Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862», страница 13
Masculine reader, attend to the moral of this tale:—
Skate well, be a hero, bravely deserve the fair, prove your deserts by your deeds, find your "perfect woman nobly planned to warm, to comfort, and command," catch her when found, and you are Blest.
Reader of the gentler sex, likewise attend:—
All the essential blessings of life accompany a true heart and a good complexion. Skate vigorously; then your heart will beat true, your cheeks will bloom, your appointed lover will see your beautiful soul shining through your beautiful face, he will tell you so, and after sufficient circumlocution he will Pop, you will accept, and your lives will glide sweetly as skating on virgin ice to silver music.
* * * * *
MIDWINTER
The speckled sky is dim with snow,
The light flakes falter and fall slow;
Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
Silently drops a silvery veil;
The far-off mountain's misty form
Is entering now a tent of storm;
And all the valley is shut in
By flickering curtains gray and thin.
But cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree;
The snow sails round him, as he sings,
White as the down of angels' wings.
I watch the slow flakes, as they fall
On bank and brier and broken wall;
Over the orchard, waste and brown,
All noiselessly they settle down,
Tipping the apple-boughs, and each
Light quivering twig of plum and peach.
On turf and curb and bower-roof
The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;
It paves with pearl the garden-walk;
And lovingly round tattered stalk
And shivering stem its magic weaves
A mantle fair as lily-leaves.
The hooded beehive, small and low,
Stands like a maiden in the snow;
And the old door-slab is half hid
Under an alabaster lid.
All day it snows: the sheeted post
Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;
All day the blasted oak has stood
A muffled wizard of the wood;
Garland and airy cap adorn
The sumach and the way-side thorn,
And clustering spangles lodge and shine
In the dark tresses of the pine.
The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,
Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;
In surplice white the cedar stands,
And blesses him with priestly hands.
Still cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree:
But in my inmost ear is heard
The music of a holier bird;
And heavenly thoughts, as soft and white
As snow-flakes, on my soul alight,
Clothing with love my lonely heart,
Healing with peace each bruisèd part,
Till all my being seems to be
Transfigured by their purity.
* * * * *
EASE IN WORK
To thoughts and expressions of peculiar force and beauty we give the epithets "happy" and "felicitous," as if we esteemed them a product rather of the writer's fortune than of his toil. Thus, Dryden says of Shakspeare, "All the images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew from them, not laboriously, but luckily." And, indeed, when one contemplates a noble creation in art or literature, one seems to receive from the work itself a certain testimony that it was never wrought out with wrestling struggle, but was genially and joyfully produced, as the sun sends forth his beams and the earth her herbage. This appearance of play and ease is sometimes so notable as to cause a curious misapprehension. For example, De Quincey permits himself, if my memory serve me, to say that Plato probably wrote his works not in any seriousness of spirit, but only as a pastime! A pastime for the immortals that were.
The reason of this ease may be that perfect performance is ever more the effluence of a man's nature than the conscious labor of his hands. That the hands are faithfully busy therein, that every faculty contributes its purest industry, no one could for a moment doubt; since there could not be a total action of one's nature without this loyalty of his special powers. Nevertheless, there are times when the presiding intelligence descends into expression by a law and necessity of its own, as clouds descend into rain; and perhaps it is only then that consummate work is done. He who by his particular powers and gifts serves as a conduit for this flowing significance may indeed toil as no drudge ever did or can, yet with such geniality and success, that he shall feel of his toil only the joy, and that we shall see of it only the prosperity. A swan labors in swimming, a pigeon in his flight; yet as no part of this industry is defeated, as it issues momentarily in perfect achievement, it makes upon us the impression, not of the limitation of labor, but of the freedom and liberation of an animal genius.
"Long deliberations," says Goethe, "commonly indicate that we have not the point to be determined clearly in view." So an extreme sense of striving effort, or, in other words, an extreme sense of inward hindrance, in the performance of a high task, usually denotes the presence in us of an element irrelevant to our work, and perhaps unfriendly to it. If a stream flow roughly, you infer obstructions in the channel. Often the explanation may be that one is attempting to-day a task proper to some future time,—to another year, or another century. It is the green fruit that clings tenaciously to the bough; the ripe falls of itself.
But as blighted and worm-eaten apples likewise fall of themselves, so in this ease of execution the falsest work may agree with the best. That the similarity is purely specious needs not be urged; yet in practically distinguishing between the two there are not a few that fail. The most precious work is performed with a noble, though not idle ease, because it is the sincere, seasonable, and, as it were, inevitable flowering into expression of one's inward life; and work utterly, glibly insincere and imitative is often done with ease, because it is so successfully separated from the inward life as not even to recognize its claim. Accordingly, pure art and pure artifice, sincere creation and sheer fabrication, flow; from the mixture of these, or from any mixture of natural and necessary with factitious expression, comes embarrassment. In the mastery of life, or of death, there is peace; the intermediate state, that of sickness, is full of pain and struggle. In Homer and in Tupper, in Cicero and the leaders of the London "Times," in Jeremy Taylor and the latest Reverend Mr. Orotund, you find a liberal and privileged utterance; but honest John Foster, made of powerful, but ill-composed elements, and replete with an intelligence now gleaming and now murky, could wring statements from his mind only as testimony in cruel ages was obtained from unwilling witnesses, namely, by putting himself to the torture.
But it is of prime importance to observe that the aforementioned mature fruit, which so falls at the tenderest touch into the hand, is no sudden, no idle product. It comes, on the contrary, of a depth of operation more profound, and testifies to a genius and sincerity in Nature more subtile and religious, than we can understand or imagine. This apple that in fancy we now pluck, and hardly need to pluck, from the burdened bough,—think what a pedigree it has, what aeons of world-making and world-maturing must elapse, all the genius of God divinely assiduous, ere this could hang in ruddy and golden ripeness here! Think, too, what a concurrence and consent of elements, of sun and soil, of ocean-vapors and laden winds, of misty heats in the torrid zone and condensing blasts from the North, were required before a single apple could grow, before a single blossom could put forth its promise, tender and beautiful amidst the gladness of spring!—and besides these consenting ministries of Nature, how the special genius of the tree must have wrought, making sacrifice of woody growth, and, by marvellous and ineffable alchemies, co-working with the earth beneath, and the heaven above! Ah, not from any indifference, not from any haste or indolence, in Nature, come the fruits of her seasons and her centuries!
Now he who has any faculty of thinking must see that thoughts are before things in the order of existence. True it is, that here as elsewhere, as everywhere, last is first and first is last. That which is innermost, and consequently primary, is last to appear on the surface; and accordingly thoughts per se follow things in the order of manifestation. But how could the thing exist, but for a thought that preceded and begot it? And now that the thought has passed through the material symbol, has passed forward to a new and more consummate expression, first in the soul, and afterwards by the voice, we should be unwise indeed to deny or forget its antiquity. Thoughts are no parvenus or novi homines in Nature, but came in with that Duke William who first struck across the unnamed seas into this island of time and material existence which we inhabit. Accordingly, it is using extreme understatement, to say that every pure original thought has a genesis equally ancient, earnest, vital with any product in Nature,—has present relationships no less broad and cosmical, and an evolution implying the like industries, veritable and precious beyond all scope of affirmation. Even if we quite overlook its pre-personal ancestry, still the roots it has in its immediate author will be of unmeasured depth, and it will still proceed toward its consummate form by energies and assiduities that beggar the estimation of all ordinary toil. With the birth of the man himself was it first born, and to the time of its perfect growth and birth into speech the burden of it was borne by every ruddy drop of his heart's blood, by every vigor of his body,—nerve and artery, eye and ear, and all the admirable servitors of the soul, steadily bringing to that invisible matrix where it houses their costly nutriments, their sacred offices; while every part and act of experience, every gush of jubilance, every stifle of woe, all sweet pangs of love and pity, all high breathings of faith and resolve, contribute to the form and bloom it finally wears. Yet the more profound and necessary product of one's spirit it is, the more likely at last to fall softly from him,—so softly, perhaps, that he himself shall be half-unaware when the separation occurs.
And such only are men of genius as accomplish this divine utterance. The voice itself may be strong or tiny,—that of a seraph, or that of a song-sparrow; the range and power of combination may be Beethoven's, or only such as are found in the hum of bees; but in this genuineness, this depth of ancestry and purity of growth, this unmistakable issue under the patronage of Nature, there is a test of genius that cannot vary. He is not inimitable who imitates. He that speaks only what he has learned speaks what the world will not long or greatly desire to learn from him. "Shakspeare," said Dryden, not having the fear of Locke before his eyes, "was naturally learned"; but whoever is quite destitute of natural learning will never achieve winged words by dint and travail of other erudition. If his soul have not been to school before coming to his body, it is late in life for him to qualify himself for a teacher of mankind. Words that are cups to contain the last essences of a sincere life bear elixirs of life for as many lips as shall touch their brim; they refresh all generations, nor by any quaffing of generations are they to be drained.
To this ease it may be owing that poets and artists are often so ill judges of their own success. Their happiest performance is too nearly of the same color with their permanent consciousness to be seen in relief: work less sincere—that is, more related and bound to some partial state or particular mood—would stand out more to the eye of the doer. To this error he will be less exposed who learns—as most assuredly every artist should—to estimate his work, not as it seems to him striking, but as it echoes to his ear the earliest murmurs of his childhood, and reclaims for the heart its wandered memories. Perhaps it is common for one's happiest thoughts, in the moment of their apparition in words, to affect him with a gentle surprise and sense of newness; but soon afterwards they may probably come to touch him, on the contrary, with a vague sense of reminiscence, as if his mother had sung them by his cradle, or somewhere under the rosy east of life he had heard them from others. A statement of our own which seems to us very new and striking is probably partial, is in some degree foreign to our hearts; that which one, being the soul he is, could not do otherwise than say is probably what he was created for the purpose of saying, and will be found his most significant and living word. Yet just in proportion as one's speech is a pure and simple efflux of his spirit, just in proportion as its utterance lies in the order and inevitable procedure of his life, he will be liable to undervalue it. Who feels that the universe is greatly enriched by his heart-beats?—that it is much that he breathes, sleeps, walks? But the breaths of supreme genius are thoughts, and the imaginations that people its day-world are more familiar to it than the common dreams of sleepers to them, and the travel of its meditations is daily and customary; insomuch that the very thought of all others which one was born to utter he may forget to mention, as presuming it to be no news. Indeed, if a man of fertile soul be misled into the luckless search after peculiar and surprising thoughts, there are many chances that be will be betrayed into this oversight of his proper errand. As Sir Martin Frobisher, according to Fuller, brought home from America a cargo of precious stones which after examination were thrown out to mend roads with, so he leaves untouched his divine knowledges, and comes sailing into port full-freighted with conceits.
May not the above considerations go far to explain that indifference, otherwise so astonishing, with which Shakspeare cast his work from him? It was his heart that wrote; but does the heart look with wonder and admiration on the crimson of its own currents?
* * * * *
AT PORT ROYAL. 1861
The tent-lights glimmer on the land,
The ship-lights on the sea;
The night-wind smooths with drifting sand
Our track on lone Tybee.
At last our grating keels outslide,
Our good boats forward swing;
And while we ride the land-locked tide,
Our negroes row and sing.
For dear the bondman holds his gifts
Of music and of song:
The gold that kindly Nature sifts
Among his sands of wrong;
The power to make his toiling days
And poor home-comforts please;
The quaint relief of mirth that plays
With sorrow's minor keys.
Another glow than sunset's fire
Has filled the West with light,
Where field and garner, barn and byre
Are blazing through the night.
The land is wild with fear and hate,
The rout runs mad and fast;
From hand to hand, from gate to gate,
The flaming brand is passed.
The lurid glow falls strong across
Dark faces broad with smiles:
Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss
That fire yon blazing piles.
With oar-strokes timing to their song,
They weave in simple lays
The pathos of remembered wrong,
The hope of better days,—
The triumph-note that Miriam sung,
The joy of uncaged birds:
Softening with Afric's mellow tongue
Their broken Saxon words.
SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMEN
Oh, praise an' tanks! De Lord he come
To set de people free;
An' massa tink it day ob doom,
An' we ob jubilee.
De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves
He jus' as 'trong as den;
He say de word: we las' night slaves;
To-day, de Lord's freemen.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn:
Oh, nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
Ole massa on he trabbels gone;
He leab de land behind:
De Lord's breff blow him furder on,
Like corn-shuck in de wind.
We own de hoe, we own de plough,
We own de hands dat hold;
We sell de pig, we sell de cow,
But nebber chile be sold.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn:
Oh, nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
We pray de Lord: he gib us signs
Dat some day we be free;
De Norf-wind tell it to de pines,
De wild-duck to de sea;
We tink it when de church-bell ring,
We dream it in de dream;
De rice-bird mean it when he sing,
De eagle when he scream.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
We'll hab de rice an' corn:
Oh, nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
We know de promise nebber fail,
An' nebber lie de word;
So, like de 'postles in de jail,
We waited for de Lord:
An' now he open ebery door,
An' trow away de key;
He tink we lub him so before,
We lub him better free.
De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
He'll gib de rice an' corn:
So nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
De driver blow his horn!
So sing our dusky gondoliers;
And with a secret pain,
And smiles that seem akin to tears,
We hear the wild refrain.
We dare not share the negro's trust,
Nor yet his hope deny;
We only know that God is just,
And every wrong shall die.
Rude seems the song; each swarthy face,
Flame-lighted, ruder still;
We start to think that hapless race
Must shape our good or ill;
That laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And, close as sin and suffering joined,
We march to Fate abreast.
Sing on, poor hearts! your chant shall be
Our sign of blight or bloom,—
The Vala-song of Liberty,
Or death-rune of our doom!
FREMONT'S HUNDRED DAYS IN MISSOURI
II
Camp Haskell, October 24th. We have marched twelve miles to-day, and are encamped near the house of a friendly German farmer. Our cortege has been greatly diminished in number. Some of the staff have returned to St. Louis; to others have been assigned duties which remove them from head-quarters; and General Asboth's division being now in the rear, that soldierly-looking officer no longer rides beside the General, and the gentlemen of his staff no longer swell our ranks.
As we approach the enemy there is a marked change in the General's demeanor. Usually reserved, and even retiring,—now that his plans begin to work out results, that the Osage is behind us, that the difficulties of deficient transportation have been conquered, there is an unwonted eagerness in his face, his voice is louder, and there is more self-assertion in his attitude. He has hitherto proceeded on a walk, but now he presses on at a trot. His horsemanship is perfect. Asboth is a daring rider, loving to drive his animal at the top of his speed. Zagonyi rides with surpassing grace, and selects fiery chargers which no one else cares to mount. Colonel E. has an easy, business-like gait. But in lightness and security in the saddle the General excels them all. He never worries his beast, is sure to get from him all the work of which he is capable, is himself quite incapable of being fatigued in this way.
Just after sundown the camp was startled by heavy infantry firing. Going around the spur of the forest which screens head-quarters from the prairie, we found the Guard dismounted, drawn up in line, firing their carbines and revolvers. The circumstance excites curiosity, and we learn that Zagonyi has been ordered to make a descent upon Springfield, and capture or disperse the Rebel garrison, three or four hundred strong, which is said to be there. Major White has already gone forward with his squadron of "Prairie Scouts" to make a reconnoissance in the direction of Springfield. Zagonyi will overtake White, assume command of the whole force, which will number about three hundred men, and turn the reconnoissance into an attack. The Guard set out at eight o'clock this evening. A few are left behind to do duty around head-quarters. Lieutenant Kennedy, of the Kentucky company, was ordered to remain in command of our Home-Guard. He was greatly grieved, and went to the Major and with tears in his eyes besought him to permit him to go. Zagonyi could not refuse the gallant fellow, and all the officers of the Guard have gone. There is a feeling of sadness in camp to-night. We wonder which of our gay and generous comrades will come back to us again.
October 25th. We moved only seven miles to-day. It is understood that the General will gather the whole army upon a large prairie a few miles north of Bolivar, and devote a few days to reviewing the troops, and to field-manoeuvres. This will have an excellent effect. The men will be encouraged when they see how large the column is, for the army has never been concentrated.
This morning we received news of the brilliant affair at Fredericktown.
Just before the General left camp to-day, I received orders to report myself to General Asboth, for duty as Judge-Advocate of a Court-Martial to be held in his division. General Asboth was several miles behind us, and I set out to ride back and join him. After a gallop of half an hour across the prairie, I discovered that I had lost my way. I vainly tried to find some landmark of yesterday's march, but was at last compelled to trust to the sagacity of my horse,—the redoubtable Spitfire, so named by reason of his utter contempt for gunpowder, whether sputtered out of muskets or belched forth by cannon. I gave him his head. He snuffed the air for a moment, deliberately swept the horizon with his eyes, and then turned short around and carried me back to the farm-house from which I had started. I arrived just in time for dinner. Two officers of Lane's brigade, which had marched from Kansas, came in while we were at the table. They seasoned our food with spicy incidents of Kansas life.
After dinner I started with Captain R., of Springfield, to find Asboth. As we left the house, we were joined by the most extraordinary character I have seen. He was a man of medium height. His chest was enormous in length and breadth; his arms long, muscular, and very large; his legs short. He had the body of a giant upon the legs of a dwarf. This curious figure was surmounted by a huge head, covered with coarse brown hair, which grew very nearly down to his eyes, while his beard grew almost up to his eyes. It seemed as if the hair and beard had had a struggle for the possession of his face, and were kept apart by the deep chasm in which his small gray eyes were set. He was armed with a huge bowie-knife, which he carried slung like a sword. It was at least two feet long, heavy as a butcher's cleaver, and was thrust into a sheath of undressed hide. He called this pleasant instrument an Arkansas toothpick. He bestrode, as well as his diminutive legs would let him, an Indian pony as shaggy as himself. This person proved to be a bearer of despatches, and offered to guide us to the main road, along which Asboth was marching.
The pony started off at a brisk trot, and in an hour we were upon the road, which we found crowded with troops and wagons. Pressing through the underbrush along-side the road, we kept on at a rapid pace. We soon heard shouts and cheers ahead of us, and in a few moments came in sight of a farm-house, in front of which was an excited crowd. Men were swarming in at every door and window. The yard was filled with furniture which the troops were angrily breaking, and a considerable party was busy tearing up the roof. I could not learn the cause of the uproar, except that a Secessionist lived there who had killed some one. I passed on, and in a little while arrived at Asboth's quarters.
He had established himself in an unpretending, but comfortable farm-house, formerly owned by a German, named Brown. This house has lately been the scene of one of those bloody outrages, instigated by neighborhood hatred, which have been so frequent in Missouri. Old Brown had lived here more than thirty years. He was industrious, thrifty, and withal a skilful workman. Under his intelligent husbandry his farm became the marvel of all that region. He had long outlived his strength, and when the war broke out he could give to the Union nothing but his voice and influence: these he gave freely and at all times. The plain-spoken patriot excited the enmity of the Secessionists, and the special hatred of one man, his nearest neighbor. All through the summer, his barns were plundered, his cattle driven away, his fences torn down; but no one offered violence to the white-headed old man, or to the three women who composed his family. The approach of our army compelled the Rebels of the neighborhood to fly, and among the fugitives was the foe I have mentioned. He was not willing to depart and leave the old German to welcome the Union troops. Just one week ago, at a late hour in the evening, he rode up to Brown's door and knocked loudly. The old man cautiously asked who it was. The wretch replied, "A friend who wants lodging." As a matter of course,—for in this region every house is a tavern,—the farmer opened the door, and at the instant was pierced through the heart by a bullet from the pistol of his cowardly foe. The blood-stains are upon the threshold still. It was the murderer's house the soldiers sacked to-day. A German artillery company heard the story, and began to plunder the premises under the influence of a not unjustifiable desire for revenge. General Asboth, however, compelled the men to desist, and to replace the furniture they had taken out.
I found General Sturgis, and Captain Parrot, his Adjutant, at General Asboth's, on their way to report to General Fremont. Sturgis has brought his command one hundred and fifty miles in ten days. He says that large numbers of deserters have come into his lines. Price's followers are becoming discouraged by his continued retreat.
The business which detained me in the rear was finished at an early hour, but I waited in order to accompany General Asboth, who, with some of his staff, was intending to go to head-quarters, five miles farther south. We set out at nine o'clock. General Asboth likes to ride at the top of his horse's speed, and at once put his gray into a trot so rapid that we were compelled to gallop in order to keep up. We dashed over a rough road, down a steep decline, and suddenly found ourselves floundering through a stream nearly up to our saddle-girths. My horse had had a hard day's work. He began to be unsteady on his pins. So I drew up, preferring the hazards of a night-ride across the prairie to a fall upon the stony road. The impetuous old soldier, followed by his companions, rushed into the darkness, and the clatter of their hoofs and the rattling of their sabres faded from my hearing.
I was once more alone on the prairie. The sky was cloudless, but the starlight struggling through a thin haze suggested rather than revealed surrounding objects. I bent over my horse's shoulder to trace the course of the road; but I could see nothing. There were no trees, no fences. I listened for the rustling of the wind over the prairie-grass; but as soon as Spitfire stopped, I found that not a breath of air was stirring: his motion had created the breeze. I turned a little to the left, and at once felt the Mexican stirrup strike against the long, rank grass. Quite exultant with the thought that I had found a certain test that I was in the road, I turned back and regained the beaten track. But now a new difficulty arose. At once the thought suggested itself,—"Perhaps I turned the wrong way when I came back into the road, and am now going away from my destination." I drew up and looked around me. There was nothing to be seen except the veiled stars above, and upon either hand a vast dark expanse, which might be a lake, the sea, or a desert, for anything I could discern. I listened: there was no sound except the deep breathing of my faithful horse, who stood with ears erect, eagerly snuffing the night-air. I had heard that horses can see better than men. "Let me try the experiment." I gave Spitfire his head. He moved across the road, went out upon the prairie a little distance, waded into a brook which I had not seen, and began to drink. When he had finished, he returned to the road without the least hesitation.
"The horse can certainly see better than I. Perhaps I am the only one of this company who is in trouble, and the good beast is all this while perfectly composed and at ease, and knows quite well where to go."
I loosened the reins. Spitfire went forward slowly, apparently quite confident, and yet cautious about the stones in his path.
I now began to speculate upon the distance I had come. I thought,—"It is some time since we started. Head-quarters were only five miles off. I rode fast at first. It is strange there are no campfires in sight."
Time is measured by sensation, and with me minutes were drawn out into hours. "Surely, it is midnight. I have been here three hours at the least. The road must have forked, and I have gone the wrong way. The most sagacious of horses could not be expected to know which of two roads to take. There is nothing to be done. I am in for the night, and had better stay here than go farther in the wrong direction."
I dismount, fill my pipe, and strike a light. I laugh at my thoughtlessness, and another match is lighted to look at my watch, which tells me I have been on the road precisely twenty minutes. I mount. Spitfire seems quite composed, perhaps a little astonished at the unusual conduct of his rider, but he walks on composedly, carefully avoiding the rolling stones.
It is not a pleasant situation,—on a prairie alone and at night, not knowing where you are going or where you ought to go. Zimmermann himself never imagined a solitude more complete, albeit such a situation is not so favorable to philosophic meditation as the rapt Zimmermann might suppose. I employ my thoughts as well as I am able, and pin my faith to the sagacity of Spitfire. Presently a light gleams in front of me. It is only a flickering, uncertain ray; perhaps some belated teamster is urging his reluctant mules to camp and has lighted his lantern. No,—there are sparks; it is a camp-fire. I hearken for the challenge, not without solicitude; for it is about as dangerous to approach a nervous sentinel as to charge a battery. I do not hear the stern inquiry, "Who comes there?" At last I am abreast of the fire, and myself call out,—
