The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862
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Various >> The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862
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''You have seen all--go!' was her first and last interruption to the
silence. The instant after, the curtain fell. I kicked Von Berg to awake
him, and we left the house. The _coupe_ was waiting in the street and
set me down at my lodgings, after which it conveyed my companion to his.
Adolph did not seem to have a very clear idea of what had occurred, and
my impression is, that he went to sleep the moment the first strain of
music commenced.
'As for myself, I am not much clearer than Adolph as to how and why I
saw and heard what I know that I did see and hear. I can only say that
on that night of the twentieth December, 1860, the same on which, as it
afterward appeared, the ordinance of secession was adopted at
Charleston, I, in the little old two-story house in the Rue la Reynie
Ogniard, witnessed what I have related. What may be the omens, you may
judge as well as myself. How much of the sybil's prophecy is already
history, you know already. That SHOULDER-STRAPS, which I take to be _the
desire of military show without courage or patriotism_, are destroying
the armies of the republic, I am afraid there is no question. Perhaps
you can imagine why at the moment of hearing that there was a worm on my
shoulder for a shoulder-strap, I for the instant believed that it was
one of the hideous yellow monsters that I saw devouring the best
officers of the nation, and shrunk and shrieked like a whipped child. Is
not that a long story?' Martin concluded, lighting a fresh cigar and
throwing himself back from the table.
'Very long, and a little mad; but to me absorbingly interesting,' was my
reply, 'And in the hope that it may prove so to others, I shall use it
as a strange, rambling introduction to a recital of romantic events
which have occurred in and about the great city since the breaking out
of the rebellion, having to do with patriotism and cowardice, love,
mischief, and secession, and bearing the title thus suggested.'
A part of which stipulation is hereby kept, with the promise of the
writer that the remainder shall be faithfully fulfilled in forthcoming
numbers.
THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD.
Tell us--poor gray-haired children that we are--
Tell us some story of the days afar,
Down shining through the years like sun and star.
The stories that, when we were very young,
Like golden beads on lips of wisdom hung,
At fireside told or by the cradle sung.
Not Cinderella with the tiny shoe,
Nor Harsan's carpet that through distance flew,
Nor Jack the Giant-Killer's derring-do.
Not even the little lady of the Hood,
But something sadder--easier understood--
The ballad of the Children in the Wood.
Poor babes! the cruel uncle lives again,
To whom their little voices plead in vain--
Who sent them forth to be by ruffians slain.
The hapless agent of the guilt is here--
From whose seared heart their pleading brought a tear--
Who could not strike, but fled away in fear.
And hand in hand the wanderers, left alone,
Through the dense forest make their feeble moan,
Fed on the berries--pillowed on a stone.
Still hand in hand, till little feet grow sore,
And fails the feeble strength their limbs that bore;
Then they lie down, and feel the pangs no more.
The stars shine down in pity from the sky;
The night-bird marks their fate with plaintive cry;
The dew-drop wets their parched lips ere they die.
There clasped they lie--death's poor, unripened sheaves--
Till the red robin through the tree-top grieves,
And flutters down and covers them with leaves.
'Tis an old legend, and a touching one:
What then? Methinks beneath to-morrow's sun
Some deed as heartless will be planned and done.
Children of older years and sadder fate
Will wander, outcasts, from the great world's gate,
And ne'er return again, though long they wait.
Through wildering labyrinths that round them close,
In that heart-hunger disappointment knows,
They long may wander ere the night's repose.
Their feeble voices through the dusk may call,
And on the ears of busy mortals fall,
But who will hear, save God above us all?
Will wolfish Hates forego their evil work,
Nor Envy's vultures in the branches perk,
Nor Slander's snakes within the verdure lurk?
And when at last the torch of life grows dim,
Shall sweet birds o'er them chant a burial-hymn,
Or decent pity veil the stiffening limb?
Thrice happy they, if the old legend stand,
And they are left to wander hand in hand--
Not driven apart by Eden's blazing brand!
If, long before the lonely night comes on--
By tempting berries wildered and withdrawn--
One does not look and find the other gone;
If something more of shame, and grief, and wrong
Than that so often told in nursery song,
To their sad history does not belong!
O lonely wanderers in the great world's wood!
Finding the evil where you seek the good,
Often deceived and seldom understood--
Lay to your hearts the plaintive tale of old,
When skies grow threatening or when loves grow cold,
Or something dear is hid beneath the mold!
For fates are hard, and hearts are very weak,
And roses we have kissed soon leave the cheek,
And what we are, we scarcely dare to speak.
But something deeper, to reflective eyes,
To-day beneath the sad old story lies,
And all must read if they are truly wise.
A nation wanders in the deep, dark night,
By cruel hands despoiled of half its might,
And half its truest spirits sick with fright.
The world is step-dame--scoffing at the strife,
And black assassins, armed with deadly knife,
At every step lurk, striking at its life.
Shall it be murdered in the gloomy wood?
Tell us, O Parent of the True and Good,
Whose hand for us the fate has yet withstood!
Shall it lie down at last, all weak and faint,
Its blood dried up with treason's fever-taint,
And offer up its soul in said complaint?
Or shall the omen fail, and, rooting out
All that has marked its life with fear and doubt,
The child spring up to manhood with a shout?
So that in other days, when far and wide
Other lost children have for succor cried,
The one now periled may be help and guide?
Father of all the nations formed of men,
So let it be! Hold us beneath thy ken,
And bring the wanderers to thyself again!
Pity us all, and give us strength to pray,
And lead us gently down our destined way!
And this is all the children's lips can say.
NATIONAL UNITY.
Pride in the physical grandeur, the magnificent proportions of our
country, has for generations been the master passion of Americans. Never
has the popular voice or vote refused to sustain a policy which looked
to the enlargement of the area or increase of the power of the Republic.
To feel that so vast a river as the Mississippi, having such affluents
as the Missouri and the Ohio, rolled its course entirely through our
territory--that the twenty thousand miles of steamboat navigation on
that river and its tributaries were wholly our own, without touching on
any side our national boundaries--that the Pacific and the Atlantic, the
great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, were our natural and conceded
frontiers, that their bays and harbors were the refuge of our commerce,
and their rising cities our marts and depots--were incense to our vanity
and stimulants to our love of country. No true American abroad ever
regarded or characterized himself as a New-Yorker, a Virginian, a
Louisianian: he dilated in the proud consciousness of his country's
transcendent growth and wondrous greatness, and confidently anticipated
the day when its flag should float unchallenged from Hudson's Bay to the
Isthmus of Darien, if not to Cape Horn.
It was this strong instinct of Nationality which rendered the masses so
long tolerant, if not complaisant, toward Slavery and the Slave Power.
Merchants and bankers were bound to their footstool by other and
ignobler ties; but the yeomanry of the land regarded slavery with a
lenient if not absolutely favoring eye, because it existed in fifteen of
our States, and was cherished as of vital moment by nearly all of them,
so that any popular aversion to it evinced by the North, would tend to
weaken the bonds of our Union. It might _seem_ hard to Pomp, or Sambo,
or Cuffee, to toil all day in the rice-swamp, the cotton-field, to the
music of the driver's lash, with no hope of remuneration or release, nor
even of working out thereby a happier destiny for his children; but
after all, what was the happiness or misery of three or four millions of
stupid, brutish negroes, that it should be allowed to weigh down the
greatness and glory of the Model Republic? Must there not always be a
foundation to every grand and towering structure? Must not some grovel
that others may soar? Is not _all_ drudgery repulsive? Yet must it not
be performed? Are not negroes habitually enslaved by each other in
Africa? Does not their enslavement here secure an aggregate of labor and
production that would else be unattainable? Are we not enabled by it to
supply the world with Cotton and Tobacco and ourselves with Rice and
Sugar? In short, is not to toil on white men's plantations the negro's
true destiny, and Slavery the condition wherein he contributes most
sensibly, considerably, surely, to the general sustenance and comfort of
mankind? If it is, away with all your rigmarole declarations of 'the
inalienable Rights of Man'--the right of every one to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness! Let us have a reformed and rationalized
political Bible, which shall affirm the equality of all _white_
men--_their_ inalienable right to liberty, etc., etc. Thus will our
consistency be maintained, our institutions and usages stand justified,
while we still luxuriate on our home-grown sugar and rice, and deluge
the civilized world with our cheap cotton and tobacco!--And thus our
country--which had claimed a place in the family of nations as the
legitimate child and foremost champion of Human Freedom--was fast
sinking into the loathsome attitude of foremost champion and most
conspicuous exemplar of the vilest and most iniquitous form of
Despotism--that which robs the laborer of the just recompense of his
sweat, and dooms him to a life of ignorance, squalor, and despair.
But
'The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make whips to scourge us.'
For two generations our people have cherished, justified, and pampered
slavery, not that they really loved, or conscientiously approved the
accursed 'institution,' but because they deemed its tolerance essential
to our National Unity; and now we find Slavery desperately intent on and
formidably armed for the destruction of that Unity: for two generations
we have aided the master to trample on and rob his despised slave; and
now we are about to call that slave to defend our National Unity against
that master's malignant treason, or submit to see our country shattered
and undone.
Who can longer fail to realize that 'there is a God who judgeth in the
earth?' or, if the phraseology suit him better, that there is, in the
constitution of the universe, provision made for the banishment of every
injustice, the redress of every wrong?
'Well,' says a late convert to the fundamental truth, 'we must drive the
negro race entirely from our country, or we shall never again have union
and lasting peace.'
Ah! friend? it is not the negro _per se_ who distracts and threatens to
destroy our country--far from it! Negroes did not wrest Texas from
Mexico, nor force her into the Union, nor threaten rebellion because
California was admitted as a Free State, nor pass the Nebraska bill, nor
stuff the ballot-boxes and burn the habitations of Kansas, nor fire on
Fort Sumter, nor do any thing else whereby our country has been
convulsed and brought to the brink of ruin. It is not by the negro--it
is by injustice to the negro--that our country has been brought to her
present deplorable condition. Were Slavery and all its evil brood of
wrongs and vices eradicated this day, the Rebellion would die out
to-morrow and never have a successor. The centripetal tendency of our
country is so intense--the attraction of every part for every other so
overwhelming--that Disunion were impossible but for Slavery. What
insanity in New-Orleans to seek a divorce from the upper waters of her
superb river! What a melancholy future must confront St. Louis,
separated by national barriers from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado,
Nebraska, and all the vast, undeveloped sources of her present as well
as prospective commerce and greatness! Ponder the madness of Baltimore,
seeking separation from that active and teeming West to which she has
laid an iron track over the Alleghanies at so heavy a cost! But for
Slavery, the Southron who should gravely propose disunion, would at once
be immured in a receptacle for lunatics. He would find no sympathy
elsewhere.
But a nobler idea, a truer conception, of National Unity, is rapidly
gaining possession of the American mind. It is that dimly foreshadowed
by our President when, in his discussions with Senator Douglas, he said:
'I do not think our country can endure half slave and half free. I do
not think it will be divided, but I think it will become all one or the
other.'
'A union of lakes, a union of lands,' is well; but a true 'union of
hearts' must be based on a substantial identity of social habitudes and
moral convictions. If Islamism or Mormonism were the accepted religion
of the South, and we were expected to bow to and render at least outward
deference to it, there would doubtless be thousands of Northern-born men
who, for the sake of office, or trade, or in the hope of marrying
Southern plantations, would profess the most unbounded faith in the
creed of the planters, and would crowd their favorite temples located on
our own soil. But this would not be a real bond of union between us, but
merely an exhibition of servility and fawning hypocrisy. And so the
Northern complaisance toward slavery has in no degree tended to avert
the disaster which has overtaken us, but only to breed self-reproach on
the one side, and hauteur with ineffable loathing on the other.
Hereafter National Unity is to be no roseate fiction, no gainful
pretense, but a living reality. The United States of the future will be
no constrained alliance of discordant and mutually repellent
commonwealths, but a true exemplification of 'many in one'--many stars
blended in one common flag--many States combined in one homogeneous
Nation. Our Union will be one of bodies not merely, but of souls. The
merchant of Boston or New-York will visit Richmond or Louisville for
tobacco, Charleston for rice, Mobile for cotton, New-Orleans for sugar,
without being required at every hospitable board, in every friendly
circle, to repudiate the fundamental laws of right and wrong as he
learned them from his mother's lips, his father's Bible, and pronounce
the abject enslavement of a race to the interests and caprices of
another essentially just and universally beneficent. That a Northern man
visiting the South commercially should suppress his convictions adverse
to 'the peculiar institution,' and profess to regard it with approval
and satisfaction, was a part of the common law of trade--if one were
hostile to Slavery, what right had he to be currying favor with planters
and their factors, and seeking gain from the products of slave-labor? So
queried 'the South;' and, if any answer were possible, that answer would
not be heard. 'Love slavery or quit the South,' was the inexorable rule;
and the resulting hypocrisy has wrought deep injury to the Northern
character. As manufacturers, as traders, as teachers, as clerks, as
political aspirants, most of our active, enterprising, leading classes
have been suitors in some form for Southern favor, and the consequence
has been a prevalent deference to Southern ideas and a constant
sacrifice of moral convictions to hopes of material advantage.
It has pleased God to bring this demoralizing commerce to a sudden and
sanguinary close. Henceforth North and South will meet as equals,
neither finding or fancying in their intimate relations any reason for
imposing a profession of faith on the other. The Southron visiting the
North and finding here any law, usage, or institution revolting to his
sense of justice, will never dream of offending by frankly avowing and
justifying the impression it has made upon him: and so with the Northman
visiting the South. It is conscious wrong alone that shrinks from
impartial observation and repels unfavorable criticism as hostility. We
freely proffer our farms, our factories, our warehouses, common-schools,
alms-houses, inns, and whatever else may be deemed peculiar among us, to
our visitors' scrutiny and comment: we know they are not perfect, and
welcome any hint that may conduce to their improvement. So in the broad,
free West. The South alone resents any criticism on her peculiarities,
and repels as enmity any attempt to convince her that her forced labor
is her vital weakness and her greatest peril.
This is about to pass away. Slavery, having appealed to the sword for
justification, is to be condemned at her chosen tribunal and to fall on
the weapon she has aimed at the heart of the Republic. A new relation of
North to South, based on equality, governed by justice, and conceding
the fullest liberty, is to replace fawning servility by manly candor,
and to lay the foundations of a sincere, mutual, and lasting esteem. We
already know that valor is an American quality; we shall yet realize
that Truth is every man's interest, and that whatever repels scrutiny
confesses itself unfit to live. The Union of the future, being based on
eternal verities, will be cemented by every year's duration, until we
shall come in truth to 'know no North, no South, no East, no West,' but
one vast and glorious country, wherein sectional jealousies and hatreds
shall be unknown, and every one shall rejoice in the consciousness that
he is a son and citizen of the first of Republics, the land of
Washington and Jefferson, of Adams, Hamilton, and Jay, wherein the
inalienable Rights of Man as Man, at first propounded as the logical
justification of a struggle for Independence, became in the next
century, and through the influence of another great convulsion, the
practical basis of the entire political and social fabric--the accepted,
axiomatic root of the National life.
WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?
'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Everyone _lives_ it--to
not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is
interesting.'--_Goethe_.
'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or
intended.'--_Webster's Dictionary_.
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
HIRAM MEEKER VISITS MR. BURNS
Mr. Burns had finished his breakfast.
A horse and wagon, as was customary at that hour, stood outside the
gate. He himself was on the portico where his daughter had followed him
to give her father his usual kiss. At that moment Mr. Burns saw some one
crossing the street toward his place. As he was anxious not to be
detained, he hastened down the walk, so that if he could not escape the
stranger, the person might at least understand that he had prior
engagements. Besides, Mr. Burns never transacted business at home, and a
visitor at so early an hour must have business for an excuse. The
new-comer evidently was as anxious to reach the house before Mr. Burns
left it, as the latter was to make his escape, for pausing a moment
across the way, as if to make certain, the sight of the young lady
appeared to reassure him, and he walked over and had laid his hand upon
the gate just as Mr. Burns was attempting to pass out.
Standing on opposite sides, each with a hand upon the paling, the two
met. It would have made a good picture. Mr. Burns was at this time a
little past forty, but his habit of invariable cheerfulness, his
energetic manner, and his fine fresh complexion gave him the looks of
one between thirty and thirty-five. On the contrary, although Hiram
Meeker was scarcely twenty, and had never had a care nor a thought to
perplex him, he at the same time possessed a certain experienced look
which made you doubtful of his age. If one had said he was twenty, you
would assent to the proposition; if pronounced to be thirty, you would
consider it near the mark. So, standing as they did, you would perceive
no great disparity in their ages.
We are apt to fancy individuals whom we have never seen, but of whom we
hear as accomplishing much, older than they really are. In this instance
Hiram had pictured a person at least twenty years older than Mr. Burns
appeared to be. He was quite sure there could be no mistake in the
identity of the man whom he beheld descending the portico. When he saw
him at such close quarters he was staggered for a moment, but for a
moment only. 'It must be he,' so he said to himself.
Now Hiram had planned his visit with special reference to meeting Mr.
Burns in his own house. He had two reasons for this. He knew that there
he should find him more at his ease, more off his guard, and in a state
of mind better adapted to considering his case socially and in a
friendly manner than in the counting-room.
Again: Sarah Burns. He would have an opportunity to renew the
acquaintance already begun.
Well, there they stood. Both felt a little chagrined--Mr. Burns that an
appointment was threatened to be interrupted, and Hiram that his plan
was in danger of being foiled.
This was for an instant only.
Mr. Burns opened the gate passing almost rapidly through, bowing at the
same time to Hiram.
'Do you wish to see me?' he said, as he proceeded to untie the horse and
get into the wagon.
'Mr. Joel Burns, I presume?'
'Yes.'
'I did wish to see you, sir, on matters of no consequence to you, but
personal to myself. I can call again.'
'I am going down to the paper-mill to be absent for an hour. If you will
come to my office in that time, I shall be at liberty.'
Hiram had a faint hope he would be invited to step into the house and
wait. Disappointed in this, he replied very modestly: 'Perhaps you will
permit me to ride with you--that is, unless some one else is going. I
would like much to look about the factories.'
'Certainly. Jump in.' And away they drove to Slab City.
Hiram was careful to make no allusion to the subject of his mission to
Burnsville. He remained modestly silent while Mr. Burns occasionally
pointed out an important building and explained its use or object.
Arriving at the paper-mill, he gave Hiram a brief direction where he
might spend his time most agreeably.
'I shall be ready to return in three quarters of an hour,' he said, and
disappeared inside.
'I must be careful, and make no mistakes with such a man,' soliloquized
Hiram, as he turned to pursue his walk. 'He is quick and rapid--a word
and a blow--too rapid to achieve a GREAT success. It takes a man,
though, to originate and carry through all this. Every thing flourishes
here, that is evident. Joel Burns ought to be a richer man than they say
he is. He has sold too freely, and on too easy terms, I dare say. No
doubt, come to get into his affairs, there will be ever so much to look
after. Too much a man of action. Does not think enough. Just the place
for me for two or three years.'
Hiram had no time for special examination, but strolled about from point
to point, so as to gain a general impression of what was going on. Five
minutes before the time mentioned by Mr. Burns had elapsed, Hiram was at
his post waiting for him to come out. This little circumstance did not
pass unnoticed. It elicited a single observation, 'You are punctual;' to
which Hiram made no reply. The drive back to the village was passed
nearly in silence. Mr. Burns's mind was occupied with his affairs, and
Hiram thought best not to open his own business till he could have a
fair opportunity.
Mr. Burns's place for the transaction of general business was a small
one-story brick building, erected expressly for the purpose, and
conveniently located. There was no name on the door, but over it a
pretty large sign displayed in gilt letters the word 'Office,' simply.
Mr. Burns had some time before discovered this establishment to be a
necessity, in consequence of the multitude of matters with which he was
connected. He was the principal partner in the leading store in the
village, where a large trade was carried on. The lumber business was
still good. He had always two or three buildings in course of erection.
He owned one half the paper-mill. In short, his interests were extensive
and various, but all snug and well-regulated, and under his control. For
general purposes, he spent a certain time in his office. Beyond that, he
could be found at the store, at the mill, in some of the factories, or
elsewhere, as the occasion called him.
Driving up to the 'office,' he entered with Hiram, and pointing the
latter to a seat, took one himself and waited to hear what our hero had
to say.
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