful seclusion and pastoral beauty of the
scene did not consciously appeal to his senses; but he quietly noted
how much the wheat had grown during his absence, that the oats were up
and looking well, that Friend Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and
Friend Martin had built his half of the line-fence along the top of the
hill-field. If any smothered delight in the loveliness of the
spring-time found a hiding-place anywhere in the well-ordered chambers
of his heart, it never relaxed or softened the straight, inflexible
lines of his face. As easily could his collarless drab coat and
waistcoat have flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson.

Eli Mitchenor was at peace with himself and the world,--that is, so
much of the world as he acknowledged. Beyond the community of his own
sect, and a few personal friends who were privileged to live on its
borders, he neither knew, nor cared to know, much more of the human
race than if it belonged to a planet farther from the sun. In the
discipline of the Friends he was perfect; he was privileged to sit on
the high seats, with the elders of the Society; and the travelling
brethren from other States, who visited Bucks County, invariably
blessed his house with a family-meeting. His farm was one of the best
on the banks of the Neshaminy, and he also enjoyed the annual interest
of a few thousand dollars, carefully secured by mortgages on real
estate. His wife, Abigail, kept even pace with him in the consideration
she enjoyed within the limits of the sect; and his two children, Moses
and Asenath, vindicated the paternal training by the strictest sobriety
of dress and conduct. Moses wore the plain coat, even when his ways led
him among "the world's people"; and Asenath had never been known to
wear, or to express a desire for, a ribbon of a brighter tint than
brown or fawn-color. Friend Mitchenor had thus gradually ripened to his
sixtieth year in an atmosphere of life utterly placid and serene, and
looked forward with confidence to the final change, as a translation
into a deeper calm, a serener quiet, a prosperous eternity of mild
voices, subdued colors, and suppressed emotions.

He was returning home, in his own old-fashioned "chair," with its heavy
square canopy and huge curved springs, from the Yearly Meeting of the
Hicksite Friends, in Philadelphia. The large bay farm-horse, slow and
grave in his demeanor, wore his plain harness with an air which made
him seem, among his fellow-horses, the counterpart of his master among
men. He would no more have thought of kicking than the latter would of
swearing a huge oath. Even now, when the top of the hill was gained,
and he knew that he was within a mile of the stable which had been his
home since colthood, he showed no undue haste or impatience, but waited
quietly, until Frient Mitchenor, by a well-known jerk of the lines,
gave him the signal to go on. Obedient to the motion, he thereupon set
forward once more, jogging soberly down the eastern slope of the
hill,--across the covered bridge, where, in spite of the tempting level
of the hollow-sounding floor, he was as careful to abstain from
trotting as if he had read the warning notice,--along the wooded edge
of the green meadow, where several cows of his acquaintance were
grazing,--and finally, wheeling around at the proper angle, halted
squarely in front of the gate which gave entrance to the private lane.

The old stone house in front, the spring-house in a green little hollow
just below it, the walled garden, with its clumps of box and lilac, and
the vast barn on the left, all joined in expressing a silent welcome to
their owner, as he drove up the lane. Moses, a man of twenty-five, left
his work in the garden, and walked forward in his shirt-sleeves.

"Well, father, how does thee do?" was his quiet greeting, as they shook
hands.

"How's mother, by this time?" asked Eli.

"Oh, thee needn't have been concerned," said the son. "There she is. Go
in: I'll 'tend to the horse."

Abigail and her daughter appeared on the piazza. The mother was a woman
of fifty, thin and delicate in frame, but with a smooth, placid beauty
of countenance which had survived her youth. She was dressed in a
simple dove-colored gown, with book-muslin cap and handkerchief, so
scrupulously arranged that one might have associated with her for six
months without ever discovering a spot on the former or an uneven fold
in the latter. Asenath, who followed, was almost as plainly attired,
her dress being a dark-blue calico, while a white pasteboard
sun-bonnet, with broad cape, covered her head.

"Well, Abigail, how art thou?" said Eli, quietly giving his hand to his
wife.

"I'm glad to see thee back," was her simple welcome.

No doubt they had kissed each other as lovers, but Asenath had
witnessed this manifestation of affection but once in her life,--after
the burial of a younger sister. The fact impressed her with a peculiar
sense of sanctity and solemnity: it was a caress wrung forth by a
season of tribulation, and therefore was too earnest to be profaned to
the uses of joy. So far, therefore, from expecting a paternal embrace,
she would have felt, had it been given, like the doomed daughter of the
Gileadite, consecrated to sacrifice.

Both she and her mother were anxious to hear the proceedings of the
Meeting, and to receive personal news of the many friends whom Eli had
seen; but they asked few questions until the supper table was ready and
Moses had come in from the barn. The old man enjoyed talking, but it
must be in his own way and at his own good time. They must wait until
the communicative spirit should move him. With the first cup of coffee
the inspiration came. Hovering, at first, over indifferent details, he
gradually approached those of more importance,--told of the addresses
which had been made, the points of discipline discussed, the testimony
borne, and the appearance and genealogy of any new Friends who had
taken a prominent part therein. Finally, at the close of his relation,
he said,--

"Abigail, there is one thing I must talk to thee about. Friend
Speakman's partner--perhaps thee's heard of him, Richard Hilton--has a
son who is weakly. He's two or three years younger than Moses. His
mother was consumptive, and they're afraid he takes after her. His
father wants to send him into the country for the summer,--to some
place where he'll have good air, and quiet, and moderate exercise, and
Friend Speakman spoke of us. I thought I'd mention it to thee, and if
thee thinks well of it, we can send word down next week, when Josiah
Comly goes."

"What does _thee_ think?" asked his wife, after a pause.

"He's a very quiet, steady young man, Friend Speakman says, and would
be very little trouble to thee. I thought perhaps his board would buy
the new yoke of oxen we must have in the fall, and the price of the fat
ones might go to help set up Moses. But it's for thee to decide."

"I suppose we could take him," said Abigail, seeing that the decision
was virtually made already; "there's the corner-room, which we don't
often use. Only, if he should get worse on our hands"--

"Friend Speakman says there's no danger. He's only weak-breasted, as
yet, and clerking isn't good for him. I saw the young man at the store.
If his looks don't belie him, he's well-behaved and orderly."

So it was settled that Richard Hilton the younger was to be an inmate
of Friend Mitchenor's house during the summer.

II.

At the end of ten days he came.

In the under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of
three-and-twenty Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest.
Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered
him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an
invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature is but a thin
crust, if one knows how to break it; and in Richard Hilton's case, it
was already broken before his arrival. His only embarrassment, in
fact, arose from the difficulty which he naturally experienced in
adapting himself to the speech and address of the Mitchenor family. The
greetings of old Eli, grave, yet kindly, of Abigail, quaintly familiar
and tender, of Moses, cordial and slightly condescending, and finally
of Asenath, simple and natural to a degree which impressed him like a
new revelation in woman, at once indicated to him his position among
them. His city manners, he felt, instinctively, must be unlearned, or
at least laid aside for a time. Yet it was not easy for him to assume,
at such short notice, those of his hosts. Happening to address Asenath
as "Miss Mitchenor," Eli turned to him with a rebuking face.

"We do not use compliments, Richard," said he; "my daughter's name is
Asenath."

"I beg pardon. I will try to accustom myself to your ways, since you
have been so kind as to take me for a while," apologized Richard
Hilton.

"Thee's under no obligation to us," said Friend Mitchenor, in his
strict sense of justice; "thee pays for what thee gets."

The finer feminine instinct of Abigail led her to interpose.

"We'll not expect too much of thee, at first, Richard," she remarked,
with a kind expression of face, which had the effect of a smile; "but
our ways are plain and easily learned. Thee knows, perhaps, that we're
no respecters of persons."

It was some days, however, before the young man could overcome his
natural hesitation at the familiarity implied by these new forms of
speech. "Friend Mitchenor" and "Moses" were not difficult to learn, but
it seemed a want of respect to address as "Abigail" a woman of such
sweet and serene dignity as the mother, and he was fain to avoid either
extreme by calling her, with her cheerful permission, "Aunt Mitchenor."
On the other hand, his own modest and unobtrusive nature soon won the
confidence and cordial regard of the family. He occasionally busied
himself in the garden, by way of exercise, or accompanied Moses to the
cornfield or the woodland on the hill, but was careful never to
interfere at inopportune times, and willing to learn silently, by the
simple process of looking on.

One afternoon, as he was idly sitting on the stone wall which separated
the garden from the lane, Asenath, attired in a new gown of
chocolate-colored calico, with a double-handled willow workbasket on
her arm, issued from the house. As she approached him, she paused and
said,--

"The time seems to hang heavy on thy hands, Richard. If thee's strong
enough to walk to the village and back, it might do thee more good than
sitting still."

Richard Hilton at once jumped down from the wall.

"Certainly I am able to go," said he, "if you will allow it."

"Haven't I asked thee?" was her quiet reply.

"Let me carry your basket," he said, suddenly, after they had walked,
side by side, some distance down the lane.

"Indeed, I shall not let thee do that. I'm only going for the mail, and
some little things at the store, that make no weight at all. Thee
mustn't think I'm like the young women in the city, who,--I'm told,--if
they buy a spool of cotton, must have it sent home to them. Besides,
thee mustn't over-exert thy strength."

Richard Hilton laughed merrily at the gravity with which she uttered
the last sentence.

"Why, Miss--Asenath, I mean--what am I good for, if I have not strength
enough to carry a basket?"

"Thee's a man, I know, and I think a man would almost as lief be
thought wicked as weak. Thee can't help being weakly-inclined, and it's
only right that thee should be careful of thyself. There's surely
nothing in that that thee need be ashamed of."

While thus speaking, Asenath moderated her walk, in order,
unconsciously to her companion, to restrain his steps.

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